No! This Is Nothing To Do With Wesley Snipes
Nor dancing, either. Nor yet dancing vampires<winces>, even if I have a dim and distant memory of "Buffy" trying this on, which may be a figment of my imagination. Or not. Still, it does allow Conrad to throw in a bit of click-baity photography, if Art can bear to put down his bowl of coal.
There seems to be talk of a remake, because of course - obviously! - nobody in Hollywood is capable of writing an original script or plotting anything novel or interesting <96 pages of ill-tempered rant excised>.
No, what I want to refer to in this Intro is, once again, the Deepwater Horizon disaster, and what led to it. Like other such catastrophes, and 'Piper Alpha' instantly springs to mind, there was no single item of failure that caused the explosion or resultant deaths, rather it was a chain of events, each one leading to the other. Art!
That, ladies and germs, is the Blow Out Preventer as utilised by BP for the Deepwater Horizon, and as you can see it is freaking massive. The intent is to have it sit on the well cap, and go into action should anything go wrong, preventing the uncontrolled release of oil, gas and water into the rising pipe.
However - a word you were expecting all along - the Commenters on the CSB video I found on Youtube had several very pertinent points to make, since one was involved in the industry and another did safety checks for oil rigs. Art!
What you see here are a pair of 'blind shear rams', one highlighted in yellow and the other remaining in grey. These were the last-resort mechanisms to cut the drill pipe completely, thus preventing any more oil, gas, water, mud and cement heading back up the pipe. They would be moved forward hydraulically and sever the pipe, the second pair being for a redundant back-up.
Except not. According to the Commenter, the second BSR had been converted to a 'test ram' that would measure pipe flow and pressure without needing to shut down drilling. When it actually came time to close the ram, the drill pipe had buckled due to the extreme difference between internal and external pressure, and the ram didn't cut the pipe properly. Art!
BOP with puny tugs for scale
There were other problems caused by cutting corners to save costs; the cement slurry used was cheap and unfit for use at the depths involved - 18,000 feet in the borehole. Only a third of the number of 'centralisers' were used, which contributed to the pipe buckling. And no onshore refurbishment was undertaken if things could be bodged together on the rig, because that was cheaper. Art!
That there is a centraliser.
Okay, you may think that this litany of failure is bad, but - it's not over yet. In the interest of mercifulness I shall leave further details for a future date.
The challenging world of deep-sea oil-drilling!
From The Profound To Look What I Found
As you should surely remember, Conrad recently got 8 jars of Marmite-flavoured peanut butter for half price. There's a reason this happens. Art!
What tends to happen is that these jars simply sit on the shelves and don't get sold, so the stuff in the warehouse never gets rotated into store. Instead it sits there in a pack and the oil slowly separates from the peanut pulp, and mixing the two back together is a right pain, I can tell you. Fortunately this lot aren't too far gone and I'm switching them between being right way up and upside down to mix them up again.
"City In The Sky"
Ace and one of Arcology One's 'Wardens' have taken themselves away from the TARDIS, since it's attracting a crowd.
Ten minutes
later they stood on the far side of the sphere, able to see a minute blue dot
that attracted other minute black dots the way ripe fruit drew flies.
‘Just tell me this. You don’t wish us harm?’ asked Nat.
‘Blimey!
Of course not!’ gasped Ace. The
whole ethos of the Doctor, his travels, and his companions, was to do the right
thing. Even, Do The Right Thing. ‘There’s this lot of space-refugees in the
thirty-first century who were inspired by you people, which is where the Doctor
first encountered you before meeting me and me asking him about the Wirrn - ’
Nat tuned out the supposed explanation as
being more bizarre exposition from the newly arrived stranger. Privately she felt that this pair were
genuine. Nobody could invent a story so
silly and expect to be taken seriously!
The question was, were they genuine lunatics or genuine helpers?
‘What are you here for?’
This put Ace on the spot. She knew that an hideous intercontinental war
had broken out below them, where millions died every hour, so how could she
explain that she and the Doctor were here to better understand how the
holocaust came to be?
And if she tells the truth, is she going to impact the future?
"The War Illustrated"
As ever, remember that the pictures for this publication that were taken overseas didn't manage to get back to This Sceptred Isle anytime soon, thanks to being either on undeveloped film or as negatives. They could go by air mail but would still take days to arrive, weeks if they went by sea. Art!
This is one of the defensive marine forts that dotted the Thames estuary, preventing any Axis aircraft from flying up the channel thinking it would be free of anti-aircraft guns. They were known as 'Maunsell Forts' and a lot are still around, if in somewhat crumbling condition. These two-column concrete versions are probably slightly safer to walk on than their metallic brethren, who are dangerously unsafe by now. Art!
Looking a bit sad now
Channelling The Spirit Of Buster Keaton
Buster, genius comic film actor,, writer and director of the Twenties, was nicknamed "The Great Stone Face" - not to be confused with Judge Dredd, who is nicknamed "Old Stonyface" except not actually to his face - because he so very, very rarely smiled in his films. Art!
Okay, maybe Judge Dredd
This is Kyrylo Budanov, Chief of the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine. He is renowned for not cracking a smile, either, and for delivering deadpan messages such as "Russians trying to kill me is like a medal for my work." He is also extremely sly. Art!
He explained why he admitted this. Because, apparently, he likes to camp out in Putin's head. Pre-war, the Ruffians suspected someone was leaking information out of the FSB to Ukraine and eventually via the grapevine to Budanov. They carried out an investigation, imprisoned three people and fired or relocated thirty others, thus causing more damage than the leaker ever did.
If this chap ever laughs, begin to worry.
Finally -
Only just started on "Judge Dredd: The Darkest Judge" which holds out the promise of zombies. Takes all sorts.
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