Conrad - Positively GIBBERING With Excitement!

No, I Haven't Been Given Permission To Own -
 - well, let us draw a discreet veil o'er what Conrad would like to own, as this would be a little controversial.
     I am gleeful for two reasons.  First, "Thunderbirds65", which is a series of miniepisodes made using new and existing props as well as techniques from the classic "Thunderbirds" from back in the day.  Art?

Gibbering, I tell you!

     Herein the Twitter link:

https://twitter.com/thunderbirds65

"Thunderbirds" was noble and high-minded, Jeff Tracy cautioning his sons that they weren't simply showing off with expensive technology, they were there to save the life of their fellow man when normal emergency services couldn't manage.
     Plus, it had Things Exploding.  Art?

     Starting as they mean to go on.
     "Ah, the pathetic tendency of an old man to cling to his youth," I hear you saying, and apart from the "pathetic" bit, you are completely correct.
     The second reason my palms are all sweaty is a serendipitous double discovery.  Art?

"The Mathematics of Finance: A Deterministic Approach"

     No!  Art, you buffoon, that's possibly the world's most boring book.  The one below it.

There you go!

     Don't bother trying to read the title, it's in Icelandic*. "Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endelaust" or "With a buzz in our ears we play endlessly", by Sigur Ros.  It's a promotional photo album for the 2008 release.  It cost £30, but!  it's a limited edition, to wit:

Number 5012

     That weird little strip of plastic is actually a section of the 16mm film for "Gobblidigook", making it even more unique.  That's not all.  Art?

     That's a picture CD of "Med" itself, which I might have lost when the car got broken into, and a film CD as well.  So not a bad bargain.  I did check it out on Abebooks and there was a copy going in South Cananda for only £0.77.  Except that post and packing was £34.

"Gorgo"
What you might call "The British Godzilla".  It begins with a quake at sea and ends up with Gorgo's mum trashing most of London's landmarks.  That's not really what this post is about, however**.  I caught the ending on television last week and immediately focussed in on the military hardware.  Unfortunately the pictures I got on my camera were a bit rubbish.

     Thanks to some software wizardry I can now put up a selection of rather better pictures, demonstrating a lot of British military hardware of the year 1961.  Art?

Tanks!

     These look to be the Mark 10 variant, with the 105mm gun.  50 tons of bad attitude!
     Next!

Always give way to 3 ton armoured cars

     These look to be Daimler Mark 2 armoured cars, mounting the 2 pounder, with Bedford lorries in the background.  Next!

Sorry for the blurry, it was in a hurry

     I think this is the Austin "Champ", a light truck used by the army.  As I say, a bit blurry and I couldn't get a better screenshot.  Soz!
    Art?

Three birds, one stone

     In the foreground is a Landrover, which superceded the Champ as it was a lot cheaper and easier to maintain.  To the left rear is another Bedford truck and to the right a Humber "Saracen" armoured personnel carrier.  I feel very clever getting all three in.
     And next we have a shot of hapless conscripts blazing away at Gorgo's mum -

Stiff upper lip at all times, chaps.  Remember, we're British!

   - with their Lee-Enfield r- - hang on, that chap at the left is firing a German MP38. Which was used by the Wehrmacht in the Second Unpleasantness, certainly not by the British, and certainly not in 1961.  It ought to be a Sterling.
     Conrad notes that this happened in "Doctor Strangelove", too.  I think it must be an armourer's in-joke.  How else to explain away such a continuity error?  Of course, I could be overthinking it ...
     Oh, the main attraction***:

Gorgo and mum depart the scene.

     Just so you don't go away feeling disappointed.

That Second Serendipitous Discovery
Whilst the nice lady in the Oxfam bookshop was getting my Sigur Ros book - excuse me, got to wipe down my sweaty palms - what did I notice in surprise and trepidation but the trade paperback of "The Winter Men".  Art?

Lower right

     This is an excellent comic book series that was sabotaged by an erratic publishing schedule.  I got three of the six copies and gave up on completing the collection.  It tells the story of Kris Kalenov, ex-flying tank jockey, the "Winter" project and politics versus organised crime in post-Soviet Russia.  Kris is a near-alcoholic, separated, haunted by the past and an extremely hard-boiled brawler.  He's almost never without a plaster on his face somewhere.

Kris in karakter

And to finish, Beetlejuice being chased by a Sandworm:

Serves him right!

*  Topical, eh?
**  Conrad and tangents.  That's why people love me.
*** To the norms.

