Voyage To The Bottom Of The Tea

A Triple Whammy This Ante Meridian
Why yes indeed.  Not only are we spoofing the film, but also the television series (which has an excellent theme tune, by the way) and real life.

The Flying Sub.  How did they do it?

     Yes, real life.  As you ought to know by now, your humble scribe is a devotee of loose leaf tea, and regards tea bags with existential terror - I'm pretty sure you can correlate the decline of Western civilisation with the introduction of the wicked little things.  However, into each life a little rain must fall*.  The consequence of drinking loose leaf tea is that you end up with the very smallest pieces of tea leaf - known as "sweepings" in case you were curious and even if you were not - swilling about at the bottom of the cup, meaning you must either desist from finishing your drink or biting the bullet and imbibing drink and leaves.

A tea-leaf.  At least, that's what it says on the label.  Art?

     The horror.  The horror.
     Okay, now that we've gotten to the bottom of the barrel, let us strap those fireworks to the motley and hurl it into the tiger enclosure**.  Next!

Memory - It's A Funny Old Thing
And definitely not the video playback you might fondly imagine it to be.  Take that item on Twitter (a.k.a. a Tweet, if you can believe it) about the writer Philip Klass, who used the pseudonym William Tenn.
     No, not THAT Philip Klass, the sceptical investigation chap.  That would entail a whole BOOJUM! article of some considerable length.

The other Phil.  I think.  It's a bit confusing.

     "William Tenn," considered your humble scribe on reading the name.  "I seem to recall reading one of his sci-fi short stories back in the Seventies - 'Winthrop Was Stubborn'."
     Because I cannot leave well alone, in addition to being an anorak, I checked.
     Correct!  Not only that, I still recall the twist at the end.
     You may not be able to teach an old dog new tricks, but he can still bite.

How Is This Man Still Alive?
If you read yesterday's blog, you will recall my relating the discovery of Colin Furze, who is English, mad and dangerous to know.  He is technically competent at fabricating artefacts that nobody in their right mind would conceive of, let alone build.
     He's brilliant!
     Say hello to the Thermite-powered kettle.  Thermite!  Which burns at several thousand degrees Centigrade when mixed correctly. 

Thermite! in action.  Well, nearly.

Colin accidentally mixed up a batch that, thanks to over-large aluminium granules, burnt at considerably less than optimum.
     Which, he reasoned, made it simply splendidly suited for heating up the water in a kettle extra-specially quickly.  Like you would.  Well, no, like you wouldn't, but he would.
     All credit to Colin, his Thermite-powered kettle did the job, clocking in at a mere 52 seconds to boil a pint of water.  Art?

Thermite! Making tea!

     If adopted by the likes of <thinks> Hoover or Ford, it would need to come with an asbestos mat, and a fume hood. 
    Colin rather spoiled the whole effect, as he used the boiled water to brew up - with a teabag.

Your Descendants - Doomed
Cast your mind back to sunny Sixty-Nine and the simultaneously frightening and entertaining dramatic reconstruction program that is "Doctor Who'.  Recall, if you will, "The Seeds of Death", about a forthcoming Martian invasion of Earth.  We're not going to bother about the Ice Warriors, you can see them off with a box of matches and a can of lighter fuel.    No, instead we shall look at the travel and transport system of the future - T-Mat.  This is the snappy brand name for matter transmission: any quantity of anything sent any distance to anywhere, between sending and receiving stations.  Planes?  Trains?  Automobiles?  All extinct.

Wow.  Those are really big people.

     Unfortunately your descendants of the future are, to be blunt about it, staggeringly stupid.  Extremely intelligent, mayhaps, yet not too clever.
      I say this because there is no Plan B.  If anything goes wrong, the world is doomed - with all food being transported by T-Mat then, if it goes dark, we shall all starve***.
     "We can fix it!  We can fix it REALLY FAST!" I hear you respond.
     Ah, but - no.  T-Mat works via a relay station, you see.
     Which is on the Moon. 
     And can only be accessed via T-Mat.
     Did I say "Doomed"?  I should have put "Utterly Doomed".




*  Or, a whole lot of rain if you live in the UK.  Storm Brian?  Merely business as usual.
**  Don't worry, it's tiger-proof.  At least, it was last time.
*** And run out of tea.