Just Not How You Expected It
One is minded of "Travels In Nihilon" by - who was it? - ah yes, Alan Sillitoe - a gift of a surname THAT WE WILL NOT DESCEND TO - where the narrator travels to Lesser Sneddlepool the land of Nihilon, where police patrols randomly breath-test motorists, and if you're not drunk then they are legally empowered to force-feed you copious volumes of alcohol, until you are most certainly drunk. If I recollect correctly, all the Nihilon national air carrier's passenger planes are equipped with anti-aircraft guns. A strange novel. It's been a while, the details escape me. Art!
Nihilism. Difficult to image. Have a mobile nuclear reactor instead.
ANYWAY here I am, re-reading "The Crime At Black Dudley" by Margery Allingham, and what do we have but a garage full of 1929 vintage cars, all of which have been drained of petrol, to prevent our gallant guys and gals from decamping. This leaves them at the mercy of assorted villains, until one Chris Kennedy has the bright idea of fuelling a Salmson car with bottles of whisky. Art!
A Salmson
As Ol' Marge describes it, the car does indeed move under the propulsive power of Johnny Walker - or should that be Runner? - albeit with much backfiring and the emission of choking black smoke. The car does not move well, admittedly, yet it moves, which is the important thing. Conrad, of course, cannot simply take this on trust - we hair-splitting pedants have a reputation to upkeep! - so I did a little checking on teh Interwebz, and do you know what?
It's definitely feasible. Art!
CAUTION! Not for human consumption. Nor alien consumption, either, Conrad.
Modern cars need spirits of very high proof to run on alcohol, of the order of 150% proof, or 3/4 alcohol. Presumably back in 1929 the engines were a lot more primitive, not to say robust, and could have managed with bottles of off-the-shelf whisky. That is to say, it is the drink that is driving. Hence today's title <insert tired alcohol joke here>.
For Your Information: Conrad, despite his Celtic heritage and Caledonian DNA, is not fond of whisky AT ALL. Sorry, Dad.
Tomorrow Lies In A Bush
Tee hee! Do you see what I did there? No? <mutters angrily> it's no fun if you have to explain the joke. Okay, okay, Bob Shaw, that deadpan droll Ulsterman of sci-fi, had a collection of short stories titled "Tomorrow Lies In AMbush". Don't you see how hideously hilarious that title is?
ANYWAY tomorrow Your Humble Scribe is off to an event in Gomorrah-On-The-Irwell, namely the launch party for Matt Hartless And The Maverick 7. Art!
I know, I know, there's only six of them*, and they STILL haven't added the accordion player I recommended. Ah, the youth of today. Your Humble Scribe will be gone from late afternoon to late evening, so don't expect the blog to be rolled out with it's usual metronomic regularity. There will probably be extra pictures to load up on Sunday, so you don't lose out that much.
"To The Mountain", if you really must know.
An "Ah!" Moment
You misunderstand me. You are thinking more of an "Awww!" moment, where one witnesses the family's small domesticated wolf carrying out an activity that tugs the heartstrings**. Art!
 |
| "What? What! I'm keeping it warm for you!" |
No, I refer, of course - obviously! - to that item for yesterday, where Your Humble Scribe mananged to mistake a pair of South Canadian psychologists for a
But hist!
Conrad, being the hair-splitter of hair-splitters, decided to poke around South Canada's geography a little further, and what do you know, I was half-right. Art!
YERKES LASER BATTLE STATION! Observatory
So, there really is a Yerkes Observatory, located in Wisconsin, and up to almost the present day, operated by the University of Chicago, which is probably completely different from Chicago University. The name comes from an Evil Capitalist Exploiter called Charles Yerkes, who foresaw the need to integrate astronomical observation with underpinning research into the physics and chemistry which constitute the basal structures of - Well if he understood all that he can't have been simply eeeevil, can he?
O I dunno
(That's a maleficent moustache)
Our Latest Extract Of Pure Terror
Which is always so much better than impure terror, don't you think? Rather similar to that conversational hyphen, 'Would you like a nice cup of tea?" which implies the alternative is A Nasty Cup Of Tea.
Miller
seemed to have gone raving mad once he got in the prison van, screaming about
the ghost of the dead schoolgirl sitting in the cell alongside him. Then he tried to walk around the Special Unit
in the prison with his eyes shut, before having to be held down by five wardens
in his own cell. The night shift on the
wing had been disturbed by Miller’s periodic shrieks of fear. Finally the convict snapped, in a quiet way
that prevented the anti-suicide watch being put into action. Using a plastic comb, Miller had broken the
teeth off, creating a crude serrated blade which he sharpened on the floor and
his bunk. Then he sawed across his left
wrist and his aorta, bleeding to death in fifteen minutes.
Oswald told McMahon none of this,
wanting to see if the man tripped himself up in a mixture of truth and
lies. For good or bad there was no
tripping-up; McMahon seemed genuinely pleased that Miller was dead.
The detective wouldn’t allow
himself the indulgence of thinking that the world was rid of another perverted,
monstrous child killer.
There was no evidence against
McMahon. Testimony from the two
detectives who escorted the prisoner to prison proved that the lecturer did no
more than rest a hand on Miller’s shoulder.
‘Are you aware that David
Hargreaves threatened to kill Miller if in any way possible?’
‘Doesn’t surprise me. If he managed to pull this one off, he’s got
my alibi.’
Giving a not-impressed-or-amused
look, the detective left.
‘JEN!’ shouted Louis. ‘Get your insubstantial arse here!’ He was taking a chance, since the next-door
neighbours might wonder who he was shouting at.
She appeared only minutes later.
‘Yeswhat? I was busy!’
‘Never mind busy! Have you heard about Eric Miller? Committed suicide today.’
The spirit tried to prevent her
glee from showing, with limited effect.
‘Well, it wasn’t me. I paid him a visit this morning when he was
wide awake. Quivering with fear, the
human jelly, but still alive.’
‘That was your last visit?’
‘Truly, Luma.’
Too late! This will have consequences later on, because one does not buck the Senior Management Of Everything and get off scot-free.
The Two Towers
More accurately, two of the towers. Modern Gomorrah-on-the-Irwell, you see, has a great many towers, certainly far more than in the halcyon days of yore, and if one pays attention to the construction taking place in the city centre whilst travelling in on the Worst Bus service, one can witness dozens of jib cranes all helping to erect NO SNIGGERING AT THE BACK! various towers.
ANYWAY Your Humble Scribe works within The Dark Tower - Art!
Across the way is the more variegated City Tower, which we got a shot of today in between mists and rains - Art!
Hmmmm. Perhaps they are The Dark Tower, and we are - are? - Minas Tirith?
That's a bit of a paradigm shift. I think we need to retire and ponder on this whilst supping on bushels of gin.
And with that we are most probably done. Perhaps.
* I have taken this up with Shelli
** Don't have any so wouldn't know.
No comments:
Post a Comment