A Dose Of Drivel

I Do Hope You Weren't Hoping 

For a continuation of our deep and meaningful analysis of Sauron (still cannot come up with a snappy nickname for him) and whether he believed he was the Villain Of The Piece.  Sauron, in case you've been asleep in a cave for fifty years, is the background antagonist and menacing evil in "Lord Of The Rings", film and novel both.  You might, if you were interested in reaching a lot, maintain that he did at least offer lots of job opportunities to the orc populations of Middle Earth.  Not an argument I'd go into court with, mind*.  Art!

A hero in his own head

     I was, in fact, thinking along the lines of fourth-rate villains, villains who are irredeemably rubbish and who were invented by their creators during a period of artistic drought.  Art!

     Meet the terrifying - okay, okay, not at all terrifying - "Calendar Man".  His secret power is - well, to be blunt, he hasn't got one.  In fact he seems to have been at the end of the queue when villainous talents and costumes were being handed out, because all he does is commit crimes on certain days of the year.  That's it.  Hmmm I suppose not all of Batman's foes can be the Joker, with a malevolent back story and deeply troubled private life.

     ANYWAY you think that's bad?  O boy, read on.  Art!

     Behold the awe and terror of "Codpiece".  This is fundamentally wrong in so many ways that Conrad cannot believe the character made it into an animated series, yet there is indisputable truth in pictures.  Art!

But think of the children!

     I think the best thing to do here is change the subject.  Art!

     Yes, because the first thing that comes to mind when musing on super-villains is - stilts.

     Not in this reality, nor, Conrad suspects, any other.  That title, too - she's a lady but a man as well?  A bit of gender bender confusion, one feels.  Perhaps, because she's so high on her stilts, the rarefied atmosphere has made her - er - stupid?  Also, confessing immediately you confront a superhero that you're a villain (we can forego the prefix here, believe me) is - stupid?  Art!

That convo sounds a bit <ahem> stilted.

     I take back what I said about Calendar Man coming at the end of the queue for criminally-inclined gifts, because this next really takes the biscuit.  Or, in his case, a vanilla wafer.  Art!

     I'd like to have been a fly on the wall when this character got pitched.

     "Yeah, yeah, he's like a supervillain, because he hates the X-Men, and he can turn himself into ice cream."

     The Editor obviously heard "Eye Scream" and so one of the most bizarre villains in comic-dom came to be.  Art!

     That's a mouthful of MacGuffin: "Unstable molecule chest refrigeration unit".  UMCRU is what Conrad would dub it, much easier and quicker to say.

     They don't go into Eye Scream's ability in the depth to which it might be afforded, although the writer's don't seem to have skimped on the ice cream-theme puns, do they? The most important question is - what would happen to him if a passing person took a scoop of him and ate it, whilst he was in ice cream form?  When he re-incorporated as a Hom. Sap. would he have a scoop-shaped bit of him missing?  Would the eater of the ice cream suddenly discover that they were a cannibal?  How much of him could be scooped before the end result is fatal?  What happens to him on a hot day?  

     Above all else - WHAT FLAVOURS DOES HE COME IN?

     
     Of course, I may be overthinking this .....

Back To Bedlam

Or, as others have christened it, "Ruffia".  I recall a Twitter back and forth between the redoubtable SZ Media, the handle of "Spaghetti Kozak" who used to have a Youtube presence, which hadn't been updated since 2022.  He'd posted a couple of video logs of himself visiting Kyiv and he had a real attachment to the country.  Why the sudden disappearance from YT?

     Because he'd actually gone to Ukraine to help fight the good fight.  He knows his Ukes and he knows his Orcs.  Art!

A cossack with wheat

     A rather shrill pro-Chipmunk Cheeks chap was holding forth on how tough the Ruffians were and that the cold, snow and darkness of winter didn't bother them, they'd manage, they'd managed before, etDogBunscetera.

     Not so, said Ol' Spag.  The Ruffians hate and detest winter.

     Do they ever.  Especially when they've got no heating.  Art!

Madam, STAY AWAY FROM WINDOWS!

     And where is Harry Hamster Head whilst all this is going on?  

     At first there was film of him visiting a vegetable nursery in eastern Siberia.  Of late his media profile has been - hmmm, non-existent is the phrase for it.  He's no doubt crossing his fingers that this all passes over and the protesters all die of hypothermia.  I bet his personal jet is standing ready to flee/fly/flap off to the Norks at a moment's notice, though.
      Bring on the popcorn.


Listy, Lording It

NO!  Not Lister from "Red Dwarf", good lord aloft no no no.  No, I mean David Lister, the military history chap, whom has published several books, one of which I intend to purchase when the Book Mountain shrinks a little.  He posted a mystery object on Facebook, asking people to guess what it was.  Art!

With dog for scale

     Nobody got it right, so yesteryon he revealed just what it was.  Art!

     This is a British army "Tabby", which is to say a special infrared viewing device, disguised to look akin to a water bottle.  They were issued from late 1942 onwards, being used by drivers at night who didn't want to give their positions away by using visible light.  As Listy points out, the Wehraboos all cluck in unison about how technically advanced the Teutons were, because they had infrared sights in 1945.  Ho hum.  The Tabby will set you back a good £500 should you want one, and - the battery will be flat and you can't recharge it.  Undeniably cool artefact, though.

"City In The Sky"

The Arcies are going to carry out an interception via their Lunar Lander.

Two other volunteers were needed as crew for the Lunar Lander.  Terry put himself forward, to instant rejection.  Ace had considerable experience aboard spacecraft where he had none at all; she was EVA qualified and he didn’t even know what the acronym meant.  A stocky German crewmember and a Welsh girl who didn’t look old enough to drink legally were the other two found at short notice.  They were the most recent graduates of the sphere’s simulator suite, now that the original pilot, co-pilot, engineer, assistant engineer, communications officer and prosthesis specialist for the shuttle were dead, too old or too ill to fly.  Four crew would suffice, since the trip would be short and didn’t involve landing on a planetary surface.  Ace could be the prosthesis specialist, whilst Barclay took the role of pilot and Kurt became co-pilot.  Mona sulked at not being a pilot, feeling that communications came a poor third.

     All four were seen off at the south polar airlock by Davy, who looked haggard, and a small group of well-wishers.  Ace used the “B15” spacesuit allocated to her by the fitting booth for her earlier EVA, then stood and fretted at the delay in her crewmates being fitted-out.  Davy and Barclay stood off to one side, out of earshot, and muttered conspiratorially.  Terry caught up with her and passed over a bundle of spun metal net, just in case.

     With Ace, of course.  Who attracts almost as much trouble as the Doctor.  What can possibly go wrong!

I Keep Telling You They Miss Us

Those pesky South Canadians simply cannot stop goggling at our monarchy here in This Sceptred Isle STAND UP FOR KINGIE because they have nothing remotely similar in their benighted rebellious republic.  Art!

     You can hear the envy dripping from every slavering line, can't you?

Finally -

A state of mild panic hangs in The Mansion's air, as we are running short of milk.  Not that Conrad cares about people who have the stuff in tea as it spoils the taste, BUT IT IS VITAL FOR MY PORRIDGE!  Vital I tell you.

     We shall see what comes of this straitened situation.

* I may come back to this.  Imagine Sauron on trial at the ICC in The Hague!