Spider In The Sky

Forgive The Poetic Affectation
It just appealed to me.  Purely metaphorical, too - the thought of airborne spiders is enough to make a strong man blanch, quite apart from the quaking coward that is Conrad.
     Here an aside.  There exists a novel by John Wyndham called "Web", published long after his death, which concerns spiders - SPIDERS THAT THREATEN THE WORLD! in fact.  I think the ending has something to do with flying spiders, but don't quote me on that.

Brrrrrrr!

     Of course, what I really want to talk about has nothing to do with spiders, but everything to do with webs.  Technically, a Webb.
     For yes, I am speaking of the James Web Space Telescope, as featured on that website of all the news that's fit to print, the BBC.  The JWST is named after some fearfully dull NASA pen-pusher, though it does provide scope for puns.  It is going to be the replacement for good old Hubble (okay, okay, "The Hubble Space Telescope").  You may not realise it now, thanks to the long and faithful service the HST has provided, yet back when it was launched comedians mocked it, because one of the cameras had a fault: O my did they make a song and dance about it.  Once it got fixed the comedy gold dried up.  Art?

HST

     The thing is, HST doesn't actually have a very large telescope mounted in it; the big thing is that it operates beyond Earth's atmosphere, in the pristine reaches of near space.
     The JWST is going to be an order of magnitude more capable than it's predecessor, to the extent that it can photographically assay the atmospheres of extra-solar planets.
     Just stop and think about that for a moment.  This space telescope will be able to determine if organic processes (for which read "living things") are at work within the biosphere it gets aimed at.
     Is there life out there?  By this time in 5 years you may have an answer to that -

JWST with puny humans for scale

Speaking Of Which -
I came across a sci-fi novel synopsis which piqued my interest: "The Killing Star" by George Zebrowski and Charles Pellegrino.  In this rather apocalyptic work, aliens wipe out most of the human race right at the start of the book.  Their rationale is that, if Hom. Sap. is allowed to get out amongst the stars, they might prove to be competition; best all-round solution is to wipe 'em out pronto!  Art?

Exciting stuff, eh?

     Well, if I've piqued your interest also, tough!  You can only get it from South Canada, as a hardback, and the lowest price for a used copy is £18.  The highest price, for some insane reason, is £152, with another £46 for postage - delivered by a swarm of hummingbirds harnessed with spun sapphire, one presumes?
     So there is life out there, I'm just not willing to pay for it.*

The Battle Of Bois Grenier
Ah - you guessed it, I'm plodding through the official history of the 8th Division in the First Unpleasantness.  It had the reputation of being an unlucky division, and this battle helps explain why.  It was fought in September of 1915 and is pretty obscure; you won't find any description on teh interwebz.

The nearest thing to a relevant picture I could find

     The 8th Division suffered over a thousand casualties, and was eventually forced out of the three sectors of Teuton lines it had captured.  Prime reason?  Lack of decent hand grenades, called "bombs" at the time.  The Teutons had scads of effective hand grenades, and used them liberally; not so the forces of Perfidious Albion.  The narrative notes that there were twelve (!) different varieties in use, including ones that required a fuse to be lit to arm them; a major feat when it's wet and raining.  

The British "Battye" hand grenade (I kid you not!)

     Enough of strife and folly!  Let us move on, to LITHIUM WAFER BATTERY DES - actually let's not, it sounds fearfully dull stuff.

This Ought To Make Things Make Sense
Those cunning Teutons used to get around the limitations and restrictions of the Versailles Treaty in all sorts of ways: buying up armament factories in Switzerland, training off in the distant hinterlands of the Sinister Union, and training chaps to fly in gliders, ready for the day when they could fly real planes bristling with machine guns and cannon.  Art?

Look at the deceptive little rascals

Finally -
And why not?  No, sorry, "Because you're reaching fearfully in order to shoe-horn rhymes into your Facebook link" isn't a good enough reason.  Art?

Comedy gold!**

     Indeed, a play about Joy Division and Manchester?  One of the most depressing bands ever to record a note, and a grim grey grimy Gomorrah of a city?  It's a play; if it were a film then, rest assured, it would be in grey and white.

Don't worry, I haven't forgotten the motley.  We'll see about it later.  But now - lunch!


*  Ain't I a stinker?
**  Not.