A Tangle Of Tangents

Which Is Pretty Much Business-As-Usual
You ought to know by now that Conrad has a mind which hops around like a particle affected by Brownian motion, as one thing begets another which has entirely no relation to the first, and then goes off at yet another tangent - 
     Take "Walsprot" for example.  Your Humble Scribe first came across the word in Erskine Childers "Riddle of the Sands", where it is used as an insult.  Art?

It has lots of boats

     I only just decided to look it up.  Or try to - it's not in either my Collins Concise nor Websters, and Googling fails to bring anything up.  Given that the novel is 113 years old, it may well be local slang that has fallen into disuse.  Still, if anyone calls you a walsprot in future, you now know enough to punch them.
     What I did find in my Webster's - which is a dangerous tome to pick up and riffle through due to Tangentialism* - was the definition of "Sub Fusc", which I have read a few times, frowned at, then moved on without checking upon.  Art?

Lord Pete in subfusc

     It means a set of dark clothing that Oxford students have to wear at ceremonies and exams, being dark bar a white shirt or blouse (since they permit ladies to study there now).  The origin of the term is, inevitably, Latin - "suffuscus", meaning "Dark brown".
     Anyway, what I wanted to begin with was an entry in the fascinating and enlightening "Forgotten Tanks And Guns Of the 20s, 30s and 40s" (hereafter FTAG because I'm too lazy to type that out umpteen times), and the "WLT".  Art?

WLT 1, with puny human for scale

     This dates from 1940, when Perfidious Albion was looking at amphibious tanks.  The monster above was expected to mass 235 tons, carry 11 troops and mount a 9.2" gun.  It's designer, Mr Cargin, saw it as a war-winning wonder weapon that would invade and overthrow the Third Reich and then transform peace-time transportation, with perhaps the ability to whip up a Martini and translate the works of Shakespeare into Dalek.
     The various departments of British authority that he sent daily letters to investigated his background and found he'd been busy doing nothing for the past 8 years, living off his wife's money.  In those days this was looked on as Not The Done Thing and the WTL project died right there.

"THE - QUALITY - OF - MERCY - IS - NOT - STRAINED - IT - IS- EXTERMINATED!"

     There's more on the subject of amphibious tanks types, which rest assured we will cover again.  In the meantime, can we have a picture of FTAG's cover?

Aptly titled

     Okay motley, will a light omelette with spring onion and mushrooms do you?  And yes, they are merely mushrooms, not poisonous toadstools.

Oh, Hello Coincidence Hydra
I have escaped having this beast's fangs in my nethers for a while of late, a run of good luck that wasn't going to last.
     Anyway, I was listening to the podcast "We Have Ways -" last night, and I have now gotten up to the end of July, so I have pulled back the delay a bit, though it has taken me over 2 hours to do so.
     Jim and Al have been asked what they would recommend in terms of books to do with the Second Unpleasantness, and I already have the works they recommend for the Allies.  When asked about those from the Axis perspective, they said there's not that much which is good rather than earnest.
     Then another recommendation comes in from a listener - "The Guns Of War" by George Blackburn, which I am currently reading, and have been informing you about for these few weeks.  Art?

As Jim says, it's a big old book

     I think now is the time to extract the Hydra's teeth from my rear.  Where are my pliers?

Those Wacky Ruffians!
By various tangential sources I came across a metal beast called the "Uran A9 UGV", where "Uran" is the Ruffian for "Uranus" (NO SNIGGERING AT THE BACK THERE!), the UGV stands for "Unmanned Ground Vehicle", and if Art will get down to work -

Uran in the field

     This thing looks impressive, mounting a 30 m.m. cannon and 12 anti-tank missiles, and it is remote-controlled by operators at a distance, with sensors and cameras.  The idea is that it can scout ahead of the infantry and provide information, or take on enemy infantry and armoured vehicles or softskins.
     The Ruffians decided to test this thing out in Syria, and - O dear.  A list of problems came up about Uran.  The remote control range is only about 400 yards, which is a bit short, and it kept losing the signal, at one point up to 90 minutes.  The suspension system was pretty rubbish, too, and needed repeated repairs in the field.  Nor could it fire on the move, needing to stop before being able to shoot folks.  Plus, the sensors were limited in range.

