The Horror Haddock - Of Vladivostok!

I Know, I Know -
Pushing the "EVIL FISH!" theme again, well it worked earlier this year and I promised not to abuse Star Trek for a while, so - here we are with the perverse piscines.
     Seriously, if a haddock turned up in the waters outside Vladivostok, it really would be a horror fish, as Vladivostok is in the far east of Russia.  Art?

Art gets it right for once.

     There you go, bordering the Sea of Okhotsk.  Now, the haddock is a native of the North Atlantic, and the North Atlantic exclusively.  So if it turns up swimming in Golden Horn Bay, it must have walked there across Russia.

Horror Haddock, sunbathing

     The other alternative, that it swam there, is an equally horrifying possibility -

Horror Haddock: normal haddock on atomic steroids

     - as it would render the normally inoffensive fish into a musclebound maverick monster.
     So there you are.  The future - full of frightening fish.

A Bit Of Self-Promotion
SIT BACK DOWN!  This won't take long, I just like to blow the trumpet every so often, to prove that there are other people out there reading this scrivel*.

My Profile picture
No longer strictly accurate

Profile hits: 3,572
Pageviews: 18,683

"Posts" is a little misleading, since that total includes 6 Drafts that never got posted.  Still, well on the way to a thousand.
Posts Last Month: 983
This is liable to increase as folks look at older posts in September
World Viewer Snapshot:

Unsurprisingly for a blog written in English, the UK and USA are either the nations with the best taste, or the worst.
     There!  That wasn't so bad, was it?

A Bit Of Profundity About The Time Of Year
Within a week of each other we have the festivals of Halloween and Bonfire Night here in the UK.  Halloween, when the Devil rides out, or more probably nowadays drives out, in a Ford Thunderbird without a catalytic converter.  Bonfire Night, when people gather to celebrate dangerously with beer and explosives, wondering what could possibly go wrong?

This.

     Both of these ceremonial events take place in the dark, as it's gone night by 18:00 by the time Halloween comes around, and even more so with Bonfire night on the 5th of November.  Would either of these events have the same impact if they took place a couple of months earlier?  Consider Walpurgisnacht, which occurs on the 30th of April, in other words when it remains light at night - and how many of you have heard of Walpugisnacht?  No dark and sinister backdrop, you see.
     Not making any great point, just a bit of speculation.

You What? 
Hopefully the other passengers on the bus didn't worry toooo much about Conrad, snickering away in his window seat.  I did have good reason, you know, having just seen a spare wheel cover with the logo:

"TERRANO TROUT HUNTER"

     Having Googled earnestly for ages, I cannot find a wheel cover with such a logo, which makes me wonder if it's not a one-off special for someone who's a little confused about how you actually catch trout.  Hint:  it's not with a shotgun and a retriever dog***.

Meanwhile, At Strategic Rocket Forces Base Number Sixteen, Novi Palatinsk -
Whilst that idiot the Colonel is on leave on the shores of Lake Baikal, Major Lermontov, the astute second-in-command, is having road-mobile "Topol" missiles put into silos, to prove that it can be done.  Since the most sober officers on the base are Misha and Grisha (no money left to buy vodka!) he has chosen them to supervise the operation.

Misha (nearest the camera): Can you guess what it is yet?

What's In A Name?
As you surely know by now, Conrad enjoys mucking about with language, and - well, let's just say that certain big budget films now on release have their "mockbuster" Asylum equivalent^.
AMERICAN SNIPPER: "Shear adrenaline entertainment!"
THE FARTIAN: "He's so gassy it so not classy!"
INSPECTRE: "Don't make a fuss - on HIS bus!"
     Well it makes me laugh.  Once again, whose blog is it?

Respect The Hyphen!
For it, and it alone, lies between you and the terrifying world of grammar gone bad.  Grammarmageddon, even^^.
     Today, let me illustrate the point with:  "Well-fed"

Conrad knows who ate all the pies.  But he's not telling

     Without that hyphen, you'd face the horrifying reality of anthropophagous^^^ architecture.

Well, fed

* I'd still write it even if nobody read it, har-har**!
** Probably.
*** Unless you're Withnail
^ Not really, I made all this up.  Not going to let them steal my thunder!
^^ Sorry.
^^^ Man-eating.  Woman-eating too, for that matter.

The Doctor - Under Water

Aha, Not In The Way You Think!
You're thinking of last night's episode, aren't you?  Well, don't worry, we'll get there in the end.  But first, we must whiz back forty years to the Fourth Doctor.  Yes, we must.  No avoiding it, sorry.
     Okay - this will all make sense in a little while.  Recall, if you will, "The Talons of Weng Chiang", that Victorian melodrama wherein the Doctor and Leela take on evil from the Forty-Second Century.  Much of the drama takes place in a Music Hall ("The Palace Theatre", and in the cellars and sewers beneath it. Various odd noises heard by the staff are dismissed as being sounds made by the Fleet River, long covered over  by this time: " the River Fleet runs right under these foundations."

