Aspire To The Child Of Fire

I Am Going To Be Going All-Out With A Previous Theme

CAUTION! ANOTHER SINGLE-SUBJECT BLOG

We have, for the past few weeks, been putting up illustrations from the Youtube channel 'Sci-Fi Art' as produced by the artist Angus McKie.  He belongs to a particular sci-fi 'school' that includes the likes of Chris Foss and Anthony Roberts, who also go in for verrrry detailed renderings of futuristic subjects.  You may not be aware, as Conrad wasn't, that 'McKie' means 'Son Of Fire' and in the spirit of that here's an illo featuring fire.  Laser fire, maybe, not oily flames, but still fire.  

     Minor apologies for including the scroll bar, Your Humble Scribe needed to include a few puny humans for scale, whom are bugging out in well justified fear.  

     Conrad is aware that this is a cover picture, and <thinks verrrry hard> it might be 'Brontomek!' by Michael Coney.  Allow me to dig a little - Art!

To show our appreciation of this fruitful theme, allow me to put up the title thumbnail from Youtube.  Art!

     We've covered this illo as cover art, so I'm not going to detail any more about it.  Tee hee!  Now for the rest of the remaining illos on the vlog.  Art!

     Old meet new.  In case you were wondering, no, this is not primitive Hom. Sap. greeting an alien probe by threatening to brain it with wooden clubs.  Note the giant fungi off to lower starboard, equally as large as the brutal primitives to port.  We're seeing a human space probe at work. 

     One can only wonder at the mindset of the probe-constructors  here.  The monolith in "2001" did have straight edges, yet it blended in with the background.  Here is what amounts to visually shouting HERE I AM HERE I AM, attracting all sorts of attention.  Unless - it couldn't be an harvesting probe, can it?  Moving swiftly on - Art!

     Conrad has cunningly fitted two separate images into a single one, since I think this might originally have been a wrap-around book cover, but don't quote me on that yet before I dig a tad.

     Nope, there is another single image on teh Interwebz showing the whole image instead of two halves, yet that's it.

     ANYWAY back to the content not the format.  The giant four-wheeled war machine needs a serious sensor net overhaul if it can be ambushed by another war machine as big as a skyscraper.  Seriously.  Also, Art?

    Note the similarity between Four-Wheeled War Machine and Mek-Quake's glazzies.  Homage, influence or just ripped-off?  Art!

     What you might call an 'Ooops' moment, writ large.  Pretty obviously it's an impact between a flying vehicle and a column, and the column bears some responsibility for the collision.  Do you see any warning lights atop the structure?  No.  No you do not.  Also, the large hill in the background  may have spoofed any radar returns.  I also note that the 'flying saucer' is so extremely robust that it has hardly suffered any damage, rather the inverse of normality.  Possibly due to it being a flying island cased in steel, from it's looks.  Laputa updated?  A bit of digging found a reference on FB and the 'Terran Trade Authority' artbooks.  Further to the artwork: "A city-ship slices through one of the TTA's interstellar communication pylons during its mad career across the surface of Terra."

 Art!

     There being an absence of puny humans scurrying about in panic, we have to take size cues from things like the sheer detail present, the haze of distance and the clouds emerging from the enormous hangar.  Your Humble Scribe is pretty certain that this is a book cover - TGHOE?  Let me dig.  Art!

One wonders if Angus was inspired by the Teuton zeppelin hangars of the First Unpleasantness.  Art!

Art!

     Here's Angus doing his best to out-Chriss Foss Chris Foss.  If this wasn't in a folio dedicated to Angus I would have gone for Chris as the artist.  ANYWAY AGAIN there's that whacking big gap at the top of the art that implies it's a cover illustration and my skip-like memory is quivering with vague recall about actually seeing said illo.  Let us deploy shovel and spade.   Aha!  Art?

     One of the benefits of having a midden of a mind.  Art!

     At first glance I thought this whatever-it-is was semi-derelict, yet a closer look reveals that the paint on the big numbers is peeling a little, and with another spacecraft/missile/STOL-jet emerging, it cannot be all that derelict.  Nor does the big missile hanging from a gantry look especially rusty or dusty.  Treat with caution.  Art!

Miami Spaceport

     I know it looks as if Sydney Opera House and a wedding cake had a baby, and you can see the antipodean artefact's influence here, although the end result is all Angus.  There are other iterations of 'Miami Spaceport' as well.  Art!

Anne, sometimes unkindly known as the 'Barbara Cartland of sci-fi'

     Art!

