Conrad Is ANGRY!

Angrier Than Usual, That Is

Which is usually pretty seethe-y in the first place.  For one thing, the weather is dreadful at present.  Your Humble Scribe is highly chuffed that he took his constitutional into Lesser Sodom early this morning, when it was quite balmy, and that it was only spitting when Edna got to go walkies.  At present I think the fish in the River Irk could swim out into the open and survive.  Art!

     No, this is not one of the creatures lurking at the bottom of the Irk.  At least, I hope not.  It's a 'Spring Croc', an imaginary entity that lives on 'Epona', the third planet of the star 82 Eridani, which a collection of aspiring intellectuals created way back in the Nineties.  They intended to create a believable world from the bottom up, with credible flora and fauna; none of those green-skinned alien princesses who resemble the female of Hom. Sap. except with <REDACTED><REDACTED> covered with wisps of chiffon that somehow don't fall off.  Art!

The poster girl for 'Exotic alien female'

     The Spring Croc is an ambush predator, lying in wait semi-submerged until prey arrives, when it presumably uncoils itself in rapid fashion, all the better to consume with.  One saving grace is that it doesn't possess much in the way of an intellect, being mostly concerned about filling it's stomach on a daily basis, so you can easily beat it in a game of Snap or five-card stud poker.

     The reason I have hammered the Remote Nuclear Detonator into a creaking wreck this afternoon is because of, yes you guessed it, CODEWORDS.

     This may not seem connected with Springcrocs and Epona.  Bear with me.

     Okay, the reason I am cranky and curmudgeonly is because the following sequence of ridiculously obscure or foreign or botanical words come from the "Puzzler", a periodically published magazine that has, up until Page 63, been scrupulously honest with solutions.  Art!

  Not any longer.

    "JOJOBA": Prequel to "JoJoRabbit"?  Nope.  My trusty Collins Concise states: "A shrub or small tree of SW South Canada, having edible seeds containing a valuable oil that is used in cosmetics".  WHAT ARE WE ALL BOTANISTS AND COSMETOLOGISTS NOW?  How in the ever-sundering Dog Buns! is a chap like Conrad supposed to guess this one - do you think I ever use cosmetics?  Art!

JojoBAH!

     "ORFE":  Conrad, again, wondered if this wasn't another reference to another artistic work, just edited down a bit - "Orfe In The Underw"?

     Nope once again.  Reference to the diligent CC reveals:"A small slender European cyprinoid fish, occurring in two colour varieties, nam

     ANYWAY my point is made.  Who on pulchritudinous piscine planet Earth would know what, were they not a tropical fish enthusiast?  Art!

The oreful fish in question

     "EBONA":  NOW we get to the meat of the matter, hmmm?  Just as you were getting impatient.  You can see why Conrad, with a mind like a skip, immediately made the connection to The Epona Project, which he hasn't checked up on for probably twenty years.  The advantage of having a mind like a skip, I feel.  I have briefly explained about EPONA, but have absolutely no idea what an 'EBONA' is, whether you wear it, eat it, hunt it for sport or use it to calculate differential equations.  Let us consult the trusty CC. 

     Aaaaaaaaaand nothing.  Okay, let us gamble on the collective knowledge of teh Interwebz <crosses fingers>.  Art!

     No, I'm not having that.  Let's try again.  Art!

          Ah, there you go, an obscure pharmaceutical retailed in India.  I have no idea what it does and am not inclined to waste time finding out.  As for those compilers, I should have turned a Spring Croc loose on them, that would serve them right, and it would be a lingering death, too.

    We've not finished with my Frothing Nitric Ire, not by a long way, but I will call a pause here in the interests of mercy.

Thought For Food

Yesteryon the family took a trip to Chorlton, in order to dine at 'Benitos', an hostelry in that environ.  The reason for same is that Degsy had acquired another lap around the Sun, so it was incumbent upon us to point this out.  The menu features gluten-free items, which is good for Wonder Wifey, as gluten turns her alimentary canal inside-out.

     I realise this is rather along the lines of "Look What I Had For Lunch!" so I shall keep it brief.  Art!

     This is the set-up for their 'Paint Party'.  I didn't take a picture of those who partook, but they were painting "Starry Night" and having a whale of a time, all thirty of them.  Yes it was that popular.  Art!

