NO! That Is Not A Typo
It is an hilarious pun that came to me during Thinking Time, whilst walking Edna, musing on the next item in "Seventy Greatest Mysteries Of The Ancient World", which is hereafter abbreviated to '70'.
So, no, we are not celebrating the works of Pixar and the worlds of Buzz and Woody, though mere mention of them allows me to put up a clickbaity illo. Art!
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| Not what it's about. Soz. |
You see, the next Mystery - I missed out the Exodus as it seemed dull as cabbage soup - was about the Trojan War, as fought between the Greek city-states and the city of -
Later. You see, I was trying to think of famous people called 'Troy' and the most immediate one was, of course - Art!
Captain Troy Tempest, commander of the supersub 'Stingray', closely modelled, it is said, upon James Garner. Not sure if Ol' Jim knew anything about this alleged resemblance.
Okay okay okay, so TT isn't a real person. Wasn't there a South Candian actor, though? I mused, casting my eyes far ahead to spot approaching dogs before Edna did (I have a significant height advantage). Why yes there was. Art!
Troy Donahue, heart-throb of the Fifties and Sixties. He might have been cast for his looks rather than his thespian qualities, or am I being cruel? He had a verrry hard youth before succeeding in films so we can't begrudge him too much. Definitely not the actor I was imagining, mind. Art!
The only other Troy I could find who was remotely famous - Troy McClure, of "The Simpsons" infamy. He is a pastiche of washed-up actors reduced to doing adverts of dubious quality promoting products of even more dubious quality.
Having both simultaneously hammered and squeezed the point, - was about the Trojan War, as fought between the Greek city-states and the city of Troy. Boy, I bet you didn't see that one coming. Much. The question is, did the Trojan War ever actually take place? It is first described in Homer's NOTHING TO DO WITH THE SIMPSONS 'Iliad' in the 8th Century BC, and is treated as being absolutely true by later Greek historians. Homer himself is writing of events that took place four centuries earlier, of which there is no direct proof. Art!
'70' mentions that the war began because the Trojan ambassador to Sparta, Paris, absconded with the Helen, the wife of King Menelaus, which caused a constellation of Greek states to go to war against Troy.
Conrad had long wondered about this, because, rational and logical as they were, what was in it for the other Greeks polises? '70' adds in another casus belli that I've not seen mentioned before, as it rather takes the shine off a story of star-crossed lovers; Paris also looted most of King Menelaus' wealth before absconding with Helen. So there was the prospect of loot as a motivation. Art!
Troy, before the tempest*.
The war supposedly went on for 10 years, which is an awfully long time for warfare in the ancient world, where you couldn't campaign in winter due to lack of food, and there would be drought in summer, as this is the Dardanelles we are talking about (in modern-day Turkey). Conrad remembers one work he read about the war as saying that the Greeks laying siege to Troy didn't do their job very well, as they neglected to cut the city off from supplies. Ooops.
That above shows an artist's impression of Troy, with immense walls that prevented any direct assault, which is what they were designed to do.
However - that word which inevitably crops up in all BOOJUM!s - the besieging Greeks apparently gave up and left, but not before leaving behind a votive offering of a wooden horse to the Trojans. Art!
The Trojans, who seem to be gullible in the extreme, took said structure within the walls of Troy and then left it completely alone and unguarded, thinking 'What can possibly go wrong with this gift from the gods?' The Greeks concealed within it, that's what, because they sneaked out at night, unlocked the city gates and let their mates in. End of Troy**.
This story seems so implausible that endless supposition has been made about what the Horse was in reality, rather than if it existed at all. '70' mentions battering rams used in ancient siege warfare that were cast in the shape of horses, and Conrad remembers a novel where the Horse was actually a covered siege ladder, the 'head' being designed to hook onto battlements and resist removal, used in numbers to achieve success. Art!
Back when '70' was published, in 2001, there was still debate about whether Teuton archaeologist Schliemann had actually uncovered the site of the real city of Troy or not, as nothing definitively proving it so existed. As of 2019, however, no less an authority than the British Museum agrees that the mound at Hisarlik in modern Turkey was the site of Troy.
There is more to come on this, but Conrad needs to wrap this Intro up and get along to Royton for deodorant and toilet roll, so the rest will have to wait.
TRAINS!
I couldn't hold off any longer, especially not after taking the relevant photographs. You might be asking yourself the question, what did railway transport do within the bounds of the UK do when it reached the Channel? Conventionally, the cargo would need to be off-loaded, then loaded onto a ship, sent across the Channel, off-loaded at a French quayside and then loaded onto a train. All very time-consuming. Art!
The next logical step to make was to simply (!) run the whole train, absent locomotive, onto a specially-constructed ship, which would then convey it across the Channel, where it would once again move off complete. The War Office ordered 6 of these ships, each of which could accommodate 54 10-ton wagons. Art!
They were very successful and reckoned to be about 9 times more efficient than conventional methods of off-loading, reloading, etcetera.
Make Mine Schadenfreude!
A few more gems from the BBC's 'Have Your Say' they rashly opened to Comments, which totalled 2,407 by the time they closed it. These are comments on a ballfoot game between two teams I can't be bothered to find out about.
D1755684995452
19:01 17 Aug
emcopus
18:51 17 Aug
Arsenal got the result,and the points.
End of.
The Man U decline continues,ha,ha.
For Your Information, Roy Keane is a former United player, known for being extremely blunt, dour and droll. All perfectly delicious stuff!
Latest Update on "The 100"
After watching Episode 10, I believe that they are now down to 86, since several of the guinea-pigs have succumbed to a haemorrragic disease introduced by the Grounders.
As for the Ark, they are now down however many seccessionists left in the dropship that truly lived up to it's name, which made an impressive crater after landing at full speed. Art!
Just to be clear, it was not designed nor intended to land at full speed. Ooops.
In Case You Were Wondering
Even if you weren't. No, Greenland could not have been mistaken for Atlantis by Plato in his works 'Timias' and 'Critias'. Yes, it is an enormous island in the Atlantic, which are two of the criteria for it's existence. Art!
It wasn't discovered until 928 AD, nor settled until 1200 AD, so somewhat outside the date range Plato was writing about. Being mostly covered in snow and ice with only small coastal settlements being viable also has something to do with it.
And with that we are done!
* Sorry.
** But the beginning of "The Aeneid"
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