If I Were To Say "WHIP IT!"

Not A Few Of You Would Be Confused

Whilst another subset would suck their teeth - oddly, I imagine a lot of you doing this much of the time - and nod, being only slightly less confused.  With a smaller subset giving a thumbs up, still confused but thinking they know the truth.  Which may not set you free, but can negotiate probation terms.

     ANYWAY what I am not talking about are Devo, that bunch of musical oddballs who emerged in the Seventies.  Art!

The hero as potato

     They were a very left-field lot, as you may be able to tell from the picture above, which lacks their trademark - er - 'hats'.  Against the odds, they had a hit single in 1980, peaking at Number 14 on the "Billboard" chart, which isn't as good as Number 1, but when you look like this - Art!

     It'll do.

     So, what, exactly, do I mean?

     Time for a tangent!  Art?

     This, ladies, gentlemen and those unsure, is Diktor Von Doomcock.  He is a supervillain bent on world domination (a noble intent but get in line!) who broadcasts from his secret base at the Earth's core.  His broadcasts are on Youtube and are a tad NSFW thanks to language, which he does warn about in a disclaimer.

     DVD's particular oeuvre is in reporting on pop culture, especially films, where he brings up his own analysis and the reports from supposed industry 'insiders', which he ALWAYS points out may be pure speculation, conjecture or downright lies.  Conrad has seen several of his vlogs, which are entertaining -  Art!

The 'Skull of Calderon' that allows him to do a British accent.  Because all talking skulls have a British accent.

     DVD took credit for sabotaging the release date of "Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny", because he passed on the intent of the writers to kill Indy in ancient Greece, then replace him with Pointy-Pointy.  Conrad rather suspects that the appallingly bad test scores the film got is why the delay.

     ANYWAY DVD mentioned that "Forbes" has an article on I5, and went into details about production budgets.  So - Art!

From whence today's title derives

     Conrad promptly went straight to the article, which provided a fascinating and little-known insight into studio film finance.  Normally studios like Disney avoid giving out any detailed information about their film's fiscal performance, because knowledge is power.  However - O how I love that word! - if a film is shot in the UK then along with the tax perks, the studios have to also file full budget breakdowns for the film itself, which have just been lodged for I5.

     Oooops.

     It's not good.  The last time the books were opened was a year ago, which meant all the post-production costs were omitted.  When we say 'post-production' this also includes reshoots, which are always hugely expensive and these have been revealed in the 2024 audit - $79 million dollars on top of a $308 million production budget.  So I5 cost £387 million BEFORE promotion and advertising, for which add another $100 million (at least).  The bottom line is a loss of about $234 million, making Disney studio executives look as if they took business lessons from Donald Judas Trump himself.  Art!

     Yes I say, Hastings Ismay.  One bunch of people who will be gleefully taking notes are the "South Park" crew, busily sharpening their pitchforks and tarring their torches.

The Stand And Deliver

Tee hee, fooled you all, I really meant "The Stand", possibly Stephen King's finest work, and Number Two on Mike's list of "My Top 10 Dystopian and Post-Apocalyptic Novels of All Time" on his Youtube channel "Mike's Book Reviews".  Art!

No, I don't know either

     With this novel, you experience the apocalypse as it happens, and it's an offspring of the global plague epidemic in "I Am Legend", but with a larger number of people naturally immune to a species of engineered superflu.  The edition I have above has a lot of excised text added in, when it had originally been edited for reasons of length.

     I have seen the original television series, and believe there's a more recent one that may bear witness.

     For all those who really want Good versus Evil delivering Armageddon.  Highly recommended.

Splendid role model!

""The War Illustrated"

We've not had one of these for a while, as there have been other internecine items and illustrations on the blog, and you can definitely have too much of a good thing.  Art!

     That first photograph illustrates the weakness of a long line of defences along a coast; once breached widely enough at a single point, the whole length becomes redundant straight away.  The defending garrisons either retreat or get cut off, and then some wag like 'Sgt. Savage' and his 'Chindits' move in and make themselves comfortable.  There don't seem to be any signs of battle apparent here, so it's entirely possible the enormous concrete fortification was created and manned and armed to absolutely no point.

     The infantry section at bottom are carrying out what infantry have done since time immemorial: patrolling.  The chap looking towards the camera is keeping his eyes peeled for unpleasantly proximate Teutons, whilst his officer (identifiable by the pistol) and other members look keenly ahead for other Teutons.

"City In The Sky"

Ace is somewhat forlornly pondering how mundane being an agricultural serf is, though there are positives.

     Being one of the manual agricultural peons instead of a daring rocket-rider had a downside: the upside was that you would definitely live to see the next five minutes.  The downside was that your bunk wasn’t your own.  “Hot-bunking” meant that in an environment starved of room you only had a bed or a bunk or a desk for eight hours a day, and that two other people would be using it when you were absent on a labour detail and you had better hope that they were hygienic in a way that you understood –

     The hairs on the back of her neck stood up, as did those on her arms.  What - ?

     A flush of adrenaline kicked in, and Ace rolled out of her bunk to the floor below in the pose of a ninja.  A startled and puzzled ninja.

     ‘The TARDIS!’ she yelped.  ‘Prof, I take it all back!’

     She was out of her accommodation at Bedford before the timeship’s strange metallic wheezing  finished echoing over the hazy sphere interior. 

     Honestly, that girl.  Adrenaline junkie!

Justice Prevails!

 You can hardly have been reading the blog for any length of time without hearing Conrad refer to the mighty Joe Blogs, who has a Youtube channel - you may be ahead of me here - called "Joe Blogs".

     Recently Joe's channel was hacked and he had cyber-squatters sitting in possession, shilling for a crypto-scam.  Youtube's clumsy answer was to delete all content off his channel - meaning 1,000 hours of content gone.  Art!

     This was a real smack in the chops for Joe, as this channel is his earner, and it had taken him three years to build it up into a monetary success.

     Fortunately normal service has been resumed.  Your Humble Scribe will be interested to discover who was responsible and why.  THEN WE WILL RAIN THUNDERBOLTS ON THEIR HEADS.

Well What Do You Think?

There's a rather leading sidebar item on the BBC News webpage.  If Art will put down the anthracite cookies -

     Conrad wonders himself, as there were hideously smelly chocolate biscuits being prepped in the kitchen a couple of nights ago, and it was ghastly.  

     Thus I don't think working in a chocolate factory will ever be on the cards for me.  I also imagine it would rapidly pall for those who thought it would be a dream job, able to scoff as much chocolate as they could physically ingest.  After putting on a couple of stone, acquiring bad skin and incipient diabetes, the dream job would probably take on the aspects of a nightmare.

Finally -

The rains have parted and I can see the horizon again!

     Must be a sign, time to go do the weekly shop I reckon.  Pip pip!