Scent Of A Lomond

Yes, We Have A Scottish Taste To The Intro

Nothing to do with whiskey, which Conrad is not at all keen on, nor porridge, which Conrad is very fond of when made with milk; breakfast of champions!  I don't think I want to contemplate porridge made with whiskey, thank you very much.  Art!

Buzzed for breakfast!

    Where was I?  O yes.  Let me introduce you to Sir Charles Gascoigne.  Art!

     This crusty old duffer in a scarf was in fact a Stone Killer, even if only indirectly, thanks to his invention of the 'Carronade'.  You've probably never heard of it, since unlike Your Humble Scribe you didn't pay attention in history to the Royal Navy of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century.  Art!

NO IT IS NOT A CANNON!

     Just to be clear.  A typical carronade weighed about a quarter of the equivalent cannon, all which were all measured in terms of the weight of cannonball they could fire.  Art!

Both fire a projectile of the same weight

    Part of the attraction of a carronade was their comparatively light weight, meaning they could be mounted on the open deck and traversed from left to right, meaning lots more juicy targets; a cannon on the lower gun decks was able to shoot only in front of it.

     Thanks to the metal-working skills of the Carron foundry in Falkirk, Scotland - from whence their name came - the barrel thickness was considerably less than that of a cannon, see above for advantage, and their bore was only 1/10th of an inch wider than the ball or shot they fired.  This meant a lot less propellant gas being lost as compared to a cannon, where the gap between bore and ball might be 1/2 an inch.  Thus, a ball of the same weight as a cannon could be fired using only 1/6 of the powder.  Art!

Carron Foundry

     The carronade didn't have long range; however, when used at typical broadside ranges in naval encounters up to Trafalgar, it was truly devastating.  Nelson's flagship Victory, at Trafalgar, hit the French flagship Bucentaure with it's pair of forward-mounted 68 pounder carronades, squarely in the stern. Using solid shot and grapeshot, these two shots instantly killed or wounded 282 of the French ship's crew, having traversed the whole length of the ship.  

     Rather grim stuff!  Moving onto lighter matters, there's a fascinating item on the BBC's News website about the 'Declaration Of Arbroath", which is a written request to the Pope, asking him to recognise the nation of Scotland.  Art!

     It was written in Latin on sheepskin, with the signature and seals of earls and barons, in the year of Our Lord 1320.  Yes, seven hundred and three years ago.  The intent was to get Pope John XXII to recognise that Scotland, which had been notably successful against the Sassenachs at Bannockburn, was it's own country under Robert The First, not a vassal of the <hack spit> English.  Ol' Popey declined to do so, and the Scottish wars for independence continued until the middle of that century.  Art!

The Scottish national pastime: fighting the English

     The document itself is extremely fragile and is normally kept in a darkened room with UV filters over the windows to prevent any degradation from sunlight.  Moving it from secure storage to public display is a major undertaking in order to avoid inflicting any damage.  Art!

Arbroath

     Note the harbour, for Arbroath is a seaside town, a mere fifty miles or so from Lamb Island.  Art!

     I have no idea why it's called 'Lamb' as you cannot possibly raise sheep on it, the whole thing is barely 100 yards by 50 yards. It sits just over a mile from shore in the Firth of Forth, with nowhere for boats to beach or land.

     Here an aside.  In 2022, at considerable expense, an 'invasive rat' was trapped and removed from the island.  It appears that loonwaffle Uri Geller put it there as he owns the island as from 2009; it cost him £30,000 and I think the local council got the better part of the deal.

     ANYWAY the Jaffa Fruitcake had asked if some swimmers could retrieve a rock from the island for a museum he has in Israel.  Being bored of living, the 'Salty Selkies' volunteered.  Lunatics.  Art!

     Swimming there is dangerous; the tides in the Firth of Forth flow back and forth rapidly, there are off-shore currents, and the water is so cold than any stay longer than an hour will result in hypothermia.  Nevertheless, they did it there and back safely, a swim of 2 1/2 miles, with their oldest member being 72 years old.  That's pretty epic!  Art?

     The Salty Selkies, rocking it.

     That concludes our Celtic-tinged Intro.  

Some South Canadians Miss The British Monarchy

At least the "Daily Beast" does.  Your Humble Scribe has commented about this before, on how a republic slavers lasciviously over our Queenie (now Kingy) and the minutiae of the Royal Family's doings on a daily basis.  Art!