     This is more like it!  Proper sci-fi art, none of that milquetoast architecture nonsense.  Spaceships a-bristling with ariels and antennae and mysterious plaques (heat conductors?).  Angus has been imaginative enough to vary the external arrays on each ship so they are subtly different.  Art!

     A much grimmer picture than usual, with the sole visible casualty having been unsuccessful in reaching their medical kit before dying.  You can see the long-derelict spaceship they fled from, needing a bit of TLC to get back in running order again.  The fact that there's a palm tree waving bravely is a tad confusing, implying that we're looking at Planet Earth.  Except that the cadaver has their helmet sealed, which would hint that they don't breathe your our atmosphere.  Yet their skeleton seems very Hom. Sap.  Colour Conrad confused.  Or - am I overthinking this again?

Once again I think this is a cover picture.  Delving begins!  Art?

   Told you so <preens>.  There is also a video that was 'inspired' by Ol' Ang's artwork.  Art!

     Let me check dates.  Aha.  The Harrison/Aldiss work came out in 1976 and 'Def-Con' was released in 1985, so we know who's ripping off whom.  Or, rather, 'being inspired' by it, as Conrad did a check on their legal background and neither sued the other.  Probably because Sphere (the publisher) didn't want to generate free publicity for New World Pictures, the studio responsible, and whom ran on a shoestring budget.  Given that the film's budget was only $800,000 they couldn't even remotely replicate the poster, which is a bit of a cheat i

     Ooops, got a bit off-topic.  Art!

     Hmmmm.  Very stark, all whites and greys and black.  What we have here seems to be a spaceship about to deliberately plunge into a black hole, and once again the picture manifests a blank space at top, handy for a novel title.  I wonder, I wonder - 

     Nope, not an edition of 'The Forever War', where Joe Haldeman first elaborated the idea of travel across intergalactic distances via black holes.  O well I did dig.  Art!

     Say hello to a comic strip that Angus did, which was published in 'Heavy Metal' during 1978 and 1979, and that served as inspiration for a section of the 'Heavy Metal' film.  I've seen the film, which is a real mish-mash of the good and the bad, and read several episodes of SBASD when I was collecting HM.  It was difficult to make sense of when read out of sequence, but other people say that reading the complete thing from start to finish was just as difficult.  Art!

     The SBASD section featured Gloria, one of those under-dressed ladies whom has trouble keeping her clothes on, which is as far as we go here.  SFW, that's us.

     Righto, that's the end of that particular video from 'Sci-Fi Art' which I can now remove from Watch Later.  Don't worry, it's been replaced by - Art!

     I bet you can hardly wait.

A Different Intro

Let's See If We Can Avoid The Usual Suspects

Conrad, whom has worked in both the public and private sector, is going to try a different type of Intro, one focussing on business culture, and giving you my insight, having been a corporate employee for these past 13 years.  Which is still less than the 22 years spent in the public sector.  Go me, when do I get a medal?

     What follows is drawn from an item  from my news feed, that I deleted immediately after making notes, so I cannot inform whom they were.  The second strand is from the prestigious 'Forbes' magazine.  Conrad is making the justified assumption that all these <ahem> perks apply to South Canadian employers.  You know, the ones who believe employees are actually indentured slaves.

     You might call the original article 'From Work Perk To Scam-It-Am', which I made up all by myself.  Okay, let the list begin.

UNLIMITED HOLIDAYS: I have to say, this is a new one to me, coming as I do from This Sceptred Isle, where we routinely have 30+ days holiday per year.  Art!

    The real-world consequence of this policy is that employees end up taking less leave, rather counter-intuitively.  Why so?  Well, since there are no boundaries or guidelines for staff, and no use-it-or-lose incentive to take leave, staff tend to keep going in the office rather than bearding their manager about holidays.  Plus, what happens to untaken leave?  If I have leave left in January of the following year, it gets paid out.  Somehow I doubt South Canadian employers would do this.

FREE MEALS: Great, this would appeal to those stricken by cupboard love.  Not a cultural thing in the UK, this 'perk' is widely seen as keeping slaves serfs workers at their desks, if the food gets delivered a la carte., and encouraging them to work later if they aren't hurrying home for tea.  Art!

                                                  

Otherwise, it keeps employees in the office building rather than sloping elsewhere offsite to grab a bite.  Plus, if the food is free, are you really subsidising it with your wages?  There is also a risk that certain employees - Conrad hang your head in shame - would abuse free food and eat so much as to cause a food coma.  Having an employee falling asleep on their keyboard damps productivity, rather.

