Of Peacocks And Chickens

No!  Not What We're Having For Christmas Dinner
Although Conrad confesses curiosity, because whilst he is thoroughly familiar with the taste of chicken, he's never dined on peacock.  It would probably be an underwhelming experience; the peacock is all about The Look.  A very shallow bird.

A Peacock throne

     I don't suppose you've forgotten what a peacock looks like, so this is a slightly different take on it: Ludwig Of Bavaria's Peacock Throne.  The chap might have been potty but he had an eye for art.
     Because we are nothing other than thorough*, here's a picture of the comparatively dowdy peahen:

Not quite the dandy

     As I have wondered before, we've had the Dad and the Mum, so where is the Peamoodyteenager?

Close enough

     Okay, I think we've satisfied the fact-to-nonsense ratio for the Intro, let us now proceed in a rapid yet attentive manner to the rest of this blog.

Top Ten John Carpenter Documentaries:  Number 8 - "The Fog"
I will pre-empt some of your criticisms before they begin arriving.  First of all, JC knew that something extremely odd was going on in the town of Antonio Bay before he arrived, so he set up several cameras at points in the town where they'd be able to get footage, some being remotely operated and others triggered by movement.  

Low-key mise en scene

There were a couple of second-unit teams operating independently from JC, notably under Dean Cundy, who acquired some pretty stunning footage.

Final shot in the church - one of those remote cameras

     Here's another shot from one of the previously-placed cameras, where Jamie Lee Curtis and Tom Atkins discover that fog in your engine does it no good at all, and may in fact revoke your warranty.  Or kill you, whichever is worse.

On balance I'd go with warranty

"Blue Peacock"
Now we get to the meat of the matter, so to speak, as it concerns chickens.
     First, however, we must change tack entirely, and instead go back to the Fifties, when the British Army of the Rhine, shortened to BAOR, faced the Sinister hordes across the North German plains.
     "Wouldn't it be a terrific idea," mused some genius at the Ministry of Defence, "If we placed ATOMIC LAND MINES! in the way of the Warsaw Pact invaders?"
     Hence was born the Blue Peacock.

NO!  Art, I swear -

     <sound of Tazer charging up>

Blue Peacock with human for scale

     There you go, Art, you can do it if you try.  This was essentially a nuclear landmine with a 10 kiloton yield, intended to be placed underground beneath the likely approach routes of the Sinisters and their bolshevik brethren.  It could be detonated by a wire link from up to three miles away, or left on an eight-day timer.  If any WarPac troops were incautious enough to try and move or open it, then they had ten seconds before it went BANG!
     "Okay, so far so bizarre," I hear you call.  "Where do the chickens come in?"
     Well, Blue Peacock was rather sensitive to temperature.  Not that it would go pop on a hot day, rather the opposite, it might not go off because it was too cold, poor thing.  The remedy for this was either brilliant or insane, perhaps even both:  add extra space outside the weapon when dug in, fill it with bowls of bird food and water, then add chickens.  Their collective body heat would prevent the mine from getting too cold and guaranteed that, if worst came to the worst, it would still detonate.
     So perhaps Teuton civilians living a couple of miles away would get air-delivered ready-roasted radioactive rooster falling on them.
     On the other hand, being in close proximity to nuclear materials ...

Legs eleven

Finally
Mum and Dad would like to wish you a Merry Christmas:

       "RRRRRRRRRRRR-RRRRRRRRRRRRRR"

     That's Mum on the left, Dad on the right, and that's Weaselspeak for "I'M GOING TO RIP YOUR THROAT OUT WITH MY RABID FANGS oh and Merry Christmas too."  Which is practically fawning for rabid weasels, I'll have you know.

Slightly shorter than usual as I now have to dash into Ur-on-the-Irwell to collect Darling Daughter from work and deliver her to the Mansion.  Pip pip!

*  Okay, okay, it ups the word count as well.  You got me there.