Hooptedoodle #331 - Zeno and the Comb-Over

Zeno of Elea is credited with being the originator of a number of famous paradoxes - of which Achilles and the Tortoise is probably the best known. I reckon Zeno was something of a one-trick pony - a lot of his repertoire was based around a single concept - the problem of visualising an infinite number of infinitesimal events. Once you've got the hang of that, his stuff is probably not worth spending much time on. At least not if you have as little imagination as I do.

Zeno

 His Paradox of the Millet Seed may be described - and debunked - very briefly thus:

A single millet seed, when it falls, makes no sound; however, if you drop a ton of millet seed it will definitely make a noise. The implication is that a very large number of zeroes adds up to something greater than zero, which Zeno identified as obvious nonsense. Without getting into a philosophical discussion of infinity, this is flawed from the outset. When Zeno says that a single seed makes no sound, what he means is that we/he cannot hear it. There will be some disturbance of the air, even for one seed, so the point at issue becomes the threshold of human hearing, which, apart from anything else, varies from individual to individual. For example, you could drop a large iron bucket next to my mother and she would be unaware of it.

Achilles and the Tortoise is rather different, but again depends on the infinite divisibility of time and space. Achilles (who must have been a hustler) challenges a tortoise to a race, and gives the tortoise a start. By the time Achilles reaches the spot where the tortoise started, the tortoise will still be a small distance ahead. By the time Achilles has run this additional distance, the tortoise will still be slightly ahead. And so on - forever, says Zeno. Achilles will never catch him.

Where this puzzle falls down is that the infinite series of incremental distances during which Achilles fails to overtake the tortoise does not add up to the full race distance - it adds up to the point at which Achilles catches up with the tortoise. It does not require a celebrated ancient scholar to understand that there will be some point in the race at which Achilles catches up with his opponent, and that at all points before that he will not yet have caught him. After that, of course, Achilles disappears into the distance. The process of summing to infinity the decreasing steps only serves to mask what is obvious anyway, though it does raise the separate issue that Achilles would have to be careful to make sure that he didn't give the tortoise too much of a start, or philosophy as we know it would never recover.

A related, everyday paradox is that of the application of a simplified description to something which is really rather complicated. The example I have in mind is the concept of baldness. A man with no hair at all is obviously bald. A man with a lot of hair is not bald. A man with exactly one hair on his head is probably bald, but what about two hairs, three, 5374? - how many hairs does he require to stop being bald? The problem here is obviously one of terminology; "bald" is a rather crude on/off term - we really can't consider this seriously without some definitions and a lot of counting. For practical purposes, if someone describes someone else as bald, then they normally mean "the impression I got was that they didn't have much hair", which is not very precise but seems to serve for most everyday situations, without wasting too much time on the matter.

There are many such words - what is a "tall" person? Taller than average? Taller than me? Very unusually tall? There is a whiff of percentiles and survey data in there which is all a bit wearying, so we don't normally worry about it.

Tall.

OK.

Enough. For today's post I only wish to consider the matter of baldness, so I guess we are in Zeno's millet seed country.

I visit my hairdresser every four or five weeks - five if it was cut very short last time. Normally a Thursday morning. My haircuts are quick and inexpensive, since I do not have much hair. Every time, we have the same discussion, as I glower in the mirror at the thinning section at the front - I ask her if she thinks it is yet time to get rid of that front bit. Not yet, she says - it is still hanging in there. If at any time I find that we are performing some trick to pretend that I have more hair than I really have then a klaxon will sound and we will stop and reconsider. Similarly, I have asked my wife to kill me if she ever finds me performing any kind of comb-over.

We'll be in touch

Reasons? Well, just personal baggage really. Mr Trump is a shining illustration of why we shouldn't do this, probably, but this train of thought is really triggered by the fact that today is the eleventh anniversary of my dad's death, and my memories of my dad are always dominated by the adventures to which he subjected us with his damned hair. If I must learn just one thing from my father, please let it be that.

Before anyone feels moved to offer condolences on this sad anniversary, please don't bother. My dad and I were never very close, unfortunately. He was a very clever man, but a very difficult, uncomfortable one. If it were possible to be given no capacity for empathy at all then he must have been close. With my dad, you could agree with him, and do what he said, or you could disagree with him, and fight about it, or you could do what I did, and move some hundreds of miles away, to get on with your own life. I don't feel bitter about any of this, by the way - everyone is different, everyone has to deal with things in his own way.