'FUN' OFFICE ENVIRONMENT: Conrad learned long ago to be wary of employers who seem to exist in a permanent state of 'Party-in-the-office'.  One imagines that 'Fun' is compulsory or else.  Does this Office Of Awesome behaviour conceal poor wages, lack of progression or other ills?  Some employees avoid the Games Room because using it it tallied and assessed in performance reviews as being of an undesirable attitude.  'Forbes' put it well: 'Nobody wants to do business with a frat house'.  Minimum professional standards, people.  

     On the other hand, the pool table on the Sainsbo's canteen floor never lacked for users.  Art!

TEAM-BUILDING RETREATS: Definitely a foreign concept in Perfidious Albion.  What this means in South Canada is an unpaid demand on your personal time, which sounds as if the State Labour Board need to be informed.  One may enjoy working with colleagues, but not for 48 hours non-stop without payment.  In fact by the end of such a torment you might well have grown to hate hate hate them.  Art!

"HATE HATE HATE!"

WELLNESS PROGRAMS: These are frequently promoted to make an employer seem Kind And Caring, when in fact it's only going through the motions, covering up burnout or overwork.  If the approach isn't properly integrated then it won't be anything more than window dressing.  Here in the UK I've seen support offered for an employee who had a nervous breakdown and whom eventually returned to the office.  In fact they were one of the few staff retained after the redundancy program kicked in.  Which is great.  For them.  Art!

'Employee burnout'

FINANCIAL REWARDS: Conrad is rolling two different items into a single one here.  Firstly, companies offering stock options as if they were money in the bank, when in fact they mature verrrrrrrrry slowly.  Having to wait 25 years to get a 1% increase in your bonds is a long-term downer.  The other financial 'reward' is in the form of employee discounts, which one 'Forbes' analyst pointed out are offered by companies to boost their revenue, not to benefit workers, at least in South Canada.  The items discounted tend to be poor value and end up being ignored by employees.  Art!

     Not so in Conrad's corporate experience, especially at the Co-Op towards Christmas, where the in-building shop gave big discounts on alcohol and chocolates, the two staple food groups.  

PAYING FOR PHONE BILLS:  Neither article explains if this is the business paying for a works phone, which is what Conrad would 100% expect.  Or, this may the company paying your personal phone bill, the suckers!

     Except not so quick, Ralphie Glick.  Paying for your personal phone leads to you being expected to be available 24/7 via your mobile.  Congratulations on your giant electronic ball-and-chain!  Art?

     Conrad also cannot understand the South Canadian office drones who take their office mobile home, and, even worse, on holiday - AND ANSWER IT!

     I think that's enough of (primarily) South Canadian manglement.  If you ever go looking for a job and these red flags come up, RUN.

Chugging The Big Empty

I stole that from 'Ace Trucking Co.' from 2000AD, sue me if you like.  Yes we're back to more of Mr. McKie.  Art!

     Yes, even in the 27th century mansplaining is still a thing.  What we're looking at seems to be the fractal artefacts created by a starship going FTL.  Conrad wonders how they arrange traffic lights and double yellow lines in hyperspace.  

In Clement Weather

NO! that is not a typo, it's an hilarious pun I tell you, hilarious, laugh or it's the Remote Nuclear Tormentor for you!

     I refer, of course - obviously! - to 'Clement Molin', the clever French chap who analyses open-source intelligence and charts and maps it, which has been picked up by other Youtube pundits such as 'Jake Broe'.  Jake presented a couple of Clem's charts and graphs about Ruffian versus Kozaky drone production, from which thereby hangs a tale.  Art!

     You can see the Ukrainian drone numbers taking upward flight in Easter 2026, and the Ruffian drone numbers taking a dive at the same time.  The latter is due to the Ruffians finding out the hard way that their Geran (a Shahed clone) drone in it's 'lawnmower' iteration.  Art!

     Here Clem illustrates how many Garans the orcs have been sent into Ukraine over time, with numbers solidifying in 2025.  The blue is the original 'lawnmower' Geran, the bargain bucket version that costs $20,000 per unit; red is the jet turbine model.  One reason the number of Ruffian drones are dropping is that the orcs are discontinuing the lawnmower model, since the Kozaky interception rate is 85% at worst and 95% at best.  It costs no more than $5,000 for a STING interceptor drone, meaning the orcs were losing money hand over fist.  Art!

     The thing is, these jet-powered drones, with their electronic countermeasures and armour, now cost $200,000 per unit.  Hence the numbers are dropping like their earlier brethren.  Typical orcs: the idea about drones is that they are kept cheap and plentiful.  Justin Bronk does not approve.

