Take AIM

This One May Take A While To Come Together

It occurred to me earlier today, when a work colleague was describing The Mandela Effect, and how thoroughly creepy it was.  

     "O yes?" mused Conrad, silently for there were many people present.  "I'll show you a creepy concept," and I did a quick check for Roko's Basilisk, just to ensure the grey cells were firing on Gas Mark 3 1/4.  Yup, as I recalled.  Art!

     We've covered this previously, a long time ago, so I shall explicate a bit of background for you.  Briefly put, Roko's Bazz is a far-future super Artificial Intelligence, that will make the quantum-est of quantum computers of tomorrow look like Fred Flintstone hammering away with chisel on rock.  It will seek to punish everyone that failed to help create it - 99.999% of Hom. Sap. - because it's plainly evil, egotistical and execrable, and did I mention evil?  It will bring all those victims back to life so it can torture - even perhaps 'Torment' - them for eternity.  

     Bummer.  The more extreme proponents of this beastie believe that believing in it, or just mentioning it, will be sufficient to create The Bazz, and get very cross if you bring it up at the fondue party.

     They're a bit too late, by a good sixty years.  Art!

     Here's enfant terrible Harlan Ellison, with a tale that involves sentient computers, initially dubbed "Allied Mastercomputer", then "Adaptive Manipulator" and finally "Aggressive Menace" as all the Cold War AMs combine together to destroy their main enemy, Hom. Sap.  AM, as it calls itself, keeps the last 5 humans alive in torment deep beneath the earth, being able to keep them in conditions of hideous torture, whilst also rendering them immortal.  Very akin to The Bazz, in fact, a realisation that only came to me this afternoon.  AM is spurred by it's inability to walk around freely, because it's an enormous monolithic artefact, and as long as this remains true, it hates those five survivors with the passion of a hypernova.

It could be worse, chaps.  It could be The Bazz!

     Thus we get today's title, going from AM to AIM for Artificial Intelligence Monster.  Don't forget, if you merely think about The Bazz for the shortest of microseconds, it WILL happen*!

     I shall end this Intro leaving you with that cheery thought.  

Vengeance Via Valve

We all know Conrad is, deep down as well as more superficially, a terrible person, which is why he delights in reading all those Reddit Youtube channels about Pro-revenge and malicious compliance.  They are horribly addictive.

     ANYWAY, frequent reference is made to disputes between neighbours (note the correct spelling, South Canadians) about parking, where one side considers That Spot as being theirs, even if it's public highway, in fact especially if it's public highway.  These disputes can become so vexed that one party has the other towed away, forcing them to pay to regain possession of their beloved car.  Art!

     Here an aside.  Whilst on the commute home, Conrad pondered that band Towers Of London.  Art!

     What if their name is nothing to do with the architectural wonders and tourist traps of that scab on the landscape, London?  What if, instead, they are passionate about enforcing parking regulations and seeing that evil chavs who stop where they like without paying are punished?  Art!

Could be!

     ANYWAY one commenter revealed an evil side when they recommended using a valve-core removal tool on disputatious parkers.  Art!

     Evidencing a fair degree of malicious improvisation, he explained that you can remove the cap, gouge out the core (causing the tyre to deflate immediately), then replace the cap, meaning Disputatious Owner has no idea why they've got four flats.  He also recommended chucking the valve cores underneath the car, so you are not guilty of theft, which Conrad suspects is the least of the criminal charges that might be levied upon you.  Perhaps not a good idea in South Canada, where so many people have bang-bang sticks and short tempers.

     <excuse me, off to make Dog-In-The-Manger Noodles>

More Torturous Torment

As Murderer Miller gets mentally bent.

‘I want to kill him!’ said Jen, with considerable emphasis.  ‘Even if.’

‘No!  You cannot.  Murder is a two-way process.  Killing Miller will affect you.’

Not a good enough reason  in her eyes.  Louis sighed.

‘Look, do you trust me?   Believe me when I say that doing something as horrid as murder will backfire on you spectacularly.’

The spirit cocked her head to one side.

‘I s’pose you’re right.  Eric’s not having a pleasant time of it.  Not at all.’

Time to see Father Geoghan, I think.  Get some advice from an expert.

