Fast Pointy Things

Yes, We Are Back On Sprint Missiles

If you're not altogether interested in nuclear-tipped endoatmospheric interceptor missiles, then perhaps BOOJUM! is not for you, and you should possibly have a look at Uncle Brian's Victorian Brass Tap Collectors Blog, or the My Little Pony Cosplay Group, or even We Worship Demonic Barney - be careful of this last, they practice human sacrifice.  Art!

CAUTION!  Not suitable as a domestic pet.

     Okay, if you wanted a missile that just so happened to be the concrete definition of "A Controlled Directional Explosion" then you can't do better that the Nike Sprint, back in the days when they were slumming it building missile systems.  Even to the layman it looks exceedingly sharp and dangerous.  Art!

"No Smoking, as being a crater often offends"

     As mentioned yesteryon, Sprint hit Mach 10 within less than two seconds from launch, being directed from the ground with radars, and some clever rascal calculated that this is going from 0 - 60 in 27 milliseconds.  Going so ridiculously fast meant a layer of plasma built up around the projectile, making radar control difficult.  To this day the exact manner in which this problem was solved remains a secret, meaning that it may continue to have real-world applications today.

     ANYWAY the incoming Sinister warheads it would be intercepting came in with a terminal velocity of about Mach 12, meaning that any direct impact by even the smallest piece of spall impacted at 16,879 m.p.h. (Mach 22 in m.p.h.) Sprint was intended to detonate within 300 yards of the target and I've seen film footage of a near-miss against a dummy warhead of no more than 100 yards.  Is this significant?  Why, it surely is: the blast alone might well disintegrate the Sinister warhead, but the neutron radiation put out by Sprint's low-yield warhead would cause the fissile material in it's target to have a 'fizzle'.  Art!

Fizzles

Swizzels

     This being the uranium or plutonium undergoing partial fission, melting the warhead from the inside or blowing it apart.  Yes, the landscape below might be pelted with bits of red-hot uranium; this is still better than it being transformed into a giant glowing crater.  Art - more fast pointy things!

    Okay, motley, we've gotten Colin Furze to build a rocket-powered wheelchair, and you're going to be the test pilot.  248 firework rockets, since you ask.  Here's a fire-extinguisher, hold onto it whilst we wrap you in tinfoil.

You What?

As you know, Conrad is a fearful old fossil, who is shockingly rightfully ignorant about the endless parade of celebritutes who lack any perceptible talent, ability or skill yet who have well-paid agents and thus constantly turn up in the yellow press, or on ghastly farragoes like "Strictly Come Dancing" (which I am still convinced is a giant hoax with the sole aim of annoying me).  So, when I saw what Art is about to place before you <pokes slumbering Art with cattle-prod>

NO!  Not "Oxagon" - Camila and Shawn

     I don't recognise either of these names.  Am I supposed to?  Do they appear on vile 'reality television' programs that my glazzies are never, EVER, going to gaze upon?  Are they working on a cure for cancer?  Solving global warming?  Making peace in the Middle East?  Hang on, are they -

     Well, she's not on SCD.  She appears to be a singer, and she can't be any good since I've never heard of her.  Can't be bothered to look up matey.

     There you go, Conrad cementing his Grumpy Old Man status!

I Redeem Myself

I had big trouble on the tram, Friday morning.  I was getting nowhere in my attack on the MEN Codeword, because I had rather jumped the gun and settled on 23 = "E".  Unusually, they had only given two consonants "K" and "N", rather than the much more common single consonant single vowel.  Eventually, after much puzzling, I gave up and tackled the Cryptic crossword, in the hopes that other passengers wouldn't see me as a complete dunce VALIDATION IS SO PRECIOUS.  Even that had problems.  Art!

     That pesky number 23 again.  I checked on a crossword solver site and the answer should be METEOR.  Does this mean I got OZONE wrong? <sighs deeply at this traumatic experience>.  And I binned the paper at the office, so I can't go back to check.

     Back to the Codeword then, and I worked out a solution to that Dog Buns! 23.  Art!

     Hay Pesto!  That was the breakthrough.  That downward one that ends in "A" was SALIVA, in case you were fretting.  And now we're all much happier*.

You Plead For More Of "Tormentor"?

Well, nobody's pleading for less, which is exactly the same as begging for more, at least in my head.  Allow me:

The inevitable aftermath of being in the presence of Jennifer for an hour was an even deeper feeling of absence and loss for Louis.  Tomorrow being Wednesday, he’d need to be in college for eight thirty, which meant being out by eight to catch the bus, and getting up at half seven to shower and shave, which meant setting the alarm for seven, which meant he couldn’t knock back half a bottle of cheap whisky and remove rational thought tonight.

Back to the renovation project, he decided: the rear bedroom.  It was part of his meandering and inconclusive attempt to alter the fixtures, decorations and furniture in that room.  So far he’d stripped the wallpaper, stripped paint from all the wood and taken up the carpet.  In eighteen months.

With cups of coffee and the radio to keep him company, Louis managed to put up lining paper across the ceiling, finishing at midnight.  By then his arms ached, which helped to keep him awake until the small hours, not helped by the coffee.

 

Next morning he found a note from the vice-principal in his staffroom pigeonhole.

“See me immediately – URGENT!!!”

‘Anyone else got a summons from the Almighty?’ he asked the room in general.  A chorus of “no”s greeted him.  ‘Great.’

‘Might be another complaint,’ suggested Sarah, the chubby-cheeked, cheerful and endlessly irritating Mathematics tutor.  Louis scowled at her and shook his head.  He’d given up arguing with her, she was just too bulletproof.  

     I don't think Sarah is based on anyone specific, but this was written ages ago and perhaps it was.  Don't go complaining that there's no spine-chilling horror yet - we authors have to establish character and set the scene you know, <long boastful screed removed by Mister Hand>

Finally -

Wow, cool, just seen a hawk hovering off towards the farms at Gravel Pit.  It didn't stoop and has gone to sulk on a tree branch <short comfort break> and has now moved on.  Don't ask me what kind of hawk, Conrad is not an ornithologist.

Art has missiles on the brain, it seems

     Okay, Vulnavia, that's enough wibble for one afternoon.  Let loose the dogs of raw!

*  This is only temporary and I'll be angry again in mere minutes