Your Humble Scribe On A Diatribe

NO!
It is not a brand of motorbike, still less a skateboard - having seen the unholy bulk of the ungainly Conrad*, do you really think he could balance on one, let alone use it? - please check your Greek lessons, it means - well, a rant, really.
     "Oh aye," I hear you saying.  "Jog Fatty's elbow and he rants about something.  What makes today different?"
     Leaving aside your ignorance of my recently-diminished waistline, let us proceed.
     THE YOUTH OF TODAY.  That's who's squarely in my sights, Vulnavia.  At work the question came up "How far is it from the Electric Goldfish Bowl to Deansgate Railway Station?" and the consensus was about a mile, since it would take twenty minutes to walk it.

Goldfish Bowl in all it's glory

     "One thousand and sixty yards," exclaimed your humble scribe dinosaur, as the assembled youth of the office looked on in mystified bafflement - or baffled mystification, you can choose.
     "What's a yard?"  "We have one in the back" "Have the Wildlings got bagpipes yet?" "Does it disappear when you stand up?" and so on.
     BOOJUM! of course refuses to use the hideous Metric system and sticks firmly to Imperial, so do these young people not know of measurements such as rods?  chains?  perches?  poods?
     Okay that last one was Tsarist Russian, just testing.
     Ranting and tanting over, the motley may now begin!

100 Years Of War Films
This popped up on the Beeb website and Conrad, as ever with the curiosity of a small child and the same small child's fondness for Things Exploding, checked it out.  Here we see the fruits of my labours.

"Jarhead"

     Not seen it, and although it scores highly on IMDB, apparently very little happens, so I'll not bother catching up with it.  Next!

"Atonement"

     I cheated and only watched the Dunkirk bit, which was quite eventful.  The rest of the film will, sadly, remain unseen thanks to a dearth of Things Exploding.  Art?
     

"Captain Correlli's Mandolin"

     Seen it, and it was okay - History Pedant Mode came into operation watching the battle between artillery pieces and tanks, neither being of the correct date.  Loved the book, though.  Go!

"Where Eagles Dare"

     Clint's fake German uniform.  Seen it, done a critique of the IMDB "Goofs" page about it.  Found about 1/3 of supposed Goofs were wrong, 1/3 correct and 1/3 could be explained away with a bit of hand-waving.
     "Broadsword calling Danny Boy, Broadsword calling Danny Boy ..."

A bit dull by comparison

     I include this one as a typographical comma, allowing you to collect yourself.  Art?

"Apocalypse Now"

     Never was opera better combined with helicopter airborne assault.  I still think that a split-second shot shows Nicholas Cage in an uncredited role.  Art?

Renactment.  Like "Doctor Who"

     Staged, pretty obviously.  Film cameras of the time were enormous bulky objects and, if seen out in the open by the Germans, would have been immediately targeted for destruction, just in case.  You can generally tell if a film is staged or not by judging how high the camera has been positioned in order to film; anything above a crouch would have been suicidal in real life.  Art?

A cine camera of the period

     And here one is.  Camera crews being targetted is still an issue; when Ross Kemp went to Afghanistan the Taliban took care to fire on him and the camera team first, possibly suspecting them of being Hideous Western Death-ray Technology.

Going Dry For July
You may not care to know about your modest artisan's social life - more correctly anti-social** life - which is unfortunate as you're still going to get to hear of it.  Yesterday was July 1st, which is 2 months post-April, so we here at BOOJUM! are going sober until 6 p.m. Saturday 30th July.  Committed in black and white!

Do not tempt me!

    More of Conrad's innards.  Being sober means his liver gets time off.  We had Mister Liver as a guest editor last year, although he was so shockingly rude about your talented typist that there's no prospect of him coming back for a return gig.  Livers, eh?  No loyalty, no loyalty at all.

Annnnnd For Today's Coincidence
Dog Buns!  That damned Hydra is back again.  This week Conrad has been playing two of the stand-out tracks from Pink Floyd's "Meddle" repeatedly - "Echoes" being one of them.  Then he spotted this in Facebook:

I say!

     Of course the other track is "One Of These Days".  Universe, I rest my case.

Now, I am off to brew my second teapot of the day.  Loose leaf Darjeeling, don't you know***.





* That's me, Mister Third Person Man
** Breaker of bus stops, that's me
*** Look how sophisticate what I am.

