Wet Wednesday Morning

 A Bit Of A Novelty Today

Especially as this might be appearing before your orbs on Friday morning.

      So, I dug up a short story I wrote at least a decade ago, with the title 'Wet Wednesday Morning', a somewhat odd story about alien invasion.  So, I'm going to post it as the Intro today.

     O!  Written in 2003.

Wet Wednesday Morning

Cold.  Wet.  Midweek.  Usual dull drive to work.  Nothing happening, except car radio says UFOs have landed in park.  Which park?  Who knows.  Factual accuracy not mainstay of commercial radio.  Dismal DJ squawking about end of world.  Might consider suffering same to get rid of DJs.

          Traffic lights on red.  Jets overhead.  Jets overhead really low.  Loud bangs from direction Heaton Park.  Pillars of smoke.  No more jets visible.  Flown away?   Blown away?  No use relying on idiot DJ to discover.  DJ now praying (DJ trendy atheist until today).

          Take Junction 14 turn-off.  Not much traffic on slip-road today.  Realise slip-road joins A557, which runs past Heaton Park.  Brief worry.  Rationalise killer aliens from Alpha Centauri have better things to do than fry passing motorists.

            Car engine misfiring.  Driving prognostication not good.  Engine dies.  Realise killer aliens from Alpha Centauri may, indeed, relish frying passing motorists. 

            Five minutes later.  Not fried.  Engine still dead however.  Not travelling anywhere by car this morning.  Only twenty minutes left to get to work.  Curse Alpha Centaurans for fiendish engine-killing technology.  Start to walk.  May arrive only half hour late if move smartish.

            Big mistake.  Alpha Centaurans like to zero in on pedestrians.  UFO from direction Heaton Park zooms overhead, hits self with mysterious Alien Ray Beam.  Mysterious Alien Ray Beam carries self over road, park railings, park, and dumps self in field.

            Take stock of surroundings.  Milling mass of ex-pedestrians.  Large empty field.  No barriers.  Run for it.

            Correction: no visible barriers.  Run into Mysterious Alien Force Field after several seconds.  Wake up minutes later.  Pedestrians watching with interest.  Rub large bruise on temple.  Curse Alpha Centaurans for fiendish invisible force field technology. 

Wander around.  Bang head again.  Realise inscrutable alien plan to subdivide large arena into smaller ones.  Finish in pocket arena with sleepy-eyed woman.  With freckles.  Doubtless aliens want us as breeding stock. Worse fates possible - sleepy-eyed woman has nice figure, attractive face.  Seems wary of self.

            ‘Is there any way out of here?’ asks sleepy-eyed woman.  ‘They got me while I was walking along Blackley New Road.’

            Explain aliens are undoubtedly watching and listening to us.  She needs to whisper if communicating.  Near-silence is golden.  She nods. Explain about hideous alien breeding plans.  She frowns.  Hastily change subject to aliens; has she seen same?

            Negative.  Not sure if subject changed quickly enough.  Sleepy-eyed female moves into far corner of invisible cell.  Body language not good.  Mention alien’s may be using sinister mind-control technology.  Sleepy-eyed female convinced, introduces self as “Marie”. 

            Speculate on alien ways and means.  Long monologue.   Actually very long monologue.   Marie apparently impressed.  ‘You’re not from something like the SAS, are you?’  Disabuse her.  ‘Oh. “Green and Branchflower Retail Security Services.”  Typical alpha male.  I won’t hold my breath, then.’  Contemplate describing typical day watching Homo Sapiens imitate Homo Cretinus.  Decide not.  Rack brains for means to defeat UFO invasion.  Brains not up to task.  Go to sleep.

            Woken in small hours.  Not natural awakening.  Huge silver alien looms over self.  Brief panic.  “Brief” meaning “intense”.

            After underwear change, alien takes self to mothership.  Huge.  Spacious.  Silvery.  Aliens keen on 50’s sci-fi imagery, apparently.  Cause or effect?  Post replies to S. Speilberg, c/o Amblin, California, USA.

            Marched into Olympic-sized hall.  Even huger silver alien waiting.  Fear imminent death by casseroling.

