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.
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!
"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!
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.
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