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Friday 31 July 2020

I Am Leaving, On A Jet Plane

And I Know Exactly When I'll Be Back Again
 - because I have a return ticket and have taken the time to read it.
     Fear not, ye estate of John "Axeman" Denver, for we are not here to carry out one of our dreaded "Little Musical Critiques" on the song - no, no, I don't mean he ran around slaying people with a hatchet - on the song that I allude to because it's part of - his guitar!  It's what all guitarists called their instrument back in the Seventies! sheesh everyone's a critic - where was I?  
     O yes.  More here about "Zero X", the spaceship initially featured in "Thunderbirds".  Art?
Thunderbirds Zero X cutaway – Never Was
The blurb says it's due to fly in 2020.  I'm so excited!
     The thing about Zero X is that it continued a very long run in comics with it's own strip, created by two brilliant artists: Mike Noble who inked with pen, and Jim Watson, who used brushes and painted.  As Conrad has remarked before, Mike's art was
     On a couple of Gerry Anderson-themed forums, there were comments about memorable Zero X strips, which I tried Googling for, to little avail.  
     But not quite

     So, the - er - "leaving" bit was in fact a witty pun.
     Your Humble Scribe cannot tell you any more than what he deduces from the caption.  Obviously this is from Zero X's later interstellar exploration missions, part of their 5 year mission to explore - hang on, that sounds a bit familiar.
     Anyway, Conrad suspects that these Eyeleaves are 1) Evil and 2) Badly-designed.  Clearly they want to take over the galaxy, yet they can't even walk.  Heck, the galaxy faces a bigger threat from landmobile sharks with prehensile fins* than these hapless chumps, who'd keel over dead at the first squirt of Roundup.  Now, there
BOOJUM!: April 2016
And I'm not budging on that
     Motley!  Put on the kettle, for I intend to inflict awful torment on some poor innocent leaves by steeping them in boiling water.

Meanwhile, Back In Reality -
As you ought to have read already, Zero X was due to blast off from Glenn Field Spaceport this year.  That only leaves (sorry) four months to build an interplanetary spaceship, which is pushing it, frankly, chaps.
     However, as of today, another Mars mission has successfully blasted off for the Red Planet: the Perseverance rover lofted into orbit from Cape Canaveral.  Art?
Blast off! Perseverance, newest Mars rover, launched as planned ...
Mars here we come!
     I explained yesterday that the mission is to land the rover Perseverance safely on the Martian surface, where it will trundle around and drill for samples of rock and mud - one cannot call it earth! - which will then be sealed in metal canisters and deposited along it's march route.  Allow me to nick one of the BBC's terrific artworks to demonstrate.  Art!  Picture steal!
The Perseverance rover collects and stores samples of Martian soil and rocks in metal canisters, which it leaves behind on the surface
     Then comes Part 2.  Another rover is going to be despatched to Mars later this decade, whose job will be to trundle around and collect all those
Airbus wins next study contract for Martian Sample Fetch Rover ...
Again, not small.
     Conrad really does wonder about the logic behind sending two rovers, which not only means enormous additional expense, but doubling the complexity of the operation and increasing the number of things that can go wrong.  Surely what you're looking for here is simplicity and elegance of operation?
     If it all goes pear-shaped, don't say I didn't warn you.
     Plus, watch out for the Martian Rock Snakes.  

"ACME"
Another egregious Codeword solution that is pushing the limits of acceptability, chaps, it really is.  So too is "KAZOO" which I thought was "TABOO" as it definitely wasn't "IGLOO".
     Well, you know your Modest Artisan, never able to leave (sorry) a word alone, and this one is no exception.  You ought to be familiar with it as the supplier of everything an aspiring murderer might want in the "Roadrunner" cartoons.  Art?
Acme Catalog: Amazon.co.uk: Carney, Charles: 9780811851152: Books
Existential classicism in cartoon form
     "Where does it come from?" I pondered.  The Greek, as it happens, my Collins Concise informed me.  From "Akme" which means something like the very bestest shizzle evah.

