In A Clamour About A Fanner

Don't Worry, It's Not Rude
For do we here at BOOJUM! not pride ourselves on being SFW?  Yes we do, in case you were wondering.  I know we had a female bottom here on one occasion, but it was a statue's behind, not a flesh-and-blood one.

Another variety of Bottom

     Where was I?  Oh yes, in the light and airy Upper Dungeon, cleaning up the cobwebs.  The travelling Ukranian band I imprisoned there a while back appear to have dug their way to freedom, meaning I've got a tunnel to fill -
     - no, sorry, being too literal there.  This particular title comes thanks to 'The Rockford Files' about which more later.  Our hero Jim teases his police friend about 'fanning' his pistol like Roy Rogers.  Art?

Roy and Trigger.  And some bird.

     Actually, Art, I wanted a picture of a pistol being fanned.  Try again.

There you go.

    This is where the trigger is not pulled and the heel of the free hand pulls the hammer back before releasing it, in a fanning motion.  A skilled guntoter can loose off rounds as rapidly as an automatic weapon, but is unlikely to hit anything further off than absolutely point-blank range.
    Which brings me back to one of my childhood toys: the Fanner 50.  Art?

My model: chamber closed

Chamber open

      As you can see, there is room for a roll of caps, which feed upwards onto a spurred wheel.  When you fanned the hammer, it advanced the wheel, and when you let the hammer go, BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!went the caps.  I bet my parents hated it.
     Note that you ABSOLUTELY COULD NOT do that today; it looks far too realistic and the noise would rapidly bring the nearest police firearms unit tootling up, bristling with real guns.
     Okay, time to see if the motley can outrun an ostrich.  An ostrich with poison glands in it's beak!*

Getting Grim With Good Old Jim
Jim Rockford, that is, he of "The Rockford Files'.  I am into Season 3 now, and last night Jim went off to interview a farmer working his farm.  Art?

Character actor chappy, can't remember his name

     It turns out that our stalwart farmer is also a bit of a nut about The Inevitable Nuclear Holocaust, and has built himself a fallout shelter at the back of the yard.  Art?

That's the entrance

     This turns out to have plot relevance, as the bad guys turn up, also wanting to have a pleasant little chinwag with the stalwart farmer, before they kill him.  Jim departs at speed, pointing the farmer at his bunker, which he pops into just ahead of the bad guys.
     Don't forget, this was at the height of the Cold War, when lots of people lived in existential angst about the end of the world.
     And it's also relevant because -

I Feel The Fangs Of The Coincidence Hydra In My Bottom, Again

For what did the mighty BBC website have as a leading article on their front page yesteryon? Let us prod Art into motion.  Art!

A little rough and ready one feels

      This is Bruce, who has built his own nuclear bunker system by converting and burying 42 school buses in the ground, and if we prod Art again -

     Conrad would have thought shipping containers would be better, but then what do I know about nuclear bunker design?**
     The local community are all probably laughing behind Bruce's back, not to his face, because - well, it is hugely unlikely that anyone's going to target nuclear missiles at British America - but you never know ...

"LUSTRATE", "VIZARD" And "GAINLIERS"
Don't worry, still not swearing or rude, although your humble scribe did say Dog Buns! once or twice.  Those above are answers to Tuesday's Codeword, and I've never encountered any of them before.  
     "Lustrate" means to purify by religious ceremony, and it was used all the time - in the Seventeenth Century.  Today?  Not at all.
     "Vizard" is a kind of disguise.
     "Gainlier" does not occur in my Collins dictionary.  By inference it means to be more able and better-balanced on your feet, though that's a guess.
      Who's compiling this stuff?  Doctor Morbius?

Dr. Edward Morbius, philologist, muses:
"Zymyurgy - yeah, that would work."

    

*  I breed these in my spare time
**  "An awful lot more than the rest of us sensible people" I hear you retort.

Your Curmudgeon Is Here

That's Me -
I'm the curmudgeon in question, and for those of you not familiar with Anglo-Saxon invective, a "curmudgeon" is "a cantankerous old white-haired git who splits hairs, drinks too much tea and insults everyone".
     "Have the elephant tranquilisers worn off already?" I hear you ask.  Well, yes, because to sedate Conrad you need Liopleurodon tranquilisers.  Art?

