It's (Nearly) The End Of The World

Don't Worry, I Don't Know More Than You Do -
Actually I do, come to think about it, although only on esoteric subjects like LITHIUM WAFER BATTERY DESIGN! and how to survive an attack by KILLER EELS! or the Table of Organisation and Equipment of a Perfidious Albion infantry division of late 1916 -
     Which has nothing to do with the end of the world, although those eels are a definite warning sign.  I meant, don't worry about the world ending shortly, your humble scribe most emphatically does not have inside information about it.*

He does.

     Which has only a tangential relationship with what I really wanted to inform you about, namely a couple of films mentioned here at the blog on Tuesday: "City Beneath the Sea" and "Atragon".  Neither is available on Youtube, to my mild disappointment; as consolation they do have trailers, which I have surveilled and will recap for your viewing delectation.
     Okay, CBTS is a kind of two-for-one Deadly Peril scenario set in an underwater city that calls itself "Pacifica", doubtless because it's at the bottom of: the Atlantic Ocean and the scriptwriters were being ironic/the Paficic Ocean because the scriptwriters were lazy rascals (delete where appropriate).  Art?

Peril the First

      This consists of Sinister Radioactive McGuffin, which is only safely contained by - er - stacking billions of pounds-worth of gold ingots around it.  Altogether now -

 WHAT CAN POSSIBLY GO WRONG HERE!

     And if I can cattle-prod Art into action again for the next picture -

Peril the Second (upper port)

     That glowing coal is a 'rogue planetoid' that is going to smash into planet Earth and destroy it, or at least send property values into a trough.  Sadly you can't hear the soundtrack here, where the RP is accompanied by a muted yet strident howling noise, because the silent vacuum of space is - is - er - not dramatic enough?  This, then, is The End Of The World bit alluded to in today's title.

     You're probably wondering what trigger'ed this retrospective look at aquatic nonsense.  I'm not going to tell you; go back and read previous blog entries.**

"There were giants in the sea -"
(From a poem or something)

     I was going to blather on about "Atragon" but have decided to be merciful and move on.  You can have that unalloyed pleasure tomorrow.  In the meantime, let us put the motley in a car with no brakes and roll it over the cliff edge!*

That'll Teach Me
In a flight of fancy, I was wondering what you'd get if you crossed a blaster with a laser, giving you a weapon that could shoot to the horizon and would vapourise anyone or anything it hit, instead of merely making a neat cauterised hole.  Given 'Because Science''s warnings about a blaster turning anything organic into a giant cloud of overpressure-propelled offal, not a weapon to be used at close range.***

Summat like this

     "O what shall we call it?" I pondered, already seeing units rolling off the production line, a snip at £15,000,000 each with a 7500% profit margin.  "Aha!  A 'Blaser', that being a portmanteau combination of 'blaster' and 'laser'.  Oho."
     Ah, except not so fast, o humble scribe, for what is this arms manufacturer from the land of the Teutons?

Curses!  Foiled.

     Conrad has been beaten to it.  Hang on - how about a "Blazer"?

Also no.

"Succumb"
Another of those words that kinda pop up in my head from who knows where.  The "b" is silent, for your information.  Yesterday I was doing a crossword when - yes, of course it was a Cryptic one! - when this word popped up into the forefront of my consicousness.  I know what it means, in the sense of being done in by illness or injury:  "the evil Tussigonian invaders succumbed to the effects of Conrad's blaser and expired in an enormous cloud of virulent gore and innards"

Yeah!

     Of course the word has it's roots in Latin, the swine.  From "Sub" meaning "Under" and "Cubare" meaning "To lie down", thus we get "Succumbere" and eventually "Succumb".

This sub succumbed

Finally -
With all this guff about voyaging to the bottom of the ocean (Hey! Is there a song title in there somewhere?) I thought it apt to do a little more mucking about with words.  Hence we have -

"VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEE!!"

A terrifying tour of the bloodthirsty Bishop of Chiltern's evil, episcopalian, gore-soaked parish, home to horrors unimaginable!!"

"You insult my hat, sir?  Do you want to succumb to my red-hot poker?"

Or, on a lighter note - 

"VOYAGE TO SEE OF THE BOTTOM!"

Go look it up - it's Shakespeare so I'm not helping you.

You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll believe a man can become an hideous were-donkey hybrid affront against nature.  Plus fairies.

     I think that's enough of our daily battle against the forces of Sensible.  Don't forget to check under the bed tonight for any sign of those treacherous KILLER EELS! (and stray socks).

*  Mind you, would I share it if I did?   Hmmm.  One to ponder on.
**  Heh.
***  Perhaps this is why you see all those fantasy players with ray guns and swords?