Conrad's Bang Bang Chicken

Here you can see the Buttermilk Chicken, Smokey Joe Burger, Chilli and a Steak being et

Empty plates - the best accolade

Thunder And Lightning Part 2

Yes, more about Storm Shadows and how the Ruffians got their hands on one in July this year.

     For Your Information, the Stormzy is a missile produced by Perfidious Albion, which is designed and intended to be used on NATO aircraft.  The Ukrainians have managed to fit them to their venerable Soviet-era S-24s, and here is how.  Art!

"By the little house I have friends"
I think

     The 'pylon' or underwing attachment point is actually from an obsolete RAF Tornado, hence our puns about bad weather.  Heaven only knows what kind of software contortions they went through to make this work, but it cannot be denied that it works.  One of my truisms about the Ukies comes into play here: brave, clever and very good at improvising.

     Yes yes yes, I hear you quibble.  But - now that the Ruffians have their hands on one, doesn't that mean game over?  They will analyse the bits to bits.

     As Devin Stone of 'Legal Eagle' loves to say - it depends.

     For one, none of the Ruffian pictures show the sensor array mounted on the front of Stormzy, which may mean it was pounded into scrap when the missile crash-landed.  This is the hardware and software that they would dearly like to get hold of.  For two, the Ruffian specialist institute which carried out missile analysis burned down early in the war last year <sabocoughcoughtage>.  Art!

     For three, Stormzy is, like a lot of NATO kit given to Ukraine, quite long in the tooth, and has been around for over 20 years.  It's not cutting edge.  Well, not in the West.  If it had crash-landed in Buryatia the locals would probably have put it on a plinth and worshipped it.  Art!

Buryatia

     Let us move on from the intricacies of ALCM terminal-homing guidance hardware, sexy as it is*.

Caught Out - Again

If you are keeping up to speed on BOOJUM! then you will have noticed that we noticed certain UK newspaper media sites are re-using SOUTH CANADIAN Reddit stories, because UK journalists are a bunch of 'drunken reptiles', to use the immortal phrase Lord Kitchener deployed against them when a gaggle of them blocked his path, and they are both lazy and overpaid**, especially those from "The Sun" and th

     ANYWAY let me prod Art into sentience with this acetyl-cholinesterase-inhibiting-shark-stick -

     Let me translate that this total is from $100,000.

"City In The Sky"

We now take a short diversion from the Doctor, and Ace, and Alex.  Conrad has to build up the verisimilitude, after all.

INTERPOSIT THREE:

      It is a pre-requisite of nanotechnology that it be stupid.  Or, perhaps, unintelligent.  A self-replicating construct that utilises readily-available elements to reproduce is sufficiently a hazard not to make matters worse by giving it either a collective intellect or the ability to evolve.

     So.  The Lithoi’s seeding programme in the Northern hemisphere of Earth incorporated billions of minute robots with inherent design flaws that ensured they became worn-out within months.  They had no ability to communicate with each other or to be communicated with, to ensure that their unintelligence remained unevolved. 

     Thus, blindly following their engineered programming, the faithful workers began and persisted in isolating fall-out residuum, concealing it in a lattice of boron and transporting it onward to intermediate collection points, where other microbots would carry it further to specific sites for disposal.  Arcology One would have been immensely impressed by the technology involved, not to mention relieved at the explanation for background radioactivity declining so rapidly.

     I don't know if 'microbots' is patented yet or not, but I want my cut if it ever is.

Finally -

Better go audit the fridge.  There are bound to be transgressors that need seeing to.

*  Or is that just me?

**  Sue me if you like, I don't care.

Conrad's Sojourney

It That's Not Already A Word, It Is Now

And I will have the royalties delivered by wheelbarrow to the front door of The Mansion.

     However, just out of interest, Your Humble Scribe is going to look up the definitions for both "Sojourn" and "Journey", which I suspect have a common Latin root.  Hmmm 'Journey' comes from the Old French 'Journee', meaning 'a day's travelling' and yes it comes from a corruption of the Latin <hack spit> 'Diurnum'.  "Sojourn" is 'a temporary stay', from the Old French 'Sojorner', meaning 'to stay temporarily'.  Art!

     I realise this has nothing to do with journeys or sojourns, but I did intend to put up the cover artwork for The Moody Blues album "Seventh Sojourn", only to find that it's the epitomy of Incredibly Dull.  Art!

