Dam And Blast

No, We Are Not Swearing

Safe For Work, remember?  Besides which, "Dog Buns" is the officially sanctioned BOOJUM swear.  Now, we need to find a picture of a dam with a hole in it.  Art!

Courtesy of the RAFs Giant Flying Mallets

     That constitutes the first part of today's title.  And for the second -

     That cover illustration is partly lies ... there is only one 'Flying Saucer' , I'll have you know, and you only see the wires on a couple of occasions, and even then they're not very prominent, so yah boo sucks to the "Goofs" page on IMDB.  They do redeem themselves by NOT having a blazing bolt of violet venom issuing from that Dalek ray-gun, as we saw yesterday.  These Dalek ray-guns are a consequence of the film's budget, which at £250,000 was probably more than the BBC gave the television serial for it's whole season; the television Robomen had to make do with mere human weapons.

Behold the mighty stick!

     Of course you know what's coming next, because Conrad has never gotten over that childish fascination with things that go BANG.  So, those Robo-ray-guns?  On the principle that the Daleks designed them to best deal with armour-clad cyborgs akin to themselves, rather than as anti-personnel weapons, Conrad feels they are more useful as demolition weapons.  Allow me to state my case*. Art!

     First off, these Robomen are trigger-happy hitsters, for they turn and shoot the instant they hear a voice behind them.  What if it was the milkman?  Or a tax inspector?  Or a flock of wild geese?  Or an usually shouty Roboman?

     As you can see, when they go glowy-glowy, the scenery gets very blowy-blowy.  A nice big explosion!  That's what I like to see, a film budget being well spent!  These Robo-ray-guns are hot stuff and blowing up houses, you can't deny that.

      I think you can see my point about these weapons being good for demolition; that fellow being Robo-rayed to death there takes about five seconds to squirm off this mortal coil, instead of doing the exploding into a cloud of gore (that might have gotten them an "X"-rating, however) that you might expect.  Living organic matter does not make good explosive material, it seems.

     Yes, I can foresee your next objection; why not simply issue the Robomen with modest human firearms?  Ah, because you don't see the Robo-ray-guns to their full effect; they have no practical range limit, so if you can see it, you can hit it.  And if 'it' is hiding behind a wall, you make the wall go away first.  Charged-particle weapons are like that, limited only by the horizon.  Besides which, Daleks are terrible show-offs and would never overlook the chance to impress with their hi-tec killness.  Art!

Conquers galaxies and also unblocks sinks at reasonable rates**

     Of course, I might be over-thinking this again ...

Ah, Me

Your Humble Scribe well remembers that time when he mentioned to Bruce "I think I've developed a horrid sense of humour" and Bruce deadpanned in his reply: " 'Developed'?"

     So, take it as read that Your Humble Scribe is a terrible person with a dreadful sense of humour - "Karma Police by Radiohead is hilarious!"-level stuff.  However, at times I have to stand back and admire sheer comic quality.  Art!

     Yes, it's about the ballfoot game, although one need not know anything about it in order to find the comment amusing***.

"Field Guns In France" By Major Neil Fraser-Tytler

I've not bothered your eyes recently with any news from this intriguing collection of letters as written by the Major during the First Unpleasantness, which doesn't mean I've not been annotating it; I jolly well have and am only about 20 pages from the end. A couple of recent asides amused me, because NFT had not the slightest scruple about stealing in order to kit out his battery all the better; he and his men had arrived in France late 1915, with all their officially-issued equipment carried on a single, two-wheeled cart.

Thus

     In preparation for a move north, the battery gets rid of it's surplus - " - lots were drawn for all our stolen Government property - stoves, tents, timber, paint, oil and tarpaulins" and remember this is the OC condoning such piratical behaviour!
     He also makes a very pertinent point about organisation, planning and preparation as the battery has to move 135 miles to Fifth Army HQ.  "Not a moment was lost on the arrival of the battery each evening"

Thanks to these, which carried the cooks and billeting party ahead of the battery

     Why does this matter?  Because " - each minute gained meaning more rest for horses and men." is why.  Not for reasons of show or looking good for the higher-ups; rather a patrician responsibility for those in his command (bluff Manchester lads for the most part).  There is also a puzzling allusion to "Hun Shikar", which must have made sense in 1917, if rather less so nowadays.

