If I Were To Say 'P.D.C.'
You might think I was referring to one of the in-story acronyms that James A. Corey had dreamed up for a particular weapons system - the 'Point Defence Cannon', which is a swivel-mounted ultra-rapid fire 20 mm cannon, slaved to radar that allows it to track incoming missiles and engage at relatively short range - the point defence of it's title. Art!
These things are essential to deal with any missiles that get past your interceptor missiles.
ANYWAY no, today's Intro has nothing to do with light torpedo bombers or enmity 'twixt Earth, Mars and Belters, and rather more to do with what I shall call 'molasses', since we're dealing with South Canada not This Sceptred Isle.
This is another story I picked up from 'Be Amazed', and I've had to correct a few errors that crept into the 'When Engineers Get It Incredibly Wrong' montage, because Conrad likes to do a bit of digging. Art!
That, gentle reader, is a molasses tanker, for indeed there were such things. Molasses, for your information, are one of the by-products of sugarcane refining, and were used by South Canadians up to the end of the First Unpleasantness in preference to the much more expensive refined white sugar. Art!
Their other major use was being fermented to create ethanol, which was produced on an industrial scale, especially during the First Unpleasantness, where they were used to produce explosives. Not so sweet, hmmm?
Enter the 'Purity Distilling Company', who constructed a distilling plant in Boston, which was supplied by molasses piped from a huge storage tank at the harbourside, constructed in 1915. Ships like the one above would dock and unload their molasses cargo directly into the storage tank. Art!
The distillery, courtesy BA The Commercial Street tank, again courtesy BA
The bit about 'engineers' getting it wrong is another misnomer, because the design and installation of the tank was carried out by the company's Treasurer, Arthur Gell, who had exactly 0% experience of engineering or construction. However - a word you surely knew was coming - he was a lot cheaper than hiring professionals who knew what they were doing, and he could be guaranteed to adhere to Management Principle Number One: Do it as cheaply as possible. He ignored evidence of strain to the structure, which was known to groan and creak when being loaded with molasses. Nor did he bother to fill the tank with water once completed to check for leaks. Art!
Meet Mister Ronald Mayville, senior engineer of contemporary engineering company Simpson, Gomperts and Heger. He did a critical study of the Commercial Street tank and found it to have been shoddily constructed, using only half the steel in the walls that ought to have been an absolute minimum. Many of the rivets used were defective, meaning that the tank leaked from day one. So much so that local children would gather round and make themselves sick by gorging on leaking molasses, whilst their parents would scrape it off to use as a sweetener.
Did P.D.C. try to remedy or mitigate this cowboy build? NO THEY DID NOT! Instead they painted the exterior of the tank with molasses-coloured paint, to disguise the leaks. Remember, Management Principle Number One.
You may guess where this is leading, that being nowhere nice, and you're entirely correct.
On the 15th of January 1919 the tank collapsed with an enormous roar, rivets being thrown around like bullets, and a tidal wave of molasses flooded the Boston harbourfront. Art!
Here is one of the most widely reproduced photos of the aftermath as cleaning up took place. Art!
The sad remnants of the Commercial Street tank. When it collapsed, it released 2 million gallons, or over thirteen thousand tons, of molasses, which had heated up within the tanks. The tidal wave was 25 feet high and travelled at 35 miles per hour. You may be smiling at the thought of a deluge of treacle; please don't, it killed 21 people and injured another 150. Once it had travelled and lost heat, it became increasingly viscous and impossible to escape from once trapped in it.
PDC immediately tried to wriggle out of being held responsible, claiming that anarchists had blown up the tank because - er - because - they were so anarchical and molasses was part of the military-industrial complex.
It took 6 years of investigation until they were found guilty and responsible, having to fork out $628,000 in damages ($11 million in today's money). Art!
What caused it? Well, thanks to Ronald Mayville we know that a fatigue crack in the metal next to a manhole cover promulgated suddenly and rapidly. The last load of molasses from Puerto Rico was delivered at 4ยบ C, considerably warmer than the ambient sub-zero temperature of Boston in winter, and it may well have caused a fermentation surge, causing the stress fracture mentioned above.
There was also the looming prospect of Prohibition on the horizon, which may well have impelled PDC to cut even more corners than usual, in order to get their product out before it got banned.
You now have a rather ghoulish counter to anyone using the phrase 'Slow as molasses'.
'Not Dead, Merely Sleeping'
This is a phrase you occasionally see on gravestones as an epitaph, taken from Luke 8:52, leading to all kinds of theological explanations, which we will instantly avoid. Instead, we move from the sublime to the grotesque. Art!
Note Rubio 'Sixty pieces of silver*' casting a discreet eye to his port, clearly aware that Donnie 'Nodfather' Dorko is no longer conscious. Smeggy Heggy, sitting alongside his bloated orange master, is looking determined to straight ahead.
Conrad, being ghoulish, rather wonders how they can tell when Don Snoreleone is actually dead, because his eyes are closed so often, and none of them dare shake him awake. Also, he constantly emits a foul odour, the souce of which we shall avoid even thinking about, so the question must be, how will they tell? Possibly when the flies arrive.
What Was I Thinking?
As you should surely know by now, Your Humble Scribe keeps a Word document open with interesting photographs and text extracts deposited there for later use. Problem is, thanks to old age and gin, I fail to annotate pictures about why I have them bookmarked. Thus - Art!
The Who, at the height of their powers and when Moon and Entwistle were still alive, so before 1978. If there was a legend with the photo I didn't copy it over. Interesting in it's own right. Hang on -
Ah! I did a bit of digging. Art!
We are all better-informed than we were five minutes ago, and you're welcome.
Here's Another One I Can Only Apologise For
Once again, this illo is a victim of Conrad getting a snip of the picture and not including the blurb below it on my news feed. Art!
If I recall despite gin and old age, the blurb was something along the lines of 'They didn't use it for long'. Well, if it was Factbytes getting it wrong again that wouldn't surprise me. This is the Roman 'Semovente L40 da 47' assault gun, and it was in use from 1942 to 1945. Technically and tactically it was to accompany the Bersaglieri in infantry assaults, providing mobile fire support with it's 47 mm gun. It was based on the hull of the L6 light tank, which was frankly outclassed by everything else on the battlefield. Art!
So they built 400 of the L40.47, making a quite decent assault gun from a pretty weedy AFV.
There, I think I've covered my bases well enough for one item.
Progress Report
Getting along with the Marvel metre-long jigsaw. Got nearly all of The Hulk in there. Art!
All those bits on the outside are bits that might belong to Hawkeye. We'll see.
Finally -
Forgot to mention that I'm going dry, potentially until September, with only my birthday the possible exception. Gallons of tea ahoy!
* He held out for twice what Judas got. What a negotiator!
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