Low

It Seems Topical
You know, as in there's a Christmas carol that features a line about "The cattle are lowing", and we are approaching Christmas - finally! because it seems to arrive in September in retailers - in a matter of days.
     Then, too, there was the Cryptic Crossword clue that only the devious of intellect would immediately get:  "A little lower on the farm (4)", which I'm not going to provide an answer for.* 
     What's that?  You were expecting a detailed critique of that seminal David Bowie album "Low"?
     No.
     Although, because I am both perverse and evil, I am actually listening to it right now.  Art?

Probably not the perkiest pop platter ever.

      I think the cover art comes from "The Man Who Fell To Earth", where Ol' Dave didn't require much in the way of makeup to play someone weird and otherworldly, but mostly weird.
     Now, time to throw the motley over the side of the skyscraper!**

Buggers
No!  Bite your tongue, for we are emphatically not swearing, rather we are referring to a genre that I incorrectly thought had expired back in the late Fifties - the Giant Bug films.  I have been a bit remiss in not doing my homework and have yet to watch "The Deadly Mantis" - a real treat, or at least it will seem so after a bottle of gin - and then realised, upon Googling for Giant Beatles, that there were a few others I'd neglected.
     Here's one:  "Infestation"  Art?

Someone is competing in the bad pun stakes -

     This is a low-budget comedy-horror that actually delivers both.  The world has been taken over by giant bugs, which is always on the cards, and our rag-tag bunch of human survivors have to fight back.  Notable for being filmed in Bulgaria, which pretends (effectively) to be South Canada.
      Then - look away now, Jane, look away now - there's "Eight Legged Freaks", which I think has a hyphen missing - okay, enough Grammar Nazi, back to the film.  This one features Giant Spiders, which are not insects but arachnids, thank you for paying attention.  Conrad is a snivelling coward where normal-sized spiders are concerned, and if this gigantism ever occurred in real life, they would only need to show up to stop my heart.

Seriously?  No hyphen?

     After all, with a title like that, you might expect 8 freaks with unusually long legs to show up onscreen, which simply won't do - RESPECT THE HYPHEN!
     Then there is "Empire of the Ants", which is execrable in every detail, apparently.  It takes the title of an H G Wells short story, and then proceeds to have absolutely nothing to do with it.  Art?

"Execrable" = "Very bad indeed"
Not even a fun bad

     You can consider this a public service, since you now know how awful it is and don't need to watch it.  Unless it's on television and you have a bottle of gin.

More Of Machine Guns
Another in the illuminating series that proves there is more to machine guns than you realised, or even wanted to know, but which you are going to get regardless, for how else can I prove how clever I am? (yes there is the Cryptic Crossword but that lacks visceral impact).
     "Interdiction fire": I mentioned this without explaining myself, which is the sort of thing I cordially detest in other authors (yes, I class myself as an author - dammit a man can dream, can't he?). This is fire directed at an area, where you know the opposition are going to be either tramping or sitting down, and you spray the zone with bullets, probably with interlocking arcs of fire if you can.  This makes it extremely dodgy to hang around in what they call the "beaten zone", and it's considered very bad for your health to try and cross an area interdicted by machine gun fire. 

Finally -
I see that the Star Wars franchise has thrown up another species of Supposedly Cute Animals.  Frankly, Conrad is not impressed.  I never liked those horrid furry gitlings the Ewoks, although they do make a lovely warm coat or hearth-rug.  Art?

Repellent little oiks!

     Now we have to contend with the Porgs.  Earlier today a colleague was bemoaning the loss of their Porg-endowed mug.  Not guilty!  not guilty of - for instance - smashing it with a hammer and dropping the bits in a waste bin on the floor below us in the Dark Tower.
     So.  The Porgs.  Art?

A six-course meal

     A bit small for their pelts to be good for anything, but a bunch of them like those above would probably make a jolly nice stew.  Porgy is best, to coin a phrase ...


*  Ain't I a stinker!  (a line I stole from Bugs Bunny)
**  Don't worry, it's on an abseiling rope, that I'm sure someone secured at this end.