Foreign Drivers!

No!  This Is Nothing To Do With Making Bits Of I.T. Kit Work
You know what I mean, when you connect up a digital veeblefetzer to your laptop and a sneering dialogue box comes up "Installing driver software" - at least it always seemed to be sneering at me, if not really thinking to itself "Installing driver software you sap" - and you have to wait 45 minutes with a reboot until your computer's hamsters deem that yes, they can actually make this particular model of veeblefetzer work.

Very possibly a Veeblefetzer

     Well, that's what this isn't about.  Instead it's about E.E. 'Doc' Smith's 'Lensman' series, since your humble scribe is reading the first volume proper: "First Lensman", as published by a publishing house called "Ripping" who have completely disappeared from the scene.*

Oh - and the Lens won't work for women.  Tee hee!

     You see, Lensman Virgil Samms takes a trip to Rigel, in order to scout out any potential alien Lens candidates, and once there is required to travel as a passenger in a Rigellian surface car - perhaps "Alien drivers!" would have been more accurate, if less comprehensible.  Rigellian driving behaviour makes the maddest Italian motorist look like a sane and sensible plodding slowpoke.  Their machines are made out of inch-thick steel, at least, and move at nothing less than insane speeds, with constant violent evasive manoeuvring to avoid collisions.  A couple of inches separation from traffic in front and behind is deemed a ridiculously wide safety margin, and getting dents, knocks, gouges and scrapes on your machine is - perfectly normal.  Not only that, Rigellians have no ears, no sense of hearing and consequently know nothing of sound-proofing.
     Samms has a rough Rigellian ride, it is safe to say.

Rigellian family runabout

     Not only that, his driver had been instructed to drive especially slowly and carefully due to the important status of their guest.
     It struck me as an amusing bit of prose in what is usually very stern and sombre stuff, and also a neat way of encapsulating how very alien some alien races are (Star Trek' I'm looking at you with your "Practically human apart from an odd forehead' races).

A Rigellian, for your illumination.

     This reminded me of a similar scene in "Earthman, Come Home" - of which maybe more tomorrow.  Or the day after.
     Well, now that we've got foreign drivers out of our way, perhaps we can perambulate across the lowlands of the mind and into the Heights of Imagination!**
     Oh, hang on, before we do that, time to squirt vindaloo into the motley's eyes and have it run through Hampton Court Maze!

"The Rockford Files: Whiter Than White And Nearly Perfect"
This is one of the most amusing episodes of the show ever, and one I recall seeing first time around way back in the later Seventies.  It features Tom Selleck as Lance White, a desperately sincere, noble and naive private investigator whom everyone regards with immense respect, regard, fondness or (in the case of the ladies) barely-suppressed slavering desire.  Art?

Lance, being modest yet charming

     The only person not swooning in adulation is Jim, who cannot believe someone as trusting and open as Lance is still alive.  Jim, it seems, espouses a healthy dose of cynicism in one's professional career as a PI.  It's not like the movies nor the pulp thrillers.  Except that it is, when Lance is involved.
     This gig, incidentally, was what got Tom the chance of doing "Magnum P.I.".

 Well, we've explored the inky depths of outer space, the seediness of the long-distance PI, what next?
     I know - MODERN OFF-SHORE CABLE-LAYING VESSELS!  How's that for the white heat of technology, eh?  And no, I don't mean any of the Van Oord fleet, either.  Art?


     One of the most advanced multi-role cable-laying ships in the world.  Not bad, eh?
     It has dynamic positioning, and a great big crane, and it's green!  Spiffing stuff.

     And now - Misery!  Strife!  Bloodshed! Men in tartan trousers!
     
"The Invisible Cross" By Andrew Davidson
If you recall, in 'Journey's End' the 9th East Surrey's make a bloody but successful trench raid, sprung with inadequate planning and time; six raiders are killed and only one live Teuton prisoner captured.  The Battalion CO, a Major, is conspicuously absent from the trenches whilst his battalion is there.
     Now, when the CO is a capable man, as with Colonel Graham Chaplin, commander of the 1st Battalion the Cameronians during most of the First Unpleasantness, things turn out differently.

