If I Were To Say "Tug"

You'd Probably Roll Your Eyes At My Vagueness

Roll them all you like, once again whose blog is it?  Yes thanks, now sit down and pay attention whilst I pontificate.  

     Conrad is annoyingly unable to locate a film character going by the nickname of 'Tug', whom he thought might have been played by John Wayne in "They Were Expendable", except looking up the film's details, his character was nicknamed "Rusty".  Where 'Tug' came from I cannot tell, but it does give me an excuse to bring in a picture for TWE.  Art!

     It's an excellent film, and I believe we've covered it here on the blog in the past.  Montgomery had been in the South Canadian Navy during the Second Unpleasantness and he brings a sense of Things Experienced to his ro

     ANYWAY enough about people. When the term 'tug' is used, people naturally assume that tis reference is to one of the unsung heroes of maritime life, the tug-boat.  Art!

The mighty atom

     These undercelebrated vessels are to be found in any port or harbour, doing the kind of close-in manoeuvering under power that other ships cannot manage.  They will move other ships in or out of dock, re-position them, tow them if power issues intervene and generally act as the faithful retainers of the sea.  No, they are not glamourous or enormous; yes, they are essential.  Art!

     Of course - obviously! - we are not going with the conventional marine tug-boat, because that's not how BOOJUM! rolls, since we are 50% mendacious and 55% perspicacious, we'll let you and the maths fight it out between you.

     What you see above is another variety of tug, an airliner tug, which is used to tow or push large passenger aircraft around in a manner similar to a tug-boat.  You cannot use jet engines in close proximity to people or buildings when taxiing, or wholesale destruction will result.  Having to fund the reconstruction of an airport and settle out of court for thirty-seven dead passengers can seriously impact the bottom line.  Art!

     Say hello to probably the most famous airliner tug evah.  Yes, this is the Armoured Personnel Carrier from "Aliens", which used the chassis of an airliner tug as it's underlying structure.  The original is a Hunslett ATT77 and it was transformed into APC M577.  Don't listen to the cruel cruel critics who maintain that it's bigger on the inside than the outside, every vehicle deserves to have a little TARDIS to it.

     ANYWAY we finally arrive at today's core matter, which concerns a couple of aircraft tugs and a helicopter.  Art!

     There's a bit to unpack here.  What you see are a couple of aircraft tugs pulling an helicopter up a ramp, and AS PER USUAL the Youtube commentator doesn't bother to include the Rudyard Kipling details.  Conrad can affirm that this is taking place at a dockside, because the view pulls back in a few seconds to reveal - Art!

     Conrad is guesstimating that this helicopter, rotor blades all folded back, is being loaded into a naval vessel, in a manner that Robert (splendid first name there mate!) Montgomery would most definitely not approve of.  You see, those little airplane tugs are 99% rated for towing on LEVEL surfaces.  This is why there are two of them here, because they are not designed, intended nor powered to tow uphill at an angle.

     It all goes horribly wrong.  Art!

 
     The towing A-frame bar is also not intended for use at an angle and disengages halfway up the ramp.

     Ooops.

     Conrad is reasonably certain that's a Sea King helicopter, in the steely-grey livery of the South Canadian Marine Corps, whose proud descendants end up in APC M577 and which is priced at many millions of dollars.  Art!

     Nobody is apparently injured, and whilst the helicopter may have hit the ramp with a resounding BANG there are no explosions nor fires nor pieces of helicopter being scattered across the tarmac.  These facts will no doubt be taken into consideration when the NCO responsible for this cluster-flip goes in front of his EXTREMELY angry OC.  I have guesstimated that these are Marine Corps utilitarians based on the helicopter's colour scheme, Comment if you disagree.

     Kind of tugs at yore heartstrings, doesn't it*?

Kitchen Kitsch Kommences

A couple of months ago Your Humble Scribe fell asleep during his cooking of an Ukrainian dish, and woke to find out that it had been comprehensively burned, scraped and binned.  This is all my fault, and Prez Zed may wish to ladle rancour and dill herb upon me.

     However! yes that word again there is an attempt at 'Zharkoe' today.  Art!

     It's an Ukrainian beef and potato stew, which has now been boxed up and will be served for dinner o'er the coming week.