"We've Got Watney"

It's a line from a Maddy Prior song waaaaaay back in the Seventies, where she lauds the pillars of This Sceptred Isle's pop culture at the time, including a reference "We've got Leyland", meaning Leyland the motor manufacturers, who were then rapidly acquired by the Dutch.  Sorry, Maddy.

     There was also "We've got Keegan" which refers to a ballfoot player, so we shall squash that one right there.  "Watney" means a British manufacturer of beer and I know what you're thinking - how can they possibly fail? in this, a country with tens of millions of beer-drinkers.

     Well, they managed it.  They became a business conglomerate, and, in the world of business conglomerates, this means becoming vulnerable to other business conglomerates, so they were eventually conglomerated into another business, by a business conglomerate.  I'm glad we got that clarified.

     "What does that have to do with - well, with anything?" I hear your expostulated quibble (or, possibly, a quibbling expostulation).

     Because, gentle reader, I am re-reading "The Martian" again, whose central character, narrator and hero is - Mark Watney.

"Did I leave the kitchen light on?"

     And with that, Vulnavia, we are so well and truly done.

*  You're going to have to, because, once again, whose blog is it?

**  Time and a half at weekends and on public holidays

*** For instance, the 'centre back'.  He's back?  When did he go away?  Did he travel in a Covid-compliant manner?

The Future Now!

At Times It Does Seem We Already Have It

The future, that is, because who could have predicted that millions of folk could watch the Martian rover Perseverance land on the surface of another planet, tens of millions of miles away?  Perhaps Philip K. Dick.

     Which, of course - obviously! -, has nothing to do with what this Intro is about, which is in fact a gleeful return to "Daleks' Invasion Of Earth 2150", because Conrad has been doing his homework.  Art!

PAY ATTENTION! for we will come back to this.

     O what homework, having to watch science-fiction films and make notes on them.  Mike Nelson, I feel your pain.

     As Your Humble Scribe mentioned yesteryon, that future date is rather bizarre and definitely anachronistic (not a word you expected to see today, nicht wahr?) as there is absolutely nothing in the film that suggests we are at any date beyond 1967.

     Here an aside.  Conrad acknowledges his - er - 'homage' to Peter Hammill in today's title, because - lawyers.  Not that he has anything against Pete, who is an awesome musician and songwriter, if perhaps a bit too clever for the mainstream.  He was the driving force behind Van Der Graaf Generator, prog rock stalwarts of the early Seventies (and whose "H to He Whom Am The Only One" is possibly the only song to ever reference nuclear fusion as a power process).  Art!

Bleak but brilliant

     "I want the future now!" he sings, and the Daleks oblige, except 10 years earlier.  Art!

     Here we see Wyler, played by the impressively physical Andrew Keir - you would not like to get on the wrong side of this chap in daylight, never mind a dark alley at night - tuning in to the Daleks on a radio that looks state-of-the-art.  For 1936.  2150 my hairy white posterior!

     Here's Wyler fitting a magazine into a sub-machine gun and giving it a good slap to make sure it seats properly, which implies he's quite handy with guns - STOP RIGHT THERE! Sub-machine guns are a niche market today, a good thirty years before the braying pepperpots show up; where are all the assault rifles and grenade-launchers and shaped charges that we have today?  Once again 2150 my still hairy and even more blanched posterior.

     O what a coincidence, the fashions and styles and fabrics and clothing of 2150 just so happen to MIMIC EXACTLY those of 1966, who would have guessed it!

     I would!  Again again, 2150 my hirsute hindquarters!  The producers could have eliminated a lot of quibblings such as Conrad's if they'd only jumped to the Nineties.  Although how could they have imagined that, in the future, there would be means and methods of analysing film in a literal frame-by-frame fashion?  If one were to study each frame for five seconds and make notes for another ten (shorthand) then it would, of course, take 21 hours to watch the whole thing.

     Hmmm.  Perhaps that should have been done as an Aside.  Art!

     Art?  What on earth have you been drinking! (or smoking) - ah, I see what you did there.  We shall forego the Tazers for tonight.

     Don't worry, we are nowhere near finished with DIOE2150, O no.  You know, isn't it strange that you can abbreviate words but not numbers?
     

It's Finger-Kicking Good!

