Did You Ever Wonder

About -
And there Your Humble Scribe hits a creative brick wall, as he has no idea what came next.  I realise this might be unusual, but we are dealing with my mind here, which is a kind of mental Wild West.  As the futurologist Gerry Anderson remarked upon the beginning of one of his shows, "Anything can happen in the next twenty minutes", which is my brain, except for "twenty minutes" substitute "absolutely years".  I set this up shortly before running for the bus at 06:08 this morning, because I cannot access the relevant website from my work PC -
     Where were we?
     O yes, Patagonia.  This is a geographical region shared between Chile and Argentina, at the very southern end of South America -
     No, hang on, we're not a travel site, are we?
     Rather than "Patagonia" what I meant was "51 Sci-fi Novels You Have To Read Before You Die", and we come to Number 3 on the list, which doesn't seem to have been assembled with any regard for alphabetical order.  Art!

A dystopian work, one imagines.

     Do you know, I have not read this.  I did catch a rather poor-quality torrent that seemed to be the latter part of the film, and was not especially impressed.  A lot of rushing about in lieu of dramatic tension.  Judging from the cover picture above, this will be about an horrid future with incredible overcrowding, resources running out, etcetera, where people escape reality by virtue of computer gaming.  One imagines that there will be lots of gaming in-jokes, which will go completely over the heads of us non-gamers, The End.

Patagonia

     Right, motley, break out the canoes, for we need to traverse the wide Atlantic en route to the Gonia of Pat!

"The Rocketeer"
Which is a whole lot more comely than "The Rocketer", which sounds more like a coal delivery driver with a backpack than heroic Bill Campbell -
     Anyway, Your Humble Scribe was struck by a thought in passing.  This might take a bit of explanation, so stick with me, hmmm?
     Okay, so part of the background plot is that Timothy Dalton CAUTION CAUTION THIS IS A BRITISH ACTOR HE MUST BE THE BAD GUY FOR SO IT IS WRITTEN NAY GRAVEN IN STONE ACCORDING TO HOLLYWOOD <ahem> Timothy Dalton is playing the lead in a costume period swashbuckling drama, where he is the <ahem again> "Laughing Bandit".  Art?

Take notes, Vulnavia

     Conrad is not sure if they are spoofing costume period swashbuckling dramas.  For why?  Well, this Laughing Bandit is protecting his real identity with a mask, which covers his eyebrows and precious little else.  Note that he does not cover up his enormous and highly distinctive permed mane, evidence that hairdressing had reached heights hitherto unknown to science in medieval times, or - are they spoofing again?  Art!

REVEALED!

     Compare the two.  Really, how could anyone not know who this Smirking Rascal is?  It's a bit like The Spirit, who also "protects" his identity with a ridiculously small mask.  Art!


Well done, Art.  I half expected a bottle of whisky.

     Thank you for listening.  I feel so much better now.  Next!

A Towering Challenge
For Lo! we are back to Lego, and that list compiled by Den Of Geek about 17 really, really difficult kits.  It's ages since we covered this, so I had to go back and check past blogs in order to find out where we were at, which seems to be after the Ghostbusters kit.
     So -
     Here an aside.  I've got two cryptic crossword clues unsolved, and I've not looked at them since getting off the bus, and I've just caught sight of the crossword.  Hang on a minute, if you will ...


     There you go, over three thousand pieces, and, as the site warns (or is it challenges!) you, they are all small and grey, making it extra-specially hard to complete it.  That above does not give a sense of scale, does it? so let me see if we can remedy that.

He looks a bit baffled, frankly

     This gives you a better impression of the build; a tower about a yard high made from a positive frothing ocean of tiny grey bits.  Why you would pay lots of money to put yourself through this hideously tortuous and prolonged process baffles Conrad, but then again submarine cave-diving.

     Meanwhile, back at the stadium -

WANNA DESTROY*!!

Let Us Change The Subject Completely
And have a look at a painting by that splendid artist Fortunino Matania.  He was born in Italy but later in life realised how wrong this was and came to live in the Pond of Eden.  Ol' Fort was a painter of some genius, who came to fame in the early years of the twentieth century and, when the First Unpleasantness broke out, became an official and accredited war artist.  Art?

Stunning stuff

     Known formally as "The Last General Absolution Of The Munsters", this depicts a real event prior to the battle of Festubert.  Here we see the 2nd Munster Fusilier's priest, Father Green, giving absolution to the regiment as they assemble in a hollow square.  They went on to suffer grievous casualties in the battle, but were one of only two battalions to gain the Teuton lines, where they wrought utter havoc with the bayonet**.
     That above is a real location, though exactly where is a matter of some doubt, and since Mister Matania left us fifty years ago, the answer must remain obscure.
     If you mention Fred Gwynne I shall come over and punch you.

Finally -
If the only thing you know Fred Gwynne from is "The Munsters" then you might be surprised to know he played quite a hard-case in "The Cotton Club", being the right-hand man to the top Harlem gangster Owney Madden, and also being quite comfortable with killing people.  Art?

Looking a bit sinister there, Fred

     He went to Harvard, you know, where he became editor of their humour publication, the "Harvard Lampoon", so you could say he was also a bit of a <ahem> funster.



* You better watch out, Ponsonby.
**  The regiment recruited from Cork and Kerry.  If you were the enemy and you heard the words "Fix bayonets!" in a Cork or Kerry accent, your days hours minutes were numbered.