"The War Illustrated Edition 199 2nd February 1945"

Just to let you know that this magazine's editors would always leave a fortnight's gap between publications, to ensure that The Opposition (solely the Teutons at this point in Europe) didn't derive anything useful from said pictures.   Art!

     

     Apologies for the miniscule background count, which we have reproduced in what looks like fleas on wallpaper.  This is actually the Transport Command that the Allies used to drop supplies to their garrison at Bastogne.  As mentioned previously, this air-bridge kept them a-smitingly, despite what was happening on the ground.  This is what happens when you have Air Supremacy and immense logistical back-up.

Our Journey With Bernie

Which is to say, Mister Wrightson's latest FPG trading card opus as it was back in 1993.  Art!

     One considers that matey here needs a couple of fellow-flamethrowers  to sustain any length of survivability, because small-arms fire is not going to manage t.  R J MacReady are you paying attention!  This  looks great as The Final Stand Of Homo Sapiens, rather less so as Do You Have An AA Battery?

"Syrian" Is Going To Persist Awhile

Thanks to the erstwhile digging for literal remains of those that the Chinless Twod got rid of, beware remain.  Beware, beware, beware.  Art!

     This is absolutely bonkers mass-conveyance drug creation, but Assad's regime made it's foundational economics from pushing drugs, and not in a good way.  Let us count how many yearns they have gotten rid of apart from their Ruffian ones!


As Back Up

More bad news for Modern-day Mordor, as evinced by the BBC on their News website of all that's fit to be write.  Art!

     You do not often get footage of a sinking vessel being sinking as it sinks itself, but here Modern-day Mordor manages the same, as a single vessel becomes two.  Not only does this happen as observed, but another Rosneft-Sink oil freighter sank in the Black Sea today.  There must be something in the water, as they say .....

Finally -

Time to roll out the general fumes and fumaroles and otherwise volcanic vortices and vuvuzelas!

*  "Yore" is internationally recognised as Poetic Licence.

Sunday's Stew

A Metaphorical One, Anyway

Let us look back upon the past 11 years-worth of septic scrivel that passes for entertainment round here.

     First of all, we need to poke Art out of his coal-fuelled stupor, which this set of bamboo skewers will do nicely -

     That's a blue whale driving a Challenger tank, obviously.

     Now that the click-bait has been trailed, let us assemble the links.

2023

BOOJUM!: Post-Apocalyptic Petroleum Problems

2022

BOOJUM!: Curious Parellels

2021

BOOJUM!: No Brain Refrain To Ease My Pain

2020

BOOJUM!: Sky High

2019

BOOJUM!: I Say Crikey, Dick Van Dykey!

2018

BOOJUM!: A Dirty Grey December Day

2017

BOOJUM!: Abnormal Service -

2016

BOOJUM!: STOI!

2015

BOOJUM!: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

2014

BOOJUM!: Guardians of the Galaxy

2013

BOOJUM!: Mathematic Analytic

Let The Train Take The Blame

We Have Gone On About Trains In Passing Recently

Both because they run on rails of steel and are made of the same substance, which fits well with our metallurgical themes of late.  There are a couple of worthwhile points to make about modern locomotives and the cars they tow.

     Firstly, a train cannot suddenly swerve, stop or reverse, thanks to the fact that it travels on a permanent way.  Secondly, modern locos are extremely massive beasts, easily tipping the scales at a couple of hundred tons.  This means they pack an awful lot of inertia, see point the first about stopping.  Bringing a locomotive and freight wagons that may top a thousand tons to a stop takes a while.  Art!

     No, this isn't the story of a hapless driver getting stuck on a level crossing, just in time to interrupt the 09:15 from Paddington, and wondering what lies to tell on the insurance claim.  From the above picture and my preamble, you can tell what's going to happen, can't you?

     This is from that self-same vlog about industrial accidents, and the vapid voiceover doesn't bother with minor points of detail like where it happens nor when.  What would Rudyard Kipling say?  Art!

     It's not Greek or Ruffian or Serbian, perhaps an Arabic script?  Regardless of country of origin, matey parked much too close to the railway lines.  Because - Art!

     

     Oooops.  

