Sunday's Soporific!

Except Not

Because as we already know, 'soporific' comes from the Latin for 'sleep', which is what will hopefully be driven from your minds as you peruse the links to previous BOOJUM!s of the past seven years.  Driven out by interesting and informative articles, not raw screaming terror*.  And there's only so many "S" words you can use to describe the blog until you either need a foreign language or swearing.

     Okay, let us put up a clickbaity picture, as is traditional for Sunday's second post.  Art!

     NO NO NO!  You freakin' frakkin' idiots!  1999 is when we lost the Moon, and the inhabitants of Moonbase Alpha, NOT the year of the apocalypse here on Earth**.  Dog Buns, why do you think NASA put up a holographic projection of the Moon in October 1999?  Sheesh, some people abuse the right to be stupid.

     ANYWAY let us now praise famous men, and, having praised them, let's praise them again begin the recollection.

2020

https://comsatangel2002.blogspot.com/2020/06/is-it-april-first.html

2019

https://comsatangel2002.blogspot.com/2019/06/oregone.html

2018

https://comsatangel2002.blogspot.com/2018/06/the-truth-is.html

2017

https://comsatangel2002.blogspot.com/2017/06/achtung-bobby.html

2016

https://comsatangel2002.blogspot.com/2016/06/bleeding-literature.html

2015

https://comsatangel2002.blogspot.com/2015/06/bible-captain-and-jack.html

2014

https://comsatangel2002.blogspot.com/2014/06/under-whip.html

2013

https://comsatangel2002.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-cars-hiss-by-my-window.html

     I have to apologise for not posting the 27/06/2013 blog, as there wasn't one.  Given that it had only been running for a couple of weeks, I don't think my work ethic was up to scratch at that point.  Please find it in your hearts to forgive me.

*  Though we'll take that at a pinch.

**  When will this come?  Keep watching the skies!

Back To A Watery Theme

We've Been Here Before

Back in February, and I know because I went back and checked, and that's quite enough use of the word 'back' in a single Intro. I refer, of course - obviously! - to the Crimea and it's water shortage, which has only gotten worse since we had a bit of an examine earlier in the year.  Let's have a map.  Art!

    The only item in black is the dam those intransigent Ukranians built across the canal that used to supply water to Crimea.  Tsar Putin didn't take this into account when his army of tourists took over seven years ago, which is a shame, as the North Crimea Canal supplied 80% of the peninsula's water.  I mentioned in the February article that agriculture has suffered enormously, and that drinking water was being strictly rationed; I forgot to add that industry also requires water, if it's going to function properly.  Art!  Another map!

     You can see from this how a lack of irrigation water affects agriculture.  There were loud promises made in 2014 about how the locals didn't need to worry about water, it would all be sorted, just go outside when it rains and open your mouth, etcetera.  None of this finger-crossing has worked.  The latest plan is to drill for water under the Sea of Azov, said water being full of minerals and undrinkable, but it makes for good publicity and looking busy doing makework will do for Dimya.

     There have been mutterings since at least 2018 that Dimya might go one step further and invade the Kherson region of Ukraine to get rid of 'that damn dam' as I'm sure at least one Ruffian has called it.  Art!

     This is no minor, temporary structure.  You'd need a whole lot of high-explosive to get rid of it, AND you'd need your invasion force to stay in strength all along the canal, right up to the River Dnepr in fact, as otherwise the Intransigent Ukes will simply build another one.  Even then, there's nothing to stop them building another dam on the Dnepr, so you'd need to occupy that, too.  In fact, you'd need nothing less than a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which Tsar Putin would jib at, because is getting water to the Crimea worth it?  "Yes, we fought a bloody war against Ukraine, at vast expense and as a reward - have some Crimean rice!" won't go down well at election time.

Empty canal with puny human for scale

     Motley!  To celebrate you coming back from hospital, I've filled the swimming pool with WATER! and a few piranha to make things interesting.

"Army Of The Dead" Gets A Kick In The Head

The Critical Drinker, that alcoholic misanthrope, is probably rubbing his hands with glee at this title - he's drinking his Jack Daniels and coke through a straw, before you ask, and the glass is balanced on his laptop - because he hated this film with the burning biliousness of a billion bonfires.  Conrad found it enjoyable nonsense, with plot holes you could drive a Bradley IFV through if you paused to think about it.