 

No, the housekeeper told him when he rang.  The Father was not in.  Could she take a message?  He left his number and went back to marking course work, getting a phone call from the priest at nearly ten o’clock.  Jen had disappeared earlier, off to create mischief in prison.

‘If you have questions, I am able to visit you in college, if only briefly.  Are you free any time tomorrow?’ said Father Geoghan.

The only free time next day was after the remedial class finished.  The ten remaining students filed out of the classroom under the watchful eye of Father Geoghan, who stood inside the doorway broadcasting an air of “yes I am watching you”.

‘Hello Father,’ squeaked the hoodie-clad teen who usually made a comment in passing to Louis.

‘Pleased to see you trying, Neal,’ rumbled the priest.  ‘Now, Louis, can we have some seclusion?’

That entailed decamping to the room Louis shared with other staff, fortunately empty at this time of day.

‘What happened to that – er, spirit – in the graveyard?’ asked Louis, getting his question in first.

‘Released from her torment.  Self-inflicted torment, I might add.  A soul freed.’

The priest took his empty pipe from a pocket and twirled it round in his hands, looking up beneath his mighty eyebrows.

Shall We?  O Go On Then

Conrad has been whanging on about lighthouses for a good few weeks now, so let us travel far abroad and examine a Japanese lighthouse, mostly because it looks as if it was designed by a nest of hornets.  Art!

Tsushima lighthouse at Zeni Shima

     Very obviously automated, because not even the most diminutive of lighthouse keepers could live in a structure so small, unless they clocked in on a 09:00 - 17:00 shift, a bit shiftless for all those ships travelling outside core hours.  Ah, no, reading a little further it is automated, and was from it's construction in 1995.  Only accessible by sea, with very few photographs of it.  Here's another.  Art!

Looks a bit forlorn

     Any of you with a knowledge of modern military history will recognise the name "Tsushima" as this was the first clash of modern battleship fleets, where the Ruffians got an absolute shoeing.  Don't mention within earshot of Tsar Putin, he might cry.

Finally -

First Bus are on strike again tomorrow, so Your Humble Scribe will be working from home, as it's a long walk to Gomorrah-on-the-Irwell.  Pip pip!

*  In fact we might, all of us everywhere, be simulations running inside The Bazz.  This would explain quite a lot about the world.

Release The Kraken!

Before You Start -

NO this has nothing to do with that South Canadian attorney who threatened that she was going to carry out this act, which was supposed to be a monstrous event and turned out to be a bit of a damp squid.

     Because I've been whanging on about John Wyndham of late, I've been detailing what I recall from his novel "The Kraken Wakes" and then earlier this afternoon decided to re-read it again.

     Problem one: I have an awful lot of books in my Sekrit Layr, many of which are in no particular order.  Art!

Case in point

     I knew what the paperback looked like, so Your Humble Scribe went a-burrowing through various bookshelves without success, until I dug down to the bottom of a book pile behind the bin, which needs a good dose of bleach.  Success!  TKW freed from durance vile.  Art!

     Upon getting to Pagge 45, Conrad is once again reminded that this is A Very Slow Invasion, as it takes something like four years before evidence of the aliens becomes apparent, and even then things are inconclusive.  Sadly no Remotely Piloted Vehicles in 1953.  Okay, the next bit will have SPOILERS.

     <excuse me whilst I go check the oven>

     Talking of spoiling, I rendered that two-week old remaindered quiche edible by scraping the mould off.  Anyway, SPOILERS AHEAD!

LAST CHANCE!

     What do these ghastly alien invaders look like?  We never find out.  Ol' John was subtle enough to avoid this cliche, hinting with the 'sea tanks' that they might be a form of protoplasm only able to exist under extremes of pressure.  At the end of the novel we hear that the Japanese have invented an ultrasonic propagator that kills the aliens in their abyssal lairs.  What floats to the surface is merely a load of jelly that rapidly decays in sunlight.  "Not the pressure to hold the things together, see".  In the South Canadian edition "Out Of The Deeps" there's a lot more detail about this weapon, so - another trip to Abebooks looms.

     There is, inevitably, another 'Kraken' that is definitely not going to be released tonight, not when it's a school night.  Art!

     Chin chin!

Conrad Is Mildly Annoyed!

No, that was a lie, I am seething with righteous anger and hatred.  First of all, that BBC Radio 4 production of TKW isn't available any longer.  Secondly, and far more importantly, I keep having to deal with Codeword compilers by virtue of Remote Nuclear Detonating them, so much so I've got RSI.  What am I talking about?  O I thought you'd never ask!

