Well it is! You don't see women swooning over a man with a face like the deformed offspring of a rhino and a small mountain range, do you?
Not only that, for a warrior* and Security Chief I seem to remember he was an extraordinarily bad shot. Remember that time when the Enterprise crew were being attacked by "vicious animal things"? Worf, with a phaser that should have been capable of picking them off at a kilometre, shoots one and then gets impaled by bayonet*.
| Oooh. Get you. |
What a lovely tuille brocade, Mister Worf, you really ought to let the rest of us know the address of your costumier.
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Which Conrad always derides as "The PC Generation" although perhaps he shouldn't admit that he's seen every episode <ahem>. Given a somewhat bigger budget than it's lower valued and obscure prequel, the Klingons in this series have quite the applique prosthetics on their heads.
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| Oooh. Much more butch. |
Thus. Their warrior role also gets played up rather, so much so that yesterday Conrad heard them discussing Klingon egg-nog, except <rolls eyes> they have to call it "War-nog" to fit in.
"House of Leaves"
Just checking, thought Conrad, making a note in his notebook. There is an enormous amount of ancillary information in this novel, so I thought I'd check up on what Mr Danielewski described as "The 1925 Kentucky Sand Cave" death of Floyd Collins.
Surprise, it was a real event, in fact described as the third biggest media event between the First and Second Unpleasantnesses. Forgive Conrad for never having heard of it before, it is 90 years gone. The basics are that Collins was trapped in a crawlway within the Sand Cave and that food and water could be passed to him until the fourth day, when a collapse sealed him in, and he died fourteen days later.
The film "Ace in the Hole" is based on the event. Here's a link to a much more detailed Wiki article:
Warning - grim stuff!
"On Thermonuclear War"
I originally bought this because I wondered if the march of technology had invalidated it, made it obsolete or irrelevant. Going past Page 86, a note on the received wisdom about radiation poisoning struck a chord, so I must have reached that point at least, forty years ago. Actually Herman did acknowledge that there was a revolution in military technology every five years, and he was only looking to about 1975 - coincidentally the year I first tried to read it.
There are technical details that have changed, but the suppositions about why, what and how nations might go to war remain worryingly relevant. Worryingly!
There is also no mention in the index of Electromagnetic Pulse. "Why, Conrad," I hear you ask, "Is that significant?"
It certainly is! When this work came out EMP was not yet realised to be an effect created by a nuclear warhead detonation at height. Herman blithely proposes to set off a 20 kiloton weapon at between 2 to 5 miles high for air defence, which - I believe I mentioned this yesterday - would create an enormous "footprint" at Ground Zero of destroyed electrical and electronic equipment.
So - tactical nuclear weapons used in air defence has definitely been taken off the menu. Herman 0 Conrad 1
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| Thermonuclear war is a bit grim, so here's a sunny beach instead. |
"Movies For Men"
I watched this channel briefly, long enough to shout abuse at "Gunga Din", which - another of those creepy little coincidences that seem to define Conrad's life these days - made mention of Sir Douglas Fairbanks Junior; you know the chap I mentioned last week concerning his "Junior" status, seeing as how his dad died in 1939 and the film was made in 1939 -
- anyway, that's not the point.
What was the point?
Oh! Yes, the adverts. A lot of snivelling nonsense about insurance and BT and BG and then a rather more relevant, MANLY advert about building a 1:10 car:
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| MANLY! Also expensive |
Note that only the first pack comes in at £10 and the rest at £35, and it doesn't say how many packs you need.
Manly enough. Well, not to Conrad, who is not a proper man and who has 0% interest in either cars or football.
The Bayonet - And The British Army
I have just finished reading "The History of the 38th Welsh Division" which inspired this post.
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| Bayonet and scabbard |
The bayonet, for your information, is named after the French town Bayonne. Originally it was a big pointy thing that one stuck in the end of a musket, turning it into a form of spear, the better to fend off cavalry. Then it became slightly more sophisticated and used a socket so that it could still be fired whilst still mounted. Although, given human nature, some idiot probably did try to fire the plug bayonet whilst it was inserted (an early Darwin Award winner).
Anyway, the British Army of the First Unpleasantness loved the bayonet; in fact the British Army still loves the bayonet**, just check it on Wiki and you'll see it's been in regular use. Major Munby, he who wrote the Divisional history above, rather relishes recounting how the rough tough Welsh lads did in umpteen Germans with the bayonet. Statisticians have pointed out how few injuries the bayonet causes, which is for two reasons: 1) If someone sticks a bayonet in you, then generally you promptly cease to breathe and 2) If you hear Welsh voices yelling "Fix bayonets!" you usually head in the opposite direction.
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| Frankly, I think that fellow is enjoying his bayonet a little too much ... |
* We'll come back to this
** It is silent, has no moving parts, does not need ammunition or batteries
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