            ‘Greetings, human,’ says extra-big alien.  ‘The Alpha Centaurans are taking up strategic positions across Earth.  We are about to conquer your world.  What have you to say about that?’

            Have plenty to say.  Fear saying might lead to atomic vapourisation.  Bite bullet, seize day, carpe diem, go for broke.

            Returned to pocket arena several hours later.  Huge silver alien not keen to stay and force hideous breeding plan into operation.  Marie awakes briefly to observe self arriving from alien UFO.

            Shortly before dawn, UFO leaves.  Distant luminous streaks on horizon indicate other UFO’s also leaving.  Invisible force field gone.  Marie quite pleased; hugging and kissing pleased.

            ‘They’ve gone!’ she shouts.  Explain had noticed same.  ‘They left right after you came out of the mothership,’ she continues.  Nod in agreement.  ‘Did you do something to them?’  Shrug in hopefully nonchalant manner.  More information drawn out by Marie. 

            Explained had told huger alien of imperial history here on Earth.  Seems huge aliens on first ever mission of conquest.  Played somewhat fast-and-loose with truth.  Gave example: British Empire.  Big fat world-spanning empire; subject countries acquired knowledge plus politics plus ambition from Britain.  Empire goes soft.  End result revolution.  Empire falls apart.  Previous imperial subjects claim compensation from Britain.  Immigration.  Social strife.  Similar story with Soviet Empire.  Also Mayan, Hittite and Seljuk Empires.

            Aliens surprisingly gullible.  

     There you go!

Exoplanet Report

Art!

     If you follow the blog with any regularity, you'll know that we are keen on the subject of exoplanets - planets beyond the solar system.  Prior to 1996 we had no idea if the Solar System was unique or typical.  Then observation systems began to confirm that gas giant planets were plentiful across the galaxy and with better techniques and technology, we discovered that super-Earths and smaller rocky planets were also numerous.  

     Then comes the determination: does said rocky planet have an atmosphere?  Because without one there is no chance life will develop.

     Hom. Sap. proves how clever it is with detection methodology.  Art!

     Okay, the next test is to use the James Webb Space Telescope to determine if there's water in the atmosphere.  However - that inevitable word again - look at those atmosphere temperatures: 5,900 degrees Kelvin.  That's three times the temperature of molten steel.  Aliens quite unlikely.

Number 11

In that list of 20 books on the classical world you need to read.  Art!

     The author of this item, Daisy Dunn, nominated this work which dates from 1973, making it more than 50 years old, so it must be good.  She bigs up, to use a technical term, of the Macedonians torching of Xerxes palace at Persepolis.  Arson as art?  

     Conrad seems to recall Michael Wood, mentioned in the blog yesteryon, did a series about Alexander on television, and ended up in Iran, following his footsteps.  He encountered a street performer, who put on a one-man show about how evil and awful Alexander was - the perspective from the Persian side.

Just A Bit Of A Gloat

Conrad is not going to go into any detail about the results of the South Canadian mid-term elections, as that's an item for a different day.  Suffice it to say that The Orange Landwhale got the pushback his demented corruption truly earned, and here's another terrible photo of the Snarling Walnut.  Art!

Saggy and droopy

     The pundit 'David Pakman' commented on Trump's last televised broadcast before the elections, which concentrated on - waitforitwaitforit - the reflecting pool and a pavement.  Art!

     Just what the South Canadian electorate want to hear about, hmmm?  This is what happens when your President has mashed potato for brains, and not even made with cream and butter either.

Dedication

If you follow the blog with any regularity you'll know that we follow 'Jake Broe'  on Youtube, whom is one of the go-to vloggers for unbiased news about the war in Ukraine.  As a six-year Air Force veteran you might expect him to be conservative but he loathes the Trump administration with a burning passion. 

     This is Jake at the start of his livestream - which ran for nearly 3 hours.  He must have felt validated after the first hour or so when results started racking up.  Art!

     Jake usually puts himself through the emotional wringer in his vlogs as he abjectly apologises for the Trump administration; he might not have to do this any further, poor chap.

Finally -

I have an idea for a comparison between 'Swan Song' and 'On The Beach' that needs a bit of digging and annotating.  Back later!