Brown, personified

     ANYWAY I am winging it on this Intro, because I am making it up as I go on, even more than usual.  Let's see how many words Conrad can accumulate here before he runs out of creative steam.  Art!

     Okay, this is the gloop I have to now rub into my feet on a regular basis, i.e. more than once a week.  Problem is, the level is getting low, SO! I decided a trip into Lesser Sodom was called for, in order to get another tub/pot/container of same.  This non-branded stuff is immensely cheaper than anything with a big flashy label.  After all, it's only for one's feet.

     Because I am conscientious, and a wasted trip to Royton is an hour out of my precious time, Conrad checked that Wells, the pharmacy in the town precinct, was open.  O yes.  Art!

     "Open 09:00 Sat" said teh Interwebz.

     THEY LIED!  When my feets took me into the precinct at 10:06 the shutters were down.  Yes yes yes, I should have taken a picture, sue me.

     It wasn't a completely wasted trip, mind you, because Sweet Deals was open.  Their opening hours are somewhat hit and miss, and they don't open on a Sunday, so I took full advantage.  Art!

     No, six packs of sweets is not greedy.  For one thing, my job requires that I speak on the phone all day long, which affects my throat grievously because it's not designed for constant speech.  Thus I need constant lubrication, effected by sweets.

     Those two sad remnants at bottom are all that remained of my sugar-free collection, so this purchase was pretty timely.

   Conrad was also abstemious, because all the charity shops were open for business, and yet I stayed away, so the Book Mountain did not increase in numbers.

     Not only that, I bumped into Siobhan, and we had a quick natter and catch-up, proof that the Coincidence Hydra is still slinking around on the edges of causality.

     For Your Information, I have "Seventh Sojourn" playing in the background as I've never heard it and, for 1972, it's not bad you know.  They appear to have discovered the string synthesizer and used it to replace their faithful old Mellotron, whic

     ANYWAY allow me to upload a picture taken from the bus as it pulled away from the new-build homes at the bus stop.  Art!

     Proof that the above is a true and correct account of events.

     And, at 539 words, I think that's quite enough for an improv Intro, especially when it's a "Conrad's Riveting Slice Of Life".

They Prove Me Right Every Single Day

Okay, I have just returned from a quick trawl of "The Daily Beast"'s website, and they seem to have changed their advertising model.  As you should surely know, in the past they would post up blatant puffs on miscellaneous mystery tat, which was quite diverting.  Now?  Art!

     Conrad is puzzled.  Is she about to commit suicide by frying a two-inch hole through her head, with the 'LYMA laser'?  That would prove it's efficacy for use in engineering applications but the ASA would doubtless object, the pikers.

     ANYWAY I really meant to post up an item about how the South Canadians seriously miss being subjects of the Crown AGAIN.  Art!

     That's Kingie in RAF uniform, which Conrad finds a little surprising, as he did his service in the Royal Navy, his dad's branch of the forces.  Ah, read those titles and weep TDB, because they have "Royal" in their titles and you never will*.

Thunder And Lightning

Welllll Storms and Tornadoes, at any rate.

     If you're not interested in missiles and the Ruffians getting a right shoeing THEN WHY ARE YOU HERE you might want to skip this item.  I'm going to be doing it in several parts, as the whole thing would take up a couple of entire blogs.

     Okay, for back-story, in July last year Ukraine got the HIMARS systems, firing GMLRS, which are a cross between a rocket and a missile.  The Ruffians were appalled at how devastatingly effective these weapons were.  After a few months the Krembots, trolls and fanbois were boasting that 137 of the 16 launchers had been destroyed and treacherous Ukrainians had sold an entire system to the Ruffians, and the S-300 now had software updates that allowed it to intercept the GMLRS in flight.  Art!

From an iconic Youtube clip

     I'm afraid this was "Ruffian truths", which we all otherwise know as "Great big lies".  If you trawl Youtube you'll see countless HIMARS strikes, entirely unaffected by any supposed countermeasures.  In fact it's possible there were Ruffian countermeasures, and thanks to their loud braying about the fact, the Ukies and South Canadians came up with counter-countermeasures.

     This leads us to July 5th 2023.  Art!

    These are bits of a crashed Storm Shadow in Zaporizhzhia.  I'd be careful of sitting anywhere near those cylindrical objects, it's both parts of the BROACH warhead.  There's footage on Twitter of these heroes loading it into a truck, which is foolhardy to understate wildly.