In the salesroom

     Now, the nasty-minded amongst you may be clutching your sides and laughing at the mobile metal junk deployed in combat, chortling at the <insert string of cliches about Ruffians here> the T14.
     Not so fast!  What the Ruffians have done is exactly what needed to be done - test this thing under ACTUAL COMBAT CONDITIONS, rather than on some test range where everything is perfectly arranged and completely predictable, and the makers can smugly record 99% scores.  So, given this experience, the Ruffians may upgrade Uran 9 to address these failures, or they may design a completely new vehicle, again, taking advantage of their real-world experience.

Tsar Putin is - ambivalent

Finally - 
After all that martial strife and struggle, let's have something a little lighter in tone.  And no, we shan't be going into the mysteries of LITHIUM WAFER BATTERY DESIGN!  It will be a dark day indeed when we descend to that.
     <thinks>  I'm tackling the past month's discarded calendar pages from the MENSA calendar that Wonder Wifey gifted me, and the word and letter ones are fairly easy for one of my undoubted wordy ability**.  The ones involving mathematics?  Conrad does not like.

Conrad shows his dislike of maths
( - and his love for sharks!)
( - and pens!)

*  I've just invented this word to the Spellchecker does not like it.  Tough, Spellchecker!
**  No false modesty here.

Bad Weather

Except Not The Way You Expect
Ha!  You were expecting this to be a ranting screed about the utterly dismal weather here in the Allotment of Eden, weren't you?
     You can't live in this country and not notice how dismal the weather can be, which is a great ice-breaker at parties, though it can get a bit wearisome (unless you're clever and witty and inventive like Conrad).  However, the bad weather I'm talking about comes in the shape of -

     - the Hawker Typhoon, a brutish thug of an aircraft as used by the RAF during the Second Unpleasantness, which you see here bristling with 20 m.m. cannon and which usually mounted eight 80 pound HE rockets as well.
     For Lo! We are back to "The Guns Of War" by George Blackburn, and the later stages of the campaign in Normandy.  After the ferocious, attritional slogging from Eterville onwards ends in the huge Teuton defeat at Falaise, his 4th Field Regiment proceeds in fits and starts towards Belgium and Holland.  Along the way there are various fortified garrisoned towns held by the Teutons that have to be taken or otherwise neutralised.  Art?

Case in point - Boulogne

     Ol' Geo describes the brief siege and assault on Boulogne, where one cannot fail to feel sorry for the unfortunates under bombardment, especially since their orders from Herr Schicklegruber were "Fight to the death in defence!".  There were 10,000 defenders who had 90 guns ranging from 75 m.m. up to coastal artillery of 16" calibre, sitting under defences of reinforced concrete, yards thick.

Boulogne defensive coastal artillery

     This is where you see the Allies use of 'Materialschlacht', modern technological warfare involving firepower and technology in three dimensions, rather than the Third Reich's distinctly dodgy strategy of Cross-Fingers-Hope-For-Bad-Weather-Grin-And-Die.  To wit:  the 49 pin-point strikes carried out by Typhoons (known, somewhat inaptly, as "Tiffies"), who delivered 392 HE rockets on target - ten tons of terror in total.  That's pin-point because lurking Canuckistanian artillery marked those targets with red smoke.
     On that same subject, there were 328 Allied artillery pieces firing on targets in concentrations, to be backed up by 3,000 tons of bombs from RAF's Bomber Command (who probably had to have their arms twisted to provide tactical support like this, instead of bombing Germany flat).
     Nor is that all.  Art?

Meet "Winnie", here being visited by some Canadian MPs

     Big British guns on the South Coast also joined in, namely "Winnie" and "Pooh", which scored several hits on the Teuton coastal batteries, their fire being directed by FOOs flying above the battlefield.  Thus the Teuton coastal batteries were distracted, if by "distracted" one means "hit repeatedly by HE shells that weighed half a ton".
     Unsurprisingly, it was a short siege.  The assault went on September 16 in and in six days the whole business was over, with just over 600 Canuckistanian casualties.  And that Fuhrerbefehl of "Die!  Die!  Die fighting!"?  More honoured in the breach - 9,500 prisoners went into POW cages.
     Phew!  High-intensity modern warfare of the kind that we have not seen since, and thankfully so.  David French put it well when he said that the British (and therefore the Commonwealth, so the British Americans, too) " - decided that they would be soldiers, not warriors."

