A Report - About Sport

Do Not Panic, Gentle Reader!
Your Humble Scribe has not been substituted by some sinister shapeshifting alien typist.  If you have read BOOJUM! for any length of time then you know Conrad has Absolutely No Interest in sport of any description, thinks the Carabao Cup is something to do with drinking chocolate, and has taken 51 years to learn what the offside rule is.
     However -
     - I am as thoroughly unpleasant as you can imagine, and derive immense amusement from reading the screeching diatribes hammered out by ballfoot game fans on the BBC's Have Your Say sections of their website.

Like having a refreshing bathe in a river of poisons

     And I do really mean "hammered".  Some of these people are so angry they must need a new laptop the next day.  
     I am gleeful because <checks headline> "Arsenal beat -" <checks again> " - beat Newcastle to move above -" <continues checking as none of this makes any sense to him> " - above Spurs and Man Utd into third."

Ha!  Take that, you Spurs!

     Does that mean anything to you?  Anyway, the critical thing is that there are already over 250 comments, or 25 pages of bilious ranting and tanting, for Conrad to chortle his way through.  You find, I have found, that people being sporting and actually complimenting the other side are exceptionally rare.
     Perfectly delicious stuff!*
     At this point we will send the motley down the stairs backward on it's stomach, propelled on a tea-tray.

There Is More
And we have to touch on Barcelona again.  More specifically, the 1992 Olympic Stadium, past which we whizzed on our Ho-Ho bus tour.  Conrad didn't bother even lifting his phone to take a photo, he was that un-enthused.
     Of course, this meant I didn't get to take a photograph of what I can only describe as the "Montjuic Space Needle", which Art will now illustrate.   Art?

The aliens have landed!**

     This is actually a broadcasting tower, used to send out televisual images from the 1992 Ol wre r
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     Oh!  Sorry, I dozed off from boredom.  Yeah, a broadcasting tower, known as the Torre Calatrava, after the designer.  It's supposed to be something to do with an <pinches self REALLY HARD to stop falling asleep> athlete bearing a torch.  Looks more like a prototype FTL starship about to launch.
     You may not know anything about art, yet you have to admit it looks pretty spectacular, in a good way.

Did I Mention A River Of Poisons?
I did, that was merely a rhetorical question.  Well, never mind a natural confluence of lethal liquids moving along a bed established via erosion over time (a.k.a. a river), how about a FOUNTAIN OF POISON!  Art?
    

"Mercure" - this would cure all your worldly ills for certain!

     We have mentioned this particular - ah - "installation" - before.  It's a mobile sculpture that uses mercury as the fluid component, rather than boring old fuddy-duddy water.  Mercury being both incredibly toxic and yet attractive to small children (and adults who ought to know better), the whole thing is hermetically sealed off behind thick plastic screens.
     Verrrrry cool to see it in action, even though it has only faint association with Ol' Jo. 

  

"Lovers playing with an almond blossom"

If you say so, Jo.  A huge resin sculpture, both these amorous types are bigger than Conrad, who is no mere stripling.                                                                            

      There we have today's allocation of Barcelonan art.  I hope you're not bored, as there's  LOTS more to come.  By the time BOOJUM! is finished with this topic you'll either be desperate to visit the city or so jaded that you'll feel you've already spent weeks there.*** And no, the Catalan Tourist Board is not paying me anything.

 

 

Back To A More Parochial Visit

The Staffordshire Regimental Museum, of  course!  Don't cry, it doesn't become you.  Besides, I've nearly exhausted the supply of photographs that I took, so there is relief in prospect.

 

 

     That top picture is about the amalgamation of the North and South Staffs into the single Staffordshire Regiment, which is now the Mercian Regiment.  It doesn't do to mourn the passing of a regiment in the British Army, which has been amalgamating regiments since the year dot, as politicians and bean counters and accountants variously dispose.
     I would like to call your attention to what looks like a 21st Century sundial, left of centre in the big photo and with an enlargement all of it's own, slightly blurred by Conrad's shaky paws.  Art?