Frivolus

NO!  That Is Not A Typo Or Spelling Mistake

It is actually the Latin <hack spit> for 'silly or worthless', which we have transitioned into 'Frivoious', which means the same: lacking any merit or worth.  Thank you 'Collins Concise English Dictionary'.  The blog you are reading can be pretty much defined with that word.  Art!

     BUT you will get a dose of Remote Nuclear Tormentor if you call it that; I can call it what I like, it's my blog.

     Frivolous.  Remember that.

     Okay, today Conrad is going to continue with his intent to give Donold Judas Trump a good shoeing, and explore the South Canadian legal system a little more.  I now know more about their system than I do the British one even if I avoid any South Canadian television shows about lawyers like grim death.  Art!

     This is Glenn Kirschner, whom we've mentioned before.  He had some 30 years as an attorney in the legal system, having first graduated in journalism.  His first legal service was in the US Army, where he dealt with espionage and death sentence cases, before leaving and spending 24 years as an attorney in the US Attorney Office.  This guy knows his legal chopss.

     So! To the meat of the matter.  I have annotated one of his most recent vlogs on 'Justice Matters', his channel on Youtube.  The title was 'Judge Throws Out Trump's $10 Billion Lawsuit".

     No!  It's not the BBC defamation lawsuit, this is a different suit he took out against the 'Wall Street Journal'.  Art!

     Donnie Dorko was, of course - obviously! - horribly embarrassed by this image turning up last year.  His best course of action would have been to ignore it completely and wait for the news cycle to move on.  Being DJ Tango this was never going to happen, as he claimed he was being defamed and sued the WSJ for $10 billion.

     WE'LL GET TO FRIVOLOUS BE PATIENT!

     This missive was in an album created by that other sterling example of absolutely no moral compass, Ghislaine Maxwell, in 2003.  Conrad wonders why it took 23 years for it to surface, and it may only have come to light by chance, as an Oversight Committee subpoenaed a tranche of Epstein documents, of which this was one.  It ends with Droopy penning the line "Happy Birthday - and may every day be another wonderful secret."  Yeah, that came back to bite him on his nether fundament.  Art!

     That's Judge Darrin Gayles, who presided over the case.  Sorry, but I cannot find a recent photo of him not smiling.

     ANYWAY Gayles dismissed the first suit Trump's lawyers brought, commenting that it was "Horrible, incompetently presented and with zero evidence".  That's the trouble Trump has with his legal team; no decent law firm wants to do business with a client who will refuse to pay them if he loses, as is his MO.  They then have to sue him to get paid.  Yes, really.

     ANYWAY AGAIN Gayles left the door open for Team Trump to file the claim again, which they did.

     Gayles dismissed the claim again, Glenn quoting from 'AP' that he said the plaintiff was "Grasping at straws", that they "Did not prove the defendants made defamatory statement with malice" and that they were "Attempting to manufacture flaws in the Journal's investigative reporting".  Art!

     Prior to the case, Pig Daddy had called the story 'False, malicious and defamatory' with his legal team alleging the WSJ of "Knowingly and recklessly publishing numerous false, defamatory and disparaging statements that caused financial and reputational damage".

     Judge Gayles seems to have taken a dim view of the plaintiff's behaviour, since his second rejection of the suit was 'Dismissed With Prejudice'.

     This means it cannot ever be brought again.  Period.  Oooops.  Thrown out of court just 3 days before the mid-terms and reminding people what kinds of sleazebag Don Snoreleone associated with.  

     Glenn pointed out that a case getting DWP is rare; he hadn't dealt with any in his legal career.  A judge might DWP a criminal case where they want to punish governmental wrongdoing or mischief, like improper conduct from a prosecutor or the police.  Art!

     A civil case might get the DWP treatment for a list of reasons: 1)  Plaintiff brought the case after the statue of limitations had run out; 2) Frivolous claims' 3) Meritless claims; 4) Repeatedly violating court orders; 5) Abusing legal process; 6) In bad faith.

     Let me add in a bit of Google-fu concerning frivolous lawsuits.