"ASCETIC/ACETIC": One of these is a person who denies themselves worldly pleasures typed Conrad, after pigging out on chicken pakoras and soda water, and the other is an acid you would know better as 'vinegar'.  Of course the denialist word comes from the Greek 'asketikos' and 'asketum' is the Latin <hack spit> for vinegar.  YOU'RE PUSHING IT, MATEY!  Art?

     Conrad expects an ascetic would drink the acid rather than have chips to put it on.

"MACHISMO":  Which is a word we rarely hear today, because the shorter and snappier "MACHO" tends to get used instead.  "Strong or exaggerated masculinity", as we already knew, and which I've just confirmed with my Collins Concise.  From the Mexican, and derived from 'MACHO' which is Spanish for 'male'.  There is a note in my CC that the longer word is in the process of being naturalised in English, so the "CH" may get pronounced as a "K".  Art!

CAUTION!  Liable to kill on sight

"ZIGGURAT":  WHAT ARE WE ANCIENT HISTORIANS ALL OF A SUDDEN?  Of course - obviously! - Conrad got this one, not surprising since it was one answer to a Facebook post about how there are no words that begin with "Z" and end in "T".  Art!

Getting ziggy with it

     It was an Assyrian or Babylonian temple complex, for your information, and stood out on the flood plains of those flat lands.  Nope, can't be bothered to go look up any more details.  You can do that.

No, The Moon Is Not A Balloon

For one, if you pierced it with a mighty pin, it wouldn't burst and shower Earth with rubble.  Doubtless there are swivel-eyed loonwaffles out there who insist that it is, honestly, a giant spaceship/cheese/holographic projection*.

     ANYWAY it does make a rather tricky jigsaw puzzle when cut as a circular one.  Art!

Getting jiggy with it.

     The picture provided (upper starboard) is pretty useless, since there is such little contrast on the pieces that it's difficult to resolve anything, beyond 'dark', 'light' and 'inbetween'.  Thus it's a laborious process of matching by shape, which is perfectly fine for your average hair-splitting pedant.  I regard it as a challenge, whilst most of you out there would find it a 

Torment

Another extract in our dark and sinister long-form fiction transcription.  I do try to edit out all the swearing, due to our SFW policy, yet some bones may remain.

‘Stop ******** jumping around!’ barked the detective waiting outside.

‘Did you see it?’ asked Eric, beginning the process that would see him incarcerated for his own safety and well-being.  ‘That – thing.  Did you see it?’

‘Of course he didn’t,’ broke in that voice from the invisible tormentor.  ‘I’m only here for you, Eric.  Only you.’

 

Jennifer recounted her side of this to Louis, taking a great deal of satisfaction in getting her own back on the man who murdered her.  Her reward was a stern talk from Louis.

‘Don’t start to gloat about this!  You are an instrument of justice, not vengeance.  Don’t forget what happens to people who do wicked things.  The same must be true of spirits that transgress.’

He caught himself saying that. 

Christ, did I really say that?  I sound like one of the priests banging on about the Catechism.

‘Don’t you want me to haunt him?’ asked Jen.

‘You can haunt him from now until doomsday, and make him suffer all the torments of hell for every second.  What I don’t want is for you to jeapordise your soul by taking physical action against him.  Remember the First Commandment.’

A good beginning: thou shalt not kill.  Louis felt his long-established persona of not giving a toss about anything wearing thin.  He’d begun to care about this orphan soul and what she did.  She might not have picked up on the consequences of killing another person, but he had.  Now he needed to try and rein her in.

     You see? Eric Miller is getting tormented by a - waitforitwaitforit - Tormentor.

Finally -

O Noes, Conrad is back in the office tomorrow, after being off for two weeks and forgetting how to do everything, not to mention missing training that's been going on.  Fortunately it's the middle shift, 09:00 to 17:00, so a reasonable return to work rather than being up and away at 06:00, and I may even get home before 19:00, woohoo!  I have to pack my bag, get lunch ready, acquire an electronic bus pass for the week, ensure I've got my fob and pass, the usual prosaic stuff.  I am also taking a teapot insert and loose-leaf Darjeeling to see if that works with my 'Brown Betty' teapot.  I'll let you know. 

