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!
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!
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