"Hunting Hitler"'s  Background Baggage
As you may recall, we here at BOOJUM! have joined in the general criticism of the History Channel's above program.  Somehow, it managed to crank out 3 seasons on the unviable premise that Herr Schickelgruber managed to escape from the flaming ruins of the Third Reich and escape to - Somewhere.  Whilst Jim Holland was involved, he was apparently verrrrrry careful never to say on camera that he believed in the escape theory.  
     According to the critical review from Kingston College, the television program seems to have it's roots in a book, and if I can quote: 

"The inspiration for the series goes back to a very poorly reviewed book published a few years ago, ."

     This, in a moment of candour, is what Ol' Jim Holland admitted.  It seems the History Channel has wheelbarrows of ready cash it can parade in order to tempt pundits.
Grey Wolf
The fetid drivel in question

  Ah - a new feature of this new Blogger - you can see line breaks to the left, which helps know what alignments are going to be like.  I can't manage to amend font colour, which is why the quote above is merely highlighted.

     We are technically over the Compositional Ton, if only because I used a long quote above.  It was so wonderfully acid in tone that I didn't want to leave any out.  Anyway -

Thank You, Brain
The brain is indeed a most curious organ, in both senses.  Last night I had a dream wherein a female  educator in some venue or other, where yours truly was in the audience, quoted a long list of people whom, she implied, were going to solve all the scientific problems we had.  
     Conrad presumes that this list of people were important and prominent scientists themselves, which is a presumption as I didn't recognise a single name, except I recall one of them was called "Xander".  I even looked around the corner to where they were all queuing up and - Nope, still didn't recognise any.  You'd have thought Brain would have conjured up at least Albert or Richard.  Art?
The best, most thought-provoking Albert Einstein quotes - Business ...
Al, sad he wasn't included

     And with that we are done!

*  Sorry for the nightmare fuel.

Thursday 30 July 2020

We Fear Change

A Quote From Those Master-Philosophers Wayne And Garth
The reason you're reading this in Times, rather than my usual Trebuchet font, is because I am working with the new Blogger, and it doesn't seem to allow one to choose a different font, the default being Times <sigh>.
     Can one select text and change it?  Let us see - nope.  Well, it's not too big a problem - er - so far, said Conrad, crossing his fingers and looking over his shoulder.
     I bet you want to see proof of these changes, don't you, you skeptics?  O go on.  Art?
The new world map
     This is a change of colour and is slightly larger than the old one.  And look! - the South Canadians like me!
More statistics for you.  South Canadians still loving the blog.

The re-jigged front page
     And once again the pictures I loaded up have vanished AGAIN, so it wasn't an artefact of the old version of Blogger <sighs with a tinge of anger>.
     There you go, a brief look into the world of the internet blogger.  You see the tribulations we have to put up with?  Although to be fair this is the first change in 7 years, so I really shouldn't complain.  It's just that I love doing so.
      No, motley, put down the axe.  This is a blog, not a log.


"NADIR"
This was an answer in the Manchester Evening News's cryptic tonight, and - Conrad being Conrad - I wondered where it came from.  It means, in general usage, to be the lowest point and is the opposite of "Zenith".
     It comes, unusually enough <small fanfare> from the Arabic - gasp not Greek or Latin for once! - and "Nazir as-samt", which means "opposite the zenith".  Art?
Nadir | Definition of Nadir by Merriam-Webster
If "3" is the Zenith then "1" is the Nadir
     There you go, BOOJUM!'s didactic purpose being evidenced.

Back To Polemos
Conrad is enjoying his pernicious replaying of the English Civil Unpleasantness and is going to try and bring in a picture, so if Art can -
The battlefield from my comfy chair
     Here you see the Parliamentarian army's infantry standing still and awaiting the King's infantry attack, whilst their cavalry move to the flanks.  I have left the Parliament's leaders with their "Bad" rating, as they don't need to manoeuvre or advance and are merely staying still, which doesn't require much tactical nous.  I did wonder about having them behind some defensive works, as they might otherwise crumple a bit when under assault.  I do have stone walls and fences in this scale, so if things go unduly pear-shaped, there may be a rematch.  I bet you can hardly wait, can you?
Well played @storywonker | History jokes, Thirty years' war, Civil ...
This is hilarious!
(Not entirely true, however)


More Of Mars
You
ESA - Perseverance rover

     As you can plainly see, it's ENORMOUS, big as a car, although no car I know of comes with 23 cameras and a drill.
     Since the mission is going to take a decade to complete and requires several other pieces of kit, I'll break down the post in order to avoid sending you to sleep.  There is a really good animated feature on the BBC's website, which I'll post a link for -


