I Sea

NO! That Is Not A Typographical Error!

I will have you know it is an hilarious pun!  Utterly hilarious!  And anyone who doesn't laugh will go to either the uranium mines or the organ banks when I take over, I have yet to decide the punishment.

     Of course <narrows eyes and muses thoughtfully> I could always come up with a new and excruciating punishment regimen purely for those ingrates who Defied Conrad, you know, akin to the sentence metedd out to Judges gone badd in Judge Dredd: cyborg conversion into a person able to survive on the surface of Saturn's moon Titan, there to live out their life in penal servitude.

     A bit harsher than revoking a pension and not providing a reference, hmmm?

     ANYWAY

     Tonight we are looking a little more closely at that modern military item which no self-respecting superpower can do without: The aircraft carrier.  Like so much in the world of sport and military invention, it was created by Perfidious Albion, who rather let their commanding lead slip.  The initial design came in the First Unpleasantness, when HMS "Furious" was adapted from a battlecruiser to this quirky new kind of vessel, one which carried aircraft and - you can see where this is going, can't you? - and which was subsequently called an aircraft carrier.

     The guiding principle for Furious was that she would be able to steam far from British shores, carrying aircraft that could then fly even further, in order to drop ordnance on unsuspecting bad guys.  UBG, being bombed and strafed by unfamiliar aircraft, will suffer a wilting of morale and go home, Rule Britannia, the end.

     I'm sure how you noticed the superstructure jutting above the hull restricted the length of flight deck possible, well done you (splendid, you really are being improved by reading this stuff!).  Believe it or not, the fuddy-duddy British did so too, and they later shaved the central superstructure off and added it to the side.  This allowed planes to land using the full length of the hull, instead of rather less than half.  Whoopee!  Perfidious Albion cooking on Gas Mark two-and-a-half.

    Your Humble Scribe could go further, yet that is another sonic source from a different hostelry.  Maybe later.

     How aerodynamic is the motley?  D'you think it would fly off the room with cardboard wings and a long run-up?

O The Day Today

Forsooth, or even fivesooth, for Conrad has been working in the local supermarket branch of the Mighty Retail Organisation he is employed by, as there was a three-line whip from the office about providing support.  Thus I have been stacking shelves with booze in bottle form, and then tidying up and re-arranging the contents of chiller cabinets.  Not particularly difficult stuff, just jobs that require one to be on one's feet all day long.  Art!

     To truly comprehend what's involved, on a normal work day my Fitbit step-count would be up to maybe 4,000; after today it is almost at 27,000.  Nothing to sneeze at, by Jove!

     For my sins Conrad is working there tomorrow, so we shall see what rigours 23/12/2020 brings*.

The Men Of Zen

Okay, I'm cheating with this one: there's only one man, so I used the plural otherwise it wouldn't work, and an author can go to any extent to make a point, right?

     The individual in this case is "post10", which is the only appellation he gives himself.  In the Youtube channel he runs, there seems to be 0% information about who he is, what he does and his exact house number.  We have showcased post10 before with what he does, which is principally to remedy drain blockages.  He cruises up and down the neighbourhood (and is quite possibly neighbours with Mister Rogers) during bad weather, looking for underperforming drains.  Once located, he goes into action with his trusty rake, removing blockages and getting the water flowing again.  Art!

     Here we see Postie at work on a giant puddle, more a small lake, which has built up thanks to drains on both sides being blocked.  Posty points out that the foliage is made up of oak leaves - I shall take his word as botany is not my metier - and Conrad recalls him stating in an earlier video, when he really does drain a lake, that an oak leaf can take up to 5 years to decay fully.

     This is where Posty tracks the water's outfall to, having followed the sound from the road, and there he understands what effect the amount of rain is causing .  Dedicated chap that he is, he gets up close to the outfall and discovers that the tunnel has had a failure and is leaking a serious amount of water.  Unusually, he doesn't tackle it himself but leaves the area with a promise to call The Authorities.

     We shall see what transpires!

That List Again

NO!  Not the "Rolling Stone" list of 50 television sci-fi shows, we finished that one weeks ago, do keep up!  This is a slightly click-baity Youtube channel that decided to promote 10 low-budget sci-fi films that actually kick bottom, in spite of, or because of their low-budget origins.  Don't forget, if you don't have that much cash in the coffers, you have to spice things up with ideas, improvisation and innovation.

9:"Split Second"

Nope, not seen this one.  Art!

    The premise is that Ol' Rut is hunting a serial killer in the flooded streets of a future London where the icecaps have melted, or there was a really bad sewer collapse, one of the two.  The clips implied that whatever he was hunting wasn't human, so Your Humble Scribe may go over to IMDB and cheat to see what the plot was.  I can do that, I'm conducting creative research.

Finally -

Conrad is pleased that he completed the Skeleton crossword, especially as the clue for 1 Across was ambiguous "Sailor on a light vessel".

     Do they mean a light-ship?  Because these are a thing, anchored at sea where it's not possible or practical to build a light-house.  Art!

     Since we've hit the Compositional Ton, I'm not going to carry on any further.

*  Lots of them!