- your humble hack being a hair-splitting pedant of the worst kind, "It's" is three letters and an apostrophe rather than being one of the four states of matter. Yes, four: solid, liquid, gas and plasma.
Yes, we are back to discussing poison gas again. Don't look surprised, it's old ground for BOOJUM! and we're not going to be covering the news and assertions of assassinations, in fact we are going to be looking a long way back, all the way to the Fifties and one of my favourite sci-fi novels: "Earthman, Come Home".
| The "spindizzy" in action |
Which is an ambiguous title, I admit; is it a plea or a statement? Regardless of intent, it was written by James Blish.
In ECH Ol' Jim has invented technology that allows a city-sized object - like a city - to sit on the surface of a gas giant planet. In amongst cruising the galaxy. To what end? That's speculative, as we never get a definite answer from those doing the planning for this deed, except that the purpose is nefarious, whate'er it may be.
One character, however, posits an explanation - a bridgehead created by floating a city on the surface of a gas giant would allow the acquisition of unlimited amounts of poison gas.
Well, yes, but -
Ol' Jim was hot stuff at conjuring up Wagnerian space-opera themes and technology, not to mention maths (there are pages of this in "They Shall Have Stars" that convinced the credulous that the Dillon-Waggoner graviton polarity generator was indeed possible),
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| - and yet ... |
but a little hazy on chemical warfare, one feels. ECH was written in the Fifties, when nerve agents like the "V" series were making modern warfare ever more unpleasant. The prospect of star-spanning super-cities waging war by using the weapons of centuries long gone stretches the imagination too far.
Mind you, Ol' Jim does work in a dig that means these citizens of the far future aren't certain if the First and Second Unpleasantness actually happened or not ...
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| Did this happen?!?! (Yes) |
Picture The Scene
An image of domestic tranquillity, Edna sulking on the carpet, the Atlantic falling from the heavens outside, Conrad watching television, notepad to hand.
Yes, really. For one thing, I like to be prepared whilst watching "Elementary" because only that way can I properly capture the vocabulary used.
Here we go: "Illicit" - for which read illegal.
"Retrenching" - standing back to reconsider one's position
"Wastrel" - a cad and a bounder. One who is, and is up to, no good.
"Sobriety" - bandied about a lot. A state of not being drunk, a condition Conrad hopes is your default state. Also used to refer to Sherlock not being bombed out of his head on drugs.
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| Your trenching needs de-drenching |
"Pecadilloes"
Go on, guess. Without Googling! No, they are not a variety of canvas footwear. No, they are not a form of canoe. No, they are not seasoned smoked Spanish sausages.
They are a minor transgression in the big scheme of things, like you Googling for the answer. As a word it came up during the very first episode of "Father Brown", and one can easily imagine the good Father forgiving one of his parishoners a trivial misdeed.
Me, not so much*.
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| Pecadilloes? |
Wait, What?
One of the persistent programme choices at The Mansion, when your modest artisan is not hogging the controls and bingeing on "Elementary", is that annoyingly watchable programme "Pointless". Conrad NEVER sits down with the intent of actually watching it, yet as inevitably as nightfall, he does.
Although I have to wonder what the advertising people think of this quiz show's demographic. The advertisements all seem to be about incontinence or bowel problems and other ghastly stuff that you might imagine the elderly to be stricken with.
Please, not whilst I'm eating.
Thank you.
| A continent. Which is as close as we're getting, thank you very much |
Behold The Beast
There is no sound present here, so you will have to imagine a loud purring coming from Jenny. Having sneaked her way out of the kitchen, dodged Edna - our dog, I hasten to add, in case you were a little puzzled by that line about her sulking, found the door to My Sekrit Lair open and ventured inside, she has now taken up what she fondly imagines is the Victoriously Triumphant Doze Pose. Really, she exudes smugness.
This is not a bad thing, to be honest. Conrad much prefers her static on the covers rather than roaming around my Mancave, being inquisitive and knocking over my Historical Miniature Replicas**.
* I bear grudges. And I did warn you NOT to Google.
** Which, and I'm not going to repeat this, are NOT "toy soldiers"
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