     As you can clearly see, the train is not inconvenienced one jot by impacting the car, which is the opposite of what you can say about the car.  It's not even clear if the train driver is aware of hitting the car, or if the person filming this thought to inform them.  Art!

     Strike Two.  One cannot but feel a sense of sympathy for the white car's owner, who parked well away from the tracks and still took a hit.  Art!

     The Audi or Mercedes-Benz (Conrad can't tell them apart and doesn't care enough to bother which is which, yah boo sucks to Rudyard Kipling) has gotten caught up again further down the train and is still being dragged along.  More bad luck for the owner, whom might have expected the car-on-car collision to jar it free.  Art!

     It's now pointing backwards with the boot sprung free thanks to impact damage.  Once again, the train is entirely unaffected and is definitely winning on points.  One possible course of action would be to stop the train, reverse to disengage, physically shift the car, report the incident to the police and -

     Ah.  Problem solved.  Immovable object encountered by resistible force.  

     Worth bearing in mind that this was a slow-moving freight train, as deduced by the tanker wagon in view.  If it had been a speedy passenger train doing ninety miles per hour, then the car door might merely (!) have been ripped from it's hinges.  As it is, the Audi-Benz is going to be a write-off and White Car Owner is going to be very very cross.

     Moral of the story - mark where you park.

Conrad Is ANGRY!

Even angrier than usual, that is.  For one thing, my assassins have not yet targeted <redacted> or <even more redacted>.  This abject failure means I may need to send assassins after the assassins and has clearly encouraged the Codeword compilers to flaunt their overweening arrogance.  Just wait till the Remote Nuclear Detonator comes back from it's 100,000th Victim Servicing.

EMPHYSEMA:  WHAT?  Are we supposed to be paramedics or physicians now!  I bet it has Greek or Latin roots, too.  "A condition in which the air sacs of the lungs are grossly enlarged, causing" yes yes yes, whatever.  Art!

AND it has a Latin root

CALYXES: I have no idea.  Let me look it up in my "Collins Concise Dictionary".  Ah, it's the plural of CALYX, "The sepals of a flower collectively that protect the growing flower bud".

     ARE WE NOW BOTANISTS ALL OF A SUDDEN!

     Bah.  AND yes it comes from the Greek "Kalux" meaning "Shell".  Art!

ENNUI: I can't be bothered.

Hark Hark It's An Electric Arc!

We've already gone into the earlier methods of making iron and steel, the Bessemer Converter and the Open-Hearth Furnace.  Both of these are old hat, with modern iron and steel being produced by the Electric Arc Furnace (and Blast Furnaces, of which more later).  In future, if anyone uses the acronym EAF, you'll know what they're talking about.  

     One of the drawbacks to an open hearth furnace was the lengthy time it took to heat up.  Not so the EAF.  Art!

     That's a simple schematic showing what's what.  In real life the carbon electrodes are as big as telephone poles and cost tens of thousands each.  Let me show you a real-life EAF with puny humans for scale.  Art!

     The EAF is smaller and more efficient than the alternative blast furnace, nor does it need a continuous supply of coke to supply heat.  This means it's carbon footprint is much smaller than other furnace types.  It can make all kinds of steel and tends to use scrap metals for charging.

     There you go, a whistle-stop tour of an EAF.  Allow me to add in a quote from one of the Quorans who toured a steel mill, courtesy of his friend.

Watching the lid on the furnace open, as bright as the sun they said, behind 3" think dark, almost black green glass. WOW man, like looking into a volcano erupting. Charging the furnace with overhead crane, dumping rail car size loads was one of the most incredible operations of manmade machinery in my life. And then, the arc furnace melting the charge - holy s***, the size of everything. Telephone poles made of carbon dancing through the lid. Mind blowing. And then some dude in a fire suit lancing the furnace that allowed the molten steel to pour like tea into the ladle

CAUTION!  Dangerous when hot

"The War Illustrated Edition 199 2nd February 1945"

Back to the montage pages of the magazine's middle.  Art!

     There's no detailed description for this picture, just that it showed air-dropped supplies being retrieved in the town of Bastogne.  The Teutons had surrounded the town and laid siege to it, because they needed it, since it sat at the centre of the road network in that region.  Art!

