You Might Consider That A Typo
Shortly before I used the Remote Nuclear Tormentor on you, because this is BOOJUM! where typos are not tolerated. You were thinking of the 'S.P.V.', weren't you? You know, that cool Spectrum vehicle that's more for blowing shizzle up than pursuing it. Art!
Heaven help dangerous drivers if the police ever get issued with these, the obituaries column would proliferate wildly, and
ANYWAY enough of what we're not about. The title acronym means 'Perilously Struck Voyaging' and goes back to September 19th, when Conrad was en route to Bovington, halted only by the Bee Network bus strike <long string of expletives deleted>, when Public Service Vehicles were off the road.
Well, one intrepid journo at the 'Manchester Evening News' - my favourite source of cryptic crosswords and Codewords - took it upon themselves to make the journey into Gomorrah-on-the-Irwell without using the bus and with a budget and time-limit. Remember, a One-Day Saver on the BN costs £5. Ben's destination was chosen at the Manchester Royal Infirmary in Chorlton. Art!
Yes I've been sitting on this one for a while
Kudos to Ben for not driviing; he may not have a car, but if he does then he chose not to use it. Unlike other commuters on that Saturday, as he saw walking to work. In his case he had a forty-minute plod from his demesne in Worsley to his nearest railway station, a choice of either Walkden or Patricroft. What fun! A two-mile walk first thing in the morning. Splendid exercise. Art!
Luckily for Ben it wasn't raining that morning. Mockingly, he saw the 20 and 33 services drive by him, since, just to make things more complex, not all busses had been cancelled, but good luck finding out which were still running. He consulted a couple of people waiting hopefully at a bus stop, one of whom knew their 67 service was still running, the other of whom gaped in utter bemusement about being informed of a bus strike. Art!
Technically, Ben was not breaking his rules by taking a 'Lime' scooter into the station, but it did total up to £7.12, so he was already over budget.
Once at Patricroft station, the train had already gone, so it was a lovely relaxing 40-minute wait for the next one. So much for boring fuddy-duddy things like deadlines for medical appointments or work, hmmmm? Art!
Ben's train terminus was Oxford Road Station, in the beating heart of Gomorrah-on-the-Irwell, which was all well and good, but cost another £4 and yet more beyond his allotted budget. This was the 09:44 service, which was packed for a train running post-rush hour, possibly because other people were copying our intrepid journalist. Exhibiting his journalistic instincts, he tackled a couple of taxi drivers, one of whom had been flagged down on Oxford Road, a passing rare event, and the other whom had been ferrying children to school after their school bus had been cancelled. Knock-on effects, you see. Art!
Now came the last, long leg for Ben, from Oxford Road to MRI. Once again, he decided to bend the rules a little. Art!
Before you castigate Ben for not waiting around for a bus, don't forget that this stop is not far removed from the city centre, which means any of the few busses still running will be absolutely rammed with passengers getting on before him. So - Starling Bank bicycle it is. First he had to fiddle around with an app - O horrors! - before he could unlock and pay for the bike - £1 total. Now up to £12.12.
ARRIVAL TIME! 11:10
Unfortunately this was two hours past Ben's fictional appointment. Were there Bee Network buses available then he'd have made it by 08:40, and it would only have cost £5. In this case he'd chosen to walk, train, scooter and bike it, demonstrating how irredeemably awkward, expensive and time-consuming travel without a bus can be. Art!
The hallowed destination
Yes yes yes, he could simply have taken a taxi or Uber, which would have topped out at £15, or three times a day-saver bus ticket. Not everyone can afford to blow £75 a week to get to the office, thanks very much.
There hasn't been another Bee Network strike of late, so things seem to have settled down, which is good news. Conrad is happy to walk into Lesser Sodom but a lot less keen on the long uphill traipse back.
Well, there you go, an Intro without war, tanks, Ruffians yet still with a freight of misery about it.
You What?
Conrad occasionally picks up on sidebar headlines that are so obtuse he has no idea what they mean, and no, I am not going to bother Googling for their hidden meaning; assuming that people are intimately acquainted with risible wittering is not a viable method of communication. Art!
Conrad is guessing that this is a sports headline of some variety but has no idea what sport. Sounds South Canadian. Not bothered enough to look it up.
"Charley's War"
Now we come to the issue of punishment in the BEF of 1916, and Pat Mills is laying on the legend with a shovel, which we will look at with BOOJUM!'s jaundiced eye. Art!
This is an example of 'Field Punishment No. 1', where the transgressor is lashed to a wheel or post for up to 4 hours at a time, where the bonds are deliberately placed to cause discomfort.
HOWEVER that lovely word again, the artillery units whose guns are being used in such a manner would most certainly not allow such in real life; guns need to be moved, maintained and fired, which is not possible with a soldier hanging from the spokes.
Definitely a humiliating and painful punishment, which is what it was supposed to be - yet not always. Dr Dunn, of 'The War The Infantry Knew', who had been around a lot and seen even more, described FP No.1 as not being too onerous, under certain circumstances. For example, if there were French civilians living nearby; they could be guaranteed to come out and offer food and water to the offender. Art!
Another nuance was if Australian or Canadian troops happened across a FP No. 1, because neither of these nationalities would suffer to pass by without intervening. They would release the offender, and woe betide any Redcaps who tried to stop them, because lumps would be handed out liberally. Art!
This panel, lest ye he unaware, has a couple of cobbers turning up as the Redcaps are whaling the tar out of Charley, two to one. The MPs beat a very hasty retreat because Australians would relish a punch-up with them. Once again, neither Pat nor Joe exaggerate here, as the Ockers were notoriously - ah - shall we say 'boisterous'? when out of the line, and had a very casual attitude towards discipline.
Here's One Conrad Can Get Behind
As you ought to know by now, Conrad is happy to endlessly mock Donold Judas Trump, whom is a source of endless blog content-generation. DJ Tango loves to come up with insulting nicknames for other people but BOY! does he dislike the same treatment being dished out to him - Mister Zeppelin Ego, as I've dubbed him. Art!
Or 'Dozy Don' or Sex-Pest At Rest' or any number of other epithets. The one above comes from the Democrat Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, who seems to take great delight in puncturing the unctuous balloonish BOOH.
Let's see how far he throws his toys from the pram this time!
Let's Wheel Out More Ambrose Bierce
I do like his citric humour, and since it's my blog, you'll just have to put up with it.
"Patriotism, n: Combustible rubbish ready for the torch of anyone ambitious enough to illuminate his name.
In Dr Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last resort of a scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is the first."
Art!
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