"Bombing The Tinies"

It's A Phrase, Not An Instruction

It comes from the mind of Nigel Kneale, whose biography I am now reading, and the "Tinies" in question are small children.  He was referring, of course - obviously! - to his perception of "Doctor Who" focussing it's attention on scaring the kids, which he felt strongly about since he possessed two of his own.  Art!

He has a point
(And Bok has two!)

     The thing is, kids loved having the living wee being terrified out of them, and Your Humble Scribe ought to know, having been one of them.  It never did me any harm*!  Take that evil little gargoyle Bok, as seen above.  It was claimed after shooting had finished by one of the actors on behalf of his schoolboy son, who proudly had it sitting on top of his wardrobe for years**.  Witness my recent purchase of "The Web Of Fear" as confirmation of this, because it is.  Also because I say so.  Art!

There's this web, see, and it's made of fear, see ...

     Besides which, Ol' Nige had attained a reputation and a livelihood by scaring the living wee out of people, only they were adults, which made it okay - in his mind at least.  See anything that has "Quatermass" in the title.

     ANYWAY none of that has more than the slightest of connections with a couple of children's classic books, although I'm only going to concentrate on one: "The Tiger Who Came To Tea".  Art!

NO!  The small child is NOT the food in question***!

     This book was written by Ol' Nige's wife, Judith Kerr, and proved to be an international best-seller.  The illustrations are by her, too.  The story is that of a tiger - you may be way ahead of me here - who invites himself in to have tea with Sophie and her mother, and who consumes all the consumables in the house.  Fortunately he leaves before Sophie's dad arrives, or there might have been a clash of alpha males.

     Such a work is, manifestly, the very opposite of 'Bombing the tinies' and is more akin to giving them cake and lemonade (not so much as to make them sick, mind).

     What an interesting juxtaposition of talents!

     Motley, you and a tiger are going to have tea together.  I've got the ladder, you can carry the tray, and don't spill any tea, slipping on a wet floor can be dangerous.

Suitably Sinister!

Following on from that item, let us have another look at one of the images sent in to the BBC's web pages on the theme of "Derelict".  Art!

Courtesy Oli Louch and Owen Copso

     This is what's left of Dunstall Castle in Worcestershire, and it's so obviously haunted that I don't think any more comment is necessary.  It was done by shining a drone-mounted light upon it, the noise of which definitely gave the ghosts enough warning to hide themselves.  Notice that it was a pair of people taking the photograph; safety in numbers.

Frank's Blanks

Ah yes, we are once again traducing the memory of pulp artist Frank Tinsley, which he can't object to, being long dead.  It's all in good humour, Frank, because if BOOJUM! were being harsh or spiteful, O you'd know.  How you would know!  Art?

1963 vintage

     Since I only have the outer cover to go by, I don't know if this flight of fancy is direct from the brains of Frank or whether another bright-ideas boy breezily blew in with it.  Because there's an obvious problem with this mechanical conveyance.  I wonder if you can see it?

     Turning circle, in case you missed it.  Given the length of this construct - Conrad guesstimates a couple of hundred yards - it would require a simply enormous curved section of (presumably) evacuated tunnel.  There's probably a formula to calculate that, which I leave it to you to discover.

     Actually let us use those numbers: travelling at 600 miles per hour (none of that metric nonsense here!) and with a completely guesswork Rate Of Turn of 45 degrees per minute, Frank's manned missile would have a turning circle of 15 miles.  You'd have to build that tunnel in a completely straight line.  And you could only have one travelling in the tunnel at any time, because otherwise they'd collide.  And what happens if the power goes out?  How does it execute an emergency stop?  And -

     You get the idea.  O the pitfalls of having a relentlessly logical mind.

The closest we have at the mo.  Soz, frank

Conrad:  Rarely Speechless

Though it does happen.  Not very often, so cherish this moment and relate it to your grandchildren (providing the zombies/robots/asteroids don't get you first).  Last week Your Humble Scribe took part in a remote interview via Teams, where he cunningly retained his comfy jeans and Crocks, whilst visibly wearing a shirt and tie.  What they can't see can't hurt you.  This was for a permanent full-time vacancy with <department redacted> as a <role redacted>.

     As for the interview, Conrad was convinced he was barely coherent, blurting out a torrent of piffle, thinking afterwards "I should have said that".  A bag of potatoes could have done better.

 - except apparently not.  They rang and offered me the job the fools!

     Of course, it might be a trap - UNIT and Spectrum are always looking for ways to get me alone in a small room for a long time, so I shall go with a portable force-field generator and <description of advanced alien weapons technology redacted>

Conrad's competition

Finally -

As an experiment, Your Humble Scribe took the tram from Gomorrah-on-the-Irwell tonight, getting back to Babylon-Lite ('Oldham' if we're being formal) in time to catch the 18:00 service to Rochdale -

     Except not.  It was late, so late it was followed by another 409.  The front-runner proceeded into Oldham Bus station, where the driver declared his bus to be an independent republic and held us hostages for nearly ten minutes, until his fag had reached the butt.  Then he re-joined civilisation.  There may be a complicated technical explanation for this, I don't know.

     I did still get back to The Mansion fifteen minutes earlier than usual.  Conrad wonders if the future lies in a 409 bus into and out of Oldham and a tram to and from the metropolis of Mancunians?

     More pondering to ensue.

Chin chin! Vulnavia, we have reached the opposite of 'Begin'

*  Debatable.  <The hideous truth courtesy Mister Hand!>

**  Wouldn't it have been amusing to sneak in when he was asleep and move it's position slightly!

***  If this was your first thought then perhaps you should read less of BOOJUM! his