Tangentially, I Might Add
The reason is that I've acquired a copy of "Fire And Fury" by Michael Wolff, as it had pride of place on the shelves of the British Heart Foundation charity shop in Babylon Lite this morning. Conrad was also pleased to see the giant jigsaw crossword puzzle which he completed a few weeks ago on the shelves as well - Art!
Not, it has to be said, a very flattering photo
From the author's use (after an extremely quick skim) of words like "gobsmacked" and "nutters", Your Humble Scribe suspects he may hail from This Sceptred Isle -
ANYWAY, the blurb extract on the dust-jacket's reverse caught my attention, so allow me to add it in here: "Almost everybody in the Trump campaign thought of themselves as clear-eyed and realistic. The unspoken agreement among them: not only would Donald Trump not be president, he should probably not be." Ouch! If your own staff are thinking that ...
The whole election campaign was seen by Trump himself as a priceless, prime-time, enormous publicity stunt that would boost his brand and allow him to create a television network. And, asserts Wolff: "What's more, he was already laying down his public response to losing the election: It was stolen!"
Mike muses
Bear in mind this book was published in 2018, long before -
So Conrad can argue he's only delicately skirting the outskirts of politics. We may come back to this, tiptoeing as daintily as an emu on a skateboard*.
CAUTION! Not to be confused with this
Motley, we're going to gaffer-tape your arms behind your back, put you in stiletto heels and send you downhill on a skateboard. Just to model an emu. We like to be thorough.
Speaking Of Thorough ...
Apologies for going off at a tangent, but this is BOOJUM! and you can't really expect anything less. Okay, remember that scene in "Suicide Squad" where Peacemaker is about to end Ratcatcher? Art?
Of course it has less gravitas than it ought to since he uses the erroneous South Canadian pronunciation.
HOWEVER, Peacemaker, how thorough are you, really? Art!
SPOILERS AHEAD!
STILL SPOILERS AHEAD!
LAST WARNING ABOUT SPOILERS!
Peacemaker gets into a fatal tussle with Flag, over a hard drive the latter removed from a bank of computers. This hard drive is apparently crucially and critically important since it triggers the above brawl -
Except just what are Flag's qualifications about computer technology? Because we see him grasp a pair of handles on a piece of computer hardware and attempt to drag it open, unsuccessfully. Then he pops that hard drive out. So there's only a single hard drive for a bank of computers that spans a whole wall? No secondary or back-up or daily download or a cache on a remote server?
Colour Conrad un-convinced. Art!
Some of you ain't coming back
BOOJUM! Reviews Films
And possibly television programs, too. Don't forget our rules of engagement: we go solely by the title alone, unless we can also refer to a poster; we generalise hugely; we may ignore the first two rules if we feel like it**. And we feel free to just make things up out of sheer creative malice. Let the review rotisserie begin -
"SNAKE EYES": Sorry, herpetologists, the title is a misnomer as the bus poster features what looks like a chap in Asian dress, and because the colour palette is all dark and moody, one presumes the film is, too. You tend not to get light and frothy comedies advertising themselves in shades of grey. O I see he bears a couple of swords. Martial art kung-fu fistery and choppery one presumes. Art!
"BLACK WIDOW": Let me guess, a sequel to "Black Panther" where his bereaved wifey takes up the uniform to carry on his legacy or somesuch, because she's such a strong independent character. Or something. Art!
<Conrad yawned hugely>
Yep, I called it absolutely spot on. Not sure who the lady in white photobombing it in the background is.
"SHANG CHI": Your Humble Scribe could only see the title for this, as it was on a bus over fifty yards away, so any delicate nuances of design and marketing were completely lost. Asian, obviously. Chinese? Made about China? In which case expect all possible criticisms of The Populous Dictatorship to be excised, so that it won't get banned. Made in China? In which case expect it to extol the sheer wonder of China from every pore. Art!
Cheap Tolkein knock-off, obviously. Trying to egg the pudding, frankly. From Marvel, hmmm, well Conrad has never heard of this chap and I doubt anyone else seeing it will have, either, so you've got an uphill struggle.
I think that's enough incise film reviewing for one day. If you want a proper film review, I recommend Mark Kermode. Art!
Mark. Looking rather shifty.
Big fan of The Comsat Angels, as I never tire of reminding you.
That Bomb At The World's Fair 1940
You recall that yesterday we mentioned that "The Daily Beast" was pushing a conspiracy theory that the bomb in question (which killed two New York detectives) had actually been planted by the British themselves, in order to help drag South Canada into what had been solely a European engagement. There are a few problems with this theory, as I shall expound about.
1) The idea that Winston Churchill, the PM, would sanction an act like this is vanishingly remote. 'Let's get the Yanks on our side! Go and kill some of them!' is not a viable game plan. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.
2) It's possible that the bomb was planted by the British, so they could throw their hands up in horror at the subsequent explosion and blame Un-Named Forces Who Were German. In which case why not lock the room it was in, or hide it in a cupboard? Very sloppy, chaps. And the intent would have been to merely blow shizzle up, not kill South Canadian police; the unhappy reality would mean never ever owning up to the plot in the first place.
The British Pav.
3) William Stephenson, British spymaster, has also been put in the cross-hairs as being responsible, because he was willing to kill for Perfidious Albion - so alleges TDB. That's simply reaching; he killed for his King and country in the First Unpleasantness because he was a fighter pilot. Note also that he was sent to New York on June 21st 1940, and would have taken time to arrive even if crossing the Atlantic by air. Thus he would have had less than two weeks to get into his role as one of the most senior people in British Intelligence across the globe, and certainly the most important in the Americas, before said bomb went off. So they allege he barely had time to take his shoes off before planning to bomb things?
4) Perhaps the most important quibble of all: absolutely no evidence that Perfidious Albion had anything to do with it. Nothing came up at the time, nor post-war, nor even after all those involved were long dead. No forensic evidence, no deathbed confessions and no lack of other suspects, either. Bad TDB! Naughty TDB! No biscuit for you!
Finally -
Oooops, we've run on a bit! And long surpassed the Compositional Ton. Time to wave a cheery goodbye.
* Yes, I mixed metaphors. Sue me.
** So I'm fickle. Sue me.
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