Tons Of Sex

I Know What You're Thinking -
"That white-haired bafoon has been at the laudanum and the cooking sherry!  Flee - flee, save yourselves, and also the digital weighing-scales with built-in tare function and default time-out definition."
     No.  We are eminently still SFW, because I am merely twisting your tails, for there is a precedent about what I say.  Your humble scribe went back over past BOOJUM!s and found that this was rather recent.  Art?

The Sexton, multiple

     Lo!  For here we have an assemblage of the Sexton Self-Propelled Gun, and many of them.  So - hence today's title.  Perhaps it would have been more accurate to put "Tons of Sextons" but how many curious passers-by would that have snagged, eh?
     I have gone on about the Sexton before, but, again, there is that mention about tanks in the default Facebook description, and this will serve.
Right!  Time to hurl the motley into an industrial blender and see how many bits it comes out in!

This might be a motley.
Or not.

    
A Year Ago Today
I started at my Not To Be Mentioned Employer (the HR branch of <ahem> a major retailer), and was informed that there was no possibility of being kept on after December 2nd 2017.
     Well - here I am, still.  Actually jittering around in my chair thanks to pints of coffee, but, still.
     One reason I may be plying my trade yet is because your humble scribe is hopelessly impractical at almost everything except baking.  When I bake a cake, I bring it into the office, so that my esteemed colleagues can enjoy it, whilst I look on jealously.* Art?

Slightly experimental fruit cake.  I was worried it might be a bit dry.
(None left at end of day)

     It may only be cupboard love, but I'll take what I can get.
     Incidentally, I am actually working in the office today, ensconced on Floor 17 of the Dark Tower.  Having had to get up at 6 ante meridian for an 8 ante meridian start makes one appreciate working from home.


I Say!
That font of all that's fit to read, the BBC, as usual had a plethora of interesting stories this morning, when all I could do was post a link and then bolt out of the door (see above).
     One I would like to concentrate on is called "The Great Pretender" and features places in the Allotment of Eden (Britain, if we're being formal) that have been disguised, convincingly, as other places abroad.

Not South Canada

     Nominally, this is the Avengers HQ in the state of New York, South Canada.
     In fact it is located in the rather more prosaic environs of Norwich, in the Allotment, and is in reality a giant art gallery stuffed full of modern stuff.  I shan't say who established it, as that would give a giant hint about my Not To Be Mentioned Employer.      Of course, one of the more convincing portrayals of a foreign country was "Full Metal Jacket", where the shattered buildings of British Gas in the London Docklands were transformed into Hue city, Republic of Vietnam.  Art?

Imported tank and palm trees

Of course, some parts of modern London are a bit rough

      That's a fruitful article.  I shall come back to this.Oh yes indeed!

Well, I am typing these lines from home, as your humble scribe is now back at The Mansion, a process which took a good 90 minutes and considerable awkwardness, what with having to carry a bag of shopping, my manbag, a bag full of empty cake tins and my hefty self.  Truly, I do appreciate working from home more, now.

"Triplanetary" By E. E. "Doc And Don't You Forget It" Smith
Well, I had already read the second half of this novel, which came out as a stand-alone work in the Thirties, and now I've finished the first half, which is admittedly ass-backwards but Hey! Logic is for straights.

Are they related?

     The conversational style in the first half is a lot more realistic than the somewhat stilted stuff in the second half, and we get an establishing background that forms a foundation for the later works: planet Earth is going to end up as a combination battleground and chess piece in a galaxy-wide conflict between the Arisians (who are cloyingly good) and the Eddoreans (who are deliciously eeeeevil).
     No sign of a lens yet.

Is he using Brylcreem?

     And there we shall leave it for tonight.  Pip pip!


*  Once again, with feeling, THANK YOU SO MUCH DIABETES!

