Froth-free For Thee

We Have Gone Over 'Dictatoritis' A Lot

Sufficiently that I can put it to bed as a subject, until or unless I dig out a few Medieval or Early Modern autocrats to castigate.  I bet China would be an interesting case study circa 1000 AD.  So, we are bubble-free today, hence the title.

     ANYWAY onto a much lighter topic.  Okay, okay, not much lighter.  Okay, okay, an equally grim topic.  Happy now?  For we are back to Conrad's annotations of, and critiques also, of the 'How Not To Die' Youtube vlog's 'Everything Zombie Movies Get Wrong About Survival'.  Art!

Their logo

     For one thing, skulls do not come equipped with eyeballs.  Then again, I am a hair-splitting pedant of the very finest brand.

     ANYWAY onto their second trope, which is -

LOOTING SUPERMARKETS FIRST

Art!

From 'Greenland'

     They confidently assert that your local supermarket may be the first choice to obtain supplies but will - a bit of a downer - 'get you killed'.  Since their advice crosses all sorts of apocalypse boundaries, I have used a still from 'Greenland', where the imminent disaster is an inbound comet, not the undead.  

     HTND quote the statistic that a single supermarket typically serves between 10,000 to 50,000 customers per week WITHOUT QUOTING A SOURCE THE BAD LADS, so I did a bit of Google-fu and they're in the right cricket-ground.  From 13,500 to potentially 70,000 for the very large stores.  Art!

     Well, they tried.  Based on UNSOURCED 'disaster recovery models', HTND blithely assert that a supermarket will be stripped clean within 48 to 72 hours of The Apocalypse arriving, which other Commenters found a bit rosy-tinted.

small pointer: covid times showed that the 48 to 72 hours is a veeeeery optimistic view

yeah exactly more like 6-12 hours at max

     ANYWAY AGAIN all those shoppers have the same idea - LOOT IT! and once again a lack of sources, instead a generic problem list of hurricanes - not a concern here in Perfidious Albion, thanks very much - blackouts and supply chain collapses.  Art!

     One problem that HTND get right is that all these people concentrated in one place will cause a commotion, especially if they get into fights with each other over the last tin of Chef Boyardee Hot Dog Dinner*.  Then, once inside the supermarket, room to manoeuvre is highly restricted and avoiding the zeds becomes highly problematic.  Supermarkets, entirely reasonably, are not designed to be zombie-proof.  Art!

     Conrad can also think of a rather grimmer scenario playing out after those 72 hours are up, since the people who live closest to the supermarket will have had the best opportunity to loot the best supplies.  Ergo, bandits late to the scene might well trawl the neighbourhood for local houses to loot.  Just a typical cheery thought.      There are alternatives to supermarkets that pose less risk of other looters and less zed risk, too, which HNTD are to be congratulated for listing.  Hardware stores, pharmacies and veterinary clinics and wholesale warehouses are, they claim WHERE IS THE SOURCE? between 60% to 70% less likely to be stripped bare, and they cite 'The Walking Dead' as moving to such locations to source supplies.  Feed stores, by which I take it they mean feed for livestock, are a source of bulk calories, without the vlog going into exactly what they mean by 'bulk calories'.  Allow me.  Art!

     None of which is fit for human consumption, unless you like severe food-poisoning unto death.  'Bulk calories for horses', shall we say.  Veterinary clinics would have anti-biotics, hardware stores would have weapons and construction materials.       One venue they omit is one Conrad is particularly aware of: supermarket distribution centres.  Where do you think the supplies in your local Tesco or Walmart come from?  A central distribution point that supplies all the marts in a particular region; think of an aircraft hangar with chiller cabinets and freezers.  Art!

