Perhaps That's Reaching A Little
But! perhaps not. You'll have to read on to see.
Okay! Today's Intro is inspired by a thought that suddenly floated to the top of the murky mire that's my mind: Enfant Terrible (to be pronounced with a French accent, thanks). Looking it up in my Brewer's, it is defined as "Terrible Child (French) An embarrassing person; one who says or does awkward things at the wrong moment; one who causes trouble by his unconventional behaviour. The sense arose from the untimely remarks made by a child." Art!
Let us first look at a few images from the portfolio of Aubrey Beardsley, a Victorian-era artist whose name popped up when I was looking for examples of 'Enfant Terrible'. Yes yes yes, we'll get back to that above. PATIENCE! Also, Art?
One has to be careful with Ol' Beary's artwork, some of it is NSFW, although frightfully tame by modern standards. When it was printed, polite Victorian society affected to be morally outraged and highly offended, yet bought his works en masse. Hip-ocrits?
Ol' Beary was one of those artistic talents that wasn't around long, dying at 25 from consumption. The cynical amongst us might call this a good career move, as it means never ever having to grow fat, old and complacent and becoming part of the Establishment, although the downside is being dead. Art!
Surprisingly normal. On the outside.
Now, Conrad being Conrad, he wonders what happens when an Enfant Terrible grows up, as barring the central character from "The Tin Drum" and Peter Pan, it's not really within human ability to just stop growing up. Age comes to us all (wisdom is a little rarer).
Meet Kevin O'Neill. Art!
Butter wouldn't melt, hmmm?
Ol' Kev is no longer with us, having popped his galoshes at the age of 69 back in 2022. He cut his artistic teeth in the early editions of "2000AD" with some one-offs until really getting into it with his version of "Nemesis The Warlock", which is our opening image. Bring on a few more of his artworks, Art!
There is a tale about Ol' Kev's attempts to get a "Green Lantern" strip published, only for the South Canadian Comics Code Authority to reject it. The publishers made an appeal, and were willing to cut out or edit any specific scenes the board didn't like.
Well, the problem was that the board disliked Ol' Kev's entire style. They seemed to think that he used the blood of virgins as ink and was a card-carrying Satanist to boot. Not only that, he drank tea instead of coffee.
Okay, I made that last up.
ANYWAY this is all mere persiflage before what we really get into the meat of the matter, which is what happens to a real Terrible Child when they grow up. Hint: nothing good.
Let us set the scene, for this is a tale told by Holden-Position-4 over on Youtube. Art!
His brother
Enfant Terrible Brother was the youngest child, and diagnosed with high-functioning autism. They were beyond utterly spoiled and could do no wrong in their parent's deluded eyes.
THE BIRTHDAY PARTY INCIDENT(S): ETB was at another 8-year old's party, and was incensed that the party wasn't all about him, him, him. To the extent that he was picking up Birthday Boy's wrapped presents and shaking them, to see either what interesting noises they made, or to break them. Another tantrum resulted from BB daring to blow out the candles on his cake, because EFB wanted to do it first. Not only that, his mom argued with BB's parents, saying that they needed to allow ETB to blow the candles out first and -
It didn't happen. Art!
So, ETB swept the cake up and smashed into BB's face, because if he wasn't going to be first in line, nobody was getting cake. His mom then tried to argue it was all the fault of BB's parents for not allowing ETB to do what he wanted. BB's parents nodded in agreement and allowed him to rule the rest of the party
NOT! ETB and both parents were chased out of the venue, not before ETB knocked over the table with all the presents on. Art!
OP stayed behind rather than travel home with his family, and helped to clean things up. Mom & Dad were the recipients of a letter with an invoice, stating that BB's parents wanted the cost of cake refunded or they were going to the police, because someone had filmed the whole wretched event.
They paid up by sending OP around with the money. Entitled, helicoptering and cowardly. What sterling qualities!
