But With Rather More Celerity
For Lo! we are continuing the slightly-epic saga of the 'Daily Express' war correspondent Alan Moorehead, during 'Operation Countenance', the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran in 1941. This was when the Ruffians were our newly-minted allies, since their best mates the Nazis had invaded them earlier. The biter bit, eh? Art!
German tourists afield
I apologise for not setting the backdrop to Op. Countenance. You see, the Teutons had been wooing the Shah of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, with a great deal of flattery, chicanery and machinery. Since he was an autocratic dictator, his was the only opinion with counted, and if you flatter an autocrat enough, he becomes like putty in your hands. You may have noticed this phenomenon in more recent times.
Al made the observation that he'd never seen as many electrical goods for sale as in the shops of Tehran (when he got there), all provided by the Teutons, who were admittedly good at making electrical goods. Trouble is, there was almost nowhere in Persia that had an electrical supply. Ooops. Art!
The girls all liked Michael!
Alexander, you may recall, took on the Persian Empire, and beat it. If you get the chance, check out the television series above, which features an Iranian street performer re-telling the invasion of Alexander as an hideous tragedy; always interesting to see things from the other fella's viewpoint. Alex's armies travelled by foot or on horseback; those of the British army were largely motorised, and could, in theory, move faster. I say 'in theory' because Persia in 1941 was not known for an extensive, well-maintained motorway network. This comes into play because Al and his five correspondent chums felt that the story in the south of Iran was done, and they wanted to see what had transpired in the north, which had been invaded by the Ruffians. Note that at all points Al uses this word and not 'Soviets'. Art!
They had travelled by train from Basra to Baghdad, where they hired three taxis to take them to Tehran. 'Taxi' is a misnomer, these were mobile scrap heaps kept together by rust and rope. "The first taxi had proceeded some two hundred yards down the main streets of Baghdad when both doors and the back fell of and the engine exploded."
If the Iraki taxi drivers had know their destination was Tehran, it's doubtful they would have accepted the task. Once the border had been reached at Khankain they refused to go any further, which necessitated discussions and more money. In fact, once inside Persia the correspondents dared not stop for any reason, as the three drivers would immediately refuse to go on and demand more money. Art!
Pristine Persian perambulator
The taxi drivers became ever more truculent as they realised they were going allllll the way to Teheran, unless their mechanical steeds died first. They went on strike, claiming no petrol, that their carburettors were clogged, that the pistachio harvest in the Sanjak of Novi Pazar had b
ANYWAY, one of the correspondents party, Kim Mundy, produced a gun and informed the drivers that they were all in the army now. They proceeded.
At this stage of the journey, well inside the borders of Iran - hope I'm not confusing you by switching names, it's excellent mental exercise - the taxi convoy started to encounter Indian troops encamped by the roadsides, eventually reaching the last camp of Ghurkas.
Beyond this outpost were the Ruffians, whom had met the British the day before - another inspiring event Al rued that they had missed - and who had withdrawn to Kasvin. Art!
Yes, I'm jumping the gun here. Once again, whose blog is it?
This is one of the enormous Ruffian armoured cars that Al mentioned meeting the next day, being impressed with the size of the gun, how much armour it had and the 'spare' wheels that could be raised or lowered. It's a BA-3, and is more comparable to an armoured truck or a wheeled tank. The gun is a 45 mm weapon, quite capable of turning any Teuton tank of the time into iron filings, and it could manage 40 m.p.h. and I deliberately went with Imperial measurements to annoy the Ruffians. Ha!
"Spartacus"
Your Humble Scribe is investing quite a bit of time in watching this special edition of the swords-and-sandals epic, since it has two disks and a plethora of extra features. Art!
First off, I cannot remember seeing the whole film all in one go, instead seeing it in bits and parts over the decades, which means sitting down and perusing all 1 hour 46 minutes. Then I need to watch it again with the Commentary, before starting on Disk 2 and another 1 hour 23 minutes of extras.
The film is well-known for the personality clashes between Douglas and Kubrick, for the former was the Producer, controlling the purse-strings, plot and production, whereas Stan needed to be in total control or he got temperamental.
Conrad is going to have to study the gladiator's school of combat training, because it looks bloodily realistic, yet you can't have big name stars at risk of being turned into a human kebab. Art!
We may come back to Woody Strode, the muscly black guy intent on poking holes in Kirk, because I've just discovered a couple of interesting facts about him.
Next Up!
I'm sure you recall this -
What do they recommend next? Art!
Yes, I have seen this one. It centres on a sole accidental survivor, Sam, and his trials and tribulations at being the only human occupant of an entire Parisian apartment block, gradually suffering mental breakdown due to isolation and loneliness. And being besieged by thousands of voracious zombies, also. The scene above is when Sam tempts fate by playing his drum kit, to see if the running dead are still around. Yes, Sam, they are.
Yes More Cinematic Items
Conrad couldn't resist taking a closer look at this item on the MSN feed. Art!
You might have been able to guess it was set in Vietnam thanks to the palm trees. Congratulations. Which film is it?
"Apocalypse Now", and here we see the back of Captain Willard's head, as he looks on in bemusement at a news-film director, shouting 'Don't look at the camera! Don't look at the camera!' which of course - obviously! - makes people look at the camera. For Your Information, the shouting chap in sunglasses is the film's real director, Frances F. Coppola. What you might call a meta moment.
Lest you be aware, the film is a contemporary adaptation of Joseph Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness'*, switching out the Belgian Congo for Vietnam. I shall stop here or you'll get a 3,000 word monologue on a compare and contrast between the two.
Conrad' Geopolitical Genius Germinates Gold Again
I KNOW GOLD IS AN INERT METAL. Conrad was speaking metaphorically. Incidentally, uranium, another heavy metal, spontaneously absorbs moisture from the atmosphere and thus increases in size when out of storage, which you might call 'Ger
ANYWAY my mind has turned to the thorny problem of the Straits Of Hormuz, a marine choke-point in global oil supply chains that it now becoming awkward. Art!
It is simplicity itself for Iran to block the straits with mines, or threaten ships with anti-ship missiles, or attacks from a multitude of small boats.
How about a canal across the base of that peninsula formed by the UAE and Oman? Don't tell me it's impossible, recall the Corinth Canal, the Suez Canal and the Panama Canal. What's stopping it from happening? Art!
If the Martians can manage it, so can Hom. Sap.
Finally -
Prospects afoot for a trip down south later this year, to the World's Best Museum of TANK.
* Of course I've read it. Very short, you can polish it off in an afternoon. Get it? Joseph Conrad? Polish? Bah, I'm wasted here.
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