     That's a Sainsbo's Central Distribution Centre, and you can see how freakishly huge the site is.  Not only that, they tend to be located way out in the middle of nowhere so as to be equidistant from as many supermarkets as possible, hence their remoteness means far fewer looters or zeds.  Only reallllly viable as long as you have a vehicle and usable fuel.
     Hmmm, didn't think we'd get a whole Intro out of that single subject, yet we did.  Don't worry, there are 8 other headings to work through.  I bet you can hardly wait.

Progress Report

I like to keep you informed.  I am now up to Episode 25 of 'The Great War', meaning there's this one and Episode 26 before we're done and I get back ninety minutes at a time.  Art!

     That's the tally of photographs taken, days ago as we're now probably over 300 of them.  43 pages of A4 notes, although not all are complete, so perhaps only really 35 in toto.

     The problem is, what to do with all these notes and pictures?  They constitute about a solid week's worth of whole blogs by themselves, which might be too dry a theme to sustain.  The other prospect is doing them one Episode at a time, larded with the photo screenshots.  Not putting them on BOOJUM! at all?  Unthinkable!  Art?

Inclement For Some

We have mentioned that most excellent of OSINT compilers and mappers, 'Clement Molin', previously, as he continues to map out the conflict in Ukraine and is used as a touchstone resource by other vloggers, including 'Jake Broe'.  Jake put up a few maps that Clement had compiled, and the result is, as punned above, inclement for the orcs of Mordorvia.  Art!

     Here's the preceding article Jake was talking about; 'Magyar's Birds' and their utterly relentless drone campaign across Krim and the occupied territories, with the total number of energy targets they've hit of late - 315 as per the counter, 21 in the last 3 days.  Art!

     Jake states that there are 220 sub-stations identified as being hit and destroyed by Clem, and I'll take his word for it.  Winter in Krim and the occupied territories is going to be miserable for the occupiers, and any remaining locals.  Art!

     The white dots are gas infrastructure - actual gas as in 'Gazprom' and not the incorrect South Canadian usage of the word instead of the correct English 'petrol' - and the red dots are petrochemical infrastructure, which have been paid a visit by Angry Kozaky Birds.  Which has led to a return to enormous queues for petrol allllll across Mordorvia.  Art!

     The wisest commentators assume that the vanishing of queues in mid-July was due to the release of an emergency reserve stock of petrol, which has now run out, and the long, long lines of cars are back - everywhere.  Including Barad-Duh, which Putinpot tries to shield from the war's effects if at all possible, so things are bad and if this continues he might be shown footage that he can then bloviate about.

Eyes Bigger Than Stomach

Meaning one can fill a plate with too much food, since the eyes don't have to accommodate it but the stomach does.  To what am I referring?  Art!

     

     With hand for scale.  Yes, here's Jimmi from 'Flavour Trip' cooking up a huge pan of food for himself and Amii, whom is on the petite side and surely not capable of eating half of that dish?  Plus there's another large plate of stuff off to one side, implying that there shall be even more to eat in a few minutes.

Finally -

I shall post later of the Plans from Sunday that came to fruition, but here is another Thief Of Time that Col put forward that I have to check out as otherwise it would be rude - 

     Conrad is a positive tyro when it comes to planes, so we shall see.

*  If such exists.  Hang on -

Chef Boyardee never made an official canned product called "Hot Dog Dinner," but people often mix this up with SpaghettiOs with Franks (made by Campbell's) or nostalgic homemade "struggle meals" combining canned pasta and sliced hot dogs.

Bubbly Bubbly BOOH

To You Too

We have, of late, been pontificating about 'Dictatoritis', that chilling affliction autocratic dictators are prone to, where they operate in a bubble or cocoon, isolated from the real world, and are horribly surprised when the peasant mob turns up with pitchforks and torches, or AK-47s and RPG-7s in modern parlance.  We've covered classical antiquity as well as the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and now we cover - Art!

     - 'Cankles Von Yamteats', as a Canuckistanian o'er on Twitter has it.  Take it from me, when you have managed to enrage Canuckistanians, you're not batting a hundred.  I had to massage the name a tad to fit in with our SFW policy, but can always fall back on 'Rip Van Stinkle' and probably will.