A sundial.  Of little use in the Pond of Eden, I fear.

     In fact, "sundial" is pretty close to the truth.  It's actually a sun compass, for the purpose of discerning where you are and where you're going.  I can tell in advance what your objection is going to be -
     "But Conrad, why would a functionally-equipped 21st Century army use a primitive sundial when they could be using real compasses?"

A compass.  Just so we're clear.

     Metal, is the answer.  A compass, being magnetic, will react to being sat in a vehicle that mostly consists of steel.  Art?

Like one of these
(ignore the lions!  ignore the lions!)

     Ralph Bagnold, desert navigation pioneer and influencer of NASA's planned exploration of Mars (seriously!), came up with the sun compass, which is entirely unaffected by magnetism.  Art?

1942 vintage in action

     You could use a normal compass for desert navigation but you'd need to get out of your vehicle and walk a very long way off to ensure  there was no external magnetic influence, which is highly inconvenient, not to mention time-consuming, and it makes you vulnerable.  Plus you'd probably need a buddy to go with you whilst your eyes and attention were focussed on the dial -
     So - the sun compass!
A Ship's Compass
As one thing leads inevitably to another, I am minded of a quote from Biggles, about taking apart a ship's compass.  He cautions Ginger: "Compasses are tricky things.  I once took one apart and had enough pieces left over, when I put it back together, to make two wireless sets and a gramophone player." Art?
       
                                    
                                               I need not point out which is which, need I?
     Conrad is not sure how a ship's compass avoids that magnetic deviation, since the bigger kind of ships are, once again, all metal.  Food for thought.  We may come back to this.

     BANDITS AT ANGELS ONE-FIVE OVER BEACHY HEAD!  DO YOU SEE THEM, HUNTER LEADER!

     Oops. Time, I think, to depart! 


*  Also calorie-free, vegan, sustainable and cures male-pattern baldness.
**  Don't worry, when my compatriots do land there won't be ANY doubt about it.
***  Good?  bad?  Only you can tell Of course it's good, it was MY idea!

The Birthday Of The R.A.F.

For Lo! It Is April 1st
Herein you are going to get some history, matey, despite me being only just risen from my bed of sickness.  During the First Unpleasantness, the brylcreem boys who went aloft in string-and-fabric aircraft on behalf of His Majesty King George V belonged to one of two camps:  1) the Royal Flying Corps, and 2) the Royal Naval Air Service.  Art?

Being all photographcal and analytical trope.

     That's an RE8 (or "Harry Tate"), mate. 
     These two branches were combined together on April 1st 1918, a date which has never failed to amuse other branches of the services, and one wonders at The Powers That Be picking such an unauspicious date.  Perhaps they have hidden depths that include a sense of humour?*
     The RNAS tends to get a lot less attention than the RFC or the RAF, possibly because people find the concept of an air-force belonging to a navy a bit of a stretch.  Not a bit of it!  For your information, the RNAS fielded armoured cars during the retreat from Antwerp, and were the first to use aircraft launched from ships.  Barnes Wallis?  RNAS chap.  Ivor Novello?  RNAS, too.  And <mumbling a bit> Erskine Childers, though we won't go into his background very much.

Both Naval and Air simultaneously.

Okay, that's enough for this Intro, all that remains is for us to dangle the motley over the Sarlacc pit on a bungee cord!                                                                                         

 

More Miro                                                                                                                      

Don't complain, if Darling Daughter and I took the time and trouble to view art, and take photographs, and annotate their titles, then you can damn well sit down and pay             attention.   Besides which, I am ill and demand some sympathy.                                                                                                                                                          

 

     This is colourful and interesting, isn't it?  Guess what it's called - go on, guess.  GUESS NOW!  GUESS!
     Wrong.  "Man and woman in front of a pile of excrement".  I can't see it myself, but Ol' Jo is the one who painted it, so he should know.