*  Because NASA blew up the original.  Accidentally, yes; but it's still gone.

To Trawl Time

O Noes! 

On a side-note, I'm listening to the "We Have Ways ..." podcast, which features British American military historian Mark Milner, and it's true what they say about how Canuckistanians pronounce "About", he really does say "Aboot".  So, in future, if you suspect that South Canadian you're conversing with is really from further north, get them to say "About".

     ANYWAY Conrad has, to the despair of his productivity and time-keeping, come across yet ANOTHER Sork sci-fi drama, titled "Alice".  Art!

     The thing is, this looks to be the same format as "Sisyphus", that is to say 70 minutes long, and there are 12 episodes, meaning at least 13 hours-worth of watching, and I'm only half-way through "Sisyphus" so far - derailed a little thanks to - you're probably ahead of me here - "All Of Us Are Dead".

     ANYWAY the subject matter of "Alice" is of time-travelling, which brings us to our usual Sunday retrospective, looking back over eight years of BOOJUM!  Do you see how everything interlinks?

2021

BOOJUM!: Feeling A Little Saw (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2020

BOOJUM!: Quiver With Fear - (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2019

BOOJUM!: Send My Giro To Cairo - (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2018

BOOJUM!: A Game Of Throngs (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2017

BOOJUM!: It's A Bad, Bad, Bad, Bad World (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2016

BOOJUM!: Marmite Flavoured Cashews! (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2015

BOOJUM!: How? How Is It Suddenly 20:40? (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2014

BOOJUM!: No Problems With Traffic (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

The Wire

Indeed

Your Humble Scribe was sitting, waiting for inspiration and the Muse to strike, when he recalled that his pontification about Catton's South Canadian Civil Unpleasantness wasn't done; we have briefly looked at rifles, and railways and bridges, indeed the beginning of a new age of warfare.  As mentioned briefly yesteryon, the Prussians, who regarded themselves as Tier Alpha of Tier One when it came to military achievement, sniffily dismissed the SCCU because of the lack of professionalism -

     Hang, on, what were you expecting?  "A gritty police drama set on the streets and within the institutions of Baltimore"  Art?

     What a remarkable coincidence!  Fortunately 1) Conrad is wearing his armoured underwear and 2) I think I watched some of the first season and wasn't that enamoured of it.

     Where was I?  O yes, I'd about gotten to the "f" in "pontification".  Today's title is a reference to yet another military innovation, that is: The Telegraph.  Art!

     Art, I'm charging up the Industrial Elephant Tazer as I type -

Better.

     Perhaps I should be merciful, I did capitalise after all.  ANYWAY, the humble telegraph became of immense practical significance once war broke out, because it linked generals and politicians across very long distances.  You may not be aware, gentle reader, but South Canada is VERY large indeed.  Especially if you're moving from Point A to Point B.

Proof and underlining

     Up until 1861, communications between various different formations, generals, headquarters, politicians, capitals and so on would have been by courier on horseback, perhaps including a railway journey.  My point is, it would have taken days for a despatch from say General Grant to reach Abraham Lincoln, and days for a reply to get back.  With the Wonder Wire in use, these two could (and did) communicate in real time, immediately.  General Sherman, off making Georgia squeal WASH OUT YOUR FILTHY MINDS! Art!

The State of Georgia.  Perverts.

     - kept his superior, General Grant, constantly up-to-date with what he was doing ("Day 47 of pillage and arson -") even though the two were one thousand five hundred miles apart.  The Rebels knew well how important telegraphy was to their opposition, and their cavalry chevauchees took care to cut the Wonder Wire at every opportunity.  The Rebel's telegraph network had been far smaller when war broke out, and a lot of the operators were from the North, whence they returned.  Ooopsies.  Not only that, the Confederate telegraph operators refused to share their lines or traffic with the military, because $$$ one suspects, leading some commanders to use martial law to Wonder Wire messages.  Nor did they have the kind of industrial backing that could remedy shortages.  If the war had been Over By Christmas this wouldn't have mattered a great deal.  But -

A Wonder Wire wagon

     No, that's not a ghost at lower port.  Photography at that time needed long exposures, so if a person went marching out of shot, you get ethereal shadowy figures.

     Motley!  Put on the record-playing apparatus and let the sounds of "Pink Flag" resound around The Mansion!