     Well, guess what, I did pause to think about it.  I also have Netflix access back, so my quantum quibbling now has visual cues, too.  Art!

     Originally, on first watch, Your Humble Scribe thought that this was a lone pilot who'd bailed out of his aircraft.  But No! for you can see by the background that this is in fact a paratroop drop.  No idea why you'd bother doing this if the ground is a-swarm with zombies and the brollymen will get pounced upon and eaten the instant they touch terra firma (SPOILER this is exactly what happens here).

     Then we have Lilly The Coyote, who is obviously foreign.  Don't ask, if a German locksmith can turn up, so can a foreign - er - entry expert?  The team simply have to have her along because she knows how to get into the barricaded city of Las Vegas.  Art!

     That's the secret access point; a container.  I dunno, perhaps I was expecting too much, but there are 73 miles of containers in the barricade and there must be dozens of such access points?

     Then, only when they are actually inside Las Vegas, does Lilly volunteer vital information that the team could have done with knowing before they entered.  Art!

Lilly in info-dump mode

     1) There's a class of zombies that are dubbed 'Alphas', which are unlike the mass of 'Shamblers'.

     2)  They are faster and stronger than mere mortal men (A BIT OF AN IMPORTANT POINT IN MY VIEW!)

     3)  They are collectively organised (AGAIN, IMPORTANT!)

     4)  You can only proceed into their territory by sacrificing a person to them (and how, pray tell, did she discover this?)

     5)  Despite making a sacrifice, you don't dare move in the streets, as that would be disrespectful, so you have to travel indoors

     6)  Indoors are full of well-preserved shamblers

     I think that's enough head-kicking all at once.  Actually, our heroes not knowing the above fills in a plot hole, because if all they were expecting were dull-witted palsied shambling deadbeats, then there would be a lot less risk and thus exposing all that skin isn't so stupid.

     Of course, I may be overthinking this ...

"You are, Conrad.  You are."

"CHESSETTS"

No!  That is not a mis-spelling of the opposing team's pieces on a chess board.  it is yet another term I noted from "Sir Nigel" and since I didn't bother to note any context, I have only the vaguest of notions as to what it means.  Sadly my Collins Concise had no entry for it, so <shudders> Conrad will have to check it out via teh Interwebz.  One minute -

A domicile

     Sadly no luck there, either.  All I get are hits for Chessetts in Birmingham.  Okay, Conrad will declare that a chessett was a knightly banner with a pointy end.  If you don't like it, prove me wrong.

Finally -

It's been quite some while since Facebook recommended adverts for 'Log-counting software' based on who knows what kind of corrupted algorithm, and yesteryon I came across one for a rotating mat upon which to cut fabrics.  Art!

     What on earth?  Your Humble Scribe is not known for having anything to do with cutting fabrics, so how did FB decide I simply had to learn about this sterling opportunity to purchase a rotary mat?  Besides, what's to prevent your stingy penny-pinching self from O I dunno - turning your static mat?

     I think I can sum this up as Bah!

Okay, time to wrap up this edition of the blog and a) get some lunch, b) take Edna for a walk and c) make my constitutional stroll into Royton.  Chin chin!

BRADAWLS

Ah Me, Remember "Ren And Stimpy"?

It doesn't matter if you don't, I can remember enough for both of us.  The thing is, you see, Ren was only really happy when he was being angry about something which had made him unhappy and yes, it was a Catch-22 situation.  Art!

Raging Ren

     I know what you're thinking right now - no, no, honest, I returned the Telepathy Helmet to DARPA last year! - because I'm so clever and intuitive; you're wondering what on earth BRADAWLS have to do with Ren or Stimpy or both.

     Everything and nothing, as it transpires.  For Lo! Your Humble Scribe has finally gotten to do another MEN Codeword, which took at least 40 minutes to solve because of ALL THE UNFAIR WORDS THEY USED.  Thus the R&S mention; Conrad is delighted to have Codewords to be ferociously angry about at last!  Art!

Conrad either being tremendously angry or full of wind.

     I have, of course - obviously! - made a list, which we are going to go through, and let us begin with today's titular word.