Shark Versus Crocodile

No, It's Not A Crappy Asylum Mockbuster
You know, Asylum, that very canny studio who put out (relartively) cheap films, whose titles chime with soon-to-be-released major Hollywood big budget features.  That way they ride the coat-tails of publicity without spending dollar one,* as with "Transmorphers" - which they calculated lots of people would confuse with "Transformers", except "Transmorphers" cost 1/150th of the other.

I rest my case

      Nor is it yet a pawky Sci-Fi Channel film with a lamentable plot, childish CGI and F-list has-been stars whom nobody on this side of the Atlantic has ever heard of. Art?

Bang on the money, Art.
(No Tazering for you today!)

     "Yes, yes, O White-Haired Wonder of Wit and Wisdom," I hear you cry.  "That's what it's not.  But tell us what it is!"
     Pausing only to narrow my eyes and ponder if that was flattery or sarcasm - the "Wit and Wonder" bit, there's no quibbling that I have white hair - I shall explicate 

<pause as your humble scribe heads into the kitchen to finish off the last tea in the pot>

     Whilst moving my eyes back and forth across the television screen yesteryon, what did I espy but an advert for a vacuum-cleaner.  Art?

This one

     As you know, Conrad ploughs a lonely furrow trying to rehabilitate the reputation of the shark, so I was a bit non-plussed by this.  Why on earth (or water) would one associate a device that hoovers with Carcharodon Carcharias?  Surely a whale would be a better analogous animal?
     Here an aside.  There is a film coming out this summer titled "The Meg", which is appropriate, since it features The Stath (Jason Statham to the rest of you).  Art?

You get the idea  

     Why does this thing have teeth, when it can clearly swallow anything whole?  Eh?  Let me guess - it's not scary enough without teeth.       I have a feeling that vacuum-cleaner's going to have it's work cut out, making sharks look good after we see The Stath turn The Meg into chum.
     Now, about the Crocodile of the title.  In that very same tranche of adverts, we saw some crusty old chap radiating believable bonhomie, going on about how wonderful his particular brand of garage doors were.  Their brand name?
     Crocodile.
     Art?

    
    You can see how one mirrors the other, can't you?  Well, I can't.  
     I suppose, if your beloved Crocodile door fell foul of the wind, and it's exterior became befouled with leaves and dust, you could wheel out your Shark to clean it off.  In this context we could describe that as "Shark sucking crocodile" and still be SFW.
     What next, I wonder.  A brand of ironing board called the "Weevil"?  Then, when it collapsed on you, it would be fine to shout at the "Evil Weevil".
     Now, time to give the motley a parachute and throw it out of the plane!**
More Of Crocodiles
Did you know that the debut album of Echo And The Bunnymen was called "Crocodiles"?  Being the hipster that I was, of course I purchased it immedieamently.  It has it's moments, but I think "Heaven Up Here" was a lot better.  Art?

CAUTION!  No crocodiles.

      And as the caption informs, there are no crocodiles to be seen anywhere on the cover.  I don't remember them featuring in any songs, either.
     For the next fearsome beast, called a Crocodile, I make no apologies.  I've mentioned it a few times already, but what the heck, Facebook also mentions tanks in that default description and so here we are, with the Churchill Crocodile.  Art?

Someone is about to have a very bad day.

     This horrid piece of kit towed a trailer full of jellied petrol, just to make sure they had enough for maximum roasting time.  Unsurprisingly, the Teutons, Norks and Chinese who encountered them (former in Europe, latter in Korea) hated them with a passion.

Finally -
It should be apparent by now that your humble scribe likes messing about with words and language, and to that end I present you with an enhanced version of that saying:

"See you later, alligator.

In a while, crocodile.

Or an interval, gavial"

     The gavial is the fish-eating species of crocodile native to India.  Art?

Snouty and pouty and My! what a big mouty***

*  Excuse the South Canadianism.  It seemed appropriate.
**  From quite high up.  That'll give it time to put the chute on.
***  Rhyming for 'mouth'