You Know Conrad
For years I have ploughed the lonely furrow of 'Sharks are our friends!' and now that global warming is affecting the waters around the Allotment Of Eden, we may get to experience our finny fanged friends close up, as they come to pay us a visit.
Now, usually we here at BOOJUM! yark about the Great White Shark, 'Carcharodon Carcharias', or it's far smaller and less terrifying relative, the Weasel Shark. Yes, there is such a beast. Today, we are going to focus on the <drum roll> Tiger Shark. Ark! Sorry, I mean - Art!
Say hello to 'Oscar', the tiger shark that acts as a - forgive me - red herring in 'Jaws', where the locals believe they've caught the villain of the piece. Well, no, or it would be a very short film.
The Tiger Shark is acknowledged to be one of the most dangerous sharks, after the Great White, thanks to a combination of being very large, aggressive, nosy and a completely unfussy eater liable to gnaw it's way through whatever is in front of it. Art!
Stripey and gripey
The stripes that give it that name are clearly visible here. I used the word 'nosy' when scientists use the word 'inquisitive' and I recall that skateboarding South Canadian surfboarding marine biologist, whose name I forget, who agreed that, yes, sharks are curious about other creatures. Trouble is, they satisfy their curiosity by biting said creature. A couple of bites tend to leave Hom. Sap. dead. Art!
That's the gel, Apryl Boyle. She went on to explain that Hom. Sap. tastes pretty bloody awful to sharks, so after one nibble they spitten out what they've bitten and move on.
Here an interjection. Despite this apparent bloodthirstiness, Tiger sharks have only killed 39 people out of a global total of 141 over the past 25 years, meaning you can probably dive with the Tiger in your tank, if you're careful. I shouldn't have to say this but DO NOT FEED THE TIGER SHARK. This incredibly stupid Darwin Award-winning behaviour has been responsible for shark attacks on the Hom. Sap. doing the feeding. After all, what could possibly go wrong*!
Art!
No, this is not an aside, this is a Chrysler Tigershark engine, 2.4 litres, which is paired either with a 6-speed manual or 9-speed automatic transmission system. Art!
"Car engines? Who is this imposter and what has he done with the real Conrad?" I hear you quail. No, no, it's still me, but I needed a segué into Tigers and transmissions.
You ought to recall that in 'Weighty Matters', published yesteryon, I made assertions about excessive weight being bad for the drive-train and transmission systems of tanks. Well, as ever, I came across an excellent item after publishing that I'm going to detail now. Art!
Captured Tiger Tank with curious British tank crew**
"On Augst 22nd 1943, Dr. Robert Stevenson, a British metallurgist, examined a failed transmission gear from a captured Tiger tank. The gear was massive, made of hardened steel, yet it had shattered completely. This wasn't the first Tiger transmission failure Stevenson. In fact, nearly all captured Tigers had suffered mechanical breakdown, especially related to the transmission system." Art!
"It's transmission couldn't handle the shock of combat. They were prone to catastrophic failure under shock loads. Stevenson's tests revealed that the transmission gears were too hard, rated at 62 on the Rockwell C Hardness scale. This meant they were excessively brittle and liable to shatter completely when under strain." Art!
The article goes on to say that directives went out to British tank crews to force Tigers to manoeuvre aggressively, making transmission failure highly likely. Conrad doubts this was actually practiced, as getting a flanking shot in was a lot easier. The fact remained that a broken-down Tiger was extremely difficult to recover, requiring up to three specialist heavy-duty half-tracks, which was simply unfeasible under fire.
As for sharks, recall that brief item I mentioned yesteryon about a mostly shark-proof suit? What's this on the BBC's website? Why, an account about a marine biologist who went a-diving to place tags on sharks, thus allowing them to be tracked. Art!
Meet Mauricio Hoyos, a marine biologist with decades of experience in studying sharks, so no amateur chancing his luck. He had just tagged a female Galapagos shark, which slowly turned back and swam alongside him -
- before suddenly lunging at him, going for his head, which he tucked down to protect his neck and jugular vein. You can see the bruising on his face where the teeth dug in. For about a second, then Sharky let go and swam off, because remember what I said about Hom. Sap. tasting worse than garbage to sharks?
Hoyos recovered remarkably quickly, mercifully free from any infection, a prospect that concerned his doctors a great deal.
Being a man amongst men, Mauricio is back in action tagging sharks and would be happy to meet that Galapagos momma, a resolve bordering on foolhardy I fear. Art!
There you go. Tiger shars, Tigers and sharks.
Conrad's Hair-Splittery Gene Is Offended
You know Your Humble Scribe by now: a person of infinite pest, whose obsession with grammar, spelling and passing port to the left ought to be well known to you at this point. Art!
Allow me to illustrate just what a Stuart tank looked like. Art!
This is the M5 as used by the Allies. In Yugoslav service it was <ahem> adapted for various roles. Art!
You can clearly see that none of these look a ANYTHING like the tank in the thumbnail, thanks to it being very possibly the worst 'tank' ever invented: the Bob Semple, a nightmare in the flesh from New Zealand. Art!
You can tell you've arrived when there are resin models of your pantechnicon available to buy.
Think About Your Drink
It's a puzzle to Conrad how Coca-Cola and Pepsi got to be two gigantic multi-national combines with a global reach, based on carbonated swill. I cannot remember the last time I guzzled either.
ANYWAY let us proceed to another of those epic bad business decisions as trailblazed by that Youtube channel. Art!
Today we focus on 'New Coke', because Decca and The Beatles is a boring what-might-have-been. Art!
The seeds of this disaster were sown in 1975 when Pepsi carried out blind-testing that proved - Surprise! - that people preferred Pepsi.
10 years later - rapid response not a Coca-Cola strength - 'New Coke' was released in 1985 using a different formula and the world went wild. Just not in a good way, because Coke afficionados, yes there are such creatures, hated the new taste and protested loudly.
Coca-Cola caved and immediately re-introduced the old version, now branded 'Classic Coke' and the afficionados were placated, the world rolled along and all was well, apart from New Coke. It was rebranded as 'Coke II' in 1990, and I bet this puzzled all the South Canadians not familiar with Roman numerals. Art!
"Where are the other 10?"
Coke II was given the heave-ho in 2002. Good! said the Coke afficionados, a little prematurely, as it made a brief promotional comeback in 2019 for the first season of 'Stranger Things', which is set in 1985.
None of the articles I've read mentions any executives getting thrown from windows as a result of this debacle. I bet it still happened.
Here's One Conrad Can Get Behind
Art!
Har har!
Always a nice headline to read. The further detail is that the BOOH had been trying to limit voting for some categories of people, because they would probably be Democrats. Art!
"A federal judge has blocked President Donald Trump’s effort to tighten voter registration. The court found that his plan to require proof of citizenship violates the Constitution’s separation of powers."
Also -
" Requiring documentary proof of citizenship has been a top priority for Republicans"
This isn't Politics per se, it's the Flabby Fraudster trying to stay in power indefinitely so he can't be sent to prison as an 83-year old. We need to examine the phrase 'lame duck' in another blog to come. I bet you can hardly wait.
Finally -
An ending we've not used for ages, for no particular reason.
What happens next?
Plus, if any of you were still wondering - Art!
It was a kettle. Wonderful design, useless in practice.
* Do you want me to start a list?
** The ones with peaked caps are probably cavalry, thus reconnaissance, and the ones in berets are probably Royal Armoured Corps
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