Hmmmm Although A Relevant Archival Index Work Might Do Instead
There is a certain disparity inherent in today's titles, isn't there? On the one hand you have a super-culture that originated in the constellation of Casterberus, developing, over aeons, the technology to manipulate time the way you and I use wood and nails. Probably more you than I; Conrad is not a handyman. Art!
Case in point
Thus they can zip around anywhere in space and time as the fancy takes them, even if nearly all of them are fearful stick-in-the-muds who d
ANYWAY by contrast we have compressed wood-pulp, first produced in bound form by William Caxton, who clearly had no idea what he had started. Rather less hi-tec than Time And Relative Dimensions In Space, yet rather cheaper, too. Art!
Nor do you need a black hole to power your paperback.
"What on earth are you pontificating about now, you tousle-headed termagant?" I hear you quibble, and, pausing only to explain that 'termagant' applies to the female of the species, I shall explicate.
You see, Conrad does not have any book or books that deal with the nuclear weapons lying around in the lead-up to the Cuban Missile Crisis, meaning I have to go with what I remember about them. And, you know, old age and gin have taken their toll on the little grey cells, which have probably aged into white by now, as with my hair and moustache <disgusting self-pitying screed redacted by Mister Hand> slimy and - hang on, has that treacherous appendage deleted my deathless prose! If - if - if only I wasn't so attached to him. Art!
Where's the pilot?
I know, I know, it looks like an aircraft designed on April Fool's Day and put into production by a drunken aerospace factory.
Well HAH! It's not a jet plane, it's a cruise missile, the first functional South Canadian Navy version thereof, and is the 'Regulus'. Named after an itinerant saint, it was designed and intended to be used from submarines, aircraft carriers and other large naval vessels. The reason it's up here is that it would have been part of the South Canadian arsenal at the time of the CMC, since it entered service in 1954 and wasn't phased out until 1964. During this decade, the nuclear warheads got more and more deadly, ramping up from a 5Kt original to a 120Kt final product, which is sufficient to make your mouth pucker. The first of the lot. Art!
The first South Canadian theatre-range missile that went into service was the Redstone, a design based on, whisper who dares, the Teuton V2. It was of relatively short range, intended to wallop the Sinister Union forces in Europe from South Canadian units in Germany. Art!
Note "US Army" lettering
Technically it was a "Field Artillery Missile System", referring to it's intended role as a battlefield mallet, which was also a consequence of it's relatively short range of 200 miles. No threat to the Politburo sitting in the Kremlin. On the other hand, the whacking big 3.8Mt warhead was threat to anything within a good few miles of where it hit.
It's present here in the Intro as it went into service in 1958 and was phased out in 1964, so once again it would have been a player if the Cold War of 1963 had kicked off in Europe.
This pulchritudinous plutonium-packing projectile is the South Canadian Thor, a missile introduced in 1959 as a rush-job, no doubt inspired by the Sinister's Sputnik success. Being the first of it's type, it lacked sufficient range to pummel the Sinister Union from South Canadian soil, so they generously proffered it to the RAF, because Airstrip One was close enough. Art!
The Thor packed a 1.4 Mt warhead, meaning that it didn't have to get especially close to target to cause rending of garments and extensive wailing.
Those of you with sharp eyes have no doubt noticed that the 'bombs' in "Doctor Strangelove" aboard Major Kong's B52 bear a striking resemblance to a pair of Thor missiles. What do you have to say about that, Stanley?
I think that's enough retrospective for one Intro. It's instructive to see how adept our grandfathers were with creating offensive ordnance from a class of weapon that didn't exist until 1944.
"The War Illustrated"
I did wobble about adding in another item to do with conflict, but I think I can get away with this one because of the fortnightly magazine's cover. Art!
I don't know if you can make out the small print, so I shall explain that this young lady is training to operate a barge, as part of the increased use of canal transport to help shift things in preparation for the "Allied Western offensive". What we now know as D-Day and which this publication's readers knew was coming at some point, just not where or when.
Conrad is a bit dubious as to how suitable her clothing is for doing heavy lifting with dirty crates and pallets.
Ooops!
If you have been paying attention, then you know that we here at BOOJUM! gleefully put up illustrations of the dollar/ruble exchange rate, because it is bound to melt the Fun Size Foot-Fiddler's pan. Art!
It did improve a little, which, if Art will put down his coal for a second, we can illustrate -
As others have speculated, this is probably the Ruffian Central Bank burning through tens of millions of dollars-worth of foreign exchange, trying to prop the ruble up, because O My! Peter The Average doesn't like that 100.00 number.
I have a couple of annotated vlogs put out by Joe Blogs on just how bad things in Ruffia are getting. Maybe tomorrow.
"City In The Sky"
We have switched location from Upstairs to Downstairs, as the hilarious futuristic jargon would have it. The Doctor, Ace and Alex have materialised in the deserted city of Adelaide.
His pose remained unaltered for long enough to make Ace twitch with
impatience, and for Alex to look at her with unasked questions in his
eyes. Finally the Timelord turned round,
gracing them with a warm smile.
‘Thank you for being patient. I
was listening, looking and smelling and it takes a few minutes to get
acclimated after being in sterile or controlled environments.’
‘Did you find anything?’ asked Alex, just as curious as Ace.
The small figure pursed his lips and shook his head.
‘At least three small fires, judging by the smoke trails, all very
distant. No sounds of movement, bar the
local wildlife slowly returning here after being frightened away. No smells of any petrochemicals or
hydrocarbons.’
Which led him to believe that
He sighed. Well, they were here,
might as well explore.
Finding a way beyond the thickets of trees and shrubs turned out to be
far easier than Ace or Alex expected.
The plants grew less thickly and were smaller on certain sections of
ground, which the Doctor pointed out had been tarmac paths in decades past, and
which naturally led to the exit.
Ah, a dangerous word, that: "Explore".
Sorry, I Couldn't Resist
As seen on the feed. Art!
As implied in passing above, Bloaty Gas Tout is a very small man. This makes him self-conscious, and you rarely see him in photographs with people taller than him if he can avoid it. This is why he has built-up shoes, to give him an extra inch or two. Stalin was also a shortbottom, and he had a withered left arm to boot (no pun intended). There's no readily-available information as to whether he had elevator shoes or not, but he did surround himself with other shortbottoms.
One thing Stalin learned to do during the Great Patriotic War was to leave warfare to the trained professionals, not muck around with his army, because that always led to disaster. Kyrylo Budanov is almost smiling at how Peter The Average cannot keep his twitching mitts off the army, possibly reasoning that he can't do any worse than Sergei The Slug, can he?
Sorry - Sergei The Penguin.
And on that blistering satirical note I think it's time for tea and tea.
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