Sandy Shore

No!  Nothing To Do With "Puppet On A String"
You're thinking of Sandie Shaw.  Which rather dates you, since that was 1967.  What you might call right tent, wrong desert.*
     Okay, you ought to know by now that Conrad is an obsessive about military history, the Second Unpleasantness and the conflict as it occurred in North Africa.  War in the desert, which Art can illustrate.  Art?

Desert epitomy

     Obviously, there is a coastline, bereft of vegetation, for which you can blame the Romans and drought.  Let us prod Art with a bamboo skewer.  Art?

Sandy Shore - see?

     The reason I mention all this is because of an item on the Beeb's news website, concerning the discovery of a new species of dinosaur in - the North African desert.  This is a rare occurrence, apparently.  Mansourasaurus Shaninae is named after the University of Mansour, and the Beeb kindly loaded an evocative picture that Art will display.  Art?

There you go.  80 million years ago; an artist's impression

     What struck me is that this illustration depicts the lush shoreline of the very same desert you can see in the two previous pictures, which just goes to show that the neighbourhood can go into a decline over time.
     Time to strap the motley into an ejector seat and pull the big red lever!**

Our Friend The Shark
Oooh, your humble scribe is excited!  So excited I nearly used TWO exclamation marks there.
     "What is it now?" I can hear you quibble.  "Sugar-free ice cream?  The Mars Volta re-formed?  You acquired a copy of the bestselling "Lithium-Wafer Battery Design For Fun And Profit?"
     None of the above - Darling Daughter Sal has confirmed by text that she will be finishing off the shark pendant, that I commissioned her to do late last year.

Shark is happy, too.

     In fact, it might even have been completed as I type these very words.

A Step In The Right Direction
OR
The Shark Is Still Our Friend
Why would it not be?  Yeah, yeah, short attention span and all that - the same argument would apply to today's youth, then, obsessed with their mobile phones and all.
     Anyway, Conrad has just read about a killer whale that can mimic human speech.  Art?

A killer whale called Wikie.

     Only a few words so far, which is still quite an accomplishment.  Conrad ponders and wonders if this creature will eventually be able to grasp the concepts behind words, in which case expect it to hire a lawyer over the hideous libel of being dubbed a "Killer Whale".
     Now, that's one step towards rendering the killer whale*** more personable, cuddly and cute, which can only have a beneficial effect on Our Friend The Shark's image.  We probably have quite a long way to go before they can be taught to ask politely if you're a seal or a surfer before taking a chunk out of you.  Baby steps.

Shark is still happy, but not quite as much as before.

Did James Blish Inspire "Brains"?
I doubt if any of you young whippersnappers reading this have even heard of JB, who was a big noise in science fiction back in the Fifties and Sixties.  Well, that illustration of a spaceship encountering a space-faring city is from his novel "Earthman, Come Home", which is too long and complex to go into here.  Go and buy a copy.

Thus

     At a meeting with the repellent Hruntan regime on the planet of Gort, NYNY resident and deputy city-manager Carrel gives a lecture to an assembly of Hruntan technicians and a scientist, Doctor Schloss.  Once this lecture, on the nature of anti-gravity, has finished, Schloss launches into an "ardent stammering dispute over Carrel's math.  He seemed to consider Carrel an equal as a matter of course, and Carrel was beginning to look uncomfortable -"
     Now let me think - where else have we met a scientific genius who gets so into his work that his brain outstrips his linguistic abilities?

Mr Hiram Hackenbacker, say hello.

     Brains, of course.  I don't know if the futurologist Gerry Anderson - a moment's silence for the prophet - was familiar with Ol' Jim's work, but you can't deny a resemblance.
     Of course, I could be overthinking this ...


*  You'll see what I mean in a bit.
**  Not sure what it actually does, but - we'll find out, won't we?
***  Sorry, Wikie.