De Profundis

I Did Try A Couple Of New Fonts -

'Merriweather' and 'Yanone Kaffesatz' but they were much too small, certainly for my aging eyes.

     Yes yes yes, it's Latin for 'From The Depths' and I think there's both a poem and a sci-fi novel that use it as their title.  Art!

Close enough

     The news of late, where it has not been goggling over what on earth's going on in the land of the Ruffians, has also been speculating about the destruction of a pocket submarine, the 'Titan', in the ocean's abyssal depths.  We did touch briefly on this yesteryon, which is being expanded here with more room to move.

     Many years ago, BOOJUM! did a series of items looking at the exploration of the oceans deepest places, possibly because I'd read "The Kraken Wakes" too often.  There were items about bathyscaphes and bathyspheres and the Challenger Deep and the Marianas Trench.  One thing I do recall is that the deep-diving submersibles used tended to be spherical in shape, as this is the design best suited to resist pressure at depth.  Art!

 The proof

     Another anecdote I recall is from a popular science book, which stated that, at the bottom of the ocean - I can't remember which one - the pressure was so great it would be as if a 14-ton truck were driving over every square inch of your body.  Uncomfortable, to say the least.  Art!

As used late in yesteryon's item

     That gives you a bit of perspective.  The 'Titanic' is two and a half miles deep, where the pressure stands at 400 atmospheres; one atmosphere being the pressure at sea level.  The old lady is falling to bits and won't be recognisable as a ship for much longer, which isn't too surprising given that she's been down there for well over a century.  Art!

     The stern has completely gone and the bow section is collapsing in on itself.  One commentator over on Quora said that it's much, much safer to watch it on a television screen by using a Remotely Piloted Vehicle, sipping a mint julep (whatever one of those is) and sunning yourself on deck.  

Less picturesquely, there will be very little to salvage from the 'Titan', because when a hull loses integrity at that depth it will implode in milliseconds and the best spin one can put on it is that it was instantaneous.  None of that Hollywood nonsense about hull creaks, sprays of water or tense looks, just BANG.   

It's also rather ghoulish to go noseying around what to all intents and purposes is a giant steel coffin.  A Chinese salvage ship has gotten into very hot water because they plundered the wrecks of the 'Repulse' and 'Prince Of Wales' over in the Far East, not least because both are registered War Graves.

     Next thing you know there'll be a grey market in items 'recovered' from the Big T.  No I do not want your filthy stolen silver service!  Art?

As The Penguin might have said

     And with that, feeling that for once we hold the moral high ground, we shall move on.

Bring On The Stew

As you should surely know by now, Conrad makes up a big batch of scoff on a Sunday so he can have it for lunch during the week, and this Sunday was no different.  Art!

     I didn't have much meat so I bulked it out with a whole cauliflower.  Also this was the first time I'd cooked with a Sweetheart Cabbage, which is much looser packed than a White Cabbage and shreds nicely.  Spiced up with just the right amount of red jalapenos.

     Perhaps it would be more fitting in winter but I have made it and I am Dog Buins! going to eat it.

You What?

Conrad has been puzzled by curious-looking devices being promoted on Quora as having suffered a price drop.  They have a certain seedy air about themselves that make me look askance, and determine not to click on whatever they are in case we end up in some porn-and-meds-flogging corner of teh Interwebz.

     Then there is "The Daily Beast".  Art!

     What on earth are these?  And no, I'm not going to click on what seems to be the poster child for 'clickbait'.

     Answers in the Comments, ta very much.

"City In The Sky"

As I introduced the last section, things are going pear-shaped Downstairs, with an apparent theatre nuclear war about to break out.

     ‘Perhaps they can’t afford more,’ suggested Natalie.  The general’s junta had mismanaged Iran’s  economy into utter chaos; her comment wasn’t too far-fetched.

     Screen Six still displayed the scrolling message from Tel Aviv.

     ‘Good God above!’ exclaimed another Deputy, arriving late in plastic pyjamas.  He squeezed into the overcrowded one-room building, looking appalled.  ‘I go for a nap and the world blows up!’

     ‘Not yet, Mister Barclay,’ said Davy.  ‘We’ve about fifteen minutes until the missiles hit.’  Other radio frequencies were now beginning to cut through the Israeli broadcast, all simultaneously alarmed.

     ‘I’m looking for any Iranian broadcasts in Farsi,’ explained Davy.  ‘On official channels.’

      There were no official broadcasts.  He looked up the five different wavelengths in a sub-screen of Screen Six, confirmed he’d got at least one right from memory and scanned them again.

     ‘Ahum,’ he said, thinking aloud.  ‘This is strange.  The Iranians began this by firing missiles, but there aren’t any kinds of warning on their state radio.’

     By this time Arc One was over the Negev; Screen Seventeen’s hateful little red light began to flash again, “Terrestrial Launch Indication”.  Behind Davy, the Controllers and Deputies began to talk in low tones, eventually making more calls on their Tabs.  Their conferring came to a halt when first one, then another noticed the warning signal on Screen Seventeen.

     O dear.  Clearly someone thinks it's a good idea to roll the dice and gamble on being in a nice deep bunker.

Imagine This In A Southern Drawl

No!  Not a Cockney one, a South Canadian one.  Art!

     This, Vulnavia, is a Mint Julep.  It consists of bourbon, which is a species of whisky, I understand, ice, sugar-syrup, lots of mint leaves and a hefty-handed shaking.  It is associated with the South of South Canada, thanks to the bourbon, apparently.  You can understand why 'mint'; 'julep' has an interesting background, as it derives from the Moorish 'Julepe', meaning a sweet drink used to deliver medicine, which itself derives from the Farsi 'Golab', which means 'Rosewater'.  Colour Conrad cocktail curious.  And it's the weekly shop on Wednesday.

     If I do make it I hope it's better than the ghastly Mojito I made a couple of years back.  Good lord, it was horrid, bitter as gall and it was a struggle to neck it all!

Finally -

I finally put together my new works monitor, which is a particularly beefy Dell one, after realising it came with two data cables and I'd been staring in bufflement - which is like bafflement but worse - at the incorrect one.  There aren't enough sockets to permit the headphone and mouse to be used, so we'll have to see which proves the better item.  Art!

     Laptop powered down, as otherwise you would see the log-in screen, with my real name WHICH WE CANNOT HAVE.  Also G4S might be a bit cross with me.