     Your Honour, I rest my case.

More Of Maths

My old manager from a dozen years ago, Gavin, held the opinion that anyone who was either good at mathematics or interested in it was a pervert.

     Guess I'd better claim my Pervy Sleazebag Card.  Art!

     This is the Incompetent-In-Charge at the Kremlin, Sergei Shoigu, whom many feel is going to be set up as the fall-guy when things go toes-up in Ukraine.  His military credentials amount to watching all the episodes of "Hogan's Heroes" and "Dad's Army", and being able to differentiate between a baker's van and a water tank.  

     ANYWAY he was giving out figures for Ukrainian rockets and missiles shot down in May, and came up with "196 HIMARS shot down".  Art!

     If he's telling the truth then things are even worse than he realises.  You see, a single HIMARS - Art!

 - costs $160,000.

     On the other hand, we have the S-300 anti-aircraft/missile system, and a single one of these - Art!

    - costs $1 million.

     So, to intercept and shoot down $31 million dollars-worth of HIMARS rockets, the Ruffians have blown through $196 million dollars-worth of S-300s.

     Yes, the Ruffians have thousands of S-300s.  But the Ukrainians have thousands of HIMARS, too; and if they run out, the South Canadians will simply supply them with more.  The Mathematics Of Misery!

"City In The Sky"

Thank you for being patient, we're now moving onto the meat of the matter as the Doctor explicates the near future to Ace.

This time Ace made a sound to go with her wrinkled nose.

‘Ewww!  Horrid.  Mind you, that’s a lot of people.  Six thousand of them.’

The Doctor took up a characteristic pose, resting his chin on his upright umbrella.

‘Six thousand people’s nothing, Ace.’

‘It is too!’ she replied, with feeling.  She felt compelled to defend human endeavour.  ‘I know there’s only been a few on Mir and Skylab.  Six thousand’s a lot, Professor.’

Recognising this casual address, the Time Lord realised Ace wasn’t brooding any more on the past, on funerals or Mike Smith.

‘Try one hundred and fifty thousand, Ace.’

She looked incredulous.

‘Honestly, quite true, Ace.  The planners behind Nerva knew their project would succeed because their far less-advanced ancestors put the equivalent of an entire city into orbit, and kept them up there for decades and decades.’

‘When?’

‘About a century from now.’

Typically, one question begat another from the young woman.  All thoughts of death or being unlucky in love were forgotten.

‘Okay, why did they do it?’

A sigh was her only reply.

‘Come on, Professor, you can’t tease me with half a story!’  She paused.  ‘Or do you want me to fill the gaps in by myself?’

The Doctor turned to look at her, looking only slightly less-puzzled than she did.

     I think that counts as changing the subject successfully.

O Delicious Schadenfreude!

Conrad has just noted that a Manchester Zarbi (sp?) has taken place between The Manchester United and Manchester In The City, and MITC won.  Not that I care one iota who won or who lost, it's just that they opened the Have Your Say and there are bound to be volumes of citric, venomous Comments for the taking.  Art!

     Folks are not hanging around in expressing their opinion, are they?

Finally -

Better go get my tea, it's needed to soak up all this Old Speckled Hen.

     Pip pip!

Bratricide

NO!  This Is Not About Killing Horrid Children

No matter how many times they kick the back of your seat.  Perhaps it would have been more evident if Conrad had put it down in a mix of Cyrillic and Roman, to wit: братricide. Pronounced 'Bratricide'. The closest I could think of an alternative to 'Fratricide', which you are doubtless thinking of in the wrong way. Art!

He's behind you!

     No doubt you were thinking along the lines of Cain and Abel.

     WRONG!  For Your Humble Scribe in fact refers to the military term, which is also known by the phrase 'Blue-on-blue', where one side mistakenly attacks the same side.  It's well-attested in films.  Take, for example, "Too Late The Hero", an unusual little film featuring Michael Caine and Cliff Robertson.  Art!

Mike and Cliff

     You see, a British patrol carries out an ambush on a Japanese patrol, which would normally be fine, except that Captain Hornsby, the patrol's officer, places his men directly opposite each other.  Thus they slay three of their own men.

     Fratricide, you see?

     On a larger and more sardonic scale, there's always 'Godzilla', the Jean Reno iteration from 1998.  Art!

