Hexagonally Symmetrical Di-Hydrogen Monoxide

Or, Snow

It's getting towards that time of year here in the Allotment of Eden when people cast wistful eyes at the skies and start wishing for snow.  A white Christmas and all that.  Personally Conrad is not that enthused about it, because The Mansion sits atop a range of hills that themselves sit upon a range of hills, meaning when it snows we really catch it.  After two days it gets compacted to ice that remains for a fortnight.  Art!

One for the ladies

     Well, let us now jet from dank, dismal, dreary Royton to the Italo-Austrian border in the district of Udine, where the Julian Alps are proper mountains and no mistake, reaching heights of over two miles.  There was a measurement in metric that I'm not going to bother with.

     Yes, this is once again tangentially about the First Unpleasantness in Italy, with the focus more on the Romans than Perfidious Albion.  First of all, I would like you to meet "Andraz Egart" of that very same Youtube channel, intrepid mountain hiker.  Art!

     This is the terrain, bestrewn with snow, that Andraz traversed in his car, until the slush and gradient meant he had to venture forth on foot.  Ol' Andy is quite slight for a hiking buff, rather that the bulging steroid-driven muscle mountain you might expect.  Art!

     Here he switches into layers of Goretex and a stout pair of boots, since he has to follow a hillside track covered with snow, whilst walking into the middle of a snowstorm.

     This vlog was filmed on 17/10/2024, giving you an idea of what the Roman troops up on the mountainsides were enduring 109 years ago.  Art!

     In 1915 this track would have been trodden flat into muddy slush by a constant traffic of men and mules going up and down.  Ol' Andy has to make do solo, with nobody to help or provide succour as the shades of night descend, as do snowflakes.  Lot of 'em.  Art!

     No trick of the light here, yes he really is up to his chest in snow, making movement difficult and exhausting despite his two snow-poles for aid.  He confessed he'd not expected so much snow, or he could have brought along skis and moved much faster and more easily.  Despite being a slim bloke, he's obviously made of steel cable, because he does not give up and go back.  He knows what the destination is.  Art!

Tah-dah!

     This is formally known as the "Bivacco Battaglione Alpini Gemona" and we'll come back to the title shortly.  Ol' Andy discovers that he is, entirely expectedly, the only tenant of the Bivacco, which is no surprise to us as we've not seen any other tracks in the snow.  Art!

No nonsense about tinder and matches here

Ol' Andy cooking up a mess of macaroni

     You may think this somewhat Spartan in nature, and here and now in 2024 it may be, yet not so for the Alpini who were stationed here as a mountain garrison.  Showing lights regardless, moving freely around outside, generally clattering about with no need to worry about sound carrying - they would appreciate this.

     When daylight arrives, our intrepid hiker ventures outside to give a bit of a tour, or as best he can when everything is covered in three feet of snow.  Art!

     The hamlet you see (barely) here was constructed in the summer of 1915 by the Gemona Alpini Battalion, which means a couple of months after Italy joined the Great War on the side of the Allies and against their Austrian neighbour to the north.  Not only was it shelter against Austrian shells and bombs, but also against the elements as plainly evinced here.  Art!

     This is a modern-day map, showing the Bivacco and others, also the international border with Austria to the north.  To the east is the border with Slovenia.

     I'm sure you're all sitting there sucking your teeth and complaining that Ol' Andy didn't go up in summer, when all would be revealed in it's snowless glory.  Here's a couple I prepared earlier.  Art?

     The bivacco here is the old military chapel, restored and renovated.  

     Whilst on the hike down, Ol' Andy points out a solitary marker, which shows where a small military cemetery is, invisible to us and him thanks to the snow.  He describes it in years of use, which immediately sounded odd to Conrad.  Art!

     1917?  The First Unpleasantness in Italy didn't end until 1918.  Then the penny dropped - this was territory the Italians lost to the Austrian offensive of Caporetto in 1917.  Art!

Okay!  I think that's enough of Ol' Andy's adventures in the snow.  For those of you who wondered, yes his car was still where he left it the next day, even with the broken door lock that didn't function.  After all, who else would be up there in the Julian Alps?

