About The Phrase 'Complete And Unabridged'
Probably not. After all, who bothers about such phrases, and whom of them are outside a padded cell with a 24/7 Silliness Watch?
Exactly.
ANYWAY Conrad has moved on from his 'Collins Concise Dictionary' and is now concentrating on his 'Brewer's Dictionary Of Phrase And Fable', neither of which is either incomplete or abridged. Art!
This, gentle reader, is the Floral Clock as seen in the gardens of the Burgh of Edin, which is upgraded and updated every year, so yes I am being lazy using an image from the previous year.
Where were we? O yes. Bridges, once again. I'm sorry, were you expecting clocks?
"Devil's Bridge": this is a generic name, applied to 'bridges built over ravines or chasms, in mountainous areas'. Art!
This example is the 'Teufelsbrucke' over the River Reuss, in Helvetia (Switzerland if we're being formal). From the torrential state of the Reuss, one can see why they need a large, sturdy bridge to cross it. Art!
This is the Devil's Bridge at the village of Devil's Bridge, over the River Mynach, in Wales. Nil out of ten for originality, founding fathers. As you can see, it is three bridges stacked one atop the other, as what was being used for transport got larger and heavier. The lowest bridge is the 'Monk's Bridge', built by - you may be ahead of me here - monks from the abbey of Strata Florida in the 12th century. 'Florida' is Latin <hack spit> for 'Flowery' in case you were wondering, as Wales is not known for it's sub-tropical climate.
"Paint the Forth Bridge": 'To carry out an apparently endless task that has to be started again as soon as it is finished.' Art!
The Forth Bridge, with puny train for scale
You get an idea of the size of this monstrous structure from this illo. It was constructed in 1890 and at that time, paint not being the wonder substance it now is, and having to be applied with a brush by hand, it took four years to cover it from one end to the other, by which time, inevitably, it was time to start painting it from the start again.
'London Bridge': For a city the size of The Modern Babylon, that has the Thames running through it, there are lots of bridges, yet only one 'London Bridge'. The original was erected by the Romans and we shall plump for 200 AD as the date. Art!
Yes it's a model. No, there are no photographs.
The bridge must have attracted traffic, as it was such an important crossing point across the Thames, and was far more convenient than having to take a boat across the river. Art!
Wooden bridges are all very well for a couple of centuries, but even seasoned timber that's caulked will eventually rot, not to mention the fire risk. Thus in 1176 AD the first stone bride was built. Again, no photographs. Art!
You can tell this is London and that property prices were astronomical even back in the 12th Century, as they built housing onto the bridge superstructure itself.
What's missing from this picture? Large riverine transport, that's what. Those small arches were a progressively more severe hindrance to navigation on the Thames as shipping got bigger and bigger. Thus, the march of progress. Art!
As built in 1831, with five large arches. It was dismantled and replaced by the current three-arch London Bridge, which was put up between 1967 and 1972, and which is made of concrete rather than stone. Lacks a great deal of the artisinal soul of the older one, if you ask me. Art!
Meh. It's a bridge.
The old bridge had a last laugh. It was dismantled in 1968, not simply demolished, and sold for a million pounds to the McCulloch Oil Corporation of South Canada. In turn they re-built it over the River Colorado at Lake Havasu City, where it still stands. Art!
There was a rumour at the time and afterwards that the South Canadians thought they were getting Tower Bridge. Conrad doesn't think this hold merit, as Tower Bridge is a good 120 feet shorter than London Bridge and I doubt it would have spanned the Colorado. Nor did they actually use the whole bridge, only the exterior stonework, which is why it's still standing, having a reinforced concrete interior.
That's enough about bridges for one Intro. Nor have we even touched on Tower Bridge. Maybe tomorrow. I bet you can hardly wait.
Conrad's Afternoon On The Tiles
Since Darling Daughter and Quiet Tom are going to be LARPing on Father's Day, it behooved us to get the celebrations in on Sunday just gone, which is good going, not necessitating any bookings or reservations on what would be a very busy day.
So, it was off to the Corn Exchange, and sadly the Teuton Donna Diner, whatever it was called, is no more, thus in consolation it was Mowglis. Art!
The sun came out whilst we were indoors. Here is DD, wearing sensible hair. Art!
I remembered to get the pictures in before consuming the food, and here we have my Mango Kulfi, which is more like a lassi, and the Chat Bombs, which have to be eaten whole, as otherwise, (the waitress warned us) you end up wearing them. Art!
That's the delicious Chick Peas steeped in Darjeeling Tea, and Sal's Gunpowder Chicken, whilst I'm afraid you'll have to just imagine my chicken dish.
Also, The Haul
Because I am very rarely in Gomorrah-on-the-Irwell these days, thanks to working from home, I found myself with 20 minutes before the RV time with Darling Daughter, which was just enough to get to Travelling Man. Thanks to the enterprising shop assistant, we located the Revolution press volumes, and - Art!
The 'Essential' titles are me being a completist, as I probably have the 'Judge Anderson' collections in the pages of '2000AD' and 'The Megazine' already, but it would be an incredible chore to locate and unbox them. Then at lower starboard you have Old Stony Face himself, and at lower port one of the 'Hellboy' offshoots. That black and white volume is "The Steel Claw", and I am old enough to remember this from the original comics. Lewis, you see, can render himself invisible, apart from his steel right hand. To do so, mind, he has to electrocute himself; one wonders how many times he had to do this to work out the correct voltage.
"The War Illustrated Edition 209 22nd June 1945"
Back to our retrospective montage, which had just reached the end of 1941, where things were not looking especially good for the Allies, which now included the Sinister Union. Art!
Arguably the beginning of the end for the British Empire in the East. Singapore had been designed to resist an amphibious invasion from the sea to the south, so instead the treacherous Japanese invaded from the north, by land. Ooops. The fighting lasted a week, after which Percival surrendered the peninsula and vanished from history, managing to be defeated by a force his own troops outnumbered by 50,000. Quite an achievement, just not in the way a general is supposed to manage things.
Finally -
Once I've posted this it will be time for Edna's afternoon walkies, especially as the clouds are rolling away. Art!
For absent friends.
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