     O Noes!  The Ruffians have a Storm Shadow!  Or - well, they have bits of one, there's no pictures of the nose-sensors so that part of the missile may have been smashed to flinders.

     So, to leave on a cliffhanger, unlike HIMARS, the Ruffians actually DID get hold of a Storm Shadow (slight return) back at the beginning of July.  The horror!  The horror!

      To be continued.

"City In The Sky"

The Doctor is, as usual, plotting twenty moves ahead and has a dozen plates spinning on poles all at once.

‘I was upbeat and confident about solving Arc One’s problems because these people need hope above all else.  They will die up here unless a near-miracle arrives – your observation and report underlined that.  If you came back Upstairs after having the alternative of remaining Downstairs it will impress them that things are not terminal, that there are options remaining.’

     The nominal weight of twelve thousand people fell upon Ace’s shoulders.

     ‘Couldn’t you take them all down in the Tardis!’ she exclaimed, struck by sudden inspiration.

     Gloomily, the Doctor shook his head.

     ‘Shuffle over twelve thousand humans through the Tardis, Ace?  The Timelords would be apoplectic.  And probably carry out a retro-temporal sweep that puts everyone back where they were.  No, not unless there’s no other option.’

    

     Twenty minutes later they had been given a bag of ground coffee, Alex came back beaming with pride at his parents allowing him to depart the sphere, and Davy saw them into the Tardis.

     Predictably, Alex stood in silent, wide-eyed amazement once he’d crossed the threshold, and remained mute until Ace shook him back to the present.

     ‘Hello?  Better get ready for the take-off.’

     The young engineer looked around wildly, even as the time rotor began it’s strident and unlovely working.

     ‘How is it bigger on the inside!  Where are the seats and safety harnesses!  Where has the sphere gone!  Where are - ’

     ‘We’ve arrived,’ chirped the Doctor cheerily, the time rotor grounding at cycle end with it’s usual dismal clonk.

      Hmmm methinks the TARDIS could do with a billion-mile service, nicht wahr?

Finally -

Conrad has occasionally mentioned to you, gentle readers, how the traffic algorithm on my Blogger has gone very wobbly over these past few months.  It regularly clocks up enormous traffic counts that are incredibly overstated, which is flattering if a bit hollow.

     Until last night, where I updated Traffic and was rewarded with a total of -

     2!

     The thing is, I think I updated shortly before going to bed at just after midnight.  Because today - Art!

     That's before posting this collection of wit, wisdom and wonder.

     I dunno.  Perhaps BOOJUM! really is that popular.

*  Hah!  <snaps fingers at doubtless envious South Canadians>

Barbied Wire

NO!  That Is Not A Typo

It is, in fact, the basis for an hilarious pun.  Yes, another one.  First of all, we need to address the fact of wire with barbs, for it is a truism that fences made from it were one of the factors that ended the Old West.  Art!

Excuse me -

     <sounds of a Tazer being applied>

     Barbed wire was a cheap and effective way of corralling cattle and keeping them off other people's land.  More than that, it proved to be an excellent way of keeping hostile people in the wrong uniform off your land, as evinced in the First Unpleasantness.

     Here an aside.  Don't whine, we've not had one for a while.  Your Humble Scribe put forth an answer on Quora about how barbed wire was used once trench warfare came of age, and Dog Buns! you're going to feel the benefit, too.  

Placing barbed-wire would be done at night so you couldn’t be observed by the enemy, or at least not unless they sent up star-shells, in which case you froze and prayed.

Initially the picket stakes were knocked in with a padded or rubber mallet so as to deaden the noise; later on the metal ‘screw’ picket was adopted, which could be screwed into the ground by hand, silently. The beginning of the job would be the hardest, since two men had to carry a huge reel of barbed wire and unspool it along their route.

Barbed wire and bare legs; not a winning combination!

     And thus we plod our inevitable way to Barbie.  Not just the film but the whole of her oeuvre, and Conrad will also throw Bloaty Gas Tout into the mix for good measure.  Art!

     Meet Steve Rosenberg, the BBC's Man In Moscow, which is surely something of a fraught job at present.  Steve's secret sauce is that he is fluent in Russian, meaning no interpreters trying to 'massage' anything he says or hears.  He has observed of late that Ruffian cinemas are slyly catering to their audience by screening "Barbie", but only after a short Ruffian film plays first.  Art!

