Nine Is Fine

I Am Returning To A Theme

Those of you with memories will recall that I mentioned, in passing, 'The Whole Nine Yards' as an expression, hinting that there was more to it than a mere catchphrase meaning 'Absolutely Everything All At Once'.  Art!

Neither of them, sadly, with us any longer

     A hitman in suburbia sums it up.  The phrase came into existence in South Canada in the Sixties, so drugs were probably involved yet nobody has been able to explain exactly what it means or where it comes from.  There have been various cod rationalisations: it's the length of the ammunition belt used in a Spitfire, or a Vickers gun; it's how long a hangman's noose is; it's the cubic yards of how much a cement truck carries; it's how long a nun's habit was.

     NO!  For one thing, the Spitfire and Vickers were quintessentially British, not West Coast hippy culture, and th

Vickers with muzzle-booster, clinometer, water tin and ammo box

     ANYWAY I had recourse, of course - obviously! - to my 'Brewer's Dictionary Of Phrase And Fable' for the above.  I may need to look into getting a new edition, mine has now lost the dustcover and the spine is broken, the whole being held together with parcel tape.  Maybe a birthday present to me?

     ANYWAY AGAIN, I checked out 'Nine' in BDOPAF, and - wow, paydirt, as the South Canadians say.  Hence this Intro.  They begin with a description of Three and Five in addition to Nine, because all three are deemed to be 'Mystical' numbers.  Nine is deemed to be mystical because it represents a trinity of Trinities.  Art!

     Don't mock.  For centuries not bearing fealty to the above would lead to a drastically shortened life-span.

     Nine shows up in a lot of other places, such as the Pythagorean concept that Man - none of this PC drivel in the fifth century BC - was composed of eight grace notes, with deity being the last addition, thus achieving - you may be ahead of me here - nine.  Art!

     No, this is NOT Noah's ark, it's the Greek mythos that predated him: what you see here is Deucalion's Ark, or more correctly, Deucalion's Very Large Wooden Chest, where he and his wife took refuge when Zeus decided to create a Deluge.  It's mentioned here as the VLWC floated and bobbed around for nine days before landing on Mount Parnassus.  Conrad The Hateful Horrid Cynic wonders how they coped for fresh water or sanitary arrangements?

     ANYWAY ANYWAY in keeping with the Hellenic slant, let us look at the Muses.  It's alleged in BDOPAF that there are nine of them, yet Conrad distinctly remembers that their number was a moveable feast, depending on where in history you tried to define them.  Here they are, described:

Calliope (epic poetry), Clio (history), Erato (love poetry), Euterpe (music), Melpomene (tragedy), Polyhymnia (sacred poetry), Terpsichore (dance), Thalia (comedy), and Urania (astronomy)

     Conrad thinks they're reaching with 3 different types of poetry.  Nice to see that Comedy is on a par with Astronomy, though.  I bet Melpomene didn't get invited to many parties.  Art!

Melly

     Look what they did to poor Calliope.  Art!

Cruel

  
     Then we have the hydrogeology of Hades, which is open to interpretation, since nobody who has gone to chart the infernal regions has ever returned.  There might be nine rivers in Hell, which is a little hard to believe given the elevated temperatures in said location.  Or, assert other cartographers, the River Styx sinuously surrounds Hell in nine circles.  Whichever is true, Conrad has to believe that they use closed-circuit pumping to maintain water levels when the ambient temperature is 'Soul-Roasting', otherwise Gas Mark 7.  Art!

     The outlay of Hades.  More complicated than I suspected.  It may mirror the wildly-variegated geopolitical outlay of Greece at the time, which sounds like someone's graduate theses and no, we're not heading down that particular rabbit-hole today.

     Holding with the classical theme, but moving onto the Romans, we have their god of Fire, Volcanoes, Metalworking and the Forge: Vulcan.  Art!

ART!

     Hmmmm actually I'll let that stand, as Mister Spock's home-world of Vulcan is a hellish desert closely resembling Hades. 

     ANOTHER AGAIN my BDOPAP mentions that when the god Vulcan was thrown out of Olympus, it took him nine days to fall to Earth, emphasising that Olympus was located beyond the orbit of the Moon.  The reasons for this casting out are, variously: Juno, his mother, was disgusted by his ugliness and threw him out, or that Zeus, his father, was so enraged by Vully defending his mother in an argument between the two parents that he threw him out.

     What a pair of miscreants!  A call to Child Protective Services is clearly called for.  Art!

"By Grabthor's Hammer!"*

     Just to warn you, we may come back to that map of Hades.

Number Five Is Not Alive

We are referring to the film 'Gotti' which is another in the 'Rotten Tomatoes' 0% scorer list. coming in at Number Five.  Art!

     One unkind critic claimed they'd rather wake up in bed with a severed horse's head than watch this film again, which is not exactly damning with faint praise.  Art!

     So under the inexorable 50% Return To The Studio Rule, it made $3.2 million on a $10 million budget, so definitely underwhelming.

A Little Domestic Dalliance

Hmmmm looking out at a cloudless blue sky, which is where we came in at 07:45 this morning.  On a horrid 9-hour schedule today, I kept myself going with the prospect of walking down to Lesser Sodom and getting more bottles of 'Ginger Shot', only for the storm clouds to roll in and begin a desultory rain.  

     Thank you, weather.  Art!

     Mocking ultramarine vistas.  

When The Grift Goes Adrift

As you should surely know by now, Donold Judas Trump is a verrrry stupid man, barely able to string a sentence together before passing out in front of the camera, and he is very much the tool of the cogent people around him.

      Who are not, by any stretch of the imagination, clever people either.  Art!

     Either Don Junior or Eric 'The Paintlicker' suggested to their fat saggy dad that thousands of people would be willing to part with $5 million for a Gold Plated Visa Option, and that it ought to be floated as an 'alternative political application stream', also known in plain English as 'a bribe'.  Sadly not.  Now they only have $1.666 million to split between themselves.  If the 'Daily Star', a yellow rag that defines yellow rags, is taking cheap shots at you, things are not going well.

Yes, I Thought So!

Conrad has been regaling you with his thoughts on James Holland's 'Cassino '44' of late, now that I've finished it, and I am going to be saying long strong words about staff work in the New Zealand Corps.  Before actually setting down to commit to a critique, I rather wondered where I'd read about poor staff work in this scenario before.  Art!

     With a bit of Google-fu, I was able to determine that, yes, Fred had been extremely critical of the staff work for the Cassino campaign, detailing failings that I have long forgotten, as I read his work decades ago.  Conrad is not going to detail what staff work is here, as it will feature in a dedicated Item to be forthcoming.  I bet you can hardly wait.

     Hmmmm then there is Professor Peter Caddick-Adams '10 Armies In Hell' which is a relatively recent purchase, about the Cassino campaign as well and I wonder - does it mention the quality of staff work?

Finally -

Another one from our compatriot Ambrose, whose prose makes wormwood taste like honey.

"Year, n: A period of three-hundred and sixty-five disappointments."

     He's not wrong!

*  If you know, you know.