No! I Can Tell What You're Thinking
We are not talking about Godzilla. In fact Conrad is unsure exactly how tall Godzilla is - let me go check on that for you. Hmmmm a couple of contrasting figures, so we shall go with an average of 360 feet, which, whilst tall, is a long way short of 5,000. However, it does give me an excuse to use a picture of the 'King Of Monsters'. Art!
A four-fer
Your next guess might well be one of those Fifties Creature-Feature black and white schlockbusters, featuring all manner of insect life. Now, I know Art is going to put a picture of that sultry temptress Mara Corday here, because I can see his tongue hanging out, so let's get that over with. Art!
She starred in several of said critter-picters, is why. None of them were five thousand feet tall, but (reaching a little here) they might have been a millipede as long as a freight train. Art!
A narrow-gauge freight train?
ANYWAY of course none of the - hang on, I forgot to put - obviously! - in there - none of these are anything to do with the real Intro, which is <drum roll> Barad-Dur, the 'Dark Tower' from 'Lord Of The Rings'. Art!
Yes, more of Ol' Tolky and the architecture of Middle Earth. In fact the novel itself gives only a vague description of Barad-Dur's appearance, and the most detailed and thoughtful representation has been by Peter Jackson et al for the films. Their sculpture and model has been scaled at the very five thousand feet of today's title. For a better understanding, that's only one hundred yards shy of a mile, or ten times the height of Orthanc.
So, here's a couple of shots that illustrate BD a little more clearly. Art!
BD was constructed in the Second Age, and unlike other architecture we've mentioned here, was very definitely erected with as much magic as quarried stone. This meant that when Sauron was initially overthrown and fled to Mirkwood (as it would become), the foundations could not be destroyed, even if the tower aboveground had been shattered apart.
Going back to it's construction, the quarried stone may have come from the Plateau of Gorgoroth, or the Mountains of Shadow; difficulty in mining or transporting stone would have absolutely no consequence to Sauron, that's what expendable armies of orcs were for. Art!
Initially, construction took six hundred years. I know, I know, stonemasons, hmmm? The rebuilding of the tower in the Third Age would have been a lot quicker, as the component stones would have remained in that location, so they wouldn't need quarrying or transporting. Plus, the foundations were still intact because so was the One Ring, which would save fifty years-worth of work at a guess. Nor is Barad Dur's height a complication or restriction; I bet being a sky-crane isn't in the Nazgul's job description but if the Dark Lord gives them an order to be such, they'd do it.
Given that orcs had nil regard for each other's lives, and they had the significance of ants to Sauron, one can only guess at how hazardous working conditions were. If the Health & Safety Executive or Occupational Safety & Health Administration visited they'd close the whole thing down.
The foundations eventually proved to be a bit of a cowboy job, as you will notice they give way without any shear stress or excess loading the very instant the One Ring is destroyed. Quality control is clearly not a function that apprentice World Dictators take serious. Art!
Ooops.
A Brave Man
If you recall, Peter The Average was indulging in his Buzz-Word Bingo speech earlier this week. It turns out that Satanic Neo-Nazi biolabs were using genetically-engineered mosquitoes to build dirty bombs, or something. Art!
Yes, those are noodles draped over his ear
This is Mikhail Abdalkin, a deputy in the Ruffian parliament at Samara. I can hear you quibble now: 'Why is draping pasta over your pinna brave and not silly?'
Well, as you can see, he's watching Bloaty Gas Tout's speech. And there is an Ruffian saying, 'Don't put noodles on my ears', which idiom translates into English as 'I can tell you're lying because your lips are moving".
Misha, STAY AWAY FROM WINDOWS!
"Operator Starsky"
That's his Youtube vlogger name, his parents gave him the name 'Andrii'.
This item is explicitly about the ongoing war in Ukraine, so you can skip it if you want. Art!
OS is fluent in English, and idiom, with a slight accent, he is a sergeant in the Ukrainian army and now works for their Press Office. I've been following his blog for six months now. At no point has he ever mentioned the Battle of Hostomel.
What was that? Well, one of the pivotal battles of the war. The Ruffians planned to carry out assault landings with helicopters, seize the airbase at Hostomel and then use their air-bridge to fly in armour and infantry and storm Kyiv.
Enter OS and three companies of Ukrainians who were already on-site. They only had 6 MANPAD systems, so they could only shoot down 6 of about 30 Ruffian troop-carrying helicopters. That's the Ruffians 120 men short before they even land. Art!
As I said, this bloke could be boasting about it on YT, and it takes another vlogger to get the tale out of him.
"The Sea Of Sand"
Sarah is worried that the bio-vores might land another trans-mat complex on Planet Earth, to which the Doctor explains that the gravity lens that allowed this has long since vanished.
Twenty Three: Death from above - and below
Lord Excellency Sur was not given to admitting mistakes. For one thing, that would make him vulnerable to potential challengers from below. Secondly, he rarely, if indeed ever, made mistakes.
Now,
having had a dozen Warriors unsuccessfully try to smash the blue cuboid apart
with granite hammers and glass hatchets, he felt a touch of ruefulness at
having killed Icono so hurriedly.
The
object stood no taller than he did. From
the outside it was composed of “wood”, as the locals termed it. The most obvious asset was the blue
colouration.
Except
that none of that was accurate. None of
it. The wooden composition was fake, as
was the colour; remote televisual monitoring showed the device in
monochrome. This blue cuboid had no
apparent ingress point. It’s mass had
been calculated as being in the kilotonnes, an anachronism to the factor of
five hundred.
‘Send
it back home!’ blustered Sur, wondering what the device was, and how to exploit
it’s presence on Homeworld. Better get
rid of it here, since the local aliens were pretty adept at making trouble with
nothing in hand.
The
device was placed alongside a series of reports and outputs, then couriered
back to Homeworld.
Ooops. Now what is the Doctor going to do?
O I See
Your Humble Scribe did the weekly shop last afternoon, and wouldn't you know it, no tomatoes at all at Morrisons. Hooray! I rarely eat them, occasionally as part of a sandwich and that's it. There were only 3 cartons of eggs left, and the pricier ones at that. I also bought A Cunning Gadget that I may fill you in on later.
Finally -
It's not raining today. In fact the skies are blue and cloudless, but there's a chill wind, which is why my scuffing-about pants only came on after Edna's walk. Of course - obviously! - the world and his wife were doing walkies. Dog Buns sunshine.
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