"The War Illustrated Edition 197 5th January 1945"

Yes, onto the first edition of 1945, and no, they don't cover the Battle of the Bulge, because it hadn't ended by 05/01/1945 and the editors wanted to wait and make sure who had won.  I'm sure the Sinisters were pointing and laughing at the Teutons, for wasting all their manpower and equipment in a hopeless offensive in the west - amidst snows akin to those Ol' Andy was traversing on th

     ANYWAY let's have the cover picture up.  Art!

     Ah yes, in the best British tradition of celebrating magnificent failures, here we see surviving members of the Parachute Regiment and their investiture at Buck House, sixty-seven of 'em.  If you can't read the small print, it dates this event to December 6th, a whole month earlier.  One guesses that it was kept in reserve as a jingoistic filler if Things Elsewhere were not going especially well, but I am cynical that way.

Paging Doctor Evil, Paging Doctor Evil

Nothing to do directly with the Kremlin Gremlin, but his repellent nation's bureaucracy has imposed a fine on Google, the parent company of Youtube, for ₽20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, or Two Undecillion rubles, which comes to a trillion, trillion, trillion rubles.  Or about £47.96 at current exchange rates.  This is such a silly number that one can only presume the zero key got stuck whilst they were drafting this punishment, and good luck getting so much as a kopek out of Google.  Art!

"One beeelleeon dollars!"

     That's five years in a gulag for Conrad, for making Dimya look like the gargoyle he is.  It's just such an hideous picture of The Little Tsar that I couldn't resist saving and using it.  Did he forget to put his false teeth in?  Soup and porridge served with a straw coming right up!

Conrad Is Prescient

Only up to a certain point, or I'd be winning the lottery every week.  No, this is about culture and cashing in.  Remember when "Squid Game" was being shown for the first time on Netflix and Conrad was enthusing about it?  Well, as much as I ever enthuse about anything.  Art!

     It was such a breakout hit that I ruefully conjectured it would soon acquire a second UN-NECESSARY season, and Hollywood would be casting it's morally and creatively bankrupt eyes upon it, acquisitively.  Which is much the same as 'greedily' except we've now bumped up the word count.  Art!

     I hate you all.  Bah!

Finally -

Today being the 31st of October, and Halloween to boot, Your Humble Scribe is now at the end of Sober For October, but fear not, Liver!  For 'twill be Remember Remember No Drink In November, at least up until Saturday 30th November, when I think I may raise a snifter or ten of lemon-and-ginger flavoured gin.

     Now, where are those electrically-heated gloves? because I'm wearing a cardigan out of necessity not choice.

"Ajunge La Elicopter!"

 Which You Will INSTANTLY Recognise As

"Get to the chopper!" in Romanian, for Lo! do we not have another Intro following the theme of yesteryon's about 'Choppers', leading up to -

     That would be telling.  First of all, allow me to introduce Jack Burton's steel stallion, which is a supporting character in "Big Trouble In Little China", Art!

     Here she, is the monster that is the "THE PORK-CHOP EXPRESS", so-named because Jack's premier cash cargo is live pigs, which is explained in the script as a background note, and because of nosy folks like Conrad.  There you go, a sneaky click-baity Intro picture and reference to another type of chop, that being the one you eat.  Art!

     I know what you're thinking, that's a mouse, you're not going to get much out of a mouse-chop, you'd be better off making soup -

     HA!  WRONG!  That's no mere mortal mouse, that's Speedy Gonzales, and the important bit here is the noun (or verb, it's a bit fluid that way) 'Speedy', because what do we Brits say when meaning 'Hurry up!'.  

     "Chop Chop".

     This is a corruption of the Chinese Cantonese phrase "Kap Kap", a dialect version meaning "Quickly".  Art!

It's all in the reflexes

     Then we have "Chop Shop", the definition of which depends which side of the Atlantic Ocean we are talking about.  Here in This Sceptred Isle - Art!

     We mean, of course - obviously! - a butcher's shop; this one seems to have diversified a tad.  You might have to look out for lead shot in the partridge, mind.  Art!

