Let Us Now Acknowledge
That the Doctor, everyone's favourite Gallifreyan, is a man of perspicacity (I had to look that one up to spell it correctly), wit and gifted with aphorisms, too. The one applicable to this Intro comes from the dramamentary "Terror of the Zygons", you know, back in the day when a Doctor Who villain was a villain, with no tragic backstory
ANYWAY - is that enough to wheel in a picture? I rather think so. Art!
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| "Is that the Black Watch tartan?" |
North Sea oil rigs are being sunk, exotic skulldiggery (far worse than mere skullduggery) is suspected, and U.N.I.T. are involved, hence the Doctor. He is, frankly, unimpressed with Hom. Sap. and
"It's about time the people who run this planet of yours realized that to be dependent on a mineral slime just doesn't make sense."
Hear hear!
Before you look askance (didn't need to look that one up) at each other and wonder if Conrad is going to start hugging trees, put on an orange tabard and infuriate motorists by sitting in the road, just allow me to put up a photograph that illustrates my point. Art!
Behold, ladies and gentlemen and those unsure, the oil rig. These are colossal oceanic platforms designed for one purpose - to extract mineral slime from beneath the waves - and at very great expense indeed. They come in different designs for different locations and specialisms, ranging from ones that stand directly on the seabed in shallow littorals to those that exist in the briny deeps, tethered to the ocean floor. Art!
Given their multitudinous designs and specifications, there is no one-size-fits-all answer to the question above. And it would take a week of Mondays to create an adequate response, too, quite beside which Conrad does have a social life to get back to. Let us begin with an oil rig being constructed. Art!
Soory if there aren't any puny humans for scale. O hang on -
From the looks of it, this is merely one leg of a three- or four-leg platform being assembled in a shipyard. Once the whole enormous thing has been put together in what looks like the world's biggest Meccano - does that date me terribly? - there comes the question of getting Mister Rig to Mistress Oil Field. Since teleportation is not yet a thing, a more mundane solution is resorted to. Art!
Here we see the rig horizontal on a platform, being variously chivvied about by tugs with a very large ocean-going tug on chief towing duties. Paying careful attention to the weather forecast, this behemoth will be towed out to the field and tilted off the platform, possibly by gradually flooding the platform to allow for a smooth descent. This particular beast is intended to stand on the ocean floor, hence it's height. Art!
I did mention multiple specs, didn't I? This type of rig is towed to a location, but in the same orientation as it will drill from. The legs here are in the raised position, allowing it to be towed, and once on location they will be hydraulically lowered to the sea-bed, allowing drilling to begin. Relocating a rig of this type is a lot easier than having to refloat one moored to the sea-bed.
So - that kind of scratches the surface of "How do they even install these", besides noticing that the three rigs depicted are all in stormy seas, the kind of sea-state and weather that you'd never float a rig out in; much too dangerous!
One To Boggle The Mind
As you should surely know by now, Conrad is a bit of a git for crosswords, preferably the more challenging kind, of which you can class Codewords and Skeletons as variants.
How about a crossword in a foreign language? Art!
Not only is it in German, it's in that hideous Fraktur font, which is exceedingly difficult to decipher. And the cunning Teuton swines have worked in a swastika in the black squares. The only one I've even got near to solving is 24 Across - "Zeitraum" means "Period" and the only 4-letter word in German I could think of was "Jahr". This is a tough one, and I told AfricanStalingrad so.
Hmmmm he gives the date as 1943, by which time I thought Fraktur had been binned as it wasn't Nazi enough and had a bit of Jewish background to it. I shall probably have to investigate further.
Not Looking Very Leggy
I refer, of course - obviously! - to "The Marvels", which has not been having a good week. There are hordes of cackling critics on Youtube all throwing brickbats, ordure and small bundles of dynamite at it, whilst a handful of diehard Marvel loyalists - probably including the cast and their relatives - try to defend it.
Frankly, the box office does not look good. Art!
A more detailed break-down, please, old coal-chewing carbuncle.
You can see that it's playing in far fewer theatres and was doing as well as TM up to the 17th day of release (on a budget at least one-tenth that of TM). That, gentle reader, is the definition of box office 'legs'.
Conrad confidently predicts an 'Indy5' treatment for TM - when the box office falls to embarrassingly low levels they'll pull it and then start braying about how you can see it on Disney +.
"City In The Sky"
The Doctor has had a narrow escape from a pack of Hunting Spiders, having been released from being imprisoned with them by a happily-present passer-by.
‘Phew! A narrow escape!’
‘You’re not kidding, man,’ said the Aborigine. ‘These little rascals bunked off from nursery
to follow you. Next I know they come yelling
and screaming into the forge that you’re shut in a shed with a pack of Hunting
Spiders.’
Two solemn faces nodded in agreement.
The Doctor bowed to them.
‘Thank you very much.’ He dug
around in a jacket pocket and found a Hershey’s bar, which the pair accepted
with a sombre air.
‘What the hell happened?’ asked the young black man. ‘Those things keep clear of town. We might see one or two in winter, at worst. Not twenty all at once!’ He squinted at the doors. ‘And those doors were shut from the outside.’
‘Yeeeees,’ drawled the Doctor, buffing his trousers and shoes, wriggling
his eyebrows playfully at the two
nursery children. ‘I had noticed. Now, you two, please run along back to the
nursery, you’ve had quite enough excitement for one day.’
He stood up and held out a hand as the children ran off.
‘I’m the Doctor. You may have
heard about my arrival already, Mister - ?’
The young black man slapped himself on the forehead. Of course! How could he not have realised! With that peculiar suit, and his pallid skin, this stranger – who was indeed strange – must have come from the Stars!
Well, not quite that far away.
"The War Illustrated"
No, I'm not apologising for deliberately muting the presence of the Sinisters in our annotated editorials. This is Conrad's way of getting back at them, hah!
Also, I'm not sure about Pablo Pascal being cast as Rex Reed in an upcoming F4 film, he's a bit craggy and rough-hewn for the role, it ought to be an actor who can convince about how staggeringly intellectual they are and n
ANYWAY sorry for Conrad's wibbling interfering, I blame Mister Hand. Quick, Art, change the subject!
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| Proof that it's Italy |
FYI what you see at top are British (or Commonwealth) anti-tank gunners waiting to get moving with their 6-pounder anti-tank guns. As you can see from their size, these were low-slung weapons that were easy to hide and were light enough for their crews to slew them around onto different targets.
The middle picture shows the Teuton's Terror - massed artillery barrage at night. The Allies had the logistics to be utterly profligate with artillery fire.
The picture at bottom shows a mixed South Canadian-French armoured unit breaking through the Gustav Line - yes! there were French units fighting alongside the British (and Commonwealth) and South Canadians in Italy against the Teutons, very United Nations.
Finally -
Wow I hve wittered. Witterings of wit, wisdom and wonder, hopefully, and that's quite enough for this here blog. Later!
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