Which We Were, Implicitly
Much mention being made of "Doctor Who" and matter transmission and teleportation. Okay, we are now going to travel into the distant past of 1970, fifty-five years ago, because that's when this particular episode of "Department S" was broadcast, and we're going to take a look at the world of that time through the lens of a specialist Interpol investigation team. Art!
For Your Information Department S is run by Sir Seretse, and employs at it's core Jason, Stewart and Annabelle. The studio faked all their 'exotic' foreign locations with a few beauty shots and interior sets, and in this episode - well, you'll see. Art!
Here you see a snapshot of Piccadilly Circus, identified by the statue of Eros in the middle. The advertising you see here is illegal today, since 'Players' were - possibly still are, Conrad not an authority on cancer sticks - cigarettes. The signage here is all neon, whereas today it would be digital, and the street lamps would have long-life tubing nowadays. Art!
This is the South coast nearest to the television studios they were filming at ('ITC Studios', ironically, did not have any studio of their own), masquerading as the Mexican desert thanks to the addition of a couple of prop cacti, not a phrase you were expecting to hear today. Today, of course, a convincing background could be added in with greenscreen; back in 1970 they could have used a matte instead, except they cost hundreds of pounds a go, and a couple of cacti are a lot cheaper. Art!
The winsome and pert Rosemary Nicols playing Annabelle Hurst, the computer whiz for the team. This input terminal is one of the components that make up "Auntie", the room-sized computer she uses to analyse and work out solutions. Yes, a computer the size of a room; back then it would have possessed the computing capacity of a Sinclair 48K. It used printed ribbons for programming and readouts, if you can believe that. Positively prehistoric! Art?
This, gentle reader, is a telephone, as they were constituted in 1970. There is a rotary dial on the front face, which one used to physically dial the required number, and there was a separate handset for talking into and listening from. All very electro-mechanical. Art!
This bizarre peg-board is actually a telephone switchboard, where one connected an incoming call to a room phone by physically plugging ihe correct line into the correct hole. Back in the day there were people working with telephone networks whose job was simply to carry out this plugging and unplugging all day long. Nowadays the mobile phone has rendered this technology obsolete. Art!
This 'Pan Am' jet, as they were colloquially known, was representative of the airline at it's height in the late Sixties. Conrad thinks this is a Boeing 707, one of their fleet before they adopted the 747 'Jumbo Jet' the year after this episode was filmed. Note the protruding engine exhausts, a design feature I cannot speculate upon as I know as little of the subject as I do cancer-sticks. Hang on a minute - Aha! Art?
The poster here said that this engine has a 'Stage 3 hush kit' installed, so Your Humble Scribe believes they reduce engine noise. Anything that can do that is welcome because aircraft engines are INCREDIBLY LOUD.
Also note that this 707 lacks the upturned wingtip or 'winglet' you see on many modern airliners, meaning they are going to experience significantly higher drag and thus higher fuel consumption. Art!
Hey, this was impressively high-tec in 1970. The giant tape reels are used as a storage medium, which probably amounted to a few kilobytes of data on each spool. Yes, as much as that! You have more storage capacity on your ten-year old back up emergency laptop sitting at the back of your wardrobe. Art!
We don't get to see the interiors of the Equipment Installed For Nefarious Purposes, so just take it for granted that it's all transistorised, rather than using integrated circuitry and digital components. This means relatively large objects that are painfully vulnerable to being shot - as Jason managed above.
Two other omissions you might like to be directed to are a lack of mobile phones and no drones, which would have been considered sci-fi at the time.
There you go, a trip back in time courtesy of BOOJUM! and you're welcome.
"You're Only Supposed To Blow The Dog Buns Doors Off!"
A classic quote from "The Italian Job", rendered SFW. Here is another short clip from that compilation of industrial accidents, frequently caused by complete ineptness on the part of Hom. Sap. Art!
We don't get any information about where or when this accident occurred, nor even the 'how', because the asinine compiler cannot think of anything funny to say about it. 'Funny' being amusing entirely in their own head. Art!
The big rig to starboard has managed to pull the crashed Scania 18-wheeler from the horizontal, whoop whoop.
Except don't celebrate just yet, because THERE IS NOTHING TO CUSHION IT'S FALL. Best practice would be to have another cable connected to another big rig to port, allowing the drop from 45º to be controlled. Instead - Art!
It hits the ground very hard indeed, and all that kinetic energy causes the whole vehicle to lurch forward, after spilling lots of debris. Art!
The cameraman hastily gets out of the way as the righted juggernaut begins to move forward, gaining speed as it does so. One valiant soul leapt into the cab in order to try and stop this escape, to no avail. Art!
On it careers. Art!
Ooops. Good luck explaining that damage to the insurance company, especially when you were parked a good hundred yards from the original accident site. Art!
Even more Ooops. I don't think the watch commander will be very happy with his officer here. Now they have to retrieve the Scania from a field and up an embankment. How fortunate it wasn't loaded.
I Knew I'd Read About It Before
Yesteryon we had 'Charybdis' as a title, that being the name of a whirlpool off the Sicilian coast.
Conrad's skip-like brain, which has a volume of about 150 square miles, picked up on this, as I recall the name being present in a novella by the Strugatsky Brothers that I read decades ago.
It took a bit of digging but I discovered what it was. Art!
I won't spoil the tale for you, even if it has a real downer of an ending. That tracked vehicle you can see there is the 'Charybdis' of the story, a large tracked vehicle used to negate the 'Wave', a deadly wall of something that radiates out from the poles of the planet this story takes place upon.
One day Hollywood will do a direct adaptation of "Roadside Picnic" and I will be first in the queue to see it.
"The War Illustrated Edition 201 2nd March 1945"
I checked the blurb for these pictures and they date from the first week in February, so about four weeks before the actual publication date. Art!
Here a group of bombardiers from the Royal Artillery are using a pair of oxen to not very effectively clear a path in the snows. Conrad feels you'd be better off with a set of shovels, matey.
Finally -
I ventured out earlier to walk Edna for a short distance, risking my ulcerated toe. Lovely sunny weather, with a bracing wind, and SURPRISE! no other dogs being walked, which is unusual.
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