Quiver, Loonwaffles!

Yesterday -
We (the BOOJUM! "We" that includes all of us) took aim at some of the conspiranoid nonsense surrounding ballfoot - the BBC is horrendously biased, the FA fixes all the matches, the referee is secretly working for Team A, etcetera, etcetera.  This all derives from Your Humble Scribe's practice of reading the Have Your Say comments after a particular ballfoot game, because schadenfreude is a wonderful thing, and some of the commenters border on deranged.

Here's one of the saner ones.

     There is another loonwaffle theory I wish to address here: that Stanley Kubrick faked the Apollo 11 Moon landing in a studio.  
     This one appears to have come about because Ol' Stan did a good job on "2001: A Space Odyssey" in replicating the lunar surface and excavation of Monolith #2.  There is no other evidence, bar some swivel-eyed bumbletucks claiming a sweater worn in "The Shining" is a secret confession (yes, really) by Stan that, yes, it's all true - or false.  Art?

     Let us lambast this nonsense with some facts, shall we?  2001 was released in May of 1968, and Ol' Stan was editing it right up until the date of it's release.  Apollo 11 touched down in the Sea of Tranquility in July of 1969.  Thus, one of the most perfectionist of directors ever had only 14 months to prepare, produce, storyboard, light, shoot and edit the alleged fake landing.  This is hugely unlikely; Stan liked to take his time about things and regularly took years to produce a film.  Some of the film work on 2001 was done in 1965, to put it in perspective.

A very small cast

     Then there's the complete lack of evidence, as mentioned, not to mention the logistics of faking the landing.  The shoot would have needed to be done in the UK, as Ol' Stan famously did not travel abroad.  A custom-built studio would need to have been constructed in some out-of-the-way location because security would be an issue; you can't risk having the tea-lady accidentally come across your 'lunar surface' in a regular film studio.  Then there's the set itself, and the props - where do these come from?  "Lunar Landing Module, One Of" arriving as a request at a design studio would be a giveaway, rather.  

Made out of plastic and tinfoil!
(And papier-mache for non-load bearing parts)

     "The eeeevil South Canadian government sent one over," cry the loonwaffles.  What did they load onto Apollo 11, then?  Or did they build two?  Were they both fakes?
     Anyway, any fakery also leaves aside the technical crew.  The props might be imported but you still need cameramen, and lighting, and sound, and unglamourous people like the loader and trolley guy and assistant director and - the list goes on.  Yet, none of these people have so much as whispered a thing about it, nor kept anything to do with the fake production, or left notes about the technical side of things.
     And no, the eeeeevil South Canadian government didn't simply kill them all to stop them talking; did a big wodge of British film crew all vanish at the same time in 1969?  No.  And yes, you'd have to kill them all simultaneously, or the survivors would confess in order to get protection.

A film crew, explained

     The fakery assertion also overlooks the fact that Ol' Stan's next film, "A Clockwork Orange", came out at the very end of 1971, leaving less than 16 months to do all the pre-production, filming, editing and so on, all of which have been documented in detail, leaving no time for any fake Moon landing to be filmed.
     Of course, when you argue with an Apollo Hoax believer, you are arguing with just that - a belief, which no amount of evidence will shake.  But it is fun to mock them.*
     Now, motley, we have glued these diving boots to your feet and are going to see how quickly you can walk from the deep end!

The end result of @ 500,000 people's efforts

     Wow.  Another long Intro.  Quickly, we need to introduce another topic!

"Gopnik"
Conrad only heard of this word a few days ago, and didn't know what it meant.  Well, it seems to be the Ruffian equivalent of what we here in the Allotment of Eden would call a "chav" or a "ned", being stereotypically lower-class, uneducated and poor Ruffian males.  They have their own subculture, which seems to involve wearing cheap knock-off Adidas sportswear,  squatting and drinking alcohol.  Though that last seems to be pretty typical of everyone in The Motherland.  Art?

Gopniki

     This is an hilarious inversion of the Droogs in "A Clockwork Orange", whose speech is larded with lots of degraded Russian words, and who get bombed on drug-infused milkshakes.  Well - it seemed funny to me.

The Fools!  The Meddling Fools!
These are typically what the horrified investigating hero (of limited intellect but a sound right hook) says when he ends up inside the Mad Scientist's laboratory, and sees the hideous spectacle of: dogs learning to read/zombie gorilla cyborgs/dinosaurs cloned from ancient DNA (delete where applicable).

A zombie gorilla cyborg.  Someone actually created this.***

     Anyway, those are the words that popped into my mind when I read a sidebar item on the Beeb's webpage.  Art?

"Nuneaton firm trialling exoskeletons"

     Don't they realise this is only the thin end of the wedge?  These partial skeletons are intended to support the lower back when lifting large or heavy objects; from here it is only a hop, skip and jump to -

 - this

     I warned you, ignorant fleshy meatbags, I warned you.  It'll be too late when an armoured foot is crushing the life out of you ...




*  In Bolivia, it is a legal requirement to mock them.**
**  This may not be true
***  Some people have entirely TOOOOOO much time on their hands.