The First Person To Mention "D*sco" Will Be Immediately Vapourised
Just so we're clear here.
For your information, Conrad - blimey, this track is by Weather Report but it sounds more like The Residents - was pondering deeply as to why people like post-apocalyptic films, television series, comics and books so much. I mean, just why do we enjoy the end of the world so? Art!
Extreme weeding!
This is a still from the 1981 "The Day Of The Triffids" television series, easily the best adaptation of the novel.
Here an aside - yes yes yes, we'll get to Bruce Dern in a bit - about Brian Aldiss's criticism of TDOTT being a 'Cosy catastrophe' where everything settles down nicely now that all the 'ler cless scum' are out of the way, and everyone lives happily ever after.
Hmmmm nope. I recall that Bill, our hero, encounters a very drunken chap in a pub, whose wife had just murdered both their children and then committed suicide by gassing all three. Drunk chap was getting up the nerve to join them once he was drunk enough. Then there was the blinded surgeon who tried to get through to anyone in authority on the phone. Failing to do so, he sent Bill into the next room before stumbling to a window and jumping from the seventh floor. And what about the young blinded couple, who emerge from their apartment, the bride in her husband's arms, only for him to take them both over the balcony of an apartment block? NOT VERY COSY. Art!
ANYWAY Bill, ill
Back to Brucie. He was the star of an excellent and unusual sci-fi film titled "Silent Running" which had an ecological message rare for sci-fi films of the Seventies. In this film the Earth has become completely deforested, which doesn't seem so far-fetched fifty years later, and a bio-reserve has been held on giant freighter spaceships orbiting Saturn. Art!
Bruce the space hippy
Bruce aboard his space shippy
I won't spoil the ending for you, which is pretty bleak yet with a hopeful outcome.
Thus having today's title explained, let us return to the question <hastily looks up the question again> of why we like PA fiction?
There doesn't seem to be a single definitive answer, which is great as I can pontificate even more.
Reason One: Some people just like to see the world burn. Ah yes, the nihilists. Destroy society so you can reshape the ashes in whatever image you desire, although this is a bit extreme if your only major objection to 21st Century civilisation was income tax. Plus there might not be much left to reshape. Art!
"Trust me - you'll keep 100% of your wages!"
Reason Two: Vicarious thrills, because why else do people go and watch horror films? Experience the end of the world without having to get out of your wing chair, and besides you can always put the book down to go brew a pot of tea and have a digestive biscuit (which I believe are used as currency in some PA fiction)*. Art!
Doing the Infected-zombie Cardio
Reason Three: Because only when the chips are down do you discover what your fellow Hom. Sap. is really made of: the bluff alpha male turns into a blubbering pansy, the office nerd becomes the voice of wisdom, Lucy The Blonde Bimbo displays ruthless cunning, Mister Prendergast the next door neighbour turns out to be a creepy pervo thief (until introduced to a cricket bat) whilst Great-Aunt Ethel shows how to improvise a flamethrower, a car-bomb and a home-made crossbow**. Art!
Prendergast beware!
Reason Four: The old 'How would I cope?/I could do so much better' syndrome. This is entirely reasonable when one reviews ninety-five per cent of all zombie films, which depend on dramatic tension created by having the protagonists being idiots. Conrad observes in "Army Of The Dead" - a film he loves but which has plot holes you could drive a fleet of Greyhound buses through - that the zombies are biters. They bite exposed flesh. Everyone - EVERYONE - knows this. Art!
Exactly ONE long-sleeved shirt between them.
Egad, I rather rambled on that one. Quick, nurse, the screams!
Back To "The Sea Of Sand"
Because we need to know how young Sarah Jane is going to cope amongst a sweaty collection of enemy soldiers who haven't seen a woman in months.
"Who are you, and what are you doing out here, miss?" he asked in Italian, being polite. The steel fist could be revealed soon enough.
"My name is Sarah Jane Smith and I'm a journalist," replied the woman, in excellent Italian.
Dominione put his hands on his hips, frowning. A journalist? A reporter?
"You are here to report on the war?" he asked.
"Oh, no! No, I'm only here by accident."
The officer snorted in amused disbelief.
"How coincidental is that, Miss Smith! You just happen to stumble on our camp by accident."
The woman grinned weakly.
"It is a bit feeble, isn't it? I was trying to find my - transport. We lost it earlier and had to take shelter with soldiers at the camp."
Sarah realised, with a thrill of horror, that she'd said entirely the wrong thing.
"Soldiers, eh? How many of them?"
"A lot less than there used to be!" snapped Sarah, going on to the offensive. "We were attacked, you know. Black tanks, three of them, that killed a lot of the soldiers. And the Italian prisoners, too."
Carro Armato Negre? wondered the lieutenant. The Tedeschi were unloading tanks at Tripoli, he knew that, and some of the heavier models were still in black European paint schemes.
"They weren't human," continued Sarah stubbornly, seeing the officer's look of interest become one of disbelief. "Alien. Not from Earth."
One suspects that will be a bit of a hard sell.
Conrad Is CROSS!
You know how it goes, Your Humble Scribe ventures into Gommorah-on-the-Irwell via First Bus and picks up a copy of "The Metro" in order to do the Cryptic Crossword. Or thus it was in days long gone. Now a visit thanks to the 'chav chariot' (not my words) is rare indeed, meaning I am well out of practice on TM's crosswords. Art!
Seven clues unsolved. I then used the paper to wrap up my teapot in transit and threw the crumpled rag into the bin once back at The Mansion.
BAH!
Bring On "The War Illustrated"
Because we need a few more items to constitute a proper edition of BOOJUM! and today's ungrateful teenagers ought to know what their grandparents were doing to save civilisation and prevent a post-apocalyptic world that took place in 1944. Art!
Here at upper port we see a 4.5" gun in action. At this scale it's a little hard to make out, but they're about to fire a shell, and there's another on a carrying cradle beneath the breech, with a gunner closest to the camera ready to carry the next shell to the cradle. Someone on the receiving end is in for a bad time.
Beneath that picture we have Scottish soldiers of the 51st Highland Division moving forward, alongside Sicilian families heading back to their homes now that they're out of the battle zone.
At upper starboard you see columns of 8th Army infantry advancing, not bothering to spread out or observe march discipline, which either means they're a long way behind the front lines or they aren't bothered about German air attack or artillery fire. Possibly both.
And at bottom starboard the caption could be "Under New Management", since these are Italian guns captured intact, now being used against their former Sicilian owners.
Finally -
Let Conrad assure you that he is every bit as angry as usual, it's just that with having to type big chunks of text in manually, there's less opportunity to release my FROTHING NITRIC IRE. Don't worry, it will come.
* I'm making this up. But it's probably going to be seized upon by some plagiarist.
** Ex-S.O.E.
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