Private Joker, Meet The Balrog

I Know, I Know

It's a pretty odd pairing.  Stick with me, we'll be careering off into this, that and the other, and all because the lady loves Silk Tray, the chocolate you can eat between mealworms.  Or something like that.  Art!

     Here we see Private Joker reclining on his cot, moaning and I believe the term is 'witching' about how bored he was, and that he'd not heard a shot fired in weeks.  Because he is ensconced with his fellow squad-members, they all josh and mock him and each other, in language that we cannot replicate here, for it is most certainly not SFW.  Art!

     That's Joker behind the M-60, probably cursing himself for tempting Fate and he and his comrades turn the trojan horse truck into a fireball.  Bet they're not bored now!  Art?

     This has nothing to do with anything,  it's just a nod towards Stan The Man and his eye for detail, as this is a Citroen truck.  Vietnam, where this scene is supposedly set, was an ex-French colony that used French vehicles.

     ANYWAY you may be wondering what this has to do with the Balrog, and I'm so glad you asked.  The Balrogs, as you may be aware, are demi-gods from the legendarium of Ol' Tolky, previously Maia (who were servants of the even mightier Valar) but known as 'Valaraukaur' once they had become corrupted and demonic in appearance.  Typically they were shrouded in flame and smoke, carrying a whip of fire.  Art!

     I've seen several iterations and the one from LOTR is hands-down the best of the lot, especially when you can see the air around it rippling with heat.

     What you may not realise is that they were few in number, probably because they were so mighty that any more than a handful would have utterly trashed the good guys; the accepted figure is seven.

     Despite their might and demonic powers, they were defeated (and a number killed) with the fall of Beleriand.  Art!

     Feeling that discretion was the better part of Valar <ouch> the survivors fled and hid deep beneath the earth in secret caverns and deeps.

     I know what you're thinking here, because, naturally, the same thought came to mind for Conrad.  I am a hair-splitting pedant par excellence, after all.

     What did they eat?  The lower depths not being noted for an abundant ecosphere that would sustain anything beyond insects or slugs.

     Well now, here we come back to their near-divine background.  As Maia, they don't need to eat anything to sustain themselves - there's a whole blog waiting to be written about Balrogs and dieting - though they may have maliciously nibbled on an orc or two pour encourage les autres.  I know, I know, management-by-fear is not the best model to go with.  Conrad is pretttttty sure Morgoth, the Balrog's boss, didn't go in for consensus government.  Art!

By wild coincidence, the dwarves established their city of Khazad-Dhum right on top of one particular Balrog's hiding place, and eventually broke into it's den.  

     "At last!" exclaimed Roggy.  "Company!"

     Because he had been sitting in darkness for a couple of millenia - BORED.

     BORED OUT OF HIS TREE.

     "I've been down here for centuries and not slain an elf in all that time."

     Naturally he goes completely over the top and the next thing you know the entire dwarf population has fled, so there he is again - bored.  Can you, or Private Joker, really blame him when he comes out swinging at the Fellowship when they turn up?

     "O boy!  An elf!  A dwarf!  Two humans!  A WIZARD! and a bunch of uncouth creatures too backward to have discovered shoes."

     I rest my case.

The Reason Is -

As you may recall, Conrad has been trying to find documents and files associated with a game he was trying to create years and years ago, for which there were some hard copies, without the corresponding Word documents.  This presaged an awful lot of formatted typing if the Word stuff didn't turn up.

     So!  I spent a kind-of productive hour poking around in lever-arch files and folders last night, before finally cranking up the old PC, which is suffering from computer arthritis; it works, just verrrrrry slowwwwwly.

     Finally!  Art?

     All the background stuff I was looking for before.  Plus a few "Square Bashing" scenarios on 3rd Ypres.

    That's not all.  What did I espy when turning over trays left untouched for years?  Art!

     You can judge how long this has been sitting, untouched by human hand, by the demarcation into the dust.  Which brought to mind Durin's Bane sitting, also gathering dust, in the mines of Moria.

"The War Illustrated"

We are now into Volume Eight, if you were keeping track, and even if you weren't.  I shall allow the cover illustration to go up.  Art! 

     Nope, not going to enlarge it beyond this, it's the Sinister's boasting about Stalingrad and how they won it and how it was the most important battle in the history of the world now and forever etcetera etcetera.  O rlly?  How come it's called Volgagrad now, matey?

"City In The Sky"

Alex and Ace are back aboard Arcology One, evidence that the Doctor has confidence in the Bernal Sphere's survival into the near future, at least.  Both parties are getting an update.

‘We are, Terry – oh, sorry, I’ve not introduced myself.  Christos Abramovitch.  The reason we remain is because we can use dynamic manouvering systems to retain our position above Earth.  Low-orbit satellites like laser platforms suffer orbital decay within a few years and burn up.  Others suffer meteorite impact, solar flares, power failure, that sort of thing.  They don’t last forever, Terry, and the last satellites went silent a generation ago.’

     Ace realised the half-dozen people in front of them were descendants of the sphere’s Founders.

     ‘Do you think the Doctor’s hypothesis about alien squatters holds a bit more water now?’ she asked.

     Christos chewed a thumbnail and looked uncomfortable.

     ‘It begins to look more plausible.  Emilia?’

     ‘I don’t understand why aliens, or anyone, for that matter, would blow up anything electrical.  Allergic to it?’ said the woman with authority.

     Terry waved his hands to interrupt.

     ‘Hey, hey, hey!  What’s this stuff about aliens?’

     Emilia sighed and gestured to Ace.

     ‘The Doctor’s convinced aliens are behind the Great Northern War, and the Phage, and destroying Arcology One’s gliders.’

     ‘He never mentioned anything about aliens!’ snapped Terry, looking angry.

     ‘Because they’ve been operating in secrecy which they need to keep, and anybody mentioning it will be killed.  Anyone they speak to will be killed.’  She made an intuitive leap, one the Doctor would have been proud of.  ‘That village, Forrest, was destroyed by them, not by a bush fire.  They didn’t expect a glider to come down, so they weren’t prepared and by the time they were prepared, your villagers would have been in close contact with the Arc crew for hours.  Learning too much.  So they were killed.’

     Sinister alien squatters revealed!

All Aboard The Bandwagon Of BAH!

Conrad has been scoffing popcorn by the bucket of late, reading about how execrable "The Marvels" is, and about the desperate addition of last-minute cameos in the end credits, and then last-last-minute cameos in mid-credits, and they'll probably end up paying audiences to go see it.

     We'll get a taste of what the full-scale box office is like tonight IF they have a premiere as a lot of big-budget tentpole films do.  That's a big if.  Art!

     For now, the review embargo is over and now "The Daily Beast" is out to give them a kicking after seeing it.  I was going to put " - the film" but feel "it" is closer to the truth.

Finally -

Sitting here scoffing stew, wearing my heated fingerless mittens and sneezing madly.  Yes, Vulnavia, I think winter has arrived.