The Sign Of Fore

No! That Is Not A Typo

I know what you're erroneously criticising about, because you leap to assumptions and extrapolate, when you should be analysing assertions and interpolating.  Also, it is a capital mistake to theorise without data, as a certain deerstalker-hat wearer used to ruefully admit.

     Conrad is using 'Fore' in the sense of an event preceding later events, which is because I'm typing this Intro up on Tuesday evening for Friday's blog, an example of forward planning if ever there was.  Art!

     This is what you were thinking of, weren't you?  Tish!  Although it does have a bearing upon the rest of this Intro, because once again we are back on the subject of FOUR.

     Now, we are going to be making an aside here.  YES ALREADY!  Normally Conrad and the blog ladle opprobium and invective upon Mordorvia BUT one thing they did well during the Sinister Union era was -

     Sherlock Holmes.  Yes, really.  Art!

"Tscherloka Kholmsa I Doktora Vatsona"

     ANYWAY now that I have forewarned you - do you see O you do - let us crack on with all matters 'Four' as derived from my 'Brewer's* Dictionary Of Phrase And Fable' and my 'Collins Concise English Dictionary', as well as my fervent flotsam-flooded mind.  Nor will this be a simple recapitulation as some of their entries are the very definition of dull.

FOUR-O-CLOCK: Also known as 'Marvel of Peru', a tropical nyctaginaceous plant th

Does it talk?  Make a cup of tea?  Dance?  No? then it's not marvellous

     See what I mean?  Deadly dull.  Next!

FOUR-STROKE: No, nothing to do with Donnie Dorko's performance on the greens, although unkinder folks might wonder if it might refer to how many cerebrovascular accidents he's had so far which have ANYWAY it means, and how very ho-hum the definition is, an internal combustion engine where the piston makes four strokes for every single time a combustion takes place.  

     Still dullsville but it does mention combustion, which is better than a bunch of petals.  Art!

Original four-stroker

THE FOUR SONS OF AYMON: This is more like it! and further evidence that France, even before it was France, was extremely provincial and difficult to govern.  In the background, 'Aymon of Dordogne' was one of the provincials who forcibly resisted the reign of Charlemagne, about which there were many romances written.  Imagine Sir Robin Hood with a Gascon accent and a baguette.  Art!

   
     Let's be clear: these were not illiterate serfs whose most deadly weapon was a pointy stick; they were knights on horseback, to wit: Renaud, Alard, Guichard and Richard.  Unusually, their horse Bayard also gets a mention, as it is both magical and huge, always a winning combination in a steed.  Their widespread presence in songs, poetry and other romances is evidence that the French love an underdog, especially one that challenges authority.  Excuse me, Authority.

FOUR LAST THINGS: From times when piety and religion mattered more than Instagram rankings and mortgage rates.  This quadruplet was: Death, Judgement, Heaven and Hell.  Perhaps 'Heaven OR Hell' would be most apt, as this seems to be the Process Outline for End Of Life.  Art!

     In the 22nd century, a resource-scarcity environment, there is also a Fifth Last Thing, where citizens contribute to the continuity of city life by being recycled.  Don't sneer, it will come.

THE FOUR SEAS:  I am delighted to introduce this Britanno-centric item, as we are told it refers to the 4 seas that surround This Sceptred Isle to the north, south, east and west.  Not that I'd call the English Channel a 'sea', technically, as it's only 26 PROUD IMPERIAL miles wide.  Art!

     Not dull at all, as our island nation has defied invasion from Continental ne'erdowells for about a thousand years, thanks to the Four Seas.

FOUR-LETTER MAN: 

     No, Art, no!  Can you not tell the difference between an - O never mind <sounds of Tazer in background>.

     This is a compound of 'FOUR-LETTER WORD' and an extremely unpleasant person - the title is a misnomer, it can be a woman as well (isn't equality wonderful).  The FLW is an euphemism for a swear, usually to do with sex or bodily functions, frequently represented by a series of asterisks, as we manifest here on the blog (as in "Dog Buns s************z f******* ***!" yes yes yes I know those aren't four letters long, sue me).  Thus a FLM is one whom can be described by a FLW, which is where we came in.

     There are lots and lots more subjects dealing with FOUR, and I bet you can hardly wait.

Jolly Folly

SIT BACK DOWN!   I shall only be covering a single folly in this item, and no, it's nothing to do with Painshill Park, which we have thoroughly exhausted as a topic.  Art!