     Mayor Ebert, aghast, appalled and angry all at the same time, takes the Army under verbal fire: "What the hell's the matter with you people? You caused more damage than that goddamn thing did!"

    Now, now, Mayor; I'd say that's being economical with the truth.  Art!

     ANYWAY back to "Pearl Harbour", our case in point, where Steward Dorie Miller (played by Cuba Gooding Jr.) discovers an anti-aircraft cannon with a dead crew around it, and manfully takes it upon himself to fire upon the attacking Japanese aircraft.  Art!

    This isn't a problem, any rounds that miss are merely going to wander off into the wild blue yonder.  However - Art!

This IS a problem, since the Japanese planes are flying so low Miller has to depress his guns to hit them.  This time, any misses are going to hit the ship opposite and these things are .50 Brownings that will go through armour-plate at that range.  Any puny human being will simply be cut in twain.  And if by some chance he misses the ship, why then said rounds will travel across the harbour and hit dock installations.

     Ooops.

     Of course - obviously! - this has tremendous relevance to what may seem at first to be completely different: those recent drone strikes on Moscow.  Art!

The Fun-Sized Foot Fiddler was strangely silent on this matter

     The question immediately on everyone's lips was "Who did it?".  There's a list of The Usual Suspects:

'Twas Priggy Getting Jiggy; Prigozhin trying to stir things up and make problems for the Ruffian Ministry Of Defence, whom he hates with the passion of an exploding Krell reactor-complex.  Far-fetched yet not impossible.

The FSB; Whom would be perfectly happy to kill hundreds of their fellow Muscovites in a 'false-flag' operation, in order to ramp up  the loyal citizen's thirst for Ukronaziterrorist blood.  You know, "Evillllll Ukronazibiowarfarists must die!"  Except the drones targetted the Rublyovka district, which is home to millionaires, billionaires, various elites and Putin himself.  The response of Moscow citizens was 'Laugh and point', showing that their loyalty is distinctly questionable.  Art!

"Gentlemen, your target for tonight ..."

The Pro-Ukrainian Ruffians; A few <whoops, font's gone funny, sorry about that>

How's that?  Conrad thinks he's mucked up the formatting in the paragraph above.

ANWAY - a few weeks ago this would have been a flight of fantasy.  Now, with two groups of pro-Uke Ruffians rampaging across Bilhorod on the Ruffian side of the border, it's not a laughing matter any more.  Not so likely, yet possible.

The Ukrainians: Ah yes, I knew we'd get around to these chaps eventually.  Okay, let's say they launched 32 drones at Moscow.  It's over 300 miles to the Ruffian capital from Ukraine's borders, surely their air defence network would have spotted and shot these down en route - ESPECIALLY AS THE ATTACK WAS IN DAYLIGHT?

     <crickets>

     Nope.  There weren't even any air-raid sirens going off in Moscow.  Putin's capital, it seems, was taken completely by surprise.  Is there even an air raid siren system?  Who knows.  Shelters for the public?  Highly dubious*.  Art!

     Not only that, none of these drones carried an explosive warhead.  So what caused all the damage?  Ruffian air defence systems, firing cannon and missiles in a built-up metropolitan area, that's what.

     Do you know, all the 'Z' stickers and flags and banners have vanished from the Belgorod oblast. I wonder how long they'll stay up in Moscow?

     Where's Dorie Miller when you need him!

Just As An Aside

As you should surely know by now, Conrad is a bit of a Codeword fiend, I can stop any time I want I just don't want to.  Art!

13 x 13

     So, there are 169 squares in a Codeword like this.  How many possible combinations of letters are there?

     8,415,003,900,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,00,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

     Just FYI, the Universe is only expected to last 15 billion years, so you'd better get moving with your solutions.

Them Wacky Poles

Polish Cold War poster art certainly can't be mistaken for the glossy, bland Hollywood variety.  Heck, even their art for "The Muppet Movie" is frightening.  Take this one, for example - Art!

     You may have guessed this one from the word "Arki" in the title, and it is indeed "Raiders Of The Lost Ark".  Conrad is pretty sure the artist (Jakub Erol) was 1) On drugs and 2) A big Lovecraft fan.

"City In The Sky"

The Doctor is explaining about how humanity and the Wirrn didn't get on, at all, when both met in the Andromeda Galaxy.

