Bear With Me On This
As not infrequently happens here, I am making this up as I go along, whilst also grooving to a television program I've not seen since it was first broadcast way back in <coughcough>tyseven, and I'm also paying homage to/stealing/being inspired <delete where necessary> that seminal album by Peter Hamill. Art!
I know you're wondering about today's title and Ol' Pete, because he's another dinosaur like Conrad, hailing back to the early Seventies when he was the driving force in Van Der Graaf Generator, the acid poetry rock band and then an artiste in his own right. Art!
Hmmm perhaps not the most appealing cover picture ever.
Here an aside. Conrad has both Seasons downloaded off a thumb drive, onto my laptop, which have then been loaded onto a late-Christmas present thumb drive (my trusty old white-and-blue one has gone missing in the Sekrit Layr), which has been plugged into the big monitor's USB socket. Art!
Photo taken at an awkward angle as it's impossible to see the sockets with the Mark One Human Eyeball. Old dog, alternate methodology.
Being an old dog capable (with a sober head and a following wind) of learning new tricks as long as they're not too complex, I've used the "Source" button on the remote and - Art!
 |
| Ignore the light flare! Ignore the light flare! |
This has the bonus - for me, if not for you - of being able to have it playing up there on the big screen whilst I compose words of wit, wisdom and wonder on my laptop. I find - BOOJUM! is what I meant - that trying to watch "Sweet Home" and typing is much too problematic, as I don't understand spoken Korean and can't read the subtitles whilst typing away. NO! I won't have any dubbing on anything I watch. Away with you!
Now (or then), there are other media that have to accommodate a disparity between Futuristic At The Time and getting embarrassed later on when they become sadly dated. Art!
Yes, Mister Mills, it was very Space Age when it first appeared. We are, however, a whole 23 years on from the debut date and can you say 'a bit past it'? without saying 'a bit past it'?
Nor is that all. O noes. A far larger victim of Unplanned Obsolescence was a film studio. Art!
They have since officially changed it to "21st Century Studios" within the business but have left the old logo up absent the "Fox" since it's widely recognised and brand recognition is a definite thing.
Conrad remembers "Science Fiction Monthly" reviewing S1999 and dismissing the plot for it's pilot, "Breakaway", as being a big pile of unmitigated tosh. This is correct: nuclear fuel rods do not suddenly generate gigantic magnetic fields, and even if they did, Spontaneous Gigaton Explosions would not occur. As for the fatal effects of magnetic fields on the human brain -
" It is shown that gradients of the Zeeman energy associated with the inhomogeneous applied fields can induce pressures of the order of 10–2Pa. The surface tension generated by the magnetic pressure, on the surface delimiting the brain region subject to relevant field and gradients, is found to range between 10–1 and 1 mN⋅m–1. "
I hope that clears things up.
SFM did, grudgingly, admit that the special effects were very good for a television series, up to what was the Gold Standard of sci-fi at the time, "2001: A Space Odyssey" - O! Gosh, there's another one of those Un
I feel there is a creative seam to be mined here. Expect more of S1999.
Serendipitous Schadenfreude
Go on, I'll explicate. "Serendipitous" means an accidental discovery, and one of our very favourite words on the blog means "A malicious enjoyment of other people's misfortune".
Conrad had earned 500 brownie points for taking Edna trotties this afternoon, as my step count this week has been low. Upon gaining my window seat in the Sekrit Layr, I complained to her about how depressingly dark it was outside. Art!
Note the absence of Oldham Edge thanks to precipitation. We'd timed it correctly and, as is visible, had time to prepare lunch. Yes, including Conrad's stab at diabetic Raspberry and Yoghurt ice cream. Then, what did I espy? Art!
How we laughed!*
Rob A Dub Dub
Yes, I knew you were all waiting for this update on Ol' Rob's demolition of the myth about Teuton superiority on the battlefield in the Second Unpleasantness. For Your Information, I am now annotating "British Armour In The Normandy Campaign" by Professor John Buckley, and am now up to Page 20. Of 218. So, definitely a Work In Progress. Art!
NORMANDY: The Allies do not manage to slice through the Teutons and get to Paris in 30 days after D-Day, therefore according to the Wehraboos the whole campaign is a miserable failure, because the Teutons are so awesome.
Yes, well except for the liberation of Paris takes only 77 days, and the Teuton army, 500,000 strong, disintegrates in the process. Art!
Ol' Rob clarifies that what the bafunes claim to be 'stalemates' along the front in Normandy are in fact 'pauses' where the Allies stock up on supplies, bring in reinforcements, co-ordinate air support and only then resume the attack. These always succeed in gaining ground, even if less than planned, and also continue the relentless and very lop-sided attrition of the Teuton forces. Max Hastings comes in for a very well-deserved bashing in being positively onanistic about how wonderfully terrific and unbeatable Teuton tanks were, yet failing to mention the terrifyingly effective British (and Canadian and Polish) artillery.
Next session: Brute Force! Art?
Someone ten miles away is about to have a very bad day
"City In The Sky"
A mysterious and debilitating fever is wracking the inhabitants of Arcology One.
‘Doctor Davros?’ asked the worried
Paramedic, having abandoned her post at the tent’s entrance.
‘Hmm? Yes?’
‘How bad is this infection going to get?’
Casting a look around, he sighed.
‘I don’t know, Liz. It spread
like crazy, took me totally by surprise, there’s nothing like it in the files
and I’m a glorified GP at best, not an epidemiologist. Nobody has died from it, at least.’
He and the other medical staff from Lichfield, who had gone out to
tackle the disease where it arose, were treating symptoms instead of finding a
cure, which they were relying upon Microbiology in
“Given time.” How much did they
have! This crisis put the entire sphere
population at risk, even before they began to deal with how to get back
Downstairs. These victims, lying
comatose or groaning, these were people who now had less than no hope left –
A stumbling silhouetted figure fumbled with the tent flaps, managed to
untie them and came unsteadily inside, a person wearing the silver-banded
boilersuit of a Warden. Davros
recognised the sandy hair of Barclay, and that the man had the disease
already. He looked shockingly pale,
dripped with sweat, stared wildly from bloodshot eyes and carried a strange,
retro-looking metal cylinder.
‘Here,’ he grated at the device.
‘I’m with Davros now. Yes, he’s
wearing gloves.’
Propping himself up against one of the tent’s poles, Barclay offered the
strange device to Davros, who took it with reluctance.
Probably not a miniature boom-box.
A Splash Of Colour
Note the CORRECT SPELLING. Thank you. Conrad would like to put up a vessel with an unusual colour scheme, just because it's cool. Art!
Pretty spiffy, hmmmm? A stark contrast to most naval vessels, which are painted in uniformly drab grey. This is the "Bucha", an Ukrainian gunboat whose mission is to help defend Kyiv. Note the CORRECT SPELLING. One presumes it has this disruptive multi-colour camo scheme to blend in with the river bank landscape as it's certainly not going to be venturing out to sea. Chudoviy!
Finally -
Not sure how to wrap this one up, apart from informing you that Pistachio Ice Cream is on the cards. Conrad has found a recipe that used only 3 oz. of sugar, which he can cut to 1½ oz. by substituting half with Canderel. I do need more double cream, which may well mean a trip into Lesser Sodom to see what's going cheap. As ever, I shall let you know.
Chinchinchinnies!
* We already knew I was a terrible person.
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