The River Fleet: a fixer-upper with low rent and no neighbours!

     Not so!  And indeed the Doctor has to make his way to the Thames where it merges with the Fleet, and - backed up by an awesome piece of smoothbore musketry of epic dimensions - explores up the sewer, dealing with giant rats along the way.

NO!  Art!  Where's my Tazer -

Ah, far more terrifying!

     Well there you go, after a longer and more rambling Intro than usual, let us get to the meat of the matter.

The BBC, Touchstone Of Truth
Well well well*, in a matter of speaking.  What do we have here on the Beeb website but - the covered waterways of London.  Principal amongst these is the - River Fleet.  Allow me to illustrate -

The river Fleet.  Still a fixer-upper

     Surprisingly enough the brickwork is still pretty much as when constructed back in Victorian times.

Either take mine and the Beeb's word or - go see for yourself.

     You can take a tour of the city's covered rivers, should the fancy take you.  A bit of a commute for Conrad, but the legions hundreds dozens three readers who live in London might care to stroll along them.  Meet the Fleet, as it were ...

Doctor Who: "Under The Lake"
"Aha, the proper Doctor Who!" I can hear you chorus.
     Watch it!  Conrad grew up with the Original. Less of your "proper".
     Set in The Drum, an underwater oil-platform of 2119 AD, we discover that they have discovered an Alien Spaceship on the seabed, which is brought inside the base in order to have a nosey at it.  The ship's interior is pretty empty, bar some etchings on the inner hull, empty and featureless, reminding this viewer of "Quatermass and the Pit", if you must know.

Hmmm.  Quatermass and the Pit crossed with Colonial Marine Dropship

      Then, of course, things go horribly wrong.  Their Boss is killed and returns as a ghost, in the company of another ghost, both of whom are, in the Doctor's words "a bit murdery".  The Doctor and Clara have turned up to see what turns up: which is murdery ghosts who can only appear at night, and whom can't penetrate the emergency shelter, which doubles as a Faraday cage.  Nice touch, that.

The Deadly Duo.  Shortly to be Trio

     Another nice touch are The Cards, written out by Clara for presentation to the Doctor so he can read them out, in order to compensate for his hideous lack of social skills.  Really!  You know, the Third Doctor <Mister Hand intervenes in the sake of both brevity and mercy>  Pall Mall Club. With oysters and a bottle of Chablis!

Social skills: Poor  Intellect: Off the scale

     Where was I?  O yes.  The etchings act as a kind of psi-meme**, affecting everyone who sees them, which is everyone.  
     Then the survivors send out their remote-controlled submarine to retrieve what the psi-meme had given a location for - the alien ship's fridge, inside which would be a delicious variety of cooked and chilled food the pilot in suspended animation.  The virtual sub exploration was a cunning ploy, as it excluded the need for any cast members to don a pressure suit and do underwater filming.
     Then - as mentioned earlier today - IT'S A TWO PARTER!   Dog Buns!  And look, the Doctor's died and turned all ghostly ...
     Ah, well, till next week.

Actually, before we go -

Seventh Doctor: "Battlefield"

     This scene also takes place Under The Lake.

I suppose my musings upon Walpurgisnacht will have to wait until tomorrow.

* Do you see what I - O you do.
** I don't know if this exists as a proper word yet. If not, you read it here first!

The Evil John Dory Of Tobermory!

I Suppose I Shall Have To Explain
Way back in the early months of 2015, I posted quite a few entries that played upon the theme of "Fish", usually hideously ferocious or mutated or zombie or all three at the same time.  Take, for example, "The Atomic Cod Of Novgorod":

https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2768303640503448725#editor/target=post;postID=48513898511945692;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=0;src=postname

 - which the above links to.  It got a fair few hits, probably from Russians wondering what on earth nuclear fish had to do with their city, and if it was some sinister NATO plot to hide ICBM's within innocent piscine intruders.

"The one that got away?  It was this big."

     Anyway, having dragged evil fish into the equation, I decided to return there with the John Dory.
     Art?  Put down that nutty slack* sandwich and post a picture!

Not, one has to confess, the most handsome of fish

     Since the Dory inhabits coastal waters, there is every chance that there are some off the coast of Scotland, including Tobermory, and - well, really, just look at it! - evil personified.

The Haul
Normally I post this on the day I acquire the goods, but there was a little too much to include in yesterday's posts.  So here is Conrad's barely-suppressed gloating about what he got:

All from Fopp!
One of Gong's finest moments, the NY definition of dance -
- and "Low", heard over the PA.

