"What Will You Blog About Today?"

Asked Stephen
 - as he added a packet of crisps to his salad lunch.  Yes, he likes his crisps, Stephen does, and he'd got 5 free packets handed out in the atrium at lunchtime today, so he was a happy little bunny.
     Readers, I am ashamed to say that I lied.  I banged on about First Bus, and then hypergolic fuels, yet these were only cover stories, mere decoys from the real thing which has been absent a while but still remains TRYING TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD!!!
    Yes I say, Theresa May.  Well, she may but I AM.  I know what you're thinking:
     "But Conrad!  There's only one of you - if Pinky and the Brain couldn't manage it, as a twosome, how can you?  Undoubtedly talented as you are."
     Flatterers.  Well, for one thing, Pinky and the Brain are NOT REAL.  They are MADE UP.  FICTIONAL.  I realise this may destroy your childhood illusions, like pretending that the real world is not terrifying because "Doctor Who" isn't real, but the truth can hurt.

No!  NO!  Fictional, I tell you, fictional!

     Plus, I'm not hampered by having an idiot assistant like Pinky, who really takes the - that is, if he were real, he'd take the stupid biscuit.  The whole packet, in fact.
     Of course, as readers of the blog, you'd all be spared being turned into spare parts for the organ banks, or being mindlessly obedient slave minions.  
     Once I was World Dictator, I'd need an appropriately menacing and brooding mode of transport.  Art?

Roped-off because touch it - and DIE!
Also available to carpool.

     It wouldn't all be skull-crushing diktat, though.  Certain people would be tolerated.  Lindybeige, for example.  Art?

"Phew!"

     And there would be an International Comsat Angel Day, where the broadcast, recording, streaming media and in fact every television channel on the planet would play nothing but the Comsats, all day long.

Get used to seeing a LOT of this

     This would be complemented by the re-enactment dramamentary "Doctor Who" playing from the very first episode to the very latest on a special dedicated television channel without adverts.  This is to teach you what a truly terrifying place the universe is.

"Terrifying" being an elastic term

     Right, that's the Intro over, and a foretaste of things to come.  Let us move on -

"Forbidden Planet! As You've Never Seen It
I think this will become an essential part of the school curriculum when I've taken over, so that the young and impressionable will know quality when they see it.  I shall have it on a double-bill with "Suicide Squad" so they can experience excrement, too, just to balance things out.

This scene never happens <sad face>

     Anyway, I digress - but in hilarious fashion and remember laughter here will save you later - because as you surely know by now, Conrad is a creature of whimsy*.  Whimsy, irony and a fusion-powered induction furnace where humans have a stomach.  But enough of me!  As I was saying, whimsy: I am re-watching "Forbidden Planet" with the spoken language being German and the subtitles in Spanish, whilst remembering what was really said in English.  Child's play for me, I've seen it so many times.  The choice of German makes the crew of the C57D seem a little unsettling, given their paramilitary air.  Shades of the Tertii Imperium!

Forbidden plant.  Close enough

Ah, TANKS!
We've not had any for a while, have we?  So, surprise surprise, feast your eyes:

Vroom, BANG, squeak, rattle - the whole tankish experience for you

     Here's a coin with a tank upon it, that tank being the Churchill.  
     Colour me surprised.  I would have expected either the aged Mother (100 years old) or - Art?

A Mother indeed.

     - or Mother's great-great grandson, that mighty mobile metal military mastodon the Challenger 2.  Art?

Not to be taken lightly

     The Churchill was a bit rubbish at first, and Mister C. himself was reportedly not too happy with the nomenclature.
     It improved.
     In Tunisia it surprised and depressed the bally Hun in equal amounts by it's ability to climb hills, hinting it had Chamoix in it's genes quite as much as hills, churchy or otherwise.
    In Europe it formed the hull and chassis for numerous specialised vehicles such as the Ark, the Bobbin, the AVRE and one of the most frightening weapons ever built, the Crocodile.
     I believe it was the last MBT that the Irish Army used, lasting on until the mid-Sixties.

A Bobbin laying canvas sheeting over soft sand

*  Utter lies <truth courtesy of Mister Hand>