Eventually, of course, my parents became old and less able to cope, so they moved up to Scotland to be near me, which was the right thing to do, and I am happy to believe they enjoyed their last years up here together, and I certainly had to get involved in a lot of running around to help them, which is probably as it should be. My mum is still alive, and is now safely resident in a splendid little care home very close to my house, with which we are very pleased, but my dad's passing, though it was a shock at the time, meant mostly that my life suddenly became a lot more peaceful, and of course I got the opportunity to shuffle one more place up the queue for the Reaper.

Oh yes - the hair. When I was a little boy it became apparent that my dad was going bald. He must have been in his 20s. He had a bald patch on the crown of his head which he concealed by combing his hair over the patch, and keeping it in place with Brylcreem. All was revealed when he was sitting at the kitchen table, studying for his engineering exams - while his mind was elsewhere, he would wind a pencil into the long bits of hair, and tease them out to remarkable heights. Hey. My dad was baldy.

As the years passed, though most of this was out of my sight, this became more of a problem. By the time he moved up here, he must have had very little hair on top of his head, but he attempted to conceal this with the most complex edifice of hair from the edges. This was combed across from all directions - if you stood behind him, there was a strange horizontal parting above his neck, from which the hair headed upwards. These partings were all over the place, with hair heading in unnatural directions - the impression was that his cap probably screwed into place. He also was a devotee of Grecian 2000 dye - I don't know what shade he used, but the effect on his (presumably white) hair was of a vague nicotine stain - like pee-holes in the snow. And everything was cemented into place to combat the forces of gravity and weather with copious amounts of Harmony hairspray.

This progression does not seem to include my dad's shade

The cap was the life-saver, of course, but it took him ages to get ready to go anywhere, and he always had his comb with him.

What could go wrong?

On one occasion he had what was probably a mini-stroke - he fell into a flower-bed in his garden, and just disappeared. By the time the ambulance arrived he was indoors and sitting up and obviously recovering, but the ambulance could not leave until he had found his comb and arranged his hair. While they were waiting, the ambulance driver suggested to my mum that they might cut his hair in hospital, if only because of the impossibility of keeping it up to spec.

She, for the one and only time I ever heard, very quietly said, "Let's hope they cut it, and we can all get some bloody peace".

I'd never thought about it before, but she must have been required to help with this palaver. She must have washed and dyed his hair for decades - he certainly wouldn't have been able to do it all himself. She must also have cut it for him, since any self-respecting professional would just have refused. She was, in fact, an accomplice. Poor woman - presumably this was just to keep him happy.

I wonder what it was he thought he was doing? By this time, I guess it had just become a ritual (not unlike 50mm x 45mm MDF bases, I suppose), which had become somehow essential. Whom did he think he was fooling? What (to be blunt) did he think he looked like?

If my mother had been so inclined, or if he had had any friends (he didn't), then someone might have said, years earlier, that having a weird, nicotine-coloured pavlova on top of his head did not give the impression of hair, not to anyone, and that from the back, in fact, all this effort produced something not unlike a polar bear's arse. Not a worthwhile investment of time. Ridiculous. And all that combing and spraying while the world waited to go out for a walk was pointless.

Eventually, after a long and unusually healthy life, he started getting some angina problems. His medication was not very successful, he had periods of irregular pulse which were causing some alarm, and it was decided to take him into hospital in Edinburgh for tests. I was there when he left in the ambulance - once again there was something of a drama while he prepared his hair, but he was sitting up in the ambulance when he went.

The tests didn't go very well, and he was transferred to the Royal Infirmary, outside the south side of Edinburgh. While there he became ill, and then died, quickly and without much discomfort. All over. It was unexpected - a bit of a shock, to be sure.

The next morning I drove to the Royal Infirmary to sign the paperwork, and to collect my dad's possessions, which were in a couple of plastic carrier bags. His clothes, his spectacles, his shoes, his raincoat, his toilet bag, his cap, his wallet and the eternal comb. That seemed a bit weird - that's all you get back. I dropped the comb in the car park while I was stowing the bags, and I just put it in the litter bin. I was not going to waste any more time on that, thank you.

