Calling Ned Ludd ...

We Fear Change

"We" in this case meaning Conrad, his memory and his subconscious, one of whom is called Oscar and the other Steve, but I can't remember which is which.

     "Forsooth!" I can hear you calling*, "Conrad has been early at the cooking sherry, surely?"

     The big news today at the Mansion has been the arrival of a new mobile phone.  All-singing, all-dancing, all-studio-producer-at-the-mixing-desk-with-option-rights-for-a-film, in fact.

The first picture taken with the Devil's Matchbox
(I look windswept because the wind swept me)

Here the rascal is.

      "Why the weeping, lamentations and rending of garments**?, Conrad," I can hear you asking.  "Surely you should be grateful to Wonder Wifey for sourcing a decent bit of kit?"
     As I hinted in the blog title, Conrad is by nature verrrrry suspicious of any new technology, because the robots will one day rise up and crush us  every time a new phone comes along I have to learn how to kill robots with my bare hands use it and all the bells and whistles that go with it.  This one, for example, bubbles like a stream, which might get awkward after much water has been drunk.
     Given the distribution curve of intelligence amongst the general population, Conrad is pretty sure that these mobile phones are the vanguard of the robot revolt actually have more intellectual firepower than a fair number of their owners.

     Thank the lord aloft they don't have hands.  Then we'd really be in trouble!

Conrad's nightmare

Stingray: The Secret Shame Of Troy Tempest

Yes, a revisit to Stingray, Gerry Anderson's aquatic epic set in a submarine, where Lieutenant Troy Tempest:

Modelled on James Garner.  The likeness is there, isn't it?

     is a bit of a philanderer***.  He not only has a thing going with Atlanta - 

Modelled on Margaret Thatcher.
Only joking!

      - but he also has designs on Marina:

Look at him, the smoothie!
Oh - Marina? - modelled on Brigit Bardot

     Here's the thing.  Marina is a humanoid able to live underwater (also out of it, although she has to moisturise a lot), but she cannot talk.  Completely mute.  Now, in the TV 21 comic she was clearly shown with thought bubbles, which can't really be done on television. Nevertheless she is clearly a rational, intelligent being.

     So - how come Troy's not teaching her sign language?  That would enhance communication, wouldn't it?  Surely he should be able to teach her to write?  Use a typewriter?  Play Scrabble?

     I know what you're going to say - "Your fountain pen won't write properly underwater and the A4 narrow feint will fall to bits instantly."

     They don't actually have to learn to write underwater, baffoon!  They could do it in a room in Marineville.  Even if it was underwater you could use a slate and handy lump of calcium carbonate (chalk you you).

     AH BUT NO!  Because, if Marina could communicate, then she could inform Atlanta about lover boy and his duplicitous ways, couldn't she?

"You got me.  Busted!"

Rejected Doctor Who Serial Titles

Still no complaints.  You must all find these as hilarious as I do.  Don't forget, when we run out of Doctor Who titles it'll be straight onto Star Trek, and there's decades-worth of those to work with. !

Jury From The Deep

New Hearth

The Doctor Dunces

Rise

Plant of the Wood

Warriors of the Neep^

The Girn in the Fireplace

Bar Wolf

Planet of Dire

The Curds of Fenric

Terror of the Actons

     There you go, rib-cracking hilarity!

Why, SSE, Why?

Conrad rarely watches television, because the adverts annoy him to distraction and furshluggineh^^ reality television programmes invite him to put a foot through the screen.

     So it was with a sense of growing bewilderment that he witnessed a company called SSE, who provide energy, promote themselves by including an orang-utang in their advert.

Man's nearest cousin.  Table manners not good, morals excellent

     Now, Conrad does have a soft spot for the orang-utang.  They are sombre, serious creatures, unaggressive and clever, the opposite of the horrid chimpanzee.

     However, orang-utangs live high in the trees of Borneo and Sumatra.  They have NOTHING to do with creating energy!

Only YOU Can Prevent Robotopia!

Don't forget, gentle reader, that it's a vanishingly small step from this:

Egad!  It's almost alive!

     To This:

Driven by hamsters.  They are!  Because they are -
Hamsterminators.

Thank you for being patient.  "Ned Ludd" was a mythical person who travelled about the place smashing up industrial equipment making traditional crafts and craftsmen obsolete, in the early nineteenth century.

* Cybernetic ears, don't you know.

** Only above the waist.  This blog is SFW.

*** "He puts it about a bit" - translation courtesy Mister Hand

^ "Neep" - Scots dialect for "Turnip"

^^ I think it's an insult in Yiddish. I could be wrong.  Don't Google it just in case.