How Evocative Is That Phrase "The Invaders!"

No, I'm Not Recycling An Old Post

Yesteryon's Intro was about the Giant Hogweed, described as an 'Invasive species', which is no surprise as it originated in Ruffia.  There you go, cheap laugh at the expense of Putinpot.

     Now that we've got that out of the way, let us make no bones that this Intro is about alien invaders.  Aliens from another galaxy!  Art!

     Conrad was vaguely aware of this series when it was originally broadcast in 1968 & 1969 in This Sceptred Isle, thanks to a friend's father explaining the plot.  Our televisual paths didn't cross until the Eighties, when it was re-broadcast on BBC2, and I made an attempt to watch them all.  Art!

     

     You'll need a bit of background to make sense of what follows.  Okay, that chap above is architect David Vincent - possibly the only time such a career has featured in sci-fi - who is driving late at night, is extremely tired and takes a wrong turning.  He witnesses the descent of a Fifties-style flying saucer, which is his 'in'.  He gradually comes to realise that aliens masquerading as Hom. Sap. are infiltrating all across North America, in a slow and subtle invasion.  Art!

HE'S ONE OF THEM!

     There's a lot of nuance to the show.  Vincent is originally the target for alien assassination, but they fail several times and then give up on direct methodology, given that murdering him will only prove his case.  After that they try to divert and defeat him with ridicule, slander and mockery.  

     Then you have 'The Authorities', variously the police, the South Canadian Air Force, NASA and others.  They are all initially skeptical, as well they might be when dealing with a man ranting about alien invaders.  However - O that word again! - in several episodes individuals in such agencies are eventually convinced that Vincent is onto something.  Art!

Like this chap

     Over time The Authorities adopt a two-face approach to Vincent; publicly they ridicule him and lambast his perceived loonwafflery; privately they are very concerned and invite him to sit in on their counsels as an expert witness.  Such behaviour helps to convince The Invaders that their secrets are safe.

     When it comes to The Invaders themselves, they aren't all cookie-cutter slavering monsters.  For one thing, there appears to be a distinct caste system amongst them, with the servile peons only getting the most basic Hom. Sap. simulacrum - they have no emotions or pulse, don't bleed and their little finger is rigid and useless.  Someone cheaped out in body-design.  Art!

     Just to make Vincent's job harder, not all of the minions have this distinctive digit, and don't forget there are plain ordinary Hom. Sap. who have sound medical reasons for not being able to bend their little finger.

     The higher-caste simulacrums are able to bend that finger, and can manage to approximate human emotions, too.  In fact this application of an emotional template has gone wrong on occasion, leaving a simulacrum with dangerously unstable behaviour.  At least one alien sided with Hom. Sap. in believing that the invasion was morally wrong.  

     Part of the tension present in the show was that Vincent could never be sure who, amongst the people he walks with, are aliens as opposed to plain ordinary Hom. Sap.  Art!

     Here we have possibly the coolest bit of the show.  How, as an invading alien species, do you prevent your secret from getting out when your minions peg out after being shot, electrocuted, burnt or run over?  You cannot allow their bodies to be subject to an autopsy or the game would be over within days if not hours.

     So, amongst the processes that create a simulacrum, is one that causes their bodies to instantly disintegrate upon death, as seen above.  Nothing but a few wisps of ash remains, and good luck analysing even that if it's windy.  Art!

     I've seen the two-season box set going on Amazon for a mere £25, and next Friday is payday, so we shall see, we shall see -

     We will be coming back to this topic, so brace yourselves.

     

This One Went Down Well

"Anton Gerashchenko" over on Twitter posted a bizarre picture of mothers and babies in a 'Stroller' competition in Magadan, a Ruffian provincial town.  Conrad, as ever, felt compelled to interject a bit of cruel mockery.  Art!

Robert Connolly

@ConradConnolly

This will be leading the May Day Victory Parade in 2025.

      About 92 'Likes' so far, so it seems to have struck a chord.  Ol' Ant couldn't quite believe what he was seeing, but we here at BOOJUM! have seen far weirder stuff.

"The War Illustrated Edition 189"

Conrad wonders what they were printing in August 1940 and 1941?  Because there wasn't a whole lot of good news abroad in Europe.  North Africa was another matter ent

     ANYWAY - Art!