When my mum became too ill to live at home any more, I cleared her house. By this time my dad had been dead for nearly nine years, but his coiffure was still very much in evidence. All the armchairs and much of the bedding were stained with Grecian 2000 - very recognisable shade of Old Nicotine - and I found warehouse-sized cartons of Harmony aerosols in the cupboard in the spare room and in the attic.

And I bet he thought that no-one ever knew. Your secret is safe with us, Baldy.

Hooptedoodle #330 - The Anfield Iron

I'm not going to make a meal of this, I always find it very uncomfortable when there is scope for a "me too" tribute to former celebrities. So this is going to be a very simple "thank you" to a hero from my youth, a football player, no less, who in his prime was a central part of my lifelong club, my home-town team, in the years when, miraculously, unbelievably, they progressed from being the second best team in the city to become the undisputed top team in the country (a long time ago now!). Tommy Smith died today, peacefully, after a period of illness, aged 74.

Tommy Smith, Liverpool FC

Tommy was a local lad, a working class kid from an impoverished background, and his chief characteristic was that he was the toughest, dirtiest, most intimidating defender of his day. It was a personal misfortune of his that he was a contemporary of Norman Hunter of Leeds, who had a lot of the same qualities but was a superior footballer, so that poor old Tommy only ever got a single international cap for England.

No matter. He was a sporting hero from a bygone age. Nowadays, given the price of season tickets for the Premier League, fans are not really looking to see local kids playing for their team - they expect to see expensive Brazilians, Spaniards, Africans, Frenchmen, whatever. I suppose it's a bit like other expensive forms of entertainment; I confess that if I spent a lot of money to go to the opera, I'd be disappointed if the cast all came from the streets around my birthplace.

Tommy had serious injury problems toward the end of his career - latterly, he was often able to play only because he was stuffed full of cortisone injections, a practice which would probably have club management gaoled in these more enlightened times. As a result, he could hardly walk in his last few years.

Never mind - he will always be young for those who saw him in his pomp. He will always be the man who headed the goal which put Liverpool ahead in the final of the European Cup (Champions' League), in Rome in 1977, versus Moenchengladbach - the first year Liverpool won the competition.

Thanks, Tommy. Cheers, la.

For King & Parliament - Infrastructure Prototyping

I have made lamentably slow progress with my solo practice sessions for FK&P - one thing that has been holding me back [dodgy alibi] is the need for a practicable way to keep track of unit information in a simple but effective way, in keeping with my minimalist toy soldier style presentation, without burying the troops in counters.

This morning I have produced something which appears to fit the bill. My sincere thanks to Simon Miller and Gonsalvo for useful suggestions, and especially to Andrew Brentnall and The Jolly Broom Man for actual examples, which I have adapted (not to say stolen) to fit my basing systems.

I had a happy couple of hours fiddling around with MS Publisher, and I've set up a decent infantry template, which I can reproduce and amend quickly and easily. I ran off some trial sheets of info labels, laminated them and cut them to size. Here are the results to date.

Never happier than when fiddling about

Here are the first trial batch - these for some of my Parliamentarian foote. I'd have preferred to use matt plastic laminating pouches, but the glossy ones are better for allowing successful removal of white-board pen annotations. Note the little strip of white steel paper at the top of each label - these strips may need to be larger

Exciting picture of a flying base, showing how the little label attaches. My bases are all underlaid with magnetic sheet anyway, to allow them to live safely in their box files. The sliver of steel paper on the label allows it to attach underneath the base, without glue or anything messy

Here you go - volunteer demonstration by Richard Shuttleworth's RoF (of Blackburn Hundred) - these chaps were originally the Blackburn town Trained Band, and the yellow square on the right indicates that they are classed as "raw". Old Richard in his best crimson coat is proud of them anyway. The 17th Century font is a bit of an extravagance, since I will have to draw it to people's attention, but it is not inappropriate, since my laminating machine must date from approximately the same period

From the front, the new label is quite discreet

Thus far, this looks promising. If it works (or can be made to work) then I should be able to manage without any major investment in sabots, and the labels are cheap, easy to make and easily edited if I successfully keep the template samples handy. In today's trial, movement on the cork sheet (which might be grippier than the painted battle boards) suggests that the label tends to shift a bit in action. It won't come adrift, but it can get a bit - you know how it is - not quite straight [OCD alert]. I was hoping to be able to use the same size labels for the foote, the horse and the dismounted dragoon bases (which last are only half the depth), but I may have to change to bigger labels with bigger patches of steel paper.

