Underpowered, Overpowered And Sir Cliff Richard

It Will All Become Clear!
Hopefully.  It it doesn't you're not getting your money back.
     As ever, your humble scribe pondered at the bus stop in the midst of what the Barb of Avon dubbed "filthy air", which is not far wrong as it was windy, damp and cold this morning.  As a diversion I watched and witnessed the approach uphill of the world's slowest vehicle.  It took a geological age to ascend Tandle Hill, moving so slowly a man on foot could outpace it merely by walking fast.  Art?

Diminutive dilatory dustwagon

     "Needs a bit of a boost," I mused.  "Underpowered, you see."
     At which the intellectual lightning bolt of illumination hit home*.  

     "Baby power to you and me"

     - which is a line from that modern classic "Power To All Our Friends**" by SIR Cliff Richard.
     Conrad had long puzzled exactly what constituted "Baby" power.  A microscopic battery?  Pico-amperage?  Mothercare floating shares on the LSE?
     None of the above.  Get with the punctuation, pet:

"Baby, power to you and me"

     It may have taken 40 years yet Conrad gets it in the end.

Fuel

"Inherent Vice" By Thomas Pynchon (Notes By Conrad)
I have said it before, but you can't trust TP not to make up a convincing fiction that seems real, and for non-South Canadian readers some of his pop culture references are vanishingly obscure, especially given that the novel itself is set over forty years ago.  Shall I elaborate?
     "Yes, except be quick about it, Conrad, Coronation Street is on in a minute and Elsie Duckworth is in trouble at the Rovers factory," I hear you babble.
     Hmmm.  Not sure you've got any of that right.  Anyway - 
"Sortilege": a character given to mysticism and tarot card reading, which is apt, since "sortilege" is exactly that, reading cards.  Doc shortens her name to "Leej".

Leej and Larry ("Doc" to you)

Art Fleming:  Real!  He was an actor and television host, best known as the original host of the game "Jeopardy".  You can't live in the UK and say you knew that, come on, now!

This man is in grave peril!  He's in - er - Jeopardy

"Skip Tracer": Not a person, an occupation.  They locate fugitives, that is, persons who are trying their best not to be found.  A bit of a generic title, it can apply to debt collectors, bounty hunters, bail bondsmen or police.

Guns!  Explosions! Shooting!
Oh, and tracer, skipping

"Lew Erskine": False!  Actually Inspector Erskine, played by Efrem Zimbalist Jr., starred in the television series "F.B.I."  Which is Federal Bureau of Investigation, not Flanged Bronze Integument.

The Inspector took superglue April Fool pranks very seriously

Right, that's an awful lot of pictures.  I can't have you lot accusing me of pumping up the volume with photos not text.  Bring on the heavy-duty text assault!

Mythbusters And Regrets
One of the things that I've seen Jamie and Adam asked is if there were any myths that they wanted to do, but which they were prevented from carrying out?
     No, replied Adam, when asked this question.  Since he and Jamie were executive producers, they didn't see much mileage in preventing themselves from doing what they wanted to do.
     Except ... well, he did mention a tanker full of liquid oxygen - Lox - transforming a road into a bomb after a massive spillage.  Lox, you see, has the ability to transform a spark into a near-nuclear holocaust.  It is, unfortunately for our intrepid crew, also very unpredictable.  There may be an explOsiOn.  Or nOt.  And that's $10,000-worth of Lox in the tanker.  Is it worth it?  NO!

But when it works, IT WORKS!

     Jamie then came up with a myth to bust that was so extreme it made the exploding cement truck look sensible.  He posited being fired backwards from a catapult mounted on a truck moving forwards, matching velocities exactly.  So, technically, he would simply drop to the ground.  "Technically" - a word the insurers did not like, as any mismatch in speed, i.e underpowered catapult or overpowered truck***,would result in Jamie being propelled along the ground at speed, indeed.  Typically unfazed by this, Jamie suggested that he be held in a variety of pod, with the ability to slide over level surfaces.  He claimed this would be perfectly safe as long as he didn't hit any raised objects - at which point the insurance people were sticking their fingers in their ears going LAH-LAH-LAH.
     Jamie Hyneman - Man Without Fear, Or Self Preservation.

Jamie, weighing his life

*  This is a good thing.
** Our enemies can sit in the dark and shiver.
*** Now does it make sense?