Talk About A Leading Question!

 Because That's What We're Going To Do

Rich pickings on the BBC News website this morning, both the sacred and profane.  Being BOOJUM! we will of course lead with the profane, because whilst sacred is interesting, it's not always dramatic enough.  So, if Art will grace us -

     The obvious answer is "Yes of course" but the devil would be in the detail.  Would you sit out in the back garden sipping a mint julep?  Drive down the freeway as fast as possible in any direction not blocked?  Hide in the attic?  All reactions, just not very effective.

     Conrad, having grown up in the Eighties, is actually better-versed in this than you might imagine, because of the incessant "Protect And Survive" guff that was pumped out at the time.  If you have a basement or cellar, you're mint.  On the other hand, if you live on the sixteenth floor of a block of flats, you're dogfood.  Art!

Typical.  Someone making a buck out of Doomsday.

     The ideal was to have one of these in the back garden - hence tower-block residents were in trouble - so that, when the four-minute warning went, you could simply walk into your well-appointed survival shelter.

     For the other 99.9999% of us, it was a case of improvising.  Allow me to detail that leading question a little.  Art!

Fortunately it WAS a drill

     Hawaii's an island, which immediately limits how far you can travel.  If you've got 38 minutes to escape, make sure you don't live next to anything of strategic value, like an airport or harbour.  You need to improvise a shelter indoors both to withstand blast and to keep out radioactive fallout, preferably in a room with no windows.  Get as much bottled water as you can, along with tinned food, bin-bags, a bucket and wet-wipes.  A radio would also be useful, along with batteries as you can't rely on mains power; do NOT leave it on pre-attack.  Chuck in a first-aid kit if you have one.  Art!

     One hopes someone got fired for this.

     ANYWAY there will be no doubt about the real thing, believe me.  If you get one of these going off in the neighbourhood there won't be any neighbourhood left.  Art!

     Yes, it's Ruffian, so the odds are it may blow up on launching, blow up in mid-flight, miss by 25 miles, hit but not detonate or hit but fizzle.  Or go off as planned.  Even if the warhead doesn't detonate the kinetic energy of these puppies will level a city block, as well as contaminate everything with it's nuclear payload.

     Providing your shelter has allowed you to survive the initial impact, you then have to stay in said shelter for at least 48 hours, hence the water and impromptu sanitation arrangements.  This is because of the Rule Of Seven.  Art!

Not THAT Seven!

     Fallout's radioactive emissions decline over time.  Seven hours after a detonation, it's down to 10% of the original.  Seven times seven hours after a detonation, it's down to 1%. 7 x 7 x7 hours (or two weeks) later, 0.1%.  So the longer you stay under cover, the less likelihood of turning into a walking carcinoma.

     Now, I'm sure you agree that this is all unremittingly grim stuff, AND WE HAD TO ENDURE IT FOR THE EIGHTIES.  Once the Sinister Union fell apart and Ruffia was essentially the Upper Volta with nukes, the threat had diminished almost to nil.  Believe me, the Ruffian population was under no misapprehension that any would survive a Third Unpleasantness.  A contemporary joke of theirs:  "In case of nuclear attack, wrap oneself in a funeral shroud and proceed slowly to the nearest cemetery."  "Why slowly?"  "To avoid panic."

     The South Canadians now require two people to agree about pressing that "Nuclear Missile Inbound" button.  I feel so reassured.

On the plus side, it would have eliminate these things

Enough Of The Horrid!  Instead Let's Have The Merely Feendish!

<Conrad's finger hovers dangerously over the Remote Nuclear Detonator>

     NO it's not a typo.  I am referring to a comics character I made mention of in passing, without realising that those without the cachet of age and discernment might not know what I was going on about.  Art!

Grimley stage centre

     Created by the legendary Leo Baxendale, Grimley is a role model for the ages, whose modest plans included TOTAL WORLD DOMINATION, which is fine by Conrad.  A chap's gotta have a hobby after all.

"To Laugh Like A Drain"

Conrad's curiosity is piqued.  Where on earth does this phrase come from?  Drains are not really notable for making any kinds of sonic merriment, least of all laughing, and in fact sound faintly disgusting when in operation.  Art!

Then there's this.

     Kid, you obviously grew up in an alternate universe where there are no horror films nor monsters that lurk in sewers, because in this universe your average child would be heading for home at Mach 3.

     "To laugh coarsely or noisily, as in water gurgling down a drain" says my Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable.  Not sure about that at all, matey.

The Opposite Of Wet

Yes, back to "The Sea Of Sand" where water discipline isn't simply important, it's literally life-or-death.  You couldn't go for more than 48 hours in North Africa without water.

That was, until the Italian invasion of Greece, which had turned into a Greek invasion of Italian Albania, threatened to bring a German intervention in turn.  Many units of the successful Western Desert Force were sent to Greece, which meant a weakening of the forces left in Cyrenaica.  Mersa Martuba’s garrison was split into three, with one platoon boarding ships bound for Greece, another remaining at Benghazi to try and make sense of the logistical muddle there, and the remainder sitting amidst the desert at Mersa Martuba, twiddling it’s thumbs.

          It’s still a big site, acknowledged Sarah, looking impressed at piles of crates stacked high as houses, stencilled with strange military jargon, or even Italian.  Pyramidal stacks of petrol drums were covered with camouflage netting, as were a dozen trucks, in case of air attack.

          The various stacks of supplies were laid out in a checkerboard pattern, divided up into four quadrants of the compass and numbered within that area.

          ‘I’ve no idea what some of this stuff actually is,’ confessed their guide.  ‘The Italian kit especially.  We captured and recovered their supplies all the way along the coast road and some ended up here.  Plus, there’s a small town on the coast called Mursa Murtaba, and some of their crates have ended up here by mistake and vice-versa.’  He pointed to one collection of stout cardboard boxes piled a dozen high and four deep.  ‘Black berets, six thousand, nine hundred and twelve of them.  Heaven knows who sent them out here and why!’

     Much like the tons of pepper sent to the besieged Teuton forces at Stalingrad.  One wonders if anyone got the sack for that ...

Finally -

As you ought to know by now, Conrad ploughs a lonely furrow in his maintenance that Sharks Are Our Friends, so it was with a degree of glee that he picked up a story on the BBC's webpages - fecund source of material today - about a shark being spotted in the tidal reaches of the River Stour.  Art!

     This is a species (the "smooth-hound") that preys on crustaceans not Hom. Sap, with teeth more akin to pegs than blades.  It seemed quite at home and not at all bothered by the presence of people on surfboards.  The wave of the future.