The Vatican; It Can Indeed!

"But Conrad,"I Hear You Quibble, "What About That Injunction On Religion?"

Fear not, gentle readers, the injunction remains in place.  No, this Intro concerns a little-known division of the Vatican that deals with - <drum roll> Art!

ASTRONOMY!

     I bet you never expected to see that as a juxtaposition, did you?  We have tiptoed around this subject before, as it came up as part of a staggeringly stupid conspiracy theory. Let's poke an endoscope down the rabbit-hole and see where it leads, shall we?

     Okay, as you may or may not be aware, the Vatican is part of the Roman Catholic church, which is regarded with frothing hatred by extremist evangelicals, who are convinced that i) it is anti-Christian and ii) it is trying to find an alien whom they can present to the world and thus take over.  Their search for alien life is being conducted by a telescope dubbed LUCIFER (nudge nudge wink wink these incipient world dictators are pretty stupid, what?).  

     This, I deem, is proof that only the Universe and human stupidity are infinite.  Art!

     This is the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope, situated in the hills of Arizona, far from any light source that might bother their sensitive instruments.  Note that it is i) not called LUCIFER and ii) it is still not called LUCIFER.  The staff there are all Catholic priests as well as professional astronomers, and they tend to do long term astronomical research, because unlike their academic counterparts, they don't have to worry about research grants and funding.  Art!

That VATT

     The VATT is an impressive telescope in it's own right; however, it is not remotely capable of detecting alien life on a distant exoplanet; even the soon to be launched cutting-edge James Webb Space Telescope will have trouble managing this and it may take until 2050 to get an orbital telescope capable of achieving this feat.  None of these conspiranoid LUCIFER-loonwaffles have explained how said aliens are going to be communicated with, let alone transported to Earth.  Proxima Centauri is our nearest stellar neighbour and a reply to a message sent would take eight and a half years to arrive.  If it was Tau Ceti, then you're talking 22 years.  

"Thank you for travelling Vatican Spaceways and for being patient on our 257-year long journey.  Fasten seatbelts and secure helmets."

And From The Lofty Heights Of Space -

I do apologise for not keeping you up to date on the viewing figures for that combination train-wreck and dumpster-fire "Batwoman", and can only plead in my defence that plotting world domination eats up a lot of my spare time.

     ANYWAY From the lofty heights of space, to the nadir of BW's viewing figures.  I can get you a screenshot of the two most recent episodes.  Art!

     Those figures in Column Six are the viewers, in hundreds of thousands.  As you can see, the viewers rose very suspiciously on April 18; Az (reviewer on "Heels Versus Babyface") suspects there was a Twitter campaign to boost numbers, which has rather backfired, as the more recent figure of 426,000 is the lowest ever for the series.  And CW, the channel who make it, have announced that this season is to get five extra episodes, though one wonders how many will be watching by the end.  One also has to feel for Az, who endures and suffers horribly watching these episodes so we don't need to.  His theory is that these five new episodes might be instead of the threatened Season Three, and that the show will be allowed to quietly die.

Hatwoman

Whither The Weather

Your Humble Scribe came across an "Insider" video on Youtube, featuring meteorologist David Yeomans, who took a long and scientific look at a whole swathe of disaster films, pointing out what was correct and what was howlingly inaccurate.  First up was "The Day After Tomorrow" and Conrad took a photograph of one particularly dramatic scene.  Art!

Ignore the reflection!  Ignore the reflection!

     This scene is simply not possible due to the weather conditions in Los Angeles.  For a tornado to form the air needs to be warm and moist, and also in motion; the air in Los Angeles at ground level is cool and stable.  There have been a few, very weak tornadoes in the city previously, and never more than one at a time.  So: the scene looks epic but is never going to happen.

     The news channel helicopter in the air is actually realistic; news organisations do send out choppers to follow and film tornadoes, presumably on impressive danger pay whilst also being heavily-insured.

     Conrad prefers a safer distance, just to be on the safe side.  Five miles ought to do it.

Playing Bridge

Okay, I cheated, this is nothing to do with the card game.  No, what I refer to is the construction of engineering structures to allow passage over water obstacles - bridging.  I mention this because I am at that point in "The Battle Of The Selle" where the Third and Fourth Armies of Perfidious Albion have pushed the Teutons back from the line of the Selle River.  This is in mid- to late October, where the use of elaborate trench systems protected by acres of barbed wire, concrete bunkers and pillboxes and elaborate logistical networks have all gone bye-bye.  The Teutons make use of river lines as defences, making sure to have blown all the bridges first, making it even harder to cross.

     Enter the mighty WELDON TRESTLE BRIDGE!  Art?

     I think the lower placed picture was taken in Mesopotamia, judging from the solar topee, flat landscape and very wide river.  The Weldon Trestle Bridge was used by the Royal Engineers to cross the Selle, once the pesky Teuton machine-gunners had been sufficiently displaced.  The process only took a few hours and reduced the discomfiture of blown bridges to a mild inconvenience.

Finally -

The jigsaw is manifesting itself pretty well, although I have now come to the hardest part, with large parts of indistiguishable blue, white or pink pieces to add.  Art!

     This is resolved by simply trying a piece of a particular colour to see if it fits, until you get one that does, rinse and repeat.