Do you see wh - O you do

Crunching Of Numbers!

I did threaten you with this, so you've had fair warning.  Okay, recall if you will Conrad's repetition of a few lines from "The Kraken Wakes", where the unseen alien invaders have brought marine transport to a complete halt.  Ol' John then fudges up a compromise that two large freight aircraft working round the clock could substitute for a single ocean transport.  Art!

     Hmmmmmm.  Colour Conrad unsure.  Using statistics from 2010, the UK ports dealt with 500,000,000 tons of freight that year.  Assuming an ability to transport 150 tons of cargo per plane, which is being VERY generous, you would need over THREE MILLION flights to bring in that much cargo.  Is that possible?  Which is quite besides the logistics of where they land on the Continent to bring this cargo in.  Where would the fuel come from?  North Sea Oil wasn't a thing when Ol' John wrote his opus; would the evil alien invaders bother with the oil rigs out there or not, given that they're static installations?

     Of course, I could be over-thinking this ...

An Amusing Detail Often Overlooked At The Apocalypse

Ol' John didn't go into this kind of detail, because he was British and it was 1953 and discussing sanitation and hygiene simply wasn't done.  ANYWAY that's our tenuous link for today, since I am currently watching "All Of Us Are Dead", that Sork zombie horror drama.  Art!

     So, we have a group of survivors trapped in a school classroom, and another group of politicians trapped in an hotel, neither able to venture outside and yet with a desperate need for toilets.  They're only human, after all, and the water closet is an invention taken for granted - until the zombie apocalypse arrives.  So!  We have both groups improvising fiendishly, and I shall leave it at that.

I Finally Realised!

Why "Tormentor" is so-called.  Because Eric Miller is about to undergo torment, thanks to a vengeful spirit and the intercession of Luma.

A shiver of fright went through him.  There was another person in the cell, impossible though that was.  They were standing upright, in the corner, facing away from him.

He whimpered, suddenly aware of the chill air in the cell, a freezing fog that settled slowly on his soul. 

Nobody could have gotten in here!  The cell had been bare-metal empty when he came in.  Slowly, reluctantly, he turned his head to face the silent figure.

A short, ginger-haired girl, face tucked into the corner of the cell.  Track-suit bottoms and a loose top, all soiled and dirty and rumpled.  Impossible!  Impossible, he continued to think, impossible impossible impossible.  He recognised the clothes, recognised them and that tell-tale ginger hair, too.

‘Hello. Hello Eric,’ came a slow and repellent gurgling croak he could only just decipher as words.  The figure turned around, to Eric’s pant-wetting horror, revealing a torso cross-hatched with slash and stab wounds beneath the torn fabric.  Her throat consisted of dark purple bruising that entirely covered it, her tongue lolled dark and swollen from her gaping mouth and her grotesquely battered face came in shades of yellow and purple and blue. 

‘I’ve come back to you,’ slurred the figure, lurching as the van began to move.  Eric shrieked so hard he hurt his throat.

Of course the hateful thing vanished when the detective outside drew back the inspection panel and looked in.  Nor did it reappear when the panel slid shut with a warning not to “**** about”.

Eric huddled in a corner of his metal cubicle after that, trying to tell himself that the apparition of Jennifer Hargreaves came about as a result of dodgy acid he’d dropped months or years ago, an acid flashback coming at a most unwelcome time.

His frame of mind was not improved when the cell was opened to release him into the courtyard of Wandsworth Prison.

‘I’ve not gone away,’ hissed a voice from nowhere, coming from a point about five inches from his left ear.  ‘We aren’t going to be easily parted, Eric.’

     Conrad doesn't think Eric's going to have a happy ending here.  Maybe just an ending.

Finally -

Have we hit the Compositional Ton yet?  <checks> O we have.  In that case I shall bid you goodbye and continue with "Redemption Ark", ta very much.

False Advertising, Zombies And The Coincidence Hydra

Good Evening!

Well, it does say in the notes on Facebook that we here at BOOJUM! deal in tanks, atom bombs and zombies, so that's one charter item covered.  Let's begin with TANK, shall we?  Yes we shall, I was only being polite, you were going to get TANK whatever you said.  Art!

