How To Lose A Billion Pounds Without Trying

Prepare Yourself!
For we are going on about Arthur C. Clarke again, and my favourite band, by way of dystopian avant-garde British sci-fi -
     Here an aside.  You can understand why Ol' Art might peg that middle initial into his name at the beginning of his career, when he's not that well known.  Why bother after, oh, say, 1970?  To my certain knowledge there are no other Arthur Clarke's in the pantheon of sci-fi that he could be confused with.  You might ask the same question about Theophilus P. Wildebeest and Yngwe J. Malmsteen -
     - but our tangent has got excessively tangential.  I shall now kick Art into consciousness so he can earn his plate of coal -

          Yngwe                    Theo
     
     Okay, ACC is known for inventing the comunications satellite concept, in an essay entitled "How Clever Am I?" "Extra-Terrestrial Relays - Can Rocket Stations Give Worldwide Coverage?" to which the answer is "Yes".  Go look at the night sky with a telescope and a timetable and you can pick out some of these satellites, given the right conditions.

An Iridium communications satellite

     For good or ill, young ACC (28 at the time) never bothered to obtain a patent for his idea, which meant that nobody ever had to pay him anything for conquering the high frontier.  Which, as the title of today's blog informs, meant he nonchalantly missed the chance of becoming disgustingly rich.  ACC, a down-to-earth and fairly mellow fellow, never bothered too much about this: he was probably quite happy with having the Arthur C. Clarke award named in his honour.     Now, time to tie the motley behind a pig and send it through the narrowest of sewer pipes!
     "But - wait a minute, what about the dystopian avant-garde British sci-fi?" I hear you query, your little lip quivering.  "For we love us some DAGBSF."
     Well yes, okay.  Next!

The pig in question

The Future Is Bleak, Perverse And Will End Shortly
If Ol' A - if ACC represents the Traditional wing of British sci-fi, then J.G. Ballard (again with the middle initials!) represents the <thinks> Enfant Terrible wing of British sci-fi, variously obsessed with sex, violence, car crashes and strange ways of ending the world, or universe.  A tasty brew.  Art?

Quite iconic, eh?

     He's probably best known, O bitterest of citric ironies, for "Empire of the Sun", which has nothing to do with dying astronauts, people turning into crystals or slow-mo automobile accidents.

Look who it is

     He also wrote "The Comsat Angels", which is the closest he'll ever get to ACC, and - surprise surprise! - it's my favouritest band again.*

Get Ready For Murderous Mayhem
I can't really believe that "The Boys", that iconoclastic comic book series, is going to be broadcast as a television series.  And yet it appears to be so.  Trailers have been screened at the New York Comic Convention - a convention about graphic serial art, not people being funny for money - and it has an entry on IMDB.  Art?


                               Colour Conrad Confused     
     The thing is, "The Boys" is so full of sex and violence and drugs, not to mention some not-too subtle parodies of conventional superheroes (if you can have such a thing) who are recognisable as other comic's trademark properties, that your humble scribe is at a loss to wonder i) how it got a green light and ii) how it got made.
     Still, you can bet I'll be watching it with a bowl of popcorn and a cup of Darjeeling.**
 Say It Ant So, Joe -
Because Conrad flies off the handle into a seething rage at so many different things, it's hard to keep the ire levels up, yet one item I came across yesterday stoked the old vim rather.  I had been looking for pictures of cyborg aardvarks, as you do, and stumbled across this monstrosity.  Art?

Seething, I am: 

     Look at the dimensions of the two creatures here.  Oh - I can guess the plot: wacky ant is eternally getting the better of oafish aardvark, the end.  Ahhhh yes, the gallant underdog as hero
     Anyway, even if the big blue beast did catch the ant, he couldn't eat it: he has no mouth and his prehensile snout is much too narrow.
     Come to that, why is he blue?  How come he's bipedal?  Why, if he's wearing clothes, does he lack any pants?  Are the animators all drunken hallucinating perverts?

Apparently so!

*  I don't care if you like them or not, or have never heard of them, or are their mum; you are going to keep seeing their name in this blog.  FOREVER!
**  Who says I'm not classy?