No! This Is Nothing To Do With Drills!
Nor about killing, or drilling killing, although if you were a squaddy on the parade ground who had been marched up and down by the sergeant-major for three hours non-stop under a blazing June sun, you might feel that the drills were killing you. Art!
This was one of the first computer games I played, waaaaay back in the day, on a Spectrum 128+, and yes, this is an aside. You, the player, have to take control of a probe on the platformed surface of the moon Mitral, and place 18 drilling platforms to release a fatal build-up of gas.
Simple, right?
Wrong. You have to work out where 17 of the drilling platforms have to go by trial and error. There are automated defences that will shoot you until your probe is destroyed; a few can be shot and destroyed themselves but most require you to discover their 'Off' switch. O and if you fall off the edge of a platform you're dead. Conrad never got anywhere near succeeding, but O Lord Aloft did he burn through hundreds of hours trying. O and you have only 4 hours before Mitral explodes. Art!
Nowadays there's undoubtedly a walk-through. Back in those days you had to hope that one of the game magazines like 'Crash' would solve it for you. Art!
Dead these thirty years <a moment's silent reflection>.
ANYWAY Your Humble Scribe was working from home this afternoon, alongside four of my compatriots, all of us learning the ropes for Wednesday, when we officially change contractual employers and start working from home. Hey, I did warn you it was boring.
IT CANNOT COME SOON ENOUGH!
Just so we're clear.
Conrad only recently came to the startling and unpleasant conclusion that travel to work was costing him £100 per month.
"How is this possible, O maquillaged misanthrope?" I hear you quibble, and although I am indeed a misanthrope Conrad is not entirely sure what 'maquillage' is, so we will press on. Art!
First Bus Group model
Yes, these leeches demand £18 per week for an all-week electronic ticket. Times four is £72 for the month. Conrad also avails himself of the Metrolink on a Wednesday (the weekly shop doncha know) and Friday (it's the weekend). At £3.80 a pop, that's another £30.40 for the month. £100.40 in toto.
Or, if you prefer, enough annually to purchase a complete original collection of the "Official History Of The War: Military Operations". I know, absolutely shocking! Art?
 |
| <Conrad mops drool from his quivering lips> |
The great thing about working from home, apart from saving money, is that you can roll out of bed at 07:57 and yet be in work at 08:00 - although that does rely on rolling very, very quickly. Also, you can finish at 17:00 on the dot and be home before 18:50. In fact you can be home for 17:00:50. As that wise young lady Hazera (the strikingly attractive one) said, it gives you back two to three hours of your life. Art!
Let me just look up 'Maquillage'
"The War Illustrated"
Conrad will admit that he's being a censor in these posts. During this publication's timeline, they were great at bigging-up the Sinisters, as being their fellow-combatants against the Teutons. Colour Conrad Corrective, he doesn't feel like celebrating the Sinisters advancing over the lands that their direct descendants are plundering and pillaging this very day. If you don't like, don't read. Apologies to Sasha in Irkutsk, I'll post something Russophilic to placate.
ANYWAY
Monty, in all his diminutive glory. He would soon be recalled to This Sceptred Isle in order to command the D-Day armies, which of course would never be allowed to be even sniffed at in TWI, or at least not for a few months.
Er - actually, reading the blurb, they say he had already been transferred back to the UK to command The Invasion Armies That Are Going To Liberate Occupied France, so perhaps Opsec was not as tight as I imagined. Art!
This montage is about the quite ferocious battle for the Italian town of Ortona, which the Teutons seemed to pick at random as being a place to defend to the death. In the picture at bottom you can see the results of both weather and British artillery prep fire, both equally implacable and unpleasant. In the two pictures at top you can see a Teuton Fallschirmjager being brought in as a prisoner (the helmet is a give-away) and an infantry patrol moving very cautiously through the town. Then there are some Tommies wearing warm clothes from home - to the surprise of many, the Italian climate proved to be appallingly cold and wet for their winter season, which probably brought on a feeling of homesickness in British troops.
The chap in the cap at the centre? Appositely placed, that's General Oliver Leese, who took over in Italy when Monty did his vanishing act.
Nailed!
A couple of weeks ago, Conrad caught sight of a graphic on a website, who knows where it was or what it was, that illustrated the awesome amount of differing ordnance that the F-16 jet could carry. There was a lot. I mean, A LOT.
Today, listening in to the wise and perceptive Jake Broe on his Youtube channel, he put up the image again and I caught the title. Art!
Some of these are larger iterations of the original article, yet you cannot help but admit that this sky slider can throw some serious shade. There's got to be at least 40 different kinds of missiles and rockets here present. I don't see Stormzy present, either. What do you think, Dimya?
Hanky for Dimya! Hanky for Dimya!
"City In The Sky"
We are getting to hit the moot points. Virginia Branson, grand-daughter of yes, that Branson, is now learning about how her ancestor's investment can enable her.
‘Who gets to go up?’ asked the teenager.
‘You do,’ said Harris. ‘Your
grandfather didn’t fund it to leave his relatives behind. The families of five other entrepreneurs also
get to go up when we begin to populate Arc One.
They were people who saw Sir Richard funding a project and realised he
must have good reason, so they came in as well.’
‘It isn’t just a hotel in the sky for the descendants of millionaires,
is it!’ asked Mister Smith.
‘No. Not at all. We have a list of occupations and trades that
we need filled and intend to recruit internationally to complete it. It’s a long list. Doctors, paramedics, horticulturalists,
botanists, engineers, data specialists, dentists, cyberneticists,
psychologists, designers, chefs, telecom experts, pilots – about a hundred and
twenty different occupations.’
Sucking a mint,
‘Sorry, miles away! So you have
all these people sitting safely up in the sky, waiting for things to go bad
down here. Then they come back when it’s
all better. Won’t anyone left behind –
well, they won’t welcome back a lot of ivory-tower dwellers who could afford to
sit out the bad times.’
In fact one aspect of the Human Salvation Project’s planning had dealt
with so-called “Ivory Tower Syndrome”.
‘You’re right. What we plan to
have in orbit is a storage facility, keeping human knowledge and ability alive
for a return to Earth. A repository, not
a refuge.’
‘A subtle difference. One people
may not care to make,’ commented Mister Smith.
Harris shrugged. The old man was
reciting problems his father and Martin McCarthy had tried to tackle decades
ago.
Oooops, Art Imitating Life. Sorry.
There I was, reading about how Dimya hates and fears Alex Navalny, yet does not dare to execute him, because he secretly loves him and wants to bear his children he's a potential political lightning rod. And then what do I espy in the sidebar? Art!
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