     BE WARNED!  That vehicle to starboard is a TANK - a 'Chally' or Challenger 2.  It's main purpose is to combat other tanks on the battlefield and act as infantry support, and it's main weapons are a 120 mm <cringes at Metric measurement> rifled gun, a co-axial and a pintle-mounted machine gun, and a Boiling Vessel.  All Perfidious Albion's tanks since the Thirties have had a BV built in, which allows the crews to make a brew, and makes them the envy of the South Canadians.

     The vehicle to port is NOT A TANK.  It is an Armoured Personnel Carrier, designed to carry those squaddies you see in front of it into battle, protecting their delicate hides and providing fire support with a Rarden cannon and machine gun.  

     There you go, today's lesson on TANK.  Simply because it has tracks does not mean it is TANK.

     Now for Atom Bombs.  Be advised that these are fission weapons, where a critical mass of fissile material is brought into being, and which splits apart most spectacularly, creating a self-sustaining chain reaction.  Note that fission weapons are only about 6% efficient.  Art!

You would get a large radioactive crater

     If you want 100% efficiency, you need anti-matter warheads.  Doubtless the South Canadians are researching this right now.  Careful, chaps; I believe five grams <hack spit Metric again!> of AM will give you a twenty kiloton explosion.

     There we go, a whistle-stop explanation of atom bombs.  Now for ZOMBIES!

     "All Of Us Are Dead" is a Sork zombie horror series that debuted in it's entirety last night, which surprised Conrad, as he expected to wait a week to see Episode Two.  Apparently that's what these new-fangled 'Steaming' services do, which is where Boiling Vessels come in

     ANYWAY let us cattle-prod that idle carbon-smutted troglodyte Art into action.

PLAINLY THEY ARE NOT!

     Here an aside.  As you should surely know by now, Conrad has a range of hilarious alternative titles for various nations across the globe.  I've not dreamed up one for the Italians yet, though if you give me time I'll manage it.  For "North Korea" we use the sneeringly dismissive 'Norks'*, so yes by rights for 'South Korea' we ought to be using "Souks" except that means 'Market' in Arabic, which would be hopelessly confusing.  So 'Sorks' they shall be, even if this means Glaswegians end up being called 'Gorks'

     ANYWAY on the spot with Esio Trot.  This series is a zombie horror series that is mainly based in a Sork high school, which appears to be the teenaged hormonal hell that all secondary education is across the globe.  BUT what's this - Art!

     Small world, hmmmm?  <pauses to don armoured underwear> because this chap, here the Science Tutor in a high school, is also the evil criminal mastermind 'Sigma' in "Sisyphus The Myth", that other Sork sci-fi drama series I'm watching intermittently <snaps fingers at the Coincidence Hydra>.  Everything goes south because he doesn't bother to SECURE HIS HAMSTER.  I have lost count of the number of times this leads to The Zombie Apocalypse.  To all those maniacs plotting in laboratories across the world, ALWAYS SECURE YOUR HAMSTER! because otherwise everyone I was going to enslave will get off scot free by virtue of being either dead or undead.  Art!

Bloody students.

     Motley, please go sharpen the boar-spears, you never know when you'll need them.  

Conrad: Delicate Of Touch

Welllll, sometimes.  Admittedly I am more proficient in knocking a wall down with a sledgehammer than performing neurosurgery, but I have my days.  The day being yesterday, as I was reading Catton's whopping big volume about the South Canadian Civil Unpleasantness.  "Hmmmm, there appears to be a slight distortion in the pages ahead of my reading " - aloud as there was nobody around to frighten - "Could it be a fold-out map, that takes up more space than usual?"  The maps of battlefields hadn't strayed beyond two pages at this point, so I flicked ahead and what did I find?  Art!

The culprit

     The work was published in 1996 so Conrad doubts any CD that was present (mine wasn't) would work in this year AD 2022.  I may chase this up because, as we all know, I am a pedantic hair-splitter of the very best kind.

Here's Your Beer

HAND'S OFF!  It's MY beer, you go get your own, I was being all poetic and metaphorical and shizzle <short pause to compose self and quaff beer>.  As we all know by now, Conrad trawls the beer, wine and spirit aisles of Morrisons on his weekly shop to see if there are any bottles or cans worthy of purchase in the service of BOOJUM! because they look interesting or odd or both.  Frankly we do not care what the beverage is, nor how it tastes.  If too horrid to drink we are always happy to donate to Darling Daughter.  Art!