‘Yes indeed.  Quick of you to notice – your observational skills are improving.  Very well: the Wirrn.  In the thirtieth century Earth is going to be devastated by solar flares.  A fraction of the human race enters orbital suspended-animation, whilst most go underground to live in subterranean cities.  Another fraction heads out into deep space, which includes Andromeda -’

- and what a struggle that had been when they got there.  Convinced that Earth-bound humanity  was doomed, the Gal Sec human colonists had offered no quarter when they came across the Wirrn, the dominant life-form in Andromeda, and who themselves attacked the unfamiliar alien intruders in unrelenting conflict.  A conflict that took place across almost eighteen per cent of the galaxy, a truly colossal war that lasted for nine hundred years.  By the end of it the Wirrn were wiped out.

‘But one of them, and a Queen at that, must have stowed away on a Gal Sec ship that returned to the Solar System,’ finished the Doctor.  ‘This, the last of the Wirrn, sought revenge, and Space Station Nerva was the perfect environment for it.  Sterile, so no alien pathogens to worry about.  No weather.  Nothing living or conscious to thwart it, and six thousand defenceless humans to assimilate or lay eggs in.’

     This, please be advised, is merely a pre-amble.  You'll get your aliens, all in good time.

Miami Zoo Boo-Boo

How do you provoke the Polite Australians?  Well, you've got to work hard at it, they are a very polite and amiable people, until you really, really rile them (rather like the Canuckistanians).  Then they get angry.  Art!

     That's journalistic hyperbole.  However, the treatment of Paora, a kiwi, did anger 9,000 Kiwis to the extent of their signing a petition at the bird's mistreatment; to wit, being petted in broad daylight.  The kiwi (note lack of capitalisation) is a shy, nocturnal creature that ought not to be handled and certainly not cooed over by zoo visitors.

     To their credit, Zoo Miami fessed up straight away and apologised.

     And that, people, is how you annoy the Polite Australians.

Finally -

Conrad has finished this blog unusually early (12:15), since he got out of bed at what would be an unusually early hour (08:30) as compared to when he was gainfully unemployed (10:30).  One of the benefits of getting into a working routine, I tell myself.  Plus, they pay me.  That helps, too.

     Chin chin!

*  There is actually the Metro tube system, which, like Kyiv's, was designed to resist nuclear attack.

Flashy

We Have A Bit Of A Theme Here

It came of seeing one of the omnipresent bus posters advertising "The Flash", which Conrad made a note of in his notebook - writing it on truffle-skins would have been exorbitantly expensive - for future review.  I admit, we have quite a backlog of films and television programs to review, and there are only so many hours in a day.  Art!

Has Supes had a sex-change?

     I was rather glad I went to work clad in my armoured underwear, for I'd noted a long list of items to include, and what's this?  A couple of lads on the bus singing a line from a song that - well, we'll get to that all in good time.

     Flash has a pedigree already.  Conrad swears on the bones of his Siberian clone-mother that he's seen at least the pilot of the 1990 television series.  Art!

Note go-faster ear-pieces

     The next one, from 2014, quite passed me by and I know not of it at all.  It seems to have run for umpteen seasons so had probably jumped the shark by season four, and I don't care enough to do anything than show a picture.  Art!

From legendarily cheapskate channel CW

     Personally, Conrad much prefers the animated Flash from "Justice League", who was a smart alek and a showoff.  Art!

Looking more sinister than speedy, I feel

     No Intro like this could possibly avoid mention of another legendary Flash, which, if Art will put down his bowl of coal - 

     It does clean things up, yes, and also makes an excellent impromptu flyspray, too, especially if Edna is loitering in the kitchen waiting for a random comestible to fall on the floor.  Why they ever dubbed it "Flash" is a mystery, because it possesses no luminescent qualities whatsoever, and since it's spray only covers a small area at any one time, you're going to be wielding it for hours when cleaning up.

     Of course we can't just leave it there ...

     "Flash Gordon" comes in two iterations, which could hardly be more different.  One is from the Thirties film serials.  Art!

     THIS IS A LIE!  Flash is the polar opposite of Emperor Ming, who is out to conquer things, though even he might admit that the entire Universe is biting off rather a lot.  Then we have the second film iteration.  Art!