 

     You'll never get this one's title, so I'll tell you: "Woman".  Apparently women are reducible to something you can stand on to reach the very top shelf, or to conceal gold bullion.  Or something.

There was a title on a plaque, weathered into illegibility

 

     Here you see a vista of Barcelona to the north-east from Montjuic Park, and a sample of the glorious sunny summery weather, which the locals felt was uncommonly chilly and wintery.  Ha!  Come live in Gomorrah-on-the-Irwell for a week, chaps, then you'll understand chilly and wintery (said Conrad, looking out from the upper storeys of the Dark Tower at a grim grey sky sitting menacingly o'er the landscape).

 

 

"Tapestry of the Fundacio" with puny human for scale

 

     This thing is a monster, thirty feet tall and fifteen wide, and it needs large numbers of hooks to suspend it from a huge wooden beam.  If it fell on you, you'd suffocate.  As to what it is - er - representing? - probably something with birds and women.  Ol' Jo liked them as subjects.
    
     Enough of art and Barcelona!  <code for I only loaded these images onto the blog page before leaving home so cannot add any more> - let me go and clean my glasses, for they are disgustingly grubby.  Either that or my illness is causing me to see spots before my eyes.  Did I mention I was ill? 

How Do They -
Manage to create a symmetrical, smooth-faced block of masonry that fits perfectly into a wall, from a giant boulder?
     You know Your Humble Scribe - ever inquisitive (okay, okay - nosy.  There.  happy now?).  Art?

This kind of thing

     The answer is elegantly simple: hammer and chisels, plus lots of patience and a strong arm.  You also need a straight metal edge to judge when you've gotten it right.  The technique involves roughly shaping a quarried rock with various large chisels, until it reaches the approximate dimensions needed, whereupon the mason uses smaller, finer chisels, ending up by rubbing the whole thing down with sandpaper to get an extra-smooth finish.                                                        Before                                                            After      <insert dubious joke about being or getting stoned>
Your Humble Scribe Pushing The Envelope
I shall not deign to inform you of the name of my current Enormous, Anonymous Employer, merely to confirm that it's not the Co-Op any longer.  Also, Conrad is careful never to traduce his workplace or colleagues, for Lo!  There are people out there employed by the EAE whose sole job is to trawl social media for those indiscreet enough to blather on negatively.  Who then get fired.
        
        
                                   One of these pushed envelopes contains a P45!**                            
    
     What I mean to say is that, this Friday, I shall be forsaking the office and instead set off for the Babylon-Lite's establishment of the EAE, where I shall be work-shadowing a manager.
     The only downside to this is that I have to wear formal clothing - trouser, shirt, tie and black shoes, too.  Your Humble Scribe is normally a colossal scruff, so - more pushing the envelope!
     Hopefully I shall have recovered from my illness by then.

A shop.  Just so we're clear.

    
A Calabash In The Wabash
I do apologise for this, one of those words that popped into my brain again for no reason.  I was walking past Sophie's desk and saw her wicker bag lying on her desk and -
     "What is a calabash?" bobbed to the surface of my consciousness.  Art?

This is.

     You might call these versatile vegetable vine fruit, though 'calabash' is shorter and more convenient.  When they are young you can consume them as a vegetable, so they get eaten.  When they are mature they can be hollowed out - if the fancy takes you, then you might hit them with a stick to generate a rhythm, so they get beaten.
     Or you can cruelly split them open and use them as containers.  Art?

Thus

      I know what you're thinking - "Where does the Wabash come into it?"
     Wellllllll if someone owned a set of calabash bowls and was transporting them across the Wabash via bridge, storing them on top of their car, and hit a pothole, why, some calabashes might fall into the river.

The Wabash River.

     Imagine if they were in a head-on collision! "Calabash in Wabash due to Car Crash following a dash" might be the headline.


     And on that note - we are gone.  Ta ta!
*  Very, very doubtful.

**  Getting one of these in the post means - You've Been Fired!