Gosh, No, We Haven't Exhausted The Topic Of "Oak" Yet
And if you think Conrad is going to allow a topic to escape without having every drop of creativity squeezed out of it, then you don't know me or haven't been reading the blog for very long.
So, during my Thinking Time whilst walking Edna, I recollected that my edition of "Brewer's" under the entry for OAK mentioned WOODEN WALLS and if it's in bold like that then it means there is another reference about it. Art!
This specimen is a Greek trireme, so-called after it's triple banks of oars, and it was one of the mainstays of the Athenian city-state, which was all-powerful at sea. Conrad idly wondered during my Thinking Time what ancient Greek ships were made of, and the answer - you may be ahead of me here - is oak. For the outer hull, at least. Internally they used pine and fir woods. This surprised me, because one does not associate the Hellenes with oak forests.
"Yes but what about the WOODEN WALLS?" I hear you quibble. PATIENCE! I'm getting to that.
One of the constants of ancient Greece was that bit of it were always at war with other bits, or with Persia, which is where Themistocles comes in. 'Twas he who correctly interpreted the Delphic oracle. Allow me to quote their saying:
Pallas has urged, and Zeus, the sire of all,
Hath safety promised in a wooden wall;
Seed-time and harvest, weeping sires shall tell
How thousands fought at Salamis and fell.
This is typical of oracles: be as vague as possible, without defining things exactly, so your saying can be interpreted in umpteen different ways, and allow said oracle to claim, POST EVENT, that they got it right. Notice that they don't mention 'ships' explicitly here, nor who is going to win. Art!
Conrad recalls, with malicious glee, that one Asian despot lost in a campaign his prophets had claimed he would win, so as he retreated from the battlefield, he took good care to have said prophets promptly executed. One of the occupational hazards of being an oracle, I suppose.
Yuck. The weather has turned, glad I took Edna trotties earlier on.
ANYWAY if Ol' Themmy and the alliance he led had lost the battle of Salamis, you can be sure the oracle would come back with a proviso that they O so obviously meant a palisade or defensive earthworks studded with wooden spikes, NOT ships, never ships, etcetera. Art!
This is HMS 'Victory', possibly the most famous sailing ship in the world, and the flagship of Lord Horatio Nelson STAND UP FOR NELLIE whom was one of the most famous commanders the Royal Navy has ever had. It's a typical three-deck ship of the line, made from oak as you'd expect. The Senior Service, as they like to style themselves, inherited the WOODEN WALL concept from the Greeks as the RN protected Great Britain, as we styled ourselves then, and took the war to the opposition. One reason Napoleon never tried an invasion of Great Britain was the wooden wall of the Royal Navy, which was impossible to get either around or over*. Art!
That's an oak tree, just so we're clear. You would need 3,500 of them to create a ship of Victory's size, which equates to nine hundred acres, meaning an awful lot of oak trees went into constructing these wooden walls. Conrad shrewdly reckons this is why the Royal Navy not only kept but recommissioned captured French warships like 'Tigre'. Art!
Under new management
After all, it took six years for the Victory to be built (1759 - 1765), not to mention the cost and resources that went into her, so it makes sense to upcycle any vessel fit for service. Besides which, it would have reallllllly annoyed the French.
Which reminds me of the jingoistic ballad 'Heart Of Oak'. Once again 'Brewer's' delivers the goods. The song is from a pantomime called 'Harlequin's Invasion' by one David Garrick, and dates from 1759, too.
Heart of oak are our ships
Heart of oak are our men
We always are ready
Steady, boys, steady
We'll fight and we'll conquer again and again
I bet Ol' Nappy hated hearing that song.
Don't worry, we have lots more oak-related stuff to get through. I bet you can hardly wait.
Manglement Strikes Again
Just a short re-telling of a story on Youtube's Reddit channel, and as in all the best manglement stories, this one is South Canadian. Art!
Tireless Holidayless Narrator, hereafter THON, had run a very large café successfully for 4 years, without a single holiday. They had, in fact, maximised profits, not merely turnover, by 300% by committing one hundred and ten per cent to the business, whose owners both dallied with working. Meaning they managed a whole 8 hours per week each. Also unlike THON, they took four or five holidays per year abroad.
In June THON informed them that she was going to be taking a week's leave at Christmas to visit their seriously ill father. Okay, all is good, no problems, except you can guess there are going to be or this would be a short and inconclusive story. Art!
Two weeks before THON's holiday, she got a text from one of the owners that they had decided to holiday in Australia over Christmas, so she couldn't take the leave.
O couldn't she!
THON quit on the spot.
She later found out that the caff went bankrupt and closed permanently. As she gloasted somewhat, working 8 hours a week isn't enough to run a business and they couldn't find a manager willing to work like a serf for what they were paying.
I bet they never got to holiday in Oz, either, if there was no manager to run the café, and once bankrupt any visits abroad would be permanently off the table.
Kind of a poster child for Eff Around and Find Out.
Once Again We Point And Laugh
I am copying a graph from Twitter, which might make Elong Tusk sad, both because I won't ever use the new name and because it shows that people don't like either him or his technology. Art!
UK rather bucking the trend here. I believe that sales were down in January by 7% but up in February, when 3,852 were sold in Britain. Globally, the UK isn't that big a market, making up about 2.5% of sales. A rise of 3.5% isn't going to compensate for losing the rest of Europe. Since China is one of Tesla's biggest markets, one wonders what tariffs are going to do to sales there. Watch this space ⇣
In case mathematics is not your strong suit, Tesla's share price has halved in the past four months. Well done Elong, what a sterling job you're doing**!
One Conrad Can Get Behind
I noticed this in the news feed and, of course - obviously! - had to have a nosy. Art!
I noticed that the film is getting a theatrical release, which is interesting as it's about 50 years old. Conrad has seen at least part of it, namely the songs 'One Of These Days' and 'Echoes' and I remember Nick losing a drumstick and having to flail wildly one-handed whilst groping for a replacement. There's also a split-screen effect that was used to cover for missing footage.
The film, which has been digitally remastered in 4K from its original 35mm footage, with enhanced audio mixed by Porcupine Tree frontman Steven Wilson, is out in UK cinemas on April 24.
One for your diaries. I think I have an album by Porcupine Tree knocking around somewhere.
ANYWAY there's a lot of quotes in the article from Nick Mason, whom I am horrified to read is now 81, so we may come back to this one in the near future.
I Know, I Know
Still nothing on 'Crisis Point' YET, just be patient. Or you'll get my 5,000 word monograph on "How Forbidden Planet Influenced Hollywood And Television" and THEN you'll be sorry.
* Tee hee. Other contemporary despots take note.
** This is irony, just so we're clear.
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