I think I'd better wrap this Intro up and come back to the topic of ETB, or the whole blog will be about nothing but him, which is rather over-egging (sorry Ruffians!) the pudding.
Conrad, because he's a horrible person, was putting it about that the Ruffians had 'lost' an A-50 AWACS over the Sea Of Azov, and by lost I mean it got killed with fire and fell into the drink from waaaay up in the air. The Ruffians may well try and salvage it, to try and recoup some of the capital that went into it, as Jake Broe on his Youtube channel explained - $300,000,000 is the base price for one of these puppies. Art!
For this version you're talking more like $500,000,000, especially if you factor in the cost of training the 15 officers aboard, not to mention the Lieutenant General there to keep an eye on everything. The Soviets only ever built 10 of these, and sold a couple to India, and reportedly only 5 of those left were fit to fly. They are vacillating between Nothing Happened To It and We Shot It Down Ourselves, presumably to deny that Smiley Budanov had anything to do with it's demise. There is a nasty rumour going round that Charlie Chipmunk Cheeks was so enraged at losing this beast that he soiled himself, which is probably completely untrue. But sounds satisfying. Art!
Charlie Chipmunk Cheeks grills The Penguin.
(Possibly for real shortly)
For those still paying attention, General Gerasimov is still to be seen, a couple of weeks after mysteriously not being seen, and the Ruffian state media continue to respond with "Who?" when asked questions about him. Hmmmmm!
More Minifigs Massiveness
For your information, Minifigs are 1/48th scale Lego humanoids, which come in a fantastic array of varieties. Conrad is guessing you can contact Lego HQ in the Daneland and request a bespoke order if you're willing to pay enough. Art!
And what is this large display made up from? O I thought you'd never ask. Minifig Stormtroopers. You know, those idiots from "Starry Warry" (sp?) who were never taught how to shoot straight or even aim properly, and whom stand out in every conceivable landscape except the Arctic, wh
ANYWAY if Art will do the honour -
There are over 36,000 of the little plastic soldiers present on a base that measures 20' x 20'. So, the population equivalent of a small town or city -
"City In The Sky"
The intrepid band of hastily-volunteered staff are about to get the Lunar Lander operating again.
‘The way up. First, we check the
tanks for any punctures or leaks.’
‘Hurry up,’ grumbled Mona, checking her wrist-mounted control
panel. ‘We’ve got two and a half hours
air left.’
‘And fifty in the crew compartment, darling,’ said Kurt. ‘No, don’t go up yet. More efficient if we all go in one after the
other.’
He and Barclay turned on their helmet lights and carried out a short
inspection. The Warden pointed to frost
scaled around piping, at which Kurt shrugged.
‘Pangolin is in permanent shadow.
Once we leave the hull sunlight will act on the pipes and defrost
them.’ He secured the fuel rods in a
service container to protect them from potential impacts and any flames
directed from the craft’s manouevering verniers.
After that Barclay led them up the rungs to the crew compartment, which
Ace immediately translated into “cabin”.
The airlock could only cycle two at a time, so they used up another ten
minutes getting into the cabin. The
cold, dark, forbidding cabin, where only a scattering of tiny red lights showed
that anything still worked.
‘NO!’ shouted Ace over the link, her voice so loud that the speaker
fuzzed and buzzed. Kurt jerked in alarm in the confined space, nearly bumping
into Barclay.
Ooooh, what has everyone's favourite Riot Grrrl noticed?
Boarder Terrier Strikes Again
Regular readers of these pages will be aware that The Mansion is blessed with a four-legged alarm system known as 'Edna', a.k.a. 'The Champ Of Scamp', who is convinced that she has a major stake in the household. She is a Border Terrier, supposedly a hardy breed. Her age may be telling against her - she's over a decade old - as she nips smartly back inside when there's snow afoot. Art
2) See above.
Finally -
It's cold enough that I'm typing this with my digital mittens on and considering putting on long-johns. No, I do NOT possess a 'onesie'.
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