Or, More Metaphysical Maunderings
Rejoice! for here is the continuation of our amateur psycho-analysis of Sauron, the sinister background antagonist in "Lord Of The Rings", at least in the novel, for yes, he does have considerably more presence in the films.
Now, cast your mind back to my previous word-salata, because we had moved into the Second Age of Ol' Tolky's legendarium; Sauron had been defeated and captured, then transported overseas to Numenor. Art!
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| NOT THAT 'THE FACE' ART! |
Here is where we muse philosophically on how transient and distracting good looks are, as opposed to what lurks beneath the moral veneer. Basically, confirming the old saw that beauty is only skin deep, and if you probe any further you may find far murkier and sewage-filled waters than you expected. You want an example? Art!
This is the undeniably hot but also evil-right-through Servalan, from "Blake's Seven". Yes, she looks ever so winsome. She's as trustworthy as a bagful of rabid spiders. If spiders ever got rabies. O you know what I mean. Art!
Cruella De Ville. Hmmmm only for those who adore high cheekbones, I feel. Very well dressed in her MURDER PUPPY coat, and her slinky elbow gloves and bespoke smoke wand. Not really the kind of lady to bring home to mother. Father might be more forgiving, until he catches the death glare from mother.
ANYWAY that's all incidental to our Sad Sauron Sob Story. As you remember, he'd been taken prisoner by the Numenoreans and transported back to their island kingdom. BIG MISTAKE. Just saying! At this time he could still appear beautiful, and the shallow Ol' Numies fell for him majorly, allowing him to sway them with his power accessory, the One Ring. Art!
Sauron - I'm still trying to think of a suitable nickname - managed to persuade the aging Numenorean king Ar-Pharazon, to sail west of his island and attempt to mount a coup on the Undying Lands, in the hopes of acquiring eternal life. I suppose every man needs a hobby.
Things did not go well. Not for the invasion fleet, which was sunk, nor for Numenor, which was also sunk, nor for <thinks> Ron! whose physical form was sunk, too. I bet he didn't sea that one coming. Art!
Numenor: almost as wet as This Sceptred Isle
I won't harp on about the background for Sauron, only that whilst his physical body was fishfood, his spirit still existed. It must have been a pretttttty chunky spirit, because it also carried the One Ring away with it. Is that a minor plot hole there Tolky?
ANYWAY after this Ron escapes to Mordor again, being a creature of habit BUT this time he seems to have decided on an image change, and instead of being beautiful he is now fairness-challenged. No messing about with trying to deceive via good looks any more, Ron is once again determined to bring Order to Middle Earth, and if he has to loom ten feet tall with blazing red eyes, then so be it! Art!
Ron, totally rocking the Evil look in this year's scareware
We are never treated to a physical description of Ron in the novel, although Gollum confirms that his tormentor has a Black Hand. That above is from the film and displays said appendage, which gives you an idea of what Ron looks like under that armour. This marked change in sartorial morphology and appearance may be due to Ron giving up on ever being able to acquire Ultimate Power (and unlimited rice pudding) via persuasion and a friendly visage to charm the elves. Instead he's gone for the hard power option; naked dictatorial intent exerted via armies of slayers, serfs and slaves. You don't need to charm orcs, just scare them more than the enemy.
There you go. Next time BOOJUM! features Sauron I think we'll see him in the dock at the International Criminal Court. Jinkies!
Sorry, I Couldn't Resist
If Conrad were to focus solely on Donald Trump, I could fill the blog's daily count twice over with ease, as the prating bafune is never out of the spotlight. So I temper my wish to hit the Count with mercy, as seeing and reading about him for too long is inevitably going to pall. Art!
I rest my case, milud.
This is a lie as Bonespur Bob has no friends. Conrad doubts he ever marched anywhere as he's a lazy fat biffer who uses a golf cart rather than walk a hundred paces. If he tried to emulate The Aged One (Biden) and cycled anywhere, DJ Tango would collapse dead upon the handlebars, and <Mister Hand redacts a long acerbic screed>
Conrad: king of the grammar nazis and spelling fascists.
When Conrad Decides To Visit A Regimental Museum, That's When
This always seems to happen. Conrad bestirs himself from his standard slothful self, determines that this weekend he's going to visit York Regimental Museum, only for this bunch of pikers to decide that having a day off is more important than my itinerary. Chaps, are these pay raises going to compensate for all the strike hours you're not getting paid for, hmmm?
"City In The Sky"
An under-trained and inexperienced crew are about to take the Arcology's Lunar Lander off on a mission. What can possibly go wrong?
Once out of the airlock, she took a long breath and slowly craned her
neck upwards to look at the incredible and unbounded heavens swirling
above. Automatically, and without
needing to be told, she anchored herself to the hull with a magnetic grapple.
Hercules! she said to herself, recognising the constellation by the
three stars in the sword. And the Moon,
incredibly sharply detailed in sunlight, looking as alien as any strange planet
she’d ever set foot upon. That was Mare
Nostrum – and the sphere’s motion eventually took the Earth’s satellite out of
her view, bringing the bright blue planet itself into her perspective. Her visor dimmed automatically to bring down
the level of sunlight, as it threw a bleak and shifting array of shadows across
the outer hull.
‘Are we all oriented?’ asked Kurt over the common radio link. Like the other three arcology citizens, he
kept his head low to avoid the vista that Ace was revelling in. She detected a wobble in his voice; poor
fella hadn’t been out on the hull recently like she had, he was bound to be a
bit wobbly. His metal clutch sack of
solid-fuel boosters wobbled, too. She
eyed them warily. They were a metre in
length, as thick around as her thigh, and designed to impart braking or
deceleration to the sphere for descent to a lower orbit. Once ignited they couldn’t be stopped and
since they were designed to operate on a vessel of fifteen thousand tonnes,
were easily powerful enough to render Pangolin into a cloud of tin-foil should
an accident happen.
I had to ask.
OOOOOOH That's Expensive
There's a bit of ambiguity about exactly who did what, also the where, less so about the when and none at all about the why. Art!
One of these went into the drink yesteryon, into the Sea Of Asov, regardless of who's responsible. It's a Ruffian A-50 Airborne Warning And Control System; they cost £250 million apiece and because the Ruffians cannot get the electronic components, they can't replace it. Nor is that all: experienced trained aircrew who are up to speed in electronic warfare are even rarer.
It probably won't get reported in Ruffia, or not for six months or so, and even if it was Conrad doubts the average citizen would care, because the flooding has chased the rat and mouse infestation out of the basement and into everyone's kitchens ...
"The War Illustrated"
Yet more pictures from the Allied landings pretending to only be a 'feint', in order to fool the bally Hun. Art!
The captions here are all rather vague, only mentioning that these are French beaches - you may have been ahead of me here - and that the busily-digging infantrymen are at "a strongpoint". That first picture, with a positive armada of ships waiting offshore, might have caused a few Teuton brows to furrow at how large and elaborate this feint was.
Finally -
What odd weather - it was raining, and now we've got bright sunlight against a backdrop of stormy grey clouds. Who knows what weather the next 20 minutes will bring.
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