     You might think that this cheerful bunch are a bunch of British tommies looking forward to a wet and a wad, and you'd be WRONG.  They are Polish troops of their 1st Armoured Division, and they are celebrating giving the Teutons a right shoeing at Falaise, where they got their own back for the Battle of the Bzura River in 1939.  Note the white horse 'liberated' from a Teuton transport column.  Art!

     A Teuton field cemetery.  Sic transit gloria mundi, you might say.  The British appear to have left it alone; if 1st Polish Armoured Division were to pass this way one of their tanks might experience a sudden loss of control .....

"City In The Sky"

Ace and 'Jack', the dingo that has apparently adopted her, are examining a ghastly scattering of dead Lithoi in their human robotic 'transports' that the dingoes have wreaked a cruel revenge on.

The Prof, she mused, would understand what Jack was up to in about ten seconds flat, and then he’d be able to joke about it in fluent dingoese and translate the jokes back into English.  She felt puzzled and dumbstruck.  Did this display have a point?

     Work it out! whispered her conscience, that same conscience that prompted her whenever she came across an intellectual puzzle.  Before meeting her Professor Charming she’d never have dared to venture any kind of mental mapping; today her imagination took flight.

     Twenty-seven of the alien spies and manipulators.  Twenty-seven.  New Eucla had been infested by only one alien, and that an erratic visitor.

     Ah! She understood.  The dingoes had killed every infiltrating alien spy across the whole littoral, from New South Wales to South Australia.  Not only that, they’d dragged the festering carcasses here across hundreds of kilometres of desert.  No wonder some of the bodies looked as if they’d been groomed inside a concrete mixer!

     Next question was, why did the dingoes do this?

     ‘Duh!’ she intoned, hitting herself on the head.  ‘To show what they’ve been up to.’  She pointed at Jack.  ‘You lot want credit for killing off the Lithoi spies, don’t you!’

     Credit and a jelly-baby or two wouldn't go amiss, one suspects.

Technical Matters Resolved

Allow me to gloast a bit as I put up the Traffic figures from Blogger.  Art!

     I think these are valid figures.  Yes, they are higher than the totals for early 2024, which is quite possibly due to Your Humble Scribe Twittering heavily of late, far more often than I used to.  Well, it stops me spending all my time reading Youtube Reddit stories about Nuclear Revenge and the like.  Also - 

     This is the picture selector, which had reverted to the old iteration, which also meant I couldn't merely highlight text and then change colour, because that didn't work.  Instead I had to copy and paste it into Word and then do the colour change before pasting it back to Blogger.

Finally -

Conrad had no idea that England were playing Denmark in - er - ah - the ballfoot thing that's happening in Europe right now, whatever it's called.  Our team's fingers were crossed that we'd get an early finish to go watch 'the game' (stop me if I get too technical), which alas never happened.

     No, I've no idea what the score was nor do I care.  What I do care about is that I forgot to get sugar-free Polos yesteryon, which very probably means a trip into Lesser Sodom on Saturday morning.

Mai Tarziu!

How Evocative Is The Phrase "Invasive Aliens"!

I Know What You're Thinking

NO!  I keep telling you, the D.A.R.P.A. Telepathy Helmet got sent back to them last year from our - er - 'unofficial long-term borrow' that was absolutely not stealing.  No, I know what you're thinking because I'm clever.  Art!

     YESSSS!  I've been after that aliens shot from "Land Of The Giants" for years.  As for the picture of a tank being blasted to bits - hmmmm.  LOTG was set in a variety of South Canada in the Fifties, so they can get away with having a BRITISH Centurion tank on the cover.  Alternate histories and all that.

     ANYWAY this is exactly what you were expecting, which of course - obviously! - is not what you're going to get.  Instead we will be travelling far afield and close to home.  Art

     This Tweet cropped up today and was warning any visitors to Ukraine about the plant this young lady is so incautiously mucking about with, because O my! is she going to regret walking into that clump of weeds and wrestling with one of them.  The locals are well aware of it and steer clear.

     What is it?  'Heracleum Mantegazzianum', better known as the 'Giant Hogweed'.  Conrad put in his two-pence worth on the Tweet, labelling it as more akin to Mustard Gas In Plant Form than anything green and pleasant.

     It was native to Southern Ruffia until samples of it were sent from their Royal Gorenki Botanical Gardens to our very own RBGs at Kew, from where they were transplanted out to other gardens as a decoration.

     The Royal Horticultural Society then classifies the Hogweed as 'escaping' from confinement - or captivity - in 1828, when it began to spread up and down This Sceptred Isle.  They now regard it as an "Invasive Alien" so we are only getting our own back by supplying Stormzy.  Art!