     "BRADAWLS": To which the obvious rejoinder is "Does he?".  Conrad is vaguely aware of them as a tool of some description, so let us resort to the Collins Concise: 'an awl used to pierce wood, leather, etc.'  Not very helpful.  Art!

     I see.  What they might be better off calling 'a pointy stick', as that's what it clearly is.  Why is this different from an awl?  And why did the compilers think it was okay to include it in a Codeword?  WHAT ARE WE ALL D.I.Y. EXPERTS ALL OF A SUDDEN NOW?

     "TOFU": Yes yes yes, fermented bean curd with practically no flavour of it's own, Conrad eats it occasionally when it's going cheap.  Why are we using foreign foodstuffs as solutions?  WHAT'S WRONG WITH BRITISH FOOD!

     "TORTILLA": This is why it took 40 minutes to solve!  You see?  You see?  This is what I am forced to deal with.  The only reason I've not used the Remote Nuclear Detonator on the compilers is that their replacements could well be worse.

Tofu Tortilla, the Codeword killer

     "GODLIEST": Are they just making these up out of thin air?  Okay no, I just checked my Collins Concise.  Conrad feels a few carefully applied thunderbolts would be appropriate for choosing this obscurity.

     "ANIMUS": Again?  They used this a few weeks ago.  Still very confusing, all the more if you're not familiar with the foundations of Jungian psychology.  Art!

     Probably nothing whatsoever to do with Jungian psychology as the knight in armour looks pretty hateful, probably brimming over with <ahem> animusity.

     "NOSEGAYS": What on earth? Let me hie me hence to the dictionary.  Ah.  "A small bunch of flowers" which originated in the Fifteenth Century and comes from "Nose", that large fleshy protuberance on the face that allows one to smell things (unless you are Conrad), and "Gay", which meant "Toy" back in the Fifteenth Century.  Yes, I see, and IT HASN'T BEEN USED SINCE THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.  Good job I didn't go for "NOSTRILS" hmmmmm?

This is bound to offend someone*

     The motley is still in the burns unit, thanks for asking.  Who knew a glowing barbecue coal could travel so far by accident! and yes, perhaps we should have put up a screen over the petrol pool

Hunger Pains

If you are about to eat, you'd better pass on this one, as it involves inedible sharp objects being eaten.

     Okay, we travel backwards in time to find John Cummings, a seaman in 1799, who witnessed a circus faker pretending to swallow knives.  He loudly proclaimed to his shipmates that this wasn't so difficult, and proved it when pressed, as he ate four knives without any seeming harm.

Definitely not this variety

     In 1805 he found himself amongst different crewmates, none of whom believed him about his knife-noshing activities, and so - helped along by a whole lot of grog - he repeated the exercise, going a bit further this time with fourteen knives.  After a brief spell in hospital, he - er - 'passed' all the knives and left, once again without any seeming harm.

      Then he got drunk in December of that year and really went at it, swallowing twenty knives, which took until 1807 to at least be partially passed.  This twenty proved to be a bit too much, causing Cummings to die in 1809, whereupon an autopsy was carried out, and the following were found in his stomach and intestine. Art!

     You can't really call him a Darwin Award winner as Ol' Chas hadn't sailed forth upon the 'Beagle' by this date, though you could say his knife-ingestion - er - cut short his life.  And all the above is scrupulously recorded in the Royal Society of Medicine's Transactions.

Another Long List!

Conrad found a list of weird films over on The Flop House's Facebook page and patiently made a list of them in longhand, because as we already know by now, 'weird' equates with 'ínteresting' to him.  I have seen a few of them already - "The Good, The Bad And The Weird" which is a Korean western set in Manchuria during the late Thirties and very entertaining - but most are new to me, which means Your Humble Scribe had to track them down on teh Interwebz.  Art!

     No, not the cosy cuddly horror film featuring William Katt; this is a much weirder Japanese one, although that poster looks like it was done by the Poles, as they specialise in frantically creepy posters.

Finally -

Last night I managed to finish watching "Ben Hur" and quite the bum-number it was, even without watching the "Making Of" or the screen testing.  I need to set another two-and-a-half hours to watch it with Charlton's commentary running.

