- when every other serial had "Death" or "Doom" in the title, and Mary Whitehouse sat frothing at her typewriter about how horrifying the series was. Of course - obviously! - it was, Mary! It's a dramatic reconstruction of real events, and alien invasions tend to be heavy on the gore and guts.
Take, for example, "The Claws Of Axos" because this will resonate later. The Axons <foreshadowing> arrive on planet Earth pretending to be all golden-skinned and gorgeous - Art!
They are merely hiding their true selves as their disgustingly slimy and organic spaceship digs itself into the planet's crust and they start plotting to take over the world. Let's have a look at their true selves, shall we? Art!
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| Shapeless, blobby and above all, MONSTROUS! |
Frankly, not the type of folk you'd invite round for tea and crumpets. For one thing, I doubt they could hold a china cup properly. Do you see now what I mean with today's title threat?
ANYWAY this is by way of an introduction to our real topic: Codeword solutions. Yes yes yes you can consider the above to be a pre-amble. Setting the scene. Ambience establishing.
ANYWAY back to the Codeword. As per usual, the MEN's compilers have been pushing the boundaries of what's acceptable and permissible. Clearly they haven't taken the hint after several of them were reduced to clouds of glowing radioactive vapour. Let the seething begin!
"ZILLIONS": Really! Rather to my surprise, this does have an entry in my Collins Concise, though it does caveat "Informal", being an imprecise but extremely large number. It's rather too slang-y for a Codeword solution in Conrad's opinion, which is the only one that matters around here. I shan't resort to the Remote Nuclear Detonator just yet. Art!
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| Zillions of flies |
"ECZEMA": What, are we all suddenly dermatologists now? This one really had me baffled until a lightbulb moment hit, yet I still wasn't sure because 14, the letter representing "Z", occurred elsewhere, too.
You're not getting a picture, and I'm not sorry. Instead - Art!
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| Haile Sands Fort |
"AXONS": I warned you. WHAT ARE WE ALL SUDDENLY NEUROLOGISTS? or DOCTOR WHO FANS FROM THE SEVENTIES? Enquiring minds want to know. From my CC: 1) "The long threadlike extension of a nerve cell that conducts nerve impulses from the cell body"; 2) "Shapeless blobby monsters featured in the Doctor Who serial 'The Claws of Axos'."
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| They're not wrong |
Motley! Let's recreate a scene from the serial. You can be the Axon, so just hold still whilst I empty this pot of spaghetti and bolognaise all over you.
I Took A Tram - To Altrincham
Those who have the singular misfortune to live beyond This Sceptred Isle's shores need to know that it's pronounced 'Altrinkam'. It rhymes, you see.
ANYWAY Your Humble Scribe needed to get out to Trafford, for reasons that will become clear. So it was a bus into Oldham and then the tram from King Street into The City Under The Sea; Conrad considerably un-nerved by how severely these things sway when moving at speed. Art!
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| They rock and roll, in fact*. |
Your Humble Scribe will admit he's not very tram-savvy, even if he's done more tramming in the past fortnight than in the past five years. I may be doing a lot more of it in future if we're going to be working in the office two weeks running. ANYWAY - Art!
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| Tramap |
Apparently I needed to travel to Cornbrook in order to connect to a Trafford tram, so I got off our tram at Picadilly, then caught another to Cornbrook and grabbed the first tram that came by with "Trafford" in the title.
Unfortunately for me, this terminated at Trafford Bar. Conrad had to cross over to the other side and catch another tram back to Cornbrook and get the tram to THE TRAFFORD CENTRE.
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| Bah! to Trafford Bar |
Ironically I discovered that the tram I took from Oldham travelled all the way to Cornbrook itself; there hadn't been any need to switch at Picadilly. O well, older and wiser.
Further To The Above
OR
Schadenfreude, Delicious Schadenfreude
After boarding the Altrincham-bound tram, Conrad became subtly aware of a group of ballfoot game fans, because they were bellowing raucous and rude songs about how wonderful The Manchester United were, and how wonderful their players were, and how they were going to effortlessly crush the lesser races - whoops, no, that's "Doctor Who", isn't it? - crush Manchester In The City (I may have got these confused, I'm not a ballfoot fan), as they had crushed all opposition in 1969.
Forgive me for splitting hairs; 1969 is a very long time ago.
Right. Art!
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| The crushee not the crusher, hmmm? |
Take that, you annoying gobby sweary lot! Maybe you'll be a bit more humble in future. You can't really make it out so let me explicate that 2,369 comments have been made on this page; one of Conrad's favourite leisure occupations is to sit down and read these with a glass of beer in one hand and a sniggering response in the other. I shall put a couple up. Art!
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| Stinging stuff, hmmmm? |
Let's ladle out more invective. Art!
Ouch! Apparently - and I am parroting wiser heads than I about ballfoot - The Manchester United did very poorly, and their manager is awful, and their players are rubbish. I've read a good 40 comments and none have defended TMU.
Ballfoot Comments: the gift that keeps on giving!
My Destination
Your Humble Scribe was given a year's membership of the Imperial War Museum in August, and my cunning plan was to book an hotel room in December, after I'd been made redundant, and scope out all three IWMs in London, then do Duxford in the New Year by car - it's very awkward and expensive to get to by public transport.
NOT being made redundant rather put a crimp in my plans; I shall have to book holidays in 2022 to manage the above.
So, as an interim, I decided to visit IWM North today, which is based at Trafford. Hence the adventures with trams. Art!
This is merely the first of 67 photos that you ARE going to be presented with. O yes indeedy Ally Sheedy.
And with that I think we're done. Done done done!
* Ouch and I'm sorry
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