Ac Ac Ac!

Do Not Run - We Are Your Friends!

Conrad hopes you will forgive his usual stretching of reality and the elastic definitions of day-to-day life, and allow me to prod Art into providing an illo -

     I know what you're thinking: that this Intro is related, no matter how tenuously, to that hilarious spoof 'Mars Attacks', where the hideous invaders parlay in their monosyllabic language, which seems to have depths of nuance hitherto undiscovered by Hom. Sap.  

     Sadly, no.  

     Instead, we shall travel back in time, to the era when Old English was the language of choice in This Sceptred Isle, and the word 'Ac' meant - Art!

One of these

     This is an oak tree, lest you be unaware.  The name 'Oak' comes from the Old English 'Ac' which is where we get today's hilarious title from.  Who knew the Martians were rabbiting on about dendrochronology*!

     So sorry, where were we?

     O yes, whisky casks.  You see - no, this is not about scammers and Uisge Beathe - whisky is matured inside barrels made out of wood, over a period of years, perhaps even decades.

     Okayyyyyyyy.  If the whisky business doesn't use plastic barrels or MDF, which would be a whole lot cheaper, why then are they using oak?  Ah I thought you'd never ask!  Art?

     Oak, or to give it the Latin <hack spit> name 'Quercus Albus', imparts all sorts of physical grace notes to the liquids maturing inside the barrel.  You won't get that from a soulless solid carbohydrogen.  Oak is strong yet can be coopered into a barrel, nor does it leak or get saturated.  There is an art to making a cask for whisky (or wine or other spirits), even if the basics have not changed in several centuries.  Take a look at that cask being hefted around in the picture above.  It's no different from a cask made in the nineteenth century, because the design is so sound.  Art!

     Those are staves cut from oak trees, being allowed to dry and season.  They can be left outside for up to six months, allowing their water content to decrease slowly and avoid putting any stress on the staves, because stress can cause damage and damage means a leaky barrel.  Which you don't want when the contents are liquid.  Art!

     That's a fully-assembled barrel, which is put together by hand, no computer numerically controlled nonsense here.  Long staves form the body of the barrel, short ones are put together and cut to form a circle, these being the ends or 'heads' of the cask.  Art!

     I know this looks like an industrial accident but it's all going according to plan.  This is the assembled barrel being 'toasted', and in the barrel illo there's a guide to how toasted barrels can get.  Toasting allows the cask to help flavour the whisky, adding as much as 60% of the flavour, though Conrad is unsure how you'd measure that scientifically.

     The final part of cask assembly is pressure-testing for integrity, where a small amount of liquid and a lot of pressurised air are used, and if everything has been done swimmingly, there are no leaks and off the cask goes.

     Actually, looking back at the barrel illo and my text, there is one possible difference between a cask from 1850 and last year - the bung.  Traditionally this was made from cork but, white heat of technology and all that, in today's cooperages (where they make casks - do keep up!) they may use a plastic one.  Shocking, I know.  Art!

     Those are barrels being stored in the traditional way, which limits them to being three deep, as otherwise there's too much mass placed on the bottom casks and you risk rupturing them.  Which would be a bad thing.  All that time and effort and money wasted.  Art!

     There you go, modern logistics have arrived in whisky making and now warehouse storage is a thing.  Undoubtedly more efficient, yet a bit soulless compared to the old ways.

Back To Dan The History Man

With his look at "10 Big Myths of World War One" because small myths aren't worth examining, one supposes.  Art!

     Before Dan gets into his stride, allow Conrad to do a bit of commentary.  'Casualties' when mentioned in context of wars and conflicts, covers a range of meanings not explicit and probably not immediately obvious to people who aren't either soldiers or military historians.  The example I like to trot out is the British casualties for the so-called 'First Day Of The Somme' - in fact for the suffering Teuton stubble-hoppers it was the 10th day of being battered by British and French artillery - which came to 57,000.  This is bad enough, but again some commentators blithely describe this as the number of British killed.  The usual ratio in modern warfare is for one fatality to every three wounded, meaning that conflated figure would be 250,000.

Art!

     There you go.  So, for the armies of Perfidious Albion, the odds were that better than seven out of every eight men would survive.  Dan points out that the footsloggers of the First Unpleasantness had access to medical treatment far ahead of that available to previous combatants, not to mention effective sanitation, so disease was no longer the rampant killer it had been, nor was malnutrition a thing.

Conrad Is ANGRY!

I wouldn't want you to think I was mellowing in my dotage.  No, I haven't been posting about the offences committed by the Codeword compilers of the world, that doesn't mean I haven't been angered by them.  I know you feel my pain.

PLEXUS: Conrad had no idea what this was and had to resort to his dictionary, which informs: "Any complex network of nerves, blood vessels or lymphatic vessels OR an intricate network or arrangement".

    SO glad we got that straightened out.  Art!

Two puns for the price of one

TOPAZ: This is either a colour or a gemstone or both, and is eminently unfair as a Codeword solution, as how many 5-letter words are there that end in "Z"?  Art!

     These are Topazes, if that's how you spell this wretched stuff as a plural.  Far too elaborate.  I feel a future ban coming on when I take over.

APLOMB: Conrad was once again uncertain about exactly what this is, and my trusty 'Collins' came to the rescue once again.  It means 'Self-confident or having self-possession' and is derived from the French <loud cheer> 'A Plomb', meaning 'to be as upright as a plumb line.'  Art!

     I think that's enough fulminating until I solve more Codewords.

Another Change Due When I Take Over

Since I no longer catch the bus into Gomorrah-on-the-Irwell, I have generally left that rag "The Metro" alone, as it comes in a bundle on Bee Network buses.

     Not today!  Art?

     This is the very definition of 'clickbait', which is only acceptable if it's me doing it.  Conrad, by his very nature, refuses to click on any such bait and instead Googled for the proper detailed headline, which, if Art will put down his bowl of coal -

     Never heard of her.  Rest assured, this kind of sharp practice will be punished by penal servitude in the uranium mines when I take over.  You have been warned.

I Hinted At This Last Night

Conrad has made the 'Great Australian Bite' on a few occasions in the past, and found it a good way to use up excess carrots and courgettes.  The only problem I have is that the only baking utensil we possess according to the recipe is made of china, not tin, and hence takes a lot longer to heat up and bake the Bite.  Art!

     Here it is, stuffed with extra aubergine, pork joint and passata, which is a handy way to empty the fridge of excess stuff in danger of going mouldy.

     What it tastes like will be another matter entirely.  However, the rule is that if I made it, I have to eat it.  

Finally -

PATIENCE! You will get the report about Crisis Point in due course.

*  It's a real thing.  Go look it up you lazy bafunes.