Or, If You Will, "De Profundis"
As they used to say in Rome back in 44 B.C. <apologises for using Latin>. Conrad, with his mind like a rubbish-filled skip, immediately thought of that Richard Cowper novel we have mentioned previously, "Profundis", mostly because of the cover illustration. Art!
You have to admit, that's a pretty neat painting, and it would persuade you to at least pick it up and have an examine.
Which has a barely-tangential connection to what I wanted to feature in the Intro today, namely an Italian village named Curon, which is why we had that Latin reference at the beginning <pauses for applause, gets none, sulks>. It was buried beneath the waters of a reservoir created in 1950, Lake Tresia, which in turn was created to generate hydroelectric power. For the first time in 70 years the lake has been drained to allow repair work to take place, and people can now see what's left of the village in it's entirety: previously the church tower alone was sufficiently high enough to clear the waters. Art!
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| The somewhat eerie 'normal' |
The tower remained in place because you don't get major tidal, wind or current action on a reservoir like this, unlike a shoreline, so it's not collapsed. The same cannot be said of other structures which have been subjected to the weight of water. Art!
There's no caption for this, although the article does mention "cellars" and whatever the structure, it has certainly seen better days. Let's have a broader view of the lake bed. Art!
Okay, curiosity satisfied, you can all go home now. NOT YOU MOTLEY you get to stay behind and test the Cactus-Proof Shorts.
More Mancunian Meres
Whilst tootling about finding photographs of the River Irk yesteryon, Your Humble Scribe came across another person in the mould of Martin Zero, who has a blog titled "Substormflow: drain and sewer exploration" which does exactly what it says on the tin.
https://substormflow.com/about/
That's the link to his site. He doesn't give much background information on himself, nor the specific location of the drains and sewers he strides through. This is a wise precaution as they all seem really ancient and quite dangerous to muck about it. Art!
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| Conrad: "NOPE" |
This is his exploration of 'Gorton Falls', a pipe system intended to keep the rancidly rotten Gore Brook out of the pristine waters of Debdale Reservoir. Art!
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| Built 1870 |
The Gore is carried underground, safely separate from the reservoir waters before being sent back to the surface via a siphon, which looks like this:
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| Taken by 28DaysLater.co.uk |
One thing you don't get here is a sense of scale, so let's use a picture Substormflow took himself, with a puny human present to give an idea of scale. Art!
Clearly this thing is enormous. And wet. And probably reeks to high heaven. Conrad is happy to let Sub keep doing his unlocated thing; getting cold and wet and enduring vile stenches in dangerously confined ancient brick structures underground - not my idea of a fun time. Rather like potholing with added extra risk for that adrenaline frisson.
Still Re-watching "Battlestar Galactica"
I know, I know, I'm very slow. It's my age, you know, at 127 I'm not the hectic stripling I used to be.
ANYWAY enough fishing for pity, it struck me when seeing the Battlestar itself that we are not even at the end of the first season and the grand old lady is looking rather battered. Art!
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| I had a pretty rotten picture that's nowhere near as good as this |
From Worry To SEETHING APOPLECTIC RAGE!
Yes, Conrad has had yet another irksome encounter with the Codeword compilers*. Let us not cudgel about the catoniasta.
"PHYLUM": Defined as "A major taxonomic division of living organisms that contain one or more classes". From the Greek 'Phulon' meaning 'race'.
WHAT ARE WE NOW CLASSICALLY-TRAINED BIOLOGISTS AND BOTANISTS NOW?**
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| File, one. Close enough. |
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| Nans. Close enough. |
"SQUI
<sounds of the Remote Nuclear Detonator being fired up>
Sick Sick Notes
You may be aware of Conrad's occasional mention of "Doctor Hope's Sick Notes" where our heroic medical professional does an analysis of various close combat scenes, ending up with a judgement of how many dead, critical and only a bit scratched there were at the end.
I am delighted to say he chose the animated "Invincible", which
INVOLVES GIANT SPOILERS!!
and also gallons of blood and gore, because the cartoon is most definitely NOT for children. Art!
These are the "Guardians Of The Globe", a superhero team tasked with defending - well, the Globe. As you may have shrewdly guessed, they are a slightly satirical take on The Justice League. In the foreground is The Immortal, who is a bit of a jerk but who means well. Hovering above is Omni-man, their equivalent of Supes, and Darkwing, a Batman wanna-be. At port is the Green Glob - I actually cannot remember their real name, but they get their powers by swallowing a mysterious green brooch, and return to normal by vomiting it back up - I did say this wasn't for children! Then you have Red Rush, who is <gasps of surprise!> a Russian speedster akin to The Flash. Then to starboard you have Fishy-Wishy, Bash-maid and the Martian Metamorphic Meme Generator***.
I shan't do the whole thing in one go, there's a lot of blood-spattered pictures to get through. Art!
The Doc winces in horror. This is Red Rush 'saving' someone, meaning he just hit them with tremendous speed and force and probably turned everything under their skin into human soup, before accelerating away with the twitching corpse.
Not a good start. Don't fret, there's more and worse to come. O yes.
Finally -
We've hit the Compositional Ton, so that's all, folks. Remember - only President Bierce can save us now! (along with Our Friends The Sharks).
Man with pet shark
* I'm a tad conflicted here. They are bad for my blood pressure but they generate lots of content.
** I know I used "NOW" twice. That's how seething I am.
*** Some of these may be slightly inaccurate.
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