Whither The Weather Doth Wither

A Bit Of A Tongue-Twister
Well, it appears that Autumn has arrived, supposedly the "season of mists and mellow fruitfulness".  O Rly?*  Hardly so.  Your humble scribe stood and marinated at the bus stop this morning.  "Wowsers, this mist is really thick," I quoth to myself.  "Yes, because it's rain," replied Mister Hand, and indeed it was.  The mellow fruity bit, as far as I can see, refers to the fallen leaves, which may be picturesque, but which make pretty poor fodder.  Also, they provide a reason for that most selfish of power tools, the leaf-blower.
     "Turn your problems into your neighbours!" is how I imagine they promote the wretched things.  What next?  A remote-control mobile catapult, that flings unwanted slugs over the fence into your neighbour's back yard? Don't laugh, the Slugbot was a real thing you know.
     Okay, once again the view from our elevated eyrie atop the Dark Tower resembles that of the banner over at "Quiet Earth" and I can prove it.  Art?

SHARK VERSUS ZOMBIES!!!**
Not literally - although I believe this does happen in an Italian zombie flick (it does - I checked, and the film is "Zombi 2").  Personally I'd be rooting for the shark, and I can't see a feeble decaying human making much, if any, impression on a two-ton carcharodon armed with an infinite number of steak-knives for teeth.

Seconds out!

     Okay, so this isn't to be taken literally.  No, this is another of Conrad's rather dodgy metaphors, maybe even stretching to an analogy.  If you're making a low-budget horror film, what staple do you fall back on for cheap frights?
     No!  Not a legion of cyborg Barney's - you choose zombies.  Extras coated in green makeup don't cost much after all, and the job spec. need be no more than "Must be able to groan convincingly".
     What do you do if the sea features at all in your flick?  Because having the sea means being able to parade a lot of young ladies in bikinis in front of the camera, another staple of cheap horror films - er - so I'm told.  Well, you need a LEGION OF NUCLEAR-POWERED SHARKS!  except without the nuclear bit.  Because that would be silly.  A shark, after all, is a lot easier to render in CGI than a spider or a giant gorilla - no limbs, only fins, and no fur.  You don't need a - sorry, what's the collective noun for a mass of sharks?  A frenzy?  A fury?  A ferocious? - ah - a Shiver (quite apt!) of sharks to instill fear, one is quite enough if it's big enough.

This proves my point, I feel

     Here an aside.  Given that this is the Century of Soppy, I'm surprised there isn't a pressure group out there protesting at the dreadful mistreatment of the zombies in "Zombi 2", and how dare they be exposed to dismemberment by  A LEGION OF NUCLEAR-POWERED SHARKS! - no, sorry, just a normal shark.  Although if the Sy-Fi Channel want me to work up a treatment, it can be theirs for just $77,000.

Those Nice British Americans Did What?
As you know - or ought to by now - Conrad hilariously describes the denizens of the land of the maple leaf as "British Americans", which is actually less whimsical than you may realise***.  The British Americans have a reputation for friendliness and politeness which clashes rather with their INVENTION OF NUCLEAR-POWERED SH - oops, no, sorry, mobile armoured warfare.
     Enter the mighty Autocar, which is a rather redundant title.  Art?

A wagonful of woe

     These were gimmicked up under the auspices of Colonel Brutinel, well before anyone else came up with the idea.  They were essentially a big armoured box on wheels, to be employed in carrying a brace of Mister Vickers' Slayer of Thousands, and there were initially 8 of them.  
     Colonel Brutinel got approval for adding more men, and machines, and machine guns, and by 1918, he had a "Brigade" of about 300 infantry, two companies of armoured cars, 40 Vickers Machine Guns, a section of trench mortars that could, in extremis, be fired from their armoured lorry transport, and wireless and ambulance trucks.

Out for a constitutional

     As the Colonel pointed out, his compact and highly mobile force had the automatic firepower of two infantry brigades, or about 6,000 men, and it was used to good effect in halting the vast Teuton offensive of March 1918.

Finally - 
I said that Slugbot was a real thing, didn't I?

It hunts slugs

     The reason for slugs is that, as horrid slimy invertebrates, you don't need a licence or permission to exterminate them, which you probably do need to keep down the world's population of NUCLEAR-POWERED SHARKS!

Ahem.

 *  I don't apologise for using street argot.  I like to mix it up now and then.
**  Apologies for using so many exclamation marks.  A point is being made.
***  After the American War of Treacherous Backstabbing Ingratitude, a lot of Empire loyalists emigrated to Canada.  So there.