Back To Normal. I *Think*.

Asterisks Because You Can't Format A Title
Conrad is still pretty amped up, thanks to all that espresso earlier this afternoon, so how he's going to sit still during 'Doctor Who' and 'They Shall Not Grow Old' is open to question.  I have started this earlier than usual, because I'm going to be watching television for about two and a half hours later.
     "Yes, yes, you sad oafish git," I hear you quibble.  "What's this about 'normal'?  You normally hate and detest 'normal'."

                                           Yes, twice, just because I can
     True enough.  'Normal' can 's be defined as a universal totality of bland greyness everywhere, including inside your head.  What I - hey, "oafish"? - what I mean is that BOOJUM! traffic stats appear to be calculated as per normal, after Friday's ridiculous total of over 400 hits.  I wonder if there is a hidden audience out there who secretly lust after articles mentioning atomic trains?  Let me include the link for you:

https://comsatangel2002.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-1030-at-platform-2-now-boarding-for.html

     And we need an atomic train, just for good luck.  Art?

Don't stand so close!
(Or you might die, not get a lift home)

     Now, because anything atomic is always interesting - horrifying, terrifying, possibly stroke-inducing but always, always interesting - I thought I would go into the operational creation and testing of what is unquestionably the most terrifying nuclear weapon ever proposed: the Supersonic Low Altitude Missile.

They made a kit of this?  I lack words.

     Now, I shall get technical here, so SIT BACK DOWN!  This thing was powered by a nuclear reactor in what was called "Direct" mode, which is to say that the airstream came into contact with the nuclear pile itself.  Indirect reactor systems are infinitely safer, but also much more complex and massive.*  The SLAP was a ramjet design, meaning that it took in air, heated it and expelled it to develop motive power; the problem with this is that a ramjet needs to be at considerable speed before it starts working, so SLAM would have been launched by three booster rockets - visible on the above as white cylinders with a red tip.  Red for danger, I suppose - "CAUTION! Contains flammable materials" or somesuch.

Ling, eh?  As in "The bells of Hell go ting-a-ling-a-ling"?

     Now, consider that this beast's exhaust plume is heavily contaminated with radioactive material, and you immediately realise it can't be tested on land, certainly not on your own territory.  It would need to be tested at sea, preferably in international waters where nobody can see what you're doing, or believe me there'd be protests.  It would need to be launched remotely from a barge, so as not to jeapordise ground crew, with inert or dummy warheads.
     Then, assuming your testing works, there's the small problem of landing SLAM, where one minor technical problem exists - it's not designed to ever land.  You would have to crash it, either onto an uninhabited island and then police the radioactive debris, or into one of the deeper oceanic trenches, where nobody could retrieve it.  A few crossed fingers wouldn't hurt, either.

Of course, twenty years later there are some side-effects ...

     Well well what the Griswell.  There I was, looking for a picture of SLAM, when it appears that Tsar Putin has been boasting about a Ruffian version of SLAM.  And here's a link to an acknowledge expert on SLAM, who repeats exactly what I said above.

https://www.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/1205006/russias-nuclear-powered-cruise-missile/

     I do like to be proved right.
     There you go.  Atomic-powered atomic weapons.  Didn't I say atomic = interesting?    

Wow, that Intro has taken up most of today's second article.  I shall now go get something to fortify the inner man before the Beeb's premier dramatic reconstruction program kicks off.


Phew
You remember how we encountered a zombie Tom Hanks earlier this week?  Well, he came around to The Pleasant earlier apologise for attempting to bite me.  It turns out he was only in character, as his old chum Brad Pitt has offered him a cameo in "World War Z: 2".  

Out of make-up

     I am sure we are all much relieved.
     Hey - Tom - no biting!

"We're On An Express Elevator To Hell!"
To quote Private Hudson from "Aliens", for yes!  We are on about the Space Elevator again.  As you recall from earlier today, this particular structure needs to be 22,500 miles tall for it to be geosynchronously stable.  
     Imagine that you build this elevator successfully.  A problem then exists - this thing is extremely tall, isn't it?  Postively hotching with height.  And the fastest lift ever built cannot travel faster than 78 miles per hour.  Running the numbers, this means it would take you 12 days to get up to the top of the elevator, where you can release your payload.

A long way to go

     You're going to have to build a better mousetrap, aren't you?  A round trip of over three weeks is going to make your ability to loft stuff to orbit slow.*  You'd need an elevator that can accelerate slowly enough to not kill any squashy human occupants, yet able to reach sufficient speed to keep the journey time reasonable.  250 m.p.h. ought to do the trick.  Don't forget you'll need food, water and OXYGEN, because this is going way over your heads, literally.  No exotic materials needed, just a lot of them.

And a lot more floor space than this.

     Okay, I think I've terrified and mystified you in equal amounts, it only remains to add a few more lines to allow me to hit a 1,000 word total.

Finally - 
Segun Akinola!  That's the chappy.  He's the one responsible for heightening the sense of realism on 'Doctor Who' with music, and probably the first musician I've noticed on the soundtrack, to the extent of wondering "Who is" - do you see what - O you do - "responsible for all the music?"  The end credits scroll by so fast his name has always been lost amidst the text, until tonight.  Art?

Glasses are cool.

*  "And expensive," said the Treasury.