Play MISTY For Me

Ha!  Do You See What I Did There?



<crickets and tumblewood*>



     Sheesh.  Sometimes I'm too clever for my own good, eh?  I suppose you do have to be of a certain vintage to recall the Clint Eastwood feature, which was rather out of the mould of his laconic tough-guy thrillers.  Not only that, is was the first film he directed, and he starred as  -
     A radio DJ.  Hardly the knuckle-dragging brute you'd expect, hmmm?  Art?

He played jazz.  Lots of jazz.

     Not only was it his first film, he came in under budget and ahead of schedule, which are two of the things that studios love to hear about any production under their roof.  There would have been 0% trouble for getting Clint's next feature on the go -
     Which, of course, is nothing to do with what I really wanted to talk about, which does concern Misty, or "a" Misty, except this one is no jazz standard.
     Rather, it is the project title for a sequence of satellites launched into Earth orbit by the South Canadian National Reconnaissance Office, so these satellites are indubitably spy ones.  Art?

Deploying from right to left

     As you can see, once the satellite is in the correct orbit, it deploys a stealth drogue that conceals it from visible and electronic observation; the actual coating would be matt black, so it wouldn't stand out, and it deflects radar rather than reflecting it, so the Ruffians opposition don't know where it is nor when it's overhead.
     The last Misty launched wasn't quite 100% stealth, as ground-based observers could glimpse snatches of it if the reflective conditions were correct; at least until it was announced that it had burned up in the upper atmosphere <sad faces>.

Technical guesswork gubbins

     Except this was a lie; years later people got glimpses of a still very-much alive Misty, which had been aloft all this time, keeping a sneaky peeky electronic eye upon the opposition.  "Ooops it died" obviously to make people lose interest; well, sinister South Canadian spy agencies, do you see what you did there?  Yes, you instantly and permanently enthused and validated all the loonwaffles out there who insist that everything is a conspiracy theory.

"Try stopping us!" they replied

     Doubtless there are some swivel-eyed bumbletucks out there even as I type who are blaming water fluoridation, colony collapse syndrome and how they stubbed their toes this morning on Misty.  Misty Misty Misty.  Blame Misty for me, you might say.
     Ah, but, if only they knew about ZUMA! <cackles quietly to self>
     Motley, do we have time to catch the 03:10**?

Perhaps not

If I Were To Say "Stuart Stripping" -
WASH OUT YOUR DIRTY MINDS!  Conrad is unaware of any female celebrities with the surname "Stuart" but doubtless there are some, and you should be ashamed of yourselves.
     No, I am referring to that always interesting blog that Dave Lister maintains, where he ferrets out intriguing and interesting information about matters martial, and one of his very latest articles is about variants of the South Canadian Stuart tank, which SIT BACK DOWN! it is interesting, it is.

http://overlord-wot.blogspot.com/2020/04/stuart-stripping.html

     That's the link to his article, which deals with Stuart tanks used without a turret.  I shall first show you one with a turret.  Art?

M5 Stuart with added hull armour

     The Stuart was only good for reconnaissance as it was but lightly armed, nor did it have a lot of armour plate.  On the other hand, it was reliable and extremely nippy for a tank - up to 35 m.p.h. on the flat.  You could therefore get 40 m.p.h. out of a recce version with several tons of turret removed, which is what you want when sneaking and peeking, if you can't be invisible.  Art?
     Here you can see three of the recce variety dubbed "T8", all with turret removed and with a pintle-mounted machine gun in place.  Not only quicker, but a lower profile, which again helps to be sneaky and peeky and, if well-oiled, not at all squeaky.
     If you want to know a lot more than this, with more pictures, head on over to Listy's blog.

Back To That "Rolling Stone" List Of The 50 Best Television Sci-Fi Shows
I'm not sure what number we've hit by now; somewhere in the thirties, I think.  Art?
     Ah!  Number Thirty Seven.  Art, again -

Arthur and Ford

     Conrad remembers hearing this on the radio when it first came out, and was of the opinion that it was bonkers but entertaining, and ever so very British.  They even made a film of it.  So it's gone from cult hit to critical success to global domination.  

Some of the evocative television graphics***

     Expect another remake of the film in about twenty years, when the Hollywood suits have run out of ideas again.  If they can't manage the whimsy and charm of Mr. Adams' original, there will be trouble.
     Whilst on that page, I wonder what's Number Thirty Six?
     Ah!  No.  Not going to tell you.

Finally -
Well, I did explain that today was my day off, and you'd get two posts if you were both lucky and good, so here we are.  I've also had my lunch, so I don't need to churn out some specious rubbish thanks to hunger pangs.  
     Damn this coronavirus!  I was doing the weekly shop last night, and checked out the Manchester Evening News.  It's rather skimpy compared to the pre-crisis editions, and - once again - no crosswords or codewords.
     HORRORS!  NO CROSSWORDS!  NO CODEWORDS!
     No need to call the UN's Cultural Relief Agency; I still have 157 crosswords left to do in last year's birthday present of "Collins Big Book Of Crosswords #5".  
Plus, I've still got the book of Codewords I bought at this time last year, in order to have something to pass the time whilst en route to Barcelona.

Thus

     Most of the puzzles give you 3 letters; I've just done with with only 2 letters given to you, and the next has only a single letter, erk!  I recall the last single-letter one being especially difficult, Your Humble Scribe going for "MUCUS" when it was actually "MACAW".

Macau.  Close enough.

     And that concludes this afternoons session of wibble wrapped in piffle.  Tot siens!

*  Like tumbleweed but more intense
**  An in-joke reference to THE ORIGINAL AND ONLY THE ORIGINAL.
***  What?  You were expecting graphics from the radio broadcast?  Fools!