     Okay, so Perseverance is to be dropped onto the Martian surface, it's descent slowed by rockets, that will allow it to arrive in one large piece instead of many small ones.  This is the first big test and Mission Control will be biting their nails over it; the distances and radio lag between Earth and Mars preclude any real-time corrections being made.  Art?
Look out, Mars — NASA Perseverance rover leads a fleet of ...
A perspective nobody will ever get

     Let me see if this copied image comes over properly - Art!
The 'sky crane' is used to slow the rover's descent to Mars and lower it to the surface using cables.
Moving images yet - we surprise ourselves
     Don't forget, also, that the Martian atmosphere is much, much thinner than Earth's, which complicates the business of slowing down before landing.
     Watch this <ahem> space.

Cheesy
The blog tries not to be this, which my Collins Concise defines as "banal or trite".  I don't think either very applies to BOOJUM! as where else will you find plaintive cries of "Sharks Are Our Friends", gloasting about atom bombing the Moon and articles about seminal punk rockers The Skreeming Voles*?
Syrniki – Sweet Cottage Cheese Pancakes – 12 Tomatoes
Back to these again
     For yes indeedy Ally Sheedy, we are looking to make Syrniki, Russian cheese pancakes again.  Conrad plainly failed miserably with cottage cheese as the cheese substitute for "Farmers cheese", which produced a yellow glop.
     A more detailed look at substitutes for Farmers cheese variously mentioned ricotta, goats cheese and paneer, so last night I got all three on the weekly shop AND WE'LL SEE ABOUT YOU, SYRNIKI!
     Incidentally, I can explain why there's a virus spike in Rochdale: it was like feeding time at the zoo in Morrisons around the chiller unit where the reduced-price food goes on sale at about 19:00.  Half a dozen people all scrambling over each other to get cheaper garlic bread.  Hom. Sap. hmmmm?

O I Say!  Conrad Can Get Behind THIS!
Quite by chance, I was perusing the BBC's website pages, as I like to keep up with how the world is misbehaving, and came across a page that pondered upon superheroes.
     Who are the superheroes in question?  Why, none other than "The Umbrella Academy", which Your Humble Scribe knew existed as a comic book (Darling Daughter had a copy or two as it's the brainchild of Gerard Way, crooner with My Chemical Romance), but which has been far better realised as a television series.  Art?
The Umbrella Academy 2020 Calendar - Official Square Wall Format ...
Cool and groovy.  Wait - there was a calendar?
     And, O Frabjous Day, it is returning to Netflix as of 31st July, which is tomorrow.  Also, I believe "The Boys" is soon to return, which is good news; the television series is different enough from the comic books that I don't automatically know what's going to happen ... except that Billy Butcher will swear a lot.

Finally - 
More compelling details from Peter Caddick-Adams "Sand and Steel", where he quotes a Teuton officer writing up a history of the Teuton intelligence services.  You know that reputation the Teutons had for ruthless efficiency?  Pshaw right.  According to this officer - let's see if I can get a name for us - ah!  the splendidly-monickered "Horst Boog".  Art?
Horst Boog: Kriegsrecht im Luftkrieg (Teil 1/2) - YouTube
Horst, Booging it.

     According to Horst there were twelve different Tueton intelligence agencies, which were run by the army, the SS, the Luftwaffe, the Kriegsmarine, the Nazi party and some government ministries.  They most emphatically did NOT co-operate or collaborate with each other, as they were all fighting to establish and retain their own little empires.  There was no overall co-ordination of intelligence, even within these different agencies.  The Luftwaffe, for example, possessed eight different constituent intelligence branches, none of whom talked to each other.  This wasn't the most extreme example; the Sicherheitdienst, the SS intelligence service, had it in for the Abwehr, the Army's intelligence service, and waged open warfare against it (apart from really shooting people.
     This lack of co-ordination or oversight had disastrous consequences for the Third Reich's intelligence operations and is symptomatic of it's 'divide and rule' policy that Herr Schickelgruber followed, so that nobody got powerful enough to challenge him.
Wilhelm Canaris | German admiral | Britannica
Admiral Canaris, head of the Abwehr.  Executed - by his own side.

     And with that we are done!

*  Who, let us be plain, do not exist.  Not even a little bit.