Tea-Hee!
Again with the tea-based
puns! Don’t carp, or I’ll recite my
5,000 word monograph on how “Blade Runner” influenced the next generation of
film makers and then you’ll be
sorry. Unless you really want me –
no? Certain? Okay.
Well, allow me to illustrate the sheer
monumental evil that is First Bus, by showing you their timetable for the 24
service. Art?
 |
| Read 'em and seethe |
Yes, nine buses per day. None at all at the weekend, because –
Hey! Who needs to travel at the weekend,
right*? We are supposed to be
pathetically grateful that these pikers actually run a bus service at all
<long long set of swears redacted by Mister Hand>.
It is
relevant,
actually. Because if I get out of the
office in the Dark Tower dead on 5:10, it’s a 10 minute power-walk to the 24
bus stop. Except it can take ages for
the lift to arrive – we are on the 18th Floor after all, and it ill
behoves your humble scribe to risk death crossing against the lights at several
points. So, I may get home at 6 post meridian,
or 6:30 depending on fate and my shoes.
Sir
Lawrence Alma-Tadema
In this day and age, where
every young person is surgically attached to a mobile phone that has a built-in
camera, it is hard to recollect a time when photography was a difficult process
(literally) and only ever in black and white.
When there was no film, only a colloidal solution on a glass plate.
Enter the artist! Or was it a dragon? No, it was definitely an artist**. Here we
have Lawrence Alma-Tadema, a Dutchman who had the good taste to become British
(interestingly enough a ‘denizen’ rather than a ‘citizen’) and who specialised
in photo-accurate oil paintings.
 |
| "The Roses of Heliogabalus" |
He
initially focussed on the Merovingian era (i.e. a long time ago), before
switching to Roman and Egyptian eras (i.e. a very long time ago). His popularity has waxed and waned, until one
of his recent sales topped £36 million. Which is a fair wad.
When I said “photo-accurate” it was no
exaggeration. LAT researched his art so
thoroughly that you could use his paintings to construct the buildings there
present. His art inspired Cecil B. De
Mille, and was used to inform the production designers on “Gladiator” as to
what the desired end was.
 |
| "A Declaration" |
Circular
Error Probable
Yes! Back to banging (no pun intended) on about
the Nork’s foofoodillies again.
Unusually for BOOJUM! We are going to address both politics and current
affairs, and if you add in that the Sulky Fat Lad considers himself to be a
minor deity, then we tick all the boxes we normally avoid. Bingo!
So, if none of the preceding fills you with a warm fuzzy feeling, you
may pass on.
Earlier this week I mentioned CEP and how
wretchedly inaccurate the Nork missiles appeared to be. As a comparison, for the Norks quoted
accuracy error of 0.3%, the South Canadian’s nuc – foofoodillies are expected
to have an error margin of 0.005%.
 |
| A Minuteman III. Which, frankly, looks massive. |
However, and it is a BIG however, all this
CEP stuff is purely theoretical, because nobody has test-fired an ICBM*** at a
specific target like Guam before.
Historically, when the Sinisters fired theirs, they aimed at the
Kamchatka Peninsula, a big-ass piece of land the size of the UK. The South Canadians were even less precise,
firing theirs into the Pacific Ocean, and since it occupies 28% of the planet’s
surface, it’s kind of hard to miss. Not
only that, these large expensive clubs would have been babied out of their
silos and given TLC from top to bottom, after a microscopic examination, before
being transported on a cloud of cotton wool, in order to ensure a successful
launch.
We will have more of this, probably
tomorrow. In the meantime, notice how
the flood of rhetoric from the Sulky Fat Lad has suddenly dried up?
Finally
Ah, let us now praise famous
men. Having done that, let’s look at a
Dreyer Table. Art?
 |
As you can see, not something
you can either buy from Ikea nor eat your dinner off. This follows on from that Admiralty Predictor
Clock of yesteryon, as the Dreyer was used as an analogue computer by a team of
seven men, to produce data for the gunners on the ships of – hang on, let me
check that Ben Folds is still alive – Phew!
Yes he is, it was the passenger side that the truck hit – the Royal
Navy. This allowed them to miss with
precision, none of that amateur nonsense here!
* Conrad mutters darkly about
having to work Saturdays
** Sorry. Too much Game of Thrones
*** Ice Cream Breakfast Man, in
case IT are looking on.
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