The Touch Of Death

One of the hilariously unfunny aspects of JD Vance, the South Canadian Vice-Prez, is that the world leaders he shakes hands with all die, literally or metaphorically.  Conrad is pretttty sue Orban The Weretoad would still be rolling in a money trough had not 'Judge Death' gone and stumped for him.

     Hmmmm whom else has that same effect?  Art!

     Rumours of NASCAR tendering for a racetrack on what's left of the White House lawns are not at all true, not in any way, especially since Donnie Dorko insists on closing a deal with a handshake.

     Pause for an Americano black coffee without sugar or sweeteners, the way it ought to be drunk.

To Be Handled Gingerly

I made up another batch of ginger beer, which is currently fermenting away in the Sekrit Layr.  Art!

     Safely ensconced in a stout bag in case a bottle bursts.  The one marked 'X' was only about half full with liquor, so I topped it up to the ullage level and we'll see how weak and feeble it is.  In four weeks.

Finally -

Conrad is now onto Episode 7 of 'The Great War', which deals with 1915.  I've gone over the previous 6 and made copious notes, whoopeee!  Only another 21 episodes to go.  Art!

When The Pixies Were Prosecutors Of Pain

This Will Take Some Explaining

Firstly, in time-hallowed tradition, allow me to explain what we here at BOOJUM! are not talking about.  Art!

The Pixies

     Conrad has one of their albums knocking around here somewhere, probably 'Surf Rosa' which I won't bother illustrating as they aren't the focus of this Intro.  I seem to remember that they were okay, nothing special.  Sorry to all the Pixies fans I've offended there, but not very much*.  Art!

     Then there are the pixies of traditional English folklore, originating in Cornwall and Devon, and mighty difficult it is to find pictures of them thanks to the band.  Pixies were mischievous little imps that delighted in playing pranks on passing members of Hom. Sap. although only up to a point, they jibbed at anything cruel or overtly malicious.  Today, they would make your GPS send you into a cul-de-sac, not into the nearest river.

     ANYWAY we are back on the subject of 'York Army Museum' SIT BACK DOWN! if I dared to travel to Yorkshire to get this pictorial evidence you are most definitely going to be entertained by it.  Art!

     This was a cavalry exhibit from the Napoleonic era, if I remember rightly, showing a subaltern's tunic, sabre and helmet, and in the foreground a batch of lead shot to port.  The sort of stuff that made life unhealthy and best avoided if at all possible.   That map in the background is of the Netherlands and was used by one of these gallopers for orientation and location.  Yes, those are Minifigs to lower starboard, the museum staff had scattered them across the venue to engage their younger patrons.  BE PATIENT ABOUT THE PIXIES!  Art?

     The infantryman's tools of the trade, you might say.  At upper port are various pistols, traditionally the mark of an officer, which also mark one out as being the priority target for snipers.  To starboard of that are a variety of swords, again a traditional accoutrement for an officer and quite handy in a melée when it took perhaps 30 seconds to reload a flintlock pistol or musket; of considerably less use once the magazine rifle came into being, although still issued to BEF officers in 1914.

     To lower port is a Vickers-Maxim machine gun - you can tell thanks to the smooth brass water jacket, which was extremely heavy - standing in for all heavy machine guns of that ilk.  Art!

     From port to starboard you can see the progression of rifle weapons across the ages, moving from the smoothbore muzzle-loading musket, via bolt-action to semi-automatic (the FN made under licence in the UK, with no full automatic option).

     Beneath this row there are a couple of light machine guns - relative, as they are not remotely light when you have to carry them, and a couple of now obsolete sub-machine guns, which have been replaced by the next item, an assault rifle.  Art!

     What the average infantryman has been wearing for the past 150 years.  You can literally see the transition from scarlet tunics to khaki, enabling Yorkies to blend into the landscape instead of visually shouting HERE I AM.  So, too, you can see the reintroduction of body armour, rather less stylish than a cuirass yet more durable.  The interesting stuff to lower port is parts of a 'range tank' which has been subjected to live fire, demonstrating how big a hole can be made.  Art!

     Meet the - waitforitwaitforit - PIXIE SUIT! which was issued to tank crews in the latter years of the Second Unpleasantness.  Lined with serge, it was large enough to be worn over the normal uniform, yet not too large for the confined interior of a tank and was renowned for being extremely warm and dry.  It was not unknown for British tank crews to bribe South Canadian tank crews with pixie suits for other benefits.  Art!

