Conrad Is Traducing Frank A Little
But hey, he's been worm-fodder for the past 55 years, so he can't sue Conrad for slander or libel. Tee hee!
Francis Xavier Theban Tinsley, to give him his full and quite splendid name, was a South Canadian artist and illustrator who worked in the pulp magazine publications of the time, doing both cover and internal illustrations. The covers tended to be in screaming primary colours with the internal artwork being more sedately monochrome - usually. We have seen Frank's imagination at work with his 'Baby Battle Buggy' and the - ah - how shall we put it? - frankly* barmy scheme to irrigate the Southern Californian desert. Art!
Why? Because it's a very daft idea.
A tank, as I'm sure you perceptive readers have noticed, is not a submarine. Frank proposed that these metal monsters be dropped off well out at sea from a mothership, and make their way ashore where they appear to be terrifying either Nork or Populous Dictatorship minions. You can indeed seal a tank and render it watertight, but you then have the problem of getting air to the engine and allowing exhaust fumes to escape, otherwise you will poison the crew. Art!
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| Yeah. Also, no. |
The Teutons experimented with amphibious tanks in 1940, when they fondly imagined that they were going to invade This Sceptred Isle. They trialled having a tank drive along the bottom of the seabed whilst having a floating platform above, which intook air and exhausted fumes via a pipe. The trials went fairly well, because they were conducted on very gradually shelving shorelines with no obstacles - and nobody shooting at them. As Conrad has pointed out before, a tank like Frank's, bimbling along the ocean floor, has to contend with currents, an utter lack of sunlight, rock formations, forests of seaweed, channels and dips in the seabed, not to mention inquisitive fish. Art!
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| Meanwhile, back in the real world ... |
Those two giant manifolds allow air in and exhaust out, meaning the tank can be let down in about ten feet of water and drive off without adverse consequences, with the commander able to see all before him thanks to being able to look out of the turret, not a periscope. Rather less dramatic than Frank's wild years - ooops sorry, Frank's wild visions.
Reality. What a buzz-kill, hmmmm?
I say, motley, shall we see if a pipe connected to the car's exhaust and another over the bonnet will allow us to drive out to sea and back?
Perhaps not
Further To "The Great Escape"
There is doubtless an essay to be written on why we the British made so many films and television programs set in prisoner-of-war camps. One of the biggest television hits of the Seventies was "Colditz" which was unbelievably bleak and - once again - exclusively cast with white males. Maybe you had to be there (and Conrad loved loved loved it by the way).
British and Allied tourist accomodation
ANYWAY we mentioned TGE earlier, and if you've seen the film - I think it's an act of treason not to have done so if you're British - then you know that the Teutons, quite against the Geneva Convention, line up captured escapees and mow them down with machine-guns. Fifty of them were killed, and do you know, the British did not take this lightly. Winston Churchill, for one, demanded that the killers be brought to justice regardless of fripperies like, oooh, you know, the law. And so began a manhunt involving human bloodhounds from the Special Air Service. There is a book that Conrad is fated to get at some point -
I shall let you know what transpires.
TOO MUCH GRIM! LIGHTEN THE TONE! FROTHY NONSENSE! FIRE THROWING CLOWNS!
Okay perhaps not fire-throwing clowns. They're a safety hazard. And you cannot deny that clowns out of context are scary. Hence coulrophobia.
Er - we seem to have drifted a little from the 'frothy nonsense' goal. Hang on, let me just give Reality a kick -
Conrad Is ANGRY!
First of all I am angry at "Strictly Come Dancing" which I am convinced is a giant joke aimed at myself, and then at "Ru Paul's Drag Race" because a bunch of men slathered in make-up in dresses is not proper television. Do NOT get me started on the ballfoot game and how it infests the airwaves as I would rather enter SCD as an RPDR contestant than watch ballfoot on television. When I take over there are going to be changes - O such changes**!
ANYWAY onto why I am churlish and truculent today. Yes yes yes it's to do with Codewords.
"SCHERZOS": <sounds of Conrad choking with rage> WHAT ARE WE ALL CLASSICALLY-TRAINED MUSICIANS NOW? Your Modest Artisan is aware that a 'scherzo' is a musical artform of some description, but only because his music span is more than from 2015 onward. Defined as "A brisk, lively movement" and that's because I shall be shooting at your feet.
I am almost afraid to Google
"USURY": Bah! This one threw me because I was originally convinced it was going to be "USURP" as nobody nowadays bothers with the Deadly Sin. Which was lending money with interest. If this was still a sin then no bank in the Northern or Western hemisphere would be able to wriggle out of being as morally black as tar.
A barrister and a banker. World beware!
"VIRTUOSO": Okay, this is a word in more current usage than some others ( I'm looking at you ZEUGMA) but in a Codeword it's still pretty Dog Buns hard to solve thanks to it's <checks Collins Concise> Late Latin roots.
Keyboard virtuoso Rick Wakeman.
When he was younger, thinner and nowhere near as grumpy
* See what I did there?
** Quiver in fear now as there won't be time later.
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