     Going cross-country in the depths of winter with lots of snow on the ground (see upper picture) was unfeasible, hence the import of a road hub.

     The Allies had control of the skies, I think what's technically called 'Air supremacy', and they had the transport capacity to air-drop hundreds of tons of supplies to the defenders, which rather took the bite out of the siege.  In total about 1,100 tons were parachuted or glidered in.  Take that, Herr Schickelgruber!

It Was Bound To Happen Sooner Or Later

Lest ye be unaware, the Ruffians have gotten past embargoes and restrictions on transporting their oil by using a fleet incongruously known as a 'shadow fleet'.  This consists of about 200 superannuated, rusty, dodgy and downright dangerous tankers that would be better suited to a breakers yard than travelling at sea.

     Well, two of them have now sunk in the Black Sea, which will now be fittingly full of spilled oil.  Art!

     RT will probably spin this as 'two for the price of one!' as this one did indeed split in half during a bad weather.  Who knew that there are these things called 'storms' that can sink even hale vessels!

     Crews might start demanding danger money to man these hulks.  Then again, the Black Sea Fleet probably has a lot of spare naval ratings without ships.

Finally -

The monsoon seems to have dwindled in ferocity a little, so Conrad feels honour-bound to make a constitutional trip into Lesser Sodom.

Let The Crane Take The Strain

This Will Make More Sense To Residents Of This Sceptred Isle

Or those above a certain age, at least, who will be familiar with the old advert slogan "Let the train take the strain", because indeed doing the ton down an A road is not conducive to long life, nor is having to take a com

     ANYWAY let me disabuse you of the notion that we are talking about Stephen Crane, because we're not.  Still, we can use this as an in for a film poster.  Art!

A bit of a swizz as it's in black and white

     
     Yes, that's Audie, the fresh-faced fighting fiend, who successfully traded-up his career in uniform for one in pictures.

     ANYWAY AGAIN we here at BOOJUM! are no stranger to cranes, the engineering device not the bird, and I recall working at Old Bank Building when the construction people at Victoria Station brought in a crane so gigantic that it needed another crane to assemble it.  Let me bamboo-skewer Art into wakefulness about this.  

That one in the background?  The one I posted about being assembled.
(Photo copied from 2014)

     In the background you can see three jib cranes, which Conrad has long alleged are sinister alien spies, because they just magically appear, and equally magically vanish, without anyone ever seeing them being erected or disassembled.

     Okay, onto the meat of the matter, because we're returning to that Youtube assembly of industrial accidents, and this one is what the technical people in the know call a 'doozy'.

     To set the scene, allow me to introduce 'Liebherr', who are a Teuton industrial concern making industrial equipment.  One of their specialisms is cranes, and they were carrying out testing of a new, gigantic floating crane at their site in Rostock.  It was dubbed the 'HLC 295000' and was mounted on the vessel 'Orion', and after passing tests it would be heading to the Moray Firth in order to lift windfarm foundations into position.

     That was the plan.  Art!

     No, it's not supposed to do that, in case you are unfamiliar with cranes and how they work.  They lift objects, not shatter themselves apart.  Art!

     This is the guilty party: the hook block.  The HLC295000 was lifting a 'heavy load', which could have massed as much as 5,000 tons, as this is what the crane was rated to lift.  When the hook block failed, the released tension caused the twin booms to catapult backwards, smashing back into the base of the crane.  Art!

HLC before it needed TLC

     The accident happened in May 2020 and news articles about it stated that Liebherr will be salvaging, repairing and rebuilding the crane, although nobody, including Liebherr, MENTIONED THE COST.  One presumes it would be substantial.  They are probably covered by insurance, but the adjusters will be scrutinising that hook block with electron microscopes to see if they can wiggle out of a bill that will run into millions.  Art!

"Dear Sir" in English

     The video clip, very unhelpfully, didn't mention a date or location nor the name of the company that built the crane, but Your Modest Artisan noticed that brand name above, and did a bit of digging on teh Interwebz.  There aren't too many giant crane accidents involving Liebherr.

     If you like happy endings, you soppy lot, then you will be delighted to be informed that the HLC 295000 was successfully repaired and replaced and was ready to be formally christened on the 'Orion' as of May 2022.  So, not an overnight fix.  Again, nobody MENTIONED THE COST.  Art!

