Ha! Sometimes I Amuse Even Me
This is one of those times. For Lo! we are back on the subject of aircraft carriers, which is how we get today's hilarious title. As with anything important and clever, the aircraft carrier was invented by Perfidious Albion, originating back in the First Unpleasantness, when HMS 'Furious' was partially converted. This was what you might call a "Work In Progress" as she was further converted up until the Thirties. Art!
Initially ACs were created by adapting the hulls of existing battlecruisers or cruisers; over time the realisation dawned that it was more effective and efficient to have a custom-designed model instead of a jury-rigged one. So from the mid-Twenties, Japan, South Canada and Perfidious Albion all started to lay down keels for purpose-built ACs. Art!
This marine monster is the USS 'Lexington', and as you can see she has too many aircraft, so the spare ones are up on deck. Or something. These particular beasts were what the sons of Nippon were really after when they attacked Pearl Harbour, ironically enough with planes launched from ACs. Don't worry, you'll hear a good deal more about this next year when the 80th anniversary rolls around.
The thing about aircraft carriers, which the Second Unpleasantness in the Pacific was to prove conclusively, is that ACs allowed you to project air power across the globe, or even in a particular theatre, waaaay beyond the reach of conventional aircraft. Take, as an example, Perfidious Albion's devastating air attack on the Italian fleet in anchorage at Taranto. The range was simply too great for any land-based bomber or torpedo aircraft; an aircraft carried to within a few hundred miles of it's target ... well, that's quite another matter. Art!
We are travelling slightly outside our chronological remit, though I'm sure you'll forgive me*: Henry Kissinger once described an aircraft-carrier as "100,000 tons of diplomacy", because here's an enormous conglomeration of military power and - O look! - it's arrived just outside your territorial waters!
"Torpedo running! Torpedo running!"
My Day Today
Today was my second day in store (not saying which store either you can guess if you like), having volunteered to help out for two days, which was 24 hours too long, and catch me 1) volunteering again or 2) if forced, to work one second longer than 8 hours. Your Humble Scribe's palsied hobble home resembled that of a ninety-year old man with rusty metal instead of joints, moving at about the speed of a sedated sloth. Later that evening I sat in my Sekrit Layr and tried not to fall asleep by 21:00.
And do you know what the worst bit was?
THIS!
Your Humble Scribe was forced to listen to a loop of painfully sincere brass bands playing carol music, and an hideous tuneless child choir squawking carols, with an occasional awesomely-bad cover version of carols by various musicians who ought to know better. Where, I ask you, WHERE! was the bonkers prog mathcore metal stylings that I love so much?
Come back Sir John, all is forgiven.
<curses self for spending 10 minutes reading about the great man instead of writing witty words of wonder>
"Leeroy Jenkins"
There were references to this on a social media post I was reading, which made no sense. The poster assumed that anyone who read this name would immediately understand what was meant, which rather annoyed Conrad, because you couldn't infer what they meant from the post.
You know Conrad. He will not allow anything that -
- and here an aside. I doffed my big grey cardigan before since I'd worked up a sweat, casting it aside on the bed. I now go to put it back on, as the temperature has dropped, rather, and - Edna is using it as a bed.
- baffles him to go unresolved. Thus a bit of canny Google-fu reveals Leeroy Jenkins is a computer game character, which also reveals why Conrad knew nothing about him (or it): I do not play computer games (they are far worse for thieving time than any gaggle of procrastinations). Art!
From the "Wart Of Woldcut" or similar. LJ goes headfirst into dangerous situations with no regard for anyone's safety or well-being, which usually causes everything to blow up disastrously for all concerned. He is a walking blightning-conductor, if you will.
Trouble is, now that I know what the meme is, I've forgotten the context for the original quote. O well.
For Artistic Purposes Only, Honest
For Lo! we are once again either trawling, or appreciating. the artistic heights, or depths, of art and science-fiction illustration as practiced back in the day by the publishers of "Thrilling Wonder Stories". Art!
Conrad chose this one because the explanation is a little obscure. We presume that the toadish metal men are in fact unwelcome invaders? with all their weaponry and protective armour? And a whacking big spaceship in the background, to boot. Okay, that's not too hard to interpolate. What, however, of the charming young thing, scantily clad, in the foreground? With her tiara and sceptre, we can readily accord her status as a variety of monarch, and a monarch with a death-wish at that. If she is trying to repel the invaders, then she's not doing a very good job, is she? Perhaps she's just shouting really loudly, hoping the invaders will think along the lines of: "Shrieky nuisance neighbour? We're outta here!" Or is she the bait in an ambush, where the besotted metal invaders gather around her exotic (and underclad) form, and are then cut to bits by lasers?
Extra-large so you can - er - see the brush strokes?
In fact the real reason I put up this specific image is that Edmond Hamilton had been a well-known name in the sci-fi field for space opera of the grandest sort. By the time of this issue his star and style had faded. Also, I have actually read and remember "The Concrete Mixer" by Ray Bradbury, about an alien invasion that -
But that would be telling.
Whadayya know? They made a show!
And with that, Vulnavia, we are ever so very very done. Pip pip!
* If you know what's good for you.
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