     Say howdyedo to Freston Tower, a red-brick folly constructed in the sixteenth century, so rather early as a folly, which tended to be late sixteenth century onwards into the heyday of the eighteenth century.  Put up in 1568, it has been refurbished and you can now book it as holiday accommodation should you so wish.  View of the River Orwell comes free of charge, and you can see various boats and yachts moored at low tide in the background.  Art!

 
     The oak interior of a bedroom.  Note the vertical guardrail to help climb the verrrry steep staircase.

     Rather less of a folly nowadays than it used to be, which is not a phrase you expect to hear about one of these 'conspicuous expenditure' buildings.

The More Things Change -

Several years ago Conrad took out a subscription to 'The Daily Beast' because they had chapter and verse on a Four-Letter Man called Matt Gaetz, a South Canadian politician who, morally, a bag of excrement.  Matty ended up becoming the subject of a House Ethics Committee investigation, and he was so confident of being exonerated that he immediately quit his Senate seat and completely abandoned politics.  He now hosts a show on the One America Network, which is quite a fall from grace and power.  Art!

     I'd call what follows more schadenfreude than politics, which is my excuse.

     Well well well, whom do we have here but The Nasty Little Man, Nigel Farrago, whom is also in hot water with a Commons Select Committee, who are taking a verrrrry close look at the £5 million pounds he got from a criminally-convicted crypto-trader.  Which he did not declare.  Which he won't clarify about.  Which he gets very, very, very angry about if the press question him on.  So! he has resigned his Parliamentary seat at Clacton and is going to go for a re-election.  Art!

     This stops the clock on the PSC - until he gets re-elected, then they begin again.  Tick tock, Farrago.

"21 Days In Normandy" By Angelo Caravaggio

Your Humble Scribe is on the last chapter of this work, so will only give a precis of the previous two that dealt with Operations 'Totalise' and 'Tractable', which were the efforts of the Canuckistanian 4th Armoured Division to close the exit route from the Falaise Pocket in mid-August 1944.  Art!

     They're under II Corps.  

     Boy o boy, does Ol' Angelo's description of Totalise and Tractable illustrate two profound factors: lack of room to manoeuvre and the fog of war.

        The lack of room was down to Kitching's superior, Lt. General Simonds, commanding II Canadian Corps, who insisted on an 800 yard frontage for the entire 4th Armoured Division, rather than the 1,600 yards Kitching wanted.  Which, inevitably, caused immense traffic jams and congestion that slowed progress to a crawl.  Art!

This kind of scrum, with added dust and enemy fire

     As for the fog of war, it's the usual mistakes about where units ended up, a lack of or mistaken information being passed up, down or across the chain of command, and senior commanders being injured and taken out of the chain itself, which happened so often it seems like bad luck and lightning striking multiple times in the same place.

More You What?

Conrad thinks that the news channel sees me as a talented amateur mechanic, able to strip and reassemble a Porsche engine blindfold with only a stick of celery and a tin of Brylkreem.  Art!

     I have NO IDEA what these are or what they do and don't feel any the poorer for not knowing.

Finally - 
Going out with another Biercism.

"Rent, n: An outrage, imposed by blood-sucking vampires on virtuous sons of toil'.

*  There's a funny story about that ......

Hock Follies

NO!  This Is Not A Typo To Do With -

 - that somewhat obscure 'Rock Follies' musical-drama from the late Seventies, which Conrad dimly remembers catching from the corner of his eye, as it wasn't really very street-cred in the age of punk.  Art!

 

     Knock yourself out.

     ANYWAY we are back on the subject of architectural follies again, as the title may have led you to believe.  Firstly, because of my sieve-like memory, I need to have a quick scan of where we'd gotten to last time.  Old age and gin, old age and gin, I tell you they have a lot to answer for.  Art

     Behold!  Another folly from Painshill Park - which Conrad has been mis-spelling as 'Painhill' - this one being the 'Vineyard'.  What makes this a folly?  O I thought you'd never ask!  Well, can you imagine people trying to grow a vineyard here in This Sceptred Isle, which is not known for sunshine and viniculture?  I cannot, but then I'm not a cockeyed optimist, unlike Hamilton the estate owner.  He took the precaution of employing a French viniculturist whom performed minor miracles and made wine.  Which may very well have included a hock.  Art!

     Art!

The Chinese bridge

     Back to architectural rather than agricultural follies.  This is the incorrectly-named 'Chinese Bridge', so-called because the side-bracing was thought to be Chinese.  If you've not crossed this bridge already then you might never get the chance, as it was closed to the public in 2023: the bridge supports are seriously weakened thanks to time and British weather.  Art!

