Scatter My Data, It's Parramatta!

Excuse Me If My Typing Is A Little Shaky
Your Humble Scribe was just preparing to listen to any long, instrumental track that he happened across on Spotify, probably either Ludwig Van Beethoven or Rick Wakeman, as that way one does not get distracted by lyrics, when out of a sense of curiosity, I clicked on their Podcast link.
     Did I mention Hydras earlier today?  Yes I did, that was a rhetorical question.  Well, the Coincidence Hydra has come along and firmly fastened it's fangs in my behind AGAIN, because what's the first podcast that comes up?
     No!  Not "The Tank Encyclopedia".  Art?

The book of the broadcast

     Yup, WTNV, the very strange novel that I bought earlier this year and which is both a hoot and a coot.  How did Spotify know I'd bought the novel?  I have mentioned it a few times on BOOJUM! earlier this year - they must be reading my mail.
     <muses to self> I wonder - is there a podcast about TANK? 
     Motley, talking of tanks, and tanks with many independent turrets, what's that film where the monster has multiple heads?  Go Google for me.
     And this un-naturally short Intro is done!
     - hang on, the motley is reporting back - there are two?  Well I never.

#1: Probably not something you ever expected to see
("The Thing With Two Heads")

     Ah, this one makes more sense -

"Trolljaeger"
(Which is Norse for "Troll Hunter")

Okay, We'll Get Back To The Title
"Scatter my data!" ("data" pronounced "Datter") is an expostulation from "Riddley Walker" by Russell Hoban, which Your Humble Scribe was lucky enough to see as a play at Gomorrah-on-the-Irwell's Royal Exchange theatre ooooooh about thirty years ago.  "Arga Warga!" is another such exclamation, usually shrieked shortly before one gets torn to shreds by packs of feral dogs.  It's a corking novel, though you have to get accustomed to the peculiar argot Russell wrote it in.

The edition I had

     "Parramatta" is another of those words that just pop up in my mind for no good reason, although yesterday when I wrote it down I did have a dim conception of it as something Australian.
     And so it proves.  Art?

The city

     It's part of the city of Sydney, in Ockerland.  As you can plainly see, it has an infestation of skyscrapers, and a disgustingly-coloured river.
     Which is about all we need to go into for today.  BOOJUM! - educating you one factoid at a time.

Your Tank's A Plank
Let us not beat about the bush here - which Brewers says is down to trapping birds at night as they roost by laying nets around the bushes and trees they roost in before giving said bushes and trees a good whacking - there are some wicked people on the internet who seek to defraud you and fill your head with nonsense.  Like the multi-turret tanks we were discussing earlier*.  Art!

                           
     This is supposed to be the KV-V1, which you will never see photographs of because IT DIDN'T EXIST.  Do I have to spell it out?  It would need a crew of at least 20, weigh in excess of 80 tons, could not use bridges, wouldn't fit on trains and appears to have a centre of gravity so high it would topple over if it ever fired.
     We will come back to this topic, for I have more to say.

Bottom Of The Flops
Conrad is a positive connoisseur of shadenfreude (French and German in one sentence - O you are being spoiled), and so found it impossible to resist clicking on a TopTenz link to "10 Movies That Were Box Office Disasters" over on Youtube.  Everyone loves success, yet failure, especially an epic failure, is even more fascinating.  Tolstoy had something similar to say about happy and unhappy families, I believe.
     Anyway!  One film that wasn't on the list yet which richly qualifies is "The Adventures Of Pluto Nash".  Art?

CAUTION!  Really bad film, avoid unless very very drunk

     I once posted a long review of this on "The Agony Booth" back when it still had a forum, all gone into the ether now.
     If you want a synopsis, then it's an unfunny sci-fi comedy that cost £60 million and which made back £2 million, and I think the studios had it sit on the shelves for three years, then chickened out and never bothered to release it to cinemas, as this would only hike the cost of the wretched thing, without bringing in any money.  This may be why it didn't feature in that list - no "Box Office" involved.
     Now, sci-fi comedy is doable, yet it takes a light touch and a deft director who knows their source material, neither of which is apparent in TAOPN.  Art?

Eddie: the only person involved who laughed

     There aren't a whole lot of pictures out there from TAOPN, so you've got that above and that's about it and NO I am not going to dig out the copy we have at The Mansion in order to suffer it to get screenshots.  It would have been better if they'd ditched the "comedy" but one supposes as an Eddie Murphy vehicle you cannot do that and retain Eddie, though as a vehicle it was about as successful as the KV-V1.

What's Wrong With This Picher?
As you should recall, the ex-mining town of Picher, Oklahoma was triply beset with a water supply containing harmful levels of poisonous heavy metals, millions of tons of toxic mine spoil dumped around the town, and a 90% chance of any one place collapsing into a sinkhole caused by over-enthusiastic mining.

Then it got hit by a tornado

     Not the most fortunate of towns, hmmm?  As well as knocking houses down, the tornado also stirred up toxic "chat" from the waste dumps, spreading all that lovely contaminated dust all around.
     As if that wasn't enough - there were arson attacks carried out against some buildings associated with Picher's mining history.  You can't condone these, but you can understand them.  Art?

Don't worry - it'll probably fall into a sinkhole and make the place look tidier

     Currently Picher's population is 0, and Conrad can confidently predict this is not going to change for a couple of centuries at least.  Just imagine, you left Centralia, Pennsylvania, because of the underground coal fires, in 1975, and you moved way out west to Picher, because what could possibly go wrong?

     And with that we are most certainly done!  O - hang on -

Finally -
And with that we are most certainly done!



*  When I say " - we were discussing -" I mean you were listening whilst I held forth.  Which is as it should be.