In the spirit of never giving a sucker an odd break, let alone an even one, Your Humble Scribe continues to pile ordure upon yet more ordure atop that televisual combination of dumpster-fire and trainwreck "Batwoman".  Not that I intend to waste Second One watching it; no, instead we salute the brave Youtube reviewers who watch endure it on our behalf, and whom deliver a critical shoeing (or kicking, if you prefer) accordingly.  Art!

A far superior product

     If you have been following this farrago, then you remember that last week's viewing figures were so low that they were in the sewer outlet, having gone beyond the toilet.  They stood at 509,000.  This week they were down to 507,000, which is only a loss of 2,000 viewers!  Last week's numbers were not adjusted, which Your Humble Scribe thinks may be an artefact of how low they have fallen, although we can stand to be corrected.  Art!

     As an example of the <ahem> 'writing' on this show, the lead villain (above) decided to hold the city to ransom, by - let me get this straight - infecting mice, which would get eaten by rats, who would then sport the same disease, and would then get eaten by bats, who would then sport the same disease, and which would then attack humans and infect them - 

     No.  Just no.  Chiropterologists around the world are up in arms.  What next?  "It was all a dream and Kate Kane is happily alive and married to Bruce Wayne".

Still Living In The Future

Isn't that a track by Jethro Tull?  Ah, get me, all nostalgic for Seventies prog rock as played by Alan "Fluff" Freeman on Radio One on Saturday afternoons <clears throat and realises this dates self terribly> er yes - O look a flying saucer!

     No, what I wanted to post and point out is the creation of physical artefacts by means of the 3D printer, which, to be honest, smacks of witchcraft to the rest of us, if not Darling Daughter*.  Art!

     This is a 3D-printed Chieftain tank in 20mm 1/72 scale, which would make it several inches long on the wargames table, the Chieftain being a bit of a bulky battlefield beast.  So what you see above is what you'd see on the table at about six inches from your eyeballs.  Obviously the slanted armour is a point of contention, and our valiant gamer above has chosen not to sand the contours out, which is their choice**.  Give it another five years, when the difference between layer levels (this may not be the technical term but I think you know what I mean) is down to fractions of fractions of a millimetre, and we shall look back on these simulacra (again, not a word we ever expected to hear today) with tolerant amusement.

     Which is where we came in.

*  Arts graduate, happy as Larry with these sinister satanic synthesising  systems.

**  Wrong, yet still their choice.

Martian Marching

Actually There Was No March Involved

Come back in a week.  Ha!  Do you see what I - O you do.  There was quite a bit of Mars, however, because NASA have now released some objectively stunning footage of Perseverance landing on the surface of the Red Planet.  Conrad was watching, slightly stunned that here we are, drinking in both a snifter of gin and a view of a planet millions of miles away, as a bit of hardware descends through the atmosphere.  Art!

     The details got better-defined the closer our intrepid robotic explorers got to the surface, until you could see the retro-rockets blasting Martian sand away as Perseverance got landed by it's 'sky-crane'.  Art!

     This part is where the staff in Mission Control get squeaky voices and sweat a lot, because the robots are so far away that any signal sent in response to what they 'see' is not going to get there in time to make any required adjustments.  So there are a lot of crossed fingers that things go smoothly, as predicted or at least within safety parameters.  Cue massed geek chorus of applause when this happens ...

How to scare cats the NASA nerd way!

     What made this all the more peculiar is that I was reading Andy Weir's "The Martian" whilst it was running, which must be at least some kind of irony, if not chromiumy; perhaps molybdenumy.  It was sitting not three feet from where Your Humble Scribe was sat, I'd read it sufficiently long ago to forget all the details, so it was a no-brainer.  I have, of course - obviously! - seen the film at the cinema, when we were allowed to venture thusly.

     Truly, we are living in science-fiction, not merely reading about it.
     Okay, we need to convert the sandpit into the Martian surface so that Motley gets a realistic experience; just add a couple of Martian Rock Snakes!

Simples!

     Okay, fair warning, there is quite a bit of science-fiction about today's blog, so if your idea of a good time is a Bronte bodice-ripper or an Austen-tatious orison, then you are completely out of luck.  And - why were you here in the first place?

Fair enough

Remember "Pacific Rim"?

