Atomic Brunette

That's Me!
Me being brunette a long time ago, rather than the silken steely locks that grace my head right now.  You know what was in issue a long time ago?  This.  Art?

1985 edition

     I was looking for this over the past few weeks, given the hoowing and hawing going on in a certain Asian peninsula; I was resigned to having to dig it out from the book cupboard, which would be more like a civil engineering project than anything else.  Proof:

     Quite a task, you'll agree.  However, irony of ironies, I just binned a set of part-work magazines in binders, leaving room to redistribute some volumes from a stack and into a bookcase - and I found the Dictionary!  O frabjous day.
     Now, it does date from 1985, so some info is out of date or simply incorrect.  It's also interesting to see an omission - no mention of the Norks. North Korea, it seems, simply wasn't a player in 1985.  In the 30 years since then, they've managed to test a few small fission devices, having been told loudly and unequivocally "NO" by China when requesting they be given some nukes, please.  You'll also notice that bluster about threatening Guam has vanished, which is interesting - 30 years ago the entire South Canadian ICBM arsenal could be reprogrammed for new targets in just 10 hours.

The people react to Conrad's happy discovery.

     Well, it's made me happy, at least. Happy happy happy.

Nuclear Winter
Here's another entry that was big news at the time.  The concept was that a major nuclear exchange - polite language for walloping each other with H-bombs - would send vast amounts of soot into the stratosphere, which would block out the sun's rays, causing a year-long winter with temperatures down to minus 30.  At that depth it doesn't really matter if it's Farenheit or Centigrade.
     Welllllll - no.  The scaremongering yellow press took the story at the time and ran with it, despite the calculations being extremely hazy, theoretically-based with no actual nuclear data used, and with large estimates instead of correct figures.

World's biggest barbecue

     Fast forward to the First Gulf War, and the setting alight of 600 Kuwaiti oil-wells by the dastardly Iraqis.   Before it actually occurred, the nuclear winter proponents were predicting global catastrophe, ecological collapse, cats and dogs, living together - you get the picture.
     In reality, the Persian Gulf cooled down a few degrees for a couple of months and that was it.  Probably a nice refreshing change for 'em.

Right!  Enough wibbling about atomic warfare.  Now we shall address - 

     Eh?  Citizen Zed?  What the hell are you doing here, trying to hijack the blog, and - is that Polish?  Sorry folks, I think we have a reality-leak here, let me just adjust the Sensible Ratio at the back -

An Fan
Right, recently I was re-reading a Doctor Who fan-fiction I wrote ages and ages ago, and it's not bad though I say it myself.  I did several novel-length fan fiction Dr. Who stories, and they stood out, rather.  A lot of the longer ones present on Fanfiction were cheesy crossovers with things like Buffy or Star Trek, or they were <shudder> steamy romances between The Doctor and a newly-introduced companion (usually a thinly-veiled fan fiction author), or they were just silly.  Intentionally silly, that is.
     Not so Conrad!  Mine had to stick to Rules.  
THE RULES
1)  No romance between The Doctor and anyone else.  None whatsoever.  Never mind Steven Moffat trying to sneak this in on television, IT'S NOT HAPPENING HERE!
2)  Serious in tone.  No romance, but you can have lots of death and destruction.
3)  Fit the thing into the television timeframe.  
4)  Try and resolve things credibly.  No deus ex machinae here, ta very much.

Keeping it platonic

     If you are good, or bad, because I'm fickle that way, I may post an extract or a link.
     What's that?  You want to know what "Deus ex machina" means? - oops.  I forgot to translate, and your humble hack hates it when other authors do that.

"Deus Ex Machina"
Literally "God from the machine", meaning someone or something that miraculously turns up in the nick of time to rescue or resolve the situation.
     Like Uncle Benjy in "Game of Thrones".

You know, he doesn't look at all well

     When Bran was in danger of becoming zombie-fodder - Hay Pesto!  Here's Uncle Ben to the rescue.  When Jon Hypothermic Snow needed a lift to also avoid becoming revenant-fodder - Hay Pesto!  Here's Uncle Ben agen.  Not looking at his best, either; the man could do with a good dose of sunshine.  That's probably why he carries around a naked flame all the time.

     Damn it, he's back - it must be that mention of zombies.  Well, I'm going to have to work on my Einstein-Roentgen inter-reality bridge a bit more, so Conrad signing off -