     ANYWAY, I had bought and watched it to try and find examples of matte work, which was surprisingly difficult.  This is because the artists and technical crew really knew their onions and blended paintings in with film in seamless composites that you can only spot if pointed out to you, which is where NZ Pete comes in.  Art!

     You can see how much the matte painter, Matthew Yuricich, added to the scene, negating the need for vast and expensive set construction.

https://nzpetesmatteshot.blogspot.com/

     Pete's link, should you feel the urge.  There's a ton of stuff there, which will eat up your evening!

*  Heh.

If I Were To Say "Nakers Banging" -

Then I Would Subsequently Have To Add 

WASH OUT YOUR DIRTY MINDS! For how many times have I boasted that BOOJUM! is very much SFW*?  Because it is.  True, we may only have a nodding acquaintance with truth, logic and facts - O and common sense too - but what does that matter between friends?

Or fiends, even.

     ANYWAY I wrote this down whilst reading "Sir Nigel" because, if taken out of context, it does seem rather rude, and I know you lot are all about context.  Besides which, given that it was written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in 1905, one is highly skeptical that it would involve what Youtube calls "passionate hugging" (if you don't want to get demonetised).  Art!

Passionate rugs.  That's as saucy as we get around here.

     Okay, the passage in question has a large cog** setting out from the port of Winchelsea, with an array of musicians on deck, some of whom are banging nakers STOP SNIGGERING AT THE BACK! in a ceremony at departing the harbour.  Thus, we can establish that a 'naker' is a variety of instrument, probably percussion given that they are being ban- being hit hard.  And so it proves.  Art!

Nakers

     There you go, we are all better-informed than we were five minutes ago.  And, continuing with SN, Your Humble Scribe made note of a couple of other words.

     "PESSONER": From context - that word again - this is a variety of boat or small ship, and wouldn't you know it, there are exactly nil images available via Google - passenger ships and prisoner, O yes plenty of those.  Very little available on medieval shipping, I'm afraid.  Use your imagination.

    "CREYER": Similar to the above, I think.  Large boat, small ship.  I have found a picture, which is of a model, although they spell it "Crayer", because language and spelling was rather elastic in the Middle Ages.  Better than nothing I suppose.  Art!

Only a model.  It's a craying shame.

     Now, we've filled the swimming pool with petrol and are going to see how well - or ill - a motley floats upon it.  No, no, no need to worry about the neighbours having a barbecue!

Still On A Watery Theme

As you may have gathered, Conrad is interested in dams.  Their construction, their operation - and their occasional collapse.  A dam collapsing is a major disaster, as millions of tons of water travelling as fast as a speeding car, laden with enormous amounts of debris, are not going to brighten anyone's day.  We have recently covered the near-collapse of the Fontenelle dam, and the actual collapse of the Teton dam in South Canada.  Let us now view the Connecticut First Lake Dam, courtesy that champion with a rake, Post-10.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLW1qhQZwGA

     That's the link to our anonymous hero's video on the subject.  He is indeed anonymous, for nowhere is his name given on his Youtube channel, and even when he appeared on a local news broadcast he was still only 'Post-10'.  Art!

Crumbling like cheese

     Notice the distinctly low-tec (for which read "cheap") solution to water overtopping the dam: wooden boards.  Not sure how they'll resist water pressure or rot.  Note also, as Posty pointed out, the discolouration caused by previous leaks and the current leaks to starboard, issuing from A GREAT BIG CRACK.  If water does overtop the dam then it's going to exacerbate (not a word you expected to see today!) those cracks,  Art!

     Blimey heck, Posty, you make me nervous standing there in front of the NOTICEABLY LEAKING dam wall.  Definitely a braver man than I (not that it's hard).  He points out the plant life now growing in the cracks, which again won't do any good thanks to root damage.  One of his Dutch followers said that if a dam in the Netherlands was in this state, the lake would be immediately drained and a new dam built.  Well, we're not done yet.   Art!

     Posty pointing out more discolouration caused by more leaks.  Notice to port of his arm where the outer layer of concrete has been eroded away?  It seems that the only thing holding this structure up is hope, spit and duct tape.  O, don't worry, that huge geyser of water is being deliberately released, it's not a leak.  Not yet.

"Having a cracking time!"

