I Know What You're Thinking
And you're wrong. WRONG! Because you were thinking of that ghastly archetypal monster Pennywise, tempting children into his storm drain parlour, where he devours them. After lying about everyone floating. I mean, does he think Hom. Sap. are balloons?
Since I have mentioned him, or it*, then I am allowed to introduce a picture of same. Art!
This, apparently, is a talking Pennywise doll. Conrad is pretty sure any parents purchasing these for small children would be pursued by Children's Services for deliberate cruelty.
ANYWAY I kind of lied about the title. Or, almost entirely lied. What am I wittering on about? Floating islands. Yesteryon we covered these, up to a point, because there are only so many typing hours in a day and there turned out to be more than I realised. Art!
Ladies and gentlemen and those uncertain, meet Lake Vadimon. Pliny The Elder, Roman historian, wrote about this lake back in the day, stating that there were several floating islands on the lake, which were propelled about by the wind, and which often ended up butting up against the shore. Unwary cattle might wander onto these islands, then become trapped as the wind blew them about the lake. There might be some exaggeration here, but floating rafts of weeds and reeds and decaying organic matter are entirely possible, if unlikely to bear the weight of a fully-grown cow. Perhaps a lamb or two. Art!
This is another occasional floating island on Derwent Water in the Lake District. In reality it's a layer of peat that normally lies along the lake bottom, but when summer temperatures rise, gasses beneath the peat lift it to the surface, where, covered with mud and sand and silt, it forms a very precarious islet.
Conrad also remembered another floating island from "The Weirdstone Of Brisingamen", where our intrepid heroes are being pursued by the giant green Mara, who would tear them to bits if they caught them. Imagine their surprise when daybreak reveals that they are on, not a small peninsula as they thought when bunking down for the night, but an island. Art!
Courtesy of AmandaAJ37Amanda
In fact I recall another literary floating island, from "The Night Of The Triffids". Our Intrepid Hero, David, is forced to crash land his jet during a planet-wide blackout. He thinks at first that he's come down along the shoreline of the Isle of Wight. When daylight returns, he finds to his undisguised horror that he'd actually landed on a vast vegetable raft, which had been torn free from the coast thanks to his impact. His radio doesn't work, he's adrift in the English Channel heading for the Atlantic and to put a cherry on his disaster cake, there are triffids on the giant mat of weeds. Art!
Now, if we zoom across the ocean to South America's Lake Titicaca WASH OUT YOUR FILTHY MINDS! then we come to the indigenous Uros people who live there. Several hundred years ago they had gotten fed up with being attacked by other hostile tribes, so they decided to put the lake and a local plant, totora, together and their island nation was born. Art!
The base of each island is an immensely thick slab of totora roots, upon which they layer totora reeds to make a stable, liveable platform. The reed layers need constant replacement as they degrade over time. Art!
How it's done
Conrad also seems to recall that, in "Doctor Dolittle" there was a floating island as well as a Giant Pink Sea Snail. It's many decades since I last saw it - the first time also being the last time - so allow me to check. Art!
'Sea Star Island'. Yes, it floats.
Okay, I think that's enough of shiftless fly-by-night islands, let us move onto firmer and more stable ground.
More Modern Art
Here's another bizarre advert from "The Daily Beast" that is not as abstruse as some of the tat that's being flogged over on Quora. Art!
The first and third items are pretty obviously a variety of cooker or kiln, thanks to the protective handles and temperature gauge. Whether they roast clay or chickens is a moot point. The fourth item is easily recognisable as a French Fry Heater, to keep your silly thin South Canadian chips warm; if they were properly cut British chips then their sheer individual mass-to-surface ratio would allow them to rema
ANYWAY I suspect the second item to be a food-press, in which one raises the handle to introduce, say, potatoes into the barrel, which is then compressed by the lowered handle and converted into silly thin South Canadian chips.
"City In The Sky"
The mercifully brief Middle Eastern nuclear exchange has ended, with the only real beneficiary being Arcology One.
Arcology One benefited as no other entity
did. Able to observe and record what had
happened, without being part of any bloc or party, and being literally above
normal human concerns, the giant sphere’s recordings were used by the UN as
forensic evidence in studying the Short War, a.k.a. the Iran-Israel War, a.k.a.
The War of Endemic Genocide, a.k.a. The War of Justified Retaliation.
Most tellingly of all, the conflict
stopped once
Governments and supra-national
organisations across the globe began to look at Arcology One in a new
light. They saw, not a repository, but a
refuge. Plans and budgets were adjusted
accordingly. The subtle suggestions of a
certain advisor and other proposals from the Human Salvation Project were
subsequently taken much more seriously.
Silver lining in every fall out cloud and all that.
Speaking Of Nuclear Fall Out ...
The Ruffians did not blow up the six nuclear power plants at Zaporizhzhia today, as had been widely mooted they were going to do. They had evacuated all their occupying troops, mined the plant with explosives, and had cautioned any Ruffian staff that, if anything 'untoward' happened, to blame it on Ukraine.
However, NATO, Ukraine and other interested parties have been cautioning the Kremlin Gremlin that if he does give the order, there will be Very Severe Consequences. Everything from Reaper drones to Keyhole satellites will have been watching those six buildings. There was always the possibility of airborne contamination reaching Poland or Romania or Bulgaria - you know, NATO countries - in which they might invoke Article Five; or "WE ARE GOING TO RETALIATE", perhaps unilaterally in the case of Poland. Art!
We shall see what the next few weeks bring, hmmmmm? O what it is to live in interesting times.
An Assumption With No Gumption
A Quoran related a short tale, which introduced Your Humble Scribe to a hydrographic feature he was unfamiliar with, always a bonus. Art!
This is the Corryvreckan Whirlpool, the third largest in the world. It occurs between the Hebridean islands of Scarba and Jura thanks to the complex interplay of tides, currents and underwater features. Art!
It's risky enough in a small boat, but our Quoran tale-teller said that he was on the beach at Jura when three blithe South Canadians came by and donned wetsuits, intending to swim all the way to Scarba. They were convinced they could do it, quite easily.
They changed their minds upon discovering that they would be swimming directly into the above. Very wise. Art!
Finally -
It may be hugely petty and unworthy of me - hey, it's no secret I'm a terrible person! - but Conrad notes that the latest "Mission Impossible" franchise release is on 10th July, next Monday. And that it's colossal budget stands at $290 million. Now, far be it from me to compare and contrast, but I wonder what it's box office is going to be after the first week? "Indy 5" has apparently tanked in China, only making $2.3 million, which means it's technically ranked at Utterly Abysmal.
I could put together a Word document with all the various Youtube channels that are gleefully hauling I5 over the coals, pretty easily. Go on, dare me.
* Do you see wh - O you do.
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