Ozymandias

No!  This Intro Is Not About The Super-Villain

Whom you ought to be familiar with from "Watchmen" which is a graphic novel NOT a comic book, and on this I will brook no discussion.  Art!

     That's Rorschach getting a bit of a biffing from Ozzy, and Night Owl in the background, about to whip out his pocket laser, which is considerably more than a little light that blinks.

     ANYWAY enough of the climax to Moore and Gibbons finest moment, because what I wanted to summon up was the poem 'Ozymandias' by Percy Shelley, which is quite my favourite poem (of the three I like).  Art!

     Now, to get my point across in glorious four-tone monochrome, we need to quote the whole poem, which only incidentally ups the Word Count.  

I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desart.  Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:

And on the pedestal these words appear:

"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

No thing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

     Ol' Perce packs a lot into that sonnet.  Published in 1818, you can see it reflects the Enlightenment's interests in antiquarian culture, principally of Rome and Greece but hinting in this case about Egypt.

     Then, too, there is the concept of hubris: for all Ozzy's boasts about his mighty works, there's almost nothing left of them thanks to the passage of time and everything bar his statue's legs and head are gone.  Perhaps also substandard construction materials used by builders skimping on their contract.

     Third of all, we have the concept of entropy, in that disorder in systems tends to increase over time, so that buildings eventually collapse, roads erode away and statues become splintered remnants.

     Where am I going with this?  O I thought you'd never ask!  Art?

     This is Saddleworth, that area of high moorland in the heights above Oldham, and what you see here are the last sad remnants of Ashway Gap House, a mansion that once stood here.  It was built for John Platt, local business magnate and MP, in the grand baronial style.  Art!

     Note steps at front.  Platt died in his bed there, not as you might imagine in over-indulgence of gin and caviar, but because of a hunting accident that involved his leg getting shot about.  The mansion's fortunes rather ebbed after that, lying empty for long periods, then  being used as a hospital in the First Unpleasantness and a prison for Italian PoWs in the Second Unpleasantness.  Art!

Looking pretty dark and stannic

     The crumbling pile was demolished in 1981, with instructions to return the site to pre-building state.  Which we know didn't happen because the lonely steps are still there, unencumbered by any other architecture.  Art!

Ozzy says hi

     Conrad, in a display of serendipity, found a page from a Marvel comic book - this was before the days of graphic novels - that also quotes the whole of Ol' Perce's poem, with some nifty artwork to boot.  Art!

     This is how Pele learned to play soccer Sorry! no, this is how Ultron, villainous robotic arch-fiend, met it's end, thanks to getting head explosively separated from body.  Doubtless the writers found a way to resuscitate it, comic books love the money a good villain brings in.

A Short Visual Between Two Texts

A anyone who has been reading BOOJUM! for the past decade or so will be aware, Your Humble Scribe has a collector's pash for Official Histories of the First Unpleasantness.  I won't go into the details of the list acquired or we'd need another Intro; suffice to say I've now got six volumes of the twelve that make up the Australian Official History.  Art!

     This is Volume IV, an absolute bargain at £35 with free P & P, otherwise it would cost about twice that at the cheapest.  
    Now that I have Vols III, IV, V and VI, which cover the Ockers on the Western Front, I may begin to read them in sequence.  That's 10 inches of hardback.  Wish me luck.

The Twenty-First Century Equivalent

Or, as I tartly commented on Twitter, 'Not quite the surface of the Moon, but getting there.'

     To what am I referring?  Why, the ammunition storage area adjoining Engels-2 Air Force Base in Modern-day Mordor.  We have already illustrated the enormous explosion that resulted from it being hit by Ukrainian drones or missiles or both.  More accurate info has come in from the Ukrainian assessors, who gloatingly reveal that 96 Ruffian cruise missiles went bang prematurely, sending up as an expensive vapour three-months worth of ordnance.  Art!

After and before

    Ukraine isn't going to say, and Ruffia won't admit, just what was hit and how, so there is speculation that an assembly facility (the long white sheds) was hit once the Ukes knew it was chock-full of missile components being assembled.  We shall just have to take Maxar's godlike viewpoint as evidence of the site being Ozzyd, because the damage was sufficient for the orcs to pretend nothing happened and that all the people being evacuated are being sent on holiday by mistake.  Art!

     There is also unsubstantiated chatter on Twitter that the background count at Engels has increased by a factor of 44, and special decontamination vehicles and crews have been sent in - as above.  The hypothesis is that nuclear ordnance may have been damaged in the strike, which would be the killing joke if true; the nation accusing others of creating dirty bombs is dirty bombed by it's own arsenal.

     Most annoyingly, Conrad cannot find the video clips of infra-red footage covering the Engels area, which I'm pretty sure I saw on Twitter.  The background was dark blue, with heat showing up as white areas.  I cannot find anything on Twitter, Bluesky or Youtube, despite going back days and days, nor on Google.  So thoroughly have these video clips vanished that Your Cynical Realist wonders if they were not faked up in the first place.  Otherwise they are an Ozzy of the online world, totally absent.  Art!

Conrad looking angry

And What's This?

One of the consequences of Mopey Dick bloviating about Greenland is that the Vice Prez, JD Pantz, sent his wife there to fly the flag and press flesh.  Then, in the wake of the Signal scandal over intelligence - in that it showed Pantz has none- he deemed it wise to get out of South Canada and avoid the press. So it was going to be a two-fisted charm offensive in Greenland.  

     However - Art!

     None of Trump's administration seem to have that most basic of requirements for public life: being able to read the room.  The pro-Trump party in Greenland got 1% of the vote in recent elections.  South Canadian officials, going house-to-house, couldn't find a single one willing to glad-hand Pantz and/or wife.

     Thus, this visit will be confined to the Pituffik Space Base, which - Art!

     - is the South Canadian military base already present in Greenland and which has been there for the whole of the Cold War.

     This risks confusing South Canadians horribly, as they look askance and quibble "What, we already have a base there?  But President Trump said -" <Cont. Page 94>.

Conrad Is Curious

My attention has been attracted and my nosiness piqued, thanks to a sidebar on the feed this morning.  Art!

     "BYD" at first glance sounds like a crypto scam currency.  By implication, though, it seems to be a manufacturer of electric vehicles.  'Bloomberg' is also a reputable news media source (unlike, say "GB News" or "Sky News Austtralia" which seem to be channelling Marjorie Bloaty-McBloatface).

     I don't have the luxury of time or Count to examine this too closely.  After all, if this win concerns only revenue, BYD might have only sold 5 cars that cost a billion dollars each.  Or shizzle like that.

     Since it looks bad for Muskie The Rat, Conrad will do a bit of digging and let you know.

Finally -

We've had an awful lot of current eventish stuff on today's blog, so here's a reminder and remembrance, lest ye forget.  Art!

One of the volunteer Polite Australians who never made it home.