Steel Yourself!

"But Screw Your Courage To The Sticking Place -"

Opines King MacBeth, after his assassination attempt puts him on the throne of Scotland, where men were men and a pacific passing of the throne to an heir was seen as a jessie's response.

     Which has little or nothing to do with the rest of this Intro, apart from reflecting a take on the title, as you may have guessed, for Lo! such is the way we roll here at BOOJUM!

     You may also have guessed that this evening we are going to be using 'Steel' as a metaphor, since it's partner Iron has already been used.  Only partly, I still have a dozen entries from my "Brewer's Dictionary Of Phrase And Fable" about 'Iron' to include.  Art!

     Here you have The Man Of Steel (to starboard) facing a man - or a bit of a man - made of steel (to port).  Say hello to Cyborg Superman, and then say goodbye, because that's all you get.  We've an Intro to create, after all.  Art!

     No, Conrad has never seen "Steel Magnolias" and the odds are that he never will, because it has CHICKS FILM written in ten-foot tall flashing neon letters about it.  The magnolia is apparently strongly associated with the South of South Canada, and rather than being flimsy and easily damaged or destroyed, ones made of steel will prove to be resilient and something something something.  Not liable to help bees or humming birds, either.  Art!

The edition I have

     To be consumed with a grain of salt.  It is rated as kind of 'Okay-ish' by Professor John Buckley in his "British Armour In The Normandy Campaign", and it does, somewhat unusually for a work on the SS Panzer Korps, limit criticism on the British to their higher commanders, instead of the Poor Bloody Infantry.  One day I may go back and annotate.  Art!

     For your information, the chap here is Steel, and the lady is Sapphire.  I loved this series when it came out, but it was one of those programs you had to watch every second of, or it made no sense, and I missed a few episodes.  Not until I bought it in a bin-bag of video tapes from Paul at work did I get to follow all the stories completely.  Allow me to up the word count and enlighten you simultaneously.

"All irregularities will be handled by the forces controlling each dimension. Transuranic heavy elements may not be used where there is life. Medium atomic weights are available: Gold, Lead, Copper, Jet, Diamond, Radium, Sapphire, Silver and Steel. Sapphire and Steel have been assigned."

     It sounds very portentous, but it's not accurate.  "Jet" and "Diamond" are not elements, nor is "Sapphire", and "Steel" is an alloy of iron.  ANYWAY the series probably posed more questions about who - or what - S & S were, or were not, and it had an undeniably creepy air to it.  Art!

     Conrad remembers one of the crew going into detail about how much bother it was to give Sapphire glowing blue eyes, because we are talking over forty years ago.  And yes, that is a man without a face.   I told you it was creepy.

     For your further information, Sapphire was a lot more personable and engaging than the grim and matter-of-fact Steel, who was also much, much stronger than he looked.

     Dog Buns! I might have to get this on DVD and watch it again.  With the lights on.  Art!

     This particular bit of kitchen kit is known as a "Butcher's steel', and is a verrrry hard cross-grained rod of steel.  You use it to sharpen knives upon, by sliding their blades up and down with considerable force, all the while avoiding being careless and slicing off a finger or two.  We have a couple lurking in the kitchen.

     Okayyyy we've had cartoon, film, book, television and the actual article itself, so I think that's enough steel for one day.  Can't promise there won't be more tomorrow.

Whammo Blammo Traumato Impacto

We are back on the topic of DANGEROUS TOYS FOR GIRLS BUT MOSTLY BOYS! because there is a reason females live longer than men, and it's common sense.  We have heard of the 'Wham-O' company already, as they were a South Canadian toy company willing to accept suggestions from the public, and make a toy out of them if there was a market.  Art!

     "Shoots air 30 feet!" already has me cringing in expectation.  There don't appear to be any legal cases of accidents causing purchasers to sue, and there are vague allegations that kids shot each other in the ear with it, causing immediate and permanent deafness.  No legal cases cited = no problems at all! except that you could put objects inside the muzzle and then you had an air-gun.  It's a wonder any children in South Canada survived the Sixties.

Do Keep Up!

The situation in Syria keeps changing so quickly that it's hard to remain up-to-date on whom is where and when.  Just recall that, on 28th November, none of this had happened or was foretold to happen, by ANY of the pundits and experts involved.  What you might call a Black Swan event - something utterly unpredictable and unforeseen.  Art!

     This seems to be a completely different rebel group attacking the capital from the south, rather than those groups who erupted out of Idlib a week ago, who are nevertheless en route for Damascus.  As for Chinless Twod In Chief himself, there's never been any evidence presented that he ever returned to Syria from Ruffia, where his family instantly took refuge when Aleppo fell.

     Turkey, Iran and Ruffia have all been having a nice little chinwag about what's happening and what Assad ought to do, and how the rebels ought to wear flowers in their hair, and can't we all sit down and be friends? - whilst the rebellion gains in size and momentum.  Art!

     Rather than risk big expensive warships, the orcs have moved them all out of their naval base at Tartus, for 'exercises'.  Yeah right.  Exercises.  As of this exact moment <wink wink nudge nudge>.

"The War Illustrated Edition 198 19th January 1945"

The back cover faux-colour photograph for this edition, which, if Art will do the honours -

          This chilly-looking location is Greenland, and the chaps you can see here are South Canadian Coastguards, who took up guarding the coast duties in April 1941, thanks to an agreement with the exiled Danish plenipotentiaries.  Before South Canada formally joined the war, doncha know.

     Annoyingly, there is no explanation about either the cairn or the cross in this picture, so you're going to have to go away and make up a story about it.

Storm Darragh Has Arrived

Conrad can tell this from personal experience, as I was able to take Entitled Edna for a trot once that Amazon delivery had been made.  No rain, you see, although said precipitation seemed destined to arrive soon.  So we sauntered forth, and Lo! there were high winds and low temperatures, and the clouds went scudding overhead, yet Forsooth! there were no other dog walkers.  Good, because every time I walk Madame in dire weather I boldly and rashly say "Surely nobody else will be walking their dogs in weather as bad as this!" and surprise surprise DOG WALKERS!

     Not today.  No wonder.  Art!

     Makes you quite pine for the deserts.

Finally -

B&M didn't have their old button-press-together flat-pack storage boxes they used to, so I have resorted to another version and you may get to see it if you're good or bad enough.

     Now, time to test out the Foreman Grill again! for there are burgers and bacon rashers that need using up, and we don't want those brioche rolls going stale, do we?