If We Don't Have A Theme Today
Then it won't be for lack of trying. Your Humble Scribe had a sudden vague notion that his minor opus "The Sea Of Sand" had - er - borrowed it's title from a film. And what do you know, it had done. Art!
It turned out to be a very well-received film, shot in real Libyan locations with plenty of authentic kit. Who knew! Well, I did, sort of. Now, since I am typing this up at work, my cunning plan was to use the photographs I'd loaded onto my phone of "The War Illustrated" except it's not being recognised <sad bad face> so that will have to wait until tonight when I skulk back into my Sekrit Layr. Instead we shall have to make to with LITHIUM WAFER BATTERY DE -hmmm perhaps not, perhaps not.
Well, I suppose we need to move on from today's very short Intro.
Motley, would you care for a little ice-cream? Turnip and sausage-flavoured.
BOOJUM! Reviews Films
Perhaps Your Humble Scribe ought to warn you that if you want a sensible, serious review, go away. NOW! Mark Kermode (a big fan of The Comsat Angels) has a neat line in Proper Film Reviews, go look him up.
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| Film critic and expert cat-strangler |
Once again, we here at the blog generalise madly, make giant leaps of logic and assume enormously. Except when we don't. Will it drum up more traffic? Then we'll do it. So, enough pontificating. Begin the battering!
"Venom: Let There Be Carnage": Conrad is very angry that enough of you saw the original to make a sequel inevitable. WHY O WHY! I make that plea because I saw a trailer for the original film at the cinema, and once you'd seen that there was no need to see the film. There, I saved you ninety minutes and five pounds, and THIS IS HOW YOU REPAY ME? <finger hovers dangerously close to the Remote Nuclear Detonator>. Or have I got this all wrong and it's a documentary about snakes and anti-venins?
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| Apparently I am not wrong. |
"Addams Family 2": What? There was a previous one? That I somehow missed in my ceaseless observation of bus posters as they whiz by The Mansion? I doubt that a whole very lot indeed! It must have gone slinking out during lockdown, the dirty cur. For anything to do with the titular family, that bus poster was far too bright as regards it's colour palette, full of bright colours when it ought to be sombre and downbeat. I bet the whole hideous farrago attempts to be a comedy. Plus, nobody living or dead can better John Astin as Gomez, because he just oozed craziness. So there.
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| Cannot be bettered*. |
"Dune": How splendid! A well deserved biography of the talented and versatile Doon McKichan. If only they could have spelled her name correctly - what, did you think a spelling Nazi like Conrad would overlook that blunder?
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| NEVER! |
Meanwhile Back In 1942 ...
Allow me to show you one of "The War Illustrated"'s rather jingoistic double-page spreads about the Desert War, which was one of the major fronts Perfidious Albion was waging war upon (the other being the Battle of the Atlantic and t'other being the Bomber Offensive**). I can do this since I am now back at The Mansion, despite the first efforts of Worst Bus. No - hang on - no - actually that can stay as is. Art!
That's the overall montage, repeated here so you can feel a sense of what an audience of the time would have known. Let us examine these photos in a little more detail. Art!
The caption claims that this is a US tank commander. Poppycock! Not with the black beret of a British armoured formation he's not. Perhaps they meant that he is in command of a South Canadian tank, which is a lot more credible, especially since the machine-gun behind him is a .30 calibre Browning, a South Canadian weapon. Given the indistinct bulk of his fellow tanks in the background, Conrad suspects this to be a Grant tank, rather than the more diminutive Stuart - known to the British as the 'Honey'. The Grant came as a most unpleasant shock to the desert Axis, since it mounted a whacking big 75 m.m. gun that fired equally whacking armour-piercing shells that would render their desert armour unto bits and pieces. It could also fire a whacking big high-explosive round that would render anti-tank guns into scrap metal. Art!
A.k.a. "Egypt's Last Hope"
What TWI didn't dare say was that, being South Canadian, the Grant was reliable, a quality essential in desert warfare and frequently found wanting in British tanks. Also, like the Honey, you could throw it around like a sports car and the tracks wouldn't come off.
A Honey doing easily seventy miles per hour.
(Okay, okay, perhaps only sixty. There. Happy now?)
O that chap with the tins of film stock? Those are actually anti-tank mines. Once buried a fuse will be CAREFULLY screwed into them and then - tanks beware. They needed far too much pressure to be detonated by a humble human, lest you be wondering. Usually.
I think that's enough desert war for one day. We will most assuredly be coming back to this montage!
Finally -
O Noes, it appears Facebook has gone toes-up since lunchtime, when I last checked it and indeed posted a link to my latest maunderings on there. This means if you are reading it I am dead and UNIT have found proof if you are reading it then you are either on Twitter or FB has reanimated, like a hideous cyborg zombie musician (yes Keith Richards we are looking at you).
As long as I keep getting decent traffic figures <snaps fingers> to Facebook!
Your Honour, I rest my case
* Any arguments and the Remote Nuclear Detonator will settle the issue.
** Fought notably help-free from the Sinisters, as I like to point out to the Sinisters, which always annoys them***.
*** Tee hee!
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