No! Nothing To Do With Office Supplies
For the puzzled South Canadians out there, "Staples" is an office supplies retailer here in Perfidious Albion, their name being an hilarious pun on Basic Essentials and also those annoying metal things that rip your A4 to bits without securing it properly. Ha ha. Ho ho.
NO! I mean the critical triple of Things Man Cannot Live Without*: tanks, atom bombs and zombies. Or is that just me? Art!
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You've got zombies and tanks, and the next page had atom bombs, if I remember correctly (I have the whole comic in reproduction as part of "Mister Monster's High-Shock Schlock") |
Okay, we may have gone into this subject a couple of times previously, so I shall only lightly buff the surface matter instead of an in-depth explanation. As mentioned above, back in the late Fifties and into the Sixties, both South Canada and the Sinister Union were looking at the possibility of aircraft powere987d by a nuclear reactor. They looked at big, strategic bombers that would be able to carry such a reactor thanks to their physical size. Art?
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The mighty NB36 |
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Not at all small |
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Tu95LAL |
Conrad's point is that these projects were shut down over 50 years ago and technology has not stood still in that time; what with metallurgy and ceramics and CNC engineering ability, it ought to be possible to construct a nuclear reactor capable of powering a large bomber. That being so, one of the strengths of an atomic atomic bomber would come into play; mission duration. With a nuclear reactor powering away, let me pull a guesstimate out of the air and say that the BUFF ("Big Ugly Fission-powered Fellah") would be able to stay aloft for 25,000 hours.
That's over two and a half YEARS. And it's not unrealistic, either, as a couple of years is the typical duration of a conventional nuclear reactor's fuel supply.
I know, I know, you're all bleating "But the crew! But the crew! They'd all die of dehydration or starvation after a couple of months!"
Pshaw! You're being too conventional-minded. Whoever said anything about the bomber being manned**? An un-manned bomber wouldn't need much in the way of shielding for the reactor, making it lighter and thus more feasible to construct, since you don't have squishy meatbags to protect.
I know, I know, you're all bleating "An autonomous bomber armed with nuclear ordnance? Unthinkable! Remember that documentary 'Stealth' and what happened there!"
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Ah - sorry to break the news to you. It wasn't a documentary. All fictional |
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This, five times bigger and carrying nukes. What's not to like*! |
Of course, I could be overthinking this a little ...
How Exquisitely Inappropriate
For Lo! we are back on that short but interesting list of children's cartoon series derived from inherently unsuitable and inappropriate films. We've already had "The Toxic Avenger" and "Robocop", now say hello to "Aliens".
No, not that horrid-looking walking goitre ET, whom Conrad never cared for, nor any of the 'alien' species on "Starry Trex", where they had a forehead crease from a cheap prosthetic that made them look like bottom-heads -
No, I mean "Aliens" the film directed by James Cameron, with copious gore, people being split asunder, melted by acid, diced by monsters, and aliens being shot, burned, crushed and exploded. Art?
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Ah, Ellen ... |
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I'd buy that for a dollar! |
Conrad And An Eyes-Stomach Interface Discontinuity
Your Humble Scribe, who has a keen interest in food <is a greedy fat scoffer! the hideous truth courtesy Mister Hand>
WILL YOU STOP THAT, YOU TREACHEROUS APPENDAGE!
As I was saying, I had written down the recipe for a "Ruben Sandwich", which sounds like the sort of thing they retail in New York for office workers to devour at lunchtime out of a brown paper bag. "Is that it?" I pundered (which is like pondering but with more jokes). "Better double up on the quantities. I mean, one sandwich!" Art?
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With pen for scale |
By the way, it was delicious. Worth looking the recipe up for an extra-filling sandwich that will keep you going for eight hours.
New York thanks you |
Finally -
Your Humble Scribe has to go into Sodom-on-Ur later this morning for a diabetic eye test, and did consider whether to take that bag of books MY BEAUTIFUL BOOKS! in to hand over at the charity shops. Art?
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Ignore the cable! Ignore the cable! |
And with that, we are so very very done!
* Woman might be able to, she's less fussy.
** O go on. "Staffed".
*** Because of the violence and gore.
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