Bear With Me On This
I know where I'm setting off from, and where I want to get to, in terms of creative writing, it's just the bit in the middle that's uncertain at present.
Okay, first of all I've been pondering about how to work a Radiohead song into the Intro, "Fake Plastic Trees". This got noted down as a possible part of the "Liar Liar" Intro, because it's all about deceit and deception. Art!
I don't know what it is, except creepy
This is the album that really put them on the map. FPT is one of those songs that gradually increase in sound and scope, coming to a crescendo before dying down again.
What does this have to do with today's title? O I thought you'd never ask!
Here an aside. If I were being more logical, which character trait is scorned here at the blog, then I'd have put up a more appropriate picture. Art!
I haven't been pondering on this track, so it didn't get prime slot at top of the Intro.
So, there we go, a hint that "Radiodead" is not a typo and is instead shading towards a potentially tasteless pun. Which is pretty much business as usual here. Next up, another illustration from the "Galleries" page of the "Interstellar Research Centre". Yes, this is wildly different subject matter, do keep up, it's excellent mental exercise. Art!
These are isometric and side-on views of 'ICAN-II', which is another proposed spacecraft. This one is proposed with a crew, and to merely (!) travel to Mars, rather than the nearest star systems. Thus, unlike the robot probes travelling to distant stars, which only the designer's grandchildren will witness.
As you may be able to tell, thanks to the tell-tale legend "anti-proton", this baby uses anti-matter as a fuel. There's a lot to break down here, so allow me to expostulate in elucidatory style. Art!
Radioheat
The issue here is HEAT. A spaceship such as the ICAN generates a lot of heat and must get rid of it or risk equipment failure or death by heatstroke.
Here an aside. You are probably unaware of this, since the final production model lacked them, but the 'Discovery' from "2001" had lots of pre-production designs and sketches using radiating 'fins' to bleed off excess heat. None of them made the cut because Ol' Stan decided they made the ship look too conventional. Art!
The LDR concept is that waste heat is used to melt metal into droplets, which are then sprayed across the naked vacuum of space, where they radiate away their accumulated heat. They are then collected and re-circulated.
A design such as this is significantly lighter - up to one-seventh of the mass - than any other cooling system, and it is far more resistant to FOD* in space. Art!
The power for this craft would be provided by a micro-fission engine, fuelled by deuterium or tritium, and by anti-protons; the total mass of anti-protons required would be 140 nanograms. Or, to put it another way, one hundred and forty one thousand-millionths of a gram. Doesn't sound like much, does it?
Wake up and smell the loose-leaf Darjeeling! For anti-matter, this is a huge amount, or at least it was when I-CAN was designed back in the Nineties. It's not impossible to achieve, just very problematic. Art!
Despite that, such an engine would be able to accelerate the ship to about 200,000 miles per hour, enabling it to reach Mars in a month. Not bad!
What is bad is the radiation and neutron flux generated by this puppy. Squishy human meatbags would need considerable protection from same. Art!
You'll notice that there is a large anti-radiation shield installed on the craft halfway along, composed of silicon carbide, to prevent all that nasty radiation and fast neutrons from jellifying the crew. Also, in the cruciform craft, there are radiation shields protecting each crew habitat. Art!
Because too much radio- will not make you active, it will make you dead. Radiodead.
I dunno. Maybe I should have gone with Atomic Rooster?
Conrad Is ANGRY!
O so angry! Furiously fulminating, in fact. Yes, we are talking about Codeword solutions again, and those utter scoundrels at the "M.E.N." whom have obviously - of course! - felt emboldened by lack of vapourisation these past few months. Allow me -
ANISE:Yes, the herb or spice or whatever you want to call it. To quote my Collins Concise: "A Mediterranean umbrelifferous plant having clusters of small yellowish-white flowers and liquorice-flavoured seeds" Maybe so, maybe so - BUT YOU DON'T EXPECT TO SEE IT AS A CODEWORD SOLUTION! Bah. Art?
Blooming thing
SYLLOGISM: WHAT ARE WE ALL GREEK PHILOSOPHERS NOW? This is an assertion in two parts blah blah blah, far too boring and obscure to go into here. Art!
THIS will assert you in two parts, matey
QUIRE: No! you illiterate button-punching mobile-phone using troglodytes, NO, this is nothing to do with a bunch of singers. It is a measurement dealing with how many sheets of paper there are. "A set of 24 or 25 sheets of paper" which is probably a concept unknown to all you whippersnapping youngsters. Art!
"The War Illustrated Edition 189"
At this point in the Normandy Campaign, the Teutons are losing bigly, having been pressed back from the coast whilst undergoing calvaries of destruction thanks to Allied artillery and airpower. Art!
This is a column of Sherman tanks, with a Churchill off to one side. Quite what matey is doing is open to question. I thought at first he might be a Redcap (Military Police) directing traffic, but he's wearing a 'Don R' (Despatch Rider) helmet and you can see a proper redcap in the upper picture, wearing a beret and directing a flail tank. Mister DR is in pretty much the wrong place, because a column of tanks is not the place to stand and admire nature. All it takes is one careless driver and - you're flat.
"City In The Sky"
Things are cooking off inside the Lithoi baseship, as the Doctor, plus minions, is throwing a spanner into the works.
‘Tec! Don’t bother, I’m done for!’ he shouted, his
voice giving the glottal Lithoi language an urgency it normally lacked. ‘Get out of here! Get to the Stores level!’
The alien raced past him, giving Art a double
set of savage back-and-forth gouges across his upper back in passing that sent
the traitor flinching in pain. This also
caused the Doctor considerable pain as the alien twisted in reflex without
relinquishing it’s hold.
‘No, not the lift!’ called the
Doctor. Tec cast a glance over his
shoulder, then at the forty Lithoi advancing on him before darting towards the
lifts again. He stood by the left-hand
doors and jabbed at the button to call the lift cage down, watching indicator
lights descend.
The end was close. Before the left-hand lift could arrive, the
right-hand lift doors drew apart and a clutch of Internal Security aliens
wearing armour emerged. Their laser
collars immediately focussed on Tec, who snarled and flew at them, talons
flashing. Blood and scales spattered the
walls of the lift before a dozen lasers killed the renegade minion.
Seeing this disastrous occurrence take
place and before any lasers could be fired, the Doctor used a ju jitsu move to
unseat Art, whose grip was slackening.
Both fell forward, the Doctor onto the unforgiving grey ceramic of the
floor, Art onto the more yielding Gallifreyan.
Ooof. That's got to smart.
Finally -
The Labour Party are launching their official election campaign as o SIT BACK DOWN! this is nothing to do with politics. Art!
That's the atrium of my old employer, in the Electric Goldfish Bowl as Conrad dubbed it (Co-Op HQ at Angel Square if you want to know). I wonder if those are staff having a skive in the audience? That would definitely be me were I to have the option.
Finally -
Right! I'm finishing this on Thursday lunchtime, so I need to do this wrap justice, which means ending things here. Laterz!
* "Foreign Object Damage" - micrometeorites and such.
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