Fan Song

For Those In The Know

This would be a bit of a flashback, because 'Fan Song' is the NATO codename for a Sinister-era radar system, which somewhat resembles cheap and nasty props as used in "Doctor Who" in the Seventies, when they didn't have much of a budget to work with.  Art!

In Sinister Union, radar dishes heat you

     You can imagine the design bureau meeting the Air Defence General.

DESIGNERS: How many radar dishes do you want?

GENERAL: Yes!

     Then they decided to stick an extra one on, just in case.

     Well, you'd be wrong, Vulnavia, because instead Conrad is referring to this.  Art!

     Cheap and effective at £4.99 from Morrisons.  The thing is, I dare not turn it on any longer.  As you should surely know by now, Conrad is a clumsy great oaf, who can easily trip over his own gigantic feet even when sober.  Note, too, that there is very little room to spare for The Fan on my mobile desk.  This means I have knocked the fan off too many times to count - at least five or six - and as you may suspect, being cheap also means 'and not very robust'.  The fan is now definitely off-centre and makes a tremendously loud noise when running.  Art!

Like one of these

    I shall just have to put up with sweating, that fan ain't going to sing it's song soon.

Minor Earth Tremor In Wigan

Or, how I've killed off all the renegade Codeword compilers.  Another one done and the only possibly objectionable word was "AQAURIUMS" because Your Humble Scribe thought that the plural of AQAURIUM was AQUARIA?  Yeah yeah, something smells fishy.  Art!

     Note picture done on a small scale.  Time to fin-ish.

Lights!  Camera!  "Action"

Hmmmm no I was lying, this is nothing to do with films - at least not directly - and is in fact an item about a long-gone British comic of that title.  Art!

     You couldn't get further from "Whizzer and Chips"  if you tried.  "Action" was supposed to be grittier and more socially aware than previous comics, but what made it stand out was the VIOLENCE!  ALL THE VIOLENCE ALL THE TIME!  Conrad actually read a couple of editions back in the day.  A lot of the strips were 'inspired' by contemporary films, just with enough difference that they couldn't be sued for breach of copyright.  Art!

     This is Dredger, who is a brutish chap good at killing the other chap.  However, since he's a policeman, he gets away with it.  As you should surely recognise, modelled very much on Dirty Harry Calaghan.

     Then there was "Hookjaw", a strip that featured a ferocious shark that had a giant hook impaled in it's jaw.  Art!

     Each week was an exploration of how Hookjaw could simultaneously impale hapless Hom. Sap. on it's hook, whilst gnashing them to death.  Again, pretty obviously a 'homage' to "Jaws".  Then you had "Hellman" who was a tank commander of Second Unpleasantness vintage, with the twist that he was German, though not a Nazi - that really would have been going a little too far.  Art!

     Unfortunately intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic were contemplating "Action" and they did not like all the VIOLENCE, unlike the readership.  With enough Daily Mail readers making a noise, the comic was shut down for months, before coming back with a very toned-down palette.

     It did, however, give editor Pat Mills the inspiration to have a comic set in the future ...

Don't look directly at him!

Meanwhile, Back In 1941

Let us return to "The Sea Of Sand" where a bunch of Italian PoWs were being fed by Sarah Jane as The Doctor buttonholed Roger and informed him about trans-mats.

7:  The Trident

 Roger darted over to the look-out position, a wooden platform built up atop the halest mud building.  The sentry on duty there started briefly at the arrival of his officer, before looking back out to the south and the desert depths.

          Roger’s first inclination was to curse the sentry for alarming him about three trucks, until he dragged a memory from the depths of recollection, a wheelbarrow falling down a slope – back at Makan Al-Jinni when he’d been arrested.

          These three widely-spaced objects weren’t trucks, they were much too squat for that.  Dark, too, and uncamouflaged against the dusty desert floor they stood out  in a harsh contrast.  Were they on tracks?  A caterpillar arrangement supported them, becoming apparent when the trio drew closer. 

          The more clearly Roger saw them, the less he liked them.  At a guess, they stood six feet high, a big opaque cylinder mounted on a broad chassis, which sat upon a pair of tracks.  Various appendages projected from the cylinder at differing heights, waving in the wind of passage, and a set of what might be aerials projected from the rim of the upper cylinder.

          ‘Sound the alarm,’ he told the sentry.  

Down below, the Doctor waited patiently, keeping a weather eye on the nearing vehicles.  Lieutenant Llewellyn jumped down off the platform, ready to race back and alert J Force.

          ‘Definitely non-human technology, wouldn’t you agree?’ said the Doctor mildly, to an incoherent snarled reply from the young officer.

     Very wise, Rog old chap.

"In The Dark"

More from the BBC's exhibition of photographs on that theme, and no I don't check them out beforehand, so we're all as surprised as each other.  Art!

Courtesy Keely Pleger

     This is the photographer and friends exploring a 'lava cave' in Oregon with only phones and torches for illumination.   Hmmmmm nope.  Conrad is not one for confined spaces, given his bulk, and still less so in the dark, as you've no idea if your next footstep is going to be over a 500 foot drop or not.

     There's only one more picture but don't fret, the BBC always has these exhibitions up and the next one has the theme 'barriers'.*

"The War Illustrated"

Your window on how the media operated back in mid-1943, before digital phones and the internet, and people had to wait for weeks to get up-to-date info on what their husbands, sons or brothers had been doing.  Art!

     What you might call a palimpsest of the invasion of Sicily.  The top picture to post shows South Canadians dealing with snipers, whilst in the next picture a wounded Italian PoW is given a fag and a light.  No, not good for his health but he had more immediate issues.  Then lower down you have a British-crewed Sharman, showing how reliable it is, and an Italian who's decided that perhaps Il Duce can do his own defending.  And the troops at bottom, whilst kitted-out in British gear, are actually Canadians.  The Canuckistanians were outstandingly good soldiers as I have said already, with the doggedness of the Brits in defence and the dash of the South Canadians in attack.  

     There is another page of photographs that I may not put up, as - very unusually - there are dead bodies present.  Usually anything unpleasant like that was censored out.  

Finally -

What a soggy evening it is! Your Humble Scribe enjoyed his porridge and toast this morning in bright sunshine, and even walked into Royton without wearing socks.  Not possible now, I'd be better off in a canoe.

     And with that, Vulnavia, we are done.

*  Okay okay I did look at the next picture.  What are you going to do, sue me?