Is Not A Square Being
Because a lighthouse is an artefact or structure, not a living article. Yes! we are back on the fascinating subject of lighthouses again, an architectural item that we at the blog have often expounded as an item of interest in it's own right. Of course, hailing from This Sceptred Isle, we tend to focus more on the lighthouses that gird our nation's shores. This is a bit of a narrow view as other nations with a seaboard also build them, including one that came up as a screensaver and which piqued my interest. Art!
This is the Kermrovan lighthouse, near the village of Le Conquet, at the very tip of the Kermrovan peninsula in France. From the upper picture you can see that the keepers didn't have to risk death or drowning trying to garrison the structure by battling through treacherous seas and shoals. No, they had a nice easy walk over the bridge. Art!
What struck Your Humble Scribe when the image came up, was that the design is square. Most lighthouses, as you know, are round and cylindrical. Art!
There is a reason for this. Any exterior stress in a round lighthouse is distributed across the masonry, rather than being concentrated at any one point. This makes them more durable.
Compared to a round lighthouse, a square one experiences greater shear forces on the outer walls, with wind eddies at the corners also stressing the structure. More simply, if being hit with wind or seawater, the corners of a square lighthouse can be assailed from two different direction.
Why make it square, then? Well, the oldest reason in the book: £££££. You needed more building material for a square structure, but it was a lot easier and quicker to build. You didn't need to accommodate the inner curve with any fitments or staircases.
The French who constructed Kermorvan in 1848, mind you, were quality craftsmen of the old school, because the thing is still hale and hearty and standing loud (foghorns) and proud. Art!
It's possible that it doesn't get hit with especially large waves; that above is about the worst I could find in a hasty search, which would mean less worry about erosion or structural failure. And no, that above is pretty mild compared to a few of the giant waves that assault French lighthouses. Who'd want to be a lighthouse keeper in conditions like that? The French would know what sea-states around Kermorvan were like and must have decided they could get away with a cut-price construction.
There you go, we all know more than we did five minutes ago. And you're welcome.
Never Let It Be Said That We Were Ever Fair
There has been an interesting intersection at the box office of late, with half a dozen films being closely regarded in terms of their box office take. Let us parade the winners and loser in public, shall we? Art!
I like the way this shot is composed
As you can see, after three and a half weeks, the studio is pulling it out of cinemas. It's going to struggle to hit even $350 million at this rate, which is about half what it needs to make to break even. Expect it to finish it's run at the cinema soon, and then be put on Disney +, as with "The Flash". The cruel critics who hate Kath Kennedy are now taking bets on how much it will lose the studio, which is quite horrid of them, and we don't approve, much. Art!
Hmmmm yes it has made more than Indy 5 in about half the time, but it still needs to clear at least twice this total to break even. It may still do so; look at the International box office, which is 2x the size of the take in South Canada. Conrad suspects it will do well to break even, given the budget - $291 million. Art!
I know what you're thinking - "It's only made a third of the other two - what a miserable loser of a film!"
<sound of a face being firmly slapped>
The studio responsible is a small independent, Angel, who don't have the money or networking to manage an International release. And their budget was only $14 million, or one twenty-third the size of Indy 5. This is how you make back a box office almost nine times your original budget*; keep it cheap, tight and as high-quality as you can get. Plus, it has 'legs' - people are still paying in large numbers to see it. I expect Angel will do a deal with a distribution group to get it released internationally, conceivably doubling their domestic take.
Hmmm I think we will pause there for the moment, as there is more to come and you don't want to overdose on Conrad's acid commentary.
Conrad Seeks Clarity
I have seen the film "Deepwater Horizon" film, several years ago, possibly in a <coughcough>ted version as I don't think we've got the DVD lying around. A couple of days ago I watched two HD clips of the blowout occurring on DH, and if Art will put down his bowl of coal -
The rig suffers a blow-out. What you see here is a 30-yard high geyser of mud, oil and semi-solid gas. Art!
Inevitably, there's an explosion. Conrad, puzzled at the scenes of carnage and destruction that ensued, had a bit of a nosy to find out what actually went on, because the studio seem to assume that we're all up to speed on the oil drilling industry. It's a long and complicated story, which you might get narrated.
"City In The Sky"
Things 'Downstairs' have gone as wrong as can possibly be, with what amounts to World War Three breaking out as nations begin to destroy their neighbours lest they be destroyed themselves.
Instead the
supposedly dead warhead plunged right back to Earth, squarely on top of the
Kahuta launch site. Arc One listened in to the frantic radio
babble in Urdu that suddenly cut off with a harsh snap, and a yield indicator
blinked into place as screens focussed more sharply on ground zero. Twenty megatonnes – a city-buster warhead
that would have destroyed everything in orbit over that hemisphere with a
massive electro-magnetic pulse.
Matters quickly escalated. There were other fission warheads waiting to
go, sitting mated with their missile launch systems, and at least two of those
also detonated thanks to the original explosion. Ten million tonnes of radioactive fallout
cloud began to spread downwind, driving a civilian population before it in
terror and panic thanks to memories of the old Iranian death-cloud . The Pakistani military dictators promptly
declared martial law – not really very different from normal daily life – and a
State of
And you can bet that there will, inevitably, be a shot in the wrong place.
Do The Maths
Bloaty Gas Tout and The Fat Controller have been bloviating on television about how the Wagner Group members in Belarus are so, so keen on invading Poland.
Conrad nearly fell out of his chair laughing. Art!
The Wagners that went to Belarus were 'defanged' - the most dangerous vehicle they have now is a truck. Plus, only 5,000 of them actually went.
The Poles have a standing army of 160,000 men, armed to the teeth with NATO kit, including Leopard 2s and HIMARS. They are quite ruthless in battle - they learned that from the French, their traditional mentors.
Picking a fight whilst being outnumbered 32:1 is not a winning strategy. The Poles might even mobilise, giving them a 64:1 advantage.
Finally -
No, I will not be going to see "Barbie". Just thought I'd clear that up in case you were wondering.
* Indy 5 would need to make $3 billion at the box office to equal this. Just saying.
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