No Stratospheric Zombies Today
No, we're not following the exploits of Doug and Tony as they whizz around to various studio locations on the 20th Century lot, intercut with clips from other films with far bigger budgets. Yes, "Time Tunnel" I'm looking at you. Art!
Conrad, of course - obviously! - loved this show as a kid, and you can never go back, because now his fusion-powered pumping unit wonders why Project Tic-Toc had such an enormous underground base, hidden away in Arizona. It was, allegedly, 800 floors deep and staffed (actually in 1967 they would have said "manned" without blushing) by 12,000 people. Yet the important bit was on a single floor and involved only half a dozen people, plus whichever guest star they had on retainer that week. Art!
Hmmmmmm seems familiar .....
Also, it only cost $7.5 billion to create and run for ten years, which seems like incredibly efficient budgeting to us now.
ANYWAY let us not digress any further, for what I wanted to hammer keys about today was a far more prosaic tunnel, set in the incredibly prosaic environs of Glasgow. If you want down-to-earth, Glasgow's yer city. Art!
This is a 'rotunda', which is probably Latin for 'round', and two of these graced the cobbled streets of Glasgow in the year of our Laird 1890, at Finnieston and Mavisbank Quay. Okay, there's your first use of time, going back 134 years.
These round buildings gave access to not one but three tunnels, two of which were for horse transport - the motor car being a distant dream on the horizon at this point - and another for pedestrians, because what hydrographic feature traverses this Venice Of The North? Art!
The River Clyde.
Not only is the Clyde large, fast-flowing, cold and wet, it is deep as well and only a champion swimmer would dare try to do the breaststroke across it; mere mortals would be advised to take a boat. No, they couldn't fly, there were no heavier-than-air craft in 1890. Art!
The tunnels were never quite waterproof, which must have made the journey for pedestrians extra-specially exciting, wondering if the walls would give way at any moment. This was only after they'd dared the rather rickety-looking wooden support structures that allowed access to the foot-traffic tunnel, which the BBC News website shows in all it's glory. Art!
From 1960, more time references
Vehicle tunnels visible at bottom to port and starboard. Those might be cobbles or setts, given that the initial traffic was all horse-drawn. The pedestrian tunnel, for all that it leaked slightly, exhibits typical Victorian craftmanship. No, no women involved, sorry about that, those Vickies were even less politically-correct than secret military installations of the Sixties. Art!
As you can see, traffic has declined. In fact the foot-traffic tunnel has long been closed to foot, or feet, and only important people get to go down into it. You see that pipe at starboard? That carries drinking water, and it needs inspecting to ensure there are no holes, or the problem of leaks might escalate somewhat. Art!
Told you so!
Just Putting This Out There
<whistles nonchalantly>
It seems to go up $1.28 cents ever second. Or, if you like, about $4,500 since we started creating this iteration of BOOJUM!
Conrad Misunderstood
Ah yes, an easy mistake to make. Art!
Now, Your Humble Scribe thought that this was another re-telling of what military historians call "The Hundred Days", these being the last months of the Great War on the Western Front. This period, from August to November, saw a series of huge battles fought by the Allies against the bally Hun, all of which the Teutons lost and lost badly, forcing them to retreat and pretend that they were winning in reverse.
BUT NO!
Looking at the Introduction, Ol' Saul has instead chosen 100 days scattered across the whole of the war, focussing on each year. It'll be interesting to see which crucial dates he's chosen. Well, I say "interesting" when the rest of you would probably call it "cruel and unusual punishment".
"City In The Sky"
Davy and Vice President Waukegan are butting conversational heads.
Of all the accusations or warnings he might have made, this one was
guaranteed to be taken most seriously by
‘ “Compromised”? You think my
people Downstairs are double-agents? Why
not just accuse us up here in
Davy shook his head. This wasn’t
going well.
‘No, no, no. Your selection and
recruitment procedures were as strict as ours.
Nothing alien could have gotten aboard either of our spheres, robot or
no. And, because we were strict, no
alien trying to brainwash our crew got close enough.’
‘Enough of this horse-puckey, Davy.
I’ll call in one of my aides, they’ll give you a tour of the sphere,
then you can go back. No more talk of
aliens.’
Miss Martigan, who was an efficient and practical office worker and no
kind of ninja, came across a red flag when transcribing her notes into the
general sphere database.
“CAUTION!”
flashed her main monitor screen. “PERSON
OF INTEREST”, followed by highlighted text:
Doctor John Smith, Doctor
Smith. “REASON” followed by pages of
references to the big history datacore, with dates and times. She left her transcription to chase down a
randomly chosen date, April 14th 1977. In the abstract, a “Doctor John Smith” helped
repel an amphibious attack on the eastern shore of
Leaving footprints in the corridors of time, hmmmm? Where's a fella with a broom when you need him?
South Polar Tracking Station intruders
Hmmmm This Is An Interesting Event
You may not remember the name 'Jack Teixeira', which is real and not made-up at all, honestly, him being the idiot who decided to publicly disclose lots and lots of Top Secret documents. He was hit with charges of "unauthorized retention and transmission of national defense information in violation of the Espionage Act of 1917 and unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material"
Ooops. What was he thinking? Art!
I hope that's your lunch in there, matey
What made things realllllllly bad for Jack was that he deliberately and with intent retained them thar docs, because if it had been accidental he'd still have gotten prison time, just not so much of it. Apart from the hurling them into the public arena, as well.
What did he get? SIXTEEN YEARS. That's after changing his plea to guilty, which will have knocked off several years from the sentence.
Now, can we, by any stretch of the imagination, think of another person who might be found guilty of, you know, wilfully retaining Top Secret documents?
<whistles nonchalantly, again>
Finally -
I made another Clootie Dumpling yesteryon, with Sodium Bicarb instead of Baking Powder, commercially purchased breadcrumbs - a hell of a lot easier than making them oneself - and rather more dried fruit than the recipe called for, which had a nice long soak in boiling water to ensure they remained juicy in the pudding itself. No, you don't get a picture. Use your imagination, it's useful exercise.
Wonder Wifey misconstrued things when she espied the fruit soaking.
"Are they beans?"
No, O Esteemed Artisan, they are not beans. They are raisins and sultanas and mixed peel, all to go into a sweet suet pudding. Though I cut down the sugar to a couple of tablespoons instead of 4 ounces.
After all that, we'd better bring on a picture of a Clootie. Art!
Not, as WW thought, small dumplings to float in the Sunday Stew. An easy mistake to make.
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