Plunge Taken

Ahoy, Space Opera!
I have been banging on these past days about E.E. "Doc" Smith and his 'Lensman' series of novels, which date back to the Forties and are held to be some of the best, most influential and characteristic works of Space Opera ever.  Originally published in the sci-fi magazines of the time, they were retro-fitted into novel form.  Art?

BLAM!

     "Triplanetary" is the first such novel.  What I discovered in checking Wikipedia is that the novels are all out of copyright.  
     "Oho!" I cackled to myself - aloud, for I was alone with nobody to frighten - "This calls for a trip to Project Gutenberg for a look-see."
     Project Gutenberg, if you are unfamiliar, has a vast collection of books that are now out of copyright, available to we the public for free.  That last word always resonates with Conrad.
     So I have begun reading, and that picture above flouts the text somewhat, for the bad guy on the receiving end is actually blown to smithereens by a one pound HE shell.  I suppose it would be difficult to render that effectively in colour; besides which, it might give small children nightmares.     Oh, one thing that seems incongruous is the super-villain's name: Roger.  I mean, it's what you say at the end of a radio call.  Surely if you want to impress and terrify you need a name like "Gorgath the Destroyer" or "Walking Napalm Death", not - "Roger".

See?

     Now to just ignore the motley and proceed with the rest of today's quality nonsense!

Damn Your Eyes, BBC!
This phenomenon used to happen when I merely had time to hastily check the website before making a dash for the bus.  Now it's happening as I hastily dash downwards to scratch together a breakfast before logging on to work from home.
     "What can this puzzling and worrying phenomenon be?"  I hear you ask.  "Political bias?  Neglect of important subjects?  Trivialising major issues?"
     Er - no, none of the above.  The problem is that their articles are too interesting.  Yes, this can be a thing, especially if you're in a hurry.  Herein a link -

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-44469005

     This is a fascinating story about the "Forbidden Fifth Floor" of a North Korean hotel, which ate up all my time, leaving none to create this post <sad face>.  Then there's an article about "Ten Musicians Who Hate Their Hits", which I haven't read yet - wonder if it'll include Jeff Beck and 'Hi Ho Silver Lining" because the legendary guitar player has a legendary loathing for his hit song.

The grim grey edifice itself

     Here's another intriguing set of footnotes, which would take at least quarter of an hour to read properly and I should know - I've just spent a good seven minutes skimming across the first and fourth links.  Art?

Damn your Dog Buns eyes, BBC!

     My guess above was wrong, they don't include the mighty Jeff Beck.  He had a big hit back in the day with "Hi Ho Silver Lining", much to his undiluted horror, as he considered it a throw-away pop song entirely unrepresentative of his ouevre.  If you shout out for it at one of his gigs, a band of sinister enforcers will make their way through the crowd to you and make you disappear.*     Groove Armada also came to hate their song "At The River", because they allowed it to be used as the theme for a Marks & Spencer advert about food, and it got played a lot.  I suppose GA is composed of horrid disciplinarian intolerant vegans who hate all delicious foods in favour of eating sand and gravel.  Or something.

Delicious food like PICKLED GINGER!

Perfidious Albion Is - Perfidious
OR
When The British Are Not Very Sporting
No!  This has nothing to do with that wretched ballfoot tournament going on in Ruffia at present. Rather, I refer to the wartime practices of that most British of organisations, the RAF.  I am reading a work on the efforts of the Path Finder Force in the Second Unpleasantness, a force made up of squadrons of Lancasters or Mosquitos that dropped an enormous array of coloured flares to mark targets on the ground for the Main Force bombers.  Art?

To be treated with care

     The thing is, when these flares landed at ground level, all Teuton Civil Defence workers needed to do was chuck a bucket of sand over them, and that was the end of the flare.
     Yes, well, you don't think that Perfidious Albion is going to settle for that, do you?
     Enter the "D" and "E" versions of the flare bomb.  Art?

Spot the D.  No, really, go on.

     These treacherous little swine looked exactly like any other flare - technically "candle" - except the D version would simply explode, and the E version would lie there flaring, and after 30 minutes - BANG.  This naturally led to a considerable reluctance of CD workers to go anywhere near the horrid things, lest they be rendered unto fragments.
     So, yes, not very sporting at all.



*  Well, so the urban legend has it.