     More camp than a bucket of Boy Scouts, but tremendous fun nonetheless, with Brian Blessed surely hitting a career high in Over The Top, and not just because he had wings.  Incidentally, the Queen song was the one that those lads on the bus were singing.  O, by the way, Alex 'Flash' Gordon was named thus by his dad, because the youngster always went everywhere at a great pace.  Okay, at least we got an explanation.  
     In quite the opposite of heroes, there is "Flashman", the villain of the piece in "Tom Brown's Schooldays", who was turned into the anti-hero of a series of novels where the character insists that Tom Brown was a horrid slandering little oik of distinctly grubby moral terpitude.  Art!

     Last and least, for today at any rate, is "Flash Forward", a South Canadian sci-fi series that was so high-concept nobody knew what was going on and it only ran for one season, without managing to tie up any loose dramatic ends.  Sloppy work, chaps.  The plot consists of people getting a glimpse of the future six months ahead.  Yes, that's it.  They were lucky to get a whole season out of it.  Art!

Why The Metro Beats First Bus

I can hear gasps from you, the audience, wondering why Conrad is being at all complimentary to that wretched yellow rag.

     Hmmmm well there's yellow afoot, alright, yet Conrad refers not to the litter-tray liner.  Instead I am acknowledging that the Metro - note lack of capitalised 'T' - has a sense of wit.  Art!

  And who was playing the Arena that night?  Yes, Elton Hecules John.

"The War Illustrated"

At this point in the Second Unpleasantness, i.e. the very beginning of 1944, the Allies were slogging up the Italian peninsula, which was slow going thanks to the weather and terrain.  The Eighth and Fifth Armies were a polyglot lot: the Fifth Army was composed of South Canadians.  The Eighth Army, on the other hand, had British, Australians, New Zealanders, Poles, Indians and Canadians, as well as Italian anti-fascist volunteers, and there were independent French units that included Moroccans and Algerians.  Art!

     Here there's a montage of scenes.  In the first one, tanks and Bren Carriers are suffering a mortar barrage fired by the Teutons.  The Shermans have nothing to fear but a headache if hit by a mortar bomb, but the Bren Carrier crews are probably sweating - they were open to the skies with no roof.  Underneath that to port, a bogged-down Sherman is passed by Monty, who is probably offering a bit of citric advise.  Tank commander probably hideously embarrassed.  To starboard is a picture illustrating just how steep the terrain could be; hard going even in good weather and nobody shooting at you.  To port of that, a group of Teuton prisoners are being escorted by some impeccably smart Indian soldiers.  Last picture shows a Bren gun team in their slit trench, looking chuffed for the camera in an undoubtedly posed picture, as the cameraman would have been standing out in the open with his back to the enemy.

     Here Royal Engineers contemplate what the Teutons always did when they retreated; blow up the bridges.  Whilst this looks catastrophically bad, in reality the sappers would have whistled up a Bailey Bridge construction team and had the whole thing bridged within a day or two.  Art!

     Not from TWI, but from Quora instead.  This is one of the best photos I've seen of a Sherman doing the amphibious bit; the photographer must have been standing on the far riverbank, high up, to get an angle like this.  The large metal box on the rear is an extension of the tank's exhaust, so the fumes get out without the tank being flooded.  Note how opaque the river water is - I suspect that other tanks have already passed by.

"City In The Sky"

The Doctor is endeavouring to divert and distract Ace, and what do you know, he's succeeding.

‘What’s “Wirrn”?’ asked Ace, picking up on one of several hints the Doctor had carefully and subtley seeded his conversation with.  Distraction, after all, needed to avoid looking like distraction.

‘The Wirrn.  An alien race of insect origins, from the Andromeda Galaxy.  Big as bears, and  considerably more dangerous.’

Picturing a fly or wasp ten feet tall made Ace feel creeped-out.  She wrinkled her nose before coming back with an observation.

‘Andromeda’s really far away, isn’t it?’

‘Quite.  Two and a half million light years away.  I only travel there when necessary – bit of a commute when the Tardis isn’t as reliable as you’d want her to be.’

For several seconds the only sounds to be heard were a distant jet airliner, the ripple of the river and muted calls from moorhens amongst  riverbank reeds.  The Doctor felt pleased – Ace was diverted, mulling over what she’d been told.

‘How come they’re extinct?’ she began, before letting her arms fall to her sides and trying to frown at her mentor as realisation dawned.  ‘You’ve changed the subject!’

He chuckled.

     Touché.

De Profundis

It means 'From the depths', and Your Humble Scribe is sincerely glad that there is a wide waste of water between himself and the creepy Dog Buns! things that ooze and wriggle in the abyssal depths.  Art!

