A Grey Day

At Least Here In Manchester
     It's uncommon for Conrad to wax poetic; his icy fusion-powered cardiac unit doesn't accomodate the finer feelings.  The less pleasant ones - step right up!
     As today, staring out of the giant tinted windows at work.  The sky was grey,what is known as Uniform Grey Layer*.  The million windows of city-centre Manchester reflected back a panorama of grey.  The asphalt streets were dark grey.  The cars were grey, even those pretending to be "Steel Grey" or "Burnished Silver".  Grey.  The people looked grey. 
     All quite soothing to Conrad's eye, actually, without all the usual nasty contrasty blues and yellows and whites.  You might say, Hooray! for Grey.

"I feel right at home"

Lord Of The Rings:  The Condensed-By-Logic Version
     Gandalf:  I say, Gwaihir**, old chap, could you give me a lift to Mount Doom in Mordor?
     Gwaihir:  Certainly.  I'll bring along a few of the chaps, to fly escort.
     [Several hours later]
     Gandalf:  Okay, I'll just drop this weighted envelope into the volcano.  There it goes.
     [Several seconds later]
     Gandalf: Ah, there you go.  Barad-Dur has collapsed.  Sauron's had it.
     [They fly home]

From The Kites Of San Quentin
     I mentioned this band yesterday and today I bought their "7.83 Hz Earth Chorus" EP.  Excellent stuff!  Now, bear in mind that they are rather avant-garde and don't really do the 3 minutes pop song or 4/4 time rock tracks - okay, have we assimilated that?  Then go on over to Youtube and search for them. No link today as we have photos instead:

Closed and Opened.  Very clever.  It even impressed Manisha.  Not sure what she'd think of the music, however ...

That's What I Want!
     During my drive to work - traffic-jam free again, hooray for forgetful Hermes*** - Conrad espied a billboard with the following (ouch, sorry, couldn't resist!):

Actually it's all much madness and horror the soul of the plot.  No blogs.

'Hey!' I expostulated [no it's not rude go look it up you traducers!].  'That's just what Conrad needs for his blog!  A following who will never let go!' for he was still concerned about traffic at BOOJUM!  I wonder why Blogging Bacon doesn't look happier?

Cold War Cars
     Hard to think that the Cold War ended over twenty years ago.  You whippersnappers don't know you're born!  When I was your age we lived in fear of immolation by Russian nuclear missiles.  This, however, was when we didn't realise just how appallingly bad Russian engineering, industry, organisation and efficiency was.  If World War Three had kicked off, I doubt their missiles would have managed to find Europe, let alone the UK.
     Let me introduce the Moskvitch.  This was a Russian car built along Russian design lines - i.e. make it like a tank - and with Russian attitudes to safety - i.e. road safety?  what's that? - and with Russian production techniques - i.e. the assembly-line workers would hammer screws in to get the car built quicker.  It was built on industrial plant that had been seized from the Germans in 1945 and worked like the dickens ever since, so the actual production line was pretty-done itself to begin with.

Scrape that blue paint and you'll find BOLSHEVIK RED!

Top Gear pundits Clarkson and May think it ties with the Lada Riva for the worst car ever made.
     There is also the Trabant, but - we shall leave that for another blog!

So  -Tanks?
     Go on.  In line with our theme of scoffing at Soviet Russia, let me introduce you to the T-55:

Grey again!

Produced in the tens of thousands, the T55 was simple, small and robust.  All good points!  There were many other points, points that we shall call, for want of a better word, "bad".  The small size meant the crew had to be midgets; no word of a lie, Russian tank crews had to be very small.  The interior was extremely cramped, uncomfortable and difficult to work in, so crew performance rapidly fell off.  The main gun would not depress below 5 degrees, so the T-55 could not hide behind cover.  The side armour was too thin.  The armour quality was poor; Warriors and Bradleys engaging T-55s in the Gulf War were able to knock them out because their cannon rounds - which could not actually punch holes in the armour - hit with such force that they caused explosive spalling - essentially kinetic energy from hits on the outside caused giant slabs of metal to fly off the inside - with results that can be imagined ...

A T-55 in it's natural state - destroyed.

Okay! Enough Of Death And Misery!
     

Yes yes yes, I know  "Awww!" and the puppy is cute too

As Conrad has christened her, Edna the Domesticated Wold arrived yesterday, being all cute and shizzle.
   Dear reader, she was considerably less cute at 3 am, whining loudly for all the world to hear ..


*  Okay, I made this up.  But it feels correct.
**  An eagle the size of a Tornado jet
***  The god of travel.  We have been having a spat just recently