The Foggy Foggy Blew

Once Again Conrad Proves What A Terrible Person He Is

But we knew that already, didn't we?  Because it's New Year's Eve I will mercifully refrain from Remote Nuclear Detonating those who point out I have mangled the title of that (awful and horrid) English folk song "The Foggy Foggy Dew".  Me being abstemious will only be for today, tomorrow we go right back on the annihilating schedule again.  Art!

     Nope, this is nothing to do with the Intro, it's just here to act as clickbait.  See how honest I am in defrauding you?  As an aside, Conrad notes that the dreaded Brass Bra Of Sci-Fi Beauties strikes again.  Your Humble Scribe has never worn one but would imagine they are far less comfortable than the underwired cotton version.

     ANYWAY we are here about one of the later entries in "Bermuda Triangle; Mystery Solved" by Larry Kusche, namely the V. A. Fogg, which was involved in a calamitous accident that killed all on board in 1972.  This meant there wasn't much time for it to be incorporated into the Triangle Myth by the time BTMS was published, yet Lazz included it in the certain knowledge that it would, eventually, be attributed to the <exaggerated air quotes> Mysteries Of The Triangle.  Art!

The V A Fogg

     The thing is, this beast sank just off Galveston, Texas, well on the other side of the Florida peninsula, hundreds of miles beyond The Triangle.  In fact, do we have a map to illustrate the point?  Art!

V A Fogg would be in square 56

     There's no special mystery about what happened to the vessel.  She had put out to sea in order to flush out her tanks of benzene residues, because benzene is HIGHLY FLAMMABLE and you don't carry out this kind of maintenance work in a port or harbour.  There is some speculation as to whether sparks from her funnel ignited the benzene, or if a 'Red Devil Blower', as used to vent fumes from cargo tanks, might have shorted and thus created a spark.  Art!

A Red Devil, blowing

     The explosion was so large it was heard ashore, 50 miles away, and created a mushroom cloud two miles high (this is why such tank-flushing is done out at sea).  Expect some ghouls trying to see more books to describe this tragedy as 'mysterious' and 'inexplicable', and generally drape it in woo-woo.  Don't worry, once I take over and all musicals are banned, those woo-woo promoters will be up for the organ banks*.

"Love And Monsters"

Conrad is now able to view Netflix on a large monitor, which makes a lot of difference to the viewing as the screen is easily nine times the size of my modest laptop.  Thus I have been binging a little quite a bit okay a whole lot.  Thus we come to LAM, which I finished watching last night.  An unpretentious little sci-fi adventure film, with a nice animated opening sequence.  Art!

     The central conceit is that a whole host of nuclear missiles were launched to intercept and destroy Earth-impacting asteroid Agatha 616, and their exhaust fumes then caused all cold-blooded creatures to mutate into enormous bloodthirsty beasts.

     Yeah, except no.  That's not how mutation works; it doesn't transform a creature overnight.  Not only that, giant insects would collapse under their own weight whilst suffocating.  Art

     There's a reason you don't see beetles as big as a car, and it's nothing to do with missile exhaust fumes, which are far more likely to kill you dead than transform you into The Incredulous Bulk.

     Besides that, an enjoyable romp.

Here's Some Literary Monsters

Yes, another thrilling extract from "Tormentor" and no, I still cannot remember why it got called same.  

Louis stopped to think.  This entity, which had been Jennifer, was now learning what her human counterpart could not have done.  The spirit was developing, growing, learning.

‘How many other spirits are there?’

‘Hundreds.  Thousands.  Maybe hundreds of thousands.  They live all over the place.’

Typical teenage exaggeration! dismissed Louis.  If there really were that many of them then he’d have seen them.

‘I have a suggestion to make, given your ability to be present and invisible.’

‘Oho, Luma, you don’t want me to catch you looking at porn on the internet!’

‘Behave.  If you are present in the house, turn Jackie’s photograph to face the window.  Turn it back to face the kitchen when you leave.’

The spirit made a face at him.

‘I still can’t accept this, not really.’

‘You will when the police catch my killer,’ replied Jen, with vigour.  ‘I’ll get my revenge then, just you wait and see.’

To find out what had happened in the case so far, Louis went to check out the local newspaper’s website.  “Police still searching” read the headline.  No details about how Jennifer had been killed, nor about the killer beyond that vague description concerning clothing. 

‘I have a favour to ask you.  Tomorrow I go into college to try and teach a class of idiots who can barely breathe, let alone read.  I could do with your support in the classroom.’

Privately, Louis wondered if he wasn’t risking punishment in the fires of eternal damnation by co-opting a spirit into tertiary college tuition practice.

     Perhaps because Luma is a tormented soul?  Or - O I give up.  Make your own reason up.

Conrad Is Still Seething! 

Just not as much as before, since I've just done the three Codewords in the MEN's puzzle pages and cannot find anything to fault about them.

     For the weeks preceding these, however - O boy do I have complaints!

"KUMQUAT": For those who are not as sfisticated as what I am, these are miniature citrus fruits that you eat whole, pith, peel, pips and pulp.  They're pretty exotic and not normally seen in the fruit bowl of your average British family.  Plus it includes two of the least-used letters in Codeword-ology**, "K" and "Q" which makes it MOST UNFAIR.  Art!

With human hand for scale

"ACME":  I know what you're thinking, "O yes, that company featured in all the Roadrunner cartoons, that Wily E Coyote buys remarkable products from.***"

     WRONG.  My Collins Concise defines it as achieving the ultimate in perfection and OF COURSE it comes from the Greek, "Akme".  Art!

The acme of cartoons

"BEBOP":  A word Your Humble Scribe is only familiar with thanks to a live-action version of "Bebop Cowboy" being bruited about at present, which The Critical Drinker typically detests with not only every fibre of his being, but yours as well.

     I think this version is to do with jazz and am too angry at their using a word with two "B"s to go look it up.  Art!

This version is the real deal, apparently

Finally -

You recall, I hope, Conrad's gloasting about finding a Polish-language newspaper when browsing at the Co-Op?  I'm sure we can dig out a couple of pictures for you.  Art!

     In the first picture, that title means "Polish Weekly" and the artwork is for "Girl Scout Angels".  Bottom picture translates as "Tobruk and it's victories", except I had to ignore the Polish for 'Tobruk' because that literally translates as 'Pavement'.  Slow work, indeed.  I shall let you know how I get on.

Chin chin!

*  Under anaesthetic or not?  I haven't decided yet.

**  If this gets to be a word, I want royalties.

***  Despite NOT HAVING A PAYING JOB!  Whose credit card is he abusing?