- that Your Humble Scribe is a terrible person. During this coronacrisis, the BBC has been unable to post any sporting news articles with a Have Your Say attached to them, so I have been unable to gloat about people suffering misfortune. This has meant a recourse to r/Reddit on Youtube, where there are scads of such stories. Art?
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| Don't ask me, I have no idea |
There was one asking people what had happened at various businesses that are no longer with us, which were all South Canadian ones, some I'd heard of, some not at all. One despairing poster said that their employer, "iheartmedia", was still trading but unlikely to continue. Art!
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| Still beating, albeit faintly |
Conrad, curious as always, went online to check the company out. They started out as Clear Channel decades ago, buying up radio stations when they came up for sale, eventually ending up with 1,200 of them. That gave them a lot of clout. Note the past tense there. They were bought out in 2008 by a couple of investment firms, in what is known as a "Leveraged Buy Out" that loaded the company with £10 billion of debt, which gave it a clout. Not only that, the recession hit, as did digital broadcasting, and they filed for bankruptcy, because although they made a tidy profit, it was all eaten up by servicing that debt. They came out of bankruptcy last year and were listed on the Stock Exchange, at about £10 per share (down from £16 per at LBO time), which has since sunk to less than £4, so - they may yet tank completely again*!
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| Yes indeed |
It's not venom-laden invective, true, from frothing fans of the ballfoot game, but it will keep me ticking over in the meantime.
Bitten By The Coincidence Hydra AGAIN
Damn it, why must my buns be so delectably tasty that the nine-headed beast keeps sinking it's fangs in there? I do need them to sit down upon, you know.
Okay, what was I yarking on about yesteryon? Yes yes yes, whether it was feasible to put an aircraft carrier on tracks - after that, I was going on about Pimm's, and Pimm's Number 6, which was made with vodka.
What do I find as a crossword clue and solution?
What are the chances of that happening? as I believe Harry Hill likes to say. Spooky. Not enough excuse to post a tormenting picture of Dimya, sorry.
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| You can have this, though. |
A Short Answer
One of the things that Your Humble Scribe Cordially detests is a news article that asks a question in it's title, for example "Are Aliens On Mars Controlling Our Weather?" because IT'S YOUR JOB TO EXPLAIN THINGS, not pretend to consult us about an issue**. Here is another example. Art!
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| Also, they spelled "Korean" wrong. Thus, I am doubly irked! |
Okay, this is Youtube, not the BBC, so I shouldn't get quite so worked up. We are looking at the one subtitled "Modern North Korean Tanks. Are they a threat?"
No.
Thank You, Youtube
Because Conrad loves a challenge, especially if it doesn't involve getting out of his chair, I simply had to check out another Youtube channel, titled "10 Sci-Fi Films that nobody understands", and do you know what? None of them were "Akira". Plus, I've seen half of them and they made perfect sense to me. Now I have some recommendations for future viewing: "Southland Tales". Art?
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| Yes, that is The Rock. And Buffy |
I recall people discussing this on The Agony Booth, back when it had a forum, so I'm aware that it's pretty bonkers and incomprehensible - both big pluses for me! Then there's "Rubber". Art?
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| Hey - I make the puns round here! |
This one is about a sentient, homicidal car tyre. Conrad is unsure how utterly deadly a torus made out of rubber can be - which is a good reason for watching it. Then we have "Holy Motors", which is less about religion and cars than it is about someone being pretty bonkers on screen. Lots of improv, I'm old. Art?
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| CAUTION! Roses have thorns; do not try this at home |
Next is "Waking Life", which is completely rotoscoped, and if you're not sure what that is, check out the adaptation of Philip Kendred Dick's "A Scanner Darkly". WL is about an individual having a series of dreams, except it's not clear which bits are dreams and which aren't, none of which is helped by the rotoscopy (yes, Blogger, that's a word now because I say it is, so stuff your spellchecker). Art?
| Erm yes. Or no. Possibly perhaps. |
Last on this list of likely flicks is "God Told Me To", which dates back to 1976 and which I'd never heard of before. The IMDB synopsis makes it sound perfectly logical and rational, or perhaps that's just me?
O Very Well
You wanted more details about North Koren Tanks? and why they're not a threat?
One intangible is fuel. The Norks are desperately short of fuel and would rapidly run out of it if things ever degenerated into a shooting war. They can't waste it so they can't train very well. Most of their tanks are Sinister-era ones fifty years out of date. Art?
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| They have tried building their own |
This above is their very latest hot-shot model, which is simply a clone of the Sinister's designs from the Seventies. Note the lack of Chobham armour, because it's expensive and difficult to manufacture. It looks to have the Sinister's weakness of being unable to depress it's main weapon very much, so it can't take a hull-down position. The Nork's army hasn't been involved in a real war for 67 years, so they have absolutely no experience of modern armoured warfare; one imagines bored South Canadian M1 crews picking these things off a mile away as fast as they appear.
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| Dangerously innovative for the Norks! |
* At this point Shelli is sharpening her knife and licking her lips
** Besides, everyone knows it's the aliens on Venus we need to worry about
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