Broke Back Mounting

Rumour Has It That The Ruffian Military -

Were trained by First Group, which would explains so, so much about their army.  You remember the old joke about them going from 'second-best army in the world' to 'second-best army in Ukraine'?  Now they're being described as the 'second-best army in Ruffia', and they have First to thank for that.

    For Lo! we are back on the subject of First Bus, who are despicably incompetent, yes, and yet who provide the blog with so much freely-generated content.

     As tonight.  Art!

Designed by First, built by Russia, crewed by Rukhs

    ANYWAY there we were, trundling along in the 83 when we got to Hollinwood and suddenly from the nearside rear wheel came an appallingly loud BANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANG noise, so loud and repetitive that Your Humble Scribe wondered if the tyre hadn't suffered a complete deflation.

     When the driver slowed down, so too did the noise until it was only BANG     BANG     BANG     BANG as we pulled into a bus stop.  He donned his official hi-viz jacket, in case pedestrians ran him over, and strode magisterially to look at the wheel.

     Conrad, knowing what was coming, put his book away and zipped up his bag.

     "I'm sorry, something's happened to the bus and I can't take you any further," said Our Hero (in his own head, that is).  We all trooped off the bus.  Conrad, thinking quickly, got a couple of photos in to set a mise en scene for the blog when he composed it later on getting home.  Art!

Broke

The offending article

     There's nothing obviously wrong with it that you can see.  However, what you see here lacks smell - it was obvious by the acrid stink that rubber had been either burning or catching.  

     'On getting home' also seemed merely a pious hope as it was another 20 minutes before the next 83 turned up and we were able to board, mounting the steps to get back on the bus.  So you can see where today's title comes from.  Yes yes yes, three 84s had gone by, but they take a huge detour through Hollinwood at this point and we still arrived in the bus station ahead of them.

     FYI, 'Rukhs' is neither rude nor Ruffian, it's the word that Ol' Tolky's dwarves use to describe the orcs.  If you fly with the Rukhs you're a Rukh, to coin a phrase.

     Motley, I feel like doughnuts - break out the Fiat Panda and let's roast some rubber!

How Very Prescient

Or paranoid, or an unholy blend of the two.  Conrad noticed a news article under a sidebar on the BBC News website.  

Artificial intelligence could lead to extinction, experts warn

     Some of them do.  Others are more bothered about less apocalyptic scenarios where near-future AI abuse allows dictatorial regimes to smother their populace in surveillance and control, or weaponise drug-creating algorithms, or put Hollywood screenwriters out of work - that one seems a bit win-win to me - and other potential abuses.

     Other experts frankly scoff at the possibility of AI becoming a threat to the very existence of Hom. Sap.  Yeah, until Philip K. Dick's Toaster Take-over Terror occurs, matey.  Art!

 - or this

     Ol' Bill has a couple of scenes where the 'Turing Police' turn up.  He, craftily, doesn't explain who they are or what they do, but the canny reader realises pretty quickly that these chaps have a mandate to suppress and destroy any kind of autonomous AI in the world, because it's far too dangerous to be allowed to proliferate.

     And what does one of these AI-fearing pundits tell us?

We are likely to eventually need something like an IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] for superintelligence efforts"   Art!

     Gee, ain't the future shaping up to be interesting!

O Noes!

Talking of the future and living in it, t'would appear that the James Webb Space Telescope has suffered a micro-meteorite impact to one of it's mirrors.  Art!

     This is bad news, no denying it.  Not cause for the anti-JWST haters (probably Rukhs) to have a ticker-tape parade in anticipation of it falling over dead, though.  You see, it was always realised that micro-meteorite impact on the dish was a real risk - it's just that nobody expected it to get whanged quite this quickly.  NASA will have run statistical models of this for months on end to see if it was safe to deploy the JWST, and it was.

     What it means, in real-life, is that the image quality will be slightly degraded, because there are 17 undamaged mirrors still in operation, or 94.5% if you like mathematical precision.  Phew!  Art?

    Unlike Hubble, JWST cannot be repaired, because it operates so far away from Earth that nothing bar a specially-convened mission can reach it, which would be horribly expensive and take ages to mount.  There you go - broke and mounting, are we seeing a trend here?

"City In The Sky"

In the aftermath of their battle against the Daleks at Coal Hill School, the Doctor is trying to divert Ace from brooding about the death of Mike Smith.

The Doctor tipped his hat back, looking at her with a touch of ancient wisdom.

‘Oh dear.  I did hope bringing you here might quieten your troubles a little, relax a bit, contemplate the beauties of nature.  Recriminations because of Sergeant Smith, eh?’

It wasn’t her fault that Mike had turned out to be a neo-Nazi scumbag, after she’d fallen for him big time.  She ought to be glad he was dead, traitor that he was, except she couldn’t quite bring herself to believe it. 

Recognising the symptoms of a heavy heart, the Doctor hauled his line in and sat up.  So much for quiet contemplation!  Ace needed distracting. 

‘A tragedy,’ he murmured.  ‘ “Send not to ask”.’  He looked sideways at the young woman, picking up her skin tone, body posture, involuntary movements and vocal stress.  ‘If he’d known you longer he’d have changed his opinions.’

Another muttered insult flew to Ace’s lips.

‘Nobody is truly irredeemable, Ace,’ he gently chided her. 

‘Not even the Daleks?’ she shot back.  The Doctor smiled ruefully and shook his head.

‘Ah, the Daleks.  Extinct.  Dead as the Dodo.  What’s that aphorism they use in Andromeda?  “Gone the way of the Wirrn”.  Actually - ’ and he remembered another youthful companion.  ‘Actually the Daleks would have been redeemable, Ace.  They were playful and as harmless as kittens when infused with Human Factor.’

     There you go, two internal references to previous canonical stories and you're welcome.

Conrad Is ANGRY!

Because Elton John is doing three performances at the AO Arena, which means Your Humble Scribe will have to use his Dinky Manbag instead of his Manly Rucksack, or else add another 7 minutes to his journey thanks to having to trawl the Underworld, a.k.a. The Arena Car Park.  Bah!

Dog Buns, Elton - RETIRE AND ENJOY YOUR MONEY!

Finally -

"The Daily Beast" very sneakily took my money for a second year's subscription, which I suppose is my fault for not looking into the cancellation properly and assuming that all would fall as it ought to.   Well, since I've got the subscription I ought to make use of it, nicht wahr?  There's a long and interesting item on Darth Marmalade's legal team and how things are not going well for them, which would need at least 600 words to do it justice.  However!

     Whilst he was still alive, one presumes.  This, you see, is TDB to a tee - for a nation that strove to get rid of being ruled by a monarchy, they love love love the monarchy.

And with that, we are done.