On The Scene -

 - In A Submarine
And none of that jolly, happy, laughing Yellow submersible vessel, either - although your humble scribe does confess that he loves said animation to bits - for we are returning to the sinister subject of sea-going subterfuge and <thinks> skullduggery, embodied in -

I know, I know, I Atragon and on and on -

      From what your humble scribe can ascertain from trailers, IMDB and Wikipedia, this film concerns the eeevil underwater inhabitants of the lost continent of Mu, who have decided to get back at the dryfeet because of the rubbish name they've had inflicted upon them.  Oooh, get you, all hard done by - how do you think people from Hungary feel?
     Okay, the EUIOTLCOM build a super-submarine that seems to be called "Atragon", rather stealing a march on that crap film about dragons, because dragons cannot move underwater, whereas -

- Atragon can.

      "Pshaw!" I hear you scornfully announce.  "Yes, but dragons can fly."

     If that's so, I hope they filed a detailed and accurate flight plan, because - 

- so can Atragon!

     I see your facade of confidence beginning to falter somewhat, and allow me to pre-empt your assertion that, Hey, dragons can spit fire!
     Oh really?

Yeah, yeah, big deal.  So can Atragon.

     It can even tunnel through solid rock, except I can't find a picture to illustrate that, so you'll just have to take that on trust.  Come on, I have an honest face!
     All this technical expertise is not there just to wow the audience.  O no.  Atragon is going to blow shizzle up until the <checks earlier acronym> EUIOTLCOM take their rightful place as rulers of the planet.*  Quite how you do this with only a single super-submarine is unclear, because modern aviation/marine weapons systems are so complex and require so much maintenance that, of every three, only one is actually available for combat at a given moment.  One to ponder upon.

As a weapons platform, not quite stealthy enough.

     Now, time to strap the motley to a petrol-powered pogo stick and see how long it takes before vomiting ensues! 

Good lord!  I was joking about the pogo stick, you know ..

The Haul
As you should surely know, your humble scribe is now collecting the "Official History of the War: Naval Operations", and has laid his hot sweaty hands upon Volume II (that's "2" in Roman numerals, not "11", just to be clear), the text volume that doesn't have a matching map case to go with it.  Art?

     This is because it didn't need one - there are fold-out maps in the body of the book itself, as well as 5 large ones in pockets at both frontispiece and back cover.  If you are good then I shall gift you a picture of one.
N.C.I.S. And "Cover Story"
Ah, what can I say, but that this is indeed my guilty pleasure.  This season (Five, if you're counting) has been somewhat undermined by the inclusion of Tony's love interest: at a guess the actor Mr. Weatherly pestered the scriptwriters "to give my character some depth" because he wanted to extend his acting chops.  Art?

"I need emotional depth.  Depth, I tell you!"

     Which has nothing to do with the episode I watched last night, "Cover Story", so if you don't want to catch SPOILERS for an episode that came out 7 years ago, LOOK AWAY NOW.

Look away, look away - is there a song in there somewhere?

     The plot was pretty weak, I have to say: someone had been reading McGee's first draft of his second novel, and killing people because - er - I might have missed the reason for that.  Because the villain is a nutjob?**  Or, everyone's a critic.
     The murder weapon was quite out there, too.  A javelin.
     Wait, what?

A tad overkilly

     No, although you might be forgiven for thinking that.  No, they mean the long pointy thing that generally gets propelled through the air by muscle power.  Art?

Yeah, one of those

     It's never explained exactly how the villain managed to javelin two people to death; a five-foot wooden pole with a metal spike on the end is rather cumbersome, don't you think?  Our nutter must have thought so, too, as his final murder attempt is made with a revolver.

More Of Lasers -
I was going to mention gamma-ray lasers at length, but I think I've already covered them in a long-previous post, as I seem to recall that there are a tremendous number of technical problems to overcome before you can effectively fry your enemies alive at a distance of 3,000 miles.

A theoretical model of X-ray lasers in action***.

     Okay, then, what about X-ray lasers?  Which led to a long read of an article about 'Project Excalibur', which itself concerned orbital nuclear warheads equipped with lasing rods; detonate the warhead and a focussed pulse of X-rays went whizzing down the rod.
     "Great for ballistic missile defence!" shouted Edward Teller in his Mittel European Scientist accent.  "Give me £1 billion and I'll build them by next Tuesday!"

Ed.  Tellin' it like it is.

     Ed was a little premature.  After something like £750 million in research and testing, the lasing just wasn't happening, so Proj E. got dumped. 
     Still, at least it inspired a British band - 

Available for weddings, christenings, bar mitzvahs and shooting down SS22 nuclear missiles.

     And after that apocalyptic note, it's time to wave goodbye, mount up on our trusty wyvern-wagon and head off into the glowing sunset. 


*  They will, of course, only be keeping the seat warm for me.
**  Good enough.
***  This may not be completely accurate.