     Teh Interwebz assure me that this is a 'chop shop' in the unlikely-named Snohomish County of Washington State over in South Canada.  These are illegal garage operations that strip down stolen cars and render them unto bits and pieces, all the better to sell them on.  Disgraceful!

     Then we have that traditional nursery-rhyme-cum-folk-song, "Oranges and Lemons", which starts off rather like the opening credits of "Kolchak", all light and frothy, 

Oranges and lemons,

Say the bells of St. Clement's.

until it reaches the sinister last verse - 

Here comes a candle to light you to bed,

And here comes a chopper to chop off your head!

     Delightful.  Who knows the trauma this has inflicted on centuries of small children?  Art!

Some mistake, surely?

     Enogh prevarication, let us get down to brass tacks, or bark trunks, and look at a couple more potentially dangerous wood-chopping machines.  Remember, dangerous as these may be, the home-made bodged-up versions are far more lethal.  Art!

     This particular infernal engine is a geared axle that sports a single edged cutting blade, which is propelled with such force behind it that anything presented in front is cloven in twain.  Art!

     That wedge head and the blade make short work of the tree trunk chunk.  Be aware that there is zero provision for placing or removing the wood remotely, it's all hands-on and if your fingers get in the way a pair of flimsy rubberised gloves aren't going to help one jot.  Is there an emergency stop?  Once hit, will this instantly cause the axle to stop dead - yes, poor choice of words there - or will inertia keep it moving?  Enquiring minds want to know!  Art?

     This one looks positively benign by comparison, unless you're the tree being fed into it.  Art!

     
     The cutting blades are at the far end, which is well beyond the ability of a normal Hom. Sap. to reach with their arm, UNLESS you get snagged by loose clothing and dragged into the hungry gaping maw.  There ought to be an emergency stop on the exterior, reachable with either hand, except I can't see it.  Thanks to the cutting edges not being visible from outside, not one to go poking around in should a jam or blockage occur,unless you feel you have an excess of fingers and limbs.  Art!

     This one is so safe it's rather dull and unexciting.  The operator is completely enclosed away from the chainsaw and trunk splitter, with all operation being remote and no hazardous moving by hand required <sad face>.

Conrad Is VERY VERY ANGRY!

Yes indeedy Ally Sheedy, all the more so as I've got three brand new objectionable words from a single Codeword.  Boy, someone knows how to push my Rage and Hate buttons! <short pause to venomously mash the Remote Nuclear Detonator>.

ASTATINE: Sounds like one of the arch-angels, doesn't it?  "For, Lo! and yea verily did not the arch-angel Astatine put a brew on" or some such shizzle.

     WRONG!  It's a chemical element.  Conrad knows this because he has more than a passing familiarity with the Periodic Table.  Art!

          It's a rather mysterious element, not existing naturally, rather like Alan Carr, but only as a decay product of other elements.  It's exceedingly radioactive, so much so that it cannot exist naturally, rather like Russell Brand, and if it were to be made in a lab, it would spontaneously vapourise, rather like Alan Carr and Russell Brand will when I take over.

     WHY IS THIS BEING USED AS A CODEWORD SOLUTION?

RHEBOK: NO!  Nothing to do with trainers, this is a species of South African antelope, obviously - of course! - and naturally we are expected to be up on exotic fauna of other far distant nations because - well, I'll get back to you on that.  Art!

PEIGNOIR: This is so very obviously an instrument of medieval torture that I don't even need to look it up.  It's one of those chairs with iron bands around the wrists, ankles and neck, isn't it? which can be progressively tightened to ill-effect.  Art!

Ah.  Perhaps not.

Geneva Landmark Threatened By Ruffian Equivalent

I think I first became aware of the Jet D'eau way back in the early Seventies, when it was featured in the opening credits of "The Champions", and if Art will shrug off his coal-induced torpor - 

Alexandra Bastedo and the two other blokes in Geneva

     It's not realllly the kind of arty-farty airy-fairy artefact one associates with the otherwise dour and diligent Helvetians.

     On the other hand, in Moscow at present - Art!

     Quite what is causing this impressive yet disgusting phenomenon is unclear, apart from it being to do with sewers of Barad-Duh.  As with burning oil refineries, Conrad recommends the locals sell tickets for their new tourist attraction.  Plus rent out some umbrellas, in case the wind shifts.