     SO! the core of this blog - for I feel we may be onto another Single Subject BOOJUM! - comes from an MSN-published article by two journos, Greg Sargent and Mona Charen.  They begin by looking at the 2018 mid-term elections, where the Wizard Lizard Gizzard party gained control of the House of Representatives, gaining 235 seats versus the Ice-Cream Bandits, who bottomed out with 199.  At that point Trump's approval rating wasn't great at 49%, but it was far healthier than his current 32%.  Anti-Rip Van Stinkle sentiment had a lot to do with that outcome.  Art!

Asleep or dead?  Only you can tell!

     One quote I would like to put here is "Trump ..... is looking for ways he can put himself on the ballot for Republicans ni 2026".

     Because RVS lives in an echo-chamber, he has no idea how unpopular he really is and that adding his name to the ballot, metaphorically, would help tank it.  Nor can his ego accept that these elections are NOT ABOUT HIM.  As for him being God's gift to the Rep - I beg your pardon, the Ice-Cream Bandits - party, allow me to introduce a 'David Pakman' vlog that destroys that narrative conclusively.  Art!

     The title for this vlog is "Trump Suddenly Vanishes And We Know Why" and Dave focusses on a ICB candidate named Ralph Alvarado.  Ol' Ralphie was verrrry pro-Trump during the primary season, claiming that Trump could walk on water, turn that very water into Gatorade* and was the only person Ralphie trusted.

     Then, suddenly, Trump was erased.  Art!

     I shall boost the Word Count and add a splendid quote from Dave: "Trump is like an anchor, and they can ride that anchor all the way to the bottom of the ocean".  Or, in other words, the polar opposite of what Trump thinks, and more importantly, what he is being told by his lickspittle courtiers.  Art!

     Another example of Trump-washing.  Ol' Ralphie, like many other candidates, wants to put as much distance between himself and Cankles Von Yamteats as possible to avoid taint by association.

     Dave explains to those of us not quite up to speed with the South Canadian voting system that, in the primaries, candidates are expected to lick Trump boot to a dazzling shine.  In a subsequent general election a much broader appeal to swing voters and independents is needed, so - out with the whitewash brush!  Art?

     Unable to parse reality thanks to having mashed potato for brains, Don Snoreleone now wants the mid-term campaign adverts to heavily feature Him Him Him, making them a referendum on himself - a person who is not standing for election and who is NOT ON THE BALLOT - instead of, as I explained above, matters that concern the Ice-Cream Bandits such as Wizard Lizard Gizzard failures and threats or local issues.  Well, all the lickspittles around him have helped feed his ego and vanity and this is the end result.  Art!

A change of theme

     Enough of Stinky Wizzleteats, here's a picture of Mara Corday in her heyday, although modern science may never be able to answer what she's got on her head.

     ANYWAY Your Humble Scribe could make a long blog even longer by comparing and contrasting The Nodfather's first administration with his current - but I shall be merciful and not bother.  Suffice to say that Charen points out that Donnie Dorko's isolation from reality is increased by his total reliance on loyalists (which is shorter and snappier than typing 'Boot-licking sycophantic yes-men') whom all filter out bad news from King Piggy.  You will recognise this as primary Dictatoritis behaviour.  She postulates that this resembles the 'Mad Medieval King' analogy, where the truth is so toxic it's replaced by lies.  Behaviour that both Nero and Saddam Hussein would recognise.  Art!

     Donold Judas Trump is being fed utter guff by his inner circle of loyalists and aides, whom assert that the only reason his polls are underwater - a theme to return to - is that citizens of South Canada aren't aware of all the things he's achieved over the past 2 years.  The White House is thus putting out information that panders to Fat Caligula but whose metrics and indicators have 0% impact on everyday living.  Art!

