Per Ardua -

Ad Astra
Or, if you prefer living languages, "Through Hardship to the Stars", which happens to be the motto of the Brylcreem Boys, or the R.A.F. if, once again, we're being formal.  
     Why this referral to a motto that was adopted 101 years ago?*
     No, it's nothing to do with "The Guns Of War", the memoir I am currently reading - though we will be coming back to that, O yes indeed. 
     I refer to that cerebral sci-fi thriller "Ad Astra", which I went to see last night.  Art?

Brad Astra

     Don't worry, as is good practice here on the blog we shall not be posting spoilers, merely some observations.
     One is that this future is pretty well obsessed with finding aliens out there.  Not only is there the Lima Mission, intended to get well out into the Solar System and scope out distant worlds for life; we also have the show-stopping International Space Antenna, which is depicted in one of those classic Pull-Back Moments, as you realise Oh Crud It's Not An Orbiting Structure.

"Hey!  I can see your house from up here!"

     We see the commercialisation and militarisation of space, most especially the Moon, which seems to have been turned into just another rather shoddy imitation of Las Vegas.  Art?

Look at upper starboard

     You can just make out the sign of "Vegas Vic", which, if Art can get off his waffle-patterned behind -

Sic, Vic

     Probably too vague and indistinct for the film-makers to have to give credit to the Pioneer Hotel's trademark icon.  But we know better, eh, readers?
     There is an interesting concept about how the Moon's lack of national boundaries or borders, natural or otherwise, has led to a free-for-all reminiscent of the California Gold Rush, with bodycounts to match.  Who's to say it won't happen that way?

The Deadwood Stage circa 2175

     We also get to see a settled Mars, although the Red Planet is at the fringe of civilisation here, more concerned with survival than turning a tourist dollar.  There are canals.  There.  I spoiled it for you.  An essential plot point, mind.
     Overall the tone is pretty bleak, and it deals as much with what goes on in people's heads as bright shiny rockets, nor does it baby you about the future - you work out what this or that artefact is and how it got there - but at the end it does finish hopefully.
     Now, I'll be as coy as the above for a few weeks yet, and then we'll begin to break down, analyse and discuss AA in detail, so you'd better go see if you don't want things spoiled for you!

Plus, Project Orion reference!

     There you go, BOOJUM! - up to the second in contemporary art.
     Now, motley, shall we binge-watch "The Creature From The Black Lagoon" and it's sequels?
And from the literally sublime to the base and odiferous -

"Holiday Magic"
Yes indeedy, from the heavens to human greed and lust.  I refer, of course, to another criminal enterprise springing from the fertile soil of South Canada, the land of both the free and the not-so-free, being as the latter are in prisons.
     The company above were formed in 1964 by a <ahem> businessman, one William Patrick, who had a bankruptcy and a string of failed business efforts behind him.  Not an auspicious beginning, you might think, and you'd be right.  Art?

Conrad unsure what these "principles" were - "Rip off your customers and scam to the max"?

     Matey's iconic and definitive pyramid scame - really, it's so iconic they use it in legal textbooks as a prime example of the Multi-Level Marketing/Pyramid Scheme - performed as we have seen these deceits do in the past: beginning slowly, they become and more successful, despite increasingly negative feedback, and then the Free Trade Commission gets involved and the whole con comes to a screeching halt and falls over dead in 1974.  In doing so it mimicked it's founder, as Patrick himself had fallen over dead in 1973.  Probably executive stress.  There were few mourners for either him or a company that had swindled about 80,000 people out of - waitforitwaitforit - £155 million.

The magic holiday destination for HM's upper management

     Aren't the frailties and failings of humanity so much more interesting than people being nice to each other?
And Now - We Get Wet
Only by allegory, as Your Humble Scribe is in fact sat indoors at his desk, safely dry if a little warm, and for all my colleagues who insist it's cold THERE'S SOMETHING WRONG WITH YOU NOT ME.  Thank you.
     A couple of weeks ago I came across a BBC item which confirmed every suspicion that denizens of the Pond of Eden have about their climate, namely that it is disgustingly damp and soggy, because it listed  a parade of lexicography about the general theme of "Wet".
   Let us illuminate and educate.  First up -
"Cloudburst": an extremely heavy, localised downpour of short duration.  Refer to "Cloudburst at Shingle Street" by the incomparable Thomas Dolby for a poetic example.

Shingle Street, pre-deluge

"Spitting" or "Picking": the light rain that characterises the pre-walloping down stage of rainfall, "Picking" being the Welsh equivalent. "Mizzle" or "Smirr": A fine, misty drizzle, that soaks you completely and thoroughly in a treacherously underhand manner.  See also "Scotch Mist".

Stuck in the mizzle with you

"Letty":  Apparently local dialect from the South-West, where it means rain so intense it makes work difficult - i.e. it won't let you.  The perfect excuse for lazy gardeners!**

Letty.  Conrad not sure about this one - I'll have a gentle word with Art ...

     I think that's enough damp for one item.  I mean, it's not like we ever have a shortage of the stuff as it falls from the heavens!

Finally -
Another of my grizzles about a crossword clue and solution.  I did, of course - of course! - complete this morning's Cryptic in The Metro, so my concern is for you, the reader, who is not as irredeemably clever as wot I am.
     "Polish statue for boundary (7)" was the clue. 
     Can you guess what it is?  I'll give you a clue:

Obvious, nicht war?

     RUBICON the answer, and if you don't know the significance of that, we'll go into it tomorrow.

      And with that, we are done!

*  And on the First of April, no less.  The R.A.F. never likes to be reminded of this
**  Of which I am one