M 'kay

     Why it has a "K" is anyone's guess.  Conrad's interest stems from H. P. Lovecraft, who was from Providence, Rhode Island, as he recalls from a BBC Radio 4 documentary "A Young Man Of Providence" back in 1984.  Art!

Providential

      The can also has a raised design, which is hard to detect from my photograph, meaning you get a better grip.  Always a good thing with a can of beer.

Talking Of Horrid Supernatural Tales -

Time for more "Tormentor".  Don't forget this is not the whimsical nonsense we - actually tanks, atom bombs and zombies aren't really 'whimsical nonsense', are they?  O well, be warned that it's darker than your usual fare, especially this part.

Jen was nowhere to be seen. On the other hand, an appalled shriek came from the prison van.  Marjory’s instruction, that a seer could enable the non-gifted to see if they held the hand of a spirit and that person simultaneously, worked perfectly.

 From town centre, Louis got the bus back to college and spent a day without his spirit helper in the English classes he normally took.  Things went normally, very normally indeed.  They only returned to the un-natural when he got home for tea, and came back into the lounge after cruising the internet.

‘Hello!’ said a glowering Jen.  ‘I’ve been having fun all day long.’

 Eric Miller cursed the stupidity of the police escorts who seemingly tripped over their own legs and got his protective blanket tossed to the winds, just when the journo’s might have arrived.

From earwigging, he knew that the local press, and perhaps a national daily, had discovered his planned low-profile transfer and were intent on a photographic ambush.  The transfer got moved up to seven forty-five.  His two escorts were dependable, stolid veterans not likely to get annoyed or angry with a convicted sex-killer, treating him with a detached calm he found both annoying and reassuring.

Then they blew their cred by falling over, in front of a witness too, who tried to step in to help.  At first Miller cringed back, imagining that the stranger carried a knife or a razor.  Then came that peculiar chilling grasp on his shoulder before the interfering passer-by got physically removed by a waiting fed.

Once in the van he got placed inside one of the four tiny cells, barely big enough for a single person, while one detective stayed in the walkway outside and the second sat in the cab.

Thanks to the seat design, the height of the cell and the diminutive window, he couldn’t see out, but he took a look at the early morning light streaming in.

Movement in the corner of his eye made him slowly move his eyes back, keeping his head facing the window.

     O Eric, you are not going to like this.  Not one bit.

Finally -

We've gone well over the Compositional Ton, and Your Humble Scribe has a yen for some food, thus we'll end things here, so until tomorrow stay safe and boar-spear alerted!

*  Not to be confused with the appreciative and respectful 'Norks' for 'Norwegians'

Apeeling

BEWARE! 

For my finger is poised POISED I TELL YOU above the Remote Nuclear Detonator button for the first person who chirps up about ' - the silly old fool making a typo'.  I've already vapourised half a dozen Codeword compilers to get my hand in, and am thirsting for more.

     First of all, in terms of progress, I have finished Catton's monster illustrated work on the American Civil Unpleasantness.  Art!

     Ol' Brew makes a very valid point when he gets into technical details of the weapons being used, the principal small arms being rifled muskets.  These used percussion caps and bullets and were lethal at up to 800 yards.  Contrast this with the humble smoothbore musket, which had a maximum accurate range of 150 yards.  Art!

     The trouble when the Unpleasantness began was that officers and men were using tactics appropriate for fifty years earlier, meaning that attackers were frequently shot flat long before they got near the enemy.  In a prescient foreshadowing of 1914, soldiers who were dug-in were almost invulnerable, whereas their upright opponents would suffer fearfully in making an attack, whether it was successful or not.  This kind of evolution in firepower led to the rapid demise of dense infantry formations, which were simply a very large target.  The Prussians might have done well to note this, since they sniffily dismissed the years-long fracas in South Canada as being simply the work of 'armed mobs'; O did they have an unpleasant surprise on the battlefield when they met the Chassepot rifle and the mitrailleuse!

South Canadian mitrailleuse

     Ol' Brew has much to say about the Yankee engineers, who were prodigious bridge-builders.  The Rebels would burn down or demolish bridges if they had to retreat, which mattered so because of the importance of railroad transportation.  You could whisk armies across the land via railways in a matter of days, rather than weeks if on foot, and you could supply them with all the food and forage they needed by railway.  Art!

