Welcome To The Machine

No!  Nothing To Do With Pink Floyd -
 - and their synthesizer masterpiece (well it was at the time) from "Wish You Were Here", which is always the other contender for my favourite Floyd album; although at the time I bought the cassette tape I had no idea what they were on about.

This is obviously a strange glass engine - right?

     I believe - sorry, this is an aside, in case you were unaware - that I was listening to this whilst reading "The Fall Of The Towers", a sci-fi novel compendium by Samuel R. Delaney, which is appropriate subject matter.  Whilst I've played WYWH countless times, I cannot remember reading TFOTT for many decades.  It may be time to rediscover it.

Not sure if this was the edition I had

     Also, you are not going to be familiar with cassette tapes, but that is another topic for a different day.  Saint Crispin's Eve, I think.
     "Okay, so we know what's not.  What is?" I hear you query.
     Well, you know that Perfidious Albion loves to boast to the rest of the world that "Hey, look at us, we invented TANK," even if we also invented football, rugby and cricket and regularly have our clock cleaned by other ingrate upstarts who don't appreciate they should lie down and be defeated -
     - sorry, where was - oh, right.  There is actually an argument to be put forward that the M8s were up there right at the front when it came to TANK.  They invented a frankly bizarre devicee called the 'Boirault Machine'.  Art?

A very WoE moment.

     This beast was intended to crush barbed wire, which at the time presented a serious obstruction to any kind of forward movement on the Western Front.  It was quite capable of performing this function, but considerably less adept at changing direction.  To alter heading it needed to be raised on a jack and either moved via several smaller internal jacks, or by the operator getting out and shifting it by brute force.

When the machine rocks*

     As your perceptive eyes can judge, it was also very large, and slow, which you can't see, and very noisy, also unseen, and had absolutely no protection, which is very seen.  Given all this, the M8s ditched it as not up to the mark, and then 6 months later along came Roger Waters - No!  Sorry, wrong train of thought - I meant 'Little Willie'.     There you have it.  The Machine, and you are welcome to it.     Now let's see if the motley can dodge a blinfolded chap with a flamethrower!

Conrad Is Gratified
Many years ago, before I began to spend/waste/invest (delete where applicable) time on BOOJUM! I had a presence over at the Fan Fiction website, with a set of novel length 'Doctor Who' adventures, and some also tangentially related short stories, since they concerned U.N.I.T. and were set in the Seventies.  I dug up a link and posted it to the 'Space Opera' Facebook group, and - Hay Pesto!  Someone there had read and remembered them affectionately.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/2526238/1/UNIT-UK

     That there is the link.  You never know, you might like them.  

Based in Geneva.  Needs an appointment to visit.

What Can Possibly Go Wrong?
I was going to title this one "Dancing On A Volcano" and then decided better of it, since this might confuse Genesis fans.  Art?

Hot stuff

     Next year my Pub Quiz partners, Phil and Rosie, will be hieing them hence to the land of the Polite Australians, a.k.a. New Zealand, for a good six weeks or so, to visit family and see the sights.  This is where things get a little worrying, as they plan to visit "White Island", which is situated in the Bay of Plenty, off North Island.  Why should this be worrying? as after New Zealand is about as dangerous as a milkshake.  Well, that would be the nature of White Island itself.
     It's an active volcano.
     Part of the outer caldera has collapsed, leaving a gap where small beaches have evolved, and this is where tourists in boats can come ashore and have a lovely walk, whilst wearing hard hats and gas-masks.  Art?

Those picturesque 'clouds' are volcanic steam, matey

      Just to put you in the picture, 12 workers were killed on the island when a tidal wave of mud and rocks buried them back in 1914.  So - as I remarked - what can possibly go wrong?

I had to ask.

Talking Of Earth-Shattering Natural Disasters -
You surely recall Conrad's banging on about the fracking operation in progress at Little Plimpton, Lancashire, The Allotment of Eden?  Art?

No, Art!  Bad Art!  Naughty Art!

     You'll have to excuse our resident Neanderthal, he's just obtained Membership Number 005061 in the Mara Corday Fan Club and is consequently somewhat giddy.  Try again, Art.

Thankfully explosion-free

     Now our government, the arrant swines, are floating proposals to allow fracking companies to just go right ahead and drill "exploratory" boreholes, regardless of what local councils and people think.  There have been angry words said in these very same local councils, believe you me.
     However, chaps, when The Treasury scents an opportunity to siphon money out of a fuel project, I'm afraid democracy and the rule of law take a distant back seat. 

A Treasury spokesperson stated:"the possible destruction of Planet Earth is insufficient reason not to collect taxes."

 Rumours abound that Professor Stahlman, he of Project Inferno, is acting as an adviser to the fracking industry.  What could possibly go wrong there?

I had to ask, again.

     And on that apocalyptic note, I think we shall take our leave.
    Art?  Did you get any swimsuit photo sets from the fan club?  Purely out of academic interest, of course ... 


*  Gary Numan reference there.