Is There Fife On Mars?

I Like This Title

It made me laugh out loud, no mean achievement.  That was, of course - obviously! - , after I rendered into radioactive vapour a passel of folks who chided me for a typo.  That'll teach them.  It is an hilarious pun, which will take quite a bit of explaining, so let's get on with it.  Art!

     All hail our robotic overlords!  Actually it's the Curiosity rover, which has been tootling around Mars for the past ten years, busily looking for Ice Warriors or Decepticons signs of ancient life.  If you kept up with areological news, then you'd know it went a-trundling across regions of the Martian surface that had surprisingly terrestrial names, and ones that had a noticeable Caledonian cast to them.  Art!

     There you have the "Sands of Forvie", named after a Scottish nature reserve.  The Rover had entered the Glen Torridon region, again named after Scottish geology, and has encountered both Stonehaven and Oban.  There is even a 'Siccar Point', which we've already covered: this formation of rock strata in Scotland witnessed the birth of modern geology, as James Hutton realised your our planet is not 4,000 years old, as had been held to in respect of the Bible, but many millions of years.  

     Why this mad Caledonian place-naming whirl?  No, Vulnavia, not because Mars is nearly as cold as Scotland in the winter.  Art!

Glen Torridon (Mars)

     Because the aresographers have decided to name objects in this location with Scottish names, up to one thousand of them, in order that they can keep track of what they've been scoping out.  You wouldn't want two places calling themselves "Vasquez Rocks" or you'll confuse all the 'Starry Trex' fans.

Glen Torridon

Vasquez Rocks

     Has The Doctor ever been to Mars?  I feel sure he must have been, in which case our title becomes a statement of fact, because - Art!

David Bowie is not amused

     <drum roll, cymbal crash>

Talking Of Winter

Ah yes, winter on Mars is a serious business, you know.  Come summer you might be lucky enough to hit 200C; in winter it can get down to minus 900C.  Even a Scot with a pint of whisky inside him and another one clutched in his hand would find that hard to cope with.

     ANYWAY let us look at the positively balmy winter of This Sceptred Isle, in another photograph from the Beeb's "Winter Weather Watcher" series.  Art!

Courtesy Carlos 1982

     Very impressive sunrise, Carlos.  Conrad, being a bit fat lump who likes his home comforts, wonders what time Carlos had to get up at in order to capture this shot, and how many icy fields he needed to traverse to get to this position.  I hope you ingrates appreciate the time and effort he put into this. I certainly do as I sit next to the radiator with a snifter of gin, lounging around in my slippers.

Hey!  Conrad Makes The Puns!

For Lo! we are back to more South Canadian astronomical observatories, and this one is a bit of a one.  It was a constellation of 23 telescopes of varying sizes, using baseline interferometry to observe stellar behaviour.  Art!

     It was sited up in the mountains in an attempt to reduce distortion caused by water present in the atmosphere, and as you can tell from the background here, it's not a particularly well-watered location.  Art!

     The thing is, they were really reaching when naming this array.  "Combined Array for Research in Millimetre-wave Astronomy" or CARMA just to show how Dog Buns! clever they were being.  Fortunately for them it's no longer in operation and has been split up between different sites, or my Remote Nuclear Detonator would have gotten a work-out.

And Now - "Tormentor"

I can just see you slavering with anticipation about this next extract.  Actually Your Humble Scribe is rather surprised that nobody has Commented on it, whether good, bad or mildly bored with the whole potlach.  Let us press on.

‘Your Continental porn order has arrived,’ said the neighbour drily, passing the brick-sized parcel to Louis.

               ‘Cool!’ replied the lecturer.  ‘German housewives doing the naughty.  Not cleaning the dishes or hoovering the lounge.’

               Mister Taylor gave a knowing shake of the head.

               ‘You might also want to keep down the amount of talking-to-self that you do.  Chris and Alfie both mentioned it.’

               Louis nodded, thinking quickly

               ‘You know how it is, single man on his own, resorts to talking to himself, or the telly.’

NINE

 

The Professor turned up after tea time whilst Louis was reclining on the settee, full of beer and pizza, satisfied that the weekend had begun and that he could put off any marking and planning until Sunday afternoon.

               ‘Comfortably languid, are you?’ asked the snooty Swiss spirit, disapproval oozing from his very pores.

               ‘Yes,’ replied Louis, and burped.  ‘Solitary batchelor lifestyle, Prof, doncha know?’

               ‘Really!’ tutted the spirit.  ‘Can you gather your alcohol-addled wits together?’

               Louis swung his legs off the settee and sat up, getting his notebook.  At the top of one page he had pencilled in “KEEP QUIET” in case the Taylor’s were next door  with ears pressed to the wall.

               ‘Tonight I have questions for you, Prof.  Allow me -’ as the neatly presented spirit seemed taken aback.  ‘What about vampires and werewolves?  Do they exist as spirits?’

               ‘Porphyrism and lycanthropy.  The creatures you refer to are fictional derivatives from tropes occasionally found in the spirit world.’

               ‘Jolly good.  Not sure I quite get my brains round that.  Now, if your were Swiss as a mortal, how come I can understand you?  Have you learned English specially, or did you need to pick up Lithuanian for Mister Verbius?’

               The Professor looked even more taken aback.

               ‘Good gracious!  Learn Lithuanian?  No I did not.  We are communicating, Louis, in a manner that bypasses conventional spoken language.  Now - ’

     Ah, you see how I deftly dodge the details of communing with the spirits?  That's what proper novelists do, you know.  I still can't remember what the parcel from Germany is.  O what it is to be old.

The Shocking Truth

Now it can be told!  Conrad had to go into Royton this morning, not long after sunrise, in order to attend the Health Centre and give a blood sample.  Of course - obviously! - being a complete coward he blenched and suffered the torments of the tormented until the experience was over, having had at least two or even three ounces of blood taken out of his system.  Why, that's very nearly a fingerful.  And there were traces left.  Art!

Don't faint

Finally -

I think I might restrict this last gasp item to the current 'Special' Military Operation in Ukraine, so you can ignore it if you wish, or read on to see that constitutes 'thought' in Conrad's mind.

     If you've heard anything about Ruffian missiles so far, then you'll be aware they have one called the 'Iskander', which I think is the Arabic equivalent of 'Alexander'.  Art!

     It's supposedly so so accurate and can manoeuvre in mid-flight and avoid interception and it's so totally deadly <continue to froth like Tsar Poutine>.  Yes, well all that comes at a cost.  An Iskander battery of 6 vehicles and 24 missiles will set you back £140 million.  Guesstimating that each launch vehicle costs £5 million, since they're large and complicated, that means a single missile costs £4.5 million.  And the Ruffians have fired 300 of them since Day One of the war sorry 'Special' Military Operation.  Guesstimating I know, but that's still in the near neighbourhood of £1.3 billion on missiles alone.  Erk!  One wonders how many they'll be able to afford later this year.

Total value about £0.87