A Killer Bug -

That Can Give You A Hug

No!  I am not talking about those creature-features from the Fifties that starred giant insects or arachnids, and <sighs as I know where this will lead> Mara Corday.  Since the titular monster in "Tarantula!" was about fifty feet tall, one doubts it could cuddle anything smaller than an elephant.

Mara's character realises she has split ends.

     I shall not punish Art for putting up a picture of his crush, as - well, Mara was a looker back then and if this comes up as the default Facebook image, it might incur a little curiosity amongst viewers.
     So, Black Scorpion, Giant Mantis and Storm-Sewer Ants, you can shuffle right back to oblivion.  Go on! And wipe your mandibles on the kitchen towel, I don't want drops of gore on the lino.

     And one again we begin by going off at a tangent, loudly declaring what this particular Intro is not about, which is all pretty much business as usual, and splendid intellectual exercise for you to boot.

Never fear, it's just someone with a really small hand

     For Lo! we are back to that monstrous mechanical critter as dreamed up by General Electric, which they nicknamed "Beetle" for no discernible reason.  Your Humble Scribe came across it entirely by accident whilst looking for an image that said "Atompunk".  Art!

     I found quite an in-depth article on a blog new to me, "Cyberneticzoo" (that's how they spell it), which I will add a link in order to forestall any legal issues:

http://cyberneticzoo.com

     Be warned, however, because there are so many articles present you could waste spend a whole day reading it.

     Back to Beetle.  This thing was a literal monster, weighing nearly 80 tons.  The central capsule itself clocked in at 50 tons, with the single hatch weighing 7 tons alone, all borne on a repurposed tank chassis.  Art!

"Air Force Special Weapons Centre"

     It could elevate the capsule 15 feet vertically as well as rotate through 3600, though none of the stats on Cyberneticzoo inform about what the ground-loading was, or what you and I would call how-heavy-the-footprint.  Does this matter?

     Perhaps not.  Beetle was designed, very expensively, to be a maintenance unit for the South Canadian Air Force's prospective nuclear-powered aircraft, which <sad face> never came into being.  The capsule is so heavy because it is made of lead, with a steel facing, and the hatch weighs 7 tons because at the heart of this thing was a man.  Art?

Hatch and man

     That's right, a human being, who operated the monster Beetle.  Doubtless we could make a similar vehicle today, for less and weighing less, because it would be operated remotely and not require such heavy shielding.  But we are talking 1958 here, the fag-end of atompunk, where teh interwebz were not even a science fiction dream.  Conrad is quite surprised that he'd never heard of the Beetle before, as we all know he has an extensive and unhealthy interest in all things nuclear, and a giant robot with a tank chassis is right up his street.  

Beetle with hatch in raised position

     There is an image of Beetle's manipulators being used to place an egg on a spoon, which must be a pretty standard method of exhibiting fine motor control skills in both robots and their human operators.  Stop and think about it for a second; an uncooked egg - what could be more off-the-shelf delicate than that?  And if you can juggle one in your cold steel manipulators, then surely you can give someone a cuddle?
     I wonder - would the chaps over at SOTCW be interested in this beast?  I can just see someone making it their next project in 1/72 scale*.

If You Are Squeamish -

Then what are you doing here?  Go and check out Uncle Brian's Victorian Brass Faucet Collection on Youtube, for we intend to tackle one of the seedier subjects that came out of France during the Occupation (and which was briefly mentioned in "France: The Dark Years"): the Bonny-Lafont gang.

     

     There's a not-very-accurate Wikipedia article on them, which has Lafont helping someone escape justice after the war, which would be a neat trick as Lafont was executed in 1944.  Essentially the gang were a bunch of criminals and black marketeers, who blithely threw in their lot with the Teutons whilst continuing to carry on their criminal behaviour.  Their headquarters were at Rue Lauriston, where they would torture and murder people in pursuit of "counter-insurgency operations" that allowed them to indulge their sadistic traits.  Bonny himself was an ex-policeman who had done time for corruption, and Lafont had been a criminal long before the Occupation, so they made apt bedfellows for the Nazi occupiers.

Lafont attempting to free himself by gnawing his hand off?

     By mid-1943 the Teutons were obviously losing the war, which made the BL gang sit up and pay attention, but since by then they were openly wearing Teuton uniforms, claiming that they were really misunderstood patriots did not carry any great weight.  Come the Liberation in 1944 they either tried to hide in France or fled to Germany, which did not work for many of them: there is a list of their members on teh interwebz whom the French caught up with, and the word "executed" features prominently.

Finally -

Oooh that was a bit grim.  What light and airy subject matter can we finish with that will dispel the clouds of gloom? Ah!

"Ptarmigan": being species of grouse that dwell in the Arctic and sub-Arctic, and which are nice when roasted with some potatoes and greens (an important point for Conrad).  Their name comes - O Sainted Muse! - from Scots Gaelic, of all languages, specifically "Tarmachan", which means "Croaker" (not to be confused with "Croker" as in someone who performs on the turf at Croke Park).  Apparently some pseud added the "P" because they liked Greek words to do with flight, which all begin with "P".

Pteranodon

    So this is one time you can accuse someone of adding the P, not taking it**.

*  "Society Of Twentieth Century Wargamers" and I used to offer folding money to anyone who came up with a catchy acronym.

**  Drum roll, cymbal crash, thank you, thank you, I'm here all week.