O Woe! The Weather

As You Know, Conrad Lives In England
We shall come back to that.  He frequently refers to the climate here in his hilarious titular "Pond of Eden", and rarely has this been truer as today the weather came after me with a vengeance.  
     A fire alarm sounded across the echoing atrium of the Electric Goldfish Bowl this afternoon, and the building emptied.
     So did the heavens.
     Right upon us, out in the open, with no shelter, and with stewards slowing down return to the building.  Plus there were strong winds, leading to many a fatal Umbrella Inversion.  Conrad, back to the wind, might as well have simply lain down in a bath 1" deep in water, so wet was he.
     Then again!  Waiting for the 24 on the street with a single small shelter already crammed with people.  And once more the Atlantic fell from the skies.

Some Of The Somme
It being the 1st of July today, wherein a load of dusty old myths about that battle get trotted out for their centennial inspection.
     Which is kind of tangential to what I am about to discuss*:  "Band of Brigands" by Christy Campbell, about the creation and adventures of the Tank Corps on the Western Front from 1916 onwards.
     Given Conrad's love of tanks, it was inevitable that your modest artisan would read this work.
     It contains some reasons why it is a spectacularly bad idea to go to war with the British, to wit:
     1) Bloody-mindedness.  We will hear much of this today in connection with the Some.  This battle was a grinding attritional bloodbath, normally viewed through the prism of disaster from the British perspective.  In fact the Germans at the time felt exactly the same way and every soldier involved, from the lowest stubble-hopper to the most exalted Field Marshal, hated HATED HATED it.  British bloody-mindedness brought the German army close to cracking.

Mister Atkins and his pulchritudinous pig-sticker-pistol-pike 

     2)  Technical Innovation.  We invented the tank, after all.  Given our propensity for creating new ways to render our fellow man extremely dead, don't dismiss the possibility of Matter-Transmitter Delivered H-Bombs being next in our arsenal.  That, or dragons.

"Mother" (yes really)

     3)  Borderline insanity.  Let us look at the example of Captain Giffard Le Quesne Martel.  His nickname was a lot more humble - "Slosher", because he was an outstandingly good boxer.
     Quite.
     His idea of having a good time was to find an area of front line being shelled, then get right in there and dodge the shell-bursts.
     Quite, again.
     One can only be grateful he was on our side ...

Slosher, looking suspiciously like Terry Thomas.

"Temerity"
Another of those Oh It Just Popped Up words that arrive from left field.  It means "boldness" or "audacity" and obviously - obviously! - derives from Latin.  From "Temere" in fact, which means "Rash" as in the sense of being hasty, not scabby.  This then became "Temeritas" and then Temerity.
     It also sparked another connection, to a painting by Turner.  Art**?

"The Fighting Temeraire"

     Conrad rather suspects that our sympathy is supposed to rest with the old warship delicately if not ethereally rendered in pastel shades.
     Bah!  Look at that cool and groovy steam tug, looking quite <ahem> badass in black.  Wave of the future, daddy-o, wave of the future.
     There you go, Conrad displaying a touch of temerity.

It's - It's - Banana Splits
My butt must be deliciously in-season, since the Coincidence Hydra has been sinking it's plaque-coated fangs in there again.  You remember yesterday's ridiculously pretentious "analysis" of the "Tra La La Song"?
     "What?" I hear you quoth.  "That was the best bit!  It was so detailed and precise!"
     Leaving aside your worrying inability to tell irony from an iron, I shall expound.
     "What?  No, please explain instead, Conrad!" I hear you quarrel <sighs> go look it up.
     As I said, the "Tra La La Song", which was the theme tune for the Banana Splits Show.  Now, take a gander at this:

     What was the answer there?  Yes, "Banana Splits".  Now, what are the chances of that happening?   I don't thin - DON'T SNEAK UP ON ME LIKE THAT!

Heaton Park Redux
Conrad explained to his Pub Quiz partners Rosie and Phil that he'd been off in Heaton Park weeding Himalayan Balsam out of the landscape last Friday.  

Another opportunity to showcase my Hat of Hard

He got a knowing nod from Phil.  Phil, you see, golfs, and he said that every course he's played on recently has been positively over-run by the stuff.  He pictured it to Rosie, explaining that if it were to pop up at the Halfway House, in a couple of years it would have spread all the way into Royton, a mile away, and he's not far wrong.

On that sombre note I shall leave you for tonight.


*  I'm random like that.  It's why people hate me.
** Do you see what - O you do.