I Know What You're Thinking
NO! This has nothing to do with the DARPA Telepathy Helmet and given how often you lot hark on about it, I wish I'd never stolen long-term-borrowed it. They never even knew it was gone, I tell you. Now it's back in the locker next to that one with "HLY GRL" stencilled onto it. Why you'd want to Grill Holly is beyond me, I bet it tastes foul.
ANYWAY let us bring into focus that barnstorming carpet-chewing star of stage and screen, ladies and gentlemen and those unsure -
Yes, you see he used to live in the suburbs way back in the Thirties, when he was coining it in as an over-the-top villain on both the stage and the cinema screen. He wasn't christened "Tod Slaughter" so you can't blame the parents. No, it's most likely that he adopted the name after starring on stage in a Victorian melodrama called "Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber".TOD SLAUGHTER!
Bear with me on this Intro, I did make a few notes, not enough to simply copy, so they'll have to do as a framework.
Okay, from Tod to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and his most famous creation, Sherlock Holmes, because we have a platitude the Consulting Detective once made to Watson as they journeyed by train out of the suburbs into the countryside.
That'll up the word count a bit! Er - I mean, yes, and it leads on to - quick, Art, a picture!
Sherlock Holmes 1912 iteration
If we skip forward a few decades then another detective crops up, this one a rather nosy old lady, long retired, friends all dead, never married and with no hobbies to divert her. Enter Miss Marple!
“There is a great deal of wickedness in village life.”
" In an English village you turn over a stone and have no idea what will crawl out."
You may be starting to get the idea. Conrad is now going to introduce "The Good Place", a comedy of unusual with and depth. Since it finished years ago, I don't care if what follows includes spoilers. Art!
Conrad has seen a few episodes and can recommend it. The central conceit is that the people you see above are dead and in the afterlife, which appears to be paradise. 'Appears'. The white-haired chap? That's Michael. He's the architect of TGP.
Except he's a demon in disguise, and TGP is a project being carried out on the borders of The Bad Place, to see if emotional and mental torture can make people suffer as much as the physical variety. Who knew!
Now - yes, only now! - we get to the meat of the matter, which is to say the BBC television series "Death In Paradise". This came to my attention this morning for no good reason. Art!
The conceit is fairly straightforward. A detective is sent from London to the fictional Caribbean island of St. Marie to investigate the murder of the island's sole detective. Upon solving it he is ordered to remain there.
That's the bare bones. This prog has been going for 13 seasons! They kill off the British detective and bring in a new one every few years, just to keep it fresh.
Your Humble Scribe counted 113 episodes. Let's do the maths. That number of episodes means 113 murders - perhaps more, there may be the odd serial killer amongst the culprits.
More maths. The murder rate in This Sceptred Isle is about 1 per 100,000 people per annum. The population of St. Marie is 10,000 and there are 8 episodes of DIP per annum, meaning 8 murders or 80 per 100,000. HOLY HECK! If this murder rate were replicated in the UK you'd see 53,600 murders!
I wouldn't call St. Marie 'Paradise', more like 'The Bad Place Masquerading As The Good Place'. They should emulate the Isle Of Man, which has 0 murders, but less exotic scenery. Art!
Mightier Than Swords
For no very good reason - see Intro above - Your Humble Scribe decided to dig out his fountain pens and start using them again, because he's been doing an awful lot of writing over the past year.
That was until it became clear that the ink had solidified in the nibs and reservoir. My two most expensive pens needed a good soaking. Art!
That lower tub has the pen I reserved for use with red ink. There is no longer any red ink in the Sekrit Layr. To be honest I don't know if you can even buy red ink any more. W H Smiths here I come this weekend.
At least I know what anecdote to regale my fellow workers with on Wednesday.
Here's One I Made Earlier
Conrad is prettttty certain that there won't be any Trump fans reading this blog, because we make no secret of our loathing for the Toxic Tangerine Toad. So - you may Comment if you dislike. Just don't expect me to pay attention. Art!
Yes, one of these is a monster, and the other one is a tricky exercise in special effects*.
"City In The Sky"
Things are getting very, very tricky aboard the spacecraft "Pangolin"
‘There’s no choice. I go,’ said
Barclay, his normally pale features even paler.
‘I wouldn’t trust you or Mona to physically emplace or direct a
solid-fuel rocket.’ He looked at
Kurt. ‘And Kurt hasn’t killed twenty
three people.’
His parting chat with Davy had been an update on the infection: twenty
three dead, with another dozen seriously ill to the point of being at risk of
dying. He couldn’t go back to face that,
knowing he was the biggest killer in the sphere’s history. Taking a deep breath, he hurried on.
‘Ace, you need to use the arms to drill a hole to emplace a booster,
dead centre of this rock’s forward axis.
While you do that I’ll EVA with the boosters and a drill.’
Without waiting for any argument, he snapped his helmet shut and
unstrapped from his seat, clumping awkwardly to the airlock and cycling to the
outside, where the matt blackness sparkled with stars and moon and earthlight.
Shaking his head at what looked like a bleak poetic skyscape, he lowered
himself down the leg rungs and retrieved a rock drill and the Australian lad’s
wire netting before opening up a service bin and bundling three boosters and
his other kit into the netting. Then he
opened up his suit’s jets for the brief, terrifying journey from Pangolin to
the giant rock, adjusting his posture to manage a creditable feet-first
landing.
The Trojan Horse?
A Man After My Own Heart
Conrad responded to a poster on Twitter, who bemoaned that supposed media pundits were unable to properly identify warships. I came back with the following:
You think you have it bad? <picture of M2 Bradley> "THIS IS A TANK" <picture of Krab> "THIS IS A TANK" <picture of M113> "THIS IS A TANK" picture of Challenger II "THIS IS AN ARMOURED CAR".
What did I just find on Twitter? Art!
 |
| An M10 Booker |
FYI the M2 Bradley is an Infantry Fighting Vehicle, the Krab is a Self-Propelled Gun and the M113 is an Armoured Personnel Carrier. Conrad is unfamiliar with this 'Booker' vehicle and will investigate further. I'll let you know.
Finally -
I think that's it. Time to wield a fountain pen again!
* From John Carpenter's "The Thing", quite possibly the most frightening documentary ever made.
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