I might buy some better quality laminating pouches - I'm down to a pack of Woolworth's own brand, which illustrates the house focus on economy and making things last. Better pouches will stick on the paper more firmly.

Work continues. There should be some pictures of actual test games once the record-keeping labels are working nicely.

Hooptedoodle #329 - The Ascent of Schlimm - Part (2) of an occasional series

The Grand Duke yawned, and as he did so he realised that he had actually dozed off for a moment. It was very warm in the room. He opened his eyes and jumped with fright - there, on the other side of his enormous desk, stood his Minister of Finance, young Edelbert Schlimm.

"What a fright you gave me, Schlimm! - I was pondering the matter of the floral theme for this year's Watchmakers' Guild Festival. I thought perhaps daffodils?"

"Highness, we did daffodils last year. In fact, I believe it has been daffodils every year for the last eleven festivals - something to do with avoiding the cost of repainting the floats."

"Ah yes - as I recall there was only one float involved last year, with the Schweinheim Children's Choir - what happened to the rest of the processional vehicles?"

"The festival has been downsized, Highness, since there are no longer any watchmakers and only 27 people attended the last one, including the parents of the choir."

"Yes - now I remember. All right - why don't we go for daffodils this year?"

"Excellent idea, Highness."

The Grand Duke stared at his Minister, musing over the remarkable change in his appearance in recent months. He was impeccably suited and groomed, his shirt and his shoes were hand-made, in his lapel he wore the scarlet and white silk ribbon of the Grand Knight's Cross of the Order of Sankt Tobias and - the Grand Duke winced to observe - he had a discreet diamond stud in his left ear. He was also surprisingly suntanned, considering it was only April and the fog and rain of what passed for Spring in the Duchy did not usually cause sunburn.

"Reminds me - I sent for you. Where have you been?"

"I'm sorry, Highness, I have been very busy."

The Grand Duke frowned.

"But I sent for you over a week ago, where have you been?"

Schlimm was impassive.

"Complicated - mostly I've been in Dubai, I think. Yes - mostly Dubai. What was it you wanted?"

"A number of things I was concerned about - if you hold on a moment, I have a written note here somewhere."

Pushing his reading glasses back up his nose with his index finger, the Grand Duke scrabbled around among the chaos on his desk for a few seconds, and produced a crumpled scrap of paper, which he smoothed out and studied for a little while.

"Right," he said, "for a start, who are all these foreigners wandering about the castle? They are frightening the kitchen staff, and last week a couple of them walked in here and started measuring things. Never said anything, just wrote down some notes and sketched drawings in an exercise book. I was trying to watch TV. Are they here to redecorate?"

"No, Highness - they are here in connection with the sale and lease-back agreement I told you about."

"You never told me any such thing, not that I remember - also these fellows don't speak any German - they're English, I think. What's going on?"

"I apologise, Highness, I was sure we had discussed the matter. The castle is far too big for the needs of your family; the idea is that we sell the place for redevelopment - you and the Ducal Family and your immediate entourage will live in a modern apartment in the West Wing, with a nice view across the swamp."

"But my family have lived here for many centuries, Schlimm - what is to happen to the place? - and what about all the paintings, and the furniture, and the collection of ceremonial armour, and the stuffed animals, and everything else? This is my personal history, our glorious heritage."

Schlimm bowed slightly.

"With respect, Highness, personal history is a luxury appropriate only to those who can afford it. I am expecting a report from the preliminary survey shortly, so we may discuss it then, if that suits you. The current suggestion is that the remainder of the castle buildings will be developed as luxury apartments. The architects are very interested in the paintings and the other artifacts - if there is anything they can't use they have offered to sell it for us on eBay. There are various ideas for the use of the Great Park - I am trying to retain a small garden for you and the Duchess. They may even stretch to a greenhouse."

The Grand Duke passed a shaking hand over his haggard face.

"A greenhouse? I remember none of this, Graf Edelbert. Have you mentioned it to the Duchess? Is she in favour of these plans?"

"The Duchess has been away skiing since before the discussions started, Highness - I had hoped you might raise the matter with her when she returns? There are also some interesting ideas involving the sale of her hunting lodges to an American hotel chain. The concept is that they would make very attractive health spas."

The Grand Duke removed his glasses and closed his eyes - he really did not feel well at all.

"Schlimm, I think I'm going to have to rest for a while. Before you leave, can I just mention the subject of beer?"

