White City

No!  Nothing To Do With London

Nor the borough of Fulham, nor indeed Shepherd's Bush.  The area is known as 'White City' because the exterior cladding of white stone and whitewashed exteriors for the exhibitions that were held here, incl

     ANYWAY we are holding forth on another Intro about 'Lord Of The Rings' and Ol' Tolky's architecture, and today the subject is the city of Minas Tirith, the 'Tower of Guard'.  Art!

You can see where 'White City' comes from

     Ol' Tolky gives a fairly detailed description of the city, which has seven levels.  The picture above, and indeed most depictions, neglect to reflect that the lowest level is protected by the City Wall, made of the same substance as the Tower Of Orthanc.  In other words, proof against anything short of an earthquake or a tactical nuclear weapon, both of which are wondrous rare in Middle-Earth.  Plus, it was black in colour.  Which would mar the overall image, one supposes.  Art!

     You can see a couple of salient features here.  There is a sheet of rock projecting outwards, through which tunnels were built to allow both halves of the city to communicate with each other.  Secondly, you can see the Citadel and Tower of Ecthelion, which commanded fantastic views of the lands about.  There were seven levels in all, which, if Art will get off his waffle-patterned behind ...

     It's not readily apparent here, but the city's designers were a canny bunch and none of the gates in each level face each other, meaning that any attacker cannot simply march boldly onward after storming one gateway.  The advantage of height cannot be understated either, with the seventh level standing at the 700 foot mark.  This means any artillery weapons (mangonels or trebuchets) set up on the higher levels have a reach and range and impact advantage denied to a ground-level siege force.  Heck, people on that rock 'keel' could throw hand-sized rocks that would kill or cripple anyone they hit.

     One obvious deficiency is a lack of defensive ditches or moats around the City Wall, because that allowed the battering-ram Grond to get right up to the main gate.  Conrad, had time permitted, would have dug a giant pit underneath the gateway and used the spoil to erect an inner barrier, aided by demolising nearby buildings -

     But I digress.  Art!

     Gondor's getting weaker, with a falling population, is a blessing in disguise for Minas Tirith, because how on earth can it accommodate an increasing population?  "O I'll just go chisel a house out of the mountainside, shouldn't take more than four or five years," doesn't really cut it.

     Where was all the stone for the city quarried?  I cannot say for certain, but - look!  There's a whole mountain made of stone behind Minas Tirith.  Who knew!

The Prof Fires Off

Professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, an economist working at Yale University and specialising on the Ruffian economy since Peter The Average invaded Ukraine.  He noted that the Ruffians are getting around sanctions by smuggling in chips that they cannot make themselves.  You cannot, however, plan and execute a nation's  technological development based on intermittent and inadequate supplies of chips at three times the market price.  Art!

     He also, stingingly, said that the Ruffian economy is now about the size of Chile's when it used to be similar to that of Italy.  In other words, a contraction from $1.5 trillion to $300 billion, or one-fifth of what it used to be.

     The Prof also explained that unemployment figures are being massaged, with  jobless people being put on the Government payroll, which looks good for employment statistics but which is also eating into the National Wealth Fund.  Art!

Meet Yuri.  Yuri used to be a mechanical engineer in a car factory ...

"Zombie Holocaust"

You can't blame me for purchasing this DVD, it was only £0.33 and I've never seen it.  It came out in 1980 in order to cash in on the Italian craze for zombie flicks.  Conrad cannot find out what the budget was, but they had enough to shoot in New York, and I presume that an Italian location stood in for the Moluccan islands.  There's a few Extras on the DVD that I'll check out, they may have more info.  Art!

     In fact there aren't that many zombies, and they are far outnumbered by cannibals.  There is an interesting use of an outboard motor to take out one of the walking dead, mind.  Not sure how they got Brit actor Ian McCulloch onboard, unless it was with a big pile of lira.  Art!

"They brought in a dustbin stuffed full of cash and I was weak"

"The Sea Of Sand"

The Doctor and Sarah are trying to explain to their incredulous fellow-survivors that they are what they say they are, travellers in time.  The Doctor is trying to explain about the TARDIS.

Albert and the Professor were still arguing, intensity undimmed.

          ‘Then we have the matter of my transport.  My time-machine, you might call it.’  Sarah translated for the Italians and Dominione perked up.

          ‘As in the romance by Hubert George Wells?’ he asked.

          ‘Mine is considerably more secure, Tenente.  Which is a good thing, as I am fairly certain the bio-vores have captured it.’

          ‘Bit careless, that,’ said Roger in an undertone.  Sarah caught the tone of the words, if not their content, and glared at the officer.

          ‘You said your transport was destroyed,’ recalled Davey.  ‘Back when we found you in the desert.’

          ‘Misplaced, yes, but not destroyed.  Attacking the TARDIS does that.  Transposes her, I mean.’

          The conversation led to a logical conclusion: that the Doctor needed to get his transport back from the bio-vores.  He couldn’t do this openly, since the aliens might very well kill him on sight.  The human – or, as in his case, humanoid – form differed from the bio-vores so much that he couldn’t move around openly.

          That left sneaking in, which would be equally difficult, except in the case of potential Trojan Horses left out on the sands – the abandoned Sahariana’s.  Doretti, the Italian radio operator acting as sentry atop the wooden platform, reported that parties of bio-vores would venture from their desert fastness to drag away the desert cars one at a time.

     You can probably guess where this one is going.

Behold, The Entitled Plonker

Some people are convinced that They Are Above The Law as well as You Should Be Grateful To Kiss My Shoes.  Sadly for them, real life can be a bit of an education in how neither were true.  Here's one from Quora, about an international flight from South Canada to This Sceptred Isle.  Art!

Wheeeeeee

     The EP in this case had stripped down to his boxer shorts and t-shirt, because "That's how I sleep at home and I plan on getting a bit of shut-eye".  He ignored the flight attendant telling him to put his clothes back on, and argued about his rights with the Air Marshall - this chap turning up ought to have clued him in that things are going to go pear-shaped.  But no.

     The Air Marshall then takes the seat next to matey, and handcuffs him to the seat.

     Ooops.  Art!

A little more professionally than this

     Surprise!  When they land at Heathrow the police arrest him, cuff him and immediately deport him back to South Canada.  Where he is arrested upon landing.

     He was also very likely permanently banned from air travel anywhere.  Hope he got a good kip out of it in the cells.

Finally -

Finished watching "All Quiet On The Western Front" and "The Making Of AQOTWF" this morning and will get back to you about both.

Pip pip!