The Green Death

No!  I Can Pretty Much Guarantee You've Got The Wrong Idea

<heavy sigh> and no, it's not because of DARPA's 'borrowed' Telepathy Helmet Prototype.  I keep telling you (and MI5) that it got returned simply ages ago.  

It chafed a bit.  Er - so I was told.

     Your first mental resort might be to believe Conrad ' - is banging on about military matters again, because they all wear green -'

     Untrue at this moment.  Of course, nudge me awake and I'll regale you with tales of the Beck and Borg clutch arrangement on a Cruiser Mark 13 - so maybe later.

Green and serene upon the scene

     Second, and under most circumstances, you might think I refer to that Seventies classic from the BBC's premier dramamentary 'Doctor Who' and it's horrifying revelation of pollution and computers run amok in Wales: "The Green Death".  Art!

You cannot deny it: verdant and dead

     Now, Conrad would like to just have a look at the cold hard facts of the case here - there would have been far less mayhem if only Global Chemicals had called in a professional vermin extermination service once they realised there were giant maggots crawling around in their waste chemicals.  A few whiffs of 'Raid' and Hay Pesto! problem solved.  As for the bloke above, and that other pillock who sees fluorescent green glop oozing down the walls and immediately sticks his fingers in it (Darwin Award to you, mate!) - are you aware of this technical thing called "trespassing"?  Stay out of mine, don't encounter slime.

GLOVES, MATE, GLOVES!

     I cannot, in all good conscience, overlook BOSS, the megalomaniac computer that thinks it knows better than everyone and intends to take over the world, because that's my job.  Really, this is an example of the programmers being lax with their coding and compiling and Conrad bets they never bothered to run a proper beta test, did they?  Or run a trial small-scale pilot?  No, because that takes time and money.  Corner-cutting idiots!

     They could run to a flashy yet functionally useless big snazzy graphic screen, O yes - yet bothering to try and prevent World Domination?  I bet -
     But once again we have veered wildly off-topic.  For Lo! we are not talking about tanks or giant maggots; no, we are dealing with the one and only true epitomy of Green Death:  Art?

Emerald Evil Anthropomorphised

     SNICKER YE NEVER! (with apologies to the sublime Frankie Howerd).

     Conrad is deadly serious on this matter, and I will not be gainsaid.  This ghastly cartoon is a product of those South Canadian pervert drug addicts back in the Sixties, who were being paid by the KGB to try and rot society from within.  It's the only explanation.  "Gee kids, look how loveable and friendly and funny alligators are!"

     WRONG!  AS WRONG AS WRONG CAN BE!

"Here we see Miss Beulah sleeping off a five-human dinner -"

     Take a look at Wally Gator again.  Notice how he walks upright on two legs, in an attempt to give him near-human values.  Notice how he HAS NO TEETH and thus presents a less dangerous image, tempting children to go over and - ah - ah, yes, Miss Beulah is now sleeping off a six-person dinner.

     Yes, he wears a hat, and collar, and cuffs, which might make him seem a sophisticated gentlegavial YET WHERE ARE HIS PANTS AND UNDERWEAR?!  This is part of trying to desensitise youthful viewers to a society of nudists, a poison pill sugared with 'humour'*.  You can see other ways they tried to ensure young South Canadians never reached adulthood.  Art?

"I pinched dinner from Miss Beulah.  Wanna share?"

     ARE YOU SERIOUS?**  That's a polar bear, one of the wickedest and most violent carnivores extant, fully capable of giving both the Predator and Alien a run for their money.  And, once again, it's not wearing anything below the neck.
     Motley, you can either arm-wrestle with Mister Grizzly, or juggle chainsaws.  Which is it?

Speaking Of Chainsaws

I shall show you more idiots at play with powered tools that have high-speed cutting edges.  You remember Bert, from "The Green Death", who just had to poke about in toxic green chemical waste - BRIGHT GREEN CHEMICAL WASTE LIKE THE BRIGHT GREEN DEAD MEN ALREADY ENCOUNTERED - well, if he had fathered any children, then they emigrated to South Canada and here they are. Art!

     The set-up: balanced precariously at the top of a set of folding ladders, with serious safety precautions having been taken (both are wearing caps).

     Enter the third character in this drama: a large and weighty partially-severed branch, which is now swinging towards our intrepid pair as the branch wasn't cut on the opposite face.

     Pow.  Nothing else needs to be said.  Oh, except that the still-whirring chainsaw blade is perilously close to the chap on terra firma.

     Down comes the tree-surgeon tree-butcher still grimly holding onto his chainsaw, because it might get upset were they to part.

     Miraculously unscathed.  And yes, that's a can of been in the hand of Shades.  Beer and chainsaws.  What can possibly go wrong!

Arachnophobes Look Away Now

Conrad would like to reassure you that a spider as big as a donkey, a Land Rover (or a Humvee for our South Canadian cousins), or a double-decker bus (think up your own trans-Atlantic equivalent) is impossible.  Art?

     I did warn you.  There is a limit to the weight that a spider's body can support, and beyond a certain size they'd collapse as their skeletal structure won't sustain anything beyond a material limit; as you multiply size, mass exceeds elastic limit.  Which is good news for you us puny humans, if a bit of a downer for all those horror film screenwriters and directors.  Sorry chaps.

Finally -

Conrad would like to remind you that, whilst alligators, crocodiles and gavials are bloodthirsty monsters from the dawn of time to be avoided at all costs, sharks are still our friends!  I say this as recently a chap was killed by a shark in Australia, apparently the eighth person killed by a shark there this year.  You can avoid sharks by staying out of the ocean, which is fairly easy.  Crocodiles tend to lurk on riverbanks and in the running water, pretending to be a log.  You can't accuse a shark of trying to sneak up on you in disguise, can you?

     Nor is Conrad especially bothered by this picture showing a crocodile not an alligator; as one of them drags you screaming into the raging river torrents, are you going to pause and consult your World Wildlife Book?

     And I think we're done here.  Cheerio!

*  The only correct spelling.  I'm not budging on this.

**  Probably not.  We like to err on the side of caution.