I Spoil You

I Mean It, In That There Are Going To Be Spoilers

Not first thing, anyway, because whilst I might be evilllll, I'm not cruel.  Not all the time.

     You see, I watched a Netflix film last night called "Escape Room", after having been intrigued by the trailer when surfing across possible viewing options.  If you've been living on the Moon for the past decade you may not know what I'm talking about.  Okay, imagine "The Crystal Maze", without any television cameras.  You are trapped in a room and have to follow clues to deduce your way out, hence escaping.

     Have we got that?  Art!

Richard O'Brien effortlessly looking sinister, the talented swine

     Of course things go horribly wrong for our six randomly selected contestants, who undergo a series of rooms they must escape from.

     There be SPOILERS ahead at this point, Jim lad.  Ooo Arrr*!

     "Or some guy comes in and points out all the clues you missed," explains Danny, the escape-room junkie guru.
     WRONG!  If you don't escape you DIE.

     Case in point.  They are locked into the first room, the doors are too securely shut and heavy to be smashed open, and the windows are blocked by steel shutters.  Every time they fail to find a clue or follow a cue, electric heating elements suddenly come to life in the walls and fittings.  Art!

Dance, baby, dance - it's a disco inferno!

     More SPOILERS ahead!

     They all escape this room, despite the ceiling decoration being a giant gas mantle that erupts in gushing flames as the last of them dives to safety via a wall duct.  Phew!

     Bear in mind that there must have been tons of cabling and wiring and heating elements in and under and above this room, not to mention gas supplied via piping, and electrical motors to drive the window shutters, and insulation to ensure the rest of the building didn't burn down, and perhaps even a ventilation system to extract the poisonous fumes from the burning plastic furniture.  Conrad further postulates that a couple of minions in fireproof suits turned off the heating elements, entered the room after our protagonists left it, and sprayed stuff with fire extinguishers.  Otherwise the whole building could have burned down.  Art!

Winter underland
(You'll see what I mean)

     Next: the cold room.  I think we can stick a pin in the film at this point.  That, or a cooking thermometer.

     Motley!  What's your melting point?  You don't know?  Okay, let's find out!

Reasons To Be Fearful

As Your Humble Scribe has mentioned in the past, you need to be very wary when mixing it in wartime with This Sceptred Isle, because Perfidious Albion's perceived attitude towards fair play and following the rules of cricket camouflages a pretty ruthless and extremely devious nature.  Take one Sefton Delmer, for example.  He grew up speaking fluent German, thanks to living there with his Australian parents.  Art!

Sefton Delmering

     Originally a journalist, he later broadcast for the BBC, until he was recruited by the Political Warfare Executive in the early part of the Second Unpleasantness.  One of his first creations was a fictional Teuton broadcasting station, run by an unrepentant Nazi called "The Chief", who would slander and insult the British - gotta sound realistic - and also heavily criticise what he described as a rabble of courtiers who were taking advantage of and manipulating the Fuhrer.  This was a technique from the Middle Ages; one dared not criticise the king, so one criticised his court.  Tee hee!  Art!

"It's that ****** Delmer at it again!"

     Predictably, this sort of thing enraged the Teutons, and they put Sefton in their Black Book, which being a list of people who would be instantly arrested once they took over This Sceptred Isle.  O my they did not like him.

Wave-washed Winsomeness

Perhaps 'winsome' is too strong a word.  'Impressive' might be more accurate.

     What do I refer to?  How can you fail to realise this is to do with lighthouses?  Conrad came across a fascinating list on Youtube; 15 of the most dangerous lighthouses across the globe, and no, they aren't all South Canadian.  Let's have a look at one of them.  Art!

Saint Joseph's lighthouse, Michigan

     For scaling purposes, that catwalk behind it carried people, and the tower is 30 feet tall.  When the winter weather gets bad on the lake, the whole tower is iced over.  This is not the problem it used to be as, like most lighthouses, it is automated.  Art!

     No puny humans for scale as nobody is daft enough to be out in weather like this.

     We shall probably come back to this video, as it's a lot more interesting than the bland stuff the Beeb was peddling about the 'spirit of 2021'.

Shall We?

Yes we shall!  Another digestible dose of daily dread, namely "Tormentor".  As you recall, a somewhat out-of-his-depth Luma was being lectured by the spirit of a middle-aged Cockney. 

‘Pay attention!  I ain’t got time to waste so don’t interrupt.  I weren’t talking in riddles.  This Jennifer was a sweet young girl in life, and that’s reflected in how her spirit appears.  You, your spirit would look as bitter as a lemon, from what I hear.  Me, I were a God-fearing widow who did good works,’ and she pressed a hand to her chest in what must be pride.  ‘And then you got the monsters.’  She paused and composed herself, whilst Louis felt his eyebrows rise.  ‘Yus, young man, monsters.  People who were evil and rotten in real life, twisted and corrupt.  Lord, the spirit of that Adolf Hitler would be frightful to behold, him and that Morgan too.’

Jennifer’s spirit seemed to find this equally as interesting and alarming as Louis.

‘Why are you telling me this?’ asked Louis quickly, whilst the shade of Marjory watched him.

‘Because, young man, whilst you can see spirits, be assured that they can most certainly see you.  A person like you with second sight always stands out.  Why, other people can tell, sometimes, if they got the wit and eyes to see.’

With a shiver, Louis recalled the reaction of the reverend at college on Monday.  “You’ve undergone a sea-change”.

‘You need to know that, in case any of the unfriendly come calling.  Got anything silver?  If a seer like you lays silver on a spirit, that’s an end to them.  A Bible will scare most of them off, ‘cepting the really awful ones.  Anything blessed will keep them at a distance, and if you were to lay it on them, it’d hurt ‘em something chronic.’

‘Holy water?’ guessed Louis.

‘Yus!’ chuckled Marjory.  ‘You were right, love, he’s quick.  Holy water, yes.  My time’s nearly up here.  You got any questions?’

About a million.

     You can't go wrong with holy water.  Biblical staple.

Finally -

Once again Your Humble Scribe cannot remember how, exactly, he managed to find an American Jew giving a lecture to other American Jews on a topic I had not only never heard of but had never known to be possible or extant: Finnish Jewish soldiers who fought in the Second Unpleasantness, frequently alongside soldiers of the Wehrmacht - you know, the Nazis.  Art!

Field synagogue

     It may be apocryphal, but there is a story about Heinrich Himmler, Chicken Farmer to the Reich Number Three in the Reich asking a senior Finnish minister how the Finns dealt with The Jewish Question?  

     "The Jewish Question?  What Jewish Question?  Finland doesn't have a Jewish Question."

     QED.  We may come back to this, it's interesting stuff.  In my opinion, which is the only one that matters round here.

 - but for the moment, that's us done.  Done!

*  Sorry for the lapse into Pirate.