My Tropical Hell

Maybe "Hell" Is Overstating A Little
"Purgatory", then. "My Tropical Purgatory" By Conrad.  Is that okay?  Thank you so much!
      "What is the poisonous old soak gibbering about now?" I hear you ponder.  Leaving aside your shockingly disrespectful tone (and I am sober for October, remember), I shall explicate.
     Yesterday being the first Friday after payday, one and all at work had money in their pocket, if not in the bank - some of them are extremely profligate, you know - and a night out had been planned, at a nightspot called "Revolucion De Cuba".  I know this is skirting politics, so I shall point out that I was extremely cross by the time I got there.
     Nothing to do with the night out - yet - but rather because a fixture on the Manchester scene had vanished, the Modelzone shop on Deansgate.  Art?

As was

     I think the writing was on the wall when the original shop got taken over by Modelzone.  My memory being a bit rubbish, I can't even remember what it was originally called.  
     Well, it's now another anonymous coffee shop.  Apparently it has been for the past 3 years, so I've obviously not been down that part of Deansgate in a while.
     On the way to RDC I stepped out in sprightly fashion, as we were to meet there from 5 p.m. onwards.
     "I don't want to be late!" was my refrain, and I deliberately cut short my trawl through Waterstones, because not wanting to be late sat high on the agenda.
     I got to RDC and upon entering disliked it immediately.  Firstly, I was first.  It was 5 p.m. and I was alone.  Art?

Metaphorically

     Not literally alone, as you can judge from the above.  No, I was the first of my party to arrive.
     "At least I wasn't late!" I consoled me.  Not aloud, that kind of thing draws funny looks.  The place was rammed with Bright Young Things, causing your Dull Old Thing to feel hideously out of place, or just hideous.
     The second thing that annoyed your humble scribe was the incredible heat, partly a product of so many glowing bodies (I did mention the "bright" thing, didn't I?) and partly the result of management having the heating on.  I'm certain of it.  Conrad's fleece might also have been partly to blame.  I got a couple of non-alcoholic cocktails and delicately sipped them, watching sweat drip out of my sleeve cuffs and onto the floor, where it made a positive puddle.  Four hours later I looked at my watch and it was 5:10 p.m. and I was still alone.

This alone
(In my head)

     Oh, another thing that annoyed me, although frankly it doesn't take much, was the level of noise.  All those people swilling away at their drinks are so much louder than a similar-sized crowd sipping Darjeeling out of Delft would be, believe me.  They were FAR TOO LOUD, even if not at the level of SHOUT IN EAR TO BE MISHEARD.   Plus the sound system was broadcasting Sixties songs that were Coolness Date Expired twenty years ago.

In vino volume

     By the time I'd finished my second cocktail and sweated it right out again, it was nearly 5:30 p.m. and Conrad had given up.  
     "I've had enough and am leaving in a huff" I shouted.  Nobody noticed: none of my party had arrived to care and the noise (I did mention the noise, didn't I?) prevented anyone not skilled in lip-reading in telling what I was tanting about.

Today's Coincidence
 - is actually Thursday's, as it was in "Empire" then, I've just not had a chance to write it up.  Okay, what Stan "The Man" Kubrick film have I been banging on about of late?  Why none other than "Doctor Strangelove".  Check this out.  Art?

Surprise!

     The intrusive Criterion brand makes it a little difficult to make out, but take it from me, that's Major Kong riding a nuclear-missile-masquerading-as-a-bomb to hit Russia, and what film is it from?  Doctor Strangelove all right.

Ken Adam And Set Design
You remember our good friend Ken?  A man with an eye for the eye-catching, Production Designer to the stars.  Take a look at this sketch of a set for "Thunderball":

Very baroque

      And here's the real thing in film form:

     Being Ken, I imagine a lot of this is physical set and not matte work, feel free to check up and correct me.
     There's some very interesting background information being fleshed-out here.  The small group of chairs in the middle distance is M and his colleagues; the arc of chairs at stage front are the Double-Oh agents, those who can go out and kill whomsoever they like.  That's James Bond Double-Oh Seven heading for the empty seat, which means there are, in total, nine Double-Oh's.
     How many are there today?  Well, I could tell you, and then you would mysteriously vanish, never to be seen again ...