The Wind In The Willow Pattern

That May Be A Stretch
 - although you have to confess that people do  drink tea from china decorated with that very same pattern, and that TWITW is a classic literary work.  Plus, it spawned the title of Pink Floyd's first album "The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn", and you know I like to work in a reference to either Floyd or The Comsat Angels if I can.

INFINITELY preferable to that bore Shakespeare

     Okay!  My intent here is to post this a bit earlier than normal, so I can scoff lunch and then hike down to Soddom-on-the-Wold and see what remaindered near-offal is on offer.  Plus we need more Lurpack and wholemeal pitta breads.
     That unusually short Intro out of the way, let the motley commence!

Going Underground
You may not be familiar with The Jam's old single "Going Underground", which is your loss; I was there when it first came out.  It also served as the inspiration for a comic strip in 2000 AD, entitled "Comic Rock", which introduced the character of Nemesis the Warlock, and also of Torquemada, chief of the Tube Police.

Some people have a very strange imagination ...

     This artwork is courtesy of Kevin O'Neill.  The "Comic Rock" concept only lasted for one issue, as the story was so popular that Nemesis got his own strip.  Interestingly enough, the underlying concept was that humans were the bad guys here*.
     Anyway, neither The Jam, Nemesis or even 2000AD are what I want to talk about here - what's that?  Oh come now, surely you don't expect logic and a linear narrative from BOOJUM! do you**?
     What we're going on about again is that nuclear test by the Norks of the 3rd instant.  They loudly and proudly boast about the device used being able to fit inside a missile, as a deliverable weapons payload.
     They say.
     Note that no corresponding propaganda photos of the device in situ have been published, and let me tell you a little about Castle Bravo.
     Cast your minds back to 1954, and Bikini Atoll.  No!  you will not get a load of photos featuring young ladies not wearing much.  Site of fusion device testing.  Art?

Where an island used to be

     That picture shows the crater left by the Castle Bravo test shot.  CB was a proof of concept test of a fusion device using a lithium hydride core, to see if it would work.  It worked, and then some - due to a supposedly inert lithium isotope actually reacting, the yield was 15 megatons, three times greater than expected.  Anyway, let's see the test rig.  Art?

Telemetry gear

     This stuff is separate from the device itself.  As you can see, it's a bit big to put on a missile and declare it a viable payload.  You'd need an ocean-going ship to mount all this on.
     The actual device itself was laughingly called "Shrimp", because -

!

     As you can see, it's freaking enormous.  You couldn't put that atop a missile and declare yourself a winner. In fact the Sinisters unkindly called Castle Bravo a "thermonuclear installation", although they were probably jealous, too.  
     So what did the Norks actually detonate down underground?  That, I suppose, remains to be seen.

HYSteria
No!  The 'Shift' button did not stick, that's an hilarious pun on the Beeb's comment pages - "Have Your Say".  Conrad should know well enough to stay away, as a lot of the comments that aren't simple invective are completely inaccurate.  Take the ones on the Nork's nuclear test, with one baffoon trying to create a conspiracy by stating that the Norks got their fusion bomb technology "So quickly".
     Excuse me!  Check above for "quickly"; it only took the South Canadians 10 years to invent the hydrogen bomb, from scratch, pioneering an entirely new technology.  We in the Pond had ours before the Fifties were out.  

How jolly jaunty!

Even the Israelis had fusion weapons - although they will coyly smirk and say nothing if asked - by the mid-Eighties.
     It's still not clear exactly what went off down in Norkland; quite possibly it was only a boosted fission device, not a fusion one at all.  And it's taken them fifty years to get to that stage.
     So, no - not "Quickly" at all!
     

Conrad, being serious
(this does not happen often)

*  One reason I never identify my lovely ice-planet homeworld.  Hom. Sap = not trustworthy at all.
**  You fools