Heavy Metal Fusion

Okay I Lied

I know what you were expecting - an item about music where bland jazz-rock musicians with supreme artistry and zero creativity noodle about on tracks that last for an hour, and have silly titles like "Eulizing Spitzdometry", and credit the guitar string manufacturer -

Or -

     Hmmm, that sounds a little bitter, doesn't it?  Nor is it anything to do with heavy metal, unless it was Weather Report because then that could be construed as 'heavy weather' <ouch>.  Alternatively you might have been thinking along the lines of Deep Purple and that album they did with an orchestra, ooooh what's it called now - aha  "Concerto For Group And Orchestra" where they were obviously saving their creative energies for the music, hmmm?

     Then, finally, even though it's not heavy metal either, you might suddenly be struck by the possibility of the fusion in question being "Sahara Elektrik", that excellent album by Dissidenten.  Art!

Proof I am not raving

     "Conrad lied to us!  How is this possible?" I hear you quail.  O grow up, we are an unreliable narrator of the unlikely presented as an impossibility.

     Ha!  What I really wanted to talk about was nuclear fusion, because I've just read an article about a revolutionary (literally so) new British design for the tokamak fusion reactor, called "M.A.S.T." which stands for Mega Amp Spherical Tokamak, and if Art could put down his anthracite butty -

The mass of MAST

     The main problem in running a fusion reactor is disposing of excess heat, because the temperatures inside a tokamak are at least those on the surface of the Sun.  MAST uses a proprietary bit of technology dubbed "Super X Divertor" which nobody is describing in detail (£££ at stake you know), although it is titled an 'High Power Exhaust System", and it is ten times more effective than any previous technology in bleeding off excess energy.  This matters because you don't want your miniature man-made sun melting all the tokamak's insides on a regular basis; replacing them would be expensive, nor would you want Culham, Oxfordshire, to vanish in a ball of plasma leaving only vapours and a bad smell.

Being deliberately vague

     Now, I know you're quibbling about today's title, because that's the kind of whiny pedantic hair-splitters we all are, so - Nuclear fusion is the combination of two smaller atoms, usually hydrogen, into a single heavier one, which is helium, also generating a release of energy.  Conrad admits that this process runs at incredibly high temperatures BUT you can get metallic hydrogen if the pressure is sufficiently high and the temperature sufficiently <coughcough>ow.  We're talking millions of pounds per square inch, so we suspect there's lots on Jupiter.

     

     Motley, I want to to read all of "The Expanse" novels and note where they mention nuclear fusion.  There's eight of them so get to work promptly now.

The Haul

Today being my day off AND YOU'RE ONLY GETTING THIS SINGLE POST Your Humble Scribe decided to venture forth into Babylon Lite (Oldham if we're being formal) and spend the remaining balance on his Gift Card.  In addition to taking a few books off the shelves at the charity shops and Waterstones, as it would be cruel to have them sag under all that collective weight.  Art!

     A quick flick through the bib. at the back of "D-Day Through German Eyes" reveals the worrying inclusion of that hack Max Hastings and the very-likely utterly fake Dieter Eckholtz, whom Jonathan Ware tore a new one for on Twitter, and which we have also covered here.  We shall see. Yes, a book on lighthouses, because Conrad is interested, and we will be sharing some facts from this book with SIT BACK DOWN! it is interesting.  Two volumes on military history during the First Unpleasantness and "Heart Shaped Box", since I seem to remember reading good reviews about it a way back, possibly when I was chasing up information about Joe Lansdale or Peter Strauss.  Art!

Hap and Leonard

     I'll get back to you on that.

AAAAAAGHGHGGHHHHHHHH!

There I was, picking over the list of artists and other guests due at the "The Thing" art festival in Portland, and the next name on the list is "John Hill".  Art - proof!

 - which I immediately and mistakenly input into Google as "Joe Hill", and then shuddered in fear as the author of "Heart Shaped Box" immediately came up, because Coincidence Hydra!

     Then I realised I'd input the wrong name and my pulse went back to normal, until I read that he was the creator of "Locke And Key" and COINCIDENCE HYDRA AGAIN! because I've got the first three trade paperbacks.  The universe is clearly trying to tell me something.

     Okay, shall we try 'John J. Hill'?  Art!

     Aha, one of that unsung breed of comic-book creators who nevertheless serve a vital function: lettering.  These people have to provide captions and dialogue that drive the visual narrative, and they have to do so by occluding the least amount of artwork possible and using the smallest font that's still legible.  Conrad's order of business when reading a new comic is to make a first pass and read all the dialogue and captions, in order to know what's going on, and then to go back and then pay more attention to the artwork.

     John, we salute you!  Now get back to doing those fonts and be snappy about it.

     I see he took my advice to heart.  Next!

Finally -

We only need a short item to hit the Compositional Ton, so I can reveal that Darling Daughter is coming to visit along with Quiet Tom, most likely this weekend on Sunday, so I've got some extra beer bottles in - shockingly there was no Plum Porter in stock at Morrisons! - and I'm not sure if Bulmer's still do Pear Cider, as there was none on the shelves either at Morrisons or Sainsbury's.  We shall have to make do with Kopparberg instead.  I can also palm off that book of soup recipes, meaning one less of my own books to swap out since I bought five today.  

     And with that we are done!