The Rodent's Revenge

This Will Take A Bit Of Working Out
It comes of, once again, swanning around on Youtube and looking at whatever seems interesting, and our views of "Interesting" might well differ.  A canal inclined plane?  A dam collapsing?  Challenger II tanks parading triumphantly through the streets of Moscow London?  "Yes please" exclaims Conrad, as the rest of you frown and tut.

Ooops, I think I scared someone.

     Anyway, what I spotted was an animated graphic file that illustrated various "(mostly science) Fictional Vehicles", in order of gradually increasing size.  It's by MetalBall Studios, and I've seen another of their videos in a similar style, detailing Science Fiction spaceships in gradually increasing size.

     I'm not sure that this qualifies as a tank, because that enormous piece of ordnance appears to be mounted in barbette, not a turret.  It also seems to have a lot of blind spots.  And what happens to the crew in that smaller sub-turret when the Big Gun fires?  Tanks being tanks, how are you going to recover it when it breaks down, how do you change a road wheel or track links, and what is it's mileage per gallon?
     If I prod that shiftless layabout Art, we may get -

I think that's someone dancing atop the tank.  I could be wrong.

     Going back to the MBS version, you can see that this fictional foehammer has been inspired by a real-life tank, the infamous Teuton "Maus" of the Second Unpleasantness.  Art?

Maus with puny humans for scale

     There is proof enough that the Teutons do have a sense of humour, or at least full-fledged Continental irony, for why else would you call a vehicle of 188 tons after one of the smallest animals extant?
     I have more of MBS's animation to show you.  Art?  Less coal more goal!

"Imperial Land Tank"

     This vehicle was completely foreign to Your Humble Scribe; it certainly didn't appear to be from any film or television program he was familiar with, the reason being that it's from a computer game called "Destiny", if my Google-fu was up to scratch last night.  Let us see if we can get a full-colour version.  Art!

The best I can find

     Now, looking at this monstrous behemoth, you might well purse your lips and snort in derision, because of course nothing like this has ever been built in real life, right?  
     Right?
     Wellllllll don't be so hasty to dismiss it, or the concept behind it.  We have mentioned the Teuton "Ratte" before - O what hilarious irony! naming a 1,000 ton vehicle after the next biggest creature up from a mouse - and if we poke Art awake with a fish-fork -

Ratty and tatty

     I suppose with the Imperial Land Tank you've got nuclear-powered engines and anti-gravity and <thinks> Unobtanium armour as well as laser cannons and plasma fields and - all sorts of hand-waving stuff that would allow it to work.
     Whereas in real life, the Ratte never got off the drawing board.  Supposedly it would have been powered by a pair of U-boat diesel engines, and mount an unused battleship turret.  "Look!" said the designers, "We took out the third barrel, which saves 50 tons overall weight!"

The ultimate accolade for an Armoured Fighting Vehicle - they made a kit of it
(not so sure about the flying saucers, though)

     It would have had a very severely limited radius of action, not simply because it would guzzle up, say, a gallon of fuel every second, but because it couldn't cross bridges or rivers or enter tunnels.  You couldn't hide it and a squadron of Lancasters armed with Tallboys would either have hit it and reduced it to iron filings, or cratered and camoufleted the ground around it so much it got either bogged or fell into a cavern.
     Then again, it may all have been a huge and ironic joke, with Adalbert laughing himself sick at his drawing board.
     Of course, I may be overthinking this ...

Conrad: the poster boy for overthinking
(With extra added pens)

     Okay, motley, let the mobility-scooter jousting commence!

Ah, The Youth Of Today!
Your Humble Scribe was looking forward to a Bank Holiday as of Monday the 4th of May, only to be told on his daily conference-call with colleagues (I'm so up-to-the-minute) by Frances that it had been moved, to Friday the 8th of May.
     Okay, moved.  A holiday is still a holiday, however, so the question is why?
     "The Eighth is V.E. Day," said Frances, to which Conrad nodded sagely, and the younger folk on the call looked perplexed.
     "What is V.E. Day?" asked Fifi.
     Well, I'm glad you asked!  It stands for "Victory in Europe Day" and marks the day when - let's have a picture, Art - 

Happy shiny people

      - the forces of Herr Schickelgruber, who was long dead by then, laid down their arms in unconditional surrender.  Hah, take that, you pikers!  Field Marshall Montgomery, CIC British Liberation Army, was spectacularly horrid to the unfortunate trio of Teutons who came to sign the Instrument of Surrender, so much so that he reduced one of them to tears*.

