The Punctuation Is Important
Because otherwise we're going to be getting confused with other pop culture references, and I know just what to put here, and I bet you can guess what it will be! Art?
Yes, it's Gracie, the only woman ever to base her fashion on a pool cue, the one thing missing was a blue rinse to mimic the chalk.
ANYWAY having established our impeccable right-on credentials, which in reality means Conrad was around when Gracie was at the height of her fame in the Eighties, I shall plough boldly on, pausing only to prod Art into wakefulness with this electric fish-fork. Art!
You may also have been thinking about this film, which I am horrified to discover dates from 1993. Yes, that's Sly Stallone playing against Wesley Snipes, and one of them did not go to prison for tax avoidance, can you guess which one? Yes, that's Sandra Bullock playing a police officer, a fine actress in addition to being pretty easy on the eyes.
"Demolition Man" is a lot more entertaining than I thought it would be, having a sly satirical undercurrent and mocking trends in South Canadian society that were interpolated into the future. Conrad notes, with a weary sigh and grin, that the real villain of the piece, a Machiavellian corporate influencer seeking to reduce 'San Angeles' to a rigid hive mentality, is played by - Art!
NIGEL HAWTHORNE!
British character actor, you see. We have cornered the market in villains.
More pertinently, the San Angeles of the future does not use toilet paper. Instead they have a mysterious array of three seashells in every bathroom, which are never explained. Good! A little puzzlement always works well in films. James Comey may wish to use this film as a defence.
But no. This is not the relevant demolition, man. Art!
Gosh! What vandal can have caused this wanton carnage? and might he want to practice it elsewhere? Art!
Hmmm, I see, in which case that would be a 'no'. Yes, this is T E 'Ned' Lawrence, possibly one of the most famous (or infamous, depending on which side you're on) demolition men. For three years he swanned up and down the Arabian peninsula, blowing up things - rails, culverts, bridges, locomotives - and I'm going to add in a brief passage from "The Seven Pillars Of Wisdom" in order to exemplify his demolishing, this time of Hesa Station.
"Hornby and Peake reduced the place to a heap of ruins. They blew in the wells, the tanks, engines, pumps, buildings, three bridges, rolling stock, and about four miles of rail."
The hilarious irony of a man named 'Hornby' destroying real-life railways rather than constructing dioramas of same in miniature in his man-cave, because - Art!
Also comes in "Traumatised Turk" and "Offed Ottoman"
Again, not what I wanted to go on about. No, my focus today is on one of 'Sapper''s short stories, in the collection I am perusing at present. This one is called 'Jim Brent's VC' and is the somewhat fanciful tale of how - you may be ahead of me here - Jim earned his VC. It involved him dressing as a dirty Belgian peasant, jumping by parachute into occupied Belgian territory, just outside Tournai, and holing up in the house of a sympathetic Belgian widow. Art!
Tournai as was
Jim, you see, had decided he was going to sabotage a bridge over the River Scheldt, shortly before it was crossed by a Teuton train that conveyed dirty great 9" guns. He had determined that the river was sixty feet below the bridge, a drop of sufficient magnitude to create great difficulty in retrieving anything that remained intact. Here is the relevant text:
"I was using two slabs of gun-cotton to make sure - firing them electrically. I had two dry-cells and two coils of fine wire for the leads. The cells would fire a No. 13 detonator through thirty yards of those leads - and that thirty yards just enabled me to stand clear of the bridge. It took me twenty minutes to fix it up and then I had to wait."
As mentioned before, gun-cotton is cotton treated to become nitrocellulose, a high explosive. Art!
The dry-cells are batteries, in case you were wondering. I think that above is a contemporary detonator, although the design would be similar to what Jim used.
Getting undetected and uninterrupted to said bridge might have been a flight of fancy, but Sapper's description of the explosive arrangements is spot on, as he had been a sapper himself, and they were trained to carry out explosive demolition work.
You will be delighted (or horrified, depending on which side you were on) to know that the Teuton train, locomotive, tender, carriages, guns and crews, all went through the bridge parapet and into the chilly waters of the Scheldt below. Jim got away scot-free, went on leave to England, slipped on an orange peel and broke his leg in two places. Thus being immobilised and unable to move even if he wanted to. De-volition, man.
Putinpot Will Be Angry This Morning
Why so? Because the Romanian presidential elections are over, and Nicusor Dan - who sounds like the villain from 'Guardians Of The Galaxy 5' - won, which is the exact opposite of what he wanted. Art!
In fact this was a catalyst for the anti-Ruffia, anti-Putin, anti-Trump and pro-Ukrainian voters to get organised, and organise they did. I shan't go into the details of this election - it is Politics, after all is said and done - but Bunker Midget Grandad's urine must be boiling this morning. The FSB will have spent tens of millions of dollars on suborning this electoral process, all for naught. Now, suddenly, because their candidate lost, The Little Tsar is going to want to see their accounts and receipts and tenders and expense sheets. Art!
FSB scapegoat's eye view
Eating The Costs
This phrase has a certain cachet at the moment, because Donold Judas Trump complained that Walmart ought to eat the cost of tariffs that he imposed, because otherwise he will look bad, and his fee-fees will be hurt, and it was all J. D Vance's fault because Donold never mentioned a single word about tariffs, etcetera ad nauseum.
It's not just Walmart in the crosshairs, either. Art!
£300 million in proper money
It would seem that Coinbase didn't lock their data down tight enough, as the hackers in question got access to customer data and then used that to scam people out of their crypto currency, to the tune of at least $120 million and possibly up to $400 million. Ooops. They then tried to blackmail Coinbase into coughing up an additional $20 million to keep quiet about it. Instead Coinbase, being quite based to be honest, shouted about it loudly and offered a $20 million reward for capturing the hackers.
Still, eating up to $400 million of theft requires quite the digestion.
The wonderful world of crypto, hmmm?
"Elevation" Plot Holes
Okay, we all know that Conrad is a hair-splitting pedant of the best kind, and one has to wonder when the plot for 'Elevation' was written. Set three years after a global eruption of giant killing creatures called 'Reapers', there is no mention of drones. You know, drones, as used for scouting and spotting in a certain Unpleasantness. Art!
This is a shark-spotting drone, as used to spot - you may be ahead of me here - sharks. A few of these would be invaluable amongst the film's scattered communities living above 8,000 feet, for communicating and trade. Except the script was written ten years ago, seemingly. Art!
"It says that there's a large plot hole right here."
We'll come back to this film., I ain't finished with it yet. I bet you can hardly wait.
I Wanted To End With A Picture Item
So here it is, plucked from my MSN news feed, if you can call a torrent of tat 'news'. Art!
What's the title for both these films? I know but I'm not telling you because Conrad is horrid like that. I may tell you tomorrow. Or I may not.
Finally -
Finishing off the last of the Sunday Stew, tomorrow lunch will be Ukrainian Bigos.
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