Where the wild things were

     This can be conflated with an astronomical event on Saturn's moon Enceladus.  Art!

Water plumes: the latest is 6,000 miles high

     This small moon is known to have a sub-surface ocean of salty water, which might allow the development of life

     Conrad hopes not.  Look at the horrors in that first photograph.  Can you imagine what would evolve on an alien moon?   Brrrrrr!

Finally -

Looking forward to an early finish tomorrow, as I've done an hour-and-a-half extra this week so far.  And NO! I don't have to come in at 11:00.  Plus, at least five months after having to improvise a shortened shoe-lace as it tore in half, as I got ready for Footasylum and the Rap Track Of C*** All Day Long.

     

That's Reet, I Cheat

Only Up To A Point

It's nearly 20:00 on the evening of 31st May, and I've not done any of the blog yet.  I've still to eat my tea (pizza - one of the food staples) and have a shave and shower, and re-lace my shoes, so -

     I'm going to cheat.  You see, BOOJUM! was brought forth from Conrad's fervid mind back in June 2013, so that month will see us being ten years old, rather an astonishing feat.  The first of over 4,000 posts was actually on 16th June, which I'll ignore and chalk it down to poetic licence. Art!

     It has indeed become a monster, and not a cute purple-haired cuddly one, either. Keep watching the skies and your backs.

     ANYWAY the links:

2022

BOOJUM!: The Moon In June (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2021

BOOJUM!: O Frabjous Dey (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2020

BOOJUM!: Sitting On A Volcano (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2019

BOOJUM!: Transports Of Delight (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2018

BOOJUM!: From Dead Dog To Red Dog (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2017

BOOJUM!: It's Curtain For Certain (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2016

BOOJUM!: Noughts And Crosses And Podcast Bosses (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2015

BOOJUM!: Bat-mobile, -channel, -copter, Masterson & Mitzvah (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2014

BOOJUM!: BOOJUM! Visits Bowlee (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2013

BOOJUM! (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

Broke Back Mounting

Rumour Has It That The Ruffian Military -

Were trained by First Group, which would explains so, so much about their army.  You remember the old joke about them going from 'second-best army in the world' to 'second-best army in Ukraine'?  Now they're being described as the 'second-best army in Ruffia', and they have First to thank for that.

    For Lo! we are back on the subject of First Bus, who are despicably incompetent, yes, and yet who provide the blog with so much freely-generated content.

     As tonight.  Art!

Designed by First, built by Russia, crewed by Rukhs

    ANYWAY there we were, trundling along in the 83 when we got to Hollinwood and suddenly from the nearside rear wheel came an appallingly loud BANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANG noise, so loud and repetitive that Your Humble Scribe wondered if the tyre hadn't suffered a complete deflation.

     When the driver slowed down, so too did the noise until it was only BANG     BANG     BANG     BANG as we pulled into a bus stop.  He donned his official hi-viz jacket, in case pedestrians ran him over, and strode magisterially to look at the wheel.

     Conrad, knowing what was coming, put his book away and zipped up his bag.

     "I'm sorry, something's happened to the bus and I can't take you any further," said Our Hero (in his own head, that is).  We all trooped off the bus.  Conrad, thinking quickly, got a couple of photos in to set a mise en scene for the blog when he composed it later on getting home.  Art!

Broke

The offending article

     There's nothing obviously wrong with it that you can see.  However, what you see here lacks smell - it was obvious by the acrid stink that rubber had been either burning or catching.  

     'On getting home' also seemed merely a pious hope as it was another 20 minutes before the next 83 turned up and we were able to board, mounting the steps to get back on the bus.  So you can see where today's title comes from.  Yes yes yes, three 84s had gone by, but they take a huge detour through Hollinwood at this point and we still arrived in the bus station ahead of them.

     FYI, 'Rukhs' is neither rude nor Ruffian, it's the word that Ol' Tolky's dwarves use to describe the orcs.  If you fly with the Rukhs you're a Rukh, to coin a phrase.

     Motley, I feel like doughnuts - break out the Fiat Panda and let's roast some rubber!

How Very Prescient

Or paranoid, or an unholy blend of the two.  Conrad noticed a news article under a sidebar on the BBC News website.  