     This is photodermatitis caused by skin contact with GH sap, and these chemical burns (caused by furanocoumarins) will suppurate for perhaps years and leave permanent scars.  Art!

     That's Peter Gabriel of prog-rockers Genesis back in the early Seventies, when they were good.  He's done up as a sunflower not a Giant Hogweed, but that's still Ukrainian enough to qualify.

     Why post this picture?  O I thought you'd never ask!

     Conrad is unsure how the Giant Hogweed tears through clothing and textiles, so we shall just put it down to poetic licence.

     Peter Gabriel, the lyricist, singer and be-costumed frontman for Genesis, had obviously - of course! - been reading "The Day Of The Triffids" when it struck a chord and he decided to write a song about the vengeance of plants.  Hence TROTGH where he also exercises poetic licence.  

Long ago in the Russian hills

Nope.  Not true.

A Victorian explorer found

Again, untrue, their importation pre-dates Vicky by 20 years

The regal Hogweed by a marsh

They do like boggy ground.  One point to Peter.

He captured it and brought it home

No he DIDN'T!  The Ruffians sent it over of their own accord.

     In Peter's fervid scenario, Hoggy seems to have become semi-sentient, waging war on the UK population because herbicides don't affect them.

     Who needs herbicides when you can simply use a flamethrower? For on

"WHO CALLED FOR A FLAMETHROWER!?"

     Dog Buns.  No, no, R. J., it's quite alright, we were only discussing a hypothetical issue.  Save your fuel.  

     <RJ departs, looking glum>

     I should be more careful, every time he turns up my insurance premiums double.

     ANYWAY Conrad did contemplate doing A Little Musical Critique of TROTGH but that would have trebled the length of this Intro.  Perhaps tomorrow. 

More Ships For The Stars

Thanks again to the "Interstellar Research Centre", who are very serious about the exploration of nearby solar systems using technology that is either current or about to be current.  Art!

     This, gentle reader, is the 'Icarus - Pathfinder', another robotic probe for interstellar sojourns, and we can see that it's following a general outline design.  First of all, a shield that protects the payload section immediately beneath it.  Art!

 

     Beneath that we have containers for fuel or reagents or catalysts or whatever novel substance is required to sustain a fusion engine.  Art!

     From the design this may be a second-stage for the 'Pathfinder' probe.  We can see the lower hull section which houses engines, presumably fusion in essence as this has been the motive power for most of these probes.  Art!

     With solar sails, which may be a braking mechanism, comms dish and a robotic arm for good measure, because I'm not sure what it's for.

     Colour me wrong!  I can't find any physical dimensions for the Pathfinder, only that it would weight 25 tons, which is a minnow compared to other designs.  The engine is a <deep breath> 'Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket'.  It uses radio waves to transform fuel pellets into plasma, which is then confined and used to propel the craft.  The 'target', which is not identified, is to be 1,000 astronomical units away and reached in 12.5 years.  Art!

          Or about 1/1000th of a light year.  So a pretty short-range job.  At least you're not counting on your grandchildren seeing it to fruition.

"City In The Sky"

Ace is following one of the preternaturally clever Nullarbor Plain dingoes to an unknown destination.

     ‘You’ve been gone a long time,’ she told him.  It wasn’t clear if the dingoes picked up actual words, or merely the tone behind them: Jack looked back over his shoulder and looked at her.

     He padded on, turning to look at her every few minutes, until he led her down a long sandy slope devoid of shrubs or grasses.  A strange array of parallel logs lay at the bottom, shrouded by shadows and scattered sands.

     Only when Ace got closer did she realise that the “logs” were actually corpses, and only when she got up to point-blank did she realise that the “corpses” were actually Lithoi robots housing dead Lithoi lizards.  She shut her eyes at the ghastly collection of mutilated bodies, then opened them when Jack began a trumpeting howl that ran around the depression.

     ‘Alright, alright!’ she snapped.  ‘What do you want, a jelly-baby?’

     Jack’s howl stopped instantly and he darted a look at her.  Ace damned her literalness, poked around in pockets and came up with a fluffy, months-old Kola Kube that she threw at the dingo, overarm (no girly underarm for her).  It was snatched in mid-air and devoured in a split second of glass-like scrunchings.