     Once you cross the Chinese Bridge, you are on Grotto Island, which is home to a - you may be ahead of me here - a grotto.  This is an artificial cavern that was studded with various mineral crystals, all lit up by light reflecting off the lake.  The Grotto did end up becoming grotty by the Second Unpleasantness, having lost all it's decorations.  These were restored back in the Eighties but unless they've installed a pontoon bridge, you're just going to have to imagine them.

     SCRATCH THAT - Art!

     On the other side of Grotto Island is the 'Woollett Bridge', a copy of a bridge built in Northern Italy by Palladio, whom was almost worshipped by eighteenth century architects.  Looks more like a perfectly sensible back up to the Chinese Bridge if you ask me.  Art!

     There is also a 5-arch bridge, which is so utterly dull compared to the other follies that this is all you get.  Art!

     Meet the Mausoleum, which shares with the 'Ruined Abbey' the distinction of being deliberately constructed as a ruin, and which originally sported sarcophagi and funerary urns, just to maintain a sombre atmosphere, aided by the planting of dark-leaved trees such as yew and cypress.  Why you'd want a buzzkill building like this is known only to enterprising architects such as Hamilton and their pash for Graeco-Roman funeral construction.  Art!

     What does a hermit live in?  Why, a Hermitage, of course.  That's what you're looking at here: essentially a thatched hut that was off the grid even in the eighteenth century, never mind the twenty-first.  There are two rooms: living room and bedroom.  Art!

     The hermit would need to be happy living without either electricity or running water, so no internet or poached eggs.  Legend has it that Hamilton hired a hermit to live there, who only lasted three weeks before getting cabin fever and sneaking off to the local pub.  Art!

     Much better-appointed!  The Gothic Tower, from atop which Hamilton could probably see his hired hermit sneaking out of the park.  He originally used it as a verrrry large display case, exhibiting his sculpture collection.  After restoration in the Eighties, the GT is now home to a Park Ranger during working hours.  He must encounter the Hermitage whilst patrolling, and thank the lord that his County Council employers aren't penny-pinching misers content to stick him in a hut.  Art!

     Like several other follies, this is a modern recreation of the original Temple Of Bacchus, erected in 2018 after the original had been plundered of all it's component parts, which were either sold off or re-used in different parts of the estate.  The original also collapsed in 1949.  Art!

     Last one, promise!  You might be fooled into thinking that this 'tent' is a fabric structure: not a bit of it.  It's a brick, wood, canvas and papier-mache replica of the original one, so possibly not the most resilient refuge in a rainstorm.

     So! that's a whistle-stop tour of the follies present at Painshill Park.  I've just saved you oodles of cash and time with my precis, and you're welcome.  

More Ungentle Shoeing

From a professional, no less!  Dr. John Ahrent, whom we have already mentioned in conjunction with a devastating assessment of how Mopey Dick The Orange Land Whale was experiencing dementia.  He very aptly pointed out that Donnie Dorko is never seen walking to or into the Oval Office, the cameras only start rolling when he's already sitting down.  Art!

     Being able to sit down means Don Snoreleone can drift off when speeches get boring, which means whenever Pumpkinhead isn't talking about himself.  Art!

      Macron comes to the rescue of an elderly man who doesn't know where he is or where he's supposed to go.  There was no team of bootlicking sycophants to crowd around DJ Tango and shepherd him in the right direction, so of course he simply heads off at random.

     In other late-breaking news, his cheating and applying political pressure on the venal head of FIFA had no effect, the South Canadian ballfoot team were malletted by the Belgians.  Ooops.  Donold exercising his Sadim touch again.

     

A Life On The Ocean Grave

Unless you are the modern equivalent of Simeon Stylites and have been living atop a pillar for the past 36 months, you can hardly fail to have noticed - especially if you read the blog - that Krim is enduring a desperate fuel drought, thanks to the Ukrainians destroying road and rail bridges and creating transport bottlenecks, and also attacking anything hauling fuel.  Art!

     The orcs are desperate enough to try sending 8 small fuel tankers across the Sea Of Azov to resupply Krim with fuel.  Alas, Babylon, the Kozaky were one step ahead of them and hit all of them with drones - the one above is a Firepoint as they are the models that use green targeting data.  A kind of underlining that the Ruffian merchant navy only operates at the whim and discretion of Kyiv.  It's a good job that Aksyonov, the puppet governor of Krim, is already going bald, or he'd be tearing his thatch out by the roots.  Art!

