I Have The Future Now

Not Me Personally

Except that's not a very good way to begin an Intro, is it?  "Another person has the future, definitely not Conrad, who is spinning this as if it's really him, because he is intrinsically dishonest and untrustworthy".

     The title is a variant of a Peter Hamill album title, "The Future Now", where he does indeed sing "I want the future now", well, be careful, Petey Boy, because you might just get what you wish for and not what you want.  Art!

Well worth a listen

     Of course - obviously! - you must be wondering what Conrad is guffawing about, in his inimitable evil cackle.  Hey, I have to practice for when I take over the world, a man's best mad-scientist laugh takes work you know.

     ANYWAY what I refer to is O So Obviously "Forgotten Weapons", the Youtube channel run by Ian McCollum, and that title is a big fat misnomer because the weapon in question is The Future Now, so it can hardly be forgotten.  Art!

     This, ladies, gentlemen and those unsure, is a Gauss Rifle.  The sci-fi military geeks out there will be nodding their heads and making "uh-huh" noises, whilst the rest of you presumably need a bit more background.

     A Gauss rifle, gun, blunderbuster or whatever you wish to call it - 'rifle' is totally inaccurate because there's no rifling at all - uses electromagnetism to accelerate a steel slug through a series of coils.  You can see seven of the eight magnets in front of the trigger mechanism here, with an eighth behind the trigger.  Art!

The ammo

     These slugs can be bought by the pound at a hardware store, so the ammunition is cheap, at least.  Ian explained that the ArcFlash model (which you can buy right now! for only £3,000) uses three computers to control the weapon, and that you can vary the power output, to extend the battery life or adjust for tactical circumstances.  Art!

     The projectile, as seen above, exits the gun at 275 feet per second, which is bordering on lethal velocity, especially since the 'bullet' is about an ounce in weight.  For those of you who revel in blood and gore, and feel a teensy bit disappointed, don't forget this is a first-generation weapon; models on the market in twenty years time will undoubtedly fire at a faster rate, with a higher velocity and out to more distant targets.  Nor does it make a bang or a muzzle flash, merely a loud 'CLACK', so your opponents have no idea where flying steel death darts are coming from.  Art!

     Ian having a blast, so to speak.

     Okay, enough of the future for one day.  Back to boring old 2022.  Motley, time to test this lavender and creosote-flavoured ice cream.  Open wide!

Conrad's Night On The Piles

ATOMIC piles, thank you very much.  Er - well, in fact there were no nuclear power plants involved, it's just a variant on "Conrad's Night On The Tiles", being a reference to Saturday evening just gone, and that gig I went to in Gomorrah-in-the-Irwell*.  Art!

     

     There you have the horribly naked stage, absent stage lighting and dry ice.   What you see in the background is a design intended to reference Matt Hartless And The Maverick 7's album title, "To The Mountain".  Let us set the scene: all schedules were completely thrown off by the bouncer not turning up until 19:00, so Mister Novembre was on later than he ought to have been.  Art!

     You can see him aided and abetted by Matt, playing trumpet.  Conrad thinks they should have cut the support acts times by half, thanks to the later start.  That way <long pompous screed removed in the interests of brevity by Mister Hand> wouldn't it?

How To Get Sacked On Your First Day

It takes a special kind of stupid to manage this, yet there are scads of very stupid people out there who manage it very well indeed, as the Reddit channels on Youtube prove daily.

     Today we travel to Ruffia, where a security guard, on his first day, was stoutly protecting the artwork of Anna Leporskaya, especially "Three Figures".  Art!

Can you eat it?  No? Then Conrad's not interested

     Bored, and since this is Ruffia, probably having ingested a whole lot of vodka, our hero decided that, in his artistic opinion, Anna had left off her painting without properly finishing it, so he decided to help.  With a biro.  Art!

     The gallery were not impressed and he was requested to leave the premises, most likely on the toe of the director's boot.  At least he has a tale to dine out on now.  I wonder why he didn't add noses and mouths?  Perhaps a piercing and a couple of tats?

As One Door Closes, Another Gets Kicked In

Yes I say, Hastings Ismay.  Conrad has to endure the above periodically when MI5 or UNIT decide to pay a visit.  They do pay for the door later, it's just a pain with the insurance paperwork and if Spectrum get 

     ANYWAY another extract from "Tormentor", our supernatural tale of tongue-tickling terror (which is indeed a thing, by the way).

Gone again, and really and truly gone this time.  He snivelled in self-pity for a while, wiping snot and tears away with paper towels, before getting a grip.

               S***, I should be grateful!  Jackie and Natasha were gone before I realised what happened.  This way I got to say a long goodbye and know she’s moving on to a better place.

               The old Louis, the one who hated the whole world and everyone in it, would have drunk himself insensible after such a final goodbye.  This time he didn’t – not having bought a new supply of booze since Jen got rid of his old one, there wasn’t an option. 

               Instead he stayed on the settee, long after it got dark, thinking and replaying all that had happened since Jennifer died.  It took a lot to undermine and reverse a person’s view of the world when they were an adult, but the past few weeks had done that.

               Oh – and Jen had mentioned other spirits coming to call, hadn’t she?  Fair warning.  At least now he’d be prepared to get woken in the middle of the night by a supernatural something sitting on the duvet, instead of nearly p****** himself in fear.

               Also, out of a sense of caution and the better-safe-than-sorry school, he retrieved the chunky silver bracelet from it’s resting place under the settee.

 

               That night he dreamt of something unusual and strange, but not hostile or sinister in the way he’d feared might happen after Jen left.  None of it was clear in the morning when he woke, only a vague sense of novelty or surprise remaining.

 

               For all Louis’s forebodings, nothing unusual happened at college for the rest of the week.  He went to the cemetery on Saturday, seeking to place flowers on the three gravestones that mattered most to him.  After making a kneeled devotion to the site of his dead wife and daughter, he passed over to Jennifer’s headstone, pausing there in thought.

               Mere seconds later another person came to stand silently alongside him, causing Louis to wince with solipsistic annoyance.  Of all the places to hang around, of all the places where an individual might not want company –

               ‘What do you want?’ he asked, belatedly aware that this newcomer did not cast a shadow.

     Ah, you see, no pulling the wool over Luma's eyes, is there?

Finally -

I have finished "Redemption Ark", by Alastair Reynolds, all 650 pages of it, and the title only comes into play at the very end of the novel.  There's another novel in this series, "Absolution Gap", which is doubtless enormously long as well.  The completist in me is contemplating buying it, whilst wallet squeaks in anguish.  O, and I've hit page 410 of "Reclaiming History", so am now a quarter of the way through it!

*  Yes it's been raining a lot here.