     Manufacturing is one such.  Pumpkinhead promised to bring back industrial and factory jobs to South Canada, since his idea of manufacturing fossilised in 1972, unaware of hideous new concepts such as 'Automation' and 'AI'.  Thus manufacturing has gone up yet jobs have not.  See above illo for reasons why.

     Other areas the Toadying Lickspittles have urged upon the Saggy Senile Sepia Sackbutt as being wholly positive that he can take credit for are:  the stock market, border enforcement and a lower rate of fentanyl deaths.  Say what on that last one?  How random can one get - and, if pressed on it, DJ Tango would probably chortle and comment about 'the trash taking itself out' as he thinks 'empathy' is a mis-spelling of 'sympathy'.  For the Devil.  Art!

Absent make-up, hairdo and flattering lighting

     Charen coined the word 'Hopium' for this dictatoritis-inflicted administration's hopes in promoting things NOT affecting the average citizen and ignoring ones that hit home hard.  No mention of the new tariffs placed on Canuckistan, nor the origins of the Mystery Minced Meat brought in to tackle beef prices, and of course - obviously! - completely ignoring the Trump-Iran War, which has elevated petrol prices.  South Canadians paying a lot more for what they misguidedly call 'gas' is a sure-fire electoral killer.

     Here an aside.  Conrad is firmly convinced the Iranian regime have no intention of harming a hair - naturally occurring or woven wig - on Trump's head, because he is doing their job for them.  Shades of Adolf Hitler, to mention another dictatoritis-sufferer.  Art!

     Whom are you looking at here?  Why, none other than Martin Bormann, minor Nazi functionary.  At first.  He got to acquire immense political power because he controlled access to Der Fuhrer; to speak to Herr Schickelgruber you had to go through Marty first.

     Why am I taking an historical diversion here?  O I thought you'd never ask!  Art?

     Natalie Harp, whom nobody had ever heard of a couple of months ago, now stands revealed as Trump's most loyal toady.  She also controls access to him, giving her gatekeeper powers and again restricting the cruel blows of reality on a mashed-potato** brain.  She also writes and 'shapes' his social media posts and presence, probably taking dictation from the barely-literate bafune.  Dictatoritis, anyone?  Art!

     The spiteful, petty response of a man with the mentality of a seven-year old, making him seem even more delusional than normal.  And where were the aides who ought to have talked him down from this nonsense?  Why, they were all telling him what a brilliant move it was, George Washington could only wish to be as clever, ad nauseum, in between licking his boots.  Sorry but the AI Art Generator refuses to work on that phrase, it seems to think it has a more sinister connotation.  Art!

     Trump allegedly hated that photo, making him look jowly and balding.  Hot tip: he is jowly and balding.

     ANYWAY ANYWAY they covered Trump's claiming that -

President Donald Trump is claiming that voters are angry with Republicans—but not with him.

In an interview with Punchbowl News released on Friday, the President asserted that he gets “a tremendous vote,” while expressing concerns about support for his party.

     More divorce from reality.  Trump keeps claiming that the polls he sees are immensely favourable, without ever stating where these polls come from.  Either he is straight-up lying - how shocking! - or, once again, his Lickspittle Toadies are making them up especially to show him; not to keep hold of as that might have him wave them in front of a camera, giving the game away.  So, he's already getting his excuses in prior to the November mid-terms.

  

     Dog Buns, I've exhausted my stock of terrible photos of Pimpkinhead.  Time to save and post.

*  CAUTION!  NOT SUITABLE AS REFLECTING POOL FILLER

**  Can you make mash from yams?

That Plum Soju Is Pretty Nice

Which Makes It Slide Down Far Too Easily

It's supposedly a Sork version of vodka, but without the bite and a sweet plum flavour, so it climbs out of the bottle and shakes your hand, instead of jumping out and attacking you.  I should also have gotten a length of plastic tubing during the weekly shop, as that would allow me to siphon the now-fermented ginger beer out of the bottles and into a glass, without stirring up the lees at the bottom.  One lives and learns.  Art!