"Key Criteria of a Frivolous Case

No Basis in Law or Fact: The claims rely on an indisputably meritless legal theory, or the factual contentions are clearly baseless, absurd, or delusional. [1, 2]
Improper Motive (Bad Faith): The lawsuit is not intended to solve a real legal dispute, but rather to harass, embarrass, pressure, or delay the opposing party, or to intentionally run up their litigation costs. [1, 2]
Failure of Due Diligence: The attorney or party failed to perform a basic investigation or research to verify whether the claims had any supporting evidence before filing. [1]"

     'Bad Faith' sums up Trump's motive here, to squeeze money out of the WSJ to make his case go away.  As with the BBC defamation case.

     Wait for the appeal to go in!  Art?

THE PANS!  THE PANS!

Yes, they are still with us.  I fear we will never be free of them.  They persist more than the wild locomotives that use to bother us before the Lava Moat.  Art!

Capable of seeing off even a Robinson 2-8-0

     Gordon!  What a pottymouth you are!  Also, I'm not paying $180 for a pan.

Back To The 20 Books On The Classical World You Need To Read

We are now on Number 12: 'In Search Of The Trojan War' by Michael Wood.  Conrad actually remembers watching the television series back in the Eighties, when all the lady viewers were swooning over Michael.  Art!

     Michael examined the available data, such as excavated evidence of battle, including slingshots and arrow heads, as well as the layers of burned and destroyed masonry at the site of Troy itself.  These are strong confirmations that the city was destroyed about 1180 BC and Hittite diplomatic documents state that the city-state was a frequent target for Greek raiders.

     The ten-year siege written about by Homer?  Nope.  Just nope.  Six months at best, as ancient armies could not campaign in the winter season thanks to weather and shortages of food.

     I think I'm being realllllly good at not buying a tranche of these works.  

     BE STRONG, CONRAD, BE STRONG!

Ooooh Look A Blackbird!

You will recall Conrad gushing about the SR-71 'Blackbird' in the South Canadian Air Hall at RAF Duxford, which is basically two gigantic engines hung from the thinnest possible airframe, all the better to beat the sound barrier into cowed submission.  Look what I just found on the newsfeed.  Art!

Not the kind that flaps off like a squawking alarm clock

     This is a good illustration of how thin the wings are.  Why did it leak fuel?  O go on I'm going to click, at least it's not a pan.  Art!

     NO! They mean the line between night and day, nothing to do with Arnie.

     It took up to 20 hours to get a Blackbird mission-ready, uploading data into the avionics.  A team of 16 mechanics and fitters would inspect every single inch of the aircraft before take off, then fuel it up, which took an hour; those are enormous engines that consume incredible quantities of fuel - 80,000 pounds of it, or 40 PROUD IMPERIAL TONS.  

     They don't explain why it leaked fuel.

     Which was because everything on the airframe was constructed with heat expansion in mind.  When it was on the ground cold, there were leaks; when it got up to operational height and the exterior heated to 300º C, the titanium panels expanded and the leaks stopped.  Thank you Google.

Finally -

A QI quote from a familiar name.

"All are lunatics, but he who can analyse his delusion is called a philosopher" - Ambrose Bierce

I Apologise For The Artwork Here

Your Humble Scribe Was Looking For Relevant Images

CAUTION!  SINGLE ITEM BLOG

Yet could not find any, so I had to go seeking amongst the AI Art Generator, for which I prostrate myself before you, gentle readers.  Both of you.  Art!

     Whilst this might not come across as a literal 'Truck Possessed By Demonic Forces' - whom can darned well get out there and work out their own financial plans with interest and defaults - it does epitomise the saga of 'GREEdy Streak auntY' and her nephew CAR KID, hereafter GREESY and CK.

     For Lo! we are relating another Reddit account on Youtube from 'r/Lounge' under the #familydrama# heading.

     Let me reveal firstly that this tale, unlike 99% of these tales, is set outside South Canada.  In fact it is set in British America, where the Commonwealth is still a fact and Kingie is still revered and the Perky Pats are amongst the first of military formations.  Canuckistan, in other words.  Art!

