The Music Of Sinister

Go On, Test My Assertion

Pick any Hollywood film from the Thirties through to the Fifties, and if the scene is intended to convey Suspense, Drama and especially Evil Lurking Just Around The Corner - as Evil is wont to do - then you can bet most of their soundtracks will feature an oboe solo.  Art?

The Devil's Didgeridoo

     I'm pretty sure this rule holds true for all of futurologist Gerry Anderson's classic series as well, but frankly I don't have time to crawl through a million Youtube clips.  Let's just take it as a given and move on.
     Now, the reason I bring this instrument up is because I was banging on about an electronic guidance system that Perfidious Albion cooked up during the Second Unpleasantness, called - Oboe.  It allowed precision bombing at night or during bad weather, or both.  Art?

There's bound to be an Oboe in that lot somewhere -

     No need to go into details.
     And there I was, completing a Codeword earlier this afternoon, and what crops up?  No!  Not "Syzygy" - though they did have "Obloquy" in one I did yesterday:  "Oboe".  Art?

The hideous evidence

     This isn't the only time today that the Coincidence Hydra has dined on my behind (which must be especially succulent and savoury in nature), because there was a post on the Space Opera Facebook thread where Wil Wheaton commented on another's Twitter feed - some nonsense about shuttles and the 'Enterprise'.
     Surprise!  I had just been reading about a zombie Wil Wheaton in "Dead Eyes Open", a pretty good zombie comic, full of interesting ideas, even if the artwork was a bit crude at times.  Art?

Thus

     Ironically enough, I remember reading the synopsis on TV Tropes, long before reading the comic.     Don't go away!  For the coincidences have not yet ended.  Were that they had, my nethers are looking like an overused chopping-board.

Hey!  always time and room for a Dickens reference
(A rather strained pun is going to emerge on FB)

     Back to the Space Opera FB page, and a denizen there asked if anyone knew of any television programs or films that featured non-human inhabitants, with no reference to Earth at all.  Preferably with a space opera theme, although not essential.
     Conrad leapt boldly into the fray, naming that quintessentially British television show, "The Clangers".  Art?

A Clanger (port) and the Soup  Dragon (starboard)

     The Clangers live on a small moon that is always being hit by bits of space junk, so they live in holes in the ground, which they cover with metal hatches (see above).  These make a distinctive "CLANG" when they close.
     The Soup Dragon is in charge of a - er - how do I put it? - a soup well, from which it doles out soup to the Clangers.  Presumably all small moons have a core of vegetable soup.  Or something.  Ministrone?     My South Canadian compatriot had never heard of them, and intends to check them out.  Well worth it - the program wons scads of awards and appeals to all ages.*
     The coincidence about this one is a rather sad one.  Peter Firmin, the designer, illustrator and model-maker behind the series, died today. Art?

Peter with friends

     "The Clangers" was only one of a stable of children's programs going back years, all of which were much-loved.  A solid body of work: we salute you, sir.
     Remembering the Clangers has put me in such a good mood that I shall merely give the motley a clip round the ear and a cup of tea, though it will have to empty the teapot later.

More Of Space Opera!

I have just finished reading "Triplanetary" by E.E. "Doc and don't you EVER forget it" Smith, which is just about the touchstone for space opera as far as sci-fi is concerned.
     However!  All is not how it seems.  
     Here an aside.  Art?

Snorkers!**
(Sausages to you)

     This will all make sense on Facebook, I assure you.
     The version I read was the one originally published in pulp sci-fi magazines back in 1934 and 1935, run together as a single volume on Project Gutenberg as it's long out of copyright.
     This is not the same as the actual novel "Triplanetary", which Doc created after writing other Lensman stories later in the Thirties; he went back and added a lot more introductory material, creating new characters at different points in human history, and the 1934/5 pulp story is the concluding part of the novel.  Art?


     Above port - the free version I read; above starboard - the full version I shall have to pay to read!