     Conrad looking as happy as he ever does, with a glass of Old Speckled Hen just out of the fridge.  Can you tell the summer of sober is over?

     ANYWAY enough about booze, time to put out the links.  This may get posted earlier than usual, as the family have plans afoot for later.

     Out of nowhere, here's proof that some Ruffians have good taste.  Art!

BOOJUM! viewing figures

2025

BOOJUM!: The Silence Service

2024

BOOJUM!: Icke, Icke, Baby!

2023

BOOJUM!: Real Life 1 Art 0

2022

BOOJUM!: A Lot Device

2021

BOOJUM!: Dig For Victoria

2020

BOOJUM!: "Repeat Please"

2019

BOOJUM!: The Thing Is -

2018

BOOJUM!: I Mutter Of Butter

2017

BOOJUM!: The Green Tea Mile

2016

BOOJUM!: The Onus Of Bonus

2015

BOOJUM!: Doctor McCoy With Medical Toy

2014

BOOJUM!: Hamanuptra, Baby, Hamanuptra!

2013

BOOJUM!: BOOJUM! Bounces Back

Trebley Troubly Bubbly

Conrad Is Unsure If You've Been Keeping Track

Late Editorial Addition -

CAUTION!  SINGLE SUBJECT BLOG TODAY

     Opinions vary on whether this is a good thing or not.  Your mileage may vary.

Over this summer, we here at BOOJUM! have been educating and (perhaps) entertaining you with torrid tales of tyrannical troubles, venturing back into antiquity for examples, then coming back to the twentieth century.  We won't count Putinpot and Mordorvia as twenty-first century, you can't claim that status when 20% of your population lacks interior plumbing.  Art!

Ruffians queueing.
In 1866.

     Here's a link to the 20th century bubble troubles:

BOOJUM!: Bubble Troubles

      - and for the classical era-version:

BOOJUM!: Today We Talk Of Bubbles

     I am unsure how long this Intro is going to ramble on for, so it may take up the whole blog, or not.  We'll see.

     ANYWAY the two blogs above concentrate on presenting concrete examples of what Conrad terms 'Dictatoritis', a phenomenon that all dictators fall prey to, should they live long enough.  Broadly put, this is where all the stupid people attending a dictator are either dead, in prison or in exile.  So are all the brave people.  So are all the stupid and brave people (a very small group).  The ones that are left have learned to avoid earning the wrath (and thus death) of their emperor/king/dictator by NOT presenting the truth to them.  Instead these bootlicking toadies inform their lord and master what they think they want to hear.  Thus begins the primrose path to Hell.  Art!

     That's the AI Art Generator's fond imagining of Saddam Hussein, having a bath in a pool of blood.  If you think that's tasteless you should have seen the ones I rejected.

     ANYWAY AGAIN Ol Saddy was most definitely living inside an information bubble in his latter years, including Gulf War #1 in 2003.  This was the culmination of his culture of mistrust, paranoia and brootality, which is like brutality except worse.  Ol' Saddy personified the 'Kill the bearer of bad news and each person beside him as well' type of dictator.  You had to work hard at staying alive in his regime, so his generals and ministers and spymasters all routinely lied to him, blowing up minor successes into world-shattering victories and omitting any battlefield reverses.  Art!

"I'm going to pick one of you at random and have you executed!  Ho ho!"

      During the 2003 invasion of Iraq his generals all lied through their teeth to him about how their enormous valiant army was massacring the opposition.  This was another cumulation, that of the 'vertical stroke', where lower level commanders passed on fictitious reports to their superiors, who jazzed them up before sending them upstairs to their superiors, and so on, until Ol' Saddy is being told of gigantic battles the equal of D-Day or the Somme, with the Iraqi army triumphant.  Art!

