Stick With Me For This

It'll Take A While To Develop
If you are familiar with BOOJUM! and it's policies - Nonsense Taken To Extremes - then you ought to be aware that your humble scribe finds it difficult to omit tracking down annoying little details.
     For instance, take the part-work "History of the Second World War" that I recently put into order.  Art?

     This was an entertaining evening for me, though others might think of it as sustained torment only to be inflicted on the worst kind of political prisoners.  Here comes the Coincidence Hydra, because what is on the windowledges of The Pleasant Inn?  No!  Not aspidistras: an edited hardback version of the above.  Art?

Impressively heavyweight

     You can tell it was published well before 1975, which is when the 30 Year Rule expired and people could chat about Bletchley Park without being thrown in a dungeon, because it has nothing in it about Enigma.
     Interestingly enough, it also subscribes to the Rommel mythos, as it never explains matey's wonder-working on the battlefield was due 1) to his extremely efficient radio intercept service (and the 8th Army's appalling radio security) and 2) being able to read all the voluminous and frequent despatches of the South Canadian liaison with the 8th Army.  Once these stopped, matey stopped winning battles.

A radio (for the internet generation)

     Anyway, whilst I was reading about the war in North Africa, and noting the omissions above, I noted a photograph on Page 1044 captioned "Italian tanks advancing in the desert".
     WRONG!  It actually showed a photo of half a dozen Vickers Light Tank Mk. VI advancing.   HOW COULD THEY MAKE SUCH A MISTAKE!!

This very photo!  This one!

     Obviously the Mk. VI, right?  Conrad is unsure what Italian tank they are being mistaken for: probably the M13/40.  Art?  Illuminate.

Utterly different

     I shall dig out the magazine with the photo and see if the mis-attribution is in the original, too, and if so, whether anyone thoughtfully wrote in to tell them next week.
     None of which has anything to do with what I meant to post about, so - enough Intro!

Nitpicking Armageddon
Conrad was checking out the IMDB entry for "The Time Machine" recently - the good one starring Rod Taylor - and noticed one of the quotes, which I hereby append:

The war between the east and west which is now in it's three hundred and twenty-sixth year, has at last come to an end. There is nothing left to fight with, and few of us left to fight. The atmosphere has become so polluted with deadly germs, that it can no longer be breathed. There is no place on this planet that is immune. The last surviving factory for the manufacturing of oxygen has been destroyed. Stockpiles are rapidly diminishing. And when they are gone, we must die

A curious way to store data -

     
     Plainly, humanity did not die, because The Traveller witnesses lots of Eloi running around.  So what happened?  We see war break out, with London getting spifflicated by a nuclear explosion.  Conrad assumes that this is the "Spasm or Insensate" war postulated by Herman Kahn, where nations empty their missile silos at each other, following up with sending in the bombers.
     Well, that would be over rather quickly.  A 'long' nuclear war nowadays would last perhaps two weeks, so one suspects the remaining three hundred and twenty five plus change would be fought with conventional forces, also using chemical and biological weapons.

Thinking of foreseeing the Lottery numbers, I bet ...

     This is where things get problematic; an engineered plague virus won't recognise international borders, and if there's enough radiation lying carelessly around, it might well mutate into something you don't have the vaccine for.  That crack about "oxygen factory" is a bit off, too; if the big issue is germs then you need a filter factory, not one cranking out O2.  Plus, if there's nothing left to fight with, how did that factory get destroyed - mice with matches?
     So.  Imagine what happens; the stored oxygen runs out and folks have to walk out into the sunset.  Then they don't die, because the deadly germs have all died off already, and society's primitive state doesn't allow for accurate bio-assays of the atmosphere.  The germs were deadly, yes, several centuries ago.

"But it's all true!  And it would make an excellent television program!"

     Or, if that's too fancy for you, most people do indeed die instantly, but a few are naturally immune, as is the case with every form of disease, and they survive to repopulate the earth.  Which recovers wonderfully, thank you, absent the efforts of Hom.Sap. to rubbish it.
    Of course, I could be overthinking this .....

Finally  -
Edna, our Other Daughter, was whimpering about something in the kitchen.
     "Dog Buns!" I said to myself (don't worry, we all do this - right?)  "It would be so much easier if you could talk."
     Well, no, Conrad, it would in reality be the exact opposite.

     "I'm hungry"

     "I'm bored"

     "I want a wee"

     "I want a walk"

     "I need a walk"

     "I'm still bored"

     "Play with me"

     "Play with me NOW"

     "I'm still bored"

     "More play"

     "Move your laptop"

     "Is there any food?"

     "That looks delicious, where's mine?"

     "I must be played with"

     "Another walk is needed"

     "The wicked neglectful humans are neglecting me, wickedly"

     "Hello?  RSPCA?  Not playing with me is a criminal offence, isn't it?"

     "More play less laptop"

     I could go on but we have reached today's count.  What do you thin, Edders?

(silent contempt)