A Song Of Fire And Ice

Actually Less A Song Than An Essay
But "Essay" just doesn't have the cachet of a little lyrical lilting.  Today we start off with daft conspiracy theories, strange events, weird substances and the inner workings of your humble scribe's mind.*
     As mentioned yesterday, quite how Conrad's mind works is a matter of speculation, not least to him.  And so it was this morning as I pulled on a sock -
     "What are 'clathrates?" I wondered.  No, I don't know why it popped up into my mind.
     It sounds like a third-string alien species on that obscure cult fave, "Star Trek" in the touchy-feely configuration known as "The Next Generation".  You know, where they would rather talk to monsters than punch them - but I digress.

Clathrates!  Flee for your lives!

     Of course, I couldn't leave it there, so that font of mostly un-dubious knowledge Wiki informed me that 'methane clathratres' are a peculiar form of chemical compound found in outer space - and in the abyssal ocean depths.  Essentially, methane gas is trapped in a water lattice, forming a compound similar to ice, with the exception that you can set fire to it.

Thus

     Naturally this gladdens the heart of your humble scribe, as you can never have too many things exploding.  It is, in fact, possible that the recent earthquake off the coast of British America (more precisely, British America's province of British Colombia) has released a great deal of methane once the lattice structure has been broken down and covering sediment removed.  It is unlikely that this will cause the island of Kodiak to be disintegrated in a mighty explosion - but you never know.**
     What's that?  You were expecting a long and detailed analysis of some obscure sword and sorcery novel of the same name?  You're making this up!  It was the basis for some equally obscure television series called "Grain of Thorns" or somesuch?  Pshaw!

I expected you to slander me about this.

     Right, time to put the motley in a rubber tyre and dangle it from the back of our Formula One car!

Bampots Of Bermuda
You may be familiar with the Bermuda Triangle, which usually crops up on straight-to-DVD films with taglines like "TRIANGLE OF DEATH!" or "TRIANGLE OF DOOM!" or, for those who have a smaller budget and have to try harder to hook an audience, "TRIANGLE OF DEATHLY DOOM!".

The Triangle of Deathly Doom: a micro-budget horor film.

     The phenomenon was kicked off by a Mr. Berlitz in 1974, who wrote a book that got one fact right: there is indeed an island called Bermuda.  As definitively proven by Larry Kusche in 1977's 'Bermuda Triangle: Mystery Solved', there is neither a triangle, nor any great mystery about ships or planes vanishing there.  Art?

Evidence

     It's a very heavily travelled piece of ocean, and is susceptible to extremely bad weather on occasions.  Typhoons, hurricanes, alien invasions - wait, what? - no, that should read humidity whiteouts.
     Imagine my surprise when reading the Rationalwiki item on the BT, as I did earlier today after discovering what clathrates are, which put forward a theory that clathrates might be responsible for some missing ships.  Art?

Thus

     The idea is that a small ship might suffer catastrophic loss of buoyancy and sink completely, or that a large ship might split in two.  It's a nice theory, and it's possible, just not probable.
     Still - clathrates, and the Coincidence Hydra, eh?

Well, that's fire, ice and water.  What next?

LITHIUM-WAFER BATTERY DESIGN!  Except no, that sounds dull.  Instead we shall have PEDIGREE PIG BREEDING!  Take it away, Art - 

Oops!
I lied about the pedigree pig breeding, since P.G. Wodehouse could manage to wring comedy out of it as a subject, but I don't think I can quite manage it.  No, instead I would like to bring you an evocative image.  Art?

Ah yes.

     The chap here is transporting a garden shed upon the roof of his motorcar, unsafely, with but a single cord holding it on and no roof rack.
     This brings back memories of performing a similar operation after acquiring a huge piece of furniture that would not fit into the back of the Murdermobile.  It got transported slowly and carefully, trying to avoid all those speed-bumps, and I think it only luck that we never encountered the Greater Manchester Police, who would probably  have had a thing or two to say about it.  Art?

     Not as big as a garden shed, but up there with it.  A picture of the Mudermobile for scale.  Art?


And there we have it for today.

*  Strangest of the lot, no question.
**  It goes without saying that this would be a bad thing.