Serendipity And Other Oddments

As You Ought To Be Aware

We here at BOOJUM! have been whanging on about THUNDER of late, and yes, this Intro is going to continue that theme.  Not for the whole of today's blog, that would amount to cruel and unusual punishment.

     Well, what did I come across on Twitter? 

     I had to Snip the conversation as it wouldn't allow me to copy and paste, but how eerie is that?  Yes, we did mention Jupiter and his clutch of thunderbolts, as described in my "Brewer's Dictionary Of Phrase And Fable".  Art!

Sadly sans sonics

     This is from Saturday afternoon, and you'd be forgiven for thinking it was from November or January, not late May.  If you look closely then the streaks of hail can be discerned.  What you can't hear are the repeated steely peals of thunder, because this was a proper storm.  As you get in the British summertime.

     STOLEN THUNDER: meaning to forestall or pre-emptively imitate another, kinda like getting your retaliation in first.  According to Brewer's the phrase comes from one John Dennis, who invented a device for mimicking the sound of thunder on stage, for this was long before the days of television or even radio.  1709, in fact.  Art!

     Dennis wrote the play "Appius And Virginia", which was miserably unsuccessful and didn't run for long.  Dennis, whilst watching a performance of "The Scottish Play" (for it brings bad luck to say the name "MacBeth" out loud), heard his own device being used to imitate the sound of thunder.  His exclamation "The villains will play my thunder but not my plays!" was heartfelt but too prosy, hence the 'To steal someone's thunder'.  Art!

     "When shall we three meet again, in thunder, lightning or in rain?" <cue noise of thunder>.  Yes I can quote wholesale from the Dog Buns! play because we had to study it for English 'O' Level, which explains my loathing of the Barf Of Avon.

     ROLLING THUNDER: Or, more correctly, Operation Rolling Thunder.  This was the South Canadian air offensive against North Vietnam, which ran from 1965 to 1968, at which point it was scaled back.  Art!

Watch out, Chicken Little

     It was tremendously destructive yet not effective, partly because the South Canadians had a whole booklet of limitations and restrictions to observe, and partly because the North Vietnamese built up an enormous air-defence network.  Guns, missiles, radar and interceptor jets, all from the Sinister Union, who were probably happy to see how their kit performed in the real world.

     "THUNDERDOGS": Conrad used to have this as a comic, and it may still be lurking in some corner of my Comic Cave.  Art!

     Sorry, can't remember anything about it, given that I've only read it once, and that about thirty years ago.

     THUNDERDOGS: A novelty to Your Humble Scribe, this appears to be a computer game for children.  Not only have I never played it, I never intend to, either, because that's the kind of curmudgeon I am.  Art!

     Because only dogs can pilot, or something.  One wonders how they cope, not having mutually-opposable digits or a larynx fitted for speech.  "BARK HOWL YIP YIP YIP" means "BOMBERS AT TWELVE O'CLOCK HIGH", in case you were curious.

     Just to wrap all things thundery up, let us finish this Intro with a picture encapsulating sound.  Art!

     NO!  The BAND is called 'Imagine Dragons'.  Sheesh.  Next!

More Of Ol' Jeffers

That's Professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld to you.  Finky asked him about how the Ruffian economy has changed since the start of the Special Idiotic Operation.  Jeff's response was that it's moved to 'Gosplan', which was the old Sinister ministry responsible for central economic planning back in the day.  Effectively the Ruffian economy has been sent back 30 years, in a bad way, because Gosplan didn't work.  Art!

     Hatchet-faced Harry here is in fact Andrei Belousov, the new Minister For Defence ("Defence" is defined in Ruffia as getting your retaliation in first).  He has exactly 0% military experience, as Jeff pointed out; he's been appointed by Putin because Bunker Grandad is worried about the economy, as well he might be.  I've got a "Joe Blogs" transcript lined up about that.

     Jeffers also poured scorn on the "Sullivan Model" approach to Ruffia, which is not to press too hard in case the nation collapses.  Tiptoe-on-eggshells diplomacy.  The Prof impishly suggested a Ruffian collapse would be a good thing - "Chechen separatists?  A nice problem to have!"  Art!

This is not an impossibility.  Remember, the 1905 Revolution in Ruffia was triggered by their defeat in the Russo-Japanese War.

"The War Illustrated Edition 188"

Conrad is debating whether to walk down to Lesser Sodom or not, as I cannot be sure the buses are running at all, let alone on a Sunday schedule.

     ANYWAY let us have a picture, Art Department!

     Yes, there really was a Canadian army, Vulnavia.  It's nice to see them get a bit of credit, as the Canuckistanians are too modest to toot their own trumpet.  Be aware that these men are all volunteers who could have stayed back on the farm or in the factory.  In the first photo you can see a South Canadian Sherman tank, and South Canadian M3 half-tracks.  The more diminutive carriers may well have been made in Canuckistan, as they churned out tens of thousands of these 'tracked Jeeps'.  You can't see any stripes on the uniforms in the lower photo, but given that two of the soldiers are toting Sten guns, I'd expect them to be NCOs.

"City In The Sky"

We jump in narrative perspective here, from Arcology One to the Australian littoral.

     Davy glanced at his Tab and realised that he felt gravity for the first time ever.  Genuine gravity, not centripetal force – and they were now two hours into the descent.  And intact.  He turned to face the others around him, still not able to take in the fact that they were all alive.

     ‘The hard part is over,’ he said, thinking aloud.  ‘And  - and we’re all still alive.’

     ‘Yeah,’ agreed one of the mathematics staff.  ‘Except Doctor Smith insisted we come down directly over you know who.’

     ‘I have faith,’ said Davy.  ‘He’s done everything he claimed to be able to do.  He said - on the Tab – that he’d stop the Lithoi attacking us.’

     Privately Davy wondered how the diminutive wonder-worker would manage such a feat.  Doctor Smith didn’t seem keen on mayhem or murder and just how could he tackle planet-killing aliens when he was armed with little but his wits and curious sonic beam device (hardly a weapon!)?

 

     Tracking down Alex wasn’t easy.  He had been escorted away on the fishing smacks together with the other residents of New Eucla, landed well to the west and then moved on to smaller townships along the coast.  The Doctor landed the TARDIS at Barralonga and made enquiries about a “Starman”, whom everyone recognised.  The five people who he enquired of all told the same – that the young stranger had been sent further to the east, with the remaining Euclan refugees, and was it true about monsters from outer space trying to blow up the planet

     Chinese whispers, hmmmm?

More Interstellar Ships!

Hmmm well not, perhaps, quite the 'ship' you were expecting.  This is the 'Andromeda 141S', more a kind of probe than a craft.  Art!

     Designed by the Initiative For Interstellar Studies (UK) in 2016.  Art!

     The idea behind this device is that it's propelled by a laser beam that originates on Earth or in orbit, and which provides the motive power.  I had to read a long article about the project to determine that it's about 4 inches wide and 5 inches long - what the designers called 'gram-scale', or very small and lightweight.  It would be accelerated up to 0.1c and take about 50 years to reach the Alpha Centauri system.  Art!

     That's the trouble with these projects, they take so long to run that nobody who was involved in the first place will be alive to see them come to fruition.