It’s just taken 33 minutes to write a fifty word email. It wasn’t the words that were difficult, it was striking the right tone. I often find that is a problem with emails. I’m sure the best way is just to slap a couple of dozen words down. The recipient probably won’t notice much difference and I would have saved 28 minutes.

I was reading a poetry blog last night when I saw the name Logan Pearsall Smith. I’d never heard of him, but I think I might have liked to have been him. It’s probably bad of me to mention him, a renowned perfectionist, in the same blog post where I words “slap a couple of dozen words down” but I am, above all, a man of contradictions. Or “very annoying” which is Julia’s preferred method of describing me.

Yesterdays early start became bogged down by too much research on flame fougasses of WW2. No, I don’t know why they gave the same name to a weirdly shaped French loaf and a primitive landmine, they just did.

I see, when skimming the fougasse bread page, that you can roll it up and fill it to make a calzone type concoction. The question in my mind now, which I don’t have time to dwell on, is why select a type of bread that is famous for having holes in it? Name me one bread that is less suitable for wrapping stuff in.

Anyway, in 1940 after the withdrawal from Dunkirk (other withdrawals were available but Dunkirk got all the publicity), we were short of anti-tank weapons but had plenty of petrol.  I’m halfway through an article on the Petroleum Warfare Department. You can see the foundation of the article in the Facebook page of the Numismatic Society of Nottinghamshire. It was posted on 31st December, you may have to scroll down a bit. I’m not sure how to get a link to a specific post. I am now adding to it with things of more military interest for the Military History group. Did you know that in 1940 we filled 50,000 40 gallon oil drums with inflammable liquids and buried them roadside banking, ready to fire them ay passing Nazis. Several have been discovered within the last ten yeas, though they are rusted, the oil has mainly gone and none of them have (fortunately) been rigged with explosives. Hence the photos of rusted oil drums, courtesy of various websites Wikipedia and the pillbox Study Group.

The diagram shows a “Safety” Fougasse. The explosive charges were to be inserted just before use, rather than the earlier method of having them ready to go and placing  a guard on them to stop people setting them off to see what happened  (usually a 50 foot fireball and the need to have the road resurfaced).