The Pains I Take -

Call Me A Completist
Or obsessive, I don't care either way; what I did hope was to begin this blog about half an hour ago, except I've been busy busy busy, the subject matter I'm researching being Gerry Anderson's "U.F.O."  Yes, again!  I've got enough stuff to stiff you, frankly, so don't think you're getting away with NOT hearing all about it.

Conrad, busy being inscrutable

     Firstly, yesteryon I was harping on about "Close Up" and an unmanned space probe that follows a UFO all the way home, just like that little piggy.  The thing is, it's very difficult to find a relevant picture from the series by Googling.  If you include "UFO" in the term you're searching for, you are guaranteed to be overwhelmed by a tidal wave of tawdry tat purveyed by basement-dwelling, tinfoil-hat wearing, swivel-eyed loons.
     So!  The picture I posted was a bit of a gamble.  Still, it's nice to be proven right.  Art?

No better resolution available
(Which is a bit ironic, considering)

     That's the B142 space probe, and we can now wow you with the cutting-edge hi-tec electronic telescope that the probe is carrying.  Art, again!

Nothing to scale it by, though I expect it's pretty whopping

     "Phew!" I can hear you sigh with relief.  "We're glad that's over!"
     Hold your horses.  Did you not notice the word "Firstly"?  For there is more to come.
     Secondly, I would like to consider the alien technology that we see displayed, especially in terms of ordnance.  I took considerable pains to obtain footage of the brief battle coming at the end of "Computer Affair", which, if Art will put down his lunch of coal -

Note the blast of Something to the port side of this frame

The blast of Something continues on it's merry way

     This is clearly NOT a laser weapon of any description, since the beam travels relatively slowly.  Slowly enough that, were you a few hundred yards away, you could try and dodge it.  This supposed-weapon makes a mess of anything it hits, mind you, as one of the SHADO Mobiles discovers.  Conrad suspects it's a jet of plasma, launched via an induction system, powered by the UFO's internal power plant; oodles of ergs thus available to generate and propel your plasma charge at the opposition.
     When it comes to personal weapons, our chums the UFO crew are armed with something considerably less advanced, and Conrad gloats at how he got such a good shot (do you see what - O you do) of the hardware, which, if Art can stop snacking out of the coal bunker - 

That sound you can hear is me, gloating

     This weapon functions like a machine-gun, firing solid projectiles at high-velocity and a pretty high rate of fire.  What helps the SHADO operatives tracking this tricky blighter is that, as in all war films and television shows ever, Mister Orange doesn't bother to aim, just shoots from the hip.
     Your Humble Scribe can see this as being a perfectly effective weapon at close range, since Mister Orange can't hump around a power-plant that serves as an interstellar-capable engine in order to launch plasma bolts at his enemies.
     Thirdly - don't groan so, I'm nearly finished with this Intro - there is the matter of actually finding still photos of what I'm after.  "Computer Affair" is very much an exception as it's available in full (if subtitled in Italian), so getting pictures is relatively easy.  Other episodes?  Not so much.  They've nearly all been deleted from Youtube, after being put up some time ago, so what I wanted to find isn't necessarily there.
     Don't worry, we shall come back to this!

Come on, chaps, it's not THAT bad!

A Window On The Past
It has suddenly struck me that the collected short stories of Lord Peter Wimsey that I am reading, at least the earlier ones, hearken back to the days of the official histories of British divisions in the Great War, and when they were published.  As you know I am always reading one of these histories and am working on that of the 23rd Division, just so you know.  Dorothy L. Sayers' stories about the aristocratic sleuth are getting on for a hundred years old, you know, in their earlier iterations.

Ol' Dot, when she was a Young Dot.  More of a comma, in fact.*

     I bothered to make notes whilst reading "The Adventurous Exploits Of The Cave Of Ali Baba", because did I mention I'm an obsessive completist yet?  So - the firm of "Bunn and Fishett" may very well have existed back in 1928 when Lord Peter contracted them to fit out his strong-room and secret safe, yet they don't seem to be around any longer.  One supposes a company can vanish over the space of 91 years.
     The "Court-Windlesham Helicopter", whose plans remain un-stolen by the sinister criminal Society, is a more problematic concept.  Conrad is unsure exactly when the parent short story was written, though the odds are that it was before 1933, and I really don't want to spend even more time on background, so we shall go with that timeline.
Art!  Less coal more goal!

The Focke-Wulf 161

     This is the first commonly accepted helicopter, a Teuton machine dating from 1936, or several years after Messrs. Court and Windlesham's plans were due to be stolen.  A bit of a disconnect there, hmmmm Dot old gel?
     Still it's a minor niggle that only a completist obsessive would ever pick up on, eh?

Finally -
I did have more to say on the subject but I can see your brains beginning to glaze over, so we shall move on.
     "BANNS" was the answer to a Cryptic Crossword clue, and - ever one to muse - I stopped to note the word down.  Where does it come from?
     I should explain that it is the declaration of a couple about to be wed, usually announced in church on three successive Sundays, presumably to see if anyone objects to matrimony going ahead**.

In this case, clearly not

     The derivation is from Middle English and traces it's ancestry back to Old French, for which detail we can thank Ol' Wiki, as my Collins Concise lacks that level of detail.  Sorry, Collins Concise.
     So, you might say if you're banning it, then you're going ahead with it***.



*  Grammatical joke for you there.
**  Yah booh sucks to anyone who does object!
***  Ouch.  Sorry.