     This displeases the Hollywood studios who made it, because these are pirate versions not paying anything to South Canada.  It also displeases the Ruffian authorities, because they hate anything Western, especially if it's frothy and light-hearted, and especially especially if it's popular.  Their own stodgy propaganda films about how they actually won against Ukrainian Nazis who were armed with Satanic bio-engineered mosquitoes are playing to empty houses, which has to smart.

     Here we approach the concept of 'Barbieland', which was coined by Konstantin of "Inside Russia"; not in reference to his homeland (from which he is exiled) but rather to the "Management Of Assets Of The President Of The Ruffian Federation", an administrative branch of the Ruffian state.  Art!

Big K at the back

     As Big K puts it, one reason the Puffy Petroleum Pimp thinks things in Ruffia are rosy is because he is totally shielded from his population's increasingly impacted life, in his own special version of Barbieland, which is GUARANTEED to be guarded by barbed wire.  Can't have the hoi polloi trespassing!

     Big K listed the 'assets' this department of 528 staff manages, and it's quite a list:

1) 1,000+ plots of land, all of which are very large.

2)  3,700 buildings

3)  37 aircraft (possibly down one or two if they were at Chkalovsky)

4)  5,000 + cars, none of which will be beat-up old Ladas

5)  20,000 + maintenance and security staff

     The total for keeping Kremlin Gremlin cossetted in gossamer is ₽117 billion per annum, or about $1.2 billion.

     He missed out Tsar Poutine's private armoured train, which adds on another $70 million per annum.

     As you can see, he's clearly not feeling any pain.  Art!

     There you go, trackside poles with wires.  NOT Poles with wires.  That's one of Peter The Average's nightmares.

"Ania and Marisusz's grandparents begin a family tradition"

Ferry Cross The -

Manchester Ship Canal.  Doesn't quite have the same ring as that song, does it?

     You see, pilgrims, once upon a time in 1885, the Manchester Ship Canal was being constructed, in a bid to turn Gomorrah-on-the-Irwell into a trade nexus of awesome proportions. It worked, too; Salford Quays was one of the premier ports in This Sceptred Isle up until the Fifties.

     A few sacrifices had to be made.  Art!

     This portrait is the only picture I can find of the Hulmes Bridge, a low-lying structure that stood in the way of the MSC.

     Not for long.  Art!

    This is where it was, because our Victorian ancestors demolished it to permit ship access up and down the canal.  However, Parliament saw fit to enact in law a requirement for the Ship Canal Company to provide a ferry service in perpetuity.  An Act Of Parliament like this cannot be ignored or defied, and 138 years later there is still a ferry service at Hulmes.  Art!

It's only a small ferry

A Punchline For The Irish Army

(continuing the marine theme)

There are doubtless jokes about there about stupid Irish soldiers of the Republic who don't know which end the bullets come out of, etctera etcetera.

     As Your Humble Scribe has pointed out, the Irish Army is a smaller version of Perfidious Albion's, composed of long-service professionals with over 60 years of experience across the globe in UN service.  Art!

     What you see here is the MV 'Matthew' under the control of the Gardai and Army, having been boarded by men of the Army Ranger Wing (their sneaky-peeky chaps) who did a fast-rappelling descent by helicopter.  Three men are now under arrest and the vessel is alleged to be crammed with cocaine.

     It all went without a hitch and not a shot fired.  "Don't know which end the bullets come out of" my hairy white hindquarters!

A Little Light Year Reading

For Lo! this is probably the last photograph I'll put up of the BBC's listings of the Astronomy Photographer Of The Year.  Art!

Courtesy Aaron Wilhelm

     This is captioned 'Sh2-132' and it better known as the Lion Nebula.  According to other sources, it's a rather faint deep-sky structure, which is why it took Aaron 70 hours to get this image.  It lies a very long way off, and nobody dares give an exact distance, hedging their bets with 'from 10,000 to 12,000 light years away'.  Nor will anyone give a size in light years, it's all '40 arc minutes' believe me, it's ridiculously difficult to convert that into light years.

     ANYWAY you can see all the stellar activity and how it's affected the gasses in the nebula, with all the solar winds interacting with each other.

"City In The Sky"

The Doctor is filling in Ace on a few minor technicalities that he kind of accidentally forgot to mention to the Arcology inhabitants previously.  Ooops.

