Meanwhile, In Tcherbevan ...

As With Friday, So With Sunday
I think I've already bored you with the details of my spectacles falling apart on Friday morning - turning them into bisectacles - and how this really didn't begin the day well.
     Well, this weekend my friend Richard has been running a large-scale wargame set in the fictional Black Sea republic of Andreivia, and your scribe was one of the players, commanding the Andreivian Armenians.  Time of arrival today was to be around 10:00, so I blithely set my alarm for 8:30 - giving me enough time to get abluted, check the blog and post a pester, get a bite to eat and arrive in Sheffield.*

The splendid "Royal Hotel" pub.  Where men are men and dinner portions are huge!
We walked from the gaming venue to here for dinner.

     You can already guess what happened, can't you?  Due to an early wake-up and a poor night's sleep on Friday, I went to bed early on Saturday, woke up with the alarm at what I presumed was 8:30, turned on the PC and, with a sense of mild horror, saw that the time was actually 9:36.
     Fortunately this is Sunday morning we're talking about and there was very little traffic about, although the dreadful weather did slow me down.  I contrived to arrive at Dungworth at 10:45, made my excuses and then got on with demolishing downtown Thcerbevan's Turkish Quarter ...

Tcherbevan: the Before picture

    I didn't get back home until 4:30, hence no earlier posts today.  But don't you worry, I've now got material for two more posts sitting stewing in the cranium.

Back To Friday
If you have been faithfully and frankly following the blog, then you will know that Conrad was off to watch what young folk call a "gig" on Friday night, and yes, I was officially the oldest person there.
     However, doors didn't open until 9:00 and the musical shemozzle wouldn't kick off until at least 9:30, so what was feckless old man Conrad to do in the meantime?
     Go to the cinema!  And see "Chappie", as I'd thought to check start and finish times and it would end at 9-ish, allowing a quick guzzle afterwards.
     So - Chappie.  What did Conrad think?
     I liked it.  Remember "Short Circuit?"  Imagine "Short Circuit" with guns, drugs, blood, swearing and - actually forget "Short Circuit".  Imagine "Robocop"** crossed with "Pinocchio" and there you have it.  The ending is a bit fairytale but then - I refer you to the Pinocchio subtext.  

"Number 22 is alive! And very sweary!"

     A few points.  It's not clear why Ninja's gang are in deep trouble with Hippo; we see a mess of stuff in the back of their van but this isn't explained - certainly not why Hippo thinks he's entitled to R20 million.
     There are references to "Zef" all over the place.  Given that this is also the name of Sophie's*** cat, I think there is a common root here.
     The derelict factory that the Ninja gang live in is - well, it's not really covert in any sense of the word.  There are acres of graffiti and artwork all over the walls, there aren't any doors, they casually assay and cut their drugs out in the open - it's no surprise that Hippo knows where they live.  Love the pink and white automatic weapons, tho'.
     I believe that the scout robot's "ears" are actually modelled on the ones from "Appleseed" - they are similar - and they enable a surprising amount of emotion to be displayed.  Alex Murphy would kill for a pair of those, you know.


An Aside On Trailers
I missed all the adverts (Hoorah!) but unfortunately may have missed a trailer or two (Booh!).  Here are my thoughts on what I did see.  I know you didn't ask for my opinions, but once again - whose blog is it?
     Mad Max: Fury Road
     There appeared to be a lot of cars zooming around the desert amidst explosions and tornadoes, and Tom Hardy is Max.  
     That's it.  I do believe reading about the shooting of this film years and years ago, so the question must be - why is it so late in arriving on-screen?  That's usually bad news for any film production.

There's the plot, right there.

     Fast and Furious 7
     Or, "Car Porn #7"

If YOU PEOPLE keep watching this stuff, they'll keep making it!

     The trailer began with cars being parachuted from the back of a cargo plane.
     Why?  It's in the script.^  Yes, yes, it would be far easier and simpler to merely drive them along a road, except the studio needs to go One Louder than the previous film.  In "Car Porn 8" expect them to re-entry from orbit after deploying from the Space Shuttle.
     Then they pursue a big black coach, there's a gun battle, the coach crashes.
     Why?  IITS.  It would have been logical to put a large, solid object in the path of the coach in order to stop it, so they don't do that.^^ 
     Then - JASON STATHAM!
     He's the baddy.  He has to be, he's an English actor and it's an American film.
     Insidious 3
     To summarise: knocking on a wall will bring all the demons in Hell pouring into your bedroom, because you miss Mummy.
     Or something like that.  I think after "Insidious" was such a big hit, there was a little bit of pressure to produce another hit, and - inevitably - quality has suffered.

Darth Sidious.  Close enough.

"Mason and Dixon"
Panic not, gentle reader.  Conrad is now over half-way through this tome, with about 300 pages left to go, so it will continue to haunt your existence for only another couple of weeks.
     Two things emerge from my recent reading - 1)  Mr Pynchon likes to use unusual, uncommon, obsolete or (sometimes) completely made-up words.  This is particularly rife in "M & D" because the language used is a pastiche of 18th century English.
     2)  There are occasional breaks with reality within the text, that lead you to think you've turned over two pages accidentally.  "Against The Day" had this in spades; "M&D" rather less so, but it's still there.
     So, to detail:
1)  "Soubrette" - a stock female character in French theatre, who can either be conceited or coy.

I Googled "Soubrette" and this young lady is wearing the most of all the results

     "Dromond" - a large medieval warship.

Lomond.  Close enough.

     "Stamp Tax" - this might be more familiar to South Canadian readers.  The British Parliament tried to force the American colonies to purchase paper products from Britain that had an embossed stamp to prove their authenticity.  This provoked an enormous backlash from the colonists and, all in all, was not a very good idea.



2)  At one point in the narrative, Mason and Dixon enter a run-down rustic cabin in the woods.  As they penetrate the interior, they appear to be in Lepton Castle, an enormous structure with a huge population of staff, guests and hosts.  No, it didn't make sense to me, either, and I went back to check.
     
Time to post and inform the world that Conrad is still around.






* No, not a destination chosen at random.  The venue for the game was in Sheffield.
** The original.  Let us not speak of the remake.
*** Not that Sophie, this Sophie.
^ I'm recycling this term from my days at the Agony Booth.
^^ This is a precis of at least a dozen different plot holes that occur in this single sequence.