*  Factoid: the South Canadian version is narrated by - William Shatner, whom we featured earlier today NOT ANOTHER ****** COINCIDENCE!
**  I nicked this from "The Cruel Sea"

Nightmare At 30,000 Feet

None Of That Metric Nonsense Here

Also, No! this is nothing to do with that classic episode of "The Twilight Zone", because that was "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet", and I take pride in being precise about numbers.
     Here an aside.  It is a great episode, featuring an obscure (at the time, anyway) Canadian actor, who, whilst nibbling away on his airline snacks (Doritos), is the only person on a passenger plane able to see a gremlin - and a hideous gremlin at that - which is attempting to sabotage one of the plane's engines.  Art?

Oh, did I not mention it was William Shatner?

     You're not sure if he's having an attack of the Purple Wim-Wams, until the last shot on the ground is of extensive damage to the plane's engine ...
     Also, notice the use of the word "gremlin".  This is lifted from Wiki, which itself lifted it from RAF slang, where it referred to mischievous little imps that caused all the mysterious and inexplicable failures in an aircraft.  Art?

Pilot Officer Prune meets a gremlin.
(Neither is impressed with the other)

     Which is a painless way of segueing into what I really intended to talk about: the Light Night Striking Force, which I introduced yesterday as an offshoot of the RAF's specialist Pathfinder Group during the Second Unpleasantness.  The LNSF was composed of Mosquito bombers, which regularly flew to Berlin to unload a whole lot of horrid on the city.  The Luftwaffe did not like the Mosquito; it flew so fast they had to create specialist interceptor night-fighters with boosted engines and performance, in order to have even the slightest change of scragging them.  Art?

Teuton night-fighter Lichtenstein radar.  Also good for drying your socks on

     Overall, the LNSF lost 200 aircraft, which sounds like a lot, but that is over a period of two years, and not all were shot down; some were classed as "Damaged beyond economical repair", which means there were more holes than aircraft.
     Here another aside.  You don't mind, do you?  After all, you don't have to pay to read this.  The Mossie, as she was known, was made of wood, which the Teutons at first mocked, until they realised this resulted in an extremely robust aircraft that, with two great big engines hanging off it's wings, could go like stink.  Not only that, it could be sub-contracted out to all kinds of enterprises that worked with wood, making it easy to produce in numbers.  

I think I have this lying around somewhere

     Also, those 200 losses were against 27,000 sorties, or one loss per 135 sorties.
     "Yes, but - where does 30,000 feet come in?" I hear you quibble, querulously.
     That, dear reader, is the height they bombed from, or about 5 1/2 miles up.  Using a bit of technical wizardry called "Oboe", they could be guided to target very accurately, to the dismay of Teutons below and the impotent fury of chaps like Goering.     Blimey!  That was a long Intro - about 2/3 of the way to count, in fact.  Quickly - change the subject whilst we drop the motley down a well!

The motley!
(Perhaps)

Damn That Polyquaternium-9!

I know, I know, it sounds like something Marvin the Martian needs in order to blow up Earth, because it obstructs his view of Venus; or, then again, the terrifying McGuffin from a Seventies series of "Doctor Who" (the BBC's premier dramamentary!) which kills everyone who touches it by reversing the neutron flow's polarity.
     Not a bit of it.  It's actually an ingredient in cosmetics, used for it's ability to enhance films.*
Your humble scribe was incautious enough to stand his bottle of cheap green shampoo on the bathroom windowledge, which has been bombarded with deadly solar radiation for the past two weeks, and - Art?

     The stuff on the port side is what the colour ought to be, and the one to starboard has turned blue!  Quite what this will do to your modest artisan when he takes a shower is open to question, but if you hear of a mutant superhero in the Royton area of Oldham in the next few days, then you know it was drastic.

Finally -

Take note of that book I captured in picture form for you just above, and say Hello! to Edward Bishop.  Art?

You know, I suspect they are not the same man

     Also, nothing that mentions gremlins can get away without mentioning one of Joe Dante's most famous works.  Art?

"Gremlins 2"

     For the sharp-eyed, there's also a reference to Quatermass and the British Rocket Group.  Props to Joe for including that!

Oh, go on.  Because you were patient.  A Gremlin

     - and really, truly, finally -

The Kremlin

The Kremlin

     It'll make sense on Facebook, honestly.
     (Also, I lied about the Doritos)

*  Something Hollywood needs in quantity, one feels ...