James Bond And Screws

No!
This blog is SFW, wash out your dirty mind, then take it out of the gutter.  And no, I'm not trying to bait traffic with - oh, alright, I am.  There.  Happy now?
     I refer, OF COURSE, to the flora of the Caribbean, which have been described in some detail in "Dr No", and because Ian Fleming took the time to describe, your humble scribe - always an anorak - has been checking them out on Google, or at least those he is unfamiliar with.  Hibiscus?  Been there already.  Sea Grape?  Hmmm.  Art?

Well named

     Apparently these are edible when ripe, and are tasty and sweet.  Our hero is less interested in eating them than in hiding beneath them, away from prying eyes.
     Then we have the Screw Palm, which I'd not heard of, either.  Art?

A.k.a. Pandanus

     This is the only thing that breaks up the unlovely landscape of Crab Key.  Again, the fruit is edible, although, since he is being ruthlessly hunted by armed men with dogs, James doesn't really pause to consider snacking on a Pandanus.
     So, there you have it, today's blog title explained.
    
Serendipity
You know, accidental discovery.  Not to be confused with "Serenity", which is a tranquil state of mind utterly foreign to your humble scribe; his mental landscape is usually in a state of tectonic imbalance punctuated by vulcanism.

Conrad's mind: a snapshot

     Anyway!  Accidental discovery.  Conrad was trawling the internet yesterday for details about Mute Records (it's a long story) and found out that it was established in 1978, which is when your humble scribe was seriously getting into music, by one Daniel Miller.  Art?

Warm Leatherette/TVOD single

     He of the above fetishistic proto-industrial punk-synth single, which was based on that cheery chappy miserable old git J G Ballard's "Crash".
     Then we go from the bizarre to the bemusing.  Dan was also the man behind the Silicon Teens, a non-existent synth-pop group who are responsible for the aptly-named "Music For Parties".  Art?

Thus

     These are electronic covers of rock and roll standards from the 50s and 60s, and pretty catchy they are, too.  About as far from The Normal as you can get - er - more normal than The Normal.  This is serendipity because I never knew who the Silicon Teens really were, and now all of us do.


Skrekk Ond Og Skrekk!
Which is Norwegian for "Horror, Evil and Terror!"  Economic language, having the same word for "horror" and "terror".  For yes, we are about to return to Norwegian cuisine.
     But first, an aside.  Let us give a shout out to the Marinenjagerkommandoen, the Nork special forces who help to keep our North Sea oil rigs safe.  Thank you, MJK!  (Art?).

He must be a good guy.
(Because he's not dead)

     Okay, back to Gjetost, also known as Norwegian Brown Goat's Cheese, and which is as far from cheese as lutefisk is from poached salmon.  Gjetost has the texture and taste of fudge, not to mention the colour, too.  Yes really.  You can only knock back a small amount as it is very rich stuff.  Art?

Proof

     Conrad would probably keel over dead if he ate any of it, so I shall merely look longingly at the picture above.* 


"Violet Club"
Ah yes, good old Violet Club.  We've mentioned this before, but it does bear repetition.  This was Perfidious Albion's attempt to create it's very own Megaton-yield nuclear bomb, back in the mid-Fifties.
     Here an aside.  British nukes were always graced with colourful names; none of that horrid dry nomenclature as used by the South Canadians a la "B41".  No, we had stuff like "Blue Peacock", "Green Grass" and "Red Sun".  Hey, Sinisters, yes we are dropping atom bombs on you, but with panache, style and groovy names!  Art?

Violet with her puny human boyfriend for scale

     In reality the old VC was far more dangerous to the RAF than the Ruffians.  To prevent any accidental triggering of the spherical shelled uranium core, the interior was filled with 130,000 steel ball bearings, which were poured in through a hole that was then sealed with a plastic bung.  Art?

All your base are belong to us

     The idea was that the bung would be released shortly before the target in mainland Ruffia had been acquired, which would allow explosive compression of the uranium to take place.  On at least one occasion the bung came loose, and an RAF hanger was left with an armed nuke and 130,000 ball bearings to collect.
     If the weapon was armed for a test, then the ball bearings had to be put back in, after the VC had been inverted, at which point all concerned prayed that they didn't drop it, because a simple impact could well have triggered a self-sustaining chain reaction, also known as an "atomic explosion".

"Ooops!" said someone, for the last time ever

          There is more to come of VC, but out of compassion I shall not gift you with more more more of nuclear weapons today.  Too much of a good thing and all that - Gjetost for the mind, eh?













*  And salivate longingly.  Which is probably too much information.