Monsters From The Kid

And, Yes, That Is A Nod To "Forbidden Planet"
You know me, if I can shoe-horn in a reference to one of my favouritest things, then I will.  
     Now, developing this will take a while, so bear with me.  In fact, you might want to go get a cup of tea and a biscuit.
     Imagine, if you will, Conrad at age 15.  Just as tall as he is now, if rather slimmer, and with a voracious appetite for science-fiction, which has diminished over the years as military history has occupied centre stage.
     One such book he borrows, reads and then forgets about for the next 40 years, until he goes perusing over at Abebooks.  Art?

Hay Pesto!

     Blimey.  It's taken 10 minutes to get that picture up, since my Dog Buns! laptop is doing it's best to not read my phone, despite re-booting and sacrificing a black rooster over a fire made from the bones of chartered accountants.     The novella "Who Goes There?" is what the title refers to, the story that became the inspiration for "The Thing From Another World", "The Thing" and "The Thing (Inferior Remake-cum-Prequel).  Art?

An iconic moment

     It's not that convincing a cover illustration: if you looked closely enough you could pick out the thumb-prints in the modelling clay.
     Anyway, there were a couple of other titles that I've not read in the Abebooks montage, which, if Art will do his thing - 

A very bad book indeed, judging by reader reviews

     There was a blurb that came with it which I shall have to poach: 

"Their claws were strong enough to snap a man in half.  Their shells were impenetrable, even by a six-inch naval gun."

     Women have nothing to fear, apparently.  And, being the remorselessly logical anorak that I am (my best qualities), my instant rejoinder was "RIght-o, time to break out the nerve gas, flame-throwers and air-delivered napalm."     There was another volume up on the montage, a title I well remember from the pages at the end of other sci-fi books, which previewed works by other authors.  This one was "The Killing Thing" by Kate Wilhelm.  Art?

It has a two-mile laser

     From reader reviews, this one has dated rather poorly.  It concerns a chap being hunted by a killer robot on a desert planet, which rather makes Conrad wonder how long a robot could keep going in an environment consisting of wind-blown sand and dust.  Besides which, that laser would be useless in a sandstorm, right?     Let's test that supposition.  Motley, we're going to drop you in the middle of a Saharan dust-storm and see if we can shoot you with this signalling laser.  It's not powerful enough to tingle a bit if it hits, honest.

Honestly

The Irony, It Burns!  (Plus Chokes)
On Wednesday Your Humble Scribe had a small adventure in getting home, which was as unexpected as it was annoying, since I normally do the weekly shop of that evening.  Walking from the Dark Tower, I noticed that the traffic on the city centre streets of Gomorrah-on-the-Irwell was exceptionally bad; nose to tail on every street, in fact.  I saw the 24 bus turning off from Lever Street onto Dale Street, and realised it was the 17:25 one running late and being diverted from it's normal route.  Running 40 minutes late, to be accurate.  Art?

The traffic clot

     Well, I reasoned, I may have time to get a couple of stops ahead and catch it at the bottom of Oldham Road.  I wonder what's going on?
     I blinked and missed the reason, so let the MEN's photo tell a tale.  Art?

There were fewer people there when I passed it, in my defence.

     This is a "Pop-up Park" which had been set up in Stevenson Square, that square now being closed to traffic from 17:00 hours.  You know, evening peak times.  Until 22:00.  Lots of the surrounding streets had also been closed off to traffic, which resulted in enormous and very long-lasting traffic jams.  I did manage to catch the 24, which was running over an hour late.  Doubtless the 40 people enjoying the PUP in Stevenson Square were happy with their event; the other 40,000 of us who were enormously inconvenienced were, it is fair to say, rather less happy.     Oh, the event that was being staged?  "Clean Air Day".

Yeah, right

Damn You, Phone, Damn You!
Or the laptop, or both of them together.  When I get a new laptop, I am going to put this one in a stout canvas sack and SMASH IT TO BITS WITH A HAMMER.  To be joined shortly afterwards by the phone.  Then - then I think I'll dump them within a circle of stones in the back yard and set them alight.     "Who rattled your cage?" I hear you query.  Well, I have just got another collectable amongst my collection of British Official Histories Of The FIrst Unpleasantness, to wit: Map Set 2 for 1918.  I had taken sample photographs of it last night WHICH I CANNOT NOW SHOW <heaves plaintive sigh>.  Art?

Summat like mine

     Plus I didn't pay silly money for it.  That leaves only 3 more map sets to get for the Western Front, which are possible to pick up for reasonable prices - £40 in this case.
     Then, however, we get on to the map sets for other theatres, those being Macedonia and Gallipoli.  The G. sets come as a bundled set of Appendices, one set with 5 maps, one with 6, and I've seen the pair going for £275.  Cause for and pause for thought!
Finally -
I am binge-watching "Doom Patrol" this fine Saturday morning, when I ought to be out walking Edna whilst it isn't raining - after this, I promise! - and it is deliciously bonkers.  It has the DNA of "The Umbrella Academy" about it, being a collection of disfunctional Special People - I hesitate to call them "Super Heroes" - but it pretty much disregards the Fourth Wall Convention, and what's with the intelligent talking cockroach?  I have a feeling this particular creature has a part to play.  Don't say you didn't see it coming.

Okay, okay, Cyborg Vic Stone is a super-hero.  There.  Happy now?

     After all, they did have a donkey's throat be the entry to a pocket dimension, and a Nazi puppet show, and have two of them get trapped inside a snow-globe - Trust me, it makes more sense when you watch it.