You better had, it was quite awesome.  In case you have been living in an Autarkic Biotic Environment for the past twenty years, it was that film with giant robots beating the living snot out of giant alien monsters; there was all sorts of poetic and anguished justification about the rationale and the reason, but in the eyes of Your Humble Scribe it was a splendid excuse to have giant frikkin' robots smacking the tar out of kaiju.  Art!

With puny humans for scale

     "Er - quite," I hear you quibble.  "And?"

     You remember that life-size Godzilla the Japanese are building on it's very own Monster Island?  Okay, nothing but tears is going to come out of that, but it's not the first giant-size replica.  O no.  Art?

CAUTION!  Not Photo-shopped

     Apparently this is a life-size replica of "Mobile Suit Gundam", which is a manga of some description.  This thing is ENORMOUS, as is proven by the framework they hang it upon at night to - I don't know, recharge?  Repair?  Consume humans as fuel?  Art!

     Your Humble (And Cowardly) Scribe is exceedingly glad this thing is on the other side of the globe, because he has never gotten over that moment of utter terror in "Jason And The Argonauts" when that bronze statue of Talos - you know, bronze, immutable, immobile and imposing - suddenly moves.

Position A

Position B

     Laugh all you like.  Don't come crying to me when you need a hanky the size of a football field.

The Perspective Of Retrospective

For Lo! we are back at "Le Mort D'Arthur" and how is it that jousting is only deemed worthy or of merit if - no, only joking, we're back at "Dalek Invasion Of Earth 2150" again.  Had you going for a minute though, didn't I!

      Okay, Your Humble Scribe could easily make two entire blog's about this film, and it's various strengths and failings, which would satisfy my horrid ego if less so the readers.  Art!

A matte in action

     As Your Humble Scribe sees it (which is the only way to be seen) the foreground devastation is actually a painting on glass, with the filmed insert being the Dalek ship taking off.  This shot doesn't last long, so the audience don't have time to critically assess it's various components, and instead are drawn to the flying saucer whizzing off into the stratosphere.  Net result, a lot of time and money saved on building a set and models for a scene that lasts for all of 2 seconds.  Matte work - a sad casualty of CGI.

NOT THAT MATT!

     It is notable over on IMDB that there are a few spitefully accurate comments about how the world of 2150 seems to be EXACTLY the same as that of 1966 (when the film was made), and indeed if a couple of lines of dialogue between Suzan and her grandfather (Doctor Who, do keep up!) were to be excised, there would be no reason to have that date of 2150 AD in the script at all.  Conrad postulates that there must have been contractual reasons for the title.

     I have just realised that none of my screen photographs illustrate this point and have spent 5 futile minutes trawling teh interwebz, to no avail.  We shall come back to it - O how surely we shall! - at a later date.

Robomen

     Ah yes the Robomen.  Essential slave workers, because - stairs.

Finally -

Conrad finally deciphered what that obscure note "Y, MATA" meant.  A slightly abbreviated version of an abbreviation, the whole thing was "You, Me, And The Apocalypse", which was one of those things to be regarded with a certain degree of wary caution, a "comedy drama".  These claim to be both and frequently achieve neither.  It concerns the impending apocalypse, to be delivered via an inbound comet - here Conrad has to lay aside all his astronomy concerns about ballistics and velocity and inertia and just go with the script - and a disparate group of people trying to survive said apocalypse.  Art!

Yes, that is Rob Lowe

     The thing is, this series ENDS with the end of nearly all of humanity, it being the Apocalypse and all.  End end end the theme.  Did I mention "END" enough?  Yet there are people out there who want a second series*.

     And in that very timely fashion, we are O so very done indeed.

*  NO!  Just NO!  NO! repeatedly.  A pie full of NO! made with NO! pastry, baked in a NO! oven and served on a NO! plate.  With ambiguous cutlery.

Matte Smith

NO!  We Are Not Talking About That 'Doctor Who' Actor

Who was also quite the ballfooter, I believe, and whose talent actually managed to intervene in the BBC's premier dramamentary, when the <guesses wildly> the centred-back needed an - assist? - from the wingy-flanker*.

