(The fifth of November)

We recently were made aware of this recipe card; it appears that the scullery staff may have been pilfering incoming communiqués.  Please be reassured that in-house security protocols have been thoroughly reviewed.

Bolognese Machiavelli

   1. Arrange to have garlic and onions cast into hot oil.
   2. The carrot and celery you must divide against themselves. Ground beef, too, shall turn upon the burner; crush any coherent resistance with a spoon of wood. Sautee until no hint of blood remains to stain your hands.
   3. Perhaps, in a dark place without witnesses, the tomato shall meet with the knife.
   4. The basil and parsley you may use without consequence. For long minutes, all shall be muddled and roil on the surface of the flame.
   5. If it is most advantageous, store cold for the proper day.

“4. There is a long tradition in Canada of thinking that Canada just cannot do high-tech projects by itself — that the laws of nature somehow forbid it, and hence that anyone proposing such an impossibility is a charlatan. This belief is fundamentally irrational, which makes countering it with rational arguments very difficult.”

We of course disagree - but the sentiment, and its tone, are recognized.

For those who receive our irregular dispatches who are rapt spectators of the auto-voiture style of circular racing, may we pique your interest with alternative racing-based entertainment?

Formulated by Colonel John Paul Stapp, it states that “The universal aptitude for ineptitude makes any human accomplishment an incredible miracle.”

(Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?)

We are not informed as to the disposition of the (other) pedals.  But we understand if some concessions to mobility were made.

No further details available at this time:

…”the officially accidental death in 1941 of a Japanese cryptographer in that country’s New York consulate on the 38th floor of Rockefeller Center, one floor below the offices occupied by Sir William Stephenson (a/k/a “Intrepid”), in which a scaffolding broke through the window and the Japanese man was bludgeoned to death by a construction sandbag; Ian Fleming (who served under Stephenson at the time) later claimed that he had killed the agent in question with a sandbag.”

The field of formal logic includes a number of graphical symbols which are used as a shorthand for describing set membership; ‘included in but not exclusive to’, ‘not required’ and so forth.  We see certain potential applications of this sort of thinking herein - the goal of a poster is to communicate information quickly and clearly, with a minimum of verbiage.  But subtleties can be lost.

Your entry-level deep ocean exploration vessel is the bathysphere.  For your money you will receive a 4500lb hollow steel sphere (1” thick walls), with 2 viewports (3” thick quartz).  You will be able to easily descend to the continental shelf; further descent is possible (pre-trip soundings recommended).  Don’t forget your ciné camera!

Lifting/communications cable included with each purchase (3000’ spool).  Suitable crane-barge must be supplied by purchaser.  Additional features available (external searchlight, hatch, oxygen cylinders, etc) - pls enquire at your local dealer.

Prepayment required.  Warranty void below 500 fathoms.

As garden sheds go, this would be the nee plus ultra.  We should all be so lucky.  The attention to detail inherent in the well-laid circular path is commendable.  One hopes that Coriolis forces might even be harnessed to keep one’s drinks well-mixed. Our peace dividend.

…

We shall append a not-entirely-unrelated anecdote, courtesy of Wikipedia (as per usual).  The context is that, during The War, Germany and the Allies (Britain, mainly) were engaged in an escalating competition to jam the others’ radar technologies, and create newer, more-difficult-to-jam techniques.  This story deals with the German system called ‘Wotan’, used to help distant airplanes find their location with the help of German ground stations.

“The British were ready for this system even before it was used. By chance, the Germans had chosen the operating frequency of the Wotan system very badly; it operated on 45 MHz, which just happened to be the frequency of powerful-but-dormant BBC television transmitters. All Jones (the British fellow in charge of this sort of thing) had to do was arrange for the return signal to be received from the aircraft and then re-transmitted. The combination of the two signals modified the apparent transit delay (and, by extension, the calculated location of the airplane). Initially, the signal was re-transmitted at a low power, not powerful enough for the Germans to realise what was happening, but enough to spoil the accuracy of the system. Over subsequent nights, the transmitter power was gradually increased. As Wotan’s use went on, the aircrew accused the ground station of sending bad signals and the ground station accused the aircraft of having loose connections. The whole scheme appealed to Jones as he was a natural practical joker, and remarked that he was able to play one of the largest practical jokes with virtually any national resource that he required.  The gradually increasing power conditioned the Germans such they did not realise that anyone was interfering with the system, but believed that it suffered several inherent defects. Eventually, as the power was increased enough, the whole Wotan system started to ring with all the feedback.”