Chilling

Nothing, I Have To Say, To Do With Relaxing

O no.  We are back with "Escape Room" again, because if I had to endure it, then you are jolly well going to get the fallout, yes indeed.  You recall that we looked at the premise yesterday, about Escape Rooms of DEATH, and the enormous amount of preparation that must have gone into prepping the Insane Room Of Incandescent Heat.  Got that?  Today we look at the next room, this being the Icy Chamber Of Hypothermic Hades.  And yes, there will be spoilers.  Art!

     Here we see Danny discovering that the distant snow-scape is in fact giant virtual display screens twenty feet tall; no expense spared with these game-room creators, hmmm?  A set of wooden panels gone at by a man with a paintbrush would be but a fraction of the cost.  

     Note also that everyone is but lightly clad, since they were trying not to die from heatstroke in the previous room.  They have to find a way out of this room or they'll die of hypothermia, and yes, that's ice they're standing on.  Art!

     The water beneath is also very deep, which they discover when fishing for a clue.  This means that there are several hundred tons of the wet stuff underfoot, so the building's frame must have been extensively reinforced to support that mass without buckling, and once again there needs to be considerable infrastructure to power the wall display, circulate the water to create a current and to freeze the top layer.  Art!

SPOILER ALERT!

     The sinister Gamesmasters watching have also (somehow!) embedded explosives in the ice, so they can blow up any part of it, which they do in order to drown Danny, as the rest just barely escape.  Let's put a pin in it there, we still have another four rooms to go.

Right, motley, we've filled the swimming pool with liquid nitrogen and now it's time to see if you can swim in it.  Here's a lifebelt.

Conrad Is Angry!  ANGRY!

Yes indeed!  I'm so furiously angry I could - actually, hang on, I've forgotten what I was so angry about.  The weather?  First Bus?  The pistachio harvest in the Sanjak of Novi Pazar?

     O that was it - Codewords!  <hack spit>.  Yes, those wretched compilers are really testing my patience.  If I keep on vapourising them with the Remote Nuclear Detonator the Heath & Safety Executive might start getting a little too curious.  Anyway, the shoe must go on.

"HAIKU": Yeah yeah yeah, they didn't fool Conrad, they've used this  OUTRAGEOUSLY FOREIGN WORD before, so it was a case of once bitten, twice and voila! you're suddenly radioactive vapour.  Really, do Japanese Codewords resort to using solutions like "PROSE" or "STANZA"?  No they do not*!  "An epigrammatic Japanese verse form in 17 syllables" it says here.  Art!

No, it looks like a tree

"AKIMBO": No!  This isn't another Japanese word.  It's from Middle English, actually.  "To stand with hands on hips and elbows outwards" is the meaning and you must have seen every major villain of stage and screen adopt this pose, frequently whilst twirling their moustache ends and cackling.  Art!

O go on then.  A more noble example.

     
     From "In Kenebowe" if you must know.

"TACO": Yet ANOTHER foreign foodstuff.  Whichever you regard it as, South Canadian or Mexican, it's simply not British.  Art!

Nude taco

     Nor is it present in my Collins Concise, which is damning evidence in itself.  And nobody seems to know where the name originates from, so - aliens.

"It's the only explanation."

Back To The Sea

And the Dangerous Lighthouses video that I stumbled across gleefully yesteryon, which has utterly usurped context-less pictures of 2021.  As if we want to remember that year.  Art!

     This structure stands on the Marin Headlands of California, and was erected to avoid the loss of any more ships, after 300 had foundered or sunk in these dangerous waters.  To reach it one has to walk through a hand-carved tunnel, then for half a mile along the headland, and finally across a suspension bridge.

Quite a hike

     This is actually pretty tame compared to some of the others on this list <disappointed face>.  O well, another one tomorrow.

Here's A Bit Of Real Danger

Back to "Tormentor" and Luma is now encountering spirits that you cannot drink, rather a first for him.

‘Why do you look the way you are?  Jen looks the way she does because – I guess that’s how she looked.  But why clothes?  Why do you look sixtyish?’

‘Ooh!  Cheeky rascal!  This is me at fifty-eight, young man.  Why do I look this way – why , because it’s how I thought I looked, deep down inside.  I wish I’d still got me looks from me youth.’

Improbably, her hair quickly darkened and lengthened, the lines on her face receded and her cheekbones stood out, a cloche hat appeared on her head.  Her dowdy clothes faded into a long sleeveless dress, strung about with necklaces, and her figure perked up and became trimmer.  Louis reckoned she’d lost twenty years at least, in the space of a second.  Incredible as it seemed, he felt able to look without boggling, merely taking it in as a matter of course.

Marjory looked down at her now-prominent bust.

‘ ‘Course, I had too much up front to be a proper flapper and all.’  She sighed.  ‘And looking like this takes it out of a body.’  She shifted back to her former spinster self, far quicker than she’d changed into the spirit of the Twenties.  ‘See you, love.’

Then there was only Jennifer, sitting alone on the settee.

‘Cool!’ she said, grinning at Louis.  ‘We were lucky to find her, hey?’

Louis frowned at her.  “Monsters” didn’t sound quite so lucky. 

‘Oh, I know what you’re thinking,’ she said, huffily.  ‘About the unfriendlies.  They haven’t bothered either of us so far, have they?’

He stood up.

‘Jen, I’ve just been lectured by the spirit of a little old lady in the company of a girl who was practically my daughter who was murdered last week and whose funeral I’m attending tomorrow.  It’s all a lot to take in.  I’m going to bed now.  You can stay here if you like, just don’t wake me up.’

The spirit pouted in a copy of the real Jennifer’s expression that made his eyes sting.

     One supposes it is rather a lot to take in.

Further Proof Of How Horrid I Am

(as if it were needed).  Hey, I have to work at it, you know.  Being consistently wicked requires a great deal of effort.  ANYWAY Conrad was laughing himself sick at the 'Have Your Say' comments on the BBC's Comments page about a football match between The Manchester United and some other team I can't be bothered to recall.  Malicious amusement, one of the simple pleasures in life.  Conrad made a point of saving the link, so -

     "Fergie Time" needs an explanation.  This refers to Sir Alex Ferguson, who used to manage The Manchesters a long time ago, and a conspiracy theory that he bullied and intimidated match officials into extending beyond finish time if his team were losing, so they had a chance to win.  The BBC did a stats analysis and found this to have as much truth to it as most conspiracy theories, i.e. none.  But try telling that to fans.

Are we done here?  We are, I fear!

*  Prove me wrong, I dare you.