You Would No Doubt Immediately Picture -
A load of scruffy oiks wearing grubby denims festooned with Iron Crosses, Satan and embroidered 'I Love Mom' patches. All driving Harleys, to the heightened blood pressure of Col whom in
ANYWAY that's not what I'm referring to here. O noes. You see, way back almost one hundred years ago - hmmm that makes the last century seem reallllly distant* - there was a film called 'Hell's Angels' made from 1928 to 1930 by Howard Hughes, who really, really pulled out all the stops to make it realistic. Art!
Wowser, it's available for free, but is also two hours long. Four people died during the filming, and Hughes himself was badly injured doing one of the aerial stunts. Reading the screen synopsis reveals a bleak ending. Incidentally the breakout film for Jean Harlow, whom was featured prominently on the film posters - Art!
Calling Mr. Freud, do you have a moment?
ANYWAY the film depicts 'The Gasbag Strikes At Night!' as an intruding zeppelin raider lowers an 'observation car' below the belly of the beast, in order to for it to descend below the cloud layer and direct bombs accurately. Art!
Unluckily for the Teutons, the dashing chaps of the Royal Flying Corps have been scrambled and they spot the gasbag in the distance, overhead. This is bad for the zeppelin, as it's subject to wind and needs to get away before being intercepted. Art!
As I mentioned yesteryon, a zeppelin had to descend to relatively low level in order to bomb accurately, and this one has been caught with it's pants down. The Kapitan realises this and - Art!
No, the Teutons don't talk with a thick British accent, they speak in Teuton. Despite flogging the engines, the gasbag ain't making enough speed. You have probably joined the dots by now, but allow me to confirm your suspicions as to why I included the observation car first thing. Art!
As it would take seven minutes to haul the car back up, one pair of bolt-cutters later - Art!
Karl's Kar Kaput
It's quite dubious as to whether this was ever done in real life, but it makes an excellent depiction of how utterly Hunnish the beastly Teuton bounders were.
Incidentally, there was never a lack of volunteers for 'Spahgondel' duty, as it was the one place for a zeppelin crew where they could smoke without risk of punishment or explosion.
Now, we move back to 'Charley's War', where our protagonist, Charley - not very bright but brave and loyal - is home on leave after getting a Blighty wound. He lives near the Silvertown ammunition factory, and guess what? Art!
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| WASH OUT YOUR FILTHY MINDS! |
Sorry for the blurry illo; I wanted to put up Joe's depiction of a Teuton naval officer acting as a zeppelin commander, and the brace of zeps being walked out of a hangar, for they did not cope very well with bad weather on the ground. Nor attacks by the Royal Naval Air Service. Art!
The gasbag in this instance is attacking towards the end of 1916, when the defenders of Perfidious Albion had organised their anti-aircraft defences instead of relying on impromptu make-do. The Royal Naval officer here is telephoning contact details to various anti-aircraft gun detachments at different locations around London. Art!
Allow me to add in Pat's dialogue: "Achtung! We are under attack! Release ballast!" and in the next panel "We must gain more height! Cut the observation car loose!"
"But the observer is still inside, Herr Kapitan!"
"The safety of my ship must come first! Cut the cable! That is an order!"
The observer, of course - obviously! - can hear this conversation via the telephone his car is equipped with. So as he falls from 20,000 feet he knows exactly what happened.
I checked Pat's notes for these panels and not once does he mention 'Hell's Angels'. Tut tut, Pat, tut tut!
Moving seamlessly from fiction to real life, the 'L59' zeppelin was sent from Yambol in Bulgaria on an epic mission to Africa in late 1917. Art!
General Paul Von Lettow-Vorbeck, bane of the British and Allies in Teuton East Africa, who fought a sideshow of a sideshow and was able to outwit far larger Allied forces by being mobile and stealing native food. The idea was for L59 to make a one-way journey to East Africa, carrying 15 tons of medicine, gold, ammunition and food supplies. It would deliberately ditch on landing, being recycled for the troops PVLV led, using it's fabric, steel and rubber.
Alas for the romantics out there, it had to abort the mission when the Allies over-ran the flat savannah that the L59 needed to land upon, as zeppelins were ill-suited to fly amongst mountains, let alone land in them. Art!
Despite all that I think we might be able to squeeze another Intro from the zeppelin stable. At least you now know why I attribute Mopey Dick The Orange Land Whale with a zeppelin ego - huge but fragile.
Let's Be Jolly With A Famine Folly
This is the second such on the Conolly's Castletown House estate, and whereas the entrance folly to their estate looks like an over-elaborate entrance, because it is, this one is - well, see for yourself. Art!
It has the nickname of 'The Wonderful Barn', and is distinguished by being a combination of stone amusement ride and storehouse, for reasons that escape everyone associated with it. Built in 1743 in the aftermath of the first great famine, that the indigent poor could earn a few groats to get gruel with.
Krim Krim Kerflee
You can rely on Peter The Average to act as a reverse-barometer of whatever's going on, off, down or pear-shaped in Mordorvia, because he completely ignores it. That's when you know it's bad. As proof that it's even worse than realised, only believe that a disaster is taking place when Peskov officially denies it. Art!
You may have trouble resolving those figures, so allow me to put up a close-up for it. Art!
That's how many trucks and tankers were destroyed across the occupied territories and Ruffia ON MONDAY ALONE, about 50% higher than average. The orcs are now trying to escort trucks and tankers with armed vehicles, which seems to have only increased the number of losses. Art!
The euphemism for this is 'A target-rich environment', as there are three tankers and two military trucks in this convoy, making it much, much more apparent to roving Ukrainian drones. Art!
Ooops. Someone's going to be volunteering for a storm unit any minute now.
How fraught the situation is now has percolated into the collective crania of the orcs in Krim, who are experiencing buyer's regret. Art!
Of course Putinpot is silent. By staying silent and hidden in his underground bunker, he tries to avoid being associated with bad news. Unfortunately for him - Art!
The Kozaky hit the Kerch thermal power plant on Tuesday, meaning half of Krim is now without power. You can add another absence to your list of travails, madame. By now there are over 1,000 cars in a colossal queue waiting to cross the Kerch Bridge and get the Dog Buns out of Krim. There is no queue to get in.
I DO NOT CARE
Let me get that in first. Art!
Are Iceland in there this year? Or - was that the Europa And The Pirate Twins ballfoot event? Answers in the Comments, please.
You're Welcome
BOOJUM! working to kill clickbait one excrescence at a time. Art!
Finally -
Early finish! as I get to use up my TOIL at the end of the day - surely yet another indication that upper management has changed.
* Because it is.
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