Conrad Is Curious

Well obviously, or these blogs would be a lot shorter than they are.  If a matter intrigues me, then I am compelled to investigate and dig further, which is where seeing the title "Doctor Strangelove" in the M.E.N. gave me pause.

     It was a bit of a puff-piece of an advert, with fulsome praise overlaid on an indistinguishable stage set.  Art!

     That answers a couple of questions about how they would manage to stage, if you'll forgive the pun, DSOHISWALTLTB on state.  You could relocate a lot of the action to The War Room, yes; how would you manage to recreate the interior of a Big Ugly Fat Fella-52, as it would occupy the stage from one side to the other?

     And will Steve Coogan be playing a bomber pilot, as Peter Sellers was originally slated to in the film, which he got out of by either not managing a convincing accent or falling from height and clattering his knee?

     Hmmmmm is Conrad's considered judgement.

Conrad Considers

Tonight is the night of the weekly shop, and the last day before Halloween, after which all those hundreds of tons of unsold pumpkins will get - hmmm - not sure what.  Sent to landfill?  Charity kitchens?  Dropped from helicopters for amusing splatter effects?  Thus I may purchase one, just to say I have done.  Pumpkin, whether in a pie or soup, is very bland and takes on the flavours of the other ingredients.  Still, Conrad has flexed his baking muscles, even if ever so slightly, with those mug cakes, so you never can tell.

Finally -

That's rich.  Puerto Rico, I mean- it means 'Rich Port'.  Art!

     You could make a case for it being in the Caribbean, not the - ah yes, let's not go there.

Get To Da Choppah!

If You'll Excuse My Strangulated Impression

From back in the Eighties, when Arnie was delivering one-liners and mayhem, rather than political statements.  It's from "Predator", if you aren't aware and if you aren't THE EXIT DOOR IS THAT WAY!

     For the confused, "Da choppah" is a helicopter, and Dutch was making an earnest entreaty for his surviving compatriot to get out of Dodge-strongly-flavoured-with-Hell, whilst they still could.  Art!

Muzzle-flash as done in the Eighties

     There may be some confusion amongst those who have only seen clips of this particular scene, because Billy is one of the last four survivors, and he decides that guns are for cissies, he's going to go toe-to-toe with the Predator armed only with a knife, except the knife is about two feet long, so it might also be seen as a chopper.  Art!

     Now, call me a pedantic hair-splitter, because we never see what happens to Billy, only hearing a very loud scream from him.  It's conceivable that he fell off the tree-trunk bridge to his death below - or did hit fall into the river and have his fall cushioned by water?  Even if he had to fend off hungry alligators.  "Dark Horse" probably did a one-shot on this very topic back in the Nineties, when they we

     ANYWAY now that we've got people's attention, I would also like to put forward a track by Echo and the Bunnymen, to wit: "The Cutter".  "Spare us the cutter" croons Ian McCulloch, being wary of describing exactly what this sinister edged  instrument is: a razor? breadknife? piece of broken glass? Sweeney Todd? Who knows, and I bet neither did he.  Art!

     Nor can we mention "Choppers" without acknowledging that anti-hero from "2000AD", the self-styled-and-named 'Chopper' (real name Marlon Shakespeare), who went from a wall-scrawling graffiti artist - very much a hugely criminal no-no in the Big Meg - to a hoverboard champion.  Art!

     Probably also an illegal undertaking in Mega-City One.  Face it, everything except breathing is illegal in the Big Meg, so this probably is, too.

     Then we have an Antipodean entry, because the Ockers are always worth checking out for what they get up to on their island continent.  Art!

Sadly - or otherwise - it's not about a team of Oz lumberjacks who travel by helicopter to distant forested parts of the hinterland to do - er - emergency logging and tree-felling?  Rather, it's about an emergency rescue helicopter on a beach.  MY idea was far more interesting!

ANYWAY as you may have guessed, none of this is to do with the real meat of the matter, which does concern choppers, except more along the lines of lumberjacks rather than helicopters.  Art!