Definitely Roof-Assist stuff

     For Lo! we are on about "Dalek Invasion Of Earth 2150" once again, wherein we encounter several matte works, which therefore must have been created by artisans who are experts in making mattes, and thus - matte-smiths.  A matte, since you will most probably be unfamiliar with the term, was a painting upon a glass screen, with a little bit blanked off.  The film would be played, and  appear in the little screened-off bit, with the painted backdrop as the rest of the scene.  Thank you, and you're welcome.   ART!

      This is one of the few occasions where the television program, with a fraction of the budget, upstages the film version, because at this point in grainy old black and white, Ian notices that "they must have gone over to nuclear power".  The three and a half stubs above depict Battersea Power Station, as depicted on -

      - although from the other side of the Thames. This is my example of a 'matte', where there is a painted backdrop standing against the rest of the set.  It was a relatively quick and cheap method of creating an effect, where you could realistically substitute a daub of oils, instead of having hundreds of minions working for weeks to the value of hundreds of thousands of pounds**.  Art!

     This is part of the background that barely gets a mention in the film, but which is fleshed-out more in the television serial; the Daleks <spits> had subjected planet Earth to a sustained meteor bombardment, killing large numbers of Hom. Sap. and threatening the survival of those whom remained.  Given that the film is set in This Sceptred Isle, one can understand an affixation on rainwater.  Art!

Hideously sexist!
(and there are serious questions about that uniform, too)

     Conrad also noticed a few things about the film's "Robomen" that bear mention, given that we are now living in 2021, which is over fifty years since the film was made, meaning that we are now science-fiction in real-life <stops, rather confused and knocks back a bucket of gin>.  Okay, at no point do we see any female Robomen, which means either that the producers were rather pedantic in their scriptwriting, or that women are immune to Dalek brainwashing, so there ought to be far more female mining slaves than male - or - er - am I overthinking this again?

"Tom and The Doctor quickly decided against a swim in the Thames."

     I am going to leave things here, since we have O! so many more things to mention about this film.  Were I to deploy my cinematic reviewer's jewelled loupe and diamond scalpel, Why! we'd be here this time next month***  <another bucket of gin ensues>.

That Spitting Devil's Cabbage

As mentioned in passing yesteryon.  Conrad has to confess that this is an entity he copied whole from "Roadside Picnic" which is one of that very small genre of science-fiction novels in the "Aliens came and dropped off a load of interstellar rubbish and then left" tranche.  Art!

   No cinematic equivalent because <gasps!> nobody has made a film of RP.  Why this is so I simply cannot tell, because it really has everything - aliens, mystery technology, human drama, Canada, dinosaur bones, the lot.  Mister Clooney would have been better advised getting this off the ground instead of a replay of "Solaris".  And no, you cannot pass off "Stalker" as being a definitive statement.

Wherefore Art Thou, Romeo?

"Outside, waiting for the 409 bus" would not, in this case, be acceptable.  No, what Your Humble Scribe is pointing at in this case is - sources.  Not to be confused with <comedy drum roll and 'ka-ching'> 'sauces' because we've had those over our sausages tonight.  

      You see (hopefully) Your Humble Scribe was reading about the Battle of Medenine, which took place during 06/03/1943, and which but barely comes under the remit of The Desert War, since it was well beyond Egypt and Libya.  Art!

Battlefield with puny humans for scale

     The matter one jibs at is the Wikipedia reference to British casualties and losses., which comes in at: " 6 British tanks, 16 scout cars, 33 motor vehicles, 32 anti-tank and anti-aircraft guns and 51 prisoners"

     Yes well.  You know Conrad, a stickler for sources.  The various volumes I have on the Second Unpleasantness mention 130 British casualties, and that's it.  The only source for the totals above is a single South Canadian reference that doesn't itself quote a source.  This is very annoying and will stop me getting to sleep tonight.  Just so you know.  I will get to the bottom of it, mind you, and THEN someone will be sorry.

Conrad's Mind -

Frequently unfathomable, even to himself.  I made up notes last night, you see, whilst I was also plotting mischief, and watching "Dalekmania" which is a documentary about the two Doctor Who films from the Sixties, so my attention was, perhaps, unfocussed.  Because I now have to decipher "Y, MATA - result?"  Any helpful suggestions gratefully accepted in the Comments.

     I dunno.  Maybe it was a "V".