     Hmmmm he also points out cracks in the abutment wall, which have to be substantial to be clearly visible from thirty yards away.  Indicative of the ground shifting, one feels.  This is one case where the earth moving is a phrase you do not want to hear.

     Your Humble Scribe wonders if this video might lead to New Hampshire doing more about their dam than putting up a bit of plywood and crossing their fingers.  If it does collapse, then remember you read about it here and Posty warned about it even earlier.

     Dog Buns!  A 409 bus just went by with a definitely new poster on the side - and I missed it.  O.  And a bin wagon with a strange advert featuring a teddy bear - went by too fast for me to read what the text was.  

     

My Thunder - Stolen!  

Conrad has not baked for an age, mostly because there's nobody to consume cake, as Wonder Wifey has discovered eggs in any state turn her insides outside, and working from home means there are no office ganterpies to scoff cake either.  However - and you just knew that word was coming, didn't you? - WW has bestirred herself, cranked up the Breadmaker 3000 and baked a wholemeal loaf using by-guess-and-by-golly as a technique. Art!

     Conrad had some yesterday to dip into his weekly cup of Marmite and it's not bad at all, dammit.

Finally - 

Only a short item needed to hit the Compositional Ton, folks, after which I think we might venture into the sunshine, 'we' being Edna and myself.  Only problem with nice weather is that all the other dog owners have exactly the same idea, and Edna does not play well with other pups, regardless of how much larger they are than her (which is nearly all of them).

     Ah, the sun is out again, time to venture forth!

*  87

**  A variety of medieval ship.  We've covered this before.

A Little Spring Can Be A Dangerous Thing

No!  Not The Coiled Metal Device

Neither yet the season.  No, I refer to water that gushes from the ground, naturally, rather than as when a sewer collapses.  The Old French word for 'spring' is 'Fontanel' which we will come to in just a minute.

     Firstly, Your Humble Scribe isn't going to apologise for having yet another dam-related article in the blog.  Dams are intrinsically interesting, all the more and morbidly so when they fail, which happens a lot more often than you'd like to know.  Let us now take a look at the South Canadian Fontenelle Dam (they just have to spell it differently!).  Art!

Actually a great big spring

     The dam had been completed in mid-1965 and filling the reservoir began in September once construction had finished, only for problems to begin almost immediately.  Art!

A closer look

     On September 3rd the head engineer in charge of construction noticed a leak near the spillway (the white structure at port above), which didn't slow and which washed away large amounts of the downstream shell, until by early evening it had created an immense gouge in the dam wall.  Art!

Nothing to scale it here

     Allow me to find more compelling pictures-

     You can judge how enormous it is thanks to the diminutive status of the engineering plant on display, and the barely-discernible humans present.  The trucks and bulldozers shovelled rock into the breach as far as it was safe to go, and more rock was dumped over the top end of the breach, along with material bulldozed from the dam wall.  More crucially, the waters in the reservoir were released as fast as possible, causing a drop of 4 feet per day.

     These measures were sufficient - just - to block the leak and prevent the breach from eroding upstream, which would have caused a partial collapse of the dam at that point, and the whole structure would have been destroyed.   Art!

     The road atop the dam collapsed into a sinkhole and you can see from this shot how thin the margin for error was.

     The dam was subsequently repaired and renovated, for which see below, and has lived a blameless life ever since.

     

     Gee golly, the exciting world of dam design and analysis!

     The motley has come back in a full-body cast, so we're using it as a doorstop at the moment.  And before you carp and cavil, we were going to use it as a doorstep, so consider this a step upwards, so to speak.

An Anniversary Of Sorts

Twitter, without being asked, has decided to blab to the world that Conrad joined it 10 years ago, the dirty curs.  What if I wanted to remain in safely-unsued anonymity?  Bringing up this kind of information only ever calls attention to oneself, when I can quite do without legal sanctions from various slandered entities.  Art!

     Perhaps I could pretend that it's "Io" instead, you know, the moon of Jupiter, full of volcanoes and sulphur yet very little water.

     In terms of vulcanicity, in fact, Io is the most volcanic object in the Solar System; you might even say it goes to 11 on a Io scale*.  

