0Pen Season

Literally
If reading these blogs over time has informed you of anything at all about Conrad Your Humble Scribe, it is that he has a thing for books.  And pens.  As I like to say, "All the pens, all the time."  I shall just jab Art with this handy steak fork -

                 Jowly                                                              Scowly                               Now he's just being silly -
     O stop whining, Art.  Put a plaster on it.  As you can see from the above, I take my pens very seriously, and usually around the neck of my t-shirt.  Art?

Me, in exceptionally good mood.

     While this is handy and convenient, it has been loudly and frequently pointed out that it does Very Bad Things to the collars of the t-shirts so used, until last week Wonder Wifey ordered a small zippable bag that can be clipped to one's belt, thus -

 - which means my t-shirt collar is now entirely pen-free.  Art?

Conrad clearly adjusting to this novel state of affairs

     Of course, I shall inevitably keep putting pens down my collar, simply from spite force of habit, for a while yet.
     I realise this is most definitely "Small Earthquake In Chile" stuff as far as you, the gentle readers, are concerned, but it is a complete lifestyle change for me, and it will take come time to come to terms with it.
     And - isn't that a clever title?*
     Okay, motley, the antidote to that poisoned ice-cream is in one of these 144 test-tubes, but it will take you one second to ingest each of them, and the poison takes effect in 120 seconds - 119 seconds - 118 seconds -

Quite possibly a motley.**

<short pause now ensues as I go get some beer and crisps>

     Oh hello Edna, I take it you heard the rustle of a packet being opened?  What's that?  You love me only for myself?  Yes, but you had your toes crossed when you said it.

"The Doomed City" By The Strugatsky Brothers
SPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILER

SPOILERS!

     I did caution you about this continuation of TDC, so you can't say you weren't warned.
     Well, you could, except you'd be lying, and then we wouldn't be friends any more.
     So!  Our central character, Andrei, has progressed from being a garbage collector, and then to a police detective, and then to a news editor, and then to being a counselor to the City's dictator - it was City policy that you had to periodically change jobs.

In Cyrillic, even

     The last part of the novel is the strangest, with an expedition being sent under Andrei's leadership to the north of the City.
     Here a little background is needed.  The City is illuminated by an artificial sun, which sometimes suffers power failures.  To the west is the Wall, infinitely high and thus unscalable, except that on occasions people fall to their deaths from it.  To the east is the Abyss, as bottomless as the Wall is tall.  To the south of the metropolis are swamps and jungles, inhabited by strange and savage beasts.

 - like furry crocodiles

     The expedition finds evidence of other cities, long abandoned and decayed, until they encounter a city with moving statuary, and amid timeslip, only Andrei and Izya survive the expedition's disastrous disintegration.
     It then took me a while to realise that they didn't try to head back home; they were travelling even further north, where they encounter the Crystal Palace, the Tower and the Pavilion.  These places are only mentioned briefly in passing, or the novel would be half as long again.  

Possibly not what they meant ...

     Then Andrei and Izya come to what might be the end of the lands where the City exists, encountering what seem to be mirror-images of themselves, one of which shoots Andrei as he shoots it -
     At which point he is back in Leningrad in 1955, with no noticeable amount of time having passed, despite his being in the City for years and years, shortly before one of the City's Mentors recruited him for their grand Experiment.

Leningrad, 1955

     This is the kind of ending that throws up far more questions than - actually, no, it doesn't answer any questions at all.  But it is a fascinating read, and I shall have to go back over it at one point and pick out all the points that would have given a Sinister-era censor the billy crins.
     I would recommend you pick another of the Brothers books to start with, rather than this one.

Like this light-hearted satire

Damn You, TV Tropes; Damn You!
Somewhat to my surprise, that repository of wit and wisdom TV Tropes came up as a reference when I Googled "The Doomed City".  And I lacked the self-restraint to not click on the link, which was a mistake, because it listed one of TDC's characteristics as being a "Gainax Ending" - or one that inspires a reader/viewer to ponder their navel and think "What?  What on earth did I just read/see?  WHAT!" and I followed the link to films with such an ending and started to read and -
     - realised I'd spent 10 minutes reading without having typed anything.
                               

     Those are two examples of the genre, except having read the novel I understand the ending of 2001.  Casshern?  Not at all.

Finally -
Finally!  When this weekend is over two utterly repellent and horrendous events will have been finished, completed, ended and otherwise been seen off, which is terrific news for Your Humble Scribe, as they are the Eurovision Song Contest and the FAR (sp?) Cup Final.  One I loathe as an offence against the sacred name of music, and the other just b****y well dominates the news pages to the exclusion of sensi - excuse me, Sensible News.

Now part of Europe.
(According to Eurovision)

     Hmmm.  You know, there might be a Have Your Say about the FAR Cup thingie, in which case all is not lost.  Silver linings and all that.




*  This is not a rhetorical question and the answer is "Yes"
**  Or, equally possibly, not.