     She sat back on her haunches and watched Jack proudly canter amongst the -  and she counted to make sure – twenty seven dead Lithoi, all arrayed as if on a mortuary slab.  Yep.  That one’s insides were piled up next to it’s eviscerated bowels, and that one’s mangled head, looking like a battered chew-toy, perched atop the headless carcass.

   Ah, Kola Kubes, taunt me with what I cannot have!

Hello Ruffia, Taste These Apples!

Yes, this is naked gloasting, and Your Humble Scribe isn't going to bother being remotely apologetic or politically correct about it.  Art!

     <points and laughs>.

Talking About A Lack Of PC

Conrad is thoroughly enjoying "The Aeneid", which is now carrying out a flashback, as Aeneas tell Queen Dido of Carthage how Troy fell and what happened to him.  Art!

     This is Aeneas fleeing the sack of Troy, carrying his father Anchises on his back, because dad was a bit doddery in the legs.  The painter is taking a licence here, since Aeneas also held the hand of his son Ascanius, who was a mere toddler and needed help moving fast.

     Who is bringing up the rear, walking behind her husband as a dutiful wife of that time did?  None other than Creusa, Aeneas' spouse.  Inevitably, she goes missing and by the time he reaches the emergency rendezvous selected earlier, she is nowhere to be seen.

     Aeneas is distraught.  After all, who's going to do the cooking and laundry? help raise their son?  He puts himself in considerable peril searching for her since the city has not only been fired, it's full of hostile and aggressive Greek soldiery, who are probably looking for a cook and maid not to be trusted.  Art!

     He does meet her ghost shortly afterwards, which is closure of a sort.

     Our hero does explicitly state that there is no honour to be found in waging war against women, a concept clearly foreign to the Greeks, because - she's a ghost by this time.  The fools!  A spirit cannot roast a lamb or darn your robes.

Finally -

I am getting ahead of myself.  This is Friday's blog being composed on a Wednesday.

A One-Man Fan

Get Out Of Here With Your Political Correctness!

For one thing, the milieu we are examining today was exclusively male, and for another thing, women are entirely too sensible to entrust their lives to inherently dangerous machinery, which men, on the other hand, simply delight in.  Small boys grown larger not wiser and all that.  Art!

     No!  It's not a trampoline trampolining.  What you see is the South Canadian Navy's "1031 Flying Platform", date of performance 1955.  You see, there was a burst of activity amongst our trans-Atlantic cousin's military organisations in the later Fifties, all looking to give individual soldiers airborne mobility.

     The rather hokey rationale put forward by various entities on teh Interwebz is that a devolved unit structure would be necessary on the new nuclear battlefield, where large aviation assets such as airbases, pilots and helicopter squadrons would all have been annihilated by atomic attack.  Art!

Well, that's 18 helicopters and 54 aircrew up the spout

     Allow me to show you an isometric view of the 1031 FP.  Art!

     Clearly visible is the minute platform the soldier stood upon, which is still a platform.  To control it, matey leaned in the direction he wanted to go in.  Top speed was only 10 m.p.h. or less than a speedy bike rider, which they couldn't improve upon, and the project was scrapped in 1963.  O and that rotary blade arrangement is known as a 'Ducted Fan', which is where today's title comes from.  Art!

     This is the Williams "X-Jet" or "Wasp", another attempt to turn infantry into angels.  Or airborne.  One of the two.  This thing could motor along at 60 m.p.h. and climb to 10,000 feet, with a range of up to 20 miles, which sounds brilliant, and yet it wasn't proceeded with.  Why not?  Well, for one thing, it had the manoeuvrability of a pig on roller skates.  A drunken pig on roller skates.  Unit cost was extremely high, and the jet exhaust directed downwards risked cooking the pilot on takeoff or landing.  Art!

     This is the "Lackner Aerocycle", which was a real thoroughbred amongst these aerial fandancers.  It could manage 74 m.p.h. and in 1955 that meant it could outrun many cars.  It had a respectable range of 14 miles.  Why didn't it go into prodution?  Safety again, I'm afraid.  Look at those counter-rotating blades, spinning round at many hundreds of revolutions per minute (yes yes yes I could have put 'r.p.m. but word count), and also look at the lack of protection for the pilot.  He had to control the Blades-of-Death-Bird by leaning, so if he slipped he became human salami-sandwich filling.

     One thing these solo-man fans have is that they fly through the air, where there is neither concealment nor cover.  I don't doubt - actually I've just been on Youtube and confirmed - that yes, these things are EXTREMELY LOUD.  You might as well trail a giant banner reading SHOOT ME NOW.