Some of the Cams plotting mischief with a rifle grenade

     All during the 3rd and 4th of June 1916 the artillery and mortars under his command were 'unobtrusively' making gaps in the Teuton wire (contrast with JE!) and at night on the 5th a reinforced company (probably circa 150 men) raided the Teuton lines.  They slay 8 of the enemy, take one prisoner alive, and lose one man missing (presumably dead as he never makes it back).  This kind of success is noticed at Brigade, Division and Army level; it's not often a raid of this size gets off so lightly and with a live capture, too.

A successful example: British Americans with a strangely-dressed Teuton captive.

     Well, I think that's enough grimness for one afternoon, let us go out on a high note, with <thinks> Sunset over Omsk!  Art?

On the banks of the eponymous river

     - and as old Sol sinks slowly in the west (for if it sank quickly there would be something seriously wrong with Earth's orbital dynamics) to the plangent strains of balalaikas, accordians and hammer dulcimers, the ancient city of Omsk can feel satisfied that it's helped Conrad to reach over 1,000 words today.

Na Dravye!




*  Or have they?  More going on here than meets the eye ...
**  Disgustingly poetic, I know.  What can I say?  The Muse struck

Conrad Is Uneasy

It's The Weather
All that sunshine makes me wonder when it's going to chuck it down, because it will do at some point, you know, and the longer the delay the worse it will be.  I would like a bit of notice before having to get my lifebelt and canoe out of storage, ta very much.
     Also, what's happening with my blog's traffic figures?  We've already hit 108, before this blog entry even gets posted, so I worry that my bilious slander may travel a little too far afield and come to the ears and eyes of Interested Parties.*

The blog equivalent of low-hanging fruit.

     Mind you, taking legal sanction against BOOJUM! would be enormously unwise due to the publicity it would generate, not to mention spreading pictures of your humble scribe's mirror-breaker across various print media.
     Okay, time to roll the motley in goose fat and talcum powder and see if that keeps the Atlantic chill out as we tow it behind a cruise liner!

"Journey's End" 2017 version
I have now seen this up to the 1:20 minute mark and need to point out that one or two SPOILERS follow, so you may gird your loins and read on, or screw your courage to the sticking place and skip the rest.

<SPOILER GAP>

There you go, how considerate am I?  Okay, I wanted to mention the trench raid that was carried out by the East Surrey's.  Art?

Thus

     The thing is, a full-length rifle is very unwieldy and awkward in a trench, so as many men as possible would be carrying revolvers, and Mills Bombs too,** as well as a variety of trench clubs and knives, which usually looked more like medieval blunt instruments than modern weapons of war.  Art?

A "Persuader"

     The confusion of the actual raid is well portrayed, as is the silent detestation of the men involved in it for such endeavours.  They suspected, and too often correctly, that they were being sent on raids for the sake of it.  This one does have a pay-off: a live prisoner captured with documents, but at the cost of six lives lost.
     Tomorrow, if I get the chance, I shall inform you of a real-life trench raid, how it was planned and the outcome.

The blog's readers could hardly wait

 More Of The Coincidence Hydra
Since I tend to trip lightly over the internet in random searches, which often end up leading to unexplored territory, I cannot tell you how I ended up looking at the definition of an architectural style known as "Googie", except that I did.
     This was a style popular from the late Forties to the mid-Sixties over in South Canada, epitomised by sweeping curves, lots of glass and steel and inspiration derived from cars.  One of the iconic structures was the Theme Building at Los Angeles International Airport.  Art?

By night

     Now, what television series am I watching?  
     "The Rockford Files".
     Where is it set?
     Los Angeles.  Art?

     This only later that day after having read up on Googie.  I don't think they ever showed a shot of this structure before and certainly haven't since, so what are the odds of that happening?

Groaty Dick
Wash your dirty minds out!  How often do I need to remind you gutter-brained letchers that the blog is SFW?  All too often, it seems.
     This is in fact a regional dish from the Allotment's Black Country (so called because of the thousands of smoking chimneys) that dates back to the Nineteenth Century, and I came across it on the Beeb's website, in an article about regional foods.  Art?

Thus

     It's composed of oat husks, leeks, onion stock and beef, with the proviso that the beef has to be cheap stuff, which needs to cook on a low heat for ages before it gets tender.  Conrad, who is essentially a stomach on legs,*** had never heard of it before; well, now he's interested, and is going to track down a recipe once this gets posted.  I think the "Groaty" comes from the oats, and don't I have a couple of packs of Polish groats hiding at the back of the cupboard downstairs?     This will also generate a great hook on Facebook, which you will realise if you've just come here from there.


