Hark! Hark! It's A Wonderful Shark

As You Should Surely Know By Now

Conrad ploughs a lonely furrow in his attempts to convince the world that Sharks Are Our Friends.  This campaign is not helped by the recent news that a Great White had killed a swimmer off the coast of Ockerland; although headlines have seen fit to mention that this is the first shark fatality in nearly 60 years.  Don't forget, Hom. Sap. kills millions of sharks every year, principally so that The Populous Dictatorship can have shark fin soup.

     ANYWAY let us bring up the winning photograph for Underwater Photographer of the Year, a competition that I never knew existed until now, but which I shall now ruthlessly exploit for days to come.  Art!

Whale sharks at scoff
(courtesy Rafael Fernandez Caballero)

     These things are 1)  Immense and 2) Not notably gregarious, so catching a shot of five at once is an achievement all in itself.

    "BUT THE DANGER!" I hear you squawking.  "OMG THE GIGANTIC MOUTHS THE SLITHING TEETH!"

     Er - pausing only to commend you on your use of a Carrollism - no.  The whale shark is a massive beast indeed, yet it subsists mostly on plankton or very small fish.  As you can see from above, it hoovers up food by cruising around with it's mouth open.  They pose absolutely no threat to Hom. Sap. and whale shark calves have been known to play with divers, before they grow up and get serious.  Their only known predator is, once again, Hom. Sap. and The Populous Dictatorship.  Art!

Whale shark in purple

     With puny human for scale.  What else can we explain about whale sharks?  Not a lot.  They have three hundred rows of teeth?  Hmmmm a visit to the dentist must cost nearly as much as for the Coincidence Hydra.  There we go, that's today's concise Intro complete.

This Might Take A While

Conrad has been watching selected episodes of "Star Trek" on Netflix, while it's available, as you never know when it's going to suddenly vanish.  One thing I noticed - Conrad old not senile* - is the beefed-up special effects, where old footage of the starship 'Enterprise' or the planets it orbits have been digitally replaced.  Art!

     Ignore that fat biffer in the red t-shirt.  Hopefully you get the idea.  Conrad is unsure whether he approves or not; it's rather like editing out the wires in "Thunderbirds", when they were part of the appeal.

    ANYWAY who is noted for their cool sense of logic and rationality in said series?  Bones, of course - obviously! - who taught Mister Spock everything he knew.  And O my, what's this?  Art!

     Anna's Christmas present, if you must know.  I had to cheat and look up the solution for Nappy's Cannon Balls, there was no way I could manage it myself.  Cassini's Rings wasn't too hard, the trick is to use both lengths of string to give you enough space.  Drake's Bowl was horribly tricky until I used bits of Blu-Tak to keep it together, because my giant sausage fingers weren't up to the job.  Art!

     It doesn't look remotely like a ball, does it?  Not only that, thanks to the adhesive and the way it locked together, the only way to break it up again was to repeatedly hurl it against the concrete yardage outside.  

     The Pyramid and Coil were both easy, as were the 'Clefs' and I think we have proof - Art?

     However, Van Gogh's 'Box' looks to be pretty tricky and a recourse to Blu-Tak looms again.  Of the six pieces I note one to be slightly different, so presumably that's the one you begin with.  I shall let you know.

More Of That Gig

Yes, I am stringing it out rather - once again, whose blog is it?  Precisely.  Art!

Crude Virtue

      This was more to Conrad's taste - loud guitar rock.  However, once again a forty-five minute set, the clock hands getting ever closer to Bug Out For Bus Time**.  Only a pint of Shindigger Pale consoled me.  Of course, after doing their 'Set' they had to pack up their gear and get offstage, and the Mavs then had to set up their own kit.  GO FASTER SHELLI! thought admittedly she did clean up nicely.  You may get to see those pics tomorrow.  Or you may not.  I'm horrid like that.

Speaking Of Horrid ...

Let's boost the word count and my ego with another extract from "Tormentor".  As you ought to realise, the spirit of Jennifer has moved on, yet the spirit world hasn't finished with Luma at all.

‘Oh!’ replied the stranger.  Louis turned to see a dapper middle-aged man in an overcoat, wearing a homburg hat, complete with goatee and moustache.  ‘Sorry.  I didn’t mean to intrude.’

               ‘You have already.  What do you want?’

               ‘A word of warning.  Steady on, nothing to do with me!’ blurted the spirit as Louis slid the silver bracelet over his knuckles. 

               ‘Start talking then.  Don’t move from there, I don’t want to have to move around and talk to thin air.  People will wonder.’

               The spirit nodded, tweaked it’s moustache and made a face.

               ‘You won’t have heard of Morgan, or not yet anyway.  He will try to hunt you down and destroy you.’

               Louis turned his head without being aware of it. 

               ‘Oh?  And why would that be?’

               The well-dressed spirit looked into the middle distance.

               ‘You can communicate with spirits.  A seer.  The last true one came from Lithuania in the Forties.’

               Louis exhibited a touch of mischief.

               ‘Which “Forties” is that?  Nineteen Forty?  Eighteen Forty?  Seventeen Forty?’

               ‘Oh, how amusing.  How amusing you are.  Nineteen forty four, and a refugee who made his way to West Germany, as it became after the partition.’

               This blunt recounting of post-war Europe’s political map impressed Louis, who freely admitted he was not up to the minute in matters temporal and territorial.

               ‘So I can talk to you lot.  Why does that make me a threat?’

               Faintly, barely visible in the bright autumn sunshine, a border of electric sparks began to emit from the outline of the stranger.  A familiar crackling sound, filtered across countless aeons of time and space, came to Louis; the sound that Jennifer’s spirit had made when angry.

     Ah, that's Luma living down to his reputation as blunt and tactless.

Meanwhile, Back In 1943

Yes, another picture selection from "The War Illustrated", which cover we can legitimately present here thanks to dating.  Art!

     Here we see the redoubtable Sergeant Sumner, cradling the Teuton machine-gun that he took away from it's previous owners, along with three thousand rounds of ammunition.  These he took great pleasure in delivering to their previous owners and compatriots, probably burning out the barrel in doing so.  The biter bit, the shooter shot, you might way.  The photograph is taken in Tunisia, where the First Army was engaged in the west, whilst Eighth Army approached from the east.  Talking of the east -

     The Eastern Front post-Stalingrad, otherwise those Sinister pikers will whinge and complain.  Yes it's blurry and no, I'm not putting up a better photograph, for two reasons.  One, I'm hungry and it's lunch time, and 2) I am watching "Wink Of An Eye", so 3) Suck it up, Sinisters.

*  Yet! <the horrid truth courtesy Mister Hand>

**  Technically, Walk To St Peter's Square To Catch Tram To Get To Oldham To Bug Out For Bus Time, which is not very concise.