     What has inspired Your Humble Scribe to cover this technology in an Intro?  O I thought you'd never ask!  Art!

     This is exactly what it looks lie: a man-carrying drone quadcopter, which clip was put up on Twitter as an example of being able to move a soldier (or more than one) across terrain by air not land.  Thus saving boot leather or something.  That hyphen is important or you'd be getting - Art!

     ANYWAY Conrad looks askance at yer big-boy drone.  Yes, it can carry a man.  Is it any use on the battlefield?  Rather dubious.  Once again you are out in the open with no protection.  Granted the motors may be electric, not internal combustion and therefore a lot quieter but I'd not want to chance my tender skin being hoisted aloft by one.

A Remembrance Of Things Past

Conrad was playing Athlete's "Tourist" CD for the first time in years at the weekend, which I think has provoked Youtube's algorithm to throw up a whole list of music videos from up to 15 years ago.  Art!

     "Yesterday Threw Everything At Me" is a real corker of a track, I'd forgotten how much I liked it.

     After four albums they called it a day in 2012 and even if they don't admit it, I think they broke up on extremely bad terms because there's never been a sniff of a reunion or a new album.

     Dog Buns.  "Tourist" is 19 years old.

Conrad Is ANGRY!

How d'you like that contrast?  I just felt like a change from the usual Screaming Scarlet.  Yes, we are banging on about Codeword solutions again, because I am entirely justified and am considering taking this to the ICC.  Let us proceed.

"DWEEB": Nothing in my "Collins Concise" so I've had to resort to teh Interwebz, which state "A boring, studious or socially inept person".  It is undeniably South Canadian argot that ought never to have crossed The Pond to pervert our language over here, although I am familiar with it thanks to <ahem> "Rude Dog And The Dweebs".  Art!

"RAITA": Yes yes yes, I got this one because I've eaten lots of Indian food in my time, thank you very much, and this is a side dish with a yoghurt base and salad vegetables.  Quite similar to the Greek dish tzatziki.  Art!

DO NOT USE FOREIGN RECIPE WORDS*!

"FONDU": Yeah, try solving a five-letter word that ends in "U" ta very much.  My CCD spells it correctly as "FONDUE" and their solution is the FRENCH spelling of the word.  Bah!  So much Bah!  Art?

More food.  I'm warning you.

DOG BUNS!

One of the people I follow on Twitter is "Spaghetti Kozak", whom had a promising Youtube channel that suddenly, post-SMO, stopped being updated.  It took me ages before putting two and two together and realising that he'd gone off to fight for Ukraine.  He'd posted vlogs of his visits to Kyiv on YT, he spoke Ukrainian and he'd served in the army so I ought to have made the connection quicker.  Art!

Spag and his incredibly ugly face.  Perhaps.

     He has a drinking game where he takes a swig for every internet troll and Krembot that tells him, if he loves Ukraine so much, why doesn't he go and fight there.  He might have to suspend it or his liver will quit.

     ANYWAY he posted this on Twitter tonight.  Art?

     Conrad, of course - obviously! - couldn't resist.

    Another Tweeter explained how it's a house centipede, is quite harmless to Hom. Sap. and eats up other, offensive creepy-crawlies.

     I see.

     BIOLAB ESCAPEE!

     Kill it before it carries off a small child!

"City In The Sky"

We now shift focus to the Australian communities on the southern coast, who are now going to witness the descent of Arcology One from orbit.

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT: Three By Nine

      A meeting of cultures, if not of minds, took place on the outskirts of New Eucla whilst the  Doctor and Orskan  were playing their deadly game of hide-and-seek in the Lithoi baseship.

     In accordance with their instructions, Alex and Terry had assembled everyone they could persuade, bamboozle, coerce or lie to, with transport and water and sunhats.  The Doctor had been big on sunhats for his own reasons. 

     This caravan of vehicles and horses stretched, creaking, clopping or rattling along, for half a mile, and it was a testament to the Doctor’s reputation that so many had turned up for a speculative mercy mission.  In a lying-up position to the west of Eucla, Ace and Kirwin had seen the approaching procession from their post outside the township.  At first they dismissed it as an unusually long trade convoy using the Eyre Highway, until it got closer and they realised the wagons and traps and silkies were empty.

