Mars

Yes, That's A Little Ambiguous
Deliberately so, as I find some uncertainty creates curiosity and what better to drive blog traffic?
     To prevaricate a bit longer, this post is nothing to do with actor Kenneth Mars, whom you may remember for playing the Nazi songwriter in "The Producers", which if this electric pitchfork (the electric axe and electric chainsaw caused too much collateral damage) is jabbed into the idling Art -

The demented Herr Liebkind

     Here an aside.  In the original "The Producers" - dammit, I just realised it's a MUSICAL and I liked it <feels faint but bravely carries on> the two leads were Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder, and the director was Mel Brooks, all three Jewish, and the whole film mocks the Nazis with a broad brush.  Ergo, I bet David Irving and his ilk hate hate hate it.  There was a remake recently, wasn't there?  O I bet the neo-Nazis were frothing with ire!  Art?

How to strangle cats the Zero X way! Zero Mostel way!

     O, as a second aside, I am nearly finished with Deborah Lipstadt's "Denying the Holocaust".  To remind you, The Odious Irving waited until it was published in the UK before suing for libel.  He, as the saying goes, got his bottom handed to him in court, although what happened to him after he declared bankruptcy is a bit obscure.  Ol' Deb's tome is now 25 years old, and one wonders what would be in a sequel, should she ever write one.  Art?

Cat scaring the Lipstadt way!

     Okay, we've gone way off course.  Right, brain, settle down.  This thread is not about the chocolate bar, either - come on, how creative would that be?  That's Comedy For Primary School Children.  Nor is it about the verb "mar", meaning "to spoil or impair".
     No, we are talking about the planet Mars.  Art?

CAUTION! Has no canals

     And there we are.  Typical BOOJUM! railing on about what we're not talking about.  Remember, gentle reader, that Zero Mostel was designed - ooops - Zero X was designed to travel to and explore the Red Planet.  See today's earlier post if curious.
     Now, when you picture Martian exploration you may recall Viking or Voyager or the Curiosity rover; you almost certainly do NOT connect it with the United Arab Emirates.
     However.  Art?

     The graphics of "Amal"'s mission to Mars.  The irony of Mister Rocketman himself sitting next to this does not escape me.

     The beast itself.  I know what you're thinking "Zero Mos- Zero X was far bigger" yes indeed, because it carried a four-man* crew and had to get them there and back alive and well.  The UAE built Amal the hard way, themselves, instead of ordering a lot of off-the-shelf components and sticking them together with sellotape and bluetack.
     We will begin to get the first data back in about seven months.  Note your diaries.
     Motley!  Bring me my deep-fried chocolate bars dipped in dessicated coconutQ

Road Safety Versus Sinister Alien Technologies
For I re-iterate my assertion that the Mysterons are not flesh-and-blood beings, but rather a sinisterly autonomous artificial intelligence, which is not running too smoothly after being on Mars for something like 100,000 years.
     Which is nothing to do with what I want to talk about, typically.  I refer, of course - O so very obviously! - to the Spectrum Pursuit Vehicle and it's driving arrangements.  Art?

Note 19

     "But but but - where's the driver?" I hear you bleat.  
     Ah, there's the rub.  The driver sits facing backwards, and steers by viewing the road ahead via a television screen.  It must be Dog Buns awkward passing your Spectrum Driving Test after driving normal vehicles; Gerry Anderson says he regretted having this design feature as it had to be explained every so often.
     NO GEZZA STAND PROUD IT MAKES PERFECT SENSE!
     First, with no windscreen or vision slots or windows or whatever, you do not compromise hull integrity with a large, vulnerable sheet of relatively delicate material.  This is an important point as the SPV frequently goes in harms way.
     Second, in terms of safety, it's a splendid idea.  If Your Humble Scribe ever travels by train, he takes care to sit in a seat facing backwards, just in case.  Again, SPVs rarely get retired due to mileage or parts wearing out; they are always ending up in serious accidents as part of their job.

<sigh> It'll never happen.  But you can see criminals wetting themselves in fear if ever ...

     Of course, I could be overthinking this ...

Back Down To Earth
I think we need a little grounding, so let us see what verbiage Marketa has conjured up for us in terms of obscure Czech words.  O Marketa!"Navecer": the time of day between afternoon and evening.     Hmmmm. Given that afternoon finishes (at least in my head) at 17:59:59, and evening begins (again, in my head, which is where it matters) at 18:00:00, we are talking about a vanishingly small amount of time here.  

Navecer x 10?

O NOES!  The dreaded cursor formatting error has arisen, meaning that the whole of the above will get reformatted if I move the cursor about.  Not sure why this is happening as it's usually the result of using the back browser button by accident and I've definitely not done that.  SO - I have to finish now, some 4 words short of the Compositional Ton, and please ignore that extra picture of Kenneth Mars below.  Peace love out**!

The demented Herr Liebkind

*  No nonsense about female astronauts in 1967, ta very much.
**  I mean two of these sincerely.