     CK's story involves a whole tranche of story about their entitled aunt so that I think I'm going to insert a couple of flags into the narrative as above for her: 'Red flag and trigger'.  Art!

     GREESY is both entitled and greedy, as you might expect from their acronym.  As evidence, they looted the probate of a relative they had wormed their way into as an executor.  They plundered the estate thanks to their legal status; everyone else stood aghast, unable to intervene.  yet they saw and remembered.

    Enter CK's uncle, whom he worshipped at a low level  This chap is a long-haul Canuckistan trucker.  The two were more like father and son, with CK frequently accompanying his Unk on travails  across British America.  Which is an enormous territory lest ye ferget.  Sadly, Unk got a terminal case of cancer whilst GREESY stayed healthy, as is often the way.  This vulture-in-human-form tried to get executor status for her bro and failed, because see above paragraph.  Instead he hired a lawyer who specialised in estates and inheritance, which caused GREESY to whine for two weeks, escalating so much that the hospice nurses kicked her out.  Art!

GET YE GONE!

                                                                                         

     Then came the reading of the will.  CK, to his amazement, was given Unk's rig.  Art!

     A 2008 Lonestar International.  A bit of a beast.  Plus! his uncle's 1966 Chevelle SS.  Art!

     Made out of pure testosterone.   GREESY threw a conniption, only to be told to sit down and be quiet.  She was last on the list of recipients - her brother knew her for what she was - and received a dirty dollar encased in a block of acrylic, which everyone but her found hilarious.  

                                          

     She then proceeded to harass CK for weeks by phone, pestering about what she called 'Her Car' and 'Our Truck', escalating to getting her boyfriend to bring a towtruck to CK's house in order to steal his Chevelle.

                                                             

     Cops were called.  GREESY and her soiled-underwear boyfriend were warned they were trespassing and committing Grand Theft Auto and to be on their way and I imagine those are the very words used as this is Canuckistan where people are polite.  Art!

                                                             

     The madness did not stop.  GREESY wanted those vehicles with the passion of a thwarted lover; clearly Unk knew which of her buttons to press.  She took CK to court a first time, which was dismissed before trial, and then again, which was Dismissed With Prejudice, meaning she couldn't ever bring the suit again, AND she had to pay CK's legal fees.  O boy I bet that stung!

     The rest of the family must have been watching and enjoying this charade play out, since CK's great uncle died and in the will -

     CK got a 1967 Chevrolet Impala SS, which had been restored by great uncle.  Art!

                                         

     Predictably, this sent GREESY into a frothing psychotic rage.  She and her boyfriend turned up at CK's home with a couple of flatbed trucks, and stole the Impala on one of them, driven by the aunt herself.  CK looked on in stunned disbelief as the boyfriend tried to get the Chevelle onto the other one even as he was calling the police.

     Both were arrested and sentence to 2 years in jail.  CK very wisely took out a restraining order against his aunt.  

     The cars keep coming, though.  His great aunt amends her will to ensure CK gets the great uncles other two cars: a 1958 Chevrolet Impala and a 

Plymouth Belvedere Fury, which is apparently the hell-spawn car from  'Christine'.  Way to go.  Aspiring to own an indestructible metal demon with a mind of it's own.  CK's cousin got rights to a Nash Metro that great uncle had been restoring, not that CK cared much as he deemed the Nash as ugly beyond redemption.  Art!

He has a point

     ANYWAY this must have occurred after GREESY got out of prison, as she was on her way to CK's house before her sister rang and warned her that setting foot on CK's property was a good way to return to prison, thanks to the restraining order.

                                                         

     So she turned around and spent the afternoon trying to extort the Nash from his cousin, unsuccessfully.  O boy that great aunt knew what buttons to press as well!

     GREESY then spent SEVEN MONTHS trying to extort the Nash from cousin, until he finally blocked her on every media platform he subscribed to.  No word of a restraining order but it would have been wise.

     ANYWAY great aunt then sells her farm, with nothing going to GREESY.  Not that she ought to have expected anything but you know what entitled people are like.  Art!

                                                                

     Then great aunt willed her town house to CK's cousin, which will have burned GREESY as previously it had been willed to her.  Yes well if you eff around you find out.