     ‘I was a bit over-the-top on how easy it would be to turn things around on the ground.  Presenting the smiling countenance and all that.’

     He looked to one side, making Ace look at him.  Had he been lying?  That wasn’t like the Doctor – he could decieve, obscure and misdirect with mere plain truth like a maestro.  Her look was returned with a rueful smile.

     ‘Those about to – no, that’s courting trouble.  Ace, these supposed aliens, if they exist, have killed  eighty per cent of the human race in pursuit of whatever final endeavour they’ve been planning, for at least fifty years.  They thrive on secrecy.  Us appearing out of nowhere and destroying that anonymity will render us very specific targets.’

     ‘Right.  So you need me to watch your back.’

     An exasperated smile came back in response.

     ‘Dorothy!  We are going back Downstairs for the time being as an item.  You may be returning  Upstairs sooner than you wish.’

     ‘What!’

     He tapped his right nostril in mimickry of her oft-used gesture.

     ‘I need a person up here I can trust.’  The calculating look changed to a more thoughtful one.

    Wheels within wheels - within wheels.

Finally -

We approach Derek's birthday, number eighty-seven if I recall correctly.  Or was that it in dog years or Fahrenheit?

Boffo beans!

Frankentanken

It's Not A New Word

So Your Humble Scribe won't get royalties <sad face> but all the same it doesn't seem to be utilised in the way Conrad intends, so I'm still ahead of the game.  

     First of all, we have to get our heads around poor Mary Shelley's barnstormingly original novel, "Frankenstein" which is now over two hundred years old.  You ought to know the plot by now: Man Meddles With Things He Ought Not To.  And NO! I don't mean TATP explosives.  Art!

     The old Universal film's iteration of the Monster - NOTE I ADDED IN "MONSTER" THERE -will forever be associated with the novel and itself is nearly a hundred years old.

     The thing is,  it's the Monster that's become associated with the name "Frankenstein" over the years, rather than Ol' Viktor.  To make matters worse, this is not universal - ha! do you  s - O you do - and the more clued-up or pseud-up will deliberately refer to "Frankenstein's Monster", thus muddying the water's still further.  Art!

This is the Hammer version, and you'll notice the difference to the Universal style.  Which is because Universal had trademarked their prosthetics and makeup, thumbing their nose at other stu

     ANYWAY we could probably spend a whole Intro on the differences between interpretations of the Frankenstein monster.  Not to mention other mentions in modern culture of the word as a noun.  Take "Frankenstein foods" as an example, when the International Stupid Corps got frightened that GM food would turn you into vegan zombies, or Fred Saberhagen's "Berzerker" where the unstoppable planet-killers were deemed to be 'Frankenstein weapons' (I think - it's been a while).  Art!

     Now, let us return to the metal meat of the martial matter, to coin a phrase: TANKS.  You are doubtless familiar with conventional tanks, the kind with a tracked hull, a rotating turret and lots of guns and sensors.  Well, there are versions of your normal tank that are formally known as 'field expedients', or less  formally as 'bodged together'.  This is when the CO gets both a bee in his bonnet and a bit of kit acquired from who-knows-where.

     However, before we can explore this idea more fully, we have to dart off at a tangent, because that's just how we work here.  Get used to it.  Art!

     This unlovely specimen is from the KLF's music video "Doctorin' The Tardis", which must melt the pan of every serious Whovian out there.  They were skating close to the thin ice of copyright infringement with their shoddy design here - which condition I take it was deliberate - because the estate of Terry Nation takes the Daleks verrrry seriously.  Here's a link to the video, so you can watch this wretched little oik bounce and bob around.  

(2) The Timelords - Doctorin' The Tardis (Official Video) - YouTube

With it's mate, even

       We now come to that part of BOOJUM! where we cruelly mock the Ruffians, both because they deserve it and because who doesn't enjoy beating low hanging fruit with a stick?  Art!

     Your Humble Scribe has seen a brief clip of this Frankentank in action, firing the repurposed-guns-in-a-naval-turret, which judder and vibrate madly, just like the KLF's bodge-up.  There is no way it can actually hit anything, but the noise must make the crew feel a lot braver.  Art!

     There seems to be a common thread amongst all these different bodged-up Frankentanks - a desire to use naval weapons, perhaps in emulation of Volga River pirates? (if such things ever existed).  Art!

