A Domed City

Alas, What Flows From Misinterpretation
As an example, you may consider that pseudo-religion from "Red Dwarf" the Hoppists, based upon a mis-reading of biblical text thanks to a typographical error - "Faith, Hop and Charity", as opposed to the correct Faith, Hope and Charity.

Those wags!

     Here an aside.  Yes, already!  Conrad has recently been reading about the siege of Malta during the Second Unpleasantness, where the island had 0% protection against air raids conducted by the Axis.  This was bad news, since the Italian bombers based on Sicily had a very short journey to Malta and back.  Enter a propitious delivery of crated fighter aircraft, left behind by the Royal Navy, which were uncrated and assembled to the tune of several Gloster Gladiator biplane fighters.  Art?

Obsolete but bitey

     Three of these were christened F, H & C, and their original opponents did not like.  Faith is still around in a Maltese museum, should you ever care to visit the island.
     Anyway, I was going on about misinterpretation, and referring to the Missing Novel by those Ruffian/Sinister prose poets, the Strugatsky Brothers.
     Here another aside.  Arkady and Boris were science-fiction authors during the heyday of the Sinisters, and I well remember a foreword to their English-translation novels by Theodore Sturgeon warning that they had written at least one paragraph per novel that basically kow-towed to the sheer awesomeness of Soviet ideology.  Art?

A real page-turner

     Another way of looking at that, Ted, would be that they had to include a paragraph of political praise, or - no publication.  Also, although I love "Stalker", it is an arty and tangential adaptation of "Roadside Picnic" and this novel simply aches for a more literal film adaptation.  Really it does, after all, it's set in Canada and there's personal drama as well as enigmatic aliens and weird artefacts - go read it and get back to me.

Absolutely true

     Where were we?  O yes - in praise of Ruffian literature and film.  If your involvement with BOOJUM! is restricted to the 'Admiral Kuznetsov' aircraft carrier and how rubbish it is, then our praise of the above might come as a surprise.  
     Right, back to the Strugatskys.  I read the title as "The Domed City", because in science fiction of the future, all cities will of course possess a dome.  Art?

Thus

     Here an aside.  Yes, another one!  Exactly how is such a dome constructed?  All these archetypal domed cities are covered with an inverted bowl of something transparent, that apparently possesses such integral strength and rigidity that it required no supports at all.  None.  Conrad strongly suspects that no such material exists; try building a pane of glass that large and watch it collapse under it's own weight.  And, again, how do you actually erect such a large structure? NO SNIGGERING AT THE BACK!  Is it done in segments that resemble slices of orange, welded together seamlessly using <thinks> atomic fission?  Or do you have a tractor unit that begins from the bottom, creating a near-vertical strip of Supa-Plex*, and which climbs upwards on that basal strip, leaning slightly inwards all the time?  Or, Harry Potter comes along and waves his wand?

In real life: not very dome-y and full of bones support struts

     And now to the meat of the matter.  That title wasn't "The Domed City", it is "The Doomed City".  Doomed.  DOOMED, I TELL YOU!

My edition

     Hmmmm.   Well, you know, doomed cities are also a thing in sci-fi.**  We may come back to this.
     Game Of Thrones
The armies of the north, plus dragons, have finally reached King's Landing and are now about to lay siege to the city.
     That's it?  Please tell me there's a Plan B.

Art, you bafoon!

     Your Humble Scribe, being a devious, malicious and mischievous sort, would have sent a fifth column of saboteurs and assassins into the city amongst all the throngs of hostage peasantry, with a mission to either spy out the lay of the defences, shiv Cersei in the back, destoy food stocks or throw open a gate at an opportune moment.  At the very least, a shapeshifty Arya, who could masquerade as one of the Queen's advisors and assassinate the real ones.  Conrad also suspects those anti-dragon arbalests cannot be elevated to a full 90 degrees, and would thus be vulnerable to a great big rock being dropped on them from a great big dragon, possibly with added fire.
     Also -

Food, or lack of it

     How much food is stored within KL?  And can it sustain all those eager thousands of greedy peasants Cersei brought in?  If I were Queen Danaerys's Hand, I'd wait for a couple of weeks, until the hunger pangs start to bite - for the proles, obviously, the monarchy and the Golden Company will still be getting their five meals a day -  ensure the wind is in the right direction and then lay out - Art?

Catering ovens provided by dragon.

     Let's see how they cope with that.
Ah, The Delicious Taste Of Schadenfreude!
There was another of those ballfoot games played yesterday, between one team in blue and another team in <thinks> something else, which, because one side won, triggered a predictable rotten torrent of virulent abuse on the Beeb's Have Your Say website.  O the invective! 
     Surprisingly, there were quite a number of sportsmanlike comments from ballfoot fans of all stripes (do you see what I did there?!), which was deeply disappointing as I was expecting a tsunami of bitterness.
     Let us instead catalogue some of the persistent allegations and assertions - Team U are "cheats" and Team V are outrageously "lucky", while the match officials are "bent" and - one that gets trotted out regularly - "Financial Fair Play" will sink Team W next year, just you wait and see!
     Ah, what a shame that this deluge of the very worst in human nature is shortly to end <melancholy sigh>







*  If this is ever invented for real, I want royalties.
**  600 words based around a single instance of the letter "O".  How artful I am.