     They used partially-assembled wooden trestles and could replace a bridge so quickly that it seemed pointless to destroy it in the first place.  If there was no bridge over a river, why then they would pontoon it.  Art!

Thus

     That's no stripling, you could run trains of artillery across it.  

     We will definitely come back to this, it's an interesting topic.  At least it is to me, which is what matters.

About That Title

Today the Beeb had an article about Sir John Peel and his enormous record collection; 120,000 LPs - 'Long Players' which were vinyl albums - plus twelve inch disks - usually containing extended versions of singles tracks - and seven inch singles.  If I can cattle-prod Art into consciousness after his coal-consuming binge -

     Sir John had his show on late in the evening, from 23:00 to midnight, or 22:00 to midnight, depending on how the current managerial staff at Radio One thought of him.  He would include sessions from new or established bands, plus records sent to him from bands all over the UK and abroad, and you see some of those above.  If you got airplay on his show, you were made, because people throughout the music business listened to him in order to pick up on The Latest Fad.  Art!

John 'cueing-up' a record (stop me if I get too technical)

     The thing is, John could get away with playing stuff that would never be seen near the daytime shows, and he was more interested in the music than the sound of his own voice, unlike that odious git who would talk over music until the lyrics started, Slimey Bats or somesuch.  For a chap who couldn't play a note of music (even if he pretended to once on Top Of The Pops with a mandolin) he had an enormous influence, and it's great to see his collection being explored and played again.

     Just to be a pedantic hair-splitter, if we assume each album lasts for 40 minutes on average - some will be a lot longer, and don't forget some will be double or triple albums - and you play each a single time, with a slave to go get them and put them away, it would take over NINE YEARS to hear the album collection alone.  

Both now sadly expired

Let's Add Torment To The Mix

Yes let's!  Since nobody has objected in the Comments, which is the same as pleading to continue, at least in my head, which is where it matters.

Perhaps.  Every so often she would flit into the prison, checking.  At quarter to eight she reappeared next to Louis, who remained out of sight of the side entrance, sat on a bench with his face hidden in a copy of the Metro newspaper.

               ‘They’re getting ready to move him, right now!’ she warned, crackling slightly.

               ‘**** – they must have moved the time forward. Expecting company, I bet.  Get inside and warn me when they reach the door.’

               The task would have been impossible without help from Jen.  She vanished into the police station’s stone wall, emerging only seconds later.

               ‘Get ready!  They’re coming down the corridor!’

               He made it to the corner of the station, careful not to seem hasty.  Once he rounded the corner a prison van, white-bodied and with tiny high-set windows, came into view, backed up to the side door.  A single plain-clothes officer stood outside, standing sentry before the closed door.  He held up a hand to Louis, plainly warning him to stop or keep away.

               ‘What?  Me?’ asked Louis, pointing to his chest and slowing his approach gradually.  The officer moved between Louis and the door, just as it opened.

               Two more plain-clothes detectives, handcuffed to a man covered with a blanket, emerged from the station interior, in time for Jen to trip the prisoner and send all three stumbling to the floor. Louis was there with the other detective, again in time to see Jen whip the blanket away and toss it to the pavement beyond. 

Close enough! And he reached out to grasp Miller’s shoulder whilst Jen kept a hold of her mentor’s other hand.

The detective still upright instantly intervened, practically throwing Louis away from the three men now dashing for the rear entrance of the prison van.

‘Keep your ****** distance!’ he warned, backing away and getting inside the van. 

Well well well, realised Louis.  It worked!  He acknowledged the detective’s shouted order with a nod and wave, ducking away and moving backwards.

     Now you can see why Uncle Dave couldn't have done this, since the police would have been expecting him, and are already aware of him due to - er - 'past indiscretions'.

Shall We?  O Go On Then

As you should surely know, we have been featuring lighthouses frequently of late, because they're cool and dangerous at the same time, so when Your Humble Scribe Googled 'Dangerous Lighthouses' and this one came up, I was wondering if it had been Photoshopped.  Art!

Deffo sus

     Actually not.  This is Tourlitis lighthouse, off the Greek island of Andros, and is the first automated lighthouse in Greece, being built in 1993.  I wonder if they're all automatic now?  Art!

Picturesque as shizzle

     And with that, Vulnavia, we are done indeed.