Delighting In The Little Things

Although Not In A Good Way, Frankly
By now you ought to know that Conrad, Your Humble Scribe and Modest Artisan, is a hair-splitting pedant of the very worst kind, who is always looking over your shoulder to ensure that your apostrophe is correctly placed, and that there are two full spaces between the full stop and the next capital letter.
     Grammar Nazi is the phrase, I believe, which is peculiarly appropriate.  Art?

     Hay Pesto, the meat of the matter tonight!  One of the classic 'Popcorn For The Eyes' films of the Sixties.  
     Of course, you immediately spotted the deliberate error here, didn't you?
     Didn't you?
     <convulses in delight at being able to get one over on you, the reader>
     Okay, that font on-screen is "Fraktur", a Germanic typeface that is sheer hell to write and read, and which we can cattle-prod Art into illustrating -

The horrendous script

     It is pretty much taken for granted that, if you see this script, you're looking at Nazi Germany in literary form.
     Here an aside.  I remember that The Skids got into quite hot water about their album "Days In Europa" because it featured symbolism from the Nazi 1936 Olympics, and they used the Fraktur font to title it, which, if Art can move off his waffle-patterned behind -

Very dubious Skids, very dubious.

     The thing is, the Nazis banned Fraktur in 1941, because it had altogether toooooo much Jewishness about it, and anything Jewish was like Garlic Kryptonite to a Vampire Superman in Nazi Germany at the time.  1936?  Okay.  1944 (the date of WED) - not at all.
     There you go, that's the first problematic issue.  The second concerns the very matter of the mission itself.  At 05:00 we see and hear Colonel Turner blathering on about how General Carnaby had come a cropper.
     "The Mosquito he was in crash-landed only ten miles away - ", after being intercepted by a random Luftwaffe patrol.

CAUTION!  Do not trust!

     Now, given that this whole operation is actually a giant sting that Turner doesn't know about, one has to ask,
1) How did the General manage to be at the intercept site at the right time in order to be shot down? 
2) Or did this Luftwaffe interception occur only in someone's fertile mind? 
3) What about the Mosquito, because it's a two-crew aircraft; what happened to the crew? 
4) Was there a crew? 
5) Did the General fly it himself? 
6) Or did the RAF scare up a pair of suicidal pilots who were happy to die in the cause of?
 - because the pilot and co-pilot of this presumed Mosquito are never mentioned.

A Mosquito

     I can now rest happy in having illustrated yet another Gaping Plot Hole to you, less observant types.  And you're welcome.  Okay, motley, bring on the popcorn!

Today's Transportation Tale
Just as an infinite number of chimpanzees hammering away on the old George IV typewriter will eventually reproduce the entire works of Enid Blyton*, just so First Bus will occasionally get things right, although usually by accident.
     And so this morning, the 409 turned up a minute early, and despite a couple of idiots who wanted to pay for a £17 bus pass with a suitcase of 1p coins, we got into Oldham Bus Station in time for my connecting bus.

The station of bus

     The journey into Gomorrah-in-the-Irwell (it being especially wet today) took only 30 minutes, which is a function of little traffic and few passengers at this time of day, and a telling contrast to last weeks hour and twenty minutes.      Don't get used to it, Conrad, this is purely a one-off, I tell myself ...

We Have Ways ...
Yes, back to this ever-entertaining podcast, which must at some point in the future become a casualty of both Jim and Al's hectic showbiz and writing careers.  So treasure it whilst you may.  I make sure to keep - what's that?  Who are they?  O very well -

James Holland, historian and author

     That's the pundit side covered.  And now for the enthusiastic amateur -

Al Murray, comedian and all-round scamp

     There, happy now?  you'd better be. 
     Where were we?  O yes.  I always keep pen and paper to hand whilst listening, for they are bound to come out with book titles worth investigating, and indeed they did so yesteryon:  Adrian Tooze, whom wrote "The Wages Of Destruction", about, as the tagline has it, "The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy".  It is, seemingly, an excellent read without being desert-dry.  Sadly I cannot in good conscience order it as I have already spent <cough cough> on books already this month.  Here's a picture for you.  Art!

Thus

     Of course, there's nothing to stop me from ordering it next month ...

     Grrrr!  The internet froze for a good few minutes there.  Conrad is angry!  VERY ANGRY!
     There, I feel better now.

"Robot Tunnel Quest"
I know this sounds like a rubbish computer game from the late Eighties, where the box art on the cover makes the game look cool and groovy, when in fact it's crudely pixelated with poor collision detection and no way to save, but it's not.

This was a real thing**.

     No, what I refer to is in fact the mother of the internet, DARPA, and their request for submissions of complex underground structures to them so they can carry out research.  Of course the conspiranoid loonwaffles exclaimed in excited horror, as their eyeballs swivelled madly, predicting the end of surface life on Earth, the coming of the Amero, Schwarzenneger as President and dogs and cats sleeping together.
     None of the above is true, or, if it is, I certainly didn't get the memo.
     No.  What DARPA want to do is test a variety of robots, in different environments, where humans might find it tricky or impossible to travel.  Art?

Not quite rise of the robots but on the way there.

     Thus, in situations like cavers trapped underground, or hostages held by terrorists, DARPA knows what technology works best with the where and when. 
     Of course, this doesn't forbid the possibility of Ol' Arnie becoming President ...
     And with that, we are done!
*  Yes?  You were expecting someone else?
**  It was a joke, yes, yet real.  And stunningly dull.