     Also, one of the Tweeters on 'Chuck Pfarrer's Twitter thread hit the nail on the head.

pitchford@aol.com

@anneepitchford

I am laughing my Azov.

1:48 PM · Jul 7, 2026

·

117

Views

Another What On Earth? Moment

This one came up in the primary news feed, not as an Item along the sidebars amongst other nonsensical articles, meaning that the system thinks it's positively mainstream.  Right?  Art!

     Wow!  I never knew my life was suffering from an absence of 3-pole circuit breakers, and most especially ones from Schneider!  How could I have been so blind!

     No, that's irony.  Conrad can live perfectly well without Schneider 3-Pole circuit breakers.  Just to be clear.

Treating Them Gingerly

Conrad has recently, in a fit of frothiness, decided to make a quart of ginger beer, for the first time ever.  The recipe required a couple of pints of water, brown sugar, lemon juice and six ounces of grated ginger, which makes the basic ginger drink; then one adds one-eighth of a teaspoon of yeast to ferment the sugar and leave fr a couple of days to develop.  Art!

     I have found that, once you crack the cap seal to let excess gas out, all the CO₂ in solution suddenly froths up, making for a brief experience unless you want a bath in ginger beer.  Conrad needs to taste and see what it's like BUT only a shot glass, for it now has alcohol content and I've no idea how strong or weak it may be.

Finally - 

Going out with a Biercism

"Battle,n: A method of untying with the teeth a political knot that would not yield to the tongue."

Ded Zeppelin

You KNEW That Pun Was Going To Emerge At Some Point

Now it has, so we can all be happy.  For Lo! we are back on the subject of Teuton zeppelins in the First Unpleasantness, which we left only half-finished at our last visit.  First of all, we are going to go off at a partial tangent, thanks to the need to create clickbait interest.  Art!

     The band themselves are featured, being the three sitting down and the one to starboard, the art director having superimposed their faces upon a real WW1 photograph of a Teuton fighter 'Jasta'.  The Zeppelin is more an absence than a presence here.

     Okay, back to the real thing.  I am drawing upon Wiki, Indi Neidell of 'The Great War' and Ian Stewart's 'Zeppelins, Gothas and Giants' website.

     1916 had been the high-water mark of the zeppelin raids upon This Sceptred Isle, forcing the government to get their act together with an accumulation of anti-aircraft guns, searchlights, telephone networks, radio eavesdropping and dedicated night-fighter squadrons.  Art!

     One of 306 bombing raids carried out over Great Britain and the North Sea, where the zeppelins were used as long range scouts, mine-spotters and to generally try to challenge the Royal Navy's own personal backwater.  Art!

One of 971 sojourns

     One of the vagaries of a rigid dirigible airship such as the zeppelin was it's vulnerability to weather, since it had such a vast surface area for winds to act upon.  Not only that, their captains were always trying to hit ever-higher altitudes to keep out of gun range or scout interceptors, which, joined with trying to make headway against strong winds, tended to cause engine failure.  One engine down of six might be sustainable, but not more than that; the zeppelins tried to bomb during night time to make their job easier and that of the British much harder, and losing more than one engine would slow the gas bag sufficiently that it would not be able to get away before dawn.  Art!

Count Orlok feels your pain, zep

     As previously mentioned, the British came up with increasingly horrid types of bullets for use against the giant gasbags, ending with 'Buckingham' incendiary ammunition, which had a phosphorous core that burned at over 800º C.  Anormal machine gun bullet would merely pierce one of the hydrogen cells if it hit, but a Buckingham would ignite the hydrogen and send the zeppelin down in flames.  This took a great deal of the fun out of being a Teuton zeppelin crewman, who might have to make the judgement of whether to burn or jump.  Ded zeppelin indeed.  

     Let us take a closer look at the zeppelin activity o'er Perfidious Albion in 1917.  Art!

     On 16/17th March 5 zeppelins attempted to carry out bombing raids in the south and south east of England, but struggled against strong winds and heavy cloud cover, causing very little damage.  One of the five was forced by weather over French territory near Compiegne, and was shelled by three anti-aircraft batteries until it crashed in flames, all the crew being killed.  Art!

