Hereticalumny

 Good Morning!

Regardless of wherever in the world you might be.  To us here at BOOJUM! the International Date Line is piece of piffle <snaps fingers at IDL> yeah! take that, IDL!  Stickin' it to the 

     Sorry, where were we?

     O yes - portmanteau words.  That is, words that combine two other words to either comic or ironic effect, as we mentioned yesteryon.  Your Humble Scribe first became aware of these as a thing in an editorial comment by (I think) Brian Aldiss, where he mentioned that the word 'magnapult' was a portmanteau combination of 'magnetic' and 'catapult'.  Art!

Nothing to do with anything, just a really cool cover illu

     Conrad recalled - and this is not bad given it must be over forty years since I read the story - that the particular sci-fi short story was "I Made You" by esteemed author Walter M. Miller Jr.  

     Here is where the title comes in, it being a combination of 'Heretic' and 'Calumny' <pauses to bask in awed applause, sulks at the silence, carries on> because Conrad has read the sole novel that WMM published in his lifetime, "A Canticle For Liebowitz" which won tons of awards and is highly regarded as a novel in it's own right bleat bleat yadder yadder whitter.  Art!

     Yeah right.  Conrad found it boring to the nth degree.  It's great if you want a novel that deals with the angst and guilt of Catholicism and spiritual struggles and theology.  If you want science fiction, look elsewhere.

     HOWEVER let us now return to that short story that Ol' Bri was commenting upon.  The title, which I am proud to recall all these decades later <grey cells bask in appreciation> is "I Made You" and it's a compelling, if very downbeat, story.  Your Humble Scribe vastly prefers it to the desiccated narrative of ACFL.  I can't find any images for it, so - Art!

Like this, but on the Moon

     IMY is narrated from the viewpoint of a supertank guarding a whole lot of mining installations on the Moon, whose ability to distinguish friend from foe has gone on the fritz.  The antagonists can't simply nuke it, because it is tied into the mines remotely and destroying it will also destroy the mines.  Enter hapless humans trying to de-activate the tank - which does not wish to be de-activated.  There is no happy ending.  But it's a good story!

     We might well come back to Walter M. Miller Junior for a future article, because he was an interesting character.

     Motley!  Have a bowl of turnip and diesel ice-cream.  I insist.

Were I To Say "Don" And "Trump"

You would, very probably, mis-interpret what Conrad was referring to, because we are in fact going back to "The War Illustrated" and Issue 136, set in September of 1942.  This publication was put out fortnightly, with what appears to be a delay in any information that might be useful to the opposition, which might be a couple of months.  This publication always included lots of coverage of the Eastern Front, with text and maps and photographs, which we will append here.  Art!

The Don crossing

     The Teutons had managed to force a crossing of the Don river, at considerable cost, and continued to pursue the retreating Sinisters, which is a minor trump if you care to assess it.  Yes, pursue all the way into Stalingrad.  Which city name has a cachet today, yet the Teutons 78 years ago had no idea what they were headed into.  Art!

     Thanks to that missing slip of text at bottom Conrad thought the monstrous vehicle in picture one might be a variant on the T28, a multi-turreted monster of very little practical use.  Not only that, it has seventeen crew!  What On Earth?  The text supplied critical details in that it was an armoured TRAIN, not a single enormous tank.

     Picture Two shows South Canadian jeeps towing anti-tank guns, and you can bet that the Sinisters in charge of these vehicles insisted they were of Sinister manufacture, made by Sinisters, in Sinister factories with Sinister tools, and were thoroughly Sinister, until 1991 arrived.

     Picture Three shows Teuton panzers under new management.  A kind of Greek meet Greek moment.

"The Tiger In The Smoke" By Margery Allingham

Those of you out there who know Madge as the author of Albert Campion stories, which have been broadcast as a series on television, might jib a little at this novel, since it is definitely not one of the 'cosy country conservatory' ilk.  There are multiple murders, for one thing.  Most of it takes place in London, and a London of the Fifties, where ghastly fogs that lasted for days were par for the course.  Art!

     Campion himself is only one of a tableaux of characters and scarcely the most important one.  If Madge originally set out to parody Lord Peter Wimsey then her creation seems to have done a Sherlock Holmes (see what I did there?) and grown beyond her imagination.

     Just last night I discovered that there are several Campion adventures present on Youtube. I think that's my viewing evening sorted out once The Doctor has been seen to*.

The 'RAFwaffe'

We mentioned this a couple of nights ago, so let us now move it into more formal annotation.  Picture the situation: it is November 1941 ...

     1426 Flight RAF were also known as 'Enemy Aircraft' flight, because it was their remit to fly Axis aircraft that had fallen into the hands of Perfidious Albion, by whatever means.  On occasion these aircraft were intact, and on other occasions they had to be put together from bits.  Art!

     In case you are unaware, that boxy cockpit glasshouse is the mark of a Bf109, this being a Teuton bird in RAF plumage.  One presumes these test flights would be well off the beaten track, and possibly escorted by real RAF planes, lest there be some terminal mid-air mistakes.  If you were flying one of these cuckoos then the last thing you wanted to hear was "Bandits angels twelve!  Diving to intercept!" in your immediate vicinity.

Finally -

Conrad is back to working from home for the next week, for which he is most profoundly grateful, since having to travel on First Bus is the most suckiest experience of all sucky experiences.  How long will it be until - ah, forget it.  Forget it.

*  Yeti permitting!