     Not only that.  In his latter years Ol' Saddy had checked out of running the country, because maintaining a ruthless violent dictatorship is such hard work dahlings, and, I kid you not, spent his time not plotting about how to best Iran or acquire nuclear weapons, but -

     Writing romance novels.  Which - you may be ahead of me here - did not prove effective at preventing South Canadian mechanised 'thunder runs' into Baghdad.  Rather than Mills and Boon, Mills Bomb and Boom.  Because, once again, who is going to criticise him for doing so, and risk being executed five minutes later?  Art!

For once, words fail me

     Ol' Saddy is no longer with us.  He is survived by yet another Middle Eastern dictator, whom I have dubbed 'The Chinless Twod', Bashar al-Assad if we're being formal, and yet another autocrat to suffer from extreme dictatoritis.  Art!

     Once again, Twoddy was surrounded by lickspittle toadies who told him what they thought he wanted to hear, not the horrid truth.  His intelligence agencies, notably the General Intelligence Directorate, edited or excised information passed on to him, to make themselves look good.  Plus, as is the way with intelligence agencies the world over, to make their national rivals, such as Air Force Intelligence, look bad.  Twoddy himself had declared that the civil war was in fact 'terrorist action carried out by external actors', not genuine dissent from Syrians pushed to the brink of survival.  So, all his minions had to follow his line, or risk execution.  His armed forces killed over 200,000 civilians in the civil war, so offing a recalcitrant official or two would have bothered Twoddy not one jot.  Art!

     He lived in total opulence, completely removed from the poverty-stricken masses both physically and mentally.  His information bubble was maintained and reinforced by Ruffia, abetted by Iran, whom caused him to focus on trying to rehabilitate his regime's image abroad, instead of concentrating on Syria.  Which is where he lived.  

     Come the final advance of the Filipino army on Reykjavik in th - SORRY no, wrong century - come the final advance of the rebel alliance and the near-instant collapse of his own armed forces, Twoddy was madly insistent that Ruffian reinforcements were due any second now - any second - any second now - in yet another instance of how deluded he was in his info bubble.  Art!

     Finally understanding that the knives were out for him, and that if he stayed he was going to be decorating a lamp-post, he and his family fled to Moscow on an aircraft stuffed with as much loot as it could carry.  He now lives under verrry  close scrutiny by the Ruffians, which Conrad feels is quite poetic.  Qui custodiet ipsos custodes?*  The FSB.  Art!

     The Budapest Blimp, or, as Conrad dubbed him, the Weretoad: Vesztes** Orban.  Another wannabe-dictator, he used his Presidential status to acquire total control over Hungarian media, which was then used to pump - and pimp - his messages to the exclusion of everyone else.  Using those old autocratic standbys - patriotism and The Family.  He got a fair run out of it, but by 2024 the endemic corruption, poor economy, high inflation and protection of Orban's cronies from legal consequences had ensured the Magyars were thoroughly fed up of him.  The regime continued with it's broadcast of 'Blame Ukraine For Everything!', which wasn't terribly convincing after a decade and a half of Vesztes stealing anything not nailed down.  He couldn't come up with any convincing reason to abort the elections and had to go through with them.  Given the size of the anti-Orban and Fidesz demonstrations trying to deny them a vote would have caused a revolution.  Art!

     Conrad strongly suspects that Vesztes was promised the ethnic Hungarian territories in Ukraine if he backed Putinpot and Ruffia won.  No proof had emerged yet, but if it ever does Assad may be getting a new neighbour.

     ANYWAY AGAIN, the winner of the 2025 Presidential election, the slightly-confusingly named Peter Magyar, bypassed Orban's control of the media by going out and campaigning in person, a move out of leftfield that - well, worked.  Hungarian media put forth BUFE and the Fidesz political elite nodded and smiled to each other, until polling figures started to come in and prick their bubble.  A few of them 'left in a hurry', an euphemism for 'fled'.  Not Vesztes; he stuck around, hoping to get back in as Prez in another 4 years, so he still lives in a bubble.

