I WARNED YOU!
Yes, BBC, I'm looking at you. All these click-bait-y items that ask a question they ought to have already answered; it's a dubious editorial policy and we here at BOOJUM! cordially detest it. The Beeb is already on thin ice because of "Strictly Come Dancing", which Your Humble Scribe still suspects of being completely made up especially to annoy him.
"What is he ranting about now?" I hear you quibble. Art!
NO.
In fact the article is considerably more than mere swivel-eyed loonwafflery, as it examines the volume of global shipping and the inevitable accidents said transport undergoes.
<sigh> I need to establish a background here, don't I? Okay, the above event was when the 'Ever Given' managed to collide with the banks of the Suez Canal, and block it completely for six days. It made the news across Planet Earth. Art?
Conrad remembers having a look at the problem when it happened -
BOOJUM!: Hoop Snakes (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)
They managed to shift it without needing to remove all those containers, for which a lot of people went "Phew!". It would have been like the world's biggest ever game of Jenga. Those two pictures above don't really give a sense of scale. Art!
With two barely-visible puny humans lower starboard for scale
In my opinion, which is the only one that matters, it looks like a ship made out of Lego.
ANYWAY it brought home to people that there are certain logistical 'choke points' across the globe when it comes to marine traffic, the Suez Canal being one of them. Very few countries understand this better than This Sceptred Isle, because of The Second Unpleasantness. Axis air and naval power meant that Allied freighters and warships could enter the Mediterranean via Suez, yet they could emphatically NOT travel across the Med from Gibraltar to use the Canal to leave. Consequently they had to take the incredibly long trans-Africa route, which could add months to a voyage. All those ships prevented from using the Canal thanks to the 'Ever Given's inattentive drivers had that as a dilemma: how soon would the canal be unblocked? What delay is the backlog going to cause? Is our cargo perishable? Dare we risk sailing round Cape Horn?
You may be wondering what this has to do with John Wyndham. O I thought you'd never ask! Do keep up, this is excellent mental exercise. Back to "The Kraken Wakes", my favourite novel of his.
SPOILERS AHOY*!
YOU WERE WARNED!
As you should surely know by now, the invading aliens infesting our planet's abyssal deeps initially form a variety of barrage on the oceans surface, with a weapon that literally chops the bottom off any ship that crosses it. They have another, more direct, weapon, which vibrates a ship apart by hitting it's resonant frequency. These two methods of attack drastically curtail marine transport, a situation partially resolved by Ol' Johnny's assertion that two large aircraft working round the clock could substitute for a single ship. Art!
Conrad unsure of this in terms of stats and number crunching. A 747, for example, which wasn't to be invented for another twenty years when TKW came out, can only carry 140 tons of freight, with distinct limitations on what dimensions this freight can be. We may come back to this with more numbers, for as you know Conrad is a hair-splitting pedant of the worst kind.
I admit we went a little off-track here; think of it as exercise for your brain.
Progress!
In two senses. First of all, that circular jigsaw of the Moon. Art!
It's not easy! Being circular means there are pieces with a very odd shape, and unlike your average square or rectangular jigsaw, there is no up and down, nor side to side, matrix to work from. As you can tell, Conrad tracked down the missing edge piece.
Secondly - Art!
Your Humble Scribe is still battling* his way through this beast and am now at page 358, which isn't as impressive as it might seem as there are so many, many pictures. It mentions two formal painting methods that were used after the event to portray it in retrospect: the panorama and the cyclorama, the latter of which I'd never heard of. Art!
With puny humans for scale
Ah, that makes more sense. The book only has a few small details taken from the whole thing, which is admittedly enormous. What you might call war in the round.
No luck with "Age Of The Triffids" over on Abebooks. Just so you know.
More "Tormentor"
Yes, and we're now up to part Six and page 36 of 81, so lots more lovely extracts lie in wait for you lucky, lucky people.
Dave
Hargreaves came calling in the evening.
‘It’s like this,’ he said,
rubbing the knuckles on one hand. ‘One
of my mates works for the Prison Service, a driver. He ferries them between court and police
cells and prison, so he’s got the inside info on who gets moved around and
when. Miller’s going to be shifted to
prison tomorrow,
Louis went to make his visitor a
cup of coffee, thinking.
‘I’m afraid it’s going to be down
to you,’ said Dave, apologetically. ‘The
feds know me by sight.’ He coughed in
slight embarassment. ‘Past history, and
I went ******* mad when they told me what happened to Jen. I swore to turn Miller into dogfood. My mate says they’ll be looking for me, or
other relatives.’
‘That leaves me out.’
‘Dead right. ‘Cept you were like a dad to her.’
Louis drank his own coffee,
slowly.
‘You won’t get more than a couple
of seconds to get Miller, and they’ll probably bring him out under a blanket. Got any ideas?’
‘Oh, yes. Yes I have,’ replied Louis, with relish. ‘Can’t go into it now, but oh yes I’ve got an
idea.’
The
fruition of that idea meant he got up at the crack of dawn to travel into town
on an early bus, pacing by the central Victorian police station. Jen kept him company. In fact her presence was vital, because she
was the immaterial spy capable of breaching
stone walls to report back.
Louis walked past the blank stone
wall of the prison, past the inset door from which prisoners were taken, timing
how long it took him to get from the corner of the station to the door. Seven seconds. Jen paced the distance, too, making sure she
kept up. A faint aura of radiant, hazy
sparks came off her, worrying Louis.
Could he trust her to do what they’d agreed?
Mister Murderer Miller is about to begin experiencing something utterly frightful.
Dog Buns! I went back and started reading it and that's ten minutes gone.
Finally -
What nasty weather, both freezing and damp. Fortunately for Conrad I have acquired a strategic stockpile of newspapers, meaning there are enough Cryptics, Codewords and Skeletons to keep my fully occupied for the whole weekend to come, without needing to wither under the whether. Don't think I don't already have multiple examples of the Codeword compilers pushing the boundaries of Codeword morals with - well, how fair is it to use "MACHISMO" as a solution? I can tell you feel my anger.
* Do you see wh - O you do.
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