Die Another Way

No!  Nothing To Do With James Bond
Although it is unwise to make any predictions about BOOJUM! because who knows what will pop up from the fevered recesses of your humble scribe's mind?*
     Okay, Conrad (me, your humble scribe, in case you didn't get the memo) assumes that you out there are familiar with the Beeb's premier dramatic reconstruction series, 'Doctor Who'.  If you are then you ought to also be aware of those evil little pepperpots the Daleks, those cyborgs from Skaro whose battle-cry is "Exterminate!"
     Here an aside.  Way back when, 'Century 21' Comic used to have a comic strip in which the Daleks were the - let us say 'protagonists' because they certainly weren't heroes.  Said comic strip serial graphic art had a special font for the Dalek's grating mechanical ranting.  Art?




Thus this

     Where were we?  Oh yes, the Daleks and their vocoded verbal violence.
     Here another aside.  Your humble scribe would make  an outstandingly bad Dalek, starting with that battlecall.  Shall we illuminate?

BLACK DALEK (WITH SINISTER YET SOMEHOW SLIGHTLY CAMP GOLD TRIM): Do you know why you are here, Dalek 61871917?  (you'll have to imagine this in Dalek-font)
DALEKONRAD (For it is he!): Because I psychokinetically propelled my travel machine from the starting point to this location.
BD:  No!  That's not what - because your behaviour gives us cause for concern.
DK:  I see, Senior Dalek.  Also, sharks are our friends.
BD:  What?  What was that?

You can't deny it's a bit camp

DK:  Dark are our ends and sinister our means -
BD:  You see?  You see!  That's exactly what I mean!  Flowery language.  Can't be doing with it.  Cut it out -
DK:  Oh, are we on that efficiency gig again?  Then WHY do we have a battle-cry with FOUR SYLLABLES!  Eh?  Eh?  Eh?
BD:  One "eh?" is sufficient, no need to be sarcastic.
DK:  What's wrong with simply "KILLLLL!"
BD:  It lacks dignity.
DK:  "Dignity"?  Have you looked in a mirror lately?  KILLLLLLL!  KILLLLLL!
BD:  That's enough of that -
DK:  How about this, then - "EXTIRPATE!"  "EXTIRPATE!"

 - we shall draw a veil over this for the time being, gentle reader.

"Hi!"**

     But we will return.

Meanwhile, Back In Dangerland
Sometimes your humble scribe feels that he's not reading or watching science fiction, but rather living in it.  E-cigarettes?  Autonomous drones?  Self-driving cars?
     Those are all rather benign.  Now, consider this latest headline wrenched from the still-beating chest of current affairs - Art?

     Plastic-eating bacteria, eh?   I know this will have tree-hugging greenies twitching with delight, which is because they have short memories or never saw - DOOMWATCH.  Nor read a novel based upon the first episode.  Art?

Two birds, one stone

     I haven't read the novel, but I have seen the television episode, and I can tell you that a plastic-eating bacteria that gets loose in the environment is nothing minor or easily dealt with.  In the television episode it causes the catastrophic and massive failure of electrical and control systems aboard an aircraft, which promptly crashes.  A second one barely manages to make an emergency crash landing.  M59TPE the novel appears to end with utter catastrophe befalling civilisation.
     Is it worth it to see off a few lemonade bottles?

Well - let's not jump to hasty conclusions -

I Am Also Minded of Be Bop Deluxe
You might not remember these chaps, as their glory years were back in the Seventies.  Led by Bill Nelson, guitar hero turned - er - reclusive Yorkshire weirdo, they responded to the challenge of punk rock by cranking out the following album.  Art?


     Since the print is rather small and I can't enlarge the pictures, let me add that the title for this particular polyethylene platter is "Drastic Plastic".

And now for - Allium Sativum!  Art?


     Don't worry, this will all make sense when it turns up on Facebook.***

Manchester Hill
This comes a bit late, by about a month in fact, but once again it'll all hopefully make sense when it pops up on social media.
     "Manchester Hill" refers, not to a hillock within the environs of Gomorrah-on-the-Irwell, but to a fortified hill in France, that had been captured from the Teutons in early 1917 by one of the battalions of the redoubtable Manchester Regiment.  Art?

"Extensive acreage with room for improvement"

     The Manchesters held this position at the beginning of the "Kaiserschlacht" offensive in March 1918 on the 21st, and by the end of the day only 15 men survived from a company of 160.  Their OC, Colonel Wilfrith Elstob, literally died fighting, shot as he tackled Teuton attackers in a trench.  As the Teutons found, it wasn't a walkover by any means, and the hill only fell when, as remarked, the defenders were all dead or wounded, which took a good 10 hours.  Them Manchester fellers is stubborn when it comes to giving up ground.




*  Nobody.  Including me.
**  Told you so.
***  Well, as much sense as anything round here.