You Couldn't Do THAT With A Shark!

Or Could You?
I refer, of course, to photographs of a South Canadian graduate student posing with her very bestest friend, a whopping big alligator.
     Before you castigate her for sheer stupidity akin to that of the woman who got into the lion's cage for a selfie, it's not too dangerous.  Ms Noland works with this particular beast on a daily basis; he knows her and she knows him. Art?

"Dinner!" thought - nobody.

     So the chances of Big Tex taking that hand and arm off are remote.  Phew!  I'm glad we got that settled.
     As you can see from today's title, I make a bold assertion there.  Perhaps it is actually possible to train your average Carcharodon Carcharias (or Great White amongst friends) to playfully come and let you scratch it's nose, but no zoo is going to risk staff limbs to practice this.  Of course, if you have sufficient funds and a large enough saltwater swimming pool, you can buy your own pet shark and practice.
     Good luck with that.

"Dinner!" 

BOOJUM! Reviews Films
We've not done this for a while, so let me reiterate how it's done here.  First, we go by title alone.  Second, we generalise wildly.  Thirdly, we may ignore one and two if we feel like it.  If you want a proper film review, go ask Mark Kermode.*
"The Meg":  Hmmmm.  Conrad's feelings about this are mixed.  It's not spoiling things to mention that this is about a gigantic shark - a "Megalodon" and here's a little sketch to illustrate scale.  Art?

That's quite a critter

    As you can see, the real Meg was big, just not as big as a submarine, which I guarantee it will attack during the film.  Hopefully the climactic resolution will be when The Stath (Jason Statham if we're bing picky) rides into battle leading a swarm of Great Whites that devour The Meg down to it's cartilage.** Otherwise I fear yet another film demonising Our Friends From The Deeps.
"The Darkest Minds": I believe I saw a trailer about this at the pictures, and was not impressed.  Someone's attempt to create an X-Men franchise without paying Marvel a red cent, full of gorgeous young things cruelly discriminated against by an unfeeling world blah blah blah - you could churn this stuff out by the ream.  
     And don't claim anything about how dark those minds are until you've seen a few of the truly dark ones out there ...

You see?  You see how right I am?

"The Festival": Ah yes.  Doubtless this is an hilarious comedy (or it thinks it is) set at a music festival where the weather turns bad, as there is a chap on the poster whose face is smeared with mud.  You can tell it's a comedy, the colours are all bright ones.
     Here an aside.  Conrad is not a fan of festivals held in a field, and neither is Darling Daughter any more, after two visits to a wet, grey and muddy Leeds Festival.  I do enjoy 'Sounds From The Other City' because the venues are all either indoors or under cover, you don't have to queue for toilets and the beer and food is reasonably priced.

Ho ho!  Comedy gold!  Rain in the UK - what a novel concept!***

     And there we shall finish, for fear Mark Kermode might get offended.

The Great Panjandrum
I  mentioned this briefly yesterday, and it ranks alongside the Rotatrailer and Covenanter tank as a singularly useless bit of kit.  Art?

WHEELS OF TERROR!

      This was an experimental method of sending a ton of high explosive from the bows of a landing craft, up a beach and into the beach defences.  The thing is, it was propelled by lots and lots of rockets - because obviously the first thing when you consider motive power is rockets - which regularly failed to go off correctly or in sequence.  This meant one side got propelled more than the other, and the whole hideously unwieldy thing fell over on it's side, usually disgorging rockets in all directions.  Art?

Panjandrummed out of service?

     Despite trying a huge increase in the number of rockets, or attempting to control it via steel cables, nothing worked and the whole project got junked before D-Day, much to the relief of everyone who worked on it, since Ol' Panny was liable to head directly for members of the testing team.
     Mind you, since this supposedly Top Secret device was tested in full view of big crowds of holidaymakers at the seaside, there are some who suggest it was all a con, meant to fool the Teutons into thinking that their defences in the Pas De Calais were the real target.
     Perfidious Albion, eh?  It's in the name ...


*  And while you're about it, ask him to recommend a good rock band from Sheffield.
**  No bones in sharks.
*** This, lest you be unaware, is irony, laid on with a shovel