Flashy

We Have A Bit Of A Theme Here

It came of seeing one of the omnipresent bus posters advertising "The Flash", which Conrad made a note of in his notebook - writing it on truffle-skins would have been exorbitantly expensive - for future review.  I admit, we have quite a backlog of films and television programs to review, and there are only so many hours in a day.  Art!

Has Supes had a sex-change?

     I was rather glad I went to work clad in my armoured underwear, for I'd noted a long list of items to include, and what's this?  A couple of lads on the bus singing a line from a song that - well, we'll get to that all in good time.

     Flash has a pedigree already.  Conrad swears on the bones of his Siberian clone-mother that he's seen at least the pilot of the 1990 television series.  Art!

Note go-faster ear-pieces

     The next one, from 2014, quite passed me by and I know not of it at all.  It seems to have run for umpteen seasons so had probably jumped the shark by season four, and I don't care enough to do anything than show a picture.  Art!

From legendarily cheapskate channel CW

     Personally, Conrad much prefers the animated Flash from "Justice League", who was a smart alek and a showoff.  Art!

Looking more sinister than speedy, I feel

     No Intro like this could possibly avoid mention of another legendary Flash, which, if Art will put down his bowl of coal - 

     It does clean things up, yes, and also makes an excellent impromptu flyspray, too, especially if Edna is loitering in the kitchen waiting for a random comestible to fall on the floor.  Why they ever dubbed it "Flash" is a mystery, because it possesses no luminescent qualities whatsoever, and since it's spray only covers a small area at any one time, you're going to be wielding it for hours when cleaning up.

     Of course we can't just leave it there ...

     "Flash Gordon" comes in two iterations, which could hardly be more different.  One is from the Thirties film serials.  Art!

     THIS IS A LIE!  Flash is the polar opposite of Emperor Ming, who is out to conquer things, though even he might admit that the entire Universe is biting off rather a lot.  Then we have the second film iteration.  Art!

     More camp than a bucket of Boy Scouts, but tremendous fun nonetheless, with Brian Blessed surely hitting a career high in Over The Top, and not just because he had wings.  Incidentally, the Queen song was the one that those lads on the bus were singing.  O, by the way, Alex 'Flash' Gordon was named thus by his dad, because the youngster always went everywhere at a great pace.  Okay, at least we got an explanation.  
     In quite the opposite of heroes, there is "Flashman", the villain of the piece in "Tom Brown's Schooldays", who was turned into the anti-hero of a series of novels where the character insists that Tom Brown was a horrid slandering little oik of distinctly grubby moral terpitude.  Art!

     Last and least, for today at any rate, is "Flash Forward", a South Canadian sci-fi series that was so high-concept nobody knew what was going on and it only ran for one season, without managing to tie up any loose dramatic ends.  Sloppy work, chaps.  The plot consists of people getting a glimpse of the future six months ahead.  Yes, that's it.  They were lucky to get a whole season out of it.  Art!

Why The Metro Beats First Bus

I can hear gasps from you, the audience, wondering why Conrad is being at all complimentary to that wretched yellow rag.

     Hmmmm well there's yellow afoot, alright, yet Conrad refers not to the litter-tray liner.  Instead I am acknowledging that the Metro - note lack of capitalised 'T' - has a sense of wit.  Art!

  And who was playing the Arena that night?  Yes, Elton Hecules John.

"The War Illustrated"

At this point in the Second Unpleasantness, i.e. the very beginning of 1944, the Allies were slogging up the Italian peninsula, which was slow going thanks to the weather and terrain.  The Eighth and Fifth Armies were a polyglot lot: the Fifth Army was composed of South Canadians.  The Eighth Army, on the other hand, had British, Australians, New Zealanders, Poles, Indians and Canadians, as well as Italian anti-fascist volunteers, and there were independent French units that included Moroccans and Algerians.  Art!

     Here there's a montage of scenes.  In the first one, tanks and Bren Carriers are suffering a mortar barrage fired by the Teutons.  The Shermans have nothing to fear but a headache if hit by a mortar bomb, but the Bren Carrier crews are probably sweating - they were open to the skies with no roof.  Underneath that to port, a bogged-down Sherman is passed by Monty, who is probably offering a bit of citric advise.  Tank commander probably hideously embarrassed.  To starboard is a picture illustrating just how steep the terrain could be; hard going even in good weather and nobody shooting at you.  To port of that, a group of Teuton prisoners are being escorted by some impeccably smart Indian soldiers.  Last picture shows a Bren gun team in their slit trench, looking chuffed for the camera in an undoubtedly posed picture, as the cameraman would have been standing out in the open with his back to the enemy.

     Here Royal Engineers contemplate what the Teutons always did when they retreated; blow up the bridges.  Whilst this looks catastrophically bad, in reality the sappers would have whistled up a Bailey Bridge construction team and had the whole thing bridged within a day or two.  Art!

     Not from TWI, but from Quora instead.  This is one of the best photos I've seen of a Sherman doing the amphibious bit; the photographer must have been standing on the far riverbank, high up, to get an angle like this.  The large metal box on the rear is an extension of the tank's exhaust, so the fumes get out without the tank being flooded.  Note how opaque the river water is - I suspect that other tanks have already passed by.

"City In The Sky"

The Doctor is endeavouring to divert and distract Ace, and what do you know, he's succeeding.

‘What’s “Wirrn”?’ asked Ace, picking up on one of several hints the Doctor had carefully and subtley seeded his conversation with.  Distraction, after all, needed to avoid looking like distraction.

‘The Wirrn.  An alien race of insect origins, from the Andromeda Galaxy.  Big as bears, and  considerably more dangerous.’

Picturing a fly or wasp ten feet tall made Ace feel creeped-out.  She wrinkled her nose before coming back with an observation.

‘Andromeda’s really far away, isn’t it?’

‘Quite.  Two and a half million light years away.  I only travel there when necessary – bit of a commute when the Tardis isn’t as reliable as you’d want her to be.’

For several seconds the only sounds to be heard were a distant jet airliner, the ripple of the river and muted calls from moorhens amongst  riverbank reeds.  The Doctor felt pleased – Ace was diverted, mulling over what she’d been told.

‘How come they’re extinct?’ she began, before letting her arms fall to her sides and trying to frown at her mentor as realisation dawned.  ‘You’ve changed the subject!’

He chuckled.

     Touché.

De Profundis

It means 'From the depths', and Your Humble Scribe is sincerely glad that there is a wide waste of water between himself and the creepy Dog Buns! things that ooze and wriggle in the abyssal depths.  Art!

Where the wild things were

     This can be conflated with an astronomical event on Saturn's moon Enceladus.  Art!

Water plumes: the latest is 6,000 miles high

     This small moon is known to have a sub-surface ocean of salty water, which might allow the development of life

     Conrad hopes not.  Look at the horrors in that first photograph.  Can you imagine what would evolve on an alien moon?   Brrrrrr!

Finally -

Looking forward to an early finish tomorrow, as I've done an hour-and-a-half extra this week so far.  And NO! I don't have to come in at 11:00.  Plus, at least five months after having to improvise a shortened shoe-lace as it tore in half, as I got ready for Footasylum and the Rap Track Of C*** All Day Long.