On Top Of It

You'll See Just How Extraordinarily Clever That Was

Though in a little while.  First off, I'm currently watching a shockingly gory and suggestive film on Netflix  called "Polar", which is apparently adapted from a Dark Horse comicbook.  Never heard of it, so I have Googled a little.  The comics seem to be done in a very stylised fashion, using only black, white and orange.  Art?

Thus

     Whereas the film uses a very bleak palette indeed for the scenes set in Montana.  This is understandable, as Montana is not the Fun Capital of anywhere; it also allows a notable contrast with the scenes set in Miami et al.   And whereas the comics don't bother with dialogue at all, the film does: not surprising, really, since silent films went out in the Twenties.  Though the incredibly dour Mads Mikkelsen is pretty damn laconic, mind.

The players

     No idea why it's called "Polar".  Perhaps Mads' character is not bipolar, merely -

     Okay, that was a nice short Intro.  Let's see if the motley can escape a pack of Robot Attack Squirrels riding on Cyborg Zombie Were-weasels!*

Topology

Ah.  Yes.  Er - another one of those words that popped up in my head and led to today's post.  I remember it being the only part of Mathematics taught at school that I enjoyed.  I'm not sure how to explain it succinctly yet accurately.  It concerns the study of the properties of space that remain consistent under manipulation.  In topology, a Polo Mint - Art?

Thus

     - is mathematically the same as, oh, say a glassless window frame -

Thus again

     I know, I know, one is small and suckable, not to mention round, whereas the window frame would break all yer teeth if you were uncommon daft enough to try biting it.  However, if you imagine that they're both made of an infinitely flexible medium, one can be made to resemble the other.  Try imagining a Cola Cube -

<sighs at what he cannot have>

     - because, topologically, this is the same as <thinks> - aha!

A gold ingot

     Except, once again, in the matter of taste.  I don't care how immensely valuable gold it, it's a heavy metal that cannot be good for you if ingested.**

     So there, topology.

Top field

Topo Gigio

You must have been expecting this, surely?  For does not the mind of your humble scribe hop around like an amphetamined flea in a microwave?*** And we need more than one item mentioning "Top" to justify today's title.

     And so to Topo.  Art?

The mouse in question

     Topo began life as a character on an Italian children's program, and went on to conquer Italy in short order.  He is still around today, performing at festivals, and is a recurrent character in Italian pop culture.  He broke into the big time by appearing on "The Ed Sullivan Show" in 1963, just like The Beatles.  Unlike they, he has never grown old.

     Hmmm.  Not sure exactly how your modest artisan comes to know about him.  Another bit of mental flotsam!

Twelve Minutes Of Terror!

Okay, let us immediately detail the English Electric Lightning, the Brylcreem Boy's fastest ever jet, basically a cockpit strapped to two mighty engines.  Art?

Lightning strikes!

     This thing could shift.  It was designed a short-range interceptor, meaning it had to get off the ground fast in order to shoot down those intruding Sinister bombers.  To aid in this it had afterburners, which means you could squirt fuel into the burning exhuast, at which point your previously high acceleration would seem like a gentle bike ride.

     Here an aside.  Conrad has actually seen one of these beasts do just that whilst cycling to Lytham.  It was probably working out of British Aerospace's plant at Warton.  There it was, whizzing along very low, until it canted up at an angle and WHAMMO!  Out of eyesight in seconds.

BAE Warton

     We shall now move along to 1966 and the 33rd Aircraft Maintenance Unit, commanded by Wing Commander Taffy Holden at RAF Lyneham.  The unit's job was to get jet aircraft ready for despatch to other RAF squadrons, which they had done to everything bar a single Lightning which had persistent electrical problems.  Taffy was supposed to wait until an experienced Lightning pilot arrived to fly the jet, which would have taken weeks.

     The solution was obvious.  Since the plane didn't need to actually fly, merely taxi along the runway, Taffy himself would sit in the pilot's seat with a notebook and record what happened when he pressed various switches.  A few trial runs like this and the aircraft fitters would be able to work out what the problem was.

What Taffy needed to check out

     This raised another problem:  Taffy was a mechanical engineer, NOT a pilot.  He'd flown small propeller planes to get a flying licence, but never a jet, and certainly not a Lightning.  So, one of the ground crew with experience talked him around the cockpit controls for five minutes, mentioning the afterburners, and Taffy got on with it -

     And we'll pause it there.  But I bet you can see where this is leading ...

Very very frightning -
(Hmmm, that sounds familiar -)

Oh Goody!

I see that the BBC has, wisely or not, opened up the Comments section about some Premier League ballfooot games so that we the people can "Have Your Say".  Conrad laughs himself sick at some of the biased and egregious slander which fans post there, since he knows nothing about the ballfoot game and cannot be bothered to comment himself.  After all, what could I add to the discussion?  "Hey, I'm pretty good at baking cakes!"

                                  One of these tastes better than the other.

     And with that, we are done.  Catch you later!

*  Probably not.  Were-weasels are fast.

**  How many "King Midas Cookbook"s do you see?

***  900 Watt output.

Of Fire And Ice

Don't Panic, There's No Songs*
Pay attention, after you get yourselves a cup of tea and a biscuit, since this might take a couple of minutes to develop.
     Okay, let's go to the ice first.  If you live in those pampered southron Elysian fields of the Ice-Rink of Eden, then you may be entirely unaware that blizzards of Arctic intensity have been belabouring our northern climes.  As much as in inch - or even two! - of snow has created utter chaos on our transportation networks.
     On the other hand, it does look attractive.  Art?