Artificial intelligence could lead to extinction, experts warn

     Some of them do.  Others are more bothered about less apocalyptic scenarios where near-future AI abuse allows dictatorial regimes to smother their populace in surveillance and control, or weaponise drug-creating algorithms, or put Hollywood screenwriters out of work - that one seems a bit win-win to me - and other potential abuses.

     Other experts frankly scoff at the possibility of AI becoming a threat to the very existence of Hom. Sap.  Yeah, until Philip K. Dick's Toaster Take-over Terror occurs, matey.  Art!

 - or this

     Ol' Bill has a couple of scenes where the 'Turing Police' turn up.  He, craftily, doesn't explain who they are or what they do, but the canny reader realises pretty quickly that these chaps have a mandate to suppress and destroy any kind of autonomous AI in the world, because it's far too dangerous to be allowed to proliferate.

     And what does one of these AI-fearing pundits tell us?

We are likely to eventually need something like an IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] for superintelligence efforts"   Art!

     Gee, ain't the future shaping up to be interesting!

O Noes!

Talking of the future and living in it, t'would appear that the James Webb Space Telescope has suffered a micro-meteorite impact to one of it's mirrors.  Art!

     This is bad news, no denying it.  Not cause for the anti-JWST haters (probably Rukhs) to have a ticker-tape parade in anticipation of it falling over dead, though.  You see, it was always realised that micro-meteorite impact on the dish was a real risk - it's just that nobody expected it to get whanged quite this quickly.  NASA will have run statistical models of this for months on end to see if it was safe to deploy the JWST, and it was.

     What it means, in real-life, is that the image quality will be slightly degraded, because there are 17 undamaged mirrors still in operation, or 94.5% if you like mathematical precision.  Phew!  Art?

    Unlike Hubble, JWST cannot be repaired, because it operates so far away from Earth that nothing bar a specially-convened mission can reach it, which would be horribly expensive and take ages to mount.  There you go - broke and mounting, are we seeing a trend here?

"City In The Sky"

In the aftermath of their battle against the Daleks at Coal Hill School, the Doctor is trying to divert Ace from brooding about the death of Mike Smith.

The Doctor tipped his hat back, looking at her with a touch of ancient wisdom.

‘Oh dear.  I did hope bringing you here might quieten your troubles a little, relax a bit, contemplate the beauties of nature.  Recriminations because of Sergeant Smith, eh?’

It wasn’t her fault that Mike had turned out to be a neo-Nazi scumbag, after she’d fallen for him big time.  She ought to be glad he was dead, traitor that he was, except she couldn’t quite bring herself to believe it. 

Recognising the symptoms of a heavy heart, the Doctor hauled his line in and sat up.  So much for quiet contemplation!  Ace needed distracting. 

‘A tragedy,’ he murmured.  ‘ “Send not to ask”.’  He looked sideways at the young woman, picking up her skin tone, body posture, involuntary movements and vocal stress.  ‘If he’d known you longer he’d have changed his opinions.’

Another muttered insult flew to Ace’s lips.

‘Nobody is truly irredeemable, Ace,’ he gently chided her. 

‘Not even the Daleks?’ she shot back.  The Doctor smiled ruefully and shook his head.

‘Ah, the Daleks.  Extinct.  Dead as the Dodo.  What’s that aphorism they use in Andromeda?  “Gone the way of the Wirrn”.  Actually - ’ and he remembered another youthful companion.  ‘Actually the Daleks would have been redeemable, Ace.  They were playful and as harmless as kittens when infused with Human Factor.’

     There you go, two internal references to previous canonical stories and you're welcome.

Conrad Is ANGRY!

Because Elton John is doing three performances at the AO Arena, which means Your Humble Scribe will have to use his Dinky Manbag instead of his Manly Rucksack, or else add another 7 minutes to his journey thanks to having to trawl the Underworld, a.k.a. The Arena Car Park.  Bah!

Dog Buns, Elton - RETIRE AND ENJOY YOUR MONEY!

Finally -

"The Daily Beast" very sneakily took my money for a second year's subscription, which I suppose is my fault for not looking into the cancellation properly and assuming that all would fall as it ought to.   Well, since I've got the subscription I ought to make use of it, nicht wahr?  There's a long and interesting item on Darth Marmalade's legal team and how things are not going well for them, which would need at least 600 words to do it justice.  However!

     Whilst he was still alive, one presumes.  This, you see, is TDB to a tee - for a nation that strove to get rid of being ruled by a monarchy, they love love love the monarchy.

And with that, we are done.