The Black Dog prowls the Boonies

Seems my Pilgrim in Despond post stirred a pot or two. I was trying to put into words the sorts of weirdness and insidious despair that one sometimes has to overcome to pursue silly gigs like this. The final line was supposed to soften it but obviously didn't! I can remember when it was not acceptable to admit to emotion, when to tell it like it sometimes is was seen to be a sign of weakness - C.S.Forester's Hornblower books weave it beautifully. A reflected example, though I have a sneaking feeling that I've used the story somewhere else in these blogs but it bears repeating and does the stiff upper lip rather well - Imagine the Duke of Wellington on his horse surveying the battlefield at Waterloo during the most desperate moments of the battle, surrounded by his staff, Generals in full uniform, aides, runners, the full retinue. Shouting, screams, cannons, smoke, stinging eyes, choking breath, death and blood everywhere. One of Wellington's senior commanders had his leg taken off by a cannon ball as he sat on his horse next to Wellington - 'By Gad, my lord' he said 'I've lost me leg!' By Gad, Sir' said Wellington 'so you have!' Just about sums it up really.

Back on Iridium. Propagation and range to Africa station now makes daytime HF impractical.

The French, Cook and the later navigators wrote extensively about fog down here - lots of it, arrives suddenly. Cook in Resolution sailed 300 leagues (how long was a league - my hazy memory says about 3 miles?)in it in company with Discovery without losing contact - amazing! We were in thick misty drizzle this morning, visibility half a mile max - I think it's the mid latitude convergence zone standard murk, at least out here. We were in it for days out of NZ last time. If we get to Kerguelen, it may be different.

Alan B in Xhaven - your beanie performing mighty service cosseting the noggin. Other toys work with TPS dry suits. Noice - tks.

Norm, the best we can do is observe that each of your words is symmetrical after the first letter so can be 'wrapped' and read backwards by end for ending that letter. Is there something deeper and more mysterious?

A couple of notes from Malcom to round it off:
Last October, Japanese scientists reported that they had put small
forward-looking video cameras on albatrosses to monitor the birds'
behaviour. The results showed that the albatrosses followed pods of killer
whales and that they fed or scavenged on the detritus of whatever the whales
were killing and feeding on. Whether this behaviour evolved from the birds,
over the ages, following boats, or whether boat - following evolved from
following whales one may never know.

malcom again

AW, BTW Biggle's flew into the Kerguelens after the war in search of German
treasure in "Biggle's Second Case". As you will recall he also beat you to
Tierra del Fuego.

Blimey! Is there no end to this white anting? What was he flying? Were Algy and Ginger with him? And where did he land??