Sheffield
Yes, that is the very definition of 'Bathos', from the sublime to the stolid, except I can back this titular assertion up with references and everything.
Yesteryon I put up our traditional Sunday evening links collection, with a picture of 'Tartarus', a region of basement Hell far, far below Hades itself. It consisted of fire, lava and pinnacles of rock, so a bit of a hard sell to tourists. Art!
Here we see less lava but more rock, an observation surely made by fans of Iceland's Siggur Ros. Art!
Tatars in US. Close enough.
ANYWAY what is the direct connection between Tartarus (in any artistic iteration) and Sheffield? Okay, what was Sheffield famous for?
NO! Not just The Comsat Angels - steel. Sheffield was - O go on The Human League as well. Sheffield was famous for steel production - yes yes yes have Pulp as well if you must. Art!
Behold the Steel, Peech & Tozer Steelworks located at Rotherham in Sheffield. What is one of the most notable things about the steel-making process? Heat!
The image above is of 'Steelos' during the First Unpleasantness, when the whole plant was built from scratch at Templeborough, using eleven open-hearth furnaces to produce steel. Art!
HEAT. You are melting pig iron and it needs to be kept hot in order to be alloyed and poured, and plants like Templeborough worked 24/7 to maximise efficiency and productivity, so it was always HOT. The local workers may not have had a classical education but they knew working in a foundry meant leaving at home-time wearing shoes brimming with sweat.
Steelos became an enormous industrial enterprise during the First Unpleasantness, because what does the maw of the military most want? Products made from steel. Shells, primarily, manufactured by the million; artillery pieces by the thousand; small-arms ammunition by the hundreds of millions; armour plate for tanks; structural plate and spar for warships; engines for vehicles and aircraft. Art!
When Round Two of The European Death Derby took place from 1939 onwards, Templeborough was once again heavily involved.
If I may make a slight detour here, Conrad would also like to point out that Templeborough and Steelos were British in origin and practice. They did not treat their employees as indentured slaves, unlike a certain nation on the other side of The Pond, hem hem. No, they provided pensions and social clubs and accident benefits, because a happy workforce is a productive workforce, who will go the extra mile if asked to produce the steel needed for 5 million rounds of .303 ammunition over the Bank Holiday weekend. Art!
During the Second Unpleasantness, Templeborough produced four million tons of steel, generating heaven only knows how much heat, and becoming a target for the Teutons. Goebbels himself used to occasionally mention the plant, implying that he knew all about what was going on there. Nice try, Joey. Being situated in the North of England meant the Luftwaffe had a long way to travel in order to even attempt to hit it. If they ever did then teh Interwebz do not record it. Art!
These giant cradles and ladles are the brand spanking new Electric Arc furnaces, of which 6 were brought in to replace the 21 open-hearth furnaces that were, by the time of this film, increasingly obsolescent and outdated. So Templeborough moved on. The EA furnaces sat in the Melting Works, and long after Steelos had gone byebyes, said Melting Works were taken over by a Millenium Fund project. Art!
It is now the Magna Science Adventure Centre, which is pretty awesome and huge, and they replicate the Electric Arc furnace process too, with a lot of noise and lights. Plus there is the Fire Tornado, which does exactly what it says on the tin. The outdoor adventure playground is a lot of fun for children - if the weather is dry.
"The War Illustrated Edition 199 2nd February 1945"
We are on Volume 8 of this series, and there are 10 in total. Yes, we are near the end of this Volume, so Conrad wonders how much of Volume 9 will include the end of the Second Unpleasantness in Europe. We will find out together! Remember, the war has three months left to run across Europe. Art?
In winter terrain where there is snow, soldiers like to wear what's fashionable: white clothing, the better to blend in and thus not be shot. If there is white paint available, why then it makes sense to camo your tanks in it, and some hapless minion has drawn the short straw here, or his disciplinary record was bad. Conrad has seen recent footage of Ukrainian tanks using glued-on newspapers as winter camo, and it was remarkably effective. And no, you can't paint tank tracks white. Rather, you can, but it wears off in seconds when moving.
Yes And?
You should know by now that Conrad is a major tea-belly, always concerned about what levels of loose-leaf Darjeeling he has available, and other brands such as Earl Grey or Lapsang Souchong - which Wonder Wifey dismisses as 'Twig tea' and it is an acquired taste. Art!
2) Not here at The Mansion anytime soon.
Thank you, that is all.
Points And Laughs
For those of you who have followed BOOJUM! for a while, the name 'Joe Blogs' ought to be familiar. Joe is a vlogger on Youtube who comments on economic matters, usually Ruffian, and the cheerier his initial greeting is, the worse the news is. Of late his approach has been to put up shorter vlogs covering a very specific topic, such as this one. Art!
I have not yet watched this one, and will need to lay in new supplies of popcorn before doing so. You never know, I may annotate the whole thing and report back to you lucky people.
Ah, So That Explains It
Another of those 'O hello' moments, when a word or phrase pops up in Conrad's mind, for no very good reason. Today it was 'Lefortovo', which I did think had an air of Ruffian prison about it, and - I was right! Art?
Lefortovo Hotel. Minus three-star rating
You see, there is a Ruffian milblogger called 'Fighterbomber', who has been posting cryptically on Telegram about what's going on in Syria. He has to use euphemisms and tangents, because the FSB have had a little chat with him already about revealing information they would rather never, ever, ever saw the light of day. He refers to other Telegram milbloggers who didn't get this courtesy or ignored the warnings as the 'Lefortovo battalion'.
Finally -
On the rather odd 08:45 - 16:45 schedule this week. Why would they skew everything by fifteen minutes? Better set the alarm for 07:45. Chin chin!
No comments:
Post a Comment