Why Punk Rock Is The Sound Of SATAN!

As Is Frequently The Case With These Intro's -
- this one will take a while to develop.  So I hope you've had your porridge and pot of tea, as this will take all your concentration.
     Okay: model railway people!  A subculture you may have heard of, although probably not experienced.  Your Humble Scribe once went to a model railway exhibition at Rochdale College a good ten years ago, and was - surprise! - one of the youngest people there.  Art?

The kind of nonsense they promulgate

     Conrad distinctly remembers seeing a plinth stocked with DVDs about signal boxes, dozens and dozens of them.  A nice gig if you can corner a particular niche market, hmmm?
     Anyway, earlier today I had happened to Google "Disappearing train" for a visual shot of a train departing into the middle distance, as Your Humble Scribe and the motley had gotten to the station too late to catch it <sad face>.  This brought up a collection of curious images, which, if Art can put down his bowl of coal -

Thus

     Conrad, of course, was curious.  What did they refer to?  Clicking the link took me to a railway modeller's forum, and a link to a Youtube video of the "Disappearing Train".  Given that it was a video and requires a sequence of pictures to make sense, I don't know if I can quite convey the impact, but let's have a go.  Art?

Hopefully a little clearer

     Okay, here's a sequence of 5 shots I took of the Youtube clip.  Art?

Locomotive and first cars enter

Still entering

 

The last car enters - but where is the locomotive and the rest of the train?

Just starting to emerge

      There are about eight cars behind the locomotive, so it's not a short train.  The sharper of intellect and eye will have seen that although the train enters on one side of the tunnel, it emerges on the other track.  You can figure out from the explanatory track layout what happens - the train goes on a small loop under the tabletop level before coming up and out again, creating a delay of several seconds.
     The people on the forum weren't satisfied with the above layout, since it merely repeats the same thing over and over; so, they came up with an alternative layout that had 3 tunnels and random switching that would permit all sorts of different entering and emerging options.
     The very definition of "Going Underground", which is where we skip lightly back in time to the late Seventies and both The Jam and 2000AD.  Art?

Serious Young Men, Being Serious.

     Someone on the editorial staff at The Galaxy's Greatest Comic was a fan of the band, and they managed to get a feature off the ground called "Comic Rock", which was based around the theme of 'going underground'.  Art?

"Story suggested by The Jam's Going Underground"

     Artwork by Kevin O'Neill, Deranged plotline and characters by Pat Mills.  This is the first appearance of the frankly demonic-looking character Nemesis, although he remains in his Blitzspear spacecraft, so we don't see him in this story.  However, by the magic of retrospect - Art!

Admit it, he's pretty devilish.

     That was the only ever comic strip for "Comic Rock", though it did also feature the most definite anti-hero, Torquemada, who was a right twod.  Art?

Yeah, yeah, he's all torque torque.

     And there you have tonight's title, gentle reader.  
     Motley, shall we put on some liturgical plainsong chants, or some screaming rock and roll?  Your pick!

Your Daily Dose Of DANGER!
That is, if vicariously travelling by Terror Tube isn't scary enough for you.  Today we look - from a safe distance and with it beneath a fume-hood - at Antimony Pentaflouride.  Art?

Looks O so innocent, doesn't it?

     This stuff is not something to get close to, as the fumes it give off will immediately attack your eyes, nose and throat, and when I say "attack" I mean "Will corrode into organic sludge soonest", and if you managed to survive there's every possibility of contracting gangrene. 

Chemical burns are much too gruesome.  Have a happy bunny instead

 Of course, if you were rash enough to inhale it, you would die (hence the fume cupboard).  If you, by some incredibly chain of circumstance, were to consume it in liquid form, once again you'd die.  It's doubtful you'd ever mistake it for a can of Coke as it has to be stored out of contact with water, otherwise it EXPLODES! and releases incredibly toxic hydrogen flouride.  If the container you thought it was safely held in gets heated, once again it can explode and rupture the container, whereupon you have an explosively-propelled missile venting poison gas.  Good luck dealing with that one.

CAUTION!  Chemical fires not suitable for marshmallow toasting

     And we haven't even covered Fluoroantimonic Acid yet <shudders> because that's a real shocker.

"The Fog Of War"
Your Modest Artisan is unsure who coined this phrase; possibly Von Clausewitz, he was a clever rascal when it came to war and warfare.  It means the confusion inherent in war, which has been present since Day One, warfare being an essentially chaotic act that generals try to make conform to plans and processes.  
     Why do I raise the subject? <because you need a bit of filler to hit the Compositional Ton! - the horrid truth courtesy Mister Hand> No!  Er - well, sort of yes, BUT ALSO because of my English Civil War game that is about to enter Turn Seven.  Playing solo means I know what the other side intends, yes; but a decent rule set will also make it's processes such that nothing is guaranteed.  Art?

We have moved on from here

     In real life on an ECW battlefield you would have difficulty communicating between different commanders of different units.  Orders can go astray, not be issued at all or be misinterpreted when they do arrive.  Since few of your soldiers are professionals, their reaction to the unexpected - or even the very expected - is unpredictable.  The banners and drums that you can't see above (because I've not done any really close-up shots) had a practical aim; to enable soldiers to know where to rally and which direction to march in.  There was a very real FOW on these battlefields since the black powder used for muskets and artillery created great clouds of dense smoke, and if there was little to no wind, you ended up stumbling forwards (or sideways) into the unknown.  Art?

A contemporary illustration

     And with that, we are done!