Royton, bordering on Narnia

     Some of those amongst us, having an inbuilt fir-coat - only joking, do you see what - O you do - inbuilt fur-coat, are not at all fazed by snow, since it is so novel.  It only occurs on one or two days out of three-hundred and seventy,** after all.  And so they go walloping over and into the drifts, due to said novelty, until - 

"Mum!  This stuff is wet and cold!"

     I can also add a couple of photographs I took at my bus stop, which were to be used as evidence were the managers to quibble when Conrad turned up for work five hours late.  Hey, it's a long commute when you have to walk for twelve miles!

The majestic downhill
(Insane jogger just visible right of bus stop pole)

Uphill

     So there you go.  The "ice" part.
     Now, not so much for the fire next time, as the fire right now.***
     Actually a "right now" composed of "oh about forty-eight years ago now".  You see, at that time the mighty Beeb would broadcast a series of foreign television programs dubbed into English, over the school summer holidays.  This is how the insular English learned of Yugoslavian horse stables, and their encapsulation of the human condition ("White Horses"), not to mention small idiot French children wandering about in an environment HSE would faint at ("Belle And Sebastian").

The Vulcan Neck-Pinch: How To Practice

    It struck your humble scribe that there was another such series, one about Crusaders in the desert -

No, Art, no.  But I won't Tazer you this time.

     Crusader knights in the deserts of the Holy Land (a.k.a. Outremere), if I may be very specific in order to spare Art another Tazering.  Herewith the "Fire" part of today's title.      Who made it?  What was it about?  Where was it filmed?  Most importantly, what on earth was it called?  Because it's about 48 years since I last watched it.
     "Thibodeaux, Knight of the Desert" boldly announced my memory.  "Filmed in Israel".
     Ah, but no!  Art?

Proof I am not raving
(this time)

     Welllll the name is close enough, I think, after the passage of almost a geological era.  Okay, okay, so it was filmed in the Maghreb - the desert regions of Tunisia and Morocco, ex-French colonies.  Not, notably, in Algeria: since Ol' Thib was made in 1968, the Algerian civil war was a bit too recent for comfort.      There you go, another sterling Intro, built out of <thinks> Neutronium For The Mind.
     Okay, time to hurl the motley down the ski ramp on it's belly and see how far it flies off the end!^
"Declension"
Aaaaand once again I must apologise for random word salad popping up in my mind.  Bad Oscar!  Naughty Oscar!  No witty bon mots for you!
     Until I looked it up, Conrad had the vague suspicion that the word was to do with astronomy, which gives us an excuse to wheel in a relevant picture, when Art has finished  sucking the marrow out of his nuclear fuel rod -


Colliding galaxies - 52 million light years distant

     Sadly it is nothing of the sort.  Instead it is something unspeakably dull to do with Greek and Latin gramm ebw5g

############################################################################################
- whoah, sorry, I fell asleep from boredom there.

That Reminds Me -
Earlier in the week <code for "I can't remember when and cannot be bothered to check - the horrid truth courtesy Mister Hand> I put up a picture of a Valentine tank, which I shall endeavour to bring back up.  Art?

Picture!  Tell your story!

     This is a British Valentine TANK, originally from the 17/21st Lancers, the "Death or Glory" boys themselves.  It was captured by the Teutons, and it can't have been that terrible a TANK, objectively, since they used it until it was knocked out in 1943, in Tunisia.  Note the prominent crosses, since the somewhat nervous crew didn't want to be fired on by their own side; that bison outline is the divisional symbol for the 10th Panzer division. 

A poorly Panzer

     This TANK  appears to have been hit by gunfire, with a fire then breaking out about half-way down the hull; you can see where the road wheel's rubber has been burnt.  This must have been an instantly disabling shot, as the tracks are still intact; if it had been what todays imps call a "mobility kill" then one of both of the tracks would have unravelled behind the beast.  The tow cable on the front glacis is still in place, so they didn't try to salvage this TANK.  Note also the absence of hideously mutilated bodies and the open driver's and commander's hatches, which implies the crew got out alive.
     There you go, a little forensic analysis, and probably enough TANK for you today.

That ugly beast, the bison

A Lack Of Laconic
The penny drops!  Conrad is now 55% through that door-stopper of a novel by Chas. Dickens, "Martin Chuzzlewit", and I begin to realise why it's so long:  Mr. D. wrote the thing in instalments, to be published serially in the newspapers.  The longer the story, the more he raked in, the fiendish capitalist rascal.  Chapter 26 is a case in point - pages and pages of exposition and dialogue and narration, all to introduce Jonas Chuzzlewit and his new bride, Merry, right at the end.

I see through you, Chas.

     I looked upon my To Read pile with a touch of apprehension this morning, for By Bergonzoli's Electric Whiskers!  that edition of "Nicholas Nickleby" is even longer than MC.
     Oo-er.



*  George R. R. Martin reference for you there.
**  In metric.
***  James Baldwin reference for you.
^  I know, it's not definitively established if motleys possess a belly.  Roll with it.