If I Were To Say R.E.M.

Your Response Would Vary

A significant minority of you would get a lightbulb moment, and exclaim "Rapid Eye Movement", which is a stage of sleep in Hom. Sap. where one's eyes whiz about beneath the eyelids, denoting dreams.  Or nightmares. 

     The rest of you would also nod and suck your teeth and claim to have seen R.E.M. performing "South Central Rain" on "The Tube" way back in the Eighties, as I did.  Yes, R.E.M. the band.  Art!

     They had the good grace to break up in 2011 and have avoided the Cashing-In Reformation And Tour syndrome that afflicts so many bands long past their glory days.  Why do I mention them?  Because we are going to feature one of their songs in this Intro.  Art!

     NO!  We are not going on about 'Rockville', at least not today.  Art!

     Okay, I lied, we are going to do a smidgeon about Rockville.  It's a real place, being a city in Maryland, South Canada.  It was voted '20th best place to live in the USA', so you can see why R.E.M. don't want anyone going back there, because that would spoil it for the residents and new arrivals.

     ANYWAY we are looking at "Catapult", and let's pull up a collection of lyrics.

We were little boys, we were little girls

You can tell this is an old song, they don't mention 'non-binary'

It's nine o'clock, don't try to turn it off

How do you turn off the t - O I see!  Unplug the alarm clock.  Right.

Cowered in a hole, open your mouth

This sounds like a drill for protecting against atomic attack.  

Just 30 years behind the times

Did we miss anything, did we miss anything

Yes, quite a lot, actually.

Did we miss anything, did we miss anything

You chose to hide in a hole.

Catapult (catapult), catapult

Catapult (catapult), catapult

     That last chorus is what this Intro is about, in case you were wondering when we'd get to the meat of the matter.  This morning, you see, Your Humble Scribe woke up and bethought himself "Vindolanda", which is a neat trick because I'd also thought it on Friday but neglected to make a note about it.  Art!

It's a Roman fort

     Then I bethought "Catapult", as that seemed a likely theme to introduce the last holdover from "The War Illustrated Issue 187".  Well, I'd already covered Catapults as a theme a couple of years ago, which means I can't do another Intro on the same subject, because we do have rules here, and this is one of the two.

BOOJUM!: We Have A Theme! (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

     There you go, a link to 02/07/2022.  There's no song lyrics there, just to be clear.  Art!

     There you go, another British invention: the aircraft carrier.  As you may be aware if you clicked on that link, aircraft were launched from these mobile marine monsters by catapult.  The catapults in question were steam-powered, which was inefficient yet all they had at the time.  Art!

     The catapult would accelerate the aircraft to speeds of perhaps 100 m.p.h. which the unassisted plane alone couldn't manage given the constricted length of the flight deck.

     How do you think these catapults were designed and tested?  Art!

     Say hello to 'Flying Flossie'.  This was a giant steel tank on wheels, shaped like a boat, which was filled with water to the value of several tons.  Not out of whimsy and to make a bigger splash: the weight mimicked that of different planes to be launched by catapult.  What you see above is Fearless Ferrous Flossie being accelerated to 70 m.p.h. and becoming airborne, shortly to crash into the sea and be recovered by a waiting tug.  This process is still used today and we recently posted stills from a video clip where a South Canadian aircraft carrier shot a modern FF off the deck, seeing it skip merrily across the bay until hitting the opposite shore.  Art!

     The difference here is that FF is being accelerated by an electromagnetic catapult, a quantum level up from the humble steam one.  The South Canadians, with no sense of poetry about them, simply call these 'sleds' or 'deadloads'; yes, accurate enough yet devoid of the charm of a "Flying Flossie".

     I think that's enough about catapults.

"The War Illustrated Edition 188"

Okay, Flying Flossie was the last hurrah of Edition 187, so let us now grace the pages of BOOJUM! with the cover illo of 188.  Art!

          This is Kingie flying the flag in Italy, which, ever since D-Day on the 6th of June, had become rather the orphan in terms of news and publicity and press attention.  Having Georgie Porgie HIS MAJESTY THE KING pay a visit to the front lines would have cheered the chaps up considerably and worried his bodyguards equally so.  There's always the chance of a stray round or shell intersecting with the Monarch.  Note the date: September 1st, meaning this shot would have been taken two weeks earlier, because you don't give your opposition up-to-date info about what you're doing or intend to do.

Less Than Lethal?

Not a few of the weapons in the webpage I bookmarked appear to be expensive toys for men who want to play soldiers or Dirty Harry.  Everyone's gotta have a dream.  Or a nightmare.  Art!

     This is the "Streetwise Mini Barbarian Stun Gun", though to Conrad's eyes it bears more than a passing resemblance to one of the trench coshes of the First Unpleasantness.  This device has a torch function NOT THAT KIND OF TORCH YOU PYROMANIAC which allows you to see in the dark, and is also a stun gun.  'Baton' is a closer description, especially as the blurb states that, if your attacker shrugs off the electrical charge, you can use the 14" device as a simple truncheon.  Art!

     This one will only stun a person if you hit them hard enough, nor will it cast a light unless you dip it in oil and set it alight.

"City In The Sky"

The Lithoi really are a bunch of cads.  Compare and contrast with Ace and Captain Kirwin.

     Utilising the inter-departmental spy circuit, Arkan 22 felt justified in watching his disloyal subject.  Orskan had put forward several reasons why they ought to abandon the project, desert Earth and forget ever being paid for having carryied out 99% of The Contract.  Now he tried to attach the loyalty of the lesser minions to himself with false praise for completing one of the flying eyes!

     Insufferable!  One could not allow the lesser castes to presume, to anticipate elevation from their more prosaic position.  Orskan was treading dangerous ground.  His reputation and status rested on his technical qualifications and experience.

    

      ‘I said, I saw a track on your super-duper wonder binoculars,’ complained Ace.  No word of a lie, out there in the far distant Nullarbor Plain, a fantastically-flying trace had flitted and darted across the digital dispay for severeal minutes before vanishing, like a flourescent moth suffering from Saint Vitus’ dance.  Of course, when Kirwin came to examine the lenses and display, there was nothing to see.

     ‘It wasn’t an insect close to the lens?’ she asked, to a hostile shake of the head from Ace.

     ‘No.  In fact it had all the appearances of a flying eye, for your information.’  She enlarged when her temper cooled enough.  ‘It manoeuvred like a robot, and yes I’ve seen enough of them operating to know what one looks and behaves like.’

     This fan fiction seems to have been written before drones were a thing.

What You Don't Often See

Conrad is, essentially, a nosy rascal.  I regret not getting a photograph in The Spindles Centre last week when one side of the exit escalator had been closed for repairs, meaning the whole of the metal stairway had been removed.  Likewise, I enjoy having a gander at the inside of a cashpoint - what our South Canadian cousins call an 'ATM' - when they are occasionally open to view as a technician repairs them.  This is a dodgy pastime as there will always be  Security hanging around, and they take a dim view of anyone peering closely, let alone taking photographs.  Art!

     Lo! take a gander at a gas boiler before the fascia goes on.  There's an awful lot of paperwork to be done with these bits of kit, because amateur installations are prone to - well, to blow up and demolish the house, if you really need to know.  Art!

     The sad forlorn remnants of the old boiler, shortly before it was sent to a better place.

Finally -

There isn't a photo yet, so you'll just have to take it on trust that I did the Sunday Stew today, on a Saturday.  In fact I need to go downstairs and box it up.  

     Laterz!