Bad Company

I Have Used This Title Before -
Back in December, as a matter of fact.  I referred to one of my most favouritest 2000AD comic strips, and new volume of collected cartoons:  Bad Company - First Casualties.  The story didn't make a whole lot of sense to me, because I'd missed out a strip prefatory to the collection.  Art?

No, Art, no!
(I joked about this in December, so this is plagiarism)

     Anyway, I have just been re-reading the collected Bad Company, which finishes with a conclusion that renders First Casualties comprehensible.  Not really earth-shattering news, but I thought you'd like to be kept informed.  Art?

It would take a long time to explain this.

     - so I won't bother.
     After an unusually short Intro, let us move on.

"The Black Scorpion" (1957)
I am now about 3/4 through this film and it is, a la "The Giant Claw", a film of two halves.  The stop-motion animation of the giant scorpions, spiders and worms is not bad, But!
     The soundtrack overdubs - er - stridulations and roars for the giant scorpions, which in real life have no way of creating such sounds.  In fact, they nicked the sound that the ants in "Them" make.*
     Then we have this.  Art?

Hmmm.

     Once again, Conrad does not believe that scorpions are known for copious drooling, which insertions rather take away from the better stop-motion stuff.  And this scorpion slavers endlessly whenever it attacks - probably ended up dehydrated.
     Then we have the tank battle in the sports stadium.  Art?

Another hmmmm moment

      <sound of hands being rubbed gleefully together> Righto, as mentioned previously, that's an M26 tank, which mounted a 90 mm (or 3.5" for proper measurement) gun.  This gun, using HVAP ammunition, could shoot through 30 cm (or 12") of steel at a range of 100 yards.  And yet here, at 10 yards or so, it can't penetrate the scorpion's chitinous hide?
     "Ah, prehistoric scorpions," I hear you comment.  "Well known as having indefatigable armoured skin, you know."
     To which I would reply "explosive spalling".

Close enough

     This is a phenomenon where kinetic energy is transmitted from an impact site on the outer layer of armour plate, through the armour and to the inner surface, which blows off in enormous high-speed chunks of metallic death.
     So!  The scorpion's skin might not have been penetrated, but it would have had it's giblets turned into soup by spalled armour.
     Of course, I may be overthinking this ...

A Plague On Both Your Houses
Conrad has been reading, with a mixture of amusement, disdain and disbelief, about the Nutella riots in France.
     When I visited - hang on, let me just check that Donald Fagen is still hale and hearty - Phew!  Yes, he is, it was only a sprain, not Norwegian Exploding Bowel Fever - Paris, and asked for a crepe suzette, the vendor assumed that I wanted it slathered in Nutella.

Know thine enemy

     "Non!" replied your horrified scribe, opting instead for sugar and lemon juice, which is as it should be.
     I understand that this unseemly Continental squabbling began because the nasty brown goo was discounted, which is not good enough.  You would have to pay me to eat it.  Nutella and the M8's deserve each other.**

The Rabid Weasel***
Conrad has - confession time - been binging, rather, on Netflix, and is currently into Episode 5 of "The Defenders", which has enough explosions, fist-fights and gun battles to see off any other program in search of an audience.
     However!  This is nothing about that.  Instead it is about a 2016 film, "The Siege of Jadotville", which deals with a siege - you may have gathered that already - at the town of Jadotville in the Congo in 1961.  Art?

The book that became the film

     A company of Irish UN troops, all 158 of them, were surrounded and then assaulted by, oh, at least 3,000 enemy.
     For six days.  The Irish garrison only surrendered because they'd run out of ammunition and food, and - you know, under siege and cut off and surrounded - weren't going to get any more.  The opposition, an unsavoury collection, suffered something like 1,500 casualties.
     So!  There you have the source of the title: the Irish army, small but very dangerous.


*  Booh!
**  Yes, this is Current Affairs, which we don't normally bother with.  However - the sheer horror of spreadable excrement in a jar took precedence.
***  This is a compliment.  Weasels are our friends.

