Define "Dangerous"

Let's Face It

It can mean different things to different people.  Conrad, who is admittedly a massive coward, considers riding a motorbike to be inherently dangerous.  To explicate, you can reach tremendous speeds on a motorbike, a vehicle that is  unstable by deliberate design, has no protection for the rider and indeed has them sitting atop a container full of inflammable fuel. Everything else on the road is bigger, harder and hurts less if hit.  Art!

Possible exception to the last

     Wood-carving!  Nowhere near as dangerous as motor-bike riding, right?

     Sadly not.  Enter "How To Cook That", Anne Reardon's seminal investigative cooking vlog, which regularly tackles dangerous Youtube 'hacks'.  You might think this is where we pun about edged tools, lathes and the need for stout gloves when turning wood. Again, no.  Art!

     This, ladies and germs, is 'Fractal Wood Burning'.  The idea is that you take a plank of wood, then wet it down, and connect electrical BAD COMBINATION RIGHT THERE dipoles to it, and then run current through the dipoles.  You use a microwave transformer to step up the current ANOTHER BAD COMBINATION and you get fractal patterns burnt into the wood.

     Anything that combines water and electricity is a hazard.  Running a shoddy jury-rigged transformer that boosts the voltage to 2500 volts is another VERY BAD IDEA.  Art!

     If you happen to touch those electrodes then you'll be dead before your rapidly-cooling carcass hits the garage floor.  Ann points out that at least 35 people have died from electrocution trying to create fractals, and several of those have been professional electricians, so it's not all Joe and Jane Public bodging together highly dangerous electrical gimcrackery.  This doesn't count those who have suffered serious burns; thanks to electricity's tendency to cause muscles to cramp under current, if you touch a live wire palm-forward, your hand will lock around it.

     Yeah, like that bit in "Darkman".

     The whole process is so dangerous that the South Canadian Wood-Turners Association has banned it from any articles or magazines or shows, and when SCWOTA gets on the case you know it's serious.

     ANYWAY of course - obviously! - none of that is what I wanted to talk about, because last night I became aware of an act of supreme stupidity that qualifies both concerned for individual personalised Darwin Awards.  Art!

Ice ice bergy

     Here we see the two Frenchmen getting from their sailing ship and onto the berg, with their ice-axes and picks and enormous testicular fortitude.  O and crampons upon their footwear.  Mustn't forget the crampons.  Let's have a look at the size of this berg as compared to the ship - Art!

"Whacking big" the technical description

     Here's the thing: icebergs are not necessarily stable.  As they melt or encounter wind or waves or currents, they may roll over.  This berg was apparently verrrrrrrrrrry finely balanced, which nobody realised.  Things rapidly go not so much as pear-shaped as an entire orchard of pear trees-shaped.  Art!

Note that 'lip' at bottom

     Then the berg begins to roll ...

Lip gone as it begins to flip

     Both begin scrambling up the berg, with absolutely no chance to reach the top thanks to the speed this thing rolls at.  Art!

     More by luck than judgement both are swept to the side by the displaced water, and their motor-dinghy on standby just in case A WISE PRECAUTION picks them up.  Neither was drowned nor crushed.  One doubts they'll indulge in this sport in a hurry any time soon.

     Motley!  Bring me a gin and tee with plenty of 

SHAZAM!

Perhaps I should have left the exclamation mark off, as otherwise you're going to confuse the music app with that (rather amusing) film.  You know the one, it has Captain Sparklefingers in it.  Art!

     ANYWAY Conrad was prompted to re-install the app on his night out in Banyan, because they were playing unfamiliar music.  Thus I made the acquaintance of Twenty One Pilots.  Art!

Where's the other nineteen?

     And Eliza and the Bear.  Not sure about the bear.  Art!

Looks smashing

     Ha!  One step further on the road to world domination*!

Back To "The War Illustrated"

The war in North Africa had ended by the time issue 157 came out, in a crushing Allied victory, which meant they had a paucity of stuff about the Mediterranean.  Still, they persisted.  Art!

     These are Italian propaganda pictures, attempting to show how ready their defences were, and how mighty the guns and valiant the warriors, which is tacit admission that things were not going well and an Allied invasion force was going to be arriving imminently.  Imminently!

The terror of bagpipe

     Here we see the pipe band from the 51st Highland Division parading in triumph through the streets of newly-liberated Tunis.  Since they weren't fighting the army tried to keep their soldiery busy either training, parading or painting things ten times over.  An idle soldiery is a mischievous soldiery.

A Bit Further To The East -

And a couple of years earlier, for Lo! we are back with "The Sea Of Sand"

‘You said it –‘ began Sarah, before a gigantic roaring bellow from overhead swamped her words.  She threw herself at full length in the dust away from the TARDIS, noticing that the Doctor remained upright for several seconds longer than was sensible or healthy.

The fantastically overbearing sound diminished rapidly, moving off into the distance.  Sarah coughed dust from her mouth, brushed it out of her eyes and dragged her fringe back to it’s rightful place.

‘I have an idea about where we are,’ said the Doctor enthusiastically, looking at the skies.  ‘Although when might be a little more difficult,’ he added, sotto voce.  The intruding sound-assault of moments before began to increase in volume, approaching from behind the TARDIS, resolving into -

‘An aeroplane!’ exclaimed Sarah.

A single turbo-prop canvas-over-wood-and-metal-frame aircraft, realised the Doctor.   With a camouflage scheme,  which indicated military intent.  Bulbous nose, indicating radial engine, monoplane, three-blade propellor.  Sarah noticed the large white cross painted on the tail, and a curious blue shield design below the cockpit, painted on the fuselage.

The artificial butterfly soared into a loop high above the travellers lying on the ground, turning back onto itself and roaring – Sarah registered that at so negligible a distance the machine really did roar – back again.  The Doctor looked at the cockpit, seeing the astonished face of a pilot looking at him for nearly one-third of a second.  The man might well be astonished, seeing a London landmark appear from nowhere in the middle of a desert.

At least they have an idea of when they are.

Finally -

I have finally reached The Mansion, no thanks to First Bus, as of course - OBVIOUSLY! - two Rochdale buses turned up at Oldham Bus Station at once after nothing for twenty minutes.  That was after a journey of an hour thanks to motorway congestion at Hollinwood that only allowed one vehicle at a time through the Oldham-bound traffic lights.  Added another fifteen minutes to the journey.  Tomorrow, as I am doing the weekly shop, Your Humble Scribe will be tramming it into and out of Gomorrah-on-the-Irwell, because the trams are reliable and frequent and half-an-hour quicker than pubic transport.

     And with that we are done.  Bah!

*  In my mind, anyway.