     Their occasionally-present help and scout, the white-faced dingo leader that Ace had dubbed “Jack”, appeared at this most distracting moment and indicated it wanted at least one of the human pair to follow it.  Ace sighed, judged the approaching convoy to be at least ten minutes away and got up.

     Nope, sorry, no idea what that chapter title means.  The author was being deliberately obscure, I feel.

* Or I'll Remote Nuclear Detonate you.

Wire

With A Single-Word Title Like That

You know Conrad is going to be branching off in all directions, and you're entirely correct.  First of all, in our ruthlessly logical fashion, let us look at the word itself.  My "Collins Concise" defines 'Wire' as "A slender flexible rod or strand of metal", derived from the Old English 'Wĭr'.  Art!

     Wire, veterans of punk rock who grew and developed into a great deal more than two-chord wonders.

     ANYWAY let us move on, because this Intro won't write itself.  There was a South Canadian police procedural called "The Wire", which I have seen up to a point, notable because the lead actor is British.  Art!

Ha!  Take that, South Canadian thesps!

     In fact, in Season One a main villain was portrayed by one Idris Elba, whom is another British actor - two up on the South Canadian thesps.  Art!

Iddy - the next James Bond?

     ANYWAY we've gotten off-track there, an occupational hazard with the blog.  There's also another television title with 'Wire' in the title, the oddly-named "Wire In The Blood" which is another police procedural - come on, come on, when did creative originality crawl off and die? - about tracking down serial killers, who seem to be the UK's hottest export of late.

     Now, let us get to the real concern of this intro, which concerns wire, and in a rather ghoulish and sinister way.  Art!

     You see, the Ruffians in Ukraine are now reduced to riding around on motorbikes and Chinese golf buggies, and therein lies an analogy, going back 80 years to the Second Unpleasantness.  By the time the Allies were advancing into the land of the Teutons in early 1945 it was blatantly obvious even to the dimmest Nazi jack-in-office that they had lost the war.  Thus the gloves came off, and one of their less salubrious tricks was to string wire across roads at what would be head height for anyone riding a motorbike or in a Jeep.  Art!

    Here enter the wirecutter,  This was a simple vertical piece of angle iron welded or bolted to the vehicle chassis in order to prevent decapitation, with some having a bend in the metal which would guarantee to sever the wire.  These field-fitted devices are seen in "The Bridge At Remagen", which was set in February 1945, props to the production designer for accuracy.  Art!

     I had to search for 'wirecatcher' as 'wirecutter' brought up lots of pictures of hand-held shears.

     Conrad is pretty sure he's seen similar on British army vehicles operating in Ulster, but could I find a picture?  I could not.  Allegedly they were also used by the South Canadians in Vietnam, and once again I couldn't find any photographs on teh Interwebz.  Art!

Victim the first

     In the first episode of "Foyle's War" we don't quite see rider Greta Beaumont getting her throat sliced open by a wire strung between two trees, so much so that it nearly results in decapitation.  That's a horse travelling at perhaps 10 m.p.h.  I leave it to your fervent imaginations as to what happens to those in a Chinese golf buggy doing 30 m.p.h. if Ukrainian partisans get ideas.

     I did warn you it was going to be ghoulish and sinister.  let's lighten it up with a happy jolly picture.  Art!

A happy jolly Atomic Tank

I Couldn't Resist Adding This

Whilst you're still digesting the above frightfulness, allow me to add a couple of pictures for your delectation.  Art!

     Is this more horrid infernal practices against innocent civilians again, thanks to missiles or bombs or drones?

     No.  It's actually a stern corrective about keeping your fireworks in a fireproof container that's shut.  Art!

     These Three Unwise Men launch a rocket for 4th July celebrations.  It goes up and comes straight back down again.  Cue panicked rush to get a bit of distance between themselves and the explosive device.  Art!

     It explodes, and at starboard part of the burning residue hits a huge cardboard box.

     Which is chock-full of fireworks.  Art!

     One of the Three Unwise Men goes to inspect what's happening, realises that the whole lot is going up and gets out of Dodge.  Not a second too soon.  Art!

     The fireworks explode for another 14 seconds.  It doesn't look as if anyone was injured bar a few singed eyebrows.  Learn from this.

More Misery For Modern-day Mordor!

If you don't enjoy a bit of delicious schadenfreude, you may pass on this item.  BUT I WILL KNOW.