"Rude Mechanicals" By A.J. Smithers

Ha!  Yes, yes, yes, I bet a lot of you skeptics out there were blathering over your gin muffins and fermented yak curd "O he's definitely lost it, whoever heard of a memoir with a title like that!" when I dragged it up from the depths of my memory earlier this week.  Art!

     "An account of tank maturity during the Second Unpleasantness" in case you don't have a magnifying glass to hand.  Well, I might put it on the front burner because I've not found a reasonably-priced copy of that Royal Signals history and "The Founding Of Evil Hold School" only has 3 editions on Abebooks, the cheapest of which is £120 <sad face> whereas RM is only about £3 with free postage.  Art!

<Utters longing sigh>

James Deals With Claims

For Lo! we are back on arcane and obscure medieval legal terminology as cribbed from the pages of "Sir Nigel" and the next weird word is "HERIOT" and yes I know the author has two "R"s which is just him being greedy, especially since it's a pseudonym anyway.

     ANYWAY it derives from Anglo-Saxon and 'heregeatwa' which is composed of 'here' for 'army' and 'geatwa' for 'equipment'; when a serf or villein died then a portion of his military gear went to his feudal master.  This later evolved so that the lord and master got matey's best cattle or property, because that's how they stayed lord and master.  One thing I have noticed about all these legal terms; they all benefit the church and aristocracy.  Art!

George Heriot

     He was a noted philanthropist, and Ha! you were expecting James, weren't you?

     "INFANG/OUTFANG": These are somewhat trickier, since 'outfang' has several definitions.  Both seem, however, refer to the right of a manorial lord to try a thief captured on his lands, specifically if they were one of his serfs, servants or soldiers.  He could even pursue them into other manors under other lord's jurisdiction to bring them back to justice.  Or, execution, as they were one and the same thing.  'Outfang' has been taken to mean that the resident lord had the right to try any thief he caught on his lands, which implies there might be a bit of a clash with the thief's own lord in hot pursuit.  Art!

"The peasants are revolting!  The peasants are - O.  They really are revolting."

     I think that's enough legalese for one day.  Don't worry, we still have more obscurantist jargon to juggle with**!

Finally -

I am only going to say that you couldn't make this up and if you did people would scoff and mock you.  For I am well into reading of the British operations at Gallipoli where a surprise landing had been carried out in Suvla Bay that completely wrong-footed the Turkish defenders on the peninsula.  It was top secret.  So secret, in fact, that the commanding officers who landed had no idea where they were or what was going on.  Art!

     The aged idiot in charge was well named: General Stopford.  When everything hung on making a rapid advance inland, he - stopped.  For several days.  Because 'It was hot and there was dirt and guns are noisy.***'  Then there was the Brigadier whose orders were to advance quickly to capture hills and ridges whilst they were undefended.  He did not.  Instead he, too, stopped and sat down. He managed to do that well.  His name?  Brigadier Sitwell.  Between Stop and Sit the whole landing was doomed from the start.

"An air of desperate urgency permeated the whole landing."
"Sunbathing in the Med"

*  One louder, in fact.

**  I bet you can hardly wait.

***  Only slightly exaggerated.

How Early Am I?

You Can't Guess From When This Is Posted

O noes!  Your Humble Scribe tends to get the next day's blog ready the night before, which is why some of the tenses might seem a little odd reading it the next day.  However, instead of hammering out these words of wit, wisdom and wonder at nine post meridian, here I am at nine ante meridian.  This is because 1) I'm on the later shift and don't end the nose-grindstone interfacing until 18:00, and 2) It being Wednesday, Your Modest Artisan does the weekly shopping and will probably not be able to sit down and type more wry wakeful wibble until 21:00.

     Hence this.  There you go, a valuable insight into the creative process the editorial staff here at BOOJUM! undergo, and probably the shortest Intro in years.

Enjoy this picture of a catering food-warmer!

     

I'm giving the motley a day off until the x-rays and ultrasound pictures come back*.

Proof Positive That Some Parents Are Eeeeeevil

As you should surely know by now, Conrad knows little about sport and cares less about it.  I have managed to steer clear of the ballfoot farrago known as 'Yuri' or similar, which is probably an event Dimya created to cheat his way to victory via offsidings.  What say you, Dimya?

     O dear.  I think my cracks about the "Admiral Kuznetsov" made him cry.

