From Manchester To The Moon

Not Literally

Goodness me, no!  Can you imagine sending a rocket from Picadilly Gardens into deepest space?  Why, it would shatter that grim concrete wall carbuncle, and destroy the fountains that chavs like to dance in, and demolish all the numberless identical coffee-shops - hmmmmm <muses and ponders> actually, that sounds like a pretty good outcome ...

Britain's Bit Of Berlin

     Sorry, where were we?

     O yes - Conrad has cunningly managed to combine both pub signage and the Moon in one concept, as the Moon seems to be what people want to read about above all else on BOOJUM! and who am I to dispute this?  Art?

 

    This venue is owned by the Wetherspoons chain <hack! spit!> and it's only real distinction is how large it is.  This is because it used to be a cinema, one that Your Humble Scribe went in occasionally, too - I think I saw that terrifying documentary "They Live" when it was still a cinema.
     Which brings us back to the big news for today - ignore all that piffle about elections and hijacking at sea - the discovery of water on the Moon's sunny uplands.  Yes really!  Art?

A very high heigh-ho indeed.
(240,000 miles high)

     This is quite remarkable because those areas of the Moon exposed to direct sunlight bake in temperatures in the hundreds of degrees, the complete opposite of where water-ice has been found previously, in permanently-shadowed craters.  Yet there it is.  The equivalent, we are told, of a 12 ounce bottle of water HOORAY FOR IMPERIAL MEASUREMENTS in a cubic metre yard of lunar material.  This means if you dig out a cube of lunar rock 10 yards to a side, you'd get a third of a ton of water, which you can then hydrolise down into hydrogen for fuel and oxygen for breathing.  Art!

And over it all, the mortal fear of farting in a space-suit ...

     If Moonbase Mara - hang on - when did I make a note about "Moonbase Mara" - Dog Buns, that's Art trying to sneak a reference to his pash into the blog! excuse me whilst I deploy the Autonomous Hunting Tazer <distant sounds of screams and sizzling>

    AS I WAS SAYING, if the denizens of a Moonbase can fuel themselves up from local resources instead of having to carry fuel for both legs of a voyage, it makes travel much cheaper and easier.  Need to get your interplanetary cruiser from Earth to Mars?  Just beetle over to the Moon to top up your tanks instead of lofting hundreds if not thousands of tons of same from the bottom of a gravity well.

          Motley!  Let's break out the mallets and play a round or two of Whack-a-Machine-gun-Mounting-Mole!

Taking The Polish Off

Yes, Conrad has just finished reading "The Shining" - how could you tell? - and made a few notes.  For a start, there's an error on Page 234 when the Torrances are playing in the snow with a sled, and, with "Danny" in the sled, Wendy and Danny strain to move the sled at all. Obviously this should read "Jack"*.

     

My edition

     What's wrong with this picture?  Well, if you've read the novel you know the Overlook Hotel has three floors and an attic and a roof seventy feet above the ground.  Bad illustrator!  Naughty illustrator!  No gravy for you!

     At one point in the text a harassed Park Ranger explains that he can't send help to the Overlook as all available rangers are out trying to help three inexperienced idiots who tried climbing "King's Ram" and got stuck in the blizzard.

     THERE IS NO "KING'S RAM"!  I have diligently searched for same all across Colorado and no such peak, gulley, col, cliff, overhang or chimney exists. There is, however, an author with a pawky sense of humour.  Grrrr.

WHY!  Why do you put yourself through this?

     Then there was a reference to "Hamburger Helper", another pop-culture item Your Humble Scribe had never encountered before.  Art?

Conrad not enthused

     And that's enough for Stevie, he's sold enough books that he doesn't need me shilling for him.

That "Rolling Stone" Top 50 Sci-Fi Shows On Television List

I have been meaning to post this one for ages and ages, and am having to make an effort as it's late and the glazzies are tired.  On to Number 7!

     It was definitely spit-hot in it's early years, with episodes varying from stand-alone monster-of-the-week to others that integrated into a vast conspiratorial arc, the sceptical Scully (a delicious Gillian Anderson) and faithful Mulder (an actually very disbelieving David Duchovny) and their perpetual will-they-won't-they status about a romance, and various shadowy government agencies conspiring with or against them - look no further than "The X Files"  for the roots of every modern fable, myth or conspiracy theory going**.

     It did outstay it's welcome, admittedly, but at least it wasn't another vacuous reality show.***

The "Nodding Donkey"

Not sure why this cropped up in my mind, except that it did, and so here it is.  I would like to point out that it's nothing to do with Feld Marschall Keitel, one of Herr Schickelgruber's most senior toadies in the Second Unpleasantness and a man dismissed by his direct reports as "Lakeitel" ("Lackey") or "The Nodding Donkey" as all he did was say "Yes!" to his overlord.  Art?

      The more formal name for these is a 'Pumpjack', though you can see why the donkey allusion sticks.  Propelled by an engine at the back, these things nod up and down day in, day out, helping to pump up poor tired oil that hasn't enough pressure to make it out of the ground.

     They may seem faintly ridiculous, or sinister, and Conrad as a smaller version of himself was not wildly enamoured of them, but a single one can pump thousands of tons of oil per year, without needing so much as a single strand of hay.

Finally -

Just a short end item, about another person doing the worst thing imaginable yet for the most sincere of reasons.

     We go back to January 2019, when a Dutch citizen in the town of Venlo, blissfully digging up his backyard, unearthed was was described as "an explosive device".  He regarded it with suspicion and dumped sand on it, whereupon it began to whistle.  With commendable public-spiritedness, he draped himself over the weapon, before calling the Dutch bomb-squad.  

     

     They took 3 hours to arrive, by which time he was suffering from hypothermia.  We never got to see exactly what he was lying on, and it was described as either a "grenade" or "shell", which was thankfully inert.  Had it not been, he would have been up for a bit of scission himself.

     "Lying on bombs is not recommended," said the Dutch EOD spokesperson.  "They are lumpy, ill-designed ergonomically and you might put your back out."

     And with that we are so very very done!

*  Conrad 1 Stephen King 0

**  "It must be true - it was on "The X Files!" is a favourite conspiranoid loonwaffle bleat.

***  Because of course it was all made up.  Obviously.