Sheer Brass Neck

This Will Take A Bit Of Telling

First of all, I shall have to explain what 'brass neck' is, because we get readers from as far afield as Peru and Saudi Arabia, and one cannot make assumptions.

     Here an aside.  Yes, already!  Of course - obviously! - I looked the expression up in my "Brewer's Dictionary Of Phrase And Fable" and was inevitably side-tracked by other sayings that invoked brass.  There is 'Brazen-faced', meaning to lie obviously and outrageously, exemplified by Lavrov The Liar.  Don't worry, I shan't put up a photograph of his bloodhound face.  See also "To brazen it out" and once again check out any public statement coming from the Kremlin.  Art!

Trust me, this will make sense shortly

     So, "brass neck" is characterised as impudence or cheek, and it joins those above in what Brewer's calls 'metaphoricized', not a word you expected to read today.

     Right, 'impudence or cheek'.  Bear that in mind.  Let us now abruptly change tack and look at sonar.  This is a semi-acronym created by SOund NAvigation & Ranging, and is a position-locating technology that uses echolocation to find underwater objects.  If you see any war films dealing with the Royal Navy in the Second Unpleasantness, you are practically guaranteed to see a rating manning the sonar station, listening to it 'ping'.  This is active sonar, which sends out a signal and if anything gets in the way, the signal bounces back.  Simples, right?

     Passive sonar doesn't send out a 'ping', it merely listens to what's going on in the ocean and to ensure it doesn't pick up any noises from the vessel deploying it, passive sonar arrays are towed a great distance behind the operating vessel.  Art!

     Enter HMS Conqueror.  You see, in 1982 the Royal Navy decided it wanted a close look at a Sinister passive sonar array, so they could analyse how it worked and how to spoof or block it's operation.

     So they stole one.

     This was a lot harder than those four words imply.  The Sinister vessel had to be intercepted when under way at sea, both vessels would be moving, and the submarine had to avoid being picked up by the sonar array - said submarine being exactly what the array was designed to detect.  To further this bit of marine mischief, Conqueror was outfitted with remotely-controlled cutting blades and television camera.  Art!

     Oddly enough, I couldn't find any photos of the Conqueror with it's remote-control choppers.  You'll just have to imagine them - a ten-thousand ton Dalek.

     Suffice it to say that when the Sinister ship reeled in it's passive sonar cable, there was no array at the end of it, just a nice clean snip in the cable.  One can confidently assert that the captain was on his way to a gulag the minute they got into port.

     I think that' pretty much the definition of 'brass neck'.  Perfidious Albion is - perfidious.

     Right, motley, to celebrate your return to The Mansion, we're going to play Piranha Polo in the swimming pool.  You first.

Rubbish Superheroes

No, not ones that DC or Marvel cooked up, nor Eclipse or Dark Horse either.  These ones come from my own imagination.  So say hello to -

CAPTAIN VOLCANO!

     <sighs> yes, his superpower is that he can create volcanoes.  Thinking further about it, these would have to be instant volcanoes, as the ability to create a two-hundred foot tall volcanic cone over the space of three months lacks any kind of dramatic tension.  Art!

captain woz ere

     You can imagine the havoc that would ensue if Captain Volcano ever took to fighting crime.

     "Captain, those bank robbers are getting away in their car - stop them!"

     BOOM

     A twenty-foot volcano forms under the getaway car, which is instantly toasted, all four bank robbers being turned to charcoal immediately.  The money spontaneously combusts.  Several pedestrians are injured by flying debris, the whole street is blocked by lava, all underground utilities are severed and the Fire Department are summoned to extinguish several cars nearby that caught alight.

     The Captain is served a writ for damages to the tune of £15,000,000 and flees to Spain.

     Of course, I could be overthinking this ...

"Barriers"

Back to the BBC's themed photography exhibition once more, and as ever I have no idea what the next picture is going to be.  I like to be spontaneous.  Art?

Courtesy Nick Mills

     Hmmmm definitely a barrier where the small Hom. Sap. is concerned.  Those Large Domesticated Wolves could clear it with a small run-up, mind.  The photographer could never work out what, exactly, they were looking at.

Meanwhen, Back In The Libyan Desert -

Our adventures with "The Sea Of Sand" continue, where The Doctor has narrowly avoided death, because widely avoiding has no tension to it.

When the sad, pathetic bundles of rag that constituted the dead were tallied, it was found that nineteen of the Italian PoW’s had been killed, along with nine soldiers of the depot garrison.  All that remained to identify the deceased were their identity tags.  J Force remained long enough to help dig two communal graves, one for the Italians, one for the British, and fired three rounds over the freshly dug earth.

‘No idea what to tell Middle Eastern Command about this, old feller,’ said Captain Jolyon briskly as the convoy of vehicles moved off down the roadway from Mersa Martuba.

‘RASC Headquarters will send me to see an alienist if I tell them the truth,’ grumbled Captain Dobie.  He had called the Doctor, Lieutenant Lewellyn and Corporal Mickleborough into his office.  Sarah, uninvited, hung around the door until frowned away by the captain.

‘The truth is more alarming than you think, Captain, because the threat is not over.’

Nobody wanted to hear news like that from the Doctor.  Captain Dobie scowled at him, then went back to tidying up his desk drawers, which he had wrenched open and emptied in order to find the two hand grenades left there for emergencies.

‘I beg to differ, Doctor Smith.  We shot and blew those things into bits.  We haven’t seen any more because there aren’t any more.’

Roger directed a cutting look at the Doctor.

     O ye of little faith.  When The Doctor tells you alarming news, PAY ATTENTION!

" Ten Post-Apocalyptic Television Series"

Thus read the headline on a Youtube channel, and of course - obviously! - Your Humble Scribe had no choice but to take a look.  "Into The Night", "Sweet Home" and "The Ship" I'd already seen.  A lot of the comments were that these series were abruptly cancelled without coming to a proper conclusion.  Well, forewarned and all that.  Let's take a look at the first I'd not seen - "Revolution".  Art!

     The premise is that in 2012 (gulp!) all electrical devices fail instantly and permanently, and the series picks up in 2027.  Commenters consensus was that it began well but went downhill and it was cancelled after two seasons.  Most unusually, it was finished and completed via four comic books.  Hmmm.  Conrad not sure about this one.

Finally -

We're almost at the Adjusted Compositional Ton, and about an hour earlier than normal.  Conrad is contemplating have a bit of lunch.  Maybe not.  At present I'm more thirsty than hungry and have had a full pot of tea, interspersed with chugs at my bottle of ice, which is slowly thawing into deliciously cold water.