Conrad Is Unaware If It's Just Him
Or if it's a male thing, or does the whole world not enjoy a well-crafted bit of cartography? Art!
Excuse me whilst I Tazer a bit of common sense into our resident Neanderthal artistic department. Don't worry, it's non-lethal. Mostly.
ANYWAY back to maps. Conrad has enjoyed having a thorough peruse of maps since he was a lot smaller and cuter, possibly because they convey an air of authority and gravitas to even the most banal narrative. One of the better examples was in the hardback trilogy version of "Lord Of The Rings", where the maps came as large-scale folding versions, not merely printed on a page. Art!
A sight to gladden the heart
Adding an item like that must have jacked up the price per unit.
There's also an interesting comparative map I've seen, where Middle Earth is overlaid on contemporary South Canada, and I bet I can't find it now it's needed. Art!
Well, Europe stands in pretty well instead. This gives you a sense of scale for Middle Earth, which is handy as it doesn't exist in real life, much to the dismay of many people. Yours Truly not included, I like plumbed toilets and electric power, which Ol' Tolky probably viewed with a jaundiced eye. Art!
This, I believe, is from one of my Official Histories, and shows the British 38th and 12th Division's advance in 'August', without giving a year. This is on the Western Front, as I recognise the town of Albert, but there's no date or battle nomenclature on the map itself, which is a bit remiss. Art!
This is a British trench map of 'Hebuterne' and localities, copies of which were printed off and updated in tremendous numbers. The red lines - CAREFUL PUTINPOT - are the Teuton trenches, rendered in considerable detail, whereas the single dotted green line is that of the British trenches, because should this map fall into enemy hands, you don't want to gift them information. Art!
Yes, this is a map from "The War Illustrated" at the opposite end of scale as opposed to that of Hebuterne. It has to be, it's showing seven separate Allied armies poised to attack the Teutons in their homeland.
All of this is a mere preamble to the meat of the matter, that being a gatefold map from the centre pages of "Judge Dredd The Megazine", which if Art - O stop complaining and put a bit of salve on them -
Well well well, a gazetteer of Judge Dredd's world. I think I'll work my way down from the top, pontificating along the way.
URANIUM CITY: Established in what used to be Alaska, UC is separated from other bits of civilised civic society by the rad-lands left over from the atomic wars of the prior century. The city was established and exists to mine uranium, a commodity much in demand in the 22nd century. Art!
Being a mining town it's a little rough around the edges. Okay, okay, very rough around the edges, and so would you be if your environment was an arctic wasteland.
MEGA-CITY ONE: The Big Meg. Original mega-city, and like a resoundingly robust wrist-watch, it can take a licking yet keep on ticking. It has survived the Apocalypse War, the Dark Judges, Judgement Day and Chaos Day. One of the most violent, crime-ridden cities on the planet, which makes for cracking entertainment. Art!
TEXAS CITY: Or, you might say, the pretender to the crown. Long envious of the power and prestige of the Big Meg, the Texans are not altogether to be trusted when it comes to filial love and compassion, as they would dearly like to be top dog and wield the resources MC1 has. Art!
Their attitude to guns is Not-Quite Compulsory - so far. Give it time.
MEGA-CITY TWO: The Big Meg's West Coast rival. It, too, had survived torrid trials and torments, but Judgement Day saw the city over-run by the zombie hordes of Sabbat. Whereupon the other surviving mega-cities nuked it into a giant glass crater. Once again filial love and compassion a tad lacking.
BRASILIA and SOUTH-AM CONURB both got similar treatment.
CIUDAD BARANQUILLA: The legendarily corrupt mega-city where anything goes as long as you have enough bribe money for the Judges. Coups and purges and insurrection are normal everyday events here. Every so often the Big Meg stamps out the corruption but the rot runs deep. Art!
I think that's enough carting for one evening. Don't worry, we shall return.
From Bridezilla To Bridekilla
If the concept of 'Bridezilla' is new to you, just imagine a woman positively oozing with self-entitlement, self-absorption, malicious narcissism and greed, all festering for their entire life up until the wedding day. I'm sure the male equivalent also exists, I've just not seen any examples of it. Yes. Give it time. Art!
You'll find out why
One Commenter posted a pithy little tale about his cousin's fiancée (hereafter CF) and the cousin's elder sister (hereafter CES).
CES was not a woman who tolerated fools or churls lightly, and had withdrawn from the wedding party because of being slighted. CF, who didn't like being told 'No', determined to attend a family dinner SHARP CUTLERY WARNING and persuade CES to re-join the party.
The Quoran narrator didn't render any dialogue, but I think the phrases 'NO!', "HELL NO!' and 'F****** HELL NO!' cropped up when CF tried to exert her diplomatic charms. Oooopsie. Art!
CF grabbed a knife and stabbed CES 14 times before she was disarmed. She got a plea deal of fifteen to twenty years, instead of the twenty-five to life a trial would have guaranteed.
The wedding was cancelled, just to be clear.
A Sign Of Despair
Ruffia's road map to Hades continues to throw up new street furniture, this time involving that dreadful old clunker the 'Admiral Kuznetsov', which we have pointed at and laughed at in the past. Art!
This broken-down garbage scow has been sat, rusting, in port for years because the Ruffians don't have the money, equipment or technical ability to repair it. Putinpot will refuse to scrap it because that would make him look weak, balding and 73 - ooops, he already is. O well. Art!
Supposedly there were 1,500 crew for this junk jalopy, whom are now going to be sent to Ukraine to become sunflower fodder. The Ruffian Admiralty seem to have implicitly admitted that the AK is never going to sea again, which the sea will be pretty grateful for, since the AK burns the most disgustingly polluting fuel imaginable: Mazut. Which is one reason you can see it over the horizon.
A Sign Of Dement
Conrad is used to the traffic figures as reported by Blogger occasionally going bonkers for a month and then re-setting to Normal. If you recall, the traffic for August was ridiculously high, getting to a total of over 15,000. Which is flattering but surely not credible? Anyway - Art!
What on earth is going on here? Art!
BOOJUM! beloved in Bengal.
Finally -
Just to inform you that I'm now up to page 540 of Longerich's "Heinrich Himmler", which I have successfully tackled by treating as homework and reading 20 pages per night.
We're now up to the background for Operation Barbarossa, where Heinie is busily trying to increase the size of the Waffen SS, and keep it independent of the Wehrmacht, so he gets to create and keep his own pocket army. Interestingly, he was throwing the recruitment net across the Teuton encalves in Eastern Europe, and was quite prepared to take on recruits from 'Nordic' countries, but the one people he didn't want anything to do with were the 'Anglo-Saxons'.
Go us!
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