Rocket Man

No!  Nothing To Do -
 - with the only fat man in North Korea.  No, instead I refer to Elon Musk, that chap who seems to have stepped straight out of the pages of a Robert Heinlein story.  Not sure if it would be a short story or a novella; I'll let you choose.  
     Elon appears to be something of a polymath, and has some odd business interests.  Electric cars?  Tunnelling?  And, of course - SpaceX.  Art?

Ol' El

     He has quite the vision, stating that he'd like to die on Mars, and given his SpaceX commitment, that's now looking distinctly possible.  This comes up now because the Falcon Heavy rocket has had a successful static test.  Art?

As nicked from the Beeb

     As you can see, this is essentially 3 of the current Falcons welded together, enabling it to lift 64 tons of payload into orbit, or about the mass of a Challenger main battle tank (unloaded).  Actual launching will take place soon, and - I told you about the 'odd' bit already, didn't I? - the payload will be one of Ol' El's cars, which will get sent into the same orbit as Mars.*
     What's that?  You thought this was going to be about some dismal dirge sung by a character called Reg Dwight?  Pah!  You're making this up!
     Okay, time to put tractor tyres over the motley and roll it downhill!

When Mara met Art: now the story can be told

More Of Murderous Mayhem
Yes, we are back to 'In Range', the Youtube channel where Ian and Karl demonstrate trench warfare weapons and techniques.  It was a really interesting half hour that taught your humble scribe several things about the subject, since I usually concentrate on operational level tactics.  Art?

The rascals at play.
(Or maybe work)

     They both got across the point that troops in the trenches didn't duel, ninja-like, with their clubs and knives: you shafted your opponent quick-smart, then moved on.**  Art?

French 'Nail knife'

     This bit of metallic unpleasantness was fashioned from a barbed-wire picket stake, being bent into a handle, then having the stem flattened and sharpened.  Ugly yet functional, and with this you could dodge under or inside the reach of a man struggling with a five-foot pike - which is what a rifle mounting a bayonet became.
     Grim but interesting stuff!

Our Friend The Shark
As you ought to know by now, Conrad has been banging the drum for the much-misunderstood shark of late, and had a bit of confirmation from Pub Quiz partner Rosie, who had recently visited a Sealife centre and a presentation there.  Sharks, it seems, do not especially like the taste of humans; not only that, I believe we are rather too bony for them - the opposite of one of you humans eating an unfilleted kipper, if you like.

One feels sympathy for the shark

     Surfers make up an inordinate number of shark victims because their profile, from below, much resembles that of a seal.  Art?

Can't see sharks going for sea turtles, either - all that shell?

     And Rosie informed me that she had read of a couple getting married underwater, at the Sealife Centre in Manchester.  In the shark tank.

They survived.  This chap?  Who knows ...

     There you go, Our Friend The Shark.  More sinned against than sinner.  Although your view might vary if you are a seal.

Of Course This Continued -
Because your humble scribe had to update Rosie and Phil on the sheer number of cheapo horror films out that that, frankly, demonise the shark.  "Jaws" is a given, and both had heard of the 'Sharknado' franchise, which Phil found hard to grasp when I explained what it involved.  

Yes, really.  If you keep WATCHING them, they'll keep MAKING them!

That, of course, was before I informed him about Snow Sharks, Sand Sharks, Mega-Sharks, Atomic Sharks, Two-headed Sharks and - obviously! - the whole slew of Sharktopus films.***

I think this is a spoof.  But it's hard to tell.

     I dunno.  Sometimes those old Fifties films with giant bugs have a nostalgic feel to them - we'll have to finish quickly now before Art sneaks in a picture of Mara Corday -



*  This is good.  It will puzzle the Mysterons no end.
**  Unlike the sword-play at the beginning of "The Defenders", I should point out.
***  I'm not making ANY of these up.