     In confirmation that CK is, indeed, Car Kid, he finished his first tale with the fact that he was restoring a Lincoln Continental Mark III, which meant nothing to Your Humble Scribe, until he mentioned that it's the car used in 'The Car'.  Art!

A bit of a beast.  Actually a lot of a beast.

     What is it with engineheads and evil possessed motor vehicles?  CK's cousin got in touch after all of GREESY's shenanigans and both are going to be working on The Car.  Best wear a crucifix whilst doing so, chaps.

     CK also made mention of a 1951 Studebaker 'woodie', which I'm guessing is not a car made of wood but with wood.  Let me dig a little.

"A Studebaker woodie is a car or truck featuring a body constructed or finished with real wood panels, built either by external coachbuilders using Studebaker chassis or as custom hot rods"

Art!

     In case you were wondering if GREESY was young and foolish, no she wasn't; CK let's slip at the end of his tale that she and her boyfriend had to come out of retirement to keep up their lifestyle.

     That's not the end of the saga of CK and GREESY.  There is another tale tacked onto the end of this one about how GREESY ripped off her brother to the tune of -

     But that would be telling.

Hell And Angels

Another Blog Brought To You Courtesy Edna And Thinking Time

Also known as 'walkies'.  She recognises this word, so to sneak it past her we need to spell it.

CAUTION! SINGLE CONTENT BLOG!

     ANYWAY I had an epiphany near the huge rhododendron bush, recalling a bit of what Robert McCammon had written in his afterword to 'Swan Song', where there's a confrontation between the green-fingers-on-turbo girl Swan, and The Man With The Scarlet Eye, a.k.a. 'Friend' which is one of the most ironic titles ever.  Art!

Not looking too friendly there, mate

     "Swan realises that this demonic figure was once an angel. That within this creature is a longing to return to a state of grace."

     Wowsers, so that's 'Friend's backstory: a fallen angel.  Thanks for clueing us in, Bob.

   ANYWAY AGAIN I wanted to do a deep dive on a film I've just finished watching, "Hell's Angels" and wanted to clear up any confusion about the motorcycle gang.  They didn't exist until 1948, and were originally composed of ex-Army Air Force pilots and aircrew, and they came into being at the opposite end of California - although there was a later chapter in Oakland.  You'll see.  Plus they rode motorcycles, not biplanes.  Just to be clear.  Art!

     ANYWAY ANYWAY back to the film.  Just to recap, it's about the Rutledge brothers, staid Roy and playboy Monte, who join the Royal Flying Corps in the First Unpleasantness.  Both become pilots.  I shall leave out the initial part of the film, mainly since I've covered the Teuton zeppelin raid on London already.  We were also introduced to Helen, played by Jean Harlow, in a role that made her a star overnight.  Helen, being blunt, is a bit of a loose woman; so loose she nears falling apart.  Supposedly Roy's lady, she has an affair with Monte, flirts shamelessly with all the officers she serves at her canteen, and is caught by Roy canoodling with another officer.  Art!

    That man is a cad and a bounder!  He ought to be cashiered!  HE HAS HIS BOOTS ON THE TABLE! and O yes the canoodling bit.

     The Rutledge brothers have both volunteered for an extremely dangerous stunt the next day: they will pilot a Teuton bomber that had been captured intact, fly over Teuton lines and bomb an ammunition depot.  Doing this will almost guarantee British success in a forthcoming attack, as the Hun artillery won't have any ammunition.  Nobody asks the embarrassing question of how they get back to British lines, as the RFC will definitely attempt to shoot them down.  Art!

     This is not a radio-controlled model, it's a real biplane.  In fact it's a Sikorsky S-29A, a South Canadian plane tricked up to look like a Teuton Gotha bomber.  They only made one of them and at the climax of the film -

     Let's not get ahead of ourselves.  Art!

     Note artillery being used as improvised anti-aircraft guns.  Art!

     One of the film's strong points is that the Teutons are not portrayed as caricatures or evil, nor do they speak cod English with a Teuton accent: they speak German.  The Teuton squadron takes to the skies for their morning constitutional, getting uncomfortably near the Rutledge boys.  Art!

