Alas, Babylon 5

No, Only Kidding!
I genuinely liked B5, especially since it was an excellent antidote for "Star Trek", in that you got poverty, unemployment, war, politics, racism, more war and some cool spaceship designs.  Kind of realistic in how humanity took all it's weaknesses into outer space.  Wasn't keen on the British actor trying to be a character out of Tolkein, mind.
     Anyway, that has nothing to do with what I really intended to chat about, which was a brief look at the novel "Alas, Babylon", which I finished last night.

B47, star of the show

     It's from that genre dubbed "Post Apocalyptic", and is set in 1959.  Nuclear war breaks out between the Sinisters and the free world, and both sides get a severe battering.  The Sinisters unwisely make a point of early attacking South Canadian cities, which means reciprocal attacks on their own, to the point that the Sinister capital ends up in Outer Mongolia.  At this point in time the US retaliation comes from their enormous fleet of Strategic Air Command bombers.  Quaint, in a way, as the ICBM and Trident have shrunk this to a far smaller size today.  Then, too, in the Fifties the trend was for bombs and warheads with an enormous yield, because they weren't that accurate and you had to - as the phrase goes of the target - " dig 'em out in the craters ".  

Thor IRBM - quite a Mjolnir

Most of the novel focusses on the day-to-day battle for survival of Fort Repose's inhabitants, with brief allusions to what else is going on in the world.  Doubtless the post-attack breakdown of civilisation would be as depicted, except today's youth would probably swiftly die off when their Digital Devil Boxes (mobile phones to you) stopped working.
     Right!  Having started with the end of the world, let us proceed to slightly sunnier subjects.

"Happy Valley"
Conrad caught this, or part of it, last night: the start of Season One. 

Smile for the camera!

 He cast a gloomy and appraising eye over it, noticed that nobody looked especially happy, and decided to decant himself out of the lounge. 

No smiles?  Not even for BOOJUM!

 Rape, murder and kidnap the subject matter, so your humble back can only assume the title is ironic.  
     Well, I did caution you that it was only going to be slightly sunnier.

Sally Wainwright, creator, who does have something to smile about

A Clerihew Of Deepest Blue
Today we are going to be mildly insulting about a bunch of cartoon characters, which is fine, as they cannot sue you for slander.

Bugs Bunny

Was always funny.

Disney cartoons are far too stolid,

And Donald Duck is simply horrid.

     You can't argue with either fact there.  Warner Bros cartoons always knocked the Disney ones into a cocked hat and I don't think the House of Mouse produced anything short and funny until the Nineties.  Your view may vary, in which case you are wrong.

No, it's not Bugs.  Still funny, though

Samurai Jack

Is back.

This renders Conrad quite happy,

As he is normally a dismal chappy.

     If you need to know - SJ was dreamed up by Genndy Tartakovsky, which would be a hell of a challenge to do a clerihew about, and concerns Jack, a noble-minded samurai from the Middle Ages, who comes close to defeating the demonic Aku.  On the brink of defeat, Aku hurls Jack forward in time to the far future.  Now Jack not only has to defeat Aku, he has to try and get back home ...

Aku and Jack

Tom and Jerry

Makes me merry.

It's their gleeful bloodthirstiness.

Perhaps this is why I'm such a mess.

     There is a point here.  Back in the Seventies some professional damp squibber waved their hands around and quacked loudly about T&J having a bad influence on children.  Of course it did!  That was the whole point, to enjoy Tom getting ceaselessly beaten, battered, fried, burnt, shot, cacti'd and bitten.  This was followed up by <Mister Hand intervenes to prevent a long bitter rant about the damp squibbers>

South Park

Can be dark.

Nowhere near "Grave of the Fireflies",

The grimmest thing to affront mine eyes.

     Entirely true.  I haven't even seen the whole thing, and have no intention of doing so.
     Hmmm.  We appear to be ending on a note as grim as that with which we started.  Let's have a quote from Philip K. Dick to round things off in an amusingly off-kilter way.

Close enough