I've Been So Mean - To Astatine

Yes It Does Rhyme
Long "I".  I doubt that there is an Astatine Fan Club out there (although your human nature being what it is, this is perfectly possible) but if there is, I would like to apologise.
     "Egad!" I hear you quake.  "What is the snowy-haired bafoon going on about now?"
     Pausing only to note that I prefer to call them "Cheveux blanc" I shall explicate.

White Hare.  Close enough.

     Yesterday I was holding forth on the various terrifying qualities of Protactinium, it being an element that is both hideously toxic and radioactive - yah booh sucks that it isn't also intensely explosive as well, since that would hit all three tick boxes on BOOJUM!'s list of Things We Like.  In this adulatory process I referred to Astatine as if it were a boring, mundane, unreactive element with all the romance of an acre of asphalt.

At least an acre

    I have clearly forgotten all the details of the Periodic Table that I ever learned, but since that was 97 years ago I have an excuse.  Astatine, it turns out, is not as dull and characterless as a Nineties indie band akin to the Kaiser Chiefs!*
     At85 is EXTREMELY radioactive, so much so that, if it were to be assembled in one place by death-defying physicists (or Colin Furze), it would immediately destroy itself.  That phrase "I won't be a member of any club that would have me as a member" springs to mind.  Thus nobody knows very much about it.  The current estimate is that there is about 1/25 of an ounce of At85 in the entirety of the Earth's crust.

Come on, come on - you were expecting this, weren't you?

     There are medical applications for At85, but you have to be careful about using it, as one of the isotopes decays into Polonium210, which is EXTREMELY radioactive and toxic.
     So!  Astatine - named after the Greek for "Unstable".  Brother, you got it right there.
     Well.  There you are.  I had intended this apologia to be but a brief mention, and instead we're halfway done.  Quickly!  Douse the motley in a bath of molten Tellurium!**

You'll Just Have To Take My Word For It
Since I forgot to take any pictures, and I know what a skeptical bunch you are.  I used that miniature bottle of whisky to make a gluten-free Honey & Whisky Cake, which the ganterpies at work liked - no decorum or politeness about my colleagues in the Dark Tower, they fell on that cake like a wolf on the fold.  Bang!  Gone.  Art?

A reciprocating saw

     No photographs of cake, so have this saw instead, which looks as if it would make a pretty good cake-slicer, as well as being quite handy when the Zombie Apocalypse arrives.

The Most Boring Radio Station In The World
You may not be familiar with the 'numbers stations', which broadcast nothing but numbers to the world at large, acknowledged to be secret messages to spies and agents abroad.  Some stopped after the Cold War thawed out, others still broadcast their quite stunningly dull messages.
     However, that's not what we're on about here.  O no.  This post is about UVB 76.  Art?

Radio SINISTER
(yet dull)

     This is the title given to a station that transmits nothing but a dull buzzing tone, repeated every second or so.  Ruffian, don't you know, so it's undoubtedly for some nefarious purpose.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wcv_cGLjxCY

     There's a Youtube link, should you want to be extremely bored for over 6 minutes.
     Nobody outside some secretive Ruffians knows what the station's broadcast is for, as it can hardly be messages for spies abroad.  Proof that people are awake and alert?  The trigger for a dead-man's handle retaliatory weapons system?  A big joke?
     Answers on a postcard, please.

"The Tank Is On Fire"
No, we are not talking about David Render's "Tank Action" again, or only in passing.  No, what we are talking about is The Chieftan's Hatch, that Youtube channel run by Nick Moran, the lanky tankie.*** Since he is forever climbing into and out of tanks, Nick decided to carry out an emergency exit from several different types, calling to camera "the tank is on fire" as he began to contort his way out of it.


The Panther, above, was the worst of all.  First of all the turret hatch had to be hand-cranked upwards, a slow process to begin with, then the periscope had to be swivelled out of the way, and then you could begin to move the hatch open - by which time you were charcoal.




*  Not sure where this crept in from.
**  I'm not sure what this would do, though it can't be good
***  I just made this up.  Aren't I clever?