No! That Is Not A Typo
I would have thought that enough mocking lexicographers had been turned into radioactive vapour to remove any doubt of my skills with the English language. Perhaps I err. Perhaps another thirty-minute bashing session is needed on the Remote Nuclear Detonator.
One can see the o-so-obvious mistake here. You confuse today's blog with "A Song Of Fire And Ice" which is pretty daft, because my name is not George R. R. Martin and I haven't written seven volumes of fantasy. Art!
I believe it only got written because South Canadians are jealous that they never got to experience the Middle Ages. You know, filth, squalour, the opportunity to die from the Black Death, rampaging armies, jolly activities like that.
ANYWAY that, of course - obviously! - is nothing to do with today's Intro, even if it did give us an excuse to bring in ASoFaI. No, you see, as I was driving back from the weekly shop, a stray ponder popped into my head.
"Why is fire such a serious hazard in Antartica?"
My retentive memory (Steve) had filed this fact away so today I was going to find out. Art!
US Outpost 31 goes up in flames
Please note that in John Carpenter's terrifying documentary "The Thing", set in Antarctica, whilst R.J. is always ready to cut loose with his flamethrower, there's always a couple of chaps nearby with fire extinguishers. Art?
One of the problems with an outbreak of fire at any Antarctic base is the sheer remoteness of the location; it's a huge continent with very few humans in residence, who are widely separated from each other. Nor is there any supply of water as a source of extinguishing fire.
"Just shovel snow onto it!" I hear you comment. O really? How much snow would you have to shovel for it to be as effective as water? Plus you'd have to get dangerously close to the flames to chuck snow on them. Not a winning idea.
In fact, thanks to the climate and weather, dry or foam extinguishers are preferred. Art!
Passive protection: note that the buildings are separated, so a fire in one will not burn down all of them. In addition supply dumps are held remotely from the central base, so, again, if the whole base burns down there will still be sufficient stores to sustain life until a rescue expedition can arrive. Art!
Active protection: say hello to the Antarctic Fire Department, the South Canadian's permanent firefighting force. They have a full strength of over forty people when the base's population is at the highest, of whom twenty are actual firemen. They are multi-role as they also deal with Odour Investigation (no idea what this involves but Hey! - we have today's title), hazmat spills, and medical emergencies. They have two fire engines, an ambulance, a water tender and a "Self-Contained Attack Truck", whatever that is. Art!
Possibly the water tender
The SCAT appears to be a smaller fire engine for use in confined spaces where a full-size vehicle cannot venture. Art?
Imagine the snow
Before you ghouls get the chance to ask, yes, there have been several fires at Antarctic bases over the years. One of the strangest was the destructive fire that destroyed the Argentine Amirale Brown Station completely in 1984, because the camp's doctor had been told the garrison must stay over the winter. The Argies were rescued by a South Canadian ship and since then it's only been used in the summer. Art!
The South Canadians practicing
Allow me to end with a quote from the "Antarctic Logistics & Expeditions" website: "The word ‘Antarctica’ usually brings to mind images of extreme cold and snowstorms, but the single greatest hazard at any Antarctic station is fire. Antarctic holds roughly 70% of the earth’s fresh water, but that ‘water’ is locked away in vast ice sheets that cover the continent. Combine this lack of readily available water, with Antarctica’s extremely dry, windy climate, and you have ideal conditions for a fire to ignite and spread."
Quite the burning issue.
"The War Illustrated"
Edition 165has been dealing with the Allied landings at Salerno, in Italy, skating over how difficult the landings were in reality, because British understatement don't you know. Art!
This page displays a bit of the military background essential to organise and deploy the various Allied invasion forces; dull stuff indeed, with nary a whiff of blood or thunder, but the essential underpinning of an invasion. At top port you see an officer informing Ferry Control that his men are ready to cross. In pictures 2 & 5 you can see the admin being carried out, before the waiting soldiers board a landing craft in 3. Photograph 4 shows a keen watch being kept for enemy aircraft, and in 6 we see a couple of matelots communicating with an Aldis lamp - a method that might seem peculiarly old-fashioned but which cannot be eavesdropped upon nor jammed.
More Of Lord Peter Wimsey's Crossword
I hope you don't mind me putting up these clues and solutions, it's just that I'm a bit traumatised by not being able to solve more than a handful of them. The thing is - no pun intended - that one gets into the mindset of crossword compilers over time, and this seems to be the only crossword that Ol' Dot ever compiled.
"Helical circumvolution, Adumbrates correct solution (6)"
And the solution? "TWISTS"
I don't know about you but I'd never have got that one.
"The Sea Of Sand"
The Doctor has been returned to his prison cell, which he shares with the bio-vore heretic, Sorbusa.
Without a watch, the Doctor found it difficult to mark the passage of time in the featureless glass box he and the Detachment Leader were imprisoned in. Subdued lighting generated by the walls allowe him to see, yet was dim emough for him to take a long sleep. The walls possessed an opacity that prevented him from seeing beyond them.
Baulked at any external stimulation, he turned instead to Sorbusa. The big alien remained silent most of the time, occasionally looking at the Doctor, obviously debating internally.
"I take it that your planet is poor in metals and minerals, Sorbusa," asked the Time Lord of his fellow prisoner. "Big emphasis on recycling."
"Yes," agreed Sorbusa. "Always. More of a demand now than when I was last here, I venture."
"And part of your population hibernates?"
"Correct again. The fraction that used to be that twenty per cent of the population remained dormant in hibernation chambers. With the emergency plantations extinct, the proportion now in hibernation may have increased."
That was a significant datum point. Advanced hibernation technology. The ability to sustain millions of bio-vores indefinitely. With a prickling of his scalp, the Doctor began to feel he might have given away too much information to Sur.
Ooops. Not sure what the Doctor's worried about. I've not re-read this for years so I'm as puzzled as you are.
Korean Translation Conventions
Probably not a title you expected to see today, hmmm?
This item, inevitably, has to do with "Hotel Del Luna", a Sork supernatural drama that pot-boils all the things they like to pitch in: romance, slapstick, ballads in the background - and in this one, a couple of very creepy scenes. Art!
Here we have Gu. At least, that's the name that Wiki gives him. I have also seen it spelled "Goo", which is highly unflattering. The dialogue on Netflix has him being called "Koo", which is almost as unwelcome. It's probably down to a matter of how the name is pronounced against how it's spelled.
Another Korean wrinkle for you.
Finally -
I got rice flour and beansprouts on the big shop this afternoon, so potentially Pajeon are a go!
Don't reply "What's that?"
Bah!
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