The Witch's Hat

I'll Have Some Of That!

Hmmmm no, the rest of you can form an orderly queue and wait your turn.  Art!

     Yes yes yes, Harry's a wizard.  A wizard wizard, in fact.  You cannot deny that he's wearing a hat, can you? not to mention that the horrid creepy thing resembles a witch's hat.  Conrad would be verrrrry wary - nay, dubious - about donning this disgustrous-looking declarative device, since it seems to have qualities akin to the D.A.R.P.A. Telepathy Helmet - which we totally DID return to them - and I wouldn't care to let anyone else know what's going on in my head*.  Art!

Which hat

     Probably not rated safe for use in the rain, unless you want an electro-Afro.

     ANYWAY back on track: witch's hats.  Let us find an example of same. Art!

     This verdant-hued charmer is the Wicked Witch Of The West, from "The Wizard Of Oz".  Conrad, curious as ever, wonders if there's a Naughty Numpty Of The North, or a Sinister Shaman Of The South, or an <thinks> Evil Edna Of The East**.  

     Here an aside, and a SPOILER ALERT.  Don't forget, this film has been out for about eighty years so it's not my fault if you've somehow avoided it.  Conrad has never seen the whole thing, because Musical.  Art!

     The WWOTW melts, quite slowly, after being doused with a bucket of water.

     WHAT WAS SHE THINKING!  If simple water applied in bulk is fatal to her, WHAT WAS IT DOING SITTING IN HER CASTLE!  <grinds teeth vengefully at the scriptwriters).  What happened to her if it was raining, or foggy, or misty, or snowy?  Why didn't she wear a waterproof mac?  You can appreciate her enormously over-sized hat, because it would keep rain off her head and shoulders, a bit like the Brodie-pattern helmet.  Art!

Lacking a fetching point

     Conrad, now familiar with the Korean fashions of the Choson dynasty - often spelled 'Joseon' in Netflix translations - can guess why the tall spiky bit on a witches hat.  Art!

     Behold the unclad male Korean bonce.  A topknot that displayed the wearer's social status.  Which meant that they had to wear - Art!

     Close but no cigar.  Perhaps if they extended the upper brim a little?

     ANYWAY, and typically, none of this has very much to do with what I wanted to post about, which was a species of playground furniture known as the "Witch's Hat."  Art!

     They rocked and rotated about a central axis as hordes of small children flung them about.  Until they didn't, because they'd all been removed from playgrounds across the land, since adults are such evil bumbletucks.  Except -

     Five children died on the witch's hat in a single year, because there was a distinct risk of serious crush injuries.  So, they were consigned to the scrap heap in the Eighties.  

     However!  A modern version, rendered safe for use without small children's 'Fun Or Death' attitude being allowed to run, has been re-introduced.  Art!

     All's well that ends well.  Unless they end up calling it the "Mis-appreciated Pagan's Ceremonial-Conducting Head Device" because Conrad is aware that some drivelling revisionists have been trying to rehabilitate TWWOTW <eyes Remote Nuclear Detonator with relish>.

O Boy A Ten-Hour Working Day Ain't Fun

Your Humble Scribe is back at work after a 3-month holiday, on a temp job that will last until mid-January, if he proves competent enough.  We started work today at 08:00 and finished at 19:00, followed by a power-walk and desperate 30-yard dash to catch the 409 (or wait another 25 minutes).

     Bear in mind I've not HAD to get up any time before 11:00 since late August, nor walk 7,000 steps a la Fitbit, and you can understand how this flabby pensioner is feeling a little flat.

     As ever, Conrad is being spectacularly coy about exactly who he's working for.

Yes, they have a northern branch

     Of course we have chisels in the kitchen!  Have you never been stricken with the urge to carve a hunk of teak or granite whilst chopping the onions!

     Or - is that just me?

"The Sea Of Sand"

The Doctor and Sorbusa are busy trying to get to the trans-mat platform on Homeworld, the Doctor definitely determined to get back to Earth, Sorbusa - well, he seems to have a different agenda.

          Maintaining a much lower profile, the Doctor sneaked from the uncomfortable bottle-strewn interior of the cargo-sledge, over the side and over to the edge of the platform, to a point where he overlooked the trans-mat’s ready-use control console.  He steeled himself to ignore the whining sound of deadly glass darts, leaning above the instrument panels arrayed below.  Simple, logical, easily comprehensible.  He punched in a ten-second delay and pressed the enormous green “Go” button, before jumping back into the sledge, ignoring the collapsed technicians lying around the console.

          ‘Ready!’ he shouted to Sorbusa.  The big alien threw a storm of darts at the duty team of Warriors coming up the approach ramp, then pushed the sledge to the edge of the trans-mat platform, then partly over the platform.

          Precariously balanced on bottles, the Doctor wondered in a second of panic what his fellow escapee was doing.

          ‘Quick!  Get in!’ he shouted.  That was the plan – they both went back in the sledge, concealed from prying eyes at the other end of the materialisation.

          ‘Get up to this end,’ wheezed Sorbusa, straining at keeping the mass of the sledge balanced.

          ‘Why –

     Definitely a different agenda.

TANK!

We have mentioned Keith Laumer recently, a South Canadian who wrote science fiction, achieving some level of fame in the Sixties and Seventies.  One novel strand of his dealt with an alternative reality that impinged on our own.

     Another set of novels were set in the 'Bolo' universe, said Bolos being gigantic, self-aware sentient tanks driven by increasingly complex AI systems.  Art!

     Cover illo is, I think by Vincent de Fate.  The Bolos, as mentioned, are enormous, with one standard range weighing in at 32,000 tons, which is about the size of a small aircraft carrier.  Your Humble Scribe has read the first in the series and remembers nothing other than the mention of a "Sub-crustal torpedo", which seems to be an underground missile.

     Ol' Keith had spent his earlier career as an officer in the South Canadian Air Force, for three separate stints, and also as a South Canadian diplomat in Burma, besides qualifying as an architect.  Clever fellah!

Musky

No!  Nothing to do with Mister Elon.  No, I was just recalling the "Deputy Dawg"

cartoons of my misgotten youth, where the portly, cowardly and inept Deputy Sherrif of the title was consistently out-manoeuvred by the forces of Vincent and Muskie - Art!

Frenchie was a - actually I'll get back to you on that
Muskie was a rat.

     Exhaustive research has revealed that Vincent was a gopher.  The French affectation is 

     Well it just is.

Finally -

I'm going to bed in a minute to soothe my troubled and ancient brow, and also because I have to get up at 05:15 to walk to the office.

*  A process completely obscure and mysterious even to me.

**  Not OUR Edna.  I have to add this disclaimer or Wonder Wifey will go at me with the kitchen chisels.