I Want The Future Now!

 - But Not If First Bus Get The Franchise
That title is actually a line from Peter Hamill's "Future Now"; you know, Peter Hamill, driving force behind Van Der Graaf Generator, those proggies from the Seventies, whom are probably the only band ever to name an album after nuclear fusion ("H to He").  He went on to do some excellent solo stuff, far removed from prog and so relevant that even Johnny Rotten liked it.  Art?

The half-hirsute chap himself

     Anyway, and typically, this is nothing to do with what I wanted to yark and bark about in this Intro.  This comes of reading the BBC's Science webpage, and a photograph would help explain things, if we can get that Neanderthal sluggard Art into action.

     This will require a little background explanation.  The 'Hyperloop'in question is a speculated transit system, a tunnel with a vacuum inside.  This removes any problems with air resistance - yet should surely make passengers a little uneasy, if there's a leak anywhere ...  An airless tunnel should allow transit to be made at extremely high speed, and the German team above managed to hit 290 m.p.h. which is about a third of what the experiment's sponsor wants to hit.
     And who is this redoubtable entrepreneur?  Why, none other than Elon Musk, he of Spacex fame.  So, he's already gotten his hands on rockets, and cars, and now he's turning to trains?

Obviously, this one is for small children.

     For your own sake, Elon, do not let First Bus near your hyperloop, for they will manage a top speed of 29 m.p.h. and cancel half the services, with a further half of all remaining ones being replaced by a bus service.     Okay, time to see how many raw oysters the motley can eat before being ill!

Conrad's True Nature Shines ThroughShines like a gamma-ray laser.*  Over on the Space Opera Facebook forum, someone posted a posit: you are attending the Galactic Federation as one of Earth's representatives, and you are sharing a room with one of the GalFed's members.
     Who just so happens to be a giant, sentient spider.  Art?

And they used this as their illustration

     Our theorist says that your room-mate is both clever and funny, and asks if other forum members would be willing to room with it.
     NO!  Let me be clear about that.  NO!     
     Spiders are horrid freaky creatures and the bigger they get the more horrid they become.  Frankly, if the Galactic Federation has allowed man-sized spiders to join it, then I say we overthrow it, then blow up the Giant Spider's home planet, then we detonate that solar system's sun to finish off all the planets there, just to make sure.  Then we form a task force to cruise the galaxy and hunt down any more giant spiders that are out there.
     Of course, I may be over-reacting a bit here -**

Or not.

Conrad Is Not Happy***
Sorry I don't have the paper to provide proof positive, you'll just have to take my word for it.  I was doing a Codeword from the MEN, where the unspoken rule is that you don't deliberately include difficult words - working out what the other 24 letters of the alphabet are is tricky enough to begin with.     Imagine how annoyed I was on finally cracking a 6 letter word that turned out to be "MILIEU".  Only a poet or show-off would use that word - and it's French, to boot!

That's me, frothing with rage.

     So.  Conrad: not happy.^

Harken yea!  A plate of scrambled eggs - 

Beacause - why not?

     Trust me, this will make sense before you read it.


Douaumont - In The Red
No!  Nothing to do with accountancy or double-entry book-keeping (which sounds like the work of the devil, frankly) or money at all.  Art?

     This chap is the mayor of the village named on the sign, except that it no longer exists and has no inhabitants.  Conrad recognised why immediately; you may take longer.
     The clue is in "Douaumont", because that is the name of a French fort atop a hill, outside the city of Verdun.  During the First Unpleasantness this fort was captured by the Teutons, and the M8's wanted it back.  Both sides fired tens of thousands of shells at the Fort itself, and the nearby village was utterly flattened in the crossfire.
     See the sign above?  "Village detruit" means "Village destroyed" and the red border means it is in the Red Zone - no walking there, because there will be several hundred tons of unexploded ordnance lying around, gradually being brought into the light of day thanks to weather and erosion.



     In fact the battlefield was so smashed that it was feared nothing would ever grow there again.
     I think we'll come back to this; depressing stuff is always interesting.
Finally -
Just in case you were wondering, yes, I did make one of these when I was younger and not as handsome.  It was a pain to do, especially the very fiddly ramps.  Art?


They sold the tank separately.  Just so you know.  And you can tell what I mean by those ramps, can't you?  Since they raised and lowered you had to be very very finnicky with your plastic cement, or - they jammed.


*  An interesting concept in it's own right and one we'll come back to.
**  Being a massive coward and all that.
***  Like that's news
^ Plus, is that a spider behind him?