Bricking It

I'm Making This Up As I Go Along

So there's no telling how long, or short, this Intro will be, in which case I hope you've got a pot of tea and a plate of biscuits to hand.  Rich Tea or Digestives are the best, I find.

     ANYWAY this Intro will be nothing less than a sustained wallow in Schadenfreude, because 1) it doesn't cost anything, 2) it has nil calorific value, and 3) Conrad is quite, quite wicked.  Art!

     No, this has nothing to do with the rest of anything, I just thought it was pretty cool in terms of design, even if it seems a bit skinny for an nucl

     ANYWAY you may have become aware of late over these past few months, that the Disney studios are making a new live-action 'Snow White' film.  To quote the immortal Douglas Banks, "This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move".  And how.  There are a couple of reasons for this.  Firstly, it's being done for <shudder> 'modern audiences' and secondly the lead actress, Rachel Zegler.  Art!

     'Zegler', you may be interested to hear, is Teuton for 'Bricklayer', except Rachel has been mostly throwing verbal bricks around.  SW might turn out to be the best film in the history of humanity, but you'd never guess it from her quotations.  First of all, she dismissed the 1937 animated classic as being old.

     Yes, dear, because it's based on a Grimm's fairy tale that's TWO HUNDRED YEARS OLD.  She also seems to be curiously unaware that Dog Buns! there have been other live-action films of the Snow White story.  Art!

Looks grim to me!

I see Julia Goberts is now getting the older roles

     Before the actor's strike she was swanning about on publicity shoots declaring that Snow White wasn't going to be rescued by the Prince, and in fact she might get the Prince's role edited out entirely, and Snow White was going to be the leader that her father knew she could be -

     Ah!  I understand.  They hired the screenwriters who are responsible for "U-57", which was a fantasy film pretending to be real, whereas this one is a real film pretending to be a fantasy.  It all becomes clear.  I think.  The connection with the Grimm's Brothers fairy tales seems vanishingly remote.  Art!

     It was put about at one point that these were the Seven No-Longer Vertically-Challenged Mining Specialists, because modern audiences can't be traumatised by dwarves, except they now turn out to be the Seven Bandits.

     Excuse me?  I don't recall these from Grimm <recites "Remember, 'U-57, U-57">.  O and then Disney released a publicity shot.  Art!

     O so now there are dwarves?  Let me see - onetwothreefourfivesixseven.  Yup.  Seven dwarves.  Done with CGI, because - er - because <"U-57, U-57"> just because.
     The fun and giggles don't stop there, gentle reader.  Test screenings of the film were universally badly received, so - It's Re-Shoot Time!  Yes, re-shoots, always a splendid way to inflate a budget enormously.  The whole farrago is looking at an estimated budget of $300 million before publicity and marketing gets spent.

     But we're still not done!  Rachel is having to keep her flapping piehole shut during the actor's strike, which she doubtless feels is a cruel and unusual punishment, and which the studio feels is a welcome relief.  Disney does seem to be getting cold feet about the film, both in terms of it's quality (or lack of) and how poorly received it's been so far.  Quoting the actor's strike and deadlines and the pistachio harvest in Novi Pazar, they have now pushed the release date of SW back to 2025, at least 15 months away.  Ooops.  Art!

I found another one!

     Conrad, ever the cynic, wonders if it will be quietly shelved next year and go straight to Disney+, their streaming service, in 2025 in order to save at least $100 million in marketing and publicity it would require.  Her two previous starring roles were in commercial turkeys "West Side Story" and "Shazam 2", and she's got another unpromising forthcoming release "Hunger Game Generic Prequel" soon.  Casting Directors in Hollywood might be editing her details out of their Rolodex's soon.  Art!

Look!  I found a Sinister version!

     Okay, that's enough slander and mockery for an Intro, time to move on.

"The War Illustrated"

I promise not to go over sound ranging methodology and practice, at least not in this blog.  Instead it's back to that montage of early May 1944 to decrypt exactly what you - and the audiences of 79 years ago - were looking at.  Art!

     What you're looking at here is the ongoing struggle for the Monte Cassino position, an unlovely attritional slog where extremely well dug-in and determined Teutons encountered enormous Allied firepower and equally determiend infantry.  The ruins of Cervaro are in the foreground, Monte Trocchio to port and Monastery Hill in starboard distance.  The nature of the fighting here meant that, unless a front line collapsed, villages and towns were flattened.

   RAF aircrew practice baling-out into an emergency dinghy, with a radio mast.  No, they're not practicing at sea or on a river or lake; this is their aerodrome after torrential Italian spring rains.  Given that there are five crew, and the shape of the aircraft in the background, they may be from a Wellington.

Harper's Ferry Agin

No! It's not a typo, it's South Canadian slang!

     Back to the skirmish game that Richard put on last week for a second test run.  The scenery on board was exactly as the Arsenal at Harper's Ferry appeared.  Art!

     Here you see Conrad's stalwarts in the Paymaster's Building chase off and fatally injure one of the Militia who had come to try and release hostages.  Only after several moves had elapsed; shooting accurately and hitting people at short range in violent skirmishes is a lot easier said than done.  Muskets and rifles are unwieldy in close quarters, and the 'Maynard' pistols my rebels were armed with didn't pack much of a punch.  Art!

"City In The Sky"

The Doctor is escorting young Alex to the seashore, a novel experience for the mechanic, raised aboard a space station.

Before, seeing a landscape that expanded outwards to the horizon had affected his eyes, normally used to a half-kilometre perspective.  Now, seeing the endlessly roiling surf and recognising that mysterious low booming sound for what it was - breakers impacting the shoreline, his knees gave way and he sat on the warm sand.  This landscape did not dip into unseen hollows, or slope upwards to low peaks.  No, this landscape – the sea – ran flat all the way to an infinitely distant horizon, and for the first time Alex began to realise his understanding of distance and perspective had changed.  The sea didn’t stay static, or simply ripple as the ponds on Arc One did.  It moved backwards and forward, with incredible patterns of light dancing and flitting everywhere, it rose and fell, never repeating the same pattern twice.  A strange scent tingled his nostrils, and that invisible person tugged at his hair again.

     ‘It’s beautiful,’ he whispered, eyes moist with unshed tears.  ‘And scary at the same time.’  He looked at the Doctor and had to clear a lump in his throat before carrying on.  ‘Thank you for bringing me.’

     Eyes with centuries of experience looked down at him.

     Shame he didn't have a bucket and spade, hmmm?

Finally -

I will get around to boring you about my Official History of the Great War in Egypt and Palestine, which also dipped briefly into the Sudan, probably quite soon.  In the meantime I have FINALLY realised that there are 3 text volumes, a Volume 1 and a Volume 2 that comes in 2 parts.  Also, the mapset I have is for Volume 2, which explains why I couldn't find any of the Western Desert maps.  This is a bit worrying as said Volume 1 mapset will cost LOTS AND LOTS! of money, just when I'm trying not to spend.  You can bet I'm going to go check out Abebooks and Turner & Donovan after this post.  Art!

     And with that we are done.  Done!