It's The End Of The World -

No!  Nothing To Do With R.E.M.
Though it is an insanely catchy song "Deep-fried the alternative tonight" indeed; actually I have no idea what Michael Stipe is singing about and, I suspect, neither does he -
     Which is getting off-track immediately.  Usually we wait a little longer before making away at a tangent.  What I intended to yark on about today was the theme of Post-Apocalyptic Fiction 

<excuse me, got to go turn the cake around in the oven and tent it with foil>

     Frankly it looks rather flat and unrisen.  Should it have been self-raising flour?
     Okay, back to the End of the World.  I happened to come across a Youtube trailer for 'Swan Song' and erroneously assumed this was a fan-made short about the PA novel I've just finished.

Wrong again!

     This did lead me to view a couple of Youtube clips where people recommend their top selections for reading about TEOTW, because nothing makes you appreciate what you've got more than reading about it all being gone.  Let's detail List The First:

1. "One Second After" by William Forstchen - haven't read it, but I may do, as it's an interesting premise - EMP attacks cause a collapse of civilisation.
2. "On the Beach" by Nevil Shute.  Yep, read it and seen the film.  Not sure the premise holds up - fallout from the Northern Hemishpere will eventually kill off the Southern, too.
3. "Swan Song" by Robert McCammon - see above.
4. "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy.  Read, didn't enjoy.  Essentially, two tramps rummaging about rubbish dumps.
5. "Alas Babylon" by Pat Frank.  Read it and enjoyed it.  An inspiration for much PA literature dealing with nuclear war and an acknowledged inspiration for No.1 on the list.

Alas indeed

<excuse me again, off to check on the cake>

     Well, it did rise a bit more after that first check and I bet if there wasn't any xantham gum in the mix it wouldn't have risen at all.  What's that?  I was away an awfully long time if all I did was turn a cake around?  Who are you, my parents?!  I took Edna for a trot, loaded the tumbledrier and put some blueberries out to thaw.  Art?

     There you go, Spiced Applesauce Cake, and no, I didn't use the jar of apple puree that was at the back of the cupboard with an expiry date of 2014, I made that apple puree myself.*  Apple-ocalypse Now, you might say.

The End Of The World (In A Way)
It has finally arrived - trade paperback Volume 25 of "Invincible", aptly titled "The End Of All Things", because it (probably) is.** That means the saga of Mark Greyson, the superhero of the title, has come to an end.  Art?

Like saying goodbye to family ...***

     That's Mark in the middle, with his wife Atom Eve to the left, and their daughter Terra.  There's an hilarious double-page spread that shows her growing up in about 6 panels -
     Okay, now I've got the other 24 volumes out of storage, and I intend to sit down and read them all in sequence, so we shall see quite what that brings.
     I did interpose 'probably' at the start, because there have been several stand-alone TPBs that feature other heroes from the Invincible universe, so there may be more tales yet.

What's Missing In This Picture?

     For a start, the two schoolchildren who mucked up the shot and the joke.  What were they doing, queuing at my bus stop anyway?
     Back to the question, "What's Missing?"
     The bus!
      What's missing in this picture?

     More buses!  Usually, by the time my bus has arrived, three others have gone by on the opposite side of the road, a fact I am determined to make money from in some way.  
     There is a poster on many of the First buses I travel on that encourages passengers to let them know how the journey went.  Gentle reader, I dare not access that website! for the type would boil off the pages, thanks to my Frothing Nitric Ire.

Finally -
We've had bad puns, so making reference to a tank is about due.  I think we'll mention one of the more obscure pieces of kit that Perfidious Albion fielded during the Second Unpleasantness, the Centaur tank.  Art?

Thus

     At first glance it looks very similar to a Cromwell, and they do share a common design heritage, but the engine is different, and that gun is actually a 3.74" howitzer^ cobbled together from a 3.7" anti-aircraft gun, a 25 pounder breech and the mounting for a 6 pounder anti-tank gun.
     The Centaur only saw service in support of the Royal Marines after D-Day, to the number of 114 of them.  As I said, obscure.  Art?

*  The jar?  The jar got binned.
**  With comic franchises, it is wise to never say "never"
***  I shan't cry.  Shan't!
^  None of that metric nonsense here.