     Despite these pilots being experienced ex-service members, this is a DANGEROUS stunt, with up to sixteen aircraft moving at speed in close proximity; a rut or rock or a sudden gust of wind would cause collisions.

     For your information, there were 72 pilots and 65 mechanics employed keeping 'Hughes' Private Air Force' in operation.  One pilot died when delivering an airplane to the Oakland site, and two more during production.  The final bill for this air force being used came to $1,200,000 and those are 1930 numbers.  That's on top of $560,000 used to purchase these planes in the first place.  Art!

     What Von Bruen is doing here is looking all around him, what we call 'situational awareness' today but in the First Unpleasantness was called 'Beware the Hun in the sun' or 'Brit hiding behind it'; pilots had to constantly scan the skies for enemy or friendly aircraft and most especially look at the sun, as an attacker with any nous used that as their vector.  Art!

The Rutledge boys reach the depot

     They drop their 6 huge bombs and - you may be ahead of me here - the whole place goes up in apocalyptic style.  The pyrotechnic work here is excellent and could teach modern film productions a thing or ten.  Art!

     These are RC miniatures.  Art!

     None of those wretched flame-pots here, these are large-scale miniatures and RC vehicles being blown to bits.  I bet the set builders had a bit of a bitter-sweet moment when their painstaking replicas were reduced to matchsticks.

      Then the Teutons encounter the Rutledge boy's RFC squadron in the skies and a massive dogfight ensues.  Art!

     The RFC join the party.  Hughes did several reshoots of these dogfights because he wanted clouds in the background to give a sense of speed that was absent in an empty sky.  In real life the Rutledge boys would have steered their bomber into the clouds to escape the pursuing Teutons, but Hughes must have jibbed at how dangerous this would be.  Art!

     The Rutledge boys bus gets shot up.  Conrad is unsure if this kind of dense bullet strike is realistic or not and one of the 'IMDB' 'Goof' comments mentions the same.  However - O that word again! - the twin machine guns on a Teuton plane could pump out 1,000 per minute, or 17 per second.  I estimate about 40 bullet holes in the rudder but, again, although that amount of strikes is possible, I strongly suspect they'd be a lot more spread out.  Art!

     British SE5s to the rescue!  I am familiar with these thanks to the 'Biggles' stories of Captain W. E. Johns, where his rival Wilks flies one of these, nicknamed a 'Glasshouse' because they had a small windscreen in front of the pilot.  Art!

     I counted 17 planes here, with possibly another dozen out of shot.  Need I inform you that this is EXTREMELY DANGEROUS stunt work!  Simulating a dogfight by using real planes with real pilots is inherently dangerous as the risk of collision is so high.

     Also, you can tell which side a plane is on thanks to the machine gun barrel shroud or jacket; Teuton guns had a lot of slats cut out to aid air-cooling, but the British stuck with a solid water jacket on their Vickers guns.  Art!

     Art!

     The PILOTED Sikorski is crash-landed, and I wonder if this is the stunt that the pilots refused to do, and which Hughes did himself.  As people say, he got the shot, but he also got a broken jaw and concussion.  Art!

     As a coda, we get the British attack going in, with a terrific simulation of a Royal Artillery creeping barrage in action, as good as that in 'A Bridge Too Far' which is high praise indeed. Art!

Teuton lines over-run

     This was the most popular film in South Canada in 1930 BUT it didn't make a profit, because the cost was so high $3.95 million.  I've already mentioned the cost of having an air force; then there's the sets, of which there were 70, constructed at a cost of $800,000 and dressed to the tune of $70,000 and costumes to the value of $160,000.  You can see why it didn't make a profit.  Art!

     Harlow and Hughes.  The original lead had been cast before talkies arrived, and proved entirely unsuitable thanks to her heavy Norwegian accent.  Enter Jean, recommended to Hughes after being seen at a revue.  The legend goes that the entire film was reshot to accommodate her role, which does not bear much scrutiny as only her scenes needed reshooting.  Also, the zeppelin and later scenes feature out-of-sync voices, because they were later dubbed in.

     Reportedly, one of Stanley Kubrick's favouritest films.  Stan: a man with good taste.