Napoleonic & ECW wargaming, with a load of old Hooptedoodle on this & that


Monday 30 September 2019

The Miracle of St George - contd.

Further to yesterday's post, I got an interesting suggestion from the Duc de Gobin, the noted historian, engineer, velocipedist, wing-walker and collector of small invertebrates. The Duc suggested that my "cross on the window" experience might be the work of the dreaded Slug of St George.

Naturally, one is obliged to approach such matters with a certain laddish sang froid, to avoid giving an impression of ridiculous intemperance, but this morning's new development is....

THE CROSS HAS REAPPEARED


Now then - it's not a new cross, it's exactly the same one - it's just come back after a day of not being there. Right.


What have we got here? - if it's a person that's done this, what are the implications?...

* Well, the roof out there is steep and slippy and quite high up. Quite apart from what they might mean by such a sign, I'm not sure I'd wish to meet someone who could do this.
* The Army have recently been conducting training exercises on the beach behind my house, which involved twin-engined helicopters and suchlike at 3am. I've not been marked as a target, surely?

Let's assume that it's just a minor freak of nature, then....

OK. First off, apologies for the duff photograph - it was more easily visible on Saturday night - snag with night photography of windows is that the reflections of what is inside the window would probably be more scary than what is outside. The photo should be judged in context - no-one complains that the imprint on the Turin Shroud, for example, is a little underexposed. For supernatural evidence, crap photography is essential.

It is very obvious that what we have here are two slug tracks across my window, and they only show up when there is condensation on the outside - viz Saturday night and this morning. So that's a bit of a relief, except that...

* just why did a slug choose to make a sign he doesn't understand on my window? Who told him to do it?
* since I've never knowingly had slug-tracks on my windows in the 19 years I've been living here, why did I get two in one night?
* how long do you reckon it would take to train a slug to do this?

All in all, I don't think I've heard the last of this. I shall take care to keep a 1st edition copy of A.B. Mayne's Essentials of School Algebra under my pillow for a while.


18 comments:

  1. Well at least we are now reassured that the marks were not left by a winged creature of the night trying to scratch its way through the glass to get to its prey. Aren't we?

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  2. Curious. If you have been designated as training ground for the Scottish Synchronised Sliming Team for the next gastropod Olympics, why is it not a saltire?

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  3. You're right, it seems a bit regular for a natural phenomenon. That looks like somebody is messing with your head, but given that said person runs a serious risk of falling from a slippery steep roof and breaking their neck and/or being caught in flagrante and arrested by the police it seems an extraordinary length to go to just to mess with someone's head. I know it might seem like overreaction but is it worth having a friendly chat with the local police? At the very least, if someone is targeting you in this way, seeing police cars round at your place might make the them think again if they are just doing it out of a bit of devilment.

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    1. Ah - good idea, but I live on a farm and the appearance of a police car anywhere around here is much less likely than any kind of common-all-garden supernatural event. A friendly chat with the local police is either 999 or else a message left on an answering service in Edinburgh.

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  4. Another option is perhaps to place a flag of St Andrew in that window to show that you are no friend of the saasenachs and he can move on to another victim.

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    1. I was thinking I might pretend I hadn't noticed it. Things are pretty quiet around here, so let's see what happens.

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  5. Low-key update. As of this morning, we have slug trails on a couple of other windows. Obviously a climate-change issue - the geometry, I'll assume, is simply a fluke.

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    1. or other slugs have seen the mark and they are gathering......

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  6. Have you ever seen Hitchcock's "The Birds"?

    Just saying...

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    1. Yes - that's keeping me nicely focused...

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  7. Are they the sort of windows that you can tilt inwards so you can clean them from the inside? If so you might be able to see if it is 'slug slime'. The horizontal line looks too jerky for even a crazed Scots nat playing Spiderman on your roof. A hand-drawn line would be a smoother curve surely.....surely?

    Unless he was giggling manically at the time. 😱

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    1. Yes, it opens for ventilation, cleaning etc, but it's pretty manky up there - everything from pigeon traces to Saharan sand - and lots of spiders, of course. I had a good squint from the inside, and the slug trail (assuming that it is such) appears to have dried like invisible ink - only shows at all when there's condensation.

      The window slopes at about 45deg, so a straight vertical run is easy - the slug just heads downhill (or uphill, I suppose). The horizontal trip is much more demanding - gravity will be pulling him/it sideways, and there's nothing to aim at, so a more wiggly effort is likely. What did he/it do between the strokes? Presumably he travelled along the gully around the window (it's a fairly recent Velux) until he judged he was in the middle of the next side.

      But why? And - if it was in fact two separate slugs, is that more or less worrying/impressive?

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  8. Right.
    I have a theory.
    It involves mating rituals.
    I believe that there are two slugs, who are trying to 'connect' at the midway point of the window.
    They keep missing and the momentum of their forward movement carries them to the other side.

    It's kind of like a Greek tragedy in a pathetic sluggish kind of way...

    Two lost souls, reincarnated as slugs, once a Scottish laird and an English princess, in love but never able to consumate, destined never to be as one, now dancing their merry destiny across your window in the form of slugs.

    I'm actually in tears here...

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    1. Very good. This is an interesting story. My people are quite excited by it. The Creative Director has already sketched out the trailer for a movie - possibly a musical - which uses the catch-line "they can put down salt or saucers of beer to kill us, but they'll never take our FREEDOM". The Marketing Editor, however, says there are issues - he sees problems in the fact that slugs are hermaphroditic, and some of their reproductive practices would not make good viewing (see in particular the banana slug). We might also get into trouble with the transgender people.

      A screenplay question - do the couple meet in the middle of the window, or do they miss each other (alternative script for non-US market)?

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    2. Interesting.
      I think the reality of (1) how slugs actually mate (or not) (2) real history (I mean Braveheart got away with a lot) and (3) the US ending has to be a happy one ...does mean that we have to adjust reality slightly to cater for the Hollywood slant on the subject matter.

      I think we get around the Transgender issue by suggesting that the original Scottish 'Laird' was actually, a 'Lairdess' and the English Princess just dresses funny on the weekends.

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    3. Now you've done it. I'm going to have to explain to my work colleagues why I'm guffawing loudly at my desk...

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