     No, that's not a trampoline on top.  It's a cope-cage.  Completely useless in real life, but it makes the crew feel so much braver.  Those are old rocket launchers taken from Soviet-era riverine craft, which have perhaps at best a minimal chance of hitting anything smaller than a city.  Art!

Ruffian Pushmi-Pullyu

     What this one is supposed to be is quite baffling.  The (unguided) rocket launcher at the front will damage the gun placed to rear if it's fired, and the gun at the rear is COMPLETELY EXPOSED, making the crew a fine upstanding target.

     Quite apart from these weapons being as effective as the KLF's dancing tea-crate, adding at least two tons to the rear axle and ground-loading of the MTLB's used as platforms is going to cause them to suffer excessive wear and tear, and a higher breakdown rate.  
     I know a lot of ghouls who'll be delighted with these Frankentanken - military modellers and wargamers.

 I Wouldn't Call This One 'Astronomy' Per Sea

NO!  That is not a typo or a mis-spelling of the Latin phrase, it is in fact an hilariously funny pun, I'll have you know.  Hilarious I tell you!  Art?

Courtesy Vikas Chandler

As you can plainly sea, this is more about a wrecked ship, the 'Zella', than it is about stars and astronomy.  Incidentally, 'Chandler' was a position aboard ship, referring to a crew-member who sold candles.  Don't you dare come back with that quote from the Barf Of Avon about Night's candles, because the Remote Nuclear Detonator stands ready aye ready.

"City In The Sky"

Plans are afoot.  More specifically, the Doctor, Ace and hyper-enthusiastic Arcology volunteer Alex are preparing to visit Downstairs, the first any Arcology crew have been down unscathed since the Big Crash.

Davy asked if he could help provide anything for them, and offered to go through the whole Overall Inventory, which the Doctor politely refused on the grounds that the database was enormous and would take hours to scroll through completely.

     ‘I wouldn’t say no to some of that nice ground coffee,’ commented Ace, cheekily and expecting a scolding.

     The acid quip never came.  In fact the Doctor nodded and smiled blandly in agreement, only for Ace to look at him with a cynical expression when Davy had disappeared into his lo-rise apartment.

     ‘What are you up to?  That scrounging ought to have earned me a telling-off, at least, with a sarky bit at the end.’

     A sigh was her initial reply, until she linked arms and tried puppy-dog eyes.

     ‘Oh, Ace!  Tell me what you discovered about these people whilst you were amongst them, when I was looking at the most depressing satellite coverage imaginable.  Go on.’

     She recovered well from the unexpected request and told him what she’d seen, what she’d heard and what she understood from her recent associations, ending with a plaintive look.

     Another sigh.

     ‘Ace, Ace, I’m afraid I’ve been a bit scheming here.’

     How unusual! she cynically mused.  How actually entirely not unusual

     This iteration of the Doctor probably schemes in his sleep.

Never One To Miss The Opportunity To Kick Someone When They're Down

You've probably heard a smidgeon of news about Donald Buck being found guilty of fraud in the New York case being brought by Letitia James.  This is both hilarious and horrifying.  Well, it's hilarious if you're an onlooker like Conrad, who is getting a wheelie-bin of popcorn ready, and it's horrifying for DJ Tango, because the $250 million fine being looked at would require him to get rid of 10% of his stated assets.  He's only worth $2.5 billion, you see, not the $10 billion he likes to gloast about.  Art!

     He seems to have gotten away with it for decades through sheer brass neck.  Of late, as you can see above, this brass seems to have been converted to turkey wattles.  Expect a lot of shrieking and ranting on Truth Social in ALL CAPS with spelling mistakes because his entitled rage means he ignores the spellchecker.

     O and Conrad heard last year that the actual fine might be multiples of $250 million.

     I need to ration the amount of Darth Marmalade in the blog, there really is enough content floating around to have BOOJUM! consist of nothing but items on him.  Which would probably pall, to be honest.

Taking The Plunge

NOT the pledge.  Having said it out loud on a (very entertaining) team meeting by remote, I shall now put it in writing: Your Humble Scribe will be going Sober For October.  Which conveniently begins on the coming Sunday, giving me a last hurrah on September's final Friday and Saturday.  Art!

Finally -

That pizza was disgustingly underdone in the middle.  I'm off to zap it in the microwave, more as punishment than in hope of rendering it edible.

Wizard Prang!