An excellent analysis

     Wow, that was kind of heavy-duty.  Let's have something a little less intense!

     Dog Buns, I still cannot remember what that gaping plot hole is, in a film we were chattering about at work.  I didn't write it down, so it vanished into my mental ether.  All I remember is that I knew there was a plot hole. This is SO annoying!

Retro-Metabolism
No, sorry, that's the thing that the Mysterons do, isn't it?  When they kill someone, which I think amounts to Destructive Testing, since only afterwards can they recreate that person perfectly.  There is also the somewhat blurry case of Captain Black.  Art?

Captain Black: to port - before being taken over; to starboard - after

     Somewhat worryingly, Captain Black's first name is <pauses for effect> Conrad.
     There is considerable debate amongst afficionadoes of futurologist Anderson's depiction of Black; he was never killed, and so is not one of the Mysteron moulage duplicates.  Is he, then, a human being under the control of the Mysterons, who would revert to his normal self if their control is neutralised?  Or - not?  And, is he conscious of his acts under Mysteron control?  Because if he is, then if that control is removed, would he have a mental breakdown at what he's been made to do?  Once free of said control, could he be prosecuted for mass murder?

What an AMAZING COINCIDENCE that the baddie just so happens to wear and be called "Black"

     Okay, so that's Retro-Metabolism.  Metabolic, as in living things.  What about the numerous physical objects that the Mysterons reconstitute?

Like this monster

     Being inanimate artefacts, there's no metabolism at work here.  Mysterons - you need a lexicon!

Retro-Tech
Sorry about the long tangential detour.  This is what I meant, because on several websites that I frequent a particular image has been going the rounds.  If Art can stop sucking the insides out of that nuclear fuel rod and do his job -

Presto

     This, gentle readers, is the latest from that modern Renaissance man, Elon Musk: Starship.  This is obviously a title with a bit of swagger built into it, as it would take thousands of years at best to reach our nearest star.  He intends it to take off and land, presumably with an important bit in between, within a couple of months, which sounds ambitious, but - hey, what do I know!
     Anyway, the thing that I wanted to bring your attention to was the design of this beast, since the first thing I thought of on first viewing was a hearken back to the days of the distant Fifties, and Dan Dare.  Art?

A brace of space
(ships)

     I think you can see the commonality of design here.  Looking forward in order to look back!

Sharks - Still Our Friends!

Of Course, It Depends Entirely What Kind Of Shark -

Because not all sharks are the real deal.

     If I can cast your metaphorical eyes backwards in time, you will recall me going on about criminal business scams involving pyramid schemes, which is fascinating stuff, because human greed and wickedness are always interesting to read about.

     Here an aside for a bit of arithmetical analysis.  Art?

An example

     If you only multiply by two, i.e. each person has to recruit two more below them, the numbers increase to totals of 1, 3, 7, 15, 31, 63, 127, 255 - by the eighth step over 500 need to be recruited, which is why these things fail locally, though with national levels of publicity and budgets it can be sustained globally for a while.  If you have to recruit 6 people below you, then the numbers accumulate horribly - 1; 7; 43; 259; 1,555; 9,331; 55,987; 326,592.  This does not bode well for multi-level marketing scammers, one feels.

Enter the dragon.  Sorry, shark.

     Enter the Grooveshark.  Conrad loved this site back in the day, the second iteration was really intuitive and easy to use, and you could draw up great playlists, and there was a massive selection of tracks to listen to.  There was nothing bad about it.

     Except for the minor fact that it was completely illegal.

     Say what?  How can this be!

     Yes indeed.  A cartel of music companies got together and took legal action against the Shark, threatening it with costs due to copyright issues that total £500 million.  Bang!  The Shark goes out of business.  They still have a pathetically hollow web presence, which Conrad took some pictures of.  Art?