     A couple of free publications as well - "free" always goes down well with your humble scribe - and I actually know some of the artists mentioned.  Nowadays I have to listen to Youtube to see what these bands sound like <sad face>**.
     After a millisecond of mourning, on to the DVDs -

Stakeland, Brothers at War and American Sniper

     I got "Stakeland" because I saw a <cough cough> version and liked it, "it" being a very grim take on the vampire film indeed.  No sparkly emo-elves*** in this film, just Pure Evil With Big Fangs.  The Rule of Conrad is, if I've seen and liked it, I have to buy it.
     "American Sniper" because it sounds interesting and may be one of Clint's last films - he's getting on a bit, you know - and "Brothers in Arms" because it was only £2.  Yes I know that's disgustingly shallow.  Whose blog is it?
     Finally, the books.  It was an effort carrying this lot home, they weighed a ton.

Let's see: The Informer, World Atlas of Warfare, Something About A Soldier, The Men Who Made the SAS, Passchendaele, Doctor Who Dictionary, Topography of Armageddon and Nightfighters.

Altogether they cost £37, and they seemed to weight that, too.  You may think this constitutes a lot, except it works out at £4.63 per volume.  At full price - and bear in mind some of these are a decade old and would cost more now - they clock in at £155 £175 - "Topography" now stands at £45.
     I'm especially interested in the "Topography of Armageddon", as I've never heard of this work before, despite having a worrying obsession keen interest in the First Unpleasantness, it only has a single entry on Abebooks besides.

Enough unseemly gloating!   On with things!

What's In A Name
Once again condemned to the awful fate of dogsitting Edna this morning, I did the usual trawl through the television channels, noting that the "Horror Channel" is angling slightly towards Horror, although perhaps "Mild Frisson Of Discomfort" is more apt, as they had the old "Incredible Hulk" series on.  CBS Action once again skirts the Trade Descriptions Act, having more dull Next Generation Star Trek on.  We want the original! Phasers blasting, Scotty fist-fighting, Kirk wooing women, Spock doing that thing with his fingers in a "W".
     Although, were Conrad ever to form a band^, and a right sinister organisation it would be, the Create and Craft Channel would offer up lots of potential for song titles.  Todays was "Template Studio One Day Wonder".
     Having just typed that and looking back at my dismissive sneering about the cookie-cutter audio drivel one hears on the radio - well, that's today's coincidence sorted.

A Skreeming Vole^^.
NO!  Sorry, a Ranting Beaver.

Northern Soul
No, not the music, the Grilled Cheese Sandwich cafe on Church Street Market.  Conrad has been a customer for a good while now, since it was a half-unit when they stored catering kit in converted oil-drums.

Like this -

     Not too long ago they expanded to take over the other half of the unit and can now seat up to 24 people, viz:

Thus!

     I had a "Feel The Heat", which is a bit smaller now than when they started.  This is actually a good thing as the old sandwiches were big enough that they'd started to cool and congeal by the time you got to the end.
     And the service was good enough that Conrad, stingiest of mortals, left a tip.

Z Nation And Annihilation
Finished watching Episode 3, and have to wonder at the Road Train of Idiot Survivors.  How did these numpties survive for 3 years after the Zombie apocalypse?
     Don't confuse them with Our Heroes, and Murphy, who are mighty amongst men (and women).  No, the Idiots deserve to die as they were too stupid to live. Reasons?
  1)  They never bother to aim when shooting.
  2)  When people are shooting back, they refuse to take cover.
  3)  They are towing a trailer full of the terminally ill, who will zombify once dead.
  4)  The trailer has nice low sides that zombies can climb
  5)  The zombies-in-waiting are not restrained in any way
  6)  Nobody cares that they're going to turn into zombies
  7)  There is no way to detach the trailer
  8)  When attacked by zombies, Idiot Survivors remain belted-up in their death-trap cabs.
  9)  Despite being willing to shoot fellow humans, Idiot Survivors refuse to shoot zombies
     I think that'll do to be going on with.
     Oh, of the 20 Idiot Survivors, one did actually get away, when Murphy and Cassandra, his semi-zombie slave-girlfriend, stole a car and made their merry way away.
     Also, I'm not entirely convinced that radiation can turn your normal, average, plodding zombie into a cogent Olympic sprinter.  They are dead, after all.

A "Blaster" zombie.  No, hang on a minute -

* A nickname for coal.  I have to add this in for the C21 generation.
** Conrad will probably never get over the heartbreaking loss of "Grooveshark"
*** Nicked as a description from the pithy and accurate Degsy.
^ Don't mock.  If the current spawn of musically barren nonentities currently parading as musicians or singers - yes Beiber I'm looking at you - can do it, so can I.
^^ Blog in-joke