Ol' Lio is a pretty big beast

     HEY!  In an aside, Mars is at it's closest to Earth for the first time in 15 years, which means that SPECTRUM  and Captain Scarlet

     INFORMATION REDACTED INFORMATION REDACTED INFORMATION REDACTED

    ... Rock Snakes, a cannon firing depleted-uranium Californium-tipped rounds would serve as a sub - 

     - whoah, have you guys Redacted me again?  Look, the truth will out!

<mutters and decides to change the subject>

     Okay, okay, back on track.  "Curmudgeon" because I happen to remember how I felt before seeing "Incredibles 2", after the adverts had been playing.
     "What a load of pretentious, pompous twaddle," I recall.  "Puffing up a sound system and the cinema screen as if were able to boost your spaceship to faster than light speed and make you a cup of tea."

Tea, as it should be

     Looking back at my notes to see when I watched 'Deadpool 2', what do we find but - Art?

I like that amendment: "NOISY pretentious drivel"

     There you are - your humble scribe, consistent in his Frothing Nitric Ire, and also proof, if it were needed, of how awesome/sad I am in making notes about film trailers.
     Conrad: your Curmudgeon of choice.
     Now to see if the motley can escape from this horde of cannibal mutant oranges!*

"Plethora"
I used this word yesterday, and - being curious - wondered where it came from.  A guess before looking it up would have it's roots in either Latin or Greek, and - Greek.
     Just in case you were curious, it means "An awful lot" - no, that sounds like a collection of Abba fans, too ambiguous - "A lot".  There.  Now I'm happy.
  The root word is "Plethein", meaning "Be full", which evolved into the Latin "Plethore" and the word we all know and love** today, "Plethora".

Jenny.  Full of - mischief

More Of Cats
It is pretty much a given that cats have an unerring sense of knowing where they ought not to be, and then being there.  Jenny, above, is a case in point.  When your humble scribe is sitting scoffing buttered toast at the breakfast table, who will emerge from her cat-igloo and sneak onto said table?
     No!  Not a cannibal mutant orange.  Jenny.  She does what Darling Daughter described as her "Just a little bit closer to the bacon" approach, inching infinitesmally closer to my plate, until she gets picked up and dumped on the floor, mewling in disappointment.

Beware!  Bitey!

     Jenny also loves to get up close and personal when it's really not appropriate, as when I am twisting the tails of e-mails and performing on forms, when what I require is uninterrupted peace and quiet.  Art?

Unable to read or write but can fight with pen, and put dirty pawprints on notepad

      I'm not sure what she's thinking here - probably "What mischief can I make next?" because shortly afterwards this happened - Art?

Cannot type but will shed on your keyboard

     At this point I admitted defeat and relocated to the lounge and The Comfy Chair.
     Cats!

How Howlingly Ironic
Yesterday I inflated my traffic count by using a gratuitously click -baity title - "Tons of Sex" - which was actually about the Sexton self-propelled gun.  Do you see what I did there?***  I suppose I should prod Art awake with the electric fork -

A Sexton

     Then it occurred to me that Perfidious Albion's line of self-propelled guns of the Second Unpleasantness (and after) all had religious titles.  There was the Deacon -

Armoured truck chassis and 6 pounder anti-tank gun

     This was quite a capable beast, though not made in large numbers.  Then there was the Priest -

That beast the Priest

     So called because it seemed to have a 'pulpit'.  There was also the Bishop - Art?

Why a Bishop?  Who knows!

     Not terribly successful, it lasted until better kit arrived.  Elevation was a problem, as the gun could only be aimed to a certain height.     Lastly, we have the Abbot -

But, a Abbot

     As the title says, all the vehicles are named after men of the cloth, good Christian folk who would religiously follow the First Commandment, whereas all these bits of kit are designed and intended to BLOW SHIZZLE UP AND SCRAG PEOPLE.     Interesting, eh?
*  An idea I stole from Matt Howarth <snickers>
**  Poetic licence
***   Aren't I a stinker!