Ramming It

Bear With Me, This May Take A While
Which, if you are stuck indoors twiddling your thumbs after being ordered home from the office, may not be a bad thing.
     Okay, I was a bit peeved on Tuesday afternoon when I popped into Waterstones on the way home, to see if they had Professor Peter Caddick-Adams' opus on D-Day, "Sand And Steel", because they didn't.  Art?

<hands get sweaty>

     Okay, this is Mental Contortion #1: I already have his rather excellent "Snow And Steel", which is about the Ardennes offensive of December 1944, and it's interesting to see someone put a new slant on an event that has been covered so many times before.
     This led to Mental Contortion #2: as ever, Your Humble Scribe's mind flashed back to visions of that epic white elephant war film, "The Battle of the Bulge", which is probably one of the most inaccurate war films ever made.  In fact I once did a critique for "The Agony Booth" website once, which might still be knocking around in an old folder somewhere.  Art?

British actor.  American tank.  Spanish landscape.

     It's one of those films that you cannot watch in the company of a military history anorak, nor a wargamer, as their incessant strident shrieks of dismay and anger at the inaccuracies on-screen will give your migraine a migraine.
     The bit that Conrad finds so laughable is when Telly Savalas's character, Sergeant Guffy <bites knuckles to avoid laughing>, protests to a senior officer when his shattered tank is ordered out of combat.  Art?

"A spanner, a crowbar, some grease - then we'll be back in business!"

     "We can still ram them!" is his plaintive argument (I think he was suffering from concussion).  No, Guffy, this is not naval warfare in the trireme age.   
     Anyway, all this has barely anything to do with the rams I really wanted to talk about, because - well, carry on below.
     Hey, motley, shall we go out and shepherd some sheep?  You know, ewes and -

Top 50 Television Sci-Fi Shows: Number 48
"Red Dwarf"

I tried to get both ship and crew in

     This program and Conrad go way back.  I remember seeing the first episode when it came out - yes I am that old - and being both intrigued and amused, because science fiction comedy is not the easiest thing in the world to pull off.  Why, I even have a stack of the short-lived "Red Dwarf Smegazine" in a cupboard somewhere.  Art?

You had to be there.

     All this is by way of a set up, because what I wanted to focus on was the Red Dwarf ship itself.  Art?

Sic

     Now, that enormous skeletal structure on the front is not a Galactic Cow-Catcher.  No.  It is, in fact, what is known as a "Bussard Ramscoop".  You can't see it, but an enormously enormous electromagnetic field is being generated by this broadcast mechanism, which captures hydrogen molecules as found in interstellar space. This is not because hydrogen atoms are rare and precious and can be polished and put on a stand in your living room.  No: it is because that self-same electromagnetic field that captures them can squish them together so hard and fast that it causes atomic fusion of the hydrogen, which is then used to propel whatever the ramscoop is mounted upon.

Like this

     It's a very ingenious idea, and has lots of applications in science fiction, which I may detail in a later post, except that a lot of physicists since it was proposed - which was seventy years ago so it has quite a legacy - have done some serious number-crunching and found that it would very probably not work in real life <sad face>.
     So there we have ramming.

More Of James Holland Takes Over The World
(Him and his brother, that is) Unlike most aspiring tyrants, you don't need to say that title with a lot of sinister reverb and a maniacal cackle at the end, as Ol' Jim is restricting his takeover to military history.
     Anyway, he had an impressive work come out last year, called "Normandy '44", which is not merely about D-Day - pffft! as if! - but the campaign that came afterwards, which lasted for 77 days.  Art?

Sic

     It comes highly recommended as it takes a swing at, and busts, a lot of the myths that have accreted around the campaign.
     And it's been adapted as a three-part television series, coming in May!  Ol' Jim himself put out a bit of publicity on "We Have Ways ..." about it.  In fact, there is a way to get a special preview before it comes out, offering you the opportunity to give critical feedback.  I'm not going to display the link because I want to apply and I'm selfish like that.
     Your Humble Scribe is - interested!

Jim, in scrim

More Of Those Amusing "Generic Book Covers"
This time the BBC has a wry look at the literal and metaphorical heavyweights, with the following illustration displaying both.  Art?

The wish is father to the thought*.

     As they say, this gets across the idea that this is A BIG IMPORTANT AUTHOR WITH A BIG IMPORTANT BOOK, even if it's utter twaddle.  Especially if it's utter twaddle!  No hackneyed photographs here, gentle reader (plus this way it's a lot cheaper).

We've Been Here Before -
In fact an earlier iteration of this Lego build was what brought my attention to the whole Lego sub-culture.  The gift that keeps on giving, since it has generated so much content for BOOJUM! <gazes thankfully in the direction of Denmark, where they invented Lego>.  Art?

Only relatively impressive

     As you can see,this kit has 3,296 pieces, and is at the Not-Quite-Expert level.  It does look to have a whole load of accoutrements - cranes and ramps and droids and so on - and I'm not sure if it's motorised or not.  Wait one -
     Nope, doesn't seem to be.  No mention of batteries required.  Art?

Yeah, not bad.  But - you know what?

     Let's look at the really big model.

10,000 bricks at who knows what cost.

     And with that, we are done!


*  There you go, that's me being all literary and heavyweight.