     On the night of 23/24th May, six zeppelins came to attack London but thanks to high winds at altitude, were forced to bomb random targets across the south east, once again causing very little damage - there is much talk of 'broken windows' and 'bombs exploded in a field'.  The poor visibility that shielded them from the scrambled night fighters of the Royal Flying Corps and Royal Naval Air Service also prevented them from bombing with any accuracy at all.

     They were back in June, on the night of 16/17th, where of 6 gasbags, only two managed to reach England, again prevented from progress thanks to the weather.  Not only that, L48 was shot down.  She had struggled with engine problems and a frozen compass all night, meaning the British night fighters were able to catch up with her and shoot her down in flames.  Art!

Amazingly, 3 of the crew survived

     The zeppelin's swan-song in 1917 was another damp squib of a mission, where 5 of the 11 despatched had to turn back and return to Germany.  The remaining 6 wildly mis-identified the towns and harbours they attacked, and tended to immediately turn and run for cloud cover as soon as British anti-aircraft guns opened fire.

     In fact during 1917 the Teutons had turned to their very large 'Gotha' bomber as a far cheaper and less flammable substitute for the zeppelin, which was able to bomb in daylight with little fear of interception.  A Gotha cost about $15,000, whereas the cheapest Teuton zeppelin, the L1 model, cost £300,000, and the very latest model, the LZ53, cost £890,000.  Thus, a swarm of thirty Gothas could reliably get to London and bomb it in daylight, meaning they could accurately spot targets.

     Which is another story for a different kitchen.

GOLMAN IS ANGRY!

Allow me to elucidate.  'Golman' is one of the Ruffian milbloggers and extreme nationalists who don't think Putinpot has gone far enough in waging war against Ukraine.  He broadcasts short, angry videos about how the authorities aren't even approaching basic competence, and is very, very sweary about it.  Art!

     This is unusually abstemious for him, usually there's a lot more four-letter words included.  He was fulminating on 5th July about the Omsk refinery, the biggest one in the whole of Mordorvia.  Art!

     Yes, this is the Omsk refinery, 2.5 thousand kilometres from Ukraine, hit by as many as 12 drones because, after all, what could possibly go wrong?  I fear tomorrow's obituaries in the Ruffian media will feature a middle-aged man with a large beard, who died from a rage-induced stroke after punching a hole in his laptop monitor.  Art!

     That most Ruffian of tropes, memes and behaviours, The Endless Petrol Queue, has now arrived in Omsk, where the locals are desperate to adopt this latest fashion imported from western Mordorvia.  Don't get the impression that this will lead to bonding between Benzin beasts; quite the opposite.  Art!

     Words were exchanged, a milkshake was thrown, a mess was made and a windscreen was smashed in.  All free entertainment.  Bring your own popcorn*.

No Small Feat

You ought to recall that we here at BOOJUM! are always, always, always seeking to traduce and mock Mopey Dick The Orange Land Whale, and let's face it, he's always been low-hanging fruit.  In fact, here's another hideous photo of his sagging sepia sackbut scr - O no, sorry, it's his face.  Art!

     The lights are on yet there's nobody home.  That embroidered name patch is to remind him what his name is.

     ANYWAY the person who makes Donold look healthy by comparison is the ex-Majority Leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell.  He is at least 189 years old and looks older, and had the misfortune to undergo a mental 'freeze' in front of cameras a couple of years ago, which nobody has allowed him to forget, least of all us tasteless termagants at the blog.  Art!

     The reason folks dislike Macca is because he refused to move forward with impeaching DJ Tango on the second occurrence, which would have saved everyone a whole lot of bother.

     Macca has been missing in action for days now, with EMTs called to his residence to deal with an unconscious person, meaning - 

     Well, a few cynics amongst South Canadian political observers reckon the Wizard Lizard Gizzard party will try and pretend he's fine for as long as possible, to avoid having to run an election to fill the empty seat.  'Weekend At Bernie's' kind of vibe.

A Leading Question

Conrad is unsure for whom the recently released 'Supergirl' film was made, as it certainly wasn't him and he has no plans to ever watch it.  I have high hopes for the 'Rogue Trooper' animated film in the offing that a couple of verrrry picky film critics have given a definite thumbs up.  But 'Supergirl'?  No thanks.  Art!

     Er - make better films?  Just a wild thought from outside the box.  You know, a good script, a good director and a few good actors.  How hard can it be?  Take 'Godzilla Year One' or 'Backrooms' as examples.

Finally -

The ginger beer is now frothing slightly and producing it's own carbonation.  Just so you know.

*  And possibly a gun, as has already happened.