     I've done a quick tally of different websites reporting on the coyly-named 're-installation' and all they do is quote the official Liebherr publicity materials, so Conrad is guessing that cost data is seen as commercially sensitive and not available to nosy beggars on the internet.  Soz about that.
     

     Excuse, just have to pay Wonder Wifey for the new inbound microwave.  Small domestic adventure ahoy!

"The Iron Dream" By Norman Spinrad

Another iteration of 'Iron', this one is a fascinating 'What if?' sci-fi novel, and the What If? it poses is that, what if Hitler's involvement in politics ended in 1923, after his unsuccessful putsch attempt in Munich?  Art!

The edition I had. 
Note the reversed swastika, which means it's probably not a swastika

     Further, what if he left the land of the Teutons and emigrated to South Canada, making a living by writing pulp science fiction?  This is the premise behind TID, and part of it's appeal is in relating Herr Schickelgruber's known predilections with how his characters and settings relate to same.  There is an Afterword that mentions how popular Herr Schickelgruber was at sci-fi conventions, wearing costumes of his own design, probably involving swastikas as the Nazis never came to power in this reality.

     It's set in a post-apocalyptic world, devastated by a long-gone nuclear war, which has created all sorts of mutations, and where 'Dominators', the sinister mental manipulators pulling strings behind the scenes, are the hidden menace Our Hero has to defeat.  No prizes for guessing whom Herr Schickelgruber implied here.  Art!

     Much mention of 'truncheons', which are the preferred method of close-quarter combat, and which Mister Freud would have raised an eyebrow at.

"The War Illustrated Edition 199 2nd February 1945"

Back to a world where Herr Schickelgruber was alive, if not exactly well, and still causing misery and destruction, though with only a few months left to live.  Art!

     This is Picture 2 of the montage, and they identify the tank commander as Lieutenant-Colonel Creighton Abrams, yes, the chap who gave his name to the M1 gas-turbine 120 mm-gunned metal monster we know and love today.  His Sherman appears to be the M4A3 variant, which had a longer and more powerful 76 mm gun that the bog-standard M4.  OR, as this is the tank for a colonel in charge of an armoured regiment, the gun may be a dummy made of wood, with the space it's breech would have occupied taken up by map-boards and radios.  Note the lack of clutter and camouflage, because a colonel can have his minions carry the clutter themselves, or if it's an HQ tank then it's not going anywhere near anywhere near combat.

At Last

And other shoe-based puns.  You may, or may not, be aware that the Ruffian garrison in Syria is being pulled back from bases across the country, aiming to concentrate at Khmeimem air base, where they can be returned by plane to Ruffia.  What happens to their vehicles is another question, as you'd need an enormous number of heavy lift jets to move them.  Art!

     This Syrian was showing how little they care for the orcs, as it is alleged that waving a shoe is a sign of disrespect.  He was balanced, a little precariously, on a concrete lane divider, gleefully waving his shoe at a passing Ruffian convoy.  Whilst the nuance of the gesture is doubtless lost on the orcs, they cannot fail to have picked up on the over-arching sentiment.  Art!

"Cobblers!"

This Was Not On My 2024 Bingo Card

A lot of people have been making this comment on Twitter (Ha! take that Elong Tusk!) about different subjects of considerable import, so Conrad would like to balance that with a rather inconsequential item.  Art!

     To my horrified surprise, this sitcom ended 18 years ago.  Wait, what?

     Conrad used to see it occasionally, and what I liked about it was that Malcolm was an incredibly smart kid, rather than being loveable or goofy or a heart-throb.  The rest of his family were bonkers, and I had a hard time seeing Bryan Cranston as a comedy actor after "Saving Private Ryan".  More fool me after "Breaking Bad".

     Confidence is moderate, because we're talking Disney here, who have the uncanny knack of turning a silk purse into a boar's breakfast.

Finally -

I need to give Conrad a massive kick up the bottom and force him to get playing those hex-and-counter wargames that are sitting on the paste table right now.  

     CONRAD! GAMING!  NOW!

     Or as soon as you get that remaindered pizza on the go.

Toodle pop!