Erk

To coin a phrase.  Conrad is pretty sure that, when the Japanese decided to stop trying to conquer the world, they decided instead to amaze it.  Thus you have Godzilla and manga.  Not only a Godzilla in films, they are building a life-size one on it's very own Monster Island.  This was - in fiction  -  a giant dumping-ground for all the assorted kaiju that periodically infested the Japanese mainland. Art?

     No, Vulnavia, they did not do the sensible and obvious thing, which would be to blow these beasts to bits with the Big Bang bombs.  After all, where would the sequels come from?  So, instead, they store up trouble for the future.  And no, they couldn't licence it as a theme park a la Jurassic Park, because having your paying customers devoured whole by the dozen, or turned into a hazy radioactive vapour, would prevent repeat custom.  And spread bad word of mouth.  I wonder - perhaps they expected the monsters to destroy each other?  That would be a ticket event.

*  Or something.

** Or <shudder> dollars.

***  And then I'd have to eliminate you.

"Then And Now"

No! Not The Magazine

Nor yet the book I was blathering on about in today's earlier post.  For yes, there was a magazine of recent memory that had a title with similar intent.  You may not believe me, so if I can just cattle-prod that deadbeat Art into putting down his Mara Corday calendar -

From Paul Meekins Booksellers

     They would look back at different locations and compare wartime photographs with what things looked like in the present day.  Maybe you had to be there.
     ANYWAY what I wanted to add in was our weekly look backward at the blog, because I've been doing this for Dog Buns years and deserve a pat on the back, or a Comment*.

     So with only the teensiest of ado, let us proceed:

2020

https://comsatangel2002.blogspot.com/2020/02/a-blank-page.html

2019

https://comsatangel2002.blogspot.com/2019/02/are-you-takahe-ing-this-seriously.html

2018

https://comsatangel2002.blogspot.com/2018/02/cross-about-crossword.html

2017

https://comsatangel2002.blogspot.com/2017/02/csembalo.html

2016

https://comsatangel2002.blogspot.com/2016/02/jet-propelled-upwards-on-raving-feet.html

2015

https://comsatangel2002.blogspot.com/2015/02/the-psycho-shark-of-joan-van-ark.html

2014

https://comsatangel2002.blogspot.com/2014/02/boojum-is-near-landmark.html

*  Not that I'm remotely bitter or anything.

I Am Minded Of 10 c.c.

Noted Manchester Tunesmiths -

Rather than the abstract metric <spits> volumetric quantity.  There is a song of theirs, with an outstanding musical bridge, called "I'm Mandy Fly Me", which rather cheekily for a piece of pop culture, manages to refer to more pop culture - "Dr. No" if you weren't aware.  Art!

     The song, if you've been living in a deep-sea bathyscaphe for the past 50 years, is about a plane crash, where our narrator is the only survivor.  He is seemingly plucked from the jaws of death (literally, there were sharks*) by the spirit of Mandy.  The whole thing is given a precis in the sotto voce intro: "Oh no  you'll never get me up in one of these again, 'cos what goes up must come -"

     Yes, I am referring to the South Canadian passenger jet, full of passengers, and less full of jet than it ought to be.  Art!

     Fortunately the aircraft managed to land safely and nobody was injured.  Those sitting on the starboard side above the wing, with a nice clear view of the disintegrating engine, might have needed a change of underwear, mind you.  

     It doesn't take much imagination to realise this could have been so much worse, props to the flight crew for managing to make a safe landing on one engine.  This leads us back to that opening chorus on "Mandy", because one wonders how on earth the airline is going to get those passengers back on a plane.  "You may exchange your tickets for a Greyhound or train equivalent; and the C.E.O. will be flying with you should you choose to fly with us for free."

     Motley!  Let us don armoured hazmat suits and take the fight to the Spitting Devil's Cabbage**!

Meanwhile, Back In Babylon-Lite

(More formally known as "Oldham") Your Humble Scribe had ventured forth for two reasons, one being a depletion in the stocks of loose-leaf Darjeeling in The Mansion, as we were down to what was in the big caddy and two packets, and also the interesting photograph posted on Facebook yesterday about - Art!

     People unlucky enough to live beyond the hallowed borders of This Sceptred Isle may not be familiar with Marmite; it is a savoury spread made from yeast, being incredibly savoury, and you either love it or loathe it; there is no middle ground.  Conrad has