BOOJUM!: How Sage Am I ...

Don't Answer That Question!
When I mentioned "Sage" I was cheating a bit - okay a lot - and in fact I meant SAGE. Which, if you read the blog with any frequency, is instantly recognisable as "Semi Automatic Ground Environment", or the electronic command, control and communications network that was positioned around the borders of South Canada. It got progressively updated over time as it ran as a system for about 30 years, starting off with vacuum tubes and ending up with microprocessors.
"Do hurry up, Conrad," I can hear you complain. " 'Escape to the Country' is on soon."
Not pausing to worry about your perverse desire to gaze on meadows and gambolling lambs, I shall continue.
"The Time Tunnel". There you go. Remember that television series? Of course you do. Art?

An attractive thinking machine.
Oh, and Lee Meriwether.

You may not know it but Irwin Allen, the programme's producer, was notoriously cheap. If he could cut corners he would; in fact the man could turn a square into a circle. Let me provide you with the link between SAGE (you were wondering, weren't you?) and this programme, from Wiki no less: "The prop computer looked realistic because it was an array of memory modules from the Air Force's recently decommissioned SAGE computer."
As I said, SAGE got updated and Irwin was right in there to hook a good-looking prop for nickels and dimes*.

I'm Not Going To Explain This -
My mate Richard posted this on Facebook and because I am awesome and aware and all-round pretty terrific, I got it instantly. Art?

Extra large to help you

There you are. I may post an explanation tomorrow, but don't count on it as my memory is pretty poor and I look forward, not back.

"The Thing"
I really love this film. I can't count how many times I've watched it. I had it on video, copied from television, and it had to be played with the volume up to MAX as the tape was so worn. I suppose the attraction is that, instead of a bunch of giggling silly teenaged idiots, this is a bunch of very clever and practical people facing a terror - sorry, TERROR FROM BEYOND THE STARS! Not a PC bone in its body. The film, not the Terror From Beyond The Stars.
"What has this to do with anything?" I hear you ask. "There's a sheep dog and some sheep coming on in a minute."
Yes, thank you about your obsession with "Escape To The Country", you weirdo.
Edna! Edna, do that pose of the husky in the dogshed!

"Arf! Arf!"

What a trooper!

"The Kraken Wakes" - By John Wyndham
Ah, one of my favourite sci-fi novels has been adapted for radio on Radio 4. If you have a long memory then you may recall Conrad banging on about adapting the novel into a screenplay. I have taken copious notes and the whole thing would need a major update, as it was written 60 years ago and politics, science and technology have all moved on enormously since then. A film, or television series, would be very, very expensive: lots of filming at sea, location work in the Caribbean, lots of navy ships, location work in Spain and Ireland, flooded London, location work in Cornwall, icebergs in the Channel - you get the idea. Art?

I cannot get a screenshot for some reason, so this will have to do

Val McDermid has adapted it, right into the present day - a male scientist becomes female, we get e-mails instead of telegrams, an Irish officer becomes Asian - and some of the dialogue is verbatim from the novel. The core structure remains the same. Oh, and "Bocker" becomes "Becker". Because becouse.

Canberra
NO! Not the Australian city, although I'm certain it's a wonderful place, full of enormous creepy crawlies capable of abducting a small child. I mean the product of English Electric, who back in the day made airplanes, one of which was the above. Somewhat bizzarely the wings of one of these were stored in the back yard of my old college, for whatever reason.

Capable of flying at gr - ART!

Anyway, rather incredibly, the USAF obtained a licence to make them, as the B57 Marauder, an act only repeated once more with the Harrier jump jet. The South Canadians, you see, do NOT like using other people's kit, so the Canberra certainly had something going for it. High altitude, actually, because it was able to overfly the Sinisters and cock a snook at the Mig pilots who failed to intercept them.