Icelandic, Don't You Know
For who can fail to love a country that boasts Sigur Ros, Bjork and The Apparat Organ Quartet as it's proud musical standard-bearers? I must get a CD or two of the last, they are a corking band whom you've probably never heard of. Except you have now. Just to fill you in, they (by law) have the first refusal on any electronic keyboard instrument ditched in Iceland.
O - it means: "A Song Of Fire And Ice", which I stole from some nobody loser called George Q. Q. Martin, who wrote obscure, little-read fantasy novels that were televised as "Game Of Thorns", a minor success on Netflix a few years ago*. Art!
This is the erupting Mount Fagradalsjall at night, and there's nothing to give a sense of scale, for which I apologise and then we wheel on Art at the business end of a cattle-prod -
Cold hard Icelandic daylight, with puny humans for scale. One thing that neither image conveys is the horrid smell this basaltic beast breathes forth, which kind of surprised Your Humble Scribe. Nobody gives a description of quite what the foul stench is - parboiled Moff Tarkin, one suspects - who knew that molten rock offended the nose so much? Art! (stop quivering, it was on a low voltage) -
Even more puny humans for even more scale. Note how warmly wrapped-up those Icelanders are, because it's March there and the "Ice" part of "Iceland" still has teeth to it.
In case you were wondering, and even if you weren't, the assembled multitudes of Reykjavikians aren't in peril, since government agents monitor the volcano for toxic gasses and will cordon the area off were there to be a risk of people collapsing dead. Not only that, this is a relatively slow and controlled eruption, so again no chances of the countryside splitting wide open and hundreds of Reykjavikians being turned into human kebabs, or suffering Molten Death From Above <bites tongue and avoids Chesley Bonestell reference>.
Conrad also suspects this might be the slowest spectator sport imaginable: volcano spotting. It's not as if they perambulate across the landscape at a rate of knots, because they don't. In fact you might wait several centuries before you get a repeat performance, so an immortal lifespan would be a handy attribute. Though you'd be bit out of luck if they went extinct, as in one other famous ex that we all know and love. Art!
Arthur's Seat, Edinburgh.
(Don't mention Sir Thomas Malory!)
Motley, do you think we can turn rock to lava in the microwave**? Let's put on our safety goggles and experiment!
Of Course We Now Have to Bonestell
I mentioned him already, it would be colossal bad luck not to add in some of the chap's artwork. Art! Front and centre! (I have no idea what this means yet it sounds very authoritative).
"Baby Space Station(1952)"
Conrad likes this one for the sheer conceited cheek of it. Don't forget, this was painted five years before the first satellite, never mind space station (which would be another twenty years coming). It is so very obviously the final stage of a missile, which has been inverted and re-purposed, with who-knows-what electronic and technical hardware added. There may even be an astronaut attendant on that flight deck - the resolution's not so hot at this magnification so the jury is still out on that one.
Chesley was prescient in his usage of a missile to boost a space station into low Earth orbit, because -
- ouch! Mind where you're missiling! - because the South Canadian's 'Mercury' manned spaceflight program constituted a capsule for a crewman sat atop a Redstone ballistic missile, where previously a nuclear warhead had sat. You might want to consider how nervous that made the astronauts: "millions of dollars-worth of technology supplied by the lowest bidder" (Apollo) versus "This is rated positive for an acceleration of 12 G, of course that was with a warhead not squishy human beings". Art!
"Nova melting a hypothetical planet 1955"
Why, look at all that - er - red stone. Almost as if it were - ah - becoming molten. In fact, l
Making Wheelies
No! NO! Nothing to do with "Chorlton And The Wheelies" because - look, just take my word for it, nothing to do with the wretched program. NO! <sighs heavily> will you stop pestering if I post a photo? Do a pinkie-swear then***.
They're Wheelies so he must be Chorlton?
For we are - hang on - For Lo! we are back to that Perseverance rover all the way across the Solar System on Barsoom Mars, where it is continuing to do the Dance Of The Seven Veils. I think it's fair enough to call it that, surely never since then in the old Mata Hari days has attention been focussed so directly on a set of manoeuvres. Also, we disprove an old film tagline: "In space no one can hear you scream". Art!
Here we witness Perseverance grinding about on the Martian surface, and you can see the evidence above in a kind of Eye Robot verification. These are only short voyages across Jezero Crater at present, as the Mission Control team test viable parameters and operational criteria (does that sound Management-speak enough?) until they feel ready for a
More Movie Darwin Awards
In case you were unaware, and even - O we've done that one - today we deal with a horror entry called "I Know What You Did Last Summer", where the final surviving character stops before attaining safety and redemption and, in an echo of Lot's wife, turns to gaze on her supernatural pursuer. Not for any good reason, simply because It's In The Script. Art!
Looking salty
Inevitably she gets diced into dogfood. What are the odds, hmmm? Four South Canadians and not a gun between them. O wait maybe it was set in Canada! <bows out after Political point>
Finally -
"Perpluie". Your Humble Scribe is unaware of that this is, although it has encroached upon his consciousness twice today, so he is going to guess that it's the Latin for a ground mineral which gives terrific aquamarine tints to <thinks> oil paintings?
* I may have some details slightly askew, for Conrad confesses he has been at the gin already.
** " - frankly, the book says no." "Forbidden Planet" in-joke for you there.
*** I apologise for using this hideous South Canadian-ism but it is succinct.
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