     Another Youtube pundit I Subscribe to is Georgij, whom is Danish, with a Ukrainian wife and the ability to speak Ukrainian, Russian, Danish (I hope) and English.  Check out his YT channel "Ukraine Matters" for his perspective.  If you don't I WILL KNOW.  Art!

     Don't worry, this is not about blood-letting and conflict.  Rather, it's about economics, which for Ruffia is an Achilles heel - if you imagine the foot it belongs to being the size of the 'QE2'.

     There is, you see, a 20% shortfall in manpower in the Ruffian military-industrial complex, a raw statistic that translates to 160,000 people in the real world.  Art!

Omsktransmash tank plant in Omsk, Siberia

This is a Ruffian tank factory.  Note the absence of workers, although it may be lunchtime.  Note, too, the natty blue and yellow colour scheme.  Someone's going to get fired for that.

     ANYWAY it would seem that Ruffian production of military kit has now hit a plateau and they cannot increase output, partly because of sanctions and now more so because there aren't any employees left to employ.  Even if Putinpot loudly declared in 2023 that sanctions actually helped Modern-day Mordor by forcing it to be self-sufficient.  Strange how his recent cease-fire chunterings involved dropping sanctions immediately, nicht wahr?

     That's not all.  Inflation is Ruffia is still increasing.  They admit that it's at 8.3%.  Unofficially it may be as high as 60%, which is eye-wateringly extreme, and that despite their interest rate being stuck at 16% since forever.  Art!

     That's Charlie Chipmunk Cheeks imagining what he'd like to do to inflation, were it a person.

     Georgij also, with a certain sense of malicious glee, warned to watch out for 27th July, when the Central Bank and Ministry of Finance might have to increase the interest rate again.

     Wow, I'm glad I've got two bags of popcorn to help me through this.

"City In The Sky"

I briefly dreamed last night about being aboard Arcology One whilst it fell through the atmosphere, and jolly frightening it was too.  Thank you so much Steve and Oscar*.  Really.

     ‘I should thank you for sneaking along and helping to rescue me,’ thanked the Doctor, passing the slowing alien a jelly-baby.

     ‘Typical Lithoi cunning.  Think nothing of it,’ replied Orskan, mashing the sweet furiously between his fangs.  ‘Besides, it’s good to get my own back on that goozlery Arkan 22.’

     With no warning, the subdued corridor illumination dipped even further before resuming to it’s wan normality.  A temporary flutter in the low background hum of air conditioning caught the Doctor’s ears.

     ‘That would be dihydrogen monoxide penetrating into the Bridge’s computer equipment,’ he guessed,  grinning at Orskan.  The alien looked back.

     ‘Did you plan to get caught?’ he asked.  ‘How else could you place your sabotage device within the inner sanctum?’

     ‘Not plan, not exactly,’ replied the Doctor.  Overhead the gentle murmur of Lithois sliding along the ceramic walkways became louder.  ‘Time to move.’

     They had reached the Physics level stairwell.  By now a dull bass drone had begun, which baffled the Doctor for a second until he realised it was an emergency siren, Lithoi-style.

     Excellent! he mused.  Keep them occupied.

     ‘Come on, let’s go poking around Physics,’ he cheerfully told Orskan.  ‘I’ll be your prisoner.’

     There was no single corridor along the Physics wing.  Instead five corridors led off from the stairwell, labelled with arcane Lithoi pictograms.

     Not explaining properly, not exactly.  An author's stratagem.

Point And Laugh

O dearie me, the BBC has gotten swept up in the hype about those four Russian vessels visiting Cuba.  Art!

     Since when were four ships a 'fleet'?  Nor can you call a tug and an oiler 'warships'.  Not only that, the Ruffian submarine was looking a bit tatty, with it's stealth tiling falling off.  Art!

     This is the best they can put forward?  Pshaw.  NATO was worried about this?  Pshawpshaw!

Make Mine Mud, Mate

Emma, a work colleague, detailed yesteryon how she'd been at the 'Download' music festival until very early Monday morning.  05:00 early, in fact, which is when she had to get her lift back home in order to be ready for a 12:00 start, which still didn't leave her with enough time to have a shower.

     "Why did she need a shower?" I hear you question.  Art!

     An alternative name for it is, ho-ho, "Drownload".

     This is why Conrad will only ever attend "Sound From The Other City" because the venues are all either sheltered or indoors, and it's held on paved city streets.  This may also be the reason why Darling Daughter only went to Reading twice.

*  Responsible for memory and the sub-conscious round here, the pikers