     Nothing to see here.  Move along, move along.  There are a few files still there, which are all years out of date.  So, Conrad was unwittingly putting money into the pockets of criminals.  Bad Conrad!  Naughty Conrad!

     And don't bang on about Spotify, either.  To use their free service means promising to sacrifice your firstborn, and you have to listen to adverts, and you can only play a track once, if that.

An annoyed-looking Conrad

     Okay, motley, I'm going to boil some potatoes and spinach, would you like some?  And yes, I'll use butter, and no, it won't be poisoned.  The chicken fillets are all mine, mine, mine, however.

"The Guns Of War" By George Blackburn

Ol' Geo goes into some detail about why the British and Commonwealth - for Ol' Geo is a Canuckistanian - artillery of the Second Unpleasantness was so extremely effective, to the point that hapless Teuton stubble-hoppers sincerely believe that Allied artillery guns were belt-fed in a manner like a machine-gun.

Not true!
(though it would have been cool)

     The secret, as pointed out by Jorrocks, the British Corps Commander, and a chap who knew a thing or two, lay in the Survey Sections of the artillery units.  If I may quote from TGOW: "Included in the party are the regimental surveyors under Survey Officer Len Harvey, who, from data supplied from 2nd Corps Survey Regiment, must establish pivot gun markers to the accuracy of 'theatre grid'".

     The "Pivot guns" here are 25 pounders which will be located on an exact map plotting worked out from that Corps data, and will enable all the guns of 4th Field Regiment (24 of them) to be located exactly and precisely according to each other, and every other single gun in the British (and Commonwealth) army across Normandy.

A "director" that Len would have used

     Boring technical stuff, you may think!  Well, no, because it allows all those guns to fire with extreme accuracy on any target, and to mass fire in a way that the Teuton artillery could never match.  Hence those rumours amongst those on the receiving end that Perfidious Albion's guns were fed from a hopper.

No!  Really, Art ...

     There will now be a short pause as I go to put the oven on.  That remaindered food won't cook itself!  Don't worry about the sell-by-date, it was only Wednesday, so it's practically fresh*.

WHWOMYT

Your Humble Scribe is back listening to this podcast by author James Holland and comedian (and history graduate) Al Murray, and My Goodness!  I have a backlog to catch up on - I'm still in mid-July, nearly three months adrift.

     I cannot in all good conscience recommend the podcast to listeners of a tender age, since Jim and Al both swear occasionally; obviously they do not seek to achieve or maintain the Family Friendly SFW rating that BOOJUM! has.  Not that it's doing them any harm in terms of listeners.  Art?

Jim to port, Al to starboard

     They cover a lot of ground, some of it created by listener feedback and questions, and others with their format of I Will Bring In An Artefact Related To The Second Unpleasantness - today's being Jim's South Canadian helmet.

     One thing they covered was the effectiveness of Italy's army, with Jim giving a quite detailed description of how poorly it performed and why, and how the general Italian populace had absolutely no stomach for Il Duce's war; to which Al riposted that he got the impression that, even today, Italians take very little notice of what their government tells them to do.  Whereas the Tuetons of that time ...

Some rather miserable Italians on the Eastern Front

Finally -

If you don't want to know about yet more First Bus farragoes of failure, you can skip this part.  It's probably all blending into one giant, frothing, rage-filled rant to you cool observers out there, which is fair enough.  I do feel a bitter, irony-laden letter is gestating about this subject -

     Anyway, when I got to the 181/182 bus stop -

Where it used to be, and where idiot bus drivers still pull in to.

     There were so many people standing around it was obvious the 182 hadn't turned up.  When, five minutes after the 181, too, hadn't turned up, I shrugged and went around the corner to the 83 bus stop.  Keeping my eyes peeled, well outside Gomorrah-on-the-Irwell's centre, I did spot the 182 coming in the opposite direct, to Picadilly. By the time it got there I doubt it could fit all the waiting passengers.

     The saga has not finished yet, since, in Oldham Bus Station, the next 409 didn't turn up, either, and the one that did was a single-decker.

      First Bus's motto: "Inconvenience the maximum number of people the most!"

"Cursssesss!  Our secret is out!" said the First Bus spokesdemon

*  Food safety - a challenge not a warning!