"Beer, Highness? - shall I get you a beer?"

"No, Schlimm, I just need you to explain something to me. Recently I suddenly fancied a beer - haven't had one for a while - and asked old Tauber to bring me a bottle of the Alter Drosselberger, my favourite. It was horrible - like horse urine. Also, the label was in English. I was so upset I rang a phone number which was printed on the label, and I got through to a helpdesk which I think was in India."

"Well, Highness, the Alter Drosselberger is selling very well, the brewing company is one of our more successful enterprises. I am sorry if you received a bad bottle."

"But we used to make the finest beer in Europe, one of the few things of which we could still be proud - it won international medals and everything. Good God, Schlimm, I own this brewery - my family has owned it since the 17th Century. I am going to visit the place and find out what's going on - I shall sort them out, you'll see - tradition still counts for something!"

Schlimm stared at his immaculate shoes, and aligned the crease in his Italian trousers.

"In fact, Highness, you are not strictly the owner of the brewing firm these days. You do retain a minority stake in the company, but you have only 15% of the voting shares. My brother and I have 80% between us. The actual Blickhof brewery is long gone - it is now a shopping mall and an indoor swimming pool and sports centre. The recipe for the beer was updated to cater for modern tastes, and the contract for production of the stuff is the subject of a tender every two years. Recently there has been a change - for a while the beer was being made and bottled in Burton on Trent, but it has now moved to a firm in Turda, Romania. No doubt it will move again if we get a more competitive offer."

There was a silence. The Grand Duke sat with his eyes closed for a while, and Schlimm was beginning to wonder if he had fallen asleep again when he eventually spoke, slowly and without any discernible emotion.

"I really do not understand. The fact that we made the best beer in Europe was crucially important - it was a source of national pride, and it was a noble tradition. This is not just a matter of revenue or earnings yields, it is a question of self-respect, and of ethics. If we can get our beer made more cheaply elsewhere, so that you and your brother make even more money, then I congratulate you, but I think you have missed the point. If I phone up to complain about the horse urine beer, I speak to a man in India and we cannot understand each other. That sums up exactly how much we have come to care about our customers and our traditions. I am appalled."

Schlimm smiled condescendingly, but the old man did not see him because his eyes were still shut.

"Your ideas, Highness, are as traditional and as outmoded as is much else about the Duchy and the way it runs. 'Pride in our product' is a very old-fashioned philosophy. Nowadays commercial ventures exist only to make as much money as possible for their owners. That is their primary - arguably their only - function. If our beer really tastes like horse urine then we will sell less of it, and we will make less money - that's when we know we have to do something about it. That is how it works nowadays. Your ideas of quality and pride are worthy and they do you credit, but, like the dinosaurs, they are things of the past. If you can get no help from our helpdesk number, then you should be delighted that you are dealing with a company which wastes as little money as possible on such matters..."

He broke off here, his voice ending on something of a squeak, because the Grand Duke had taken an old army revolver from his desk drawer, and was very deliberately taking aim at him.

The redevelopers are here

Acting Up - Dressing Up?

A colonel - dressed as regulations

This is probably going to be rather a stupid post - which is not unusual in itself - but it comes from something which a friend told me years ago, which at the time I dismissed as probably incorrect, but I thought I would return to the topic again, in case anyone can offer some thoughts.

The context, all those years ago, was exactly the same as it is now. My long standing fascination with the Battle of Salamanca has been the great underlying theme for the building of my wargames armies. The first useful book I had on the subject, back in the 1970s, was Lawford and Young's Wellington's Masterpiece - much criticised subsequently, but still an excellent read if you can find a copy.

In the Appendix which gives the breakdown of the French army, a number of question marks appear as brigade commanders, since these brigades were commanded on the day by the senior colonel, the general being otherwise occupied - examples are:

(a) the 2nd Brigade of 7th Division - this would normally have been GdB Thomières' brigade, but Thomières was in temporary command of the Division, since GdD Souham was elsewhere. Thomières had an exceptionally trying day at Salamanca, and was mortally wounded. [Under the general heading of "what if?"- if Souham had been present he would have been by far the most senior of Marmont's division commanders, so he would have been the correct 2-i-C to take command when Marmont was wounded, which - of course - wouldn't have happened because Marmont would not have had to get on his horse to ride over to see where the blazes Thomières thought he was marching off to.]