     ANYWAY this has nothing to do with Usain Bolt, who is a runner (?) of unknown variety.  He is pretty famous, so much so that Conrad has heard of him, which still won't enable him to escape these allegations of reckless child torment a few years down the line.  Art!

     Saint Leo should be grateful that he didn't get dubbed "Crossbow", or even "Door".  Not ever "Lightning", however, as that would give him an unfair speed advantage.

I Know I'm Being A Bit Whiney -

About Hydra teeth in my hiney (go look it up if you're not aware of how clever I'm being) but really!  This is the third time in a row.  There I was, looking in the Notes to "D-Day Through German Eyes" for that bit where a British Brigadier breaks a Teuton Field Marshall's baton over his head, and what do I come across?  Another Note, which mentions an RAF Flight Lieutenant being sent to do a post-attack assessment at a port in Normandy, where he interviewed locals about what Teuton vessels were in port when the RAF came over and unloaded their glad tidings.  And what was his name?  Art!

     

     R. F. Delderfield, that's whom.  He was a novelist of some renown, and the novel above was made into a television series starring (I think) John Duttine.  Of course he wrote scads of others that I remember seeing about the family home when I was very much younger.  His service in the RAF merits about five words on Wikipedia.  There must be more to this chap's life during the Second Unpleasantness than "" - after service in the RAF -".  I may go a-digging.  Once the Coincidence Hydra removes it's teeth from where I sit down.

Told you so

Those Of A Sensitive Disposition -

Should probably not be reading BOOUM! as we are fond of atom-bombing the Moon, regaling you with tales of gory Darwin Award winners and encouraging the use of nitromethane as a cocktail ingredient**.

     ANYWAY I came across an incredibly bizarre picture over on a Youtube channel run by Donut Operator, and am unsure where he sourced it from.  Art!

     Ladies, gentlemen and those unsure, allow me to present to you the ultimate Villain Accessory: The Baby Shield.  All you need are twelve babies, a mile of duct tape and an aide to tie on the ones you can't reach yourself.

     Well, that's the Big Idea at play here.  Conrad, hair-splitting pedant that he is, begs to differ.  For a start, where are you going to get 12 babies from?  A string of baby-kidnappings will definitely get the old police nasal sensors a-sniffing.  How do you get to your target destination?  You can't simply sit in a car and drive, because no driver's seat ever designed will accommodate you - not to mention the risk of squishing or suffocating your Baby Shield en route.

     Then there's mass.  Say an individual baby weighs in at fourteen pounds, or one stone.  You are now hauling one hundred and sixty eight pounds extra weight, or, in other words, about your own body mass.

     Clearly our criminal mastermind cannot travel very far under his own traction, so I suspect he'd drive to the target location, set up a tent that abuts his car doors, has his accomplice tape the squalling Baby Shield to him whilst under canvas and only then does he venture forth to do the dirty deeds.  I wonder if he was rashly trying to rob a bank?  Because then he'd be adding yet more weight.

     ANYWAY if he does indeed get away with committing his crime he can scarcely repeat his earlier process in reverse to remove the Baby Shield, as you can be certain the police will be watching with interest, and a lot of guns.

     Of course, I could be overthinking this ...

BEWARE!  BELOW BE SPOILERS!

IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW HOW THIS ENDS JUMP OVER THE FOLLOWING PICTURE REAL QUICK.

     Ah, I do love a happy ending!

Finally -

Conrad picked out another obscure medieval word from "Sir Nigel" to explicate, this one being "DEODANDS", not to be confused with Brazilian all-round muso Deodato, whom you might recall from his 1974 instrumental fusion version of "Also Spracht Zarathustra (2001)" - no?  before your time?  Bah, see if I care!

     ANYWAY - Deodands; this is a bit of a tricky one to get across.  The word refers to an item or entity that has caused the death of a human being, and which is subsequently rendered up unto God, by which Your Cynical Scribe understands that the Church got their hands on whatever it was.  Killer cow?  They'll take it now!  

Watch it, Daisy.  One hoof out of line and the monks get a steak dinner

     And do you know what?  With that we are ever so done!

*  Don't worry, motleys are a hardy brand.  Also cheap.

**  Fine for aliens.  Hom. Sap. - er - probably not