Moonraker

Okay, Okay, I Am Being A Bit Click-baity

You can't blame me, my traffic over the past few days whilst mentioning the Moon has been a lot busier than usual, which I can only attribute to all those eager to learn about our nearest satellite of planetary mass.  If I were harping on about nuclear weapons then some of the passing viewers would be from MI5 or GCHQ or UNIT, so you can discount them.

     So, let Art put down both his plate of anthracite and Mara Corday calendar and select us a picture of the Moon.

     Possibly the biggest engineering achievement in human history, and it's a footnote.  It must be made of material mined from the Moon, too, as the cost of mining, refining, smelting, transporting and constructing from the bottom of Earth's gravity well would be prohibitive.

     Very well, that's our "Moon" bit over and - sorry, what's that?  You were expecting a learned treatise on some obscure Seventies film of the same name?  Pshaw!  You're making it up.  Art?  Google-fu, now!

O.

     There you go, one learns a new factoid every day.  Myself, I was recalling a pub from back in the day, and if Art can put his well-worn Mara Corday calendar down again -

     Not remotely the pub I was after, which is a good thing as it looked pretty grim from the outside.  Why are they trying to rake the Moon?  Long inbred or strong beer, one suspects.
     And now for the "Raker" part of the Intro.  If you keep up with BOOJUM! in terms of what we post, if not our mindset, then you'll recall post 10, he of the Youtube channel, who posts incredibly Zen videos of himself clearing blocked drains and culverts.  Art!

     Take note of these two Department of Transport vehicles with all the kit they carry, and also look at the depth of the water they're driving through.  This is no minor spillage and post 10 stated it took 9 hours to go down!  Let us reveal the culprits <drum roll> -

BEAVERS OF EVIL!!

     For they had dammed up the culvert behind that fencing, causing the stream to overflow when a storm hit.  So never mind your "Awwww! aren't they cute!" as they are b****y little furry vandals.  I wonder what they taste like when cooked?  There's probably a reci-

     Anyway, back to the theme.  Yes, the DoT trucks went past post 10 and the run-off to see where the problem was, and then came back once they'd found out.  Despite all that kit in their trucks, what did one of them borrow to do some scraping and scratching with?

THE RAKE!

      THE MIGHTY RAKE!  He was honoured did he but know it.

    Of course post 10, being an inquisitive soul, didn't leave things there.  Some months later he ventured into the culvert below the roadway, because he can apparently never get enough of BLACK WIDOW SPIDERS.  Art? 

     You can see daylight at the other end, where the DoT has destroyed the beaver dam.  Of course our intrepid rakeman cannot simply stand outside and observe.  O no not he!

     In he gets, and travels down towards the upstream entrance, which he cannot reach, since the floor of the culvert slopes sharply downwards where the DoT excavated.  He stops when the water reaches his waist; if you cavil at this then be absolutely 110% certainly positive that Your Humble Scribe wouldn't get one foot inside that structure, nope nope nope.

     Our hero nonchalantly comments that there aren't any Black Widow spiders in this culvert, which is unusual - " - though there is a cave spider!" as if that's a kind of compensation NOPE NOPE NOPE JUST GET OUT OF THERE

     As others have commented, this chap earns every hot nickel from those adverts on his channel.

      Before you ask, the Motley is healing quite nicely and we've collected enough bits of MOT-1 to create a sculpture.

Ice Ice Baby

Now let us meet a couple of waterborne idiots who make the moonrakers look like models of intellectual prowess beyond human comprehension.  I wouldn't be surprised if these two end up on the "Honourable Mentions" pages over at the Darwin Awards.

     Let's set the scene.  Art?

     You get the idea.  Apparently these bumbletucks were "looking for polar bears" and one expects that, if they found one, they'd beetle right up to it and tickle it under the chin.  So: a glacier as backdrop.  A mighty mountain of ice, getting ready to collapse into the ocean below.

     Their motor gives out and the current bears them back towards the glacier.  The glacier that is getting ready to collapse.  "It's all going to go at some point," one of them says*.

     Bits break off to their port and smack into the water, as they look on with fascination and eventually get their engine going again.  Do they move a respectable distance away from the glacier?

     Of course not! because what can possibly go wrong?  O look more whacking great chunks of ice falling off the glacier's face, and now they've got the engine running again, you can't hear the ice groaning, creaking and cracking.  Why, it's almost as if -

     A large section of the glacier gives way and they only just avoid being crushed or swamped or both; there was only a second in it.  What a pair of chumpions.  

     I have seen more stupid behaviour on Youtube recently.  The family of eight who go playing on a - actually that would be telling.  Maybe later.

"France - The Dark Years" By Julian Jackson

Just a short item here to boost my credentials as an aspiring (if somewhat unconvincing**) intellectual.  This volume, if Art wants to avoid the cattle prod -

     - is no lightweight.  It has already gone over the cultural and political pre-amble to 1940 and there's another 50 pages before we actually reach The Debacle.  Conrad has to say that French politics of the interwar years was horribly complicated and there were a lot of people who, despite it having a history of 140 years, still wouldn't accept that France was a Republic.  These were the people who would infinitely prefer France to be groaning under the Nazi heel than have a Socialist government; yes, that was Politics except it's 80 years in the past and thus safely Historical.     

Leon Blum: a Man with a true Moustache

     That above is the French Prime Minister of the late Thirties, who was not only a Socialist (and thus at the very least one of the Devil's imps) but also Jewish (which made him the very DEVIL INCARNATE!) and possessor of a backbone made of vanadium steel.  We will probably come back to him, he's an interesting character.

     So much for a short item, hmmmm?

Finally -

Alright, I shall endeavour to keep this concise.  As you should surely know by now, Conrad is reading "The Shining" and at 100 pages in we have finally reached the Overlook Hotel.  Then what did my bloodshot glazzies espy?  Art!

     Simon Pegg!

      And with that, we are so very very done!

*  You, sir, just won the 2020 Most Obvious Statement Trophy

**  No true intellectual would stoop to comic books and zombie films