I Refer To The Creative Process
You know what they say, it takes suffering to create great art. In the case of BOOJUM! this would probably amount to a mild bout of wind or a stubbed toe; we are not, after all, creating a worthy follow-up to "Gravity's Rainbow" - although if Thomas Pynchon doesn't get off his waffle-patterned posterior and come up with a new novel soon I may accept the challenge. Art!
I think it would have to be set in the Sixties, during the Vietnam War, where Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems are designing and testing new jet aircraft for the South Canadian Air Force, and it would switch between a fighter squadron trialling the new jets (codenamed 'Operation Tristero') and folks back home in Utah, the fighter's peacetime location. There would be a British liaison officer - gotta figure in some Anglophilia in a Pynchon knock-off - and a Vietnamese double-agent and Colonel Sam 'Carnage' Caswell
ANYWAY today's title refers to the sad fact that Brain has not randomly selected a word or phrase that I can use to create this Intro with.
O but what's this over on Youtube? Art!
Oooooh, interesting! Conrad cannot check it out now since I'm coming to the end of my lunch - yes yes yes that disgusting-looking Beef Spew Stew since you ask - and need to get back to cranking out a few contracts so that people get paid properly*. I did have a quick check on the Comments and found that quite a few mention the Cuban Missile Crisis, which is when both divides of the Cold War stood teetering on the abyss and decided that, no, it wasn't time to jump. Yet. This was in the days when ICBMs were still developing technology, not being especially reliable or accurate, since they were using liquid fuel and didn't have proper baseline interferometry for guidance. Art!
The Titan of TERROR!
This is one such example, the Titan I, which had an accuracy of only just under 1,000 yards, meaning it carried a whopping big nine megaton warhead, to ensure that even if it missed it still hit. Thankfully none were launched in anger or we'd not be here today.
ANYWAY I think it's time the motley to play Dodge The Dioxin Daggers. We'll give you a forty millisecond head start, motley.
"The Story Of The Guards Armoured Division" By Colonel Hill
And by Captain The Earl Of Rosse, which gives you an insight into this particular division. I finished reading it last night, where the division crossed the Rhine and proceeded into Germany proper, where they fought unrelenting battles and also executed absolute pushovers. One of their consistent opponents was the Teuton 7th Paratroop Division, who no longer jumped out of aircraft - the Luftwaffe in early 1945 was not so much a broken reed as one that had also been stamped upon, set alight and reduced to ashes - but were elite infantry of a most dangerous persuasion. Art!
"Who ate my last mint cream?"
These chaps were heavy-duty hardcore hitters. However, they also evinced an undisguised admiration for the GAD, whom they saw as one of their few truly worthy opponents: it wasn't uncommon for them to enquire if it was to the "Guards First Panzer Division" that they were surrendering. A backhanded compliment is still a compliment.
"Tormentor" - Still No Idea Why I Called It That
If you're not interested in supernatural horror, Conrad gives you permission to move on, BUT REST ASSURED your distant descendants will suffer when my starship invasion fleet gets here. Just so you know you were warned.
Suddenly resigned, he stretched out his right arm,
pressing it to the back of the entity’s hand.
Snatching his hand back, he rubbed the palm. The contact felt like a kind of slow, cold
electrical shock, utterly alien.
‘I even tried to leave you a message on the
answerphone.’
‘You couldn’t have – there was nothing there,’
realised Louis. Could his subconscious
be playing another trick, creating a false explanation for a perfectly
explicable phone call?
‘No.
Electronics are difficult,’ agreed the spirit.
‘What about the duvet last night?’ asked Louis,
fascinated to hear how his mind would explain that away.
‘I tried to wake you.
I couldn’t, so I pulled the duvet off to try and wake you up when you
got cold. That was before I realised you
were zoned-out on sleeping tablets.’
Louis finally asked the question that he ought to have
asked straight away.
‘Why are you here?’
Pseudo-Jennifer tilted her head to one side and looked
at Louis.
‘At last, you asked the right question. I want revenge, or justice, or vengeance. Whatever you call it, I want it and intend to
get it.’
Louis began to edge away from the thing. “Vengeance” sounded worrying. He might have to endure his mind trying to
kill him in ghastly fashion.
‘Not against you, silly!’ and the figure gave a long
tut and shake of the head. ‘Really,
you’re impossible.’
‘No, just insane,’ muttered Louis.
‘You didn’t kill me,’ said the copy, leaning forward
for emphasis. ‘Oh, I give up. I’ll be back.’
She vanished, utterly and completely, with no hint of
transition or fading.
Louis leant forward, hands on knees, taking deep
breaths, then dashed to the toilet just in time to throw up in the sink. For the rest of the night he sat in the
lounge with the television on, watching dismal small-hours programming.
I remember when Darling Daughter was but a baby and having to get up in the small hours to feed her, entertaining myself with awful, cheap, tacky South Canadian television. Or cheap, tacky Israeli television pretending to be South Canadian.
Quassia Conundrum
If you recall yesteryon's blog AND YOU DOG BUNS SHOULD then you remember that Victorian brewers substituted the incredibly bitter Quassia plant's extract instead of hops, because hops were expensive and quassia was cheap. The dirty curs! Art!
The thing is, quassia has been widely used in South America as a traditional medicine, being able to tackle malaria, diabetes, stomach problems (including ulcers), fevers and against skin parasites such as lice. So it's entirely possible that the people drinking quassia-flavoured beer ended up better off health-wise than they would have been drinking normal hop-brewed beer. Nobody has yet done a comparative study of this, and you can best believe if it had been carried out and found to be true, those chiselling brewers would be charging double.
"Get both smashed and healed in one easy bottle!"
Finally -
I was going to waffle on about "The Outer Limits" but have misplaced the booklet with the cast, plot and other details, so it will have to be a reversion to "The War Illustrated" instead, since I have their photos already loaded. Art!
The caption has this as a British artillery barrage going in, which Your Humble Scribe thinks is unlikely, since it looks more like an ammunition dump or truck has been hit. Then again, is it a small explosion close up or a very large one a long way off? Art!
Here we see a column of Teuton prisoners being marched into a prison cage. We can only see two guards as escorts from this perspective, so there may be as many as four or even five. For so numerous a party of prisoners? you ask. Why certainly! Even if they jumped the guards, where could they go? With no food and, much more importantly, no water. No maps, no compasses, no transport, and having to travel probably a hundred miles to reach their own lines. Besides, they can pretend that Rommel will liberate them when he successfully captures Cairo**.
* This is nowhere as easy as it sounds, which is as far as I go thanks to business confidentiality.
** Yeah. Right.
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