If I Were To Say "Janus" -

Then You'd Probably Immediately Grasp What I Was Talking About

There aren't many contemporaries with a first name of 'Janus', and unless you are as aged and fond of comics as Conrad, then you won't associate the name with any particular character.  HOWEVER! and here we have my favourite word again - Art?

     Janus, who admittedly looks rather creepy here, is actually one of the good guys, being a late-Victorian era escapologist and contortionist who doubles FORESHADOWING as a private detective by night, solving crimes and fighting injustice.  We may come back to Janus, he had an interesting life in comics.

     ANYWAY the Janus I really wanted to talk about is the Roman god, who had the weighty responsibilities of Gates & Doorways, Beginnings (i.e. the past), Endings (i.e. the future) and Transitions.  He often came possessing two faces, supposedly to he could look both into the future and the past.  Art!

     Must rack up the dentist's bill, mind.  In compensation, you could run backwards with no problems, and also make an excellent guardian of children, as you literally have eyes in the back of your head.  If your vision got defective, you'd definitely need to get bespoke spectacles, or you mi

     ANYWAY AGAIN we had our weekly staff meeting via Teams today, and a couple of people had been to see "Joker - Folie A Deux".  Neither were impressed.  Emma said her friend to port and a stranger to starboard both fell asleep and snored.  Alex pertinently wished for the two hours back and also noted that the film seemed to be making a point: people were only interested in Arthur when he was being the murderous Joker.  When he was plain old Arthur, nobody took the slightest notice of him.  Art!

     The revelation that it's a musical <spits> sealed it's fate for Conrad, he's never ever going to watch it.  Not doing very well at the box office, it seems to be a film that nobody wanted or asked for, yet got regardless.

     Do you see the dichotomy here, how Arthur has two faces?  NOT to be confused with Two-Face because both his faces are upon the same face, rather than being separate iterations, if that makes sense and even if it doesn't.  Art!

Harvey 'Two-Face' Dent

     Naturally, this appreciation of the film got Conrad to thinking, because it struck a chord about another film I've not seen - "Network".  You've probably not seen it, either, because it hails from prehistoric 1976 and stars Peter Finch, whom you'd have to look up in a Hollywood biographical work as it was his last film before he waltzed off this mortal coil.  Art!

Harry Beale

This is Harry, before the information that he's got two weeks left until he's axed, as his ratings have slumped and bottomed out.  Typical television anchorman, hmmm?  Art!

     Harry has an on-screen breakdown, turning into a raving nutter who rants and tants with his signature line "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!".  Nor does he.  

     Because this is a satire, guess what?  The viewers love his outrageous behaviour and he becomes a breakout overnight hit, eventually getting his own show.

     For clarity, let me point out that 'Network' here refers to a television network, as this was well before DARPA had even the faintest glimmerings of teh Interwebz.

     More two-faced dichotomy, hmmm?

     I was going to bang on about another two-faced dichotomy, that of "Marshal Law"the officially sanctioned 'hero-hunter' from the self-named comic, which is another satire.  Art!

CAUTION! Full of nudity and violence

He's every bit as nasty as he looks, except he has a government licence to be awful to the bad people, so that's okay.

     My point was that his alter-ego, humble hospital worker Joe Gilmore, is of absolutely no interest to anyone, and I rather proved my point because can I find a single on-line image of Joe?  No.  No Joe.  There is a two-faced dichotomy here except I can't prove it without digging out the trade paperback and going through it for pictures.  Much as I love you, gentle reader, I don't have the time or inclination to do that.

     We may come back to this, I have more thoughts about it.

The Pion Sleeps Tonight

Yes, this pun is a trifle strained.  Allow me to explain.  Art!

     It's a Ruffian very-long range artillery piece.  The Ukes have a few, but tend to use Happy Harry HIMARS instead.  Why is it here and why am I spoofing a song title?  O I thought you'd never ask!  Art?

Karachev, Bryansk oblast

     This is the Ruffian's 67th GRAU, another of those ammunition dumps where they store ordnance, except in this case, as "Suchomimus" (British ex-pat paleontologist working in Taiwan) points out, there are no hardened bunkers here.  Sorry, that ought to be 'hardened'.  This type of bunker is used for expensive ordnance like ballistic missiles or SAM missiles (yes yes yes I'm well aware that the "M" in "SAM" stands for "Missile" go away now).  That there aren't any implies that this site is for artillery ammunition such as shells and rockets.  Art!

     Yes, the Ukrainians hit it with drones and now it's gone bye-bye, hence this items shockingly un-PC title.  Since this news makes Modern-day Mordor look bad it will never be featured on Ruffian state television.  That arsenal's still gone, though, proof that the Ruffian defensive strategy of Crossing Fingers And Hoping REALLY Hard just doesn't work.

Alchemy Again

Conrad made notes last time he went down the rabbit hole, and was thrown a bit when "Brewer's Dictionary Of Phrase And Fable" made an allusion yet didn't back it up.  Under 'Panacea' they had mentioned 'Balsam of FIERABRAS' so I looked up the chap mentioned in bold and -

     Not exactly crickets.  Art!

     Ol' Fiery was a Saracen knight, of enormous build, who became a Christian and best mates with Charlemagne.  Rather like Sir Palomedes in "La Morte D'Arthur".  There is little to nil information about a balsam he created or used, bar a single internet reference from "Don Quixote" where the Don imbibes it and - to be honest, it sounds like a hangover cure.

"The balm of fierabras is so powerful, that even one drop can save a dying knight. The recipe is quite simple and like so many other chivalric details, I have memorized it so that I may make it at any time."

     Coyly avoids giving the ingredients.

     So, a bit of an on-going mystery.

Helter-Smelter

Well, I've already spoofed one single title today, why not roll up and try for a brace of them?  Yes, this is a skit on that Beatle's title "Helter-Skeleter", and if Art can put down his plate of anthracite - 

     If you're not up on your metallurgy, a smelter is a bit of industrial plant used to extract metals from mineral ores, by virtue of very high temperatures that cause things to MELTDOWN.  

     Cue up today's latest valuation of the ruble versus the dollar.  Art!

     This is pretty bad.  Two months ago it stood at ₽84.14 to the dollar.  Want to be it hits ₽100 to the dollar by the weekend?  I'd like to see Bloaty Gas Tout's face when that happens, and to see what happens to the minion who draws the short straw to tell him so.

     Incidentally, this blog is being written on Thursday afternoon, so things may get even worse <malicious snigger>.

I Warned You

The credulous and witless amongst the South Canadian population, spurred on by Ruffian disinformation, are, predictably, pushing utter twaddle about Hurricane Milton.  One trope is that they want back what's been given to Ukraine, as they fondly imagine boatloads of cash have been sent.  Not so.  The EU sends monies, South Canada sends military kit.  Surprisingly, a Patriot SAM battery does not make a good bridge, and an Abrams tank lacks utility as a boat.  Art!

     NOR CAN YOU STOP IT BY HITTING IT WITH NUKES.

     Just so we're clear.  

Finally -

Conrad The Adrenaline Addict is at it again, annotating another long, complex factual work with lots of data and graphs.  Art!

     Currently 20 pages in, out of nearly 700.  Baby steps.