Anyway, the point is that Lawford and Young's question mark in this case should have explained that the commander for the day was Col. d'Herbez-Latour of the 101eme Ligne.

(b) The 1st Brigade of Pierre Boyer's Dragoon Division - the question mark in this case is Colonel Piquet, of the 6eme Dragons - a right old firebrand.

The Appendix in the book should also have had a couple more question marks, to be pedantic about it:

(c) GdB Carrié [de Boissy] of the 2nd Brigade of this same Dragoon Division was not present - he had been seriously wounded four days before Salamanca, and was a prisoner - he spent the rest of the war in Bridgenorth, Shropshire, apparently. On 22nd July the Brigade Carrié was commanded by Col. Boudinhon-Valdec of 15eme Dragons.

(d) GdD Brenier (6th Division) was not present at Salamanca - his place at the head of the Division was taken by GdB Taupin, whose brigade was probably commanded by the colonel of the 65eme Ligne.

And so on - the point (which, predictably, I have made at excessive length) is that this was a commonplace event - regimental officers would regularly be found acting up to replace more senior officers who were absent.

Going back many years, a friend of mine once showed me a picture of a French Napoleonic colonel, who appeared to be wearing some kind of sash - my friend reckoned that if the colonel was required to take charge of a brigade he would be provided with a sash as a badge of office.

Personally, I find that unlikely - officers in the French army gained a general's sash by putting their lives on the line and distinguishing themselves in action for years - such things would not be handed out on loan, surely. What about the brigade staff, though? - if this was a temporary situation, one would expect the brigade staff to be available to support the colonel. Presumably the ADCs would just wear the armbands appropriate to the rank of their usual boss?

Not a matter of any importance, but in the near future I need to paint up a couple of colonels to take charge of brigades (round about the time of the Battle of Salamanca, as it happens). I can just paint up a vanilla colonel, of course, but if there should be some identifying tweak of uniform I'd be pleased to reproduce it.

Hooptedoodle #328

***** Late Edit *****

To balance things a bit, my compliments to the BBC, for the most relaxing report on B****t I've seen so far - please enjoy...

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Hooptedoodle #327 - The Inevitable Herring

Something has been niggling me this last couple of weeks. Something not quite remembered, but somehow familiar, if I could just put my finger on it.

I finally remembered a few days ago. In about 1970 I saw a film, Spring and Port Wine, which starred James Mason - good film, in fact - of its time. A gritty domestic comedy set in Bolton (Lancashire, industrial North West of England), written by the excellent Bill Naughton. [It is interesting to recall, in passing, that James Mason was born in Huddersfield, so, even though he was always Rommel really, he did have some credentials for a provincial role.]

Anyway - Mason plays a well-intentioned but domineering father - very heavy - and things come to a bit of a head when his teenage daughter (played by Susan George) turns up her nose one evening at the herring which is served up for her tea. With much preaching about how lucky she is to have a herring at all, and how many people would be delighted to have such a herring, the father decrees that it will be served up again tomorrow, and the next day - there will be no choice. The damned herring will appear daily (presumably) until she eats it.

Any bells ringing? At the time, we all thought the father was a bit pig-headed, but what did we know? Nowadays, this would be regarded as a valid negotiation, apparently. You will be offered the same fish every day until you realise how wrong you have been to refuse it, or until the alternatives become so unbearably awful that you change your mind.

I can't remember how the story line developed - must watch it again - I can't recall if there was a backstop Plan B to cover the possibility that she never ate it. Presumably the father knew he was right, and that right would prevail. Strength and stability.

Must try and get hold of the film - I need to remind myself what happened...  

***** (Very) Late Edit ***** 

OK - OK - a number of people sent me chasers - it seems that they, too want to know what happened in the end. Very sketchy synopsis follows.

Things become more tense, the herring disappears, mysteriously, both daughters leave home (the younger one, she with the herring problem, turns out to be pregnant). The mother pawns the father's best overcoat to get some cash for the younger daughter, the father finds out, goes ballistic and the mother moves out too.

Not before time, the father has some kind of inspirational moment, and he determines to change - he realises that his family are far more important than his principles. The film ends before he makes much progress, but we can see where he's headed.

As for the herring, it seems likely that the kid brother gave it to the cat. At this point, I'm struggling to sustain the extended analogy, so let's drop the matter and get back to the bunker.

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