A bunch of mischievous imps

     

     Conrad was about to settle his buns on this item before realising it was the shell casing for a verrrry large artillery round, 15" or upwards.  No note or blurb about it in the display, despite which I decided to perch elsewhere to avoid uncomfortable tinglings.  Art!

There is no reflection!  None!

     I know, I know, very elaborate.  What you're looking at is a table decoration for the 14th Regiment, with the Black Prince discovering the body of Blind King John Of Bohemia, whom had unwisely decided to fight for the French that day.  Ooops.  Art!

     Hmmmm celebrating the absolute malleting of the French for 500 years does seem to be rubbing chlorine trifluoride into the wound a tad.

     Apologies for bouncing around in time.  You begin to understand what The Doctor's companions feel like, nicht wahr?

     Alright, I think that's enough YAM for one day, we still have LOTS to get through, you lucky people.  Look happier!

O Dearie Me

Take a look at this sad sack.  Art!

     Courtesy of 'Hoodlum' over on Twitter as of 02/08/2026.  Donnie Dorko not looking a day over 95, which is also his IQ.  That 'President Donald Trump' patch is to remind him what he is.  Compare this with the ludicrous wet-dream version he put up on his social media platform - Art!

     He seems to have dropped 200 pounds of fat, as well as the bonespurs.  Don't forget BOOH got out of the Vietnam draft by repeated medical deferrals, as he is incredibly protective of his own delicate epidermis - what other people describe as 'cowardice'.  The reason he's shouting is because of the airport next door.  If you know, you know.

More Of The Peculiarities Of Post-War Politicking

When I say 'post-war' I really mean a kind of interregnum that ran from after the Teuton-imposed Treaty Of Brest-Litovsk in early 1918, upon the newly-formed Bolshevik state.  The treaty was extremely harsh, rendering the Ruffians sullenly uncooperative at best and murderous at worst.  Art!

     Smug Teutons to port, appalled Ruffians to starboard.  

     This is all background to the relevant pages in Nick Lloyd's "The Eastern Front" where the Teutons were discovering that getting into Ruffia was a lot harder than getting something out of it.  For one thing, they were inextricably bound up in newly-formed Ukraine both politically and economically; Ober Heeres Leitung (Teuton supreme command) had already overthrown the Ukrainian government once already when it didn't slavishly obey them.  Art!

     You might be ahead of me here, thanks to the photo above, and realise that there were severe problems with Ukrainian railways that crippled the Teuton logistics there.  For one thing, Ukrainian rails were wider than Teuton ones, meaning everything had to be offloaded at the border before being onloaded again for forwarding.  Not only that, the Teutons had to supply Ukraine with coal when it was in short supply in Germany itself, or risk a logistics collapse.  No pressure, then. Art!

     Far from being a cash cow, Ukraine proved to be a money pit of colossal proportions, sucking in Teuton capital to the tune of 125 million Marks per month just to prop up the state.  Nor is that all - Germany had issued over a billion Marks in loans to their puppet state that were never, ever going to be repaid.  

     Ironically, the Teutons over-running Ukraine seems to have been one of the best things possible for the Entente powers, forcing Germany to squander resources they did not have to keep what they couldn't get.

     
Tons Of Hardware

More artwork from Mister McKie, whom tends to portray things on the grand scale.  Art!

     These three are rather dull by contrast with all the prior artworks, so I've made a montage of all to get shot of them as quickly as possible.  Then we can proceed with a more exciting one.  Art!

A very, very red palette, pet

    Much more entertaining! if not somewhere you'd ever want to live, if for only that insurance costs would be prohibitive.  Once again, this looks like a book cover with that pregnant space at top, but can I find it in a Google search?  No I cannot!  Muted 'Bah'.  

Is He In Heaven, Is He In Hell  -

That damned elusive Mitch McConnell.  You know, the chap who used to be Senate Majority Leader over in South Canada, until his health began to make DJ Tango look like a model of marvelousness by comparison.  Mitch hasn't been seen in public for weeks and weeks, which is making his political opponents very angry, and the conspiranoid loonwaffle society eager to fill the news gap with swivel-eyed nonsense.  Art!

     If he has indeed shimmied his way off this mortal coil, there will then be an election, which might go badly for the Lizard Wizard Gizzard party, so the theory goes that they're pretending he's perfectly healthy for as long as possible, or until the smell and flies give the game away.

Finally -

Ginger beer brew #3 is on the ferment as I type.

 

*  I'm horrid like that.