*  The usual suspects - The Metro, First Bus and North Korea.
**  That is, the Pattern 36 hand grenade
***  You probably already suspected this

A Little More Down To Earth Today

I Will Try To Keep Exploding Solar Systems To A Minimum
It's just that they're so much fun, dammit!  Plus, they have no calorific value nor do they contain saturated fatty-acids.

Bye bye Solar System

     Having recovered from my momentary mordancy yesteryon, where we had children innocently dancing in the street, unaware that they were living on borrowed time, let us now revisit that shocking example of parental neglect "Boys And Girls Come Out To Play".  Yes, really.

"Come with a whoop, come with a call,"

Now really, this is taking the biscuit!  Not only are these children abroad at night when they ought to be sleeping - all that racket they're making is going to keep other people awake as well, and of course their slack-mannered parents completely ignore what's going on.

"Come with a good will or not at all."

NOT AT ALL, THANKS!  Or at least if the sullen, unwilling and moody ones were out, they'd be sitting silently sulking.

"Up the ladder and down the wall"

What!  Where are these children venturing off to?  Not only are ladders potentially dangerous, they'll be out of sight of their - admittedly negligent - parents if they're behind a wall.

"A halfpenny roll will serve us all."

Oh no it won't!  The half-penny has not been legal tender for decades.  Besides that, a single roll won't go far between hordes of children with appetites enhanced by dancing and singing, will it?  Nor will you find anywhere local open at this time of night.  Sorry, children, you're going to go hungry.

     That rhyme is a concatenation of abuse and neglect, all it needs is for some kids to be shoved up a chimney.  Disgraceful!

Will also fit most major sewers

     Time to strap the motely to the front of the speed-boat and circumnavigate the Isle of Wight!

Hi-Tec And Lo-Tec At The Same Time
Yes, gentle reader, for have I not been watching Season 4 of "The Rockford Files"?*  The last episode, "The House on Willis Avenue" was a 2-parter, introducing P.I. Richie Brockleman, and lots of computer equipment, which was White Heat Of Technology stuff at the time, and which Art will now illustrate.  Art?

     Ah, spinning tape reels and dot-matrix printers, how very nostalgic.  This was 1977, so the hardware looks a little clunky to 21st Century eyes: I probably have more processing power in the laptop I'm typing this up on than that whole room of machinery.
     The ending also comes with a rather prescient and poingnant message from the production team, which Art will reproduce -

     What would they have thought if they could see today's Interwebz and the data contained therein?  True, we do have the Data Protection Act, which is great if people pay attention to it.  If only those television staff of 1977 knew what happy innocent times they were living in ...

Conrad A Tad Ambivalent
No, no, you misunderstand - it's still SFW.  It means to be unsure which way to jump about a particular situation.  In the case of your humble scribe, we are talking about sharks, and I continue to plough a lonely furrow insisting that Sharks Are Our Friends, so I was intrigued when a song called "Baby Shark" came along.  
     "It can only be a good thing," I mused, "And will surely offset, at least partially, all those horrid exploitative films with poor CGI that feature robo-sharks or mega-sharks or three-headed sharks or sharks that swim in snow or orbit."**  Art?

Hmmmmmmm.

     I did play it on Youtube, once, which was quite enough, what with all the 'doo doo doo's there present.  No, I am not going to link to it, go find it yourself if you must.
     As I said: Conrad = ambivalent.

A Touch Of Dread
No!  Nothing to do with 2000AD and Mega-City One's top lawman, although that does give me an excuse to add in a picture, if Art will put his plate of coal down long enough -

Ol' Stony Face himself.

     Rather, your humble scribe is now beginning to realise that he's managed to pack and sort most of his books away, Hooray!  There is a pile of stuff waiting to be read, and some too large to fit in any bookcase, and another stack - but I digress.  "Packed away" does not equal "Arranged" or "Organised" - Art?

     This lot need arranging in at least alphabetical order of author, because I have no idea what's in there.  And there's hundreds of them!  And how can I arrange them in order to read their titles? 

"You're under arrest, creep."

          Yeah, you'd love that, wouldn't you, Mister Chin?

Later!


*  It was a rhetorical question, the answer is "Of course I have"
**  Every an one accurate and true description.