Actually took place 04/05/1945

     This year will mark 75 years since the event, so be dutiful and acknowledge the Sinister soldiers who helped us to get there, too**.

  Having a vicarious laugh yesteryon at r/Reddit about dreadful jobs that people hated, one of the earliest ones was also one of the best (or worst, if you like), thus:

A Bloody Awful Job
No!  We are SFW - this is a literal description.  The poster worked at a medical recycling centre, which is where all the sharps bins full of used syringes, cotton waste stained with blood, used IV tubing also full of blood, used scalpel blades, soiled bandages - more blood, and other horrid icky stuff goes.  Art?
                  

     Our poster's job was not to process the mountains of vile garbage you see above; rather it was to clean out the recycling plant, which was always aswill with blood.  What unabated joy this must have been in summer ...
     And, to cap it all, the facility (which makes it sound good) had an infestation of -
     - rats!
     Which continues the theme of rodents for today.

Finally - 
I think it's time to wrap up that fruitful source of inspiration, Abebook's "Retro Monsters of Sci-Fi", as we're nearly at the end of the various book covers they've featured there.  The last one I want to put up is by the esteemed Manly Wade Wellman, an author sadly neglected nowadays, and if you get the chance to read "Who Fears The Devil", take it.  Okay, Art?

The perils of being a curious pilot

     That title is a bit misleading; the "Giants From Eternity" are a bunch of super-scientific whizz-blokes, not the giant red blobby monster on the dustjacket, as Conrad had fondly imagined.  The novel is actually about a species of 'red blight' spreading from a meteor impact, which <gasps and gurgles> presents a threat to all life on Earth, as it consumes all the handy-sized cheese portions at the supermarket organic matter, at a guess.  This is a pretty common trope in sci-fi; I wonder if MWW was first to come up with it?   First published 1959, so it's possible.  I haven't read it myself; however, if it was written by MWW then it will be classy and erudite (whatever cheapass illustration they bodged up for the cover).

The Man

     And on that note, let us escape from the rat-ridden Island Of Doom on our raft made out of inflated moose-skins! - hang on, should that be "mouse-skins"?

*  Heh!
**  Ooops, sorry, got sensible and serious for a moment.

I Don't Know, I Really Don't

Let Me Be Candid
I am here, in disguise, plotting to take over your world so that my foot-dragging comrades in the starship invasion fleet (and they have been dragging their pedal extremities, no question about it, the slackers) can land and back me up.

It's a good question but you ought to be wondering about humanity, matey.

     However, this anticipated assault does rest upon one major predicate: that Hom. Sap. will still be around on Glorious Conquest Day.
     Given your species' inherent stupidity, this is not a given.  
     We have recently mocked the FiveGees, who frankly need all the invective possible ladled o'er them, the bumbletucks.  Art?

It looks like a cheap alien from Seventies 'Doctor Who'

     I suppose what we're witnessing here is the hard core of really, really dedicated idiots who spend the first thirty minutes of their day banging their head against a wall "to get rid of all the bad thoughts", and who proceed from there.  They will boil a kettle on their gas hob, not daring to ever use anything electronic, "Because microwaves give you mind-warts", then go sit in the lounge, which has been fitted with a mesh wiring to form a giant Faraday cage "because They send out mind-control rays from plug sockets", toasting a piece of bread over their fire, which is fuelled by copies of print newspapers "which is cheaper than coal" -
     You get the picture.

CAUTION! A Faraday-shielded bed is a Red Flag in any potential relationship!

     In gradually increasing proximity to reality and normality, there will be other bumbletucks who'd never consider actually burning stuff down, and will only ever egg other nutters on; then others who will only interact on social media, as they are only brave behind a keyboard; then you have the ones who thoroughly approve of the arson attempts, but who restrict themselves to merely nodding approvingly.  And last of all you have the people who don't want to give up their 4G phone unless they have to, as it's an emotive issue more than it is about money.  Art?

I am assured this is a 4G phone.

      If you cast your mind back last year, then you'll remember an analogous situation about Area 51.  There were two million people in the "Storm Area 51" social media group.  Yet how many turned up?  A hundred and fifty, or one for every ten thousand "Hell yeah I'm going gonna smash the system up unless Mom locks me in the basement again".
     Let me confirm your fellow human's rashness.  Extremely heavy rains bring flooding, right?  Okay, check this picture out.  Art!

Okay, Vulnavia, spot the boat.

     Can you see these two vehicles here?  One is a boat and the other is not.  The boat is afloat; the car is not.  A car is not designed to swim*, and it will let the water in.  In fact, if your car fills up with water rapidly, it will probably sit squarely on the road and not be floated off downstream and out into the Channel.

