I Refer, Once Again -
To "Squid Game", that gorily entertaining Stork television series. Imagine one of those mad Japanese game shows like "Takeshi's Castle" except in this version the losers end up getting shot dead. Nobody realised just how deadly this series of 'games' would be or none of them would have volunteered - probably. After all, they are all chasing a ₩45,000,000,000 prize*.
SPOILERS AHEAD!
STILL SPOILERS AHEAD!
I WARNED YOU.
After the initial carnage, those survivors remaining take a vote to end the games, as the third game rule allows, and pass the motion by one. They are returned to civilisation unharmed yet comatose under anaesthetic, with no clue where they were or how to get there.
Here it is. Wherever that is.
"As if they'd return!" you scoff. Hmmmm. Well, the severe debt and financial problems these people return to haven't either gone away nor got easier. Eventually, when contacted again to see if they want to return to the game, all but 14 do.
Sensible 14! Miserable and indebted yet undoubtedly still alive 14!
Because for the next 'game' the contestants have to etch a specific shape out of shallow circle of honeycomb with a needle. Without cracking the shape. Art!
That'll teach him to be a fan of "The Umbrella Academy"
Some shapes are harder than others. Gi-hun, as seen above, has a revelation that if the rear of the honeycomb is licked, it gradually becomes thinner and he eventually produces a pristine umbrella. Others who crack theirs, or who fail to complete against the clock, are - and you're probably way ahead of me here - shot dead on the spot. All 79 of them.
Erk. These games are played for keeps. Only 108 players left from an original 456? One-fifth left after only TWO games?
A bit Rhine card, if you ask me.
Conrad decided to call the series 'Grand Guignol' and then had to go and look up the phrase that came so glibly to his lips. Okay okay, fingers. Fingers, for the excessively pedantic out there, and I was right. It was a French theatre of the late nineteenth century that specialised in realistic, gruesome horror shows.
Motley! Do you fancy a bit of honeycomb?
Plodding Along With The Musical Critique
This has taken ages to resolve, hasn't it? Blame Brian Eno, not Your Humble Scribe, it's his fault for writing so many lyrics in "King's Lead Hat". I bet he got paid by the word, the piker. Let us resume:
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| "Rona hated prank callers on the 999 line'" |
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| Serves them right for driving a car |
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| The evil legacy of Alexander Graham Bell |
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| Meet the SS Do Rei Chumbo Chapeu |
I think that's enough musical critique for one night. We only have another three lines to endure, folks!
Talking Of Lines -
No! Nothing to do with telephones. Think instead of railways - I know this is risky, what with the sinister steam locomotives always hanging around, ready to intrude onto the blog** - and railway lines. For we are able to bring you more pages from "The War Illustrated" as of seventy nine years ago, in what I thought was Issue 138. I'd actually put a bookmark in the wrong place, so the year was more advanced than I'd thought. However, because I bothered to take the photos, you are MOST CERTAINLY going to experience them. Art!
This, gentle reader, is a Sinister armoured train. The Sinisters had long experience of using this kind of vehicle, going all the way back to the Civil War, and the Revolution before that. You would armour a locomotive, then add on various carriages that had been armoured, too, and stick a few obsolete tank turrets on them, plus a good few machine guns for good measure. The result was a mobile metal fortress that could achieve thirty miles an hour, even in the extremes of a Ruffian winter. Below the train you can see an armoured car, adapted to run on railway tracks, which would beetle along well in advance to spot any potential targets or ambushes. Art!
"According to this, we're in Vienna."
Railway lines in the Sinister Union were of immense importance, because they could operate unimpaired all year round, whereas the primitive and underdeveloped road network collapsed in the excessively wet weather of spring and autumn. Little wonder, therefore, that they had the big brutal beasts steaming up and down said lines. Art!
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| "London salutes the ever-glorious Red Army" |
This probably got so many people into trouble in later years .....
Here you see an appreciative crowd saluting the Red Army, which at this point in the war was still losing to the Hitlerites (we are talking pre-Stalingrad here). However, they were still fighting ferociously, weren't even close to giving up and had learned the very, very hard way how to fight the invading Teutons. One hopes that some of the ungracious and ungrateful Sinister ambassadors were watching this performance, the pikers.
Finally -
Yes yes yes, I have oodles of ordure to ladle out over the ne'er do wells and pikers who make up Codeword compilers in the modern world, I just haven't had enough time or space to get around to traducing and excoriating them. For one thing, I've spent a lot of time putting together that 3D Empire State Building puzzle literally piece by piece. The picture on the box of front and back are pretty useless, so I've had to arrange hundreds of pieces by shape and work that way. This makes progress verrrrrry slow. It's still progress, mind. Art!
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| What I'm working from |
* Or £28,000,000
** This is why The Mansion is protected by a Magma Moat filled with lava.
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