Bring On The Even Bigger Guns

You May Find It Hard To Believe -
Yet at one time, we loved the atom.  Nuclear fission was going to provide endless energy so cheap it would be practically free, which is a word that always goes down well.  Nuclear-powered aircraft and trains and cars would free the Western world from relying on oil for fuel (sorry, Texas).  Nuclear medicine would provide new insights and miraculously heal the sick.

Eat my radioactive exhaust fumes, slowpokes!

     Best of all, nuclear weapons would counter the numerical superiority of the mindless Commie hordes, who slavered with rabid delight at the mere prospect of ripping out (democratic) Western throats with their bare teeth.  You understand, at this time both the Sinisters and Populous People's Dictatorship were bosom buddies; it was only later that they became spiteful, bitter, hating - well, exes, really.
     Now, cast your minds back to 1949.  At this point Sputnik, jet fighters, ICBMs and train-mobile missiles were pipedreams; what you had was the technology of the Second Unpleasantness jazzed-up a bit.  Your problem is: how do you lob a 15 kiloton warhead with a high degree of accuracy, out to 20 miles?

No!  Not freight-carrying eagles.  Really, Art.

     Your answer:

A REALLY BIG GUN!

     Enter the M65 11" Atomic Cannon, nicknamed "Atomic Annie", which was a monster 85 ton assembly of cannon, carriage and dual transporters.  The weapon deployed in 1953, ready to tackle the Bolshevic dastards, and gave Joe Stalin a heart-attack which he died from.*
     It had a really cool double-tractor arrangement that looks straight out of futurologist Gerry Anderson's stable of kit, which we can prod Art into illustrating -


     Wikipedia, incidentally, is wrong about these futuristic-looking beasts, which were not obsolete even as they went into service.  For one thing, nuclear artillery rounds for existing guns did not arrive until 1963, and the Honest John nuclear battlefield missile was miserably inaccurate until re-jigged in the Sixties.
     No article on an nuclear artillery would be complete without a picture of the test round being fired.  Art?

Quiver in fear, Djugashvili!**

     Okay, now we see if the motley can outrun a pack of Drashigs on their own ground if we give it snow-shoes!

Drashigs.  CAUTION!  Not suitable as domestic pets.***

I Thought You Might Like To See This, Gentle Readers
As you know, Conrad's miserable existence is only brightened by you, his audience, reading his daily scrivelling rants and tants and thus increasing his traffic figures.  However, if all else fails I can fall back on the reassurance that there are at least two devoted afficionadoes thirsting for more BOOJUM!
     I know you wouldn't accept this assertion without evidence, so here it is.  Art?

     I rest my case.  I also rest my typing, as it's time to go get some lunch.

A Match Made In -
If not Heaven, then perhaps the Elysian Fields?  
     I am talking, of course, about those fictional detectives John May and Arthur Bryant, as created by Christopher Fowler, and whose numerous book titles inevitably begin "Bryant and May -" which works as a marketing ploy since I picked one off the shelves at Royton Library Lo! those many years ago.  Art?

Do you see what - O you do.

     I might even have gone in with a list of recommended authors, because I'm like that.  The titles, as you can see, are a pun on a brand of matches.  Art, a more topical illustration, please.

My current perusal.  Get it?  "Tide" - "Current" - oh I'm wasted here, wasted.

     Our octogenarian detectives are complete opposites, yet complement each other perfectly; okay, occasionally they drive each other batty; okay, they frequently drive everyone else batty.  One day, perhaps one day soon, someone will get very very rich by adapting these for television.
     That's not what I meant to say.  The thing is, you see, I've bought various copies over the years, and taken copies out from the library, but I cannot remember which ones nor the sequence I read them in, as opposed to the sequence they ought to be read in, and there's a shelfload of them.  Feel my pain.

May and Bryant (and Janice)

     Suddenly!  Atomic Ninja Death-Weasels erupted from the Earth's core, laying siege to the cities of Mankind in a desperate battle for domination of the planet -

     - no, no, that was my film treatment the Sci-Fi Channel rejected, wasn't it?  "Too prosaic and mundane"" they said.  Ha!  As if.  We all know they're too cheap to want to animate CGI weasel fur, the pikers.

It can be done, you know.

Martian Meandering
I see that the European Space Agency - and yes, there really is such a thing and long has been - is now pondering a couple of weighty matters.  To wit:  where to land their ExoMars robotic rover, as they now have two choices of location when their small robotic child nears the end of it's approach to Mars.

The Rover, powered-down

     These are Oxia Planum (which sounds more like a variety of bechamel sauce)  and Mawrth Vallis (which sounds Welsh).  Both have their merits, apparently, and also debits, so high-resolution photography has been used to examine for steep slopes, large boulders, gullies, fissures and other potential hazards.

The Exo-Mars Battle Bot deployed

     They also have to avoid any outposts of the Ice Warriors, although these repellent reptilianoids tend to cluster closer to the polar ice-caps.  Another hazard that is harder to detect is the native Martian Rock Snake.  Art?

A bit fuzzy but you get the idea.

     These things metabolise Martian rock and substrate, acquiring sulphur and oxygen from digestion of same that they can use to either defend themselves or their territory.  I think we have an artist's impression.  Art?

Erk.

     I hope that Exo-Mar's lasers and missiles are both fast and accurate!


*  This may not be entirely accurate.
**  Stalin's real name.  A little harder to pronounce and spell, nicht war?
***  Also, descended from KILLER EELS!