Yes, Conrad Is Re-reading "The Man In The High Castle"
It is many decades since I last read it, and I cannot remember anything about it, except that a Japanese businessman shoots at a gang of SS villains and grievously wounds one of them, and there was something about British commandos, during the desert war, garrotting their enemies with rusty barbed wire. Art!
Conrad was faintly incredulous that they made a television series out of it.
If you're not familiar with the novel, it's a multi-person look at the world of 1962, in a reality where the Axis won the Second Unpleasantness. South Canada has been split into three; the Japanese occupy the Pacific coastline, the Nazis the eastern coastline, and an rump state of what's left sits uncomfortably in the middle. There is also 'The South', which appears to be a steaming sub-tropical backwater inhabited by hillbillies and frogs. Philip Kendred Dick placed it squarely in 1962 (the year he wrote it), which is brilliant timing, as it allows real characters from wartime to still be hale and hearty, yet have things moved along sufficiently to be very different from the Forties. The Nazis have never lost their political intent and are guilty of genocide on a grand scale, apparently rendering Africa nearly empty of people. They are also supreme in rocket technology and are busy colonising Mars. Art!
Shades of Concorde!
The Japanese are a lot more benevolent, having given up their martial ardour but maintaining the rule of law, and applying it to themselves as well.
O, Herr Schickelgruber, as we love to denigrate him, is apparently dying slowly of syphilis in profound secrecy. Can't have Der Fuhrer not dying a heroic death as in a Wagner opera, can we?
PKD's Acknowledgements also list several works he referenced in order to write his novel, including William Shirer's "The Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich". I've read it myself and it's very strong - up until South Canada enters the war, at which point Ol' Bill is kicked out of Berlin. The chapter on medical 'research' under the Nazis is best avoided unless you have a very strong stomach, it left me feeling ill, and we all know what a flinty-hearted curmudgeon I am. Art!
Ol' Bill.
CAUTION! Do not mention hobbits!
PKD also said that he had considered doing a sequel to TMITHC, but was prevaricating about it because he found having to deal with Nazism as a stain on his soul; as he put it, if you include Reinhard Heydrich in your novel, then you have to read up on him. Which is not pleasant.
Another work he mentioned was "Foxes Of The Desert", by Paul Carrell, which is about the Afrika Korps, first published in 1958.
Except 'Paul Carrell' is the pseudonym of Paul Schmidt, who was one of the Third Reich's most senior peddlers of propaganda during the Second Unpleasantness, who ran the Teuton magazine 'Signal' and explained why the Final Solution was really a very good thing. He escaped being prosecuted at Nuremburg by the thickness of a coat of paint.
It's not clear when Schmidt's secret background came out but I bet PKD would have jibbed at using such a work if he knew exactly who had written it.
There you go, a twist that's worthy of a PKD novel itself. Art!
RIP PKD. Of course, lots of people are convinced that he's not really dead, just taking an extended sabbatical and enjoying his royalties.
The Flaw* Of The Fatal Feet
Conrad normally travels into work wearing his Size 12 black shoes, which have laces a yard long that require being not merely tied in a bow, but the bow being re-tied again to prevent them from lying on the ground. Of a morning, lacing them up takes a good couple of minutes, when time is at a premium.
On the other hand - or foot - there are my Skechers, which take mere seconds to put on and which are a lot more comfy than shoes, with plenty of venty, too. Art!
As you can clearly see.
The problem is that they have absolutely NO traction on wet, smooth surfaces. What did it do this morning whilst I was on the bus? Why, it rained! It rained plenteously. What are there plenty of in the centre of Gomorrah-in-the-Irwell? Art!
That's right, flat, smooth wet pavements. My progress from bus stop to work was punctuated by nearly slipping and falling upon my generously-padded posterior. I survived, but it was a near-run thing.
Onto home working tomorrow, so this will be a problem of the past.
Hello Illness My Old Friend
To steal and soil a title from Simon and Garfunkel. Actually, 'soiling' is very apt for this item.
You may recall that the Ruffians blew up the dam at Nova Khakovka a while ago. Typically incompetent, really - if they'd been smart they'd have let the Ukrainians cross the Dnipro and then blown the dam.
As it is, they have now been introduced to a lot of water-borne pathogens that crop up when contaminated H₂0 is ingested by people. Cholera, dystentery, e-coli and even hepatitis. This is partly because of the flooding, and also because Ruffian mobiks are squalid slovens for whom existing in filth is perfectly normal. Well, now Mister Tin-Pu's floodwaters are killing them, because several have died from cholera. Art!
The last time this was a problem was back in the mid-nineteenth century and the Crimean Unpleasantness, which gives you an idea of the Ruffian army's hygiene protocols.
Don't worry, though - Dimya says things are going swimmingly.
"City In The Sky"
Our protagonists are attempting to sell the Human Salvation Project and it's centrepiece, the orbital Bernal Spheres that will house a fraction of humanity and allow it to ride out the Big Crash.
‘Hopefully we – or rather, those who return – can help re-boot
civilisation and give it a short-cut back to a sustainable level in a matter of
years, not centuries.’
‘Could I go up there now?’ asked
‘Oh dear, he’s convinced you!’ sighed Deanna Harris in mock-despair.
‘You can certainly go up,’ agreed Harris. ‘Not straight away. You’d need to go to the – er, we call it
“Space Camp” – in Buda-Pest for two weeks to get acclimated. Then you could go up with the next Black
Knight launch. Once you’re on-board, you
can’t get off until the next lifting body comes up with the next Black Knight
launch. So if you don’t like it you’re
stuck there for a month.’
Privately, Mister Smith felt well-satisfied with the evening’s work, if
a little tired. Once
A bit shorter than usual because it was a convenient place to stop.
The Biter Bit
A short and pithy Youtube Reddit relation, from an Original Poster who was working for an ethically-challenged bottomhole manager (hereafter ECBM). The place was a medical laboratory, where the manager was committing Medicare fraud by claiming services rendered that were not. Art!
These guys got interested. All of a sudden they raided the lab, took away computers and files (O so many files!) and quizzed every individual. OP was warned NOT to do anything remotely linked to Medicare, or possible fraud, or possible Medicare fraud, a warning he took to heart.
Enter ECBM. He ordered OP to process dodgy-looking Medicare forms.
OP refused.
ECBM then fires OP a couple of hours later.
Sweet! OP then goes after unemployment benefit from ECBM, who fought so hard against it - gotta keep all that sweet sweet cheddar in his bank account and nobody else's - that it took a face-to-face court mediation to resolve. Which was instantly decided in OP's favour when the words 'Medicare' and 'FBI' came up.
ECBM then has to fork over oodles of cash to OP.
It gets better! Well, for OP, not ECBM. He lost the business. He also lost his wife, which at first glance seems a tad careless, but I think OP means she divorced his sorry, penniless criminal bottom.
Conrad merely notes that, if the FBI have raided you and taken away all your PCs and paper files, NOT PERPETUATING THE FRAUD is a good idea.
But what do I know**.
"Nothing to see here. Move along, please"
* Or even "The Floor Of The Fatal Feet"
** Enough to pound sand into a gopher hole.
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