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Friday, 15 November 2024

I'm Back, In Time

Which Is Not At All The Same As Being Back in Time

For Lo! Conrad wanted to bang on a little more - okay, okay, a lot more - about anachronisms again, since I left out material from yesteryon and hate leaving any notes or ideas to go to waste.  Leave no mind behind.

     Tell you what, I'll also put on the first season of "The Umbrella Academy" because I've already seen it, yet only the once, and I can (perhaps) keep creating these words of wit, whimsy and wonder without getting distracted.  Art!


     This is time-travel in a way, if you stretch the definition liberally and excessively, which is how we roll here.

     ANYWAY allow me to introduce "The War Games", the final series of the BBC's premier dramamentary (it says here) featuring Patrick Troughton.  The whole plot is too convoluted to go into any detail about, suffice it to say that evillll renegade Time Lords are stealing soldiers from different periods of Earth's internecine past, and then pitting them against each other.  Art!


     The abducted soldiers are mentally 'processed' to stop them recognising any of the hideously-advanced alien technology that they may encounter.  The odds of such happening are not high yet not zero.  See that empty space on the map above?  That's the HQ Zone, where the evillll Time Lords hold sway.  They additionally 'processed' the abducted soldiers to prevent them crossing over into other Zones, because a squad of British soldiers of 1901 turning up in the Athens of 350 BC would put a sabre-tooth tiger amongst the archaeopteryxes.  Art!

Processed like Primula cheese

     That really would be an anachronism.

     The idea, as far as I can make out, is that once all the soldiers had mostly killed each other off, the residuum (not a word you expected to see today) would form the basis of an unbeatable army, which has as many plot holes as a fridge full of Swiss cheeses.  Mixing a bunch of Cavaliers and Tsarist Russians and Teutons and expecting them to understand each other, let alone carry out sophistica

     ANYWAY But hist! for we are not done with anachronisms yet.  In "Assignment Earth", from that obscure cult Sixties sci-fi show (it says here) "Star Trek", we have a visitor from the future (planned) in Earth's past joined by other visitors from the future (unplanned).  Art!


     Gary Seven is wearing the white jacket, flanked by Captain Kirk and Mister Spock, who both recognise technology waaaaaay beyond that of the Sixties, and indeed their own time.  Art!


     STARRING! the voice-activated typewriter, which is a pretty handy device if you ask me as a jobbing writer.  Of course - obviously! - it never leaves Gary Sevens apartment, for if technology that would make Apple swoon enviously today would definitely put the chupacabra amongst the rocs in the Sixties and International Business Machines might get ideas above their station.

     I would also like to add another nod to "Earthman, Come Home" here, for James Blish's future had waves of galaxy-spanning human colonisation emigrating from Earth over many centuries.  To paraphrase slightly, he stated that almost every political movement that originated on Earth had left migrant traces across the settled galaxy, dating from the very first spindizzy-driven spacefaring cities.  Art!

Conrad abuses artistic licence once again

     Allow me to steal a quote and boost the word count:

the challenges which were now ringing around the heads of the Okies were like voices from history: 40 Eridani, Procyon, Kruger 60, Sirius, 61 Cygni, Altair, RD-4°4048, Wolf 359, Alpha Centauri ... to hear occasionally from Earth itself was no novelty, but these

challenges were almost like being hailed by ancient Greece or the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

     With that I think we've had anachronisms for one day.


Sadly No Pumpkin Pics For Projected Pie

Unfortunately.  I did purchase the pumpkin a couple of weeks ago and should have used it sooner.  When I took it out of the fridge to cut in half and scoop the contents out, it disgorged a load of orange glop, as most of the flesh had turned rotten.  That's the last pumpkin we'll see in The Mansion until October next year, BUT I seem to recall Morrison's having various squashes in stock on last visit.  Plus the butternut squash is now a staple retail item, if needed in a pinch.

     Conrad is aware that you skeptics don't believe anything without proof, so here's a rotten orange pumpkin - Art!

Ooops.

"Hello!" Said Karma

Whilst the Orange Land Whale may have gotten away with it, his acquaintances have not, quite so much.  You will recall with what glee BOOJUM! reported on Alex Jones' 'Infowars'* website being taken down yesteryon?

     It's actually worse than that.  Art!


     This is "The Onion", a satirical web news publication whose headlines sometimes become true.  As proof that some South Canadians have both a sense of humour and irony - a deadly combination that allowed This Sceptred Isle to conquer most of the known world - it has been around for decades.

     Hot News Item: they bought "Infowars"** at the bankruptcy auction.

     Jones, like the spiteful, petty, vindictive and now bankrupt bottomhole he is, was venting angrily about - well, who cares, loser.  Still, the auction may go a little towards paying off the $1 billion he owes in defamation costs.  Tee hee!


Say Hello To Toilet Paper Currency

Just a basic didactic comment on national specie: if your economy is in good shape, then people across the world will want to do business with you, your currency will be in demand and all will be well in the land.

     On the other hand, if your economy is faltering, stricken with sanctions, has interest rates higher than the Empire State Building and is experiencing galloping inflation at least three times the 'official' rate - your currency is going to look pretty sick.  As follows.  Art!




     Ooops.

     The last time this happened, The Little Tsar had an apoplectic fit and demanded it be brought down under the Toilet-Paper Limit and the Ruffian Central Bank duly complied.  That, however, was just over a year ago when Modern-day Mordor had more cash available to prop up the rubble.  As of right now, who knows what they can rob in order to pay off Peter.  The popcorn merchants are doing well, mind.  What must be melting Putin's pan is that the ruble exchange rate is a live, visible datum point that he cannot censor nor block so everyone can see what a hash he's made of the economy.  Tee hee!


THE HORROR!  THE HORROR!

No, not the story about the man trying to smuggle hundreds of tarantulas out of Peru by strapping them to his body, along with centipedes and ants, which definitely has a high squick factor.  No, I mean the following - Art!


     Props to the BBC for NOT resorting to painful puns, because this is tea and thus a most serious matter, even if Conrad doesn't drink it himself (being the utter tea snob that he is).  Which does remind me, we are getting low on loose-leaf Darjeeling, thanks to Sober October and Remember No Drink November.  A visit to Babylon-lite beckons, where I may stand in front of the Typhoo tea packets in Sainsburys and mount a silent ten-second vigil.


Finally -

A pretty grim day today, no sign of the sun AT ALL thanks to the fogbanks, which have not lifted all day.  Or are they low-flying clouds?


*  The ultimate insult - not emboldened or in Fuschiae.

**  Now it gets the proper treatment.

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