Once more: this is not a boat

     THIS HAS BEEN A PUBLIC INFORMATION SERVICE.  
     Please, be careful, look after yourselves now that the rains are back, and ensure you and your offspring live to become mindlessly enslaved drone minions**!

Breaking Off Is Hard To Do
For Lo! we are back to frangible street architecture, as I did threaten.  I have a couple of stills from "Practical Engineering" that illustrate a point well.  Art?

Behold and beware

      From the looks of the remnants here, this was some sporty model capable of high speed, and the impact must have been at very high speed, seeing as how the most massive and solid part of a car, the engine block, has either been destroyed or is now in the rear passenger seats.  As Grady clarifies, if the street furniture is rooted in a well-cemented base, then whatever hits it is going to come off worst.
     This is why frangibles exist.  Art?

     Here a street sign's support strut breaks at ground level, where it has a built-in junction designed to break apart in case of a high-speed impact.  The car involved might have big dents and scratches, but it won't be cloven in twain (that L&L article I mentioned yesteryon was being ingenuous; the street-light being described was merely intended to break at the base, not fly over the car that hit it).
     As someone I know in passing has remarked once or twice - human beings, quite my favourite species!

That's a lot of words.  Let's have something short and pithy.  Ah!  Speaking of poles - 

Pierogi
I think that's how it's spelled, and since the translated recipe instructions are downstairs in the kitchen and I'm up here in my Sekrit Layr, my guessing will have to do.
     The word is Polish, and means "Dumplings".  Art?

     And here are the two I made last night.  Conrad suspects he didn't make the pastry correctly, as it was pretty much shortbread.  The contents were a bit dry, too, which comes of having made it days before.  
     All in all, a qualified success.  The thing is, I now have buckets of filling left over.  Lunch ahoy!

A Picture Of Disappointment
But first, back to that Rolling Stone list of the 50 Best Sci-Fi Series On Television Ever.  And no, Vulnavia, you will never, ever see "Galactica 80" on that list, in case you were wondering.
     We are now down to, or up to, depending on your perspective, Number 35, and "V".  Art?

My Edition

     O I was excited!  Because I'd recently finished reading "Gravity's Rainbow" and could hardly believe my various sense apparati; here was an obscure South Canadian author, who wrote spectacularly complex fiction with a huge cast of characters and some very tut-tut scenes, and here Hollywood was -
     O.  No, it wasn't a television series of the novel.  Instead we got -

This

     Which was okay for the first series, even if they did hammer home the historical echoes with a lump hammer and cold steel chisel at times; Your Humble Scribe put his disappointment aside and enjoyed it for the romp it was.  They should have left it at one series, but you know Hollywood suits, if it smells remotely of money they will not merely flog the dead horse, they will strips it's flesh and make soup out of it.
     Do you want a precis? O go on then.  Friendly smiling aliens <never EVER to be trusted> come to Earth and want our water, except beneath their attractive human faces lie an evil reptilianoid dictatorship.  They seize power, and only a gallant band of human resistance fighters can possibly defeat them!  Notable for one of the attractively human-faced alien leaders, Diana, enlarging her jaw in order to eat a rat whole.  Art?

I think it was live.  Fresher that way, you see

     There was a remake, which Conrad did not see and does not intend to see, and the less said about it the better, and I've already said too much.

Finally -
We've had enough of Conrad yarking and barking and mocking and <tries to think of an insulting work that rhymes with "Mocking", fails, weeps into coffee> shocking?  I guess I haven't been very shocking - aha!  I can remedy that.  Art?

How to scare cats the Paul Pogba way!

     This character is a ballfoot player at The United Manchester, or something, I really don't pay attention to minor ballfoot details.  The "Club" (stop me if I get too technical) paid the princely kingly emperorly sum of £89 million for him, and according to the fans, who know more about this than Conrad ever will, he's a lazy, greedy, uncommitted mercenary only interesting in "Daubing" and his haircut.  The Manchester United are in a bit of a quandary over him, since it would make sense for them to squeeze the last farthing's worth out of him.  However, he has all the presence of a tree on the pitch, so they also want to get rid of him.

He's vanished!  Vanished utterly - can you spot him?

   There were sums of £180 million being mentioned last year, mostly by Poggy and his sleazy agent.  These have now receded into the past and it looks like they might have to settle for as little as £70 or £80.  Pounds, not millions.

     There you go, utterly shocking, Conrad pronouncing on the ballfoot game!

Are we done yet?  We are?  Spiffing!


*  Unless it's a Schwimmwagen.

**  Readers of BOOJUM! are automatically let off.