     There you go, three new additions to the Dictatoritis Bubble Theory, and if you're not good I'll do another about The Only Fat Man In North Korea and Pandaman, also perhaps Potato Fuhrer (Lukashenko if we're being formal).

     Plus, all this was supposed to be the lead into an Intro about the Senile Sepia Saggy Sackbutt.  Another day.  I bet you can hardly wait.

*  'Who watches the watchmen?'

**  'Loser' in Hungarian

Today We Will Address Yield To Maturity Bonds And Gilts

Actually We Won't, I Was Lying

Doubtless that title made any stockbrokers, who accidentally stopped to peruse this site, feel their blood run faster.  Not for the rest of us.

     ANYWAY what I really wanted to cover was the impending Zombie Apocalypse, which will surely come.  Until then we have to analyse the evidence as provided from films and television, and judge them mercilessly in terms of accuracy and realism.  Er - yes - realism about the Zombie Apocalypse.  Indeed.  Art!

Nice homage to '28 Days Later'

     The title is a bit of a misnomer, they make reference to 'The Walking Dead' a lot.  Which is understandable, a television series that lasts for seasons and seasons can explore in far more detail and nuance than a ninety-minute schlockfest.   Also, a lot of what they cover can be applied to any post-apocalyptic landscape, so be sure to take copious notes!  This Heading is pretty much zombie-specific of all their Headings.

     Nor does Your Humble Scribe necessarily agree with their analysis, although by contrast I am happy to accept that the ZA is inevitably approaching.  Art!

Plot: ZOMBIES!

     All told, they tackle 10 headings, which I am going to analyse myself, as they do altogether too much handwaving and referral to Mysterious Un-named Sources.  Which is not to say they don't make good points along the way, just that they are prone to South Canadian exaggeration rather than based British matter-of-factness.  So!  Heading One.

INFINITE CARDIO

HTND use the example of a survivor 'sprinting for 6 minutes' in order to escape the shambling/sprinting hordes of the rotting undead.  They then extrapolate this brief exertion into '20 to 40 minutes of high-intensity cardio', assuming that the said survivor is going to be doing an Usain Bolt for all that time.  Er - no.  Art!

     Whom amongst us couch potatoes reading this could manage to sprint for 40 minutes?  Conrad would be hard-pressed to manage 40 seconds.  They then pay quick lip-service to an item that has it's own heading later on - 'If you're hydrated'.  If you read about the physical challenges of tackling Half Dome then hydration will not be a novel concept for you.  Art!

     Yes, the survivor above will lovely and hydrated, and also torn to bits thanks to being slowed down by all that mass.

     How fast is fast enough yet not excessive?  HTND boldly assert that what they capitalize as Real Survival Movement is no more than 2 to 4 PROUD IMPERIAL MILES PER HOUR on roads.  Instead of the 15 m.p.h. dash of Usain.

     Yes, well - that raises a lot more problems than it answers.  Art!

     Even a quick Google discourages rambling down Route 66.  To wit:

 or survival video games—you need to break line of sight, manage your stamina, and use strategic movements rather than just running in a straight line

     You are out in the open on a road, with direct lines of sight, barring any stalled vehicles, and if you keep hiding behind these you're not going to manage one-tenth of your best speed.

     When in dense urban terrain, HTND claim your median speed will be 1/2 m.p.h., presumable before rot, decay and subsidence take effect after the fall of Man.  You are far better hidden than out in the open, mind, with the ability to stop or duck and dive into cover.  Art!

     Nowhere do they mention bicycles, which are not only fleet, but also practically silent, which is one zed-attracting factor less.  

