The Creepy Weepy Hobby Hubby

Or Part Two Of An Avalanche

The biggest avalanche begins with the fall of a single pebble, which is the kind of portentous and pretentious quote you might expect from an author like Moliere or Maupassant.  Not William Shakeyshaft, he didn't live in the Highlands and was probably unfamiliar with the very concept of an 'avalanche', Avon not being subject to them very often.  Which is to say, not at all.  Art!

     Those tourists with guns are taking part in OPERATION AVALANCHE, which was the invasion of Fascist Italy at Salerno, and you have to put 'Operation' names in upper case, it's the law.

     You are no doubt wondering where the word 'Avalanche' itself comes from, but wonder no longer, gentle reader, for 'tis from the French (Hooray!) not Latin or Greek <hack spit>, being derived from 'Lavantse'.  This is described as dialect, probably from the very south of France where the Alps are located.  From this it transmuted into 'Valanche' and then the word we know and love.  Art!

     This is the second part of that Intro dealing with the hubbo whose wife gimmicked up a great big board of her neighbourhood with all the people present, and who was most likely to cheat with whom.  To ensure she was 'correct', she even set up her neighbours with planted lingerie.

     Hubbo kept his literal and mental distance from WW in the ensuing weeks, out of self-preservation.  In hindsight, that most precise of all vision types, hubbo ought to have sought counselling for Weirdo Wifey at this point, because shortly after she informed him, and he accepted as truth, that she was getting online therapy for her behaviour, she declared she was preggers.

     Hooray! - except wait a minute.  Art!

     We'll come back to that.  WW said she'd been to the clinic for an ultrasound scan, and produced a picture for hubbo.  She seeeeeemed to have chosen a date for this scan when he was unable to attend, and 'the clinic' didn't have any alternative dates.  If your olofactory sensors are tingling at this piscine proviso, you are well up on things. 

     That calendar?  Present because hubbo was tracking dates and WW had undergone either an immaculate conception or she was cheating, as Baby Date was when he'd been keeping well clear of WW.  Not only that, this event was months in the past and yet she maintained her trim pre-gravid figure.  Art!

     When he reverse-image searched the ultrasound, it came from a generic Facebook page.  Cue massive deflation in expectant father as he realised it was all a lie.  Further, when he called the clinic (able to do so thanks to prior registration) they had NO TRACE of his wife ever visiting.

     He confronted WW, who broke down in tears, claiming that he was making it all up because of her finagling with the Conspiracy Chart Of Cheatingness, and she was pregnant but didn't know who the father was -

     Then she locked herself in the bathroom and threated to unalive herself, as they have to say on Youtube narratives.  Hubbo promptly called the police, who broke down the door and found her alive but completely off her head.  Off she went to a 'mental health facility', which isn't probably how you expected this to finish.  Sorry, not exactly a happy ending; WW nonetheless getting professional medical help.  It is entirely possible that the psychosis was always hovering in the background, only to be triggered by the stress of WW getting exposed as a conspiranoid loonwaffle over her Colossal Conspiracy Chart Of Controived Cheatingness.  From Post-Its and thread to off her head, if I may impolitely summarise.  Art!

The first pebble

DANGER WILL ROBINSON!

Will can be a stand-in for all children of the Sixties and those who dwelt in South Canada in particular, for what has Conrad come across but another Youtube vlog that details the kit that was sold to minors, without due diligence being done.  Art!

     With this particular 'toy' you were able to make rubber versions of spiders, ants, frogs, centipedes and so on, all the nasty things that lurk in the garden or under the floorboards.  Art!

     There were two reasons why this bit of kit was DANGEROUS: Firstly, the oven used to 'bake' the rubber moulds got extremely hot - 150º C - leading to burns and scalds being inflicted on their users, as kids are not noted for being especially safety-conscious; secondly, the fumes given off by the rubber as it cooked were toxic.  Yes, it got discontinued.  Art!

Hours of fun! and medical treatment

"The War Illustrated Edition 198 19th January 1945"

I cheated here and yes, they finally mention the Battle of the Bulge, which by this time (well into January thanks to the delays in printing) had been decisively halted and brought to nought.  Let us have the cover picture, Art!

     For once they feature the Far East on the front cover, which must have gone down with the Fourteenth Army in Burma, whose exploits always took second place to the European theatre.  Here we see two of the senior Allied commanders walking past one of the guardians erected outside Burmese temples, known as a 'Chin Tae', which is where the Chindits got their name from.  Art!

     Just thought I'd throw this map in for good measure.  Note in the blurb that it's called "Rundstedt's offensive", which angered Feld-Marschal Von Runstedt a great deal, and rightly so.  He had very little to do with the planning of the offensive, it was handed to him 'oven-ready' by Hitler and told to get on with it and to win the war quick smart, the end.  Not quite, as the map shows.  What it does show it the situation on the ground as of 5th January, with Bastogne freed from siege and the entire Bulge being slimmed-down.

Further To That

Conrad distinctly remembers reading in "A Full Life" the autobiography of General Brian Horrocks, of the problems involved in crossing the Rhine and invading the land of the Teutons in 1945.  Partly thanks to terrain, partly thanks to weather, and partly thanks to determined Teuton defenders.  I also recall James Holland, on the "We Have Ways" podcast, also mentioning that the battles fought in 1945 as Germany was invaded were quite the bloodiest of the war in Western Europe.  "All over bar the shouting" being completely wrong.  Art!

     Ol' Pete's working thesis is that both the above viewpoints are correct, and that the last 100 days of the Second Unpleasantness in Western Europe were anything but a pushover.  500 pages to go and I'll let you know*.

Bring On The Fluffy Bunnies And Rainbows

To relieve the unremittingly grim tone of BOOJUM! today.  I do apologise, it must be the Monday blues.  As I type this our work I.T. is completely up the spout which is making the morning drag, to say nothing of the grey overcast skies.  At least it's not raining.  Nor snowing.  Yet.  It's cold enough for that.   Art!

     Well, it made me smile.

     Don't whinge about this one, you've got bunnies and rainbows.

You What?

TERROR STALKS THE STREETS!  Art?

     Wellllllll maybe not 'terror', quite, more like 'embittered nutjob with anger management issues and too much free time'.  This is the eighth time since 2021 that the Tonbridge crossing has been vandalised by person or persons unknown, for reasons also unknown.  What is known is that the cost totals £28,000.

     Sorry this isn't more dramatic, there are no car chases or petrol bombs or gunfights, but then this is the way we roll here in This Sceptred Isle.

Finally -

Slowly grinding forward to three calendar dates: Payday (this Thursday), Drinking Permitted Day (Saturday 30th) and something to do about X's en masse, or miss, or missletoe.

    Chin chin!

*  Threat?  Promise?  Only you can tell!