You Ought To Know By Now
That I am slogging my way through that massive and massively-detailed tome "Reclaiming History" by Vincent Bugliosi, which sets out to destroy the innumerable conspiracy theories that have grown up about the assassination of JFK. Ol' Vin's first intent is to create what is essentially a very detailed account of the days leading up to the assasination, the killing itself, the murder of police officer Tippit, the arrest and interrogation of Lee Harvey Oswald and his subsequent murder. This, you might say, is his establishing a baseline of what really, truly actually happened on 22/11/1963. Art!
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| NO you do not get to see gore. Ghouls. |
That limo is the Presidential one, a four-ton armoured monster that made the motorcycle escort nervous, because if it clipped them at speed they would be reduced to ground pound and iron filings.
ANYWAY shortly after LHO had been arrested (14:15), notification of same came through to the FBI's Dallas office, who had a file on him, due to his leaving South Canada for the Sinister Union and returning a couple of years later with a Ruffian wife.
LHO with escort. And they got docked 3 days pay if caught not wearing a stetson
Looking through the file, they realise with a sense of growing horror that their monitoring of LHO in Mexico includes a visit he made to the Sinister embassy there in September.
Oooer Matron! Was he a Sinister agent? Had he been tasked with assassinating the President? Had the FBI made an unforgivable error in not catching him before 22/11/1963? Suddenly there's a risk of an international superpower confrontation - again. Shadows of the very recent Cuban Missile Crisis loom large -
And that's as far as I've got. Edge of the seat stuff!
"Vapona"
As we all know by now, Conrad's mind works in peculiar ways, in that it works, and none of us are sure exactly how. This word popped up in my mind for no good reason, as I recall it being a fly-killer way back in the Seventies. It was a big slab of poisonous chemicals partially enclosed with card, having lots of slots in the front to allow all the toxic vapours to exude, and kill flies. Art!
Note protective glove
Doubtless there were warnings on the packet about not eating it like chocolate and not to apply it like sun-tan lotion, etcetera. I don't think it's available any longer, probably due to it's inherent danger.
ANYWAY whilst trying to find an image for it, I also came across a remarkable device, which if Art can do his thing -
Hey! I do the puns around here!
Only a South Canadian could come up with a fly-killing GUN. The principle is that you load it up with table salt, and then shoot flies with it, the salt acting like shotgun pellets would with larger game. "Will not splatter fly" it claims, although Conrad supposes that's a function of how close you get to the dirty little beggars. I also found an hilarious Youtube film in slow motion of the Bug-A-Salt in action. Art!
Having set the scene, let the bloodbath begin! Art?
BLAM! 
KAPOW! 
KERBLAM!
Conrad thought it was a flipping hilarious video*! I am tempted to order one, except the fly season is over here in This Sceptred Isle. Maybe in 2020.
Mister Tinsley's Whimsies
Yes, once again we have a look at what the folks of 1955 thought the future would look like (usually wrongly) as imagined by Frank Tinsley, prolific artist and author. Art!
Here Frank is supposing that South Canadians can whiz mails between cities by rocket, which would be a shockingly inaccurate methodology. No, if you want to be accurate in where you deliver your post, you need a missile. Ooooh those are expensive! You'd also need a retro-rocket braking system, because these things can hit the ground at Mach 10 and if they do that your post is toast. Or, more probably, confetti. Retro-rocketry? Oooooh that's pricey! Then there is the health and safety aspect. The target zone would need to be well outside city limits to reduce the risk of an accidental over- or undershoot, because once again these puppies would be moving with sufficient energy to level a city block.
Then you have NORAD. One does not think they'd be happy with a load of false positives on their radar screens, worrying that the Sinisters were going to put a real one in there.
- but I have the clock
Conrad has to sit in judgement and say it was a silly idea and with the advent of e-mail and scanners, who needs it?
More Of My Trafford Tour
O yes indeed! You didn't think you were going to get away with a mere couple of photographs, did you? <loud scoffing noise ensues>. Art!
This, ladies and gentlemen and those unsure, is a Harrier jump-jet, one of the triumphs of Perfidious Albion's aviation industry. They have sadly been retired as they were getting on rather, yet not without handing out a severe stuffing to the Argentinians back in the Eighties. They were capable of taking off vertically from a standing start (VTOL) if needed, although they tended to avoid doing this as it was expensive in terms of fuel expenditure. More normally they'd use a short ramp to execute STOL (Short Take Off & Landing) as this was more economical.
Very very unusually, the South Canadians made these under licence for use with their Marine Corps, and this is one of those - you can just see 'Marines' on the tail fin if you look hard. They absolutely hate hate hate using other people's aircraft but the Harrier was so good they had no choice, and probably muttered "Yeah but remember 1776" every time they built one.
Finally -
I realise I've not commented on Ol' Roel's commentary today, nor have I been ladling invective over Codeword compilers. Don't worry, these regular features will return in time. It's just that I've got a Cryptic Crossword and Codeword backlog of many days that needs clearing, and I can't do them if I'm watching "Quatermass And The Pit", can I?
"London Underground trials new public toilets"
Let me just sign off with another dose of hilarious invective about The Manchester United versus Manchester In The City** ballfoot match of Saturday, where TMU got an absolute shoeing, much to the delight of every other ballfoot team's fans (TMU fans not much liked, it seems).
Chin chin!
* Someone, somewhere, will probably protest about the poor misunderstood flies
** I may have misunderstood these title but cannot be bothered to check up on them. Sue me if you like.
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