     HTND then venture into highly-questionable territory by flatly stating that 'fast zombie also burn energy', WITHOUT QUOTING SOURCES.  Where do they get this guff from?  Zombies are - you may be ahead of me here - dead dead dead and thus cannot access the normal human metabolic processes that allow enhanced performance.  From this dubious proposition about acetyl cholinesterase and mitochondria - three words you never expected to read today - they do reach the conclusion Conrad supports, that shambling revenants are more - er - realistic than the steroid-fuelled Olympic sprinters we see.  Art!

     Nowhere in their account do HTND mention stairs, which are an excellent way of escaping a pursuing mouldy maundering mob, whom have great difficulty either ascending or descending flights of steps without battering themselves into immobility.  Just a thought.

     Tying up the end of this analysis may I thoroughly torpedo HTND's claim that "Those trained to run would be the first to die".  Shades of Morrisey!

     Hmmmm.  I wasn't sure how long this Intro would be and whether or not we might not need another Heading.  We didn't, hurrah.

In A Swift Pivot -

Going from zombies to classics of literature is a big mental jump, but good exercise for you.  Art!

    Art, again - get working you lazy sloven!

     No I haven't read it.  Nor do I have any plans to.  If it crops up in a charity shop I might buy to peruse, out of interest.  Ol' Vic looks as if he's got a bad case of gout and someone stepped on his big toe, doesn't he?  One suspects THOND is not a barrel of laughs and that Disney sweetened it up considerably, even though I've not seen their farrago either and never ever intend to.

     My, what a curmudgeon I am.  My best feature.  Art!

Back To Brucie

For all me making a song and dance and having a long Intro dedicated only to Bruce Pennington's portfolio from 'Sci-Fi Art', we're still only 2:30 into a 7:00 minute slideshow, so we'd better crack on with it.  Art!

     One I am not already familiar with.  Hmmmm.   So, a church, and a procession of clerics, and a smashed and ruined cityscape in the background.  I wonder, I wonder - possibly 'A Canticle For Leibowitz', as that deals with post-apocalyptic religion and theology, leading up to another apocalypse*?  Or perhaps a speculative painting never destined for a novel or magazine cover?  There's no follow-up photo sporting a cover, so we need to dig dig dig.

     Well that failed completely.  No more details about the above painting.  Bah!

     Art!

     Unusually for this slideshow there is no pre-cover version, just the one above.  One has to wonder what a small girl is doing alone on the surface of a barren planet, and why she's racing towards what seem to be huge towers of high-voltage ceramic insulators.  Art!

     Not sure what 'The Airs Of Earth' might be,  perhaps a short story collection?  And Brucie seems to be the 'New English Library' house  artist for this period during the Seventies.  Nice gig if you can get it.  

Here's One I've Been Missing For Years

Any long-suffering regulars on this blog will know that Conrad yarks on endlessly about 'Forbidden Planet', frequently putting up illos on the subject such as the panoramic poster condensing some of the critical items together.  Art!

     Conrad is unsure if they've jazzed this poster up with a bit of AI, since I spotted this detail in a corner.  Art!

     Sinister, isn't it?  I think it's a manifestation of the Id Monster, albeit suddenly become visible, absent the disintegration beams of the world's nastiest electric fence.  Cool!  Perhaps I ought to go back over prev - No!  I will be strong.

Lesson In Marksmanship Needed

Given the recent news that Dolly Parton and Tim Curry, both aged 80, had been swept up in the icy clutches of the Grim Reaper, Wonder Wifey had a bit of a gripe with Death.  Art!

     She compared him with an Imperial Stormtrooper, that is, being unable to hit the correct 80 year old target even when it's as big as a barn door and bright orange.  

     Mister Death was unavailable for comment.  The White House has banned 'Pale Rider' from their film library.  Ambrose Bierce for Prez!

Finally -

Hopefully doing Episode 21 of "The Great War" this evening - that is, Thursday - as I like to get 48 hours ahead of scheduled posting.

*  It's got to be 70 years old at least so I'm not going to apologise for a lack of spoilers.  So there.