     Yes <sighs heavily> it was clickbait, the machines they depict were pretty universally commercially-made timber cutting devices, but that's not to say they're not dangerous.  One can imagine drunken idiots thinking 'O after 27 bottles of beer and a whisky chaser I'm all set up for an afternoon of wood chopping!'

     Then they wake up in hospital minus a limb or two.  Art!

     This is a "Screw wood splitter" and operates by virtue of the tapered screw head rotating at very high speed, so it drills into and splits the wood apart.  Note our brave operator not even bothering with gloves, nor are there any means of remotely shoving the wood, it's all done by hand.  Heaven forfend one loses ones balance or mis-steps on a large lump of wood.  Which accident would be mitigated by virtue of the screw head not being an edged blade,  You'll appreciate this point when you see more of the other choppers being used.  Art!

     This one looks more bodged-together than a manufactured variant.  Once again, entirely zero safety features; no guides or screens or grips, just raw hand-power, protected by an entirely  inadequate pair of gloves.  Remember what I said about edged blades?  This one looks like it would, at most, only remove a couple of fingers or split a hand in two whilst impaling it (thanks to the metal mass at the end of that lever), so - safe enough for Ruffia, which is where this clip comes from.

     Okay, having gone on at great length about what the Intro's not about, and then only scratching) no pun intended the surface, I feel it's time to move on.  Don't worry, there are another 17 wood choppers in this vlog entry, and a second one with another 17 again.  Chop chop!

"The War Illustrated Edition 196 22nd December 1944"

Before you ask, no, there aren't any heartfelt Christmas pictures in this edition because it's dealing with stuff from the 8th of December onwards.  Art!

     The photograph to port is a quite remarkable one, showing the 'tail' from a Teuton V2 in flight, as taken from a recon Lightning of the South Canadian Air Force in the 4 second window the pilot had.  The V2 was supersonic and couldn't be intercepted in flight, which led to Herr Schickelgruber tweaking his moustache ends in malicious glee, which led to the Brylcreem Boys coming up with a solution: bomb the living daylights out of any identified V2 sites.  This is what you see at starboard, with the Before and After Brylcreem.  Buildings on the hard stand have been obliterated, and all those craters will need filling-in before any more V2s can be trundled around from storage to the firing platform.

More High Jinks On The Asiago

Conrad is delighted to have found a short silent clip from the Imperial War Museum with a series of clips from British troops serving Perfidious Albion in Italy.  No location is given but Your Humble Scribe strongly suspects the Asiago plateau, thanks to the sheer elevation, the forests and (a bit of a giveaway) the impenetrable rocky terrain.  Art!

     Quite a vantage, I'm sure you'll agree.  This is probably later in 1918, as there's no snow on the ground.  The trees haven't shed their leaves as they're all evergreen pines.  The vista is a bit murky and vague, thanks to early camera technology, and OF COURSE it was silent, the talkies hadn't arrived yet.  I'll leave you with this one still as there is more to come.  O yes indeed.

The Numbers Do Lie!

False but flattering, Blogger's Traffic stats have once again done the opposite of falling off a cliff - they have climbed aboard that rocket headed for the stratosphere.  Art!

Hazegrayart illustrates the metaphor

     Allow me to make my point.  Art again!

     A daily total that approaches that of a complete month?  And a popular month at that?  I dunno, perhaps Budanov is getting his technical wonks to puff up my stats in recognition of how awesome BOOJUM! is.  Otherwise it's aliens.

A Functional One

Yesteryon we featured a defunct square baler, so now it's time to show you what a funct one is when in action, rather than inaction.  Art!

     Square baler doing just what it says on the tin: making cubes of hay, all the better to stack them or store without wasting space.  Art!

     They get towed by tractors, just so we're clear.  The world is obviously not ready for a self-propelled square baler.  Unless you have a brilliant idea and the compulsion to build a better mousetrap, as the saying goes.

Finally -

Since yesteryon was Monday and payday, more especially the latter, I pushed the boat out and purchased 4 paperbacks; one detective mystery, two post-apocalypse sci-fi; one military history.  I did have a look at the latest over on Turner and Donovan's website but declined to spend £245 on a single hardback, although that may just be me.  Toodle pip!