No! This Is Nothing To Do With Hellboy
However, seeing as how I've invoked the Big Red Horny Guy's name, I prod Art awake and - what's that? Conrad is being vulgar?
How dare you! Art!
See? Horns. Although in the lore of his reality, if his horns have fully developed, he's about to bring about the End Times in the persona of Anung Un Rama, which is why he keeps them sawn off and regularly grinds 'em dow
ANYWAY yesteryon I came across a Youtube channel hitherto unbeknownst to me: 'Foundry Maniac'. There is nil information about whom FM is or was or intends to be when he grows up on his channel. Conrad suspects he was a foundry worker once. I know, a giant speculative leap.
Well, he put up a video clip of an accident with an aluminium smelter. This kind of industrial plant removes metals from ore, principally by raising them to enormous temperatures. Art!
Here the crane operator is moving a bucket full of molten aluminium to rest on a dedicated table, a bucket full of liquid metal at 660ยบ C. Note the absence of people. This is important later. Art!
At 37 seconds in At 1 min 6 seconds in
You can see the crane operator is lowering the carrying handle on the bucket (which probably has a technical name but a bucket is still a bucket) as a plant employee speeds past on a motorised cart. The idea is that the crane's hook fully disengages from the carrying handle so the trailer can be moved elsewhere, slowly and carefully. Art!
At 1 min and 16 seconds
THE HOOK HAS NOT DISENGAGED!
The crane operator is now moving the arm, and you can see that the hook is still engaged with the bucket handle, hence it's now hanging at an angle compared to the picture above. He obviously wasn't paying attention, probably playing "Candy Crush" on his mobile. You can see where this is going. Art!
At 1 minute 19 seconds At 1 minute 21 seconds
The screen then blurs out in an orange fireball as everything either melts or catches fire, or melts and then catches fire. The colour contrast is saturated and the picture takes on a strange monochrome quality. Art!
At 1 minute 29 seconds
The colour does eventually return. Phew! Art?
Quite apocalyptic, hmmm? There's no information about when or where this accident occurred, not even in the Comments. It's somewhere in the English-speaking world as the word "STOP" is visible near the top of the screen at start, and my money's on South Canada. However, were I to go snooping on Google I'm sure there'd be a horrifying number of such accidents. It doesn't look at if anyone was injured or killed, but that chap on the cart had a narrow escape; 13 seconds later and he'd have been vapourised. One of the Commenters said his dad had worked in a lead foundry, where they wore steel identity plates, because if you had an accident with the molten lead, that ID plate would be all they found of you. Grim stuff yet morbidly fascinating. Art!
The Joy Of Smelt
Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before
Conrad came across a passage in "German Strategy In The Great War" that had a certain grim irony to it. The Ruffians were going to mount an offensive around Lake Narotch against the Teutons. Art!
This was in March of 1916, and the author (Lt. Col. Philip Neame) writes of it thus: "The offensive commenced on 18th March, meantime a thaw had set in on 17th March, rendering the movement of all transport virtually impossible. Why the Russians chose this time of year is inconceivable. - the annual thaw in March and April renders roads and open country alike impassable."
Go tell it on the rooftops, Neamy.
Conrad Is ANGRY! OH SO ANGRY! Angrier Than Usual, That Is
For two reasons. One is First Bus, the other is Codewords. Let's have at FB, because I feel like giving them a metaphorical shoeing. Art!
A little hard to make out, I admit, thanks to all the reflections. What you're looking at is a 409 that had arrived in Oldham Bus Station, and which promptly decanted all it's passengers onto my bus. The driver came over to our driver and incautiously informed that HQ had ordered him to turf off his passengers, head part-way to Rochdale, then return to the depot at Oldham. Both drivers debated about convenient turning-points along Rochdale Road.
Why do this, one has to wonder?
Hmmmm further evidence that FB's Operations Manual was written by the Ruffians in Cyrillic, badly translated into Aramaic and then photocopied upside down onto dirty second-hand papers.
"City In The Sky"
Our Heroes have buttonholed Sir Richard Branson about something called the 'Bonetti Report', which seems to be predicting Doomsday in short order.
‘The Report has been dismissed by some as
scaremongering of the highest order, Sir Richard,’ began Martin. ‘How much have you read?’
‘Not
all of it - ’
‘Yes,
it is quite weighty. Most people just
read the Abstract and the Summary instead of the other twelve hundred pages.’
‘Guilty!’
laughed Sir Richard. He sobered up
immediately. ‘They still make scary
reading. One half of the human race dead within a century.’
He
caught the sudden darted glance between both scientists and realised they were
keeping a secret.
‘Ah. Yes.
The fifty per cent total,’ drawled Martin. ‘That was actually a compromise that
Professor Bonetti insisted on. The
upper-bound figure was too depressing, so the Report only mentioned the
lower-bound.’
Their
interviewer didn’t speak, only looked enquiringly.
‘Ninety-two
per cent extinction,’ finished Martin, making Sir Richard look shocked. He didn’t speak for several seconds.
Mark
knew this reaction from their endless interviews with agencies and quangoes and
panels and committees. At least three
billion would die within the next century, maybe as many as five and a half
billion, in unavoidable wars, famines, epidemics and pollution. That was the bottom line, what Bonetti had
assembled his hundred experts to conclude, what he had spent every lire he had
to calculate - and which nobody wanted to hear.
Ah, the sad fate of so many Cassandras. O well, life goes on, until it doesn't.
Am I Still Angry?
Let me check. YES! I'll show you why, those Codeword compilers take a mile when you mercifully avoid blasting them into radioactive vapour.
PIZZAZZ: According to my Collins Concise, "An attractive combination of energy and style", which sounds SUSPICIOUSLY South Canadian in nature, possibly derived from Yiddish. And they expect we in This Sceptred Isle to be familiar with South Canadian linguistic creole? Grrrrr. Art!
Go on, you were expecting it.
EXIGIBLE: No, I'd never heard of it, either. Let me consult the CC.
Wow. Not present. Let us try teh Interwebz. "Of a tax or duty; able to be levied or paid."
I see. However, this must have GONE OUT OF USE IN THE TIME OF DICKENS! So we're expected to be familiar with the language of 1855, are we?
BUSBY: I think this used to be British Telecom's irritating little cartoon mascot back in the day, for which I'm sure some advisory group demanded and got millions for being idiots with poor word skills.
ANYWAY this one means a variety of hat, I'll have you know. A military hat, to be more precise. In fact it's the name for the British fur hats that were worn by various units before the First Unpleasantness. Still are, on ceremonial occasions, as they are definitely not shrapnel or blast-proof. Art!
Finally -
Conrad noticed that Ol' Jim described a couple of engagements in "Clandestine" where a 10-gauge shotgun was used. This is, it seems, as big a shotgun as you can legally own in South Canada. Despite having a lower number than a 12-gauge shotgun, it's actually a larger weapon firing a bigger shell. Art!
As is clear, they are much larger than a 12-gauge shell and consequently do a a lot more damage, so Ol' Jim may not be exaggerating about one unfortunate character being severed in twain by both barrels of a 10-gauge at point-blank range. Art!
CAUTION! Guns and beer do not mix well
Having delivered that forensic insight, I think we're done here. Pip pip!
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