The Invisible Men

No! Nothing To Do With H. G. Wells

Neither novel nor films, thank you very much.  Conrad, of course - obviously! - has an opinion on the films, because he has both eyes and an enquiring mind.  Mister Invisible WASH OUT YOUR FILTHY MINDS I say that before you disgusting perverts get any sordid fantasies a-going, carries out mass murder to show people that he's not messing about.  Art!

     That, by the way, is from "Memoirs Of An Invisible Man" and I recall John Carpenter saying how much he disliked special effects work, because you had to baby each shot, and i

     ANYWAY my thoughts were that Mister Invisible's super secret serum not only made him invisible, an unanticipated side-effect was that it also made him a raving psychotic homicidal maniac.  That's what happens when you don't carry out sufficient testing.  Art!

"Take a snifter of brandy, an egg yolk and a pinch of KILLKILLKILL -"

     More mundanely, what I am referring to is a person along the lines of George Smiley - surely the most inaptly-named person in the whole of English literature - in "The Spy Who Came In From The Cold"; a presence in the background, whom you don't really notice yet who is highly influential in driving the plot.  Alex Guiness was an excellent choice to play him, by doing as little acting as possible in order to emphasise the grey man.  Art!

     Perhaps a better analogy would be that of Paul Krendler.  He's not present in "The Silence of the Lambs", only in the sequel, as he's the sinister background antagonist of Clarissa Starling.  He had intended himself to be the heroic agent who arrested Hannibal Lecter, so when his thunder (and lightning and storm clouds and gale-force winds) were stolen, he set out to sabotage her career.  I recall Harris comparing Krendler to the planet Neptune, because it was known to exist before discovery, thanks to perturbations caused to the orbit of Saturn.

     Inevitably, this is nothing to do (directly) with the subject matter of this Intro, whom is - Art!

     Radagast.  Radagast the Brown, if you will.  He is only present in "Lord Of The Rings" one step removed and is completely absent in "The Hobbit" and yes, we are talking about the novels NOT the films.  Do keep up!

     Ol' Raddy's abilities and powers were much mocked by Saruman, whom had an intense dislike of his fellow wizard.  Guess which of the two ends up having their throat cut?  Hint: not the brown chap.  Initially Ol' Raddy was one of the five wizards sent to Middle Earth, two of whom we never get to meet as they beggared off into the distant East of ME and never came back.  As "In Deep Geek" puts it, Ol' Raddy was, indeed, the least wise and skilful of the five wizards.  This still puts him leagues ahead of the other mortals of ME, mind.  Art!

Useful friends to have

     Gandalf rates him, and notes that Raddy can speak to animals, also getting them to help him, especially birds.  Imagine the kind of intelligence network he has, with all those beaky beady-eyed feathered fiends spying for him.  Elrond also wanted him present at Rivendell for the meeting that led to the Fellowship being established, except -

     He wasn't at home.  Nor could he be found, anywhere.  This is very probably linked to what Gandalf described as being a " - master of shapes and changes of hue"; in other words, if he doesn't want to be found, you aren't going to find him.  He could be that tree, or that boulder, or that eagle and you'd never know.  As IDG puts it, camouflage, and camouflage so convincing not even the elves can penetrate it.  Art!

CAUTION! One of these is a wizard

     Raddy's magic is also likely to be subtle, understated and not at all flashy.  Like the best special effects, you'd not notice it happening.  It's intriguing to speculate that he might be the force behind some of the odd or inexplicable happenings that take place once the Fellowship exits the mines of Moria.  Recall, if you will, that rope of Sam's which somehow comes untied when needed, yet not whilst in use.

     Ha!  You're going to have to go back and re-read LOTR now, aren't you?

     You're welcome.

Like A Hawk

Did you know that the Ruffian for "Hawk" is "Yastreb"?  Art!

     These counter-battery systems only came into the service of Mordor in September last year.  They are rare and my precious, at $250 million each, allegedly; although $225 million of that will have been stolen, embezzled or skimmed before purchase.  The orcs were boasting about having sent one into Ukraine, which was a bit silly, because 

     Happy Harry HIMARS paid them a visit.

     ANYWAY what I wanted to reference was Mister Moriguchi's huge collection of Eagle transporters from "Space 1999", which was a featured Intro yesteryon.  Art!

     These things are still incredibly popular, even with people who weren't born when the series was broadcast.  Allow me to refresh your memories of Doug's impressively large collection.  Art!

     What you need to do in order to depress Doug for the rest of his lifetime, is ask a simple question: "Where are the Hawks, Doug, old fruit?"

     You  see, the Eagle is a transport vessel, able to be retro-fitted with modular equipment according to mission requirements.  Art!

Looking pretty Yastreb if you ask me

     The Hawk, on the other hand, has one role and one role only: to KILL.  Shades of Mister Invisible, hmmm?

     It was only used a few times on S1999, which means it never got the love afforded the Eagle.  There are still scale model kits of it around.  Art!

Including this at 1:1 scale

"City In The Sky"

Still no feedback about this wildly indulgent fan fiction, which I will take as the overwhelming vote of approval it so obviously is.

She pored over the text, printed off by Davy whilst he carried on tending to the sick.  The starchy and efficient nurse that came with him had informed Ace and Terry that over two and a half thousand people were sick with Barclay’s Bug, rendering most of the arcology’s functions barely capable of functioning.  Davy sent them back to the common room at Lichfield.  Less risk of infection, he explained.  Quieter, too.

     When Terry looked at the strange message, his sporty Antipodean heritage meant he got two of the references that had escaped Ace.

     ‘ “Punt” and “onion bag” are football terms.  A punt is a kick and an onion bag is what they call the goal.’

     ‘It’s the horse thing that gets me.  Arc One has cows, and chickens and a few other livestock.   They never bothered with draught animals because they get human beings to do all the physical work, so there aren’t any horses.’

     This seemed a strange omission to Terry, who had grown up with the horse as Eucla’s principal means of transport.

     ‘Wasn’t one of those Founder people a vet?  Might they know?’ he suggested, to a bright smile from Ace.

     ‘Bingo!  Earning your lunch-money!  Let’s go find her.’

     More to come.  You lucky people.

No Mystery Here

Right, we've had enough text, let's bring in a picture.  Art!

     Yes, these are the MacGuffins from "The Daily Beast" today, and, as the item title informs, we all know what they are.  For once.

Finally -

Once again, weather too nice to ignore.  Your Humble Scribe is going to have a walk down to Lesser Sodom and see what's going cheap in the remaindered chiller.  No need for meat or chicken thighs READ THAT AND WEEP RUFFIANS as I've got lots of spicy meatballs courtesy Wonder Wifey.  I could do with a jar of green Pesto, and large sandwich bags.  No, you didn't need to know that, Conrad just likes to keep you informed.