Just Not How You Expected
Okay, I shall be upfront about this and warn you that I'm going to be discussing that obscure Sixties classic "Star Trek" here, and I shall lead with a picture bound to draw in the fans. Art!
Of course, I risk alienating the "Starry Wars" fans so a double-edged sword.
Here an aside. Yes, already! Conrad is not big on warfare in the age of swords, but let's take a look at a Roman one. Art!
"Whether slicing Picts or pickles, a Gladius is what you want!"
Presumably one defeats the opponent by either poking a big hole in them, or by slicing them apart, and in the latter case you'd look pretty foolish if your sword only had one sharp edge. 'Hang about while I go to the armourer and get this done on both sides' is unlikely to stay your foe, especially if their sword has two sharp edges. See what I mean by sound design?
ANYWAY back to ST. Allow me to put up another picture, this one with cut-outs so you can see all the people bimbling about. Art!
Wellllll if you used a magnifying glass you'd be able to see them bimbling about. Now, look at those two engine nacelles propped up at the rear of the vessel. Note how dark and deserted they are. There's a reason they're well away from the rest of the ship and there aren't any people present; it's because the energies they generate when driving the Ent. at superluminal speeds do horrible things to the human body. Ghastly things. Things that will come back and haunt you if you so much as try to imagine them -
So, they're really bad for you and one wonders what the far-future Health & Safety Executive were thinking when granting approval. Thus we have - sound design. Make it so that all the squishy human starship contents don't microwave internally - or whatever.
Mind you, the H&SE were happy to sign off on this turkey. The 'Fireflash' with an atomic propulsion system so dangerously radioactive that it could only stay aloft for ninety minutes before giving passengers and crew a fatal dose of gamma rays. What a shame it's maiden flight to Australia took a hundred minutes.
Let's See, BBC
Yes, we once again allow the Beeb to do a bit of our creative heavy lifting, by posting another in their exhibition of photographs on the theme of "Barriers". No, I've got no idea what's coming up, it will be as novel an experience for Conrad as it is for you. Art!
Courtesy Kay Walker
Good lord aloft, what are they working with - plutonium? If it were Conrad taking this photo you can believe he'd be doing it with a telephoto lens from a considerable distance. No need for that lazy-tong barrier, mate, just looking at you would keep 99% of Joe Public away. And all Kay could think of was how colour-co-ordinated the safety kit was. GET AWAY, KAY - GET FAR AWAY! Plutonium is liable to degrade explosively when it comes into contact with water.
Mar-A-Lago Marred
Holy cybernanaweasels, Batman! You may not be aware if you reside in This Sceptred Isle, since the person isn't President any longer, but the Braying Jackass had his Mar-A-Lago residence searched by the FBI yesteryon. Art!
Like it's owner, large and not very tasteful
"But Conrad!" I hear you bleat. "That's Politics! Which we do not touch -"
SILENCE!
The BJ is no longer President, except in his own mind. He remains, however, as repellent as he ever was as a private individual. This is the chap who got rid of White House documents by flushing them down the toilet, because a shredder was too fiddly, complicated and difficult for him to use?
As explained by a former FBI attorney, when you execute a search warrant like this - which included breaking into his safe - it means you do not trust the searched party to deliver documents to you and fear the porcelain potty might get a sackful of mail. Damn, I need a bucket of popcorn to go with this one!
Back To The Sanity Of Fiction
As you recall, The Doctor had been deliberately targeted as being the greatest threat to the killer alien machines at Mersa Mertuba, so one of them is going after him specifically.
The Australian soldier from the lorry, reeking of
perspiration, dropped to the ground beside her, levelling his rifle at the
black tank, before stopping and swearing in an impressively unrepetetive stream
of expletives.
‘What’s wrong?
Why aren’t they shooting?’ snapped Sarah, aghast that nothing was being
done to help her mentor.
‘The crates, Miss, the bl – the crates. That’s a stack of two pounder ammo in there
and if an armour-piercing round hits them it could set the whole bl- set the
whole lot off. It’d demolish the camp.’
Sarah stood up and cupped her hands, shouting this
information to the Doctor, who waved to show he understood.
‘Impasse,’ he muttered, wondering where Captain
Dobie had vanished to, since he wasn’t trying to organise the depot
garrison. Surely not killed? A bit of a pompous ass –
Below, the black tank nudged the pile of crates,
making it shiver. The machine moved to a
corner, hitting the crate with more force, making the Doctor teeter atop the
now-threatened pyramid, flailing his arms for balance. One of the alien machine’s arms swung
dangerously close to him as he wobbled uncertainly. Then the machine drew back for a third rush
at the crates, which would surely knock him completely off them.
‘Ah, yes,’ muttered the Doctor to himself. ‘Shared intelligence and innate
problem-solving abilities, too.’
Oo-err Matron, things are looking a bit sticky.
More Vicarious Relishment
No! Nothing to do with food, I was referring, of course - obviously! - to the Have Your Say about that ballfoot game between That Team With The Ridiculously Long Name and The Manchester United. It seems - I am winging it here - that TMU are universally detested by the fans of every other team, because they never fail to put the boot in - do you se O you do - if TMU come off worst in a game. There were over 4,000 Comments when I looked yesterday, so let's have another couple to savour.
Ouch. TMU do seem to have a revolving-door policy with managers, from what I understand. Another!
VARchester United. How the once mighty have fallen. Your fans were all over the Liverpool HYS yesterday. How foolish was that?
Before you ask, Conrad has absolutely no idea what a 'Stonewall penalty' is. Something to do with gay rights? For your information VAR is "Video Assist Referee" and is technology that allows goal-line actions to be analysed - I think. From what I've picked up. Frankly I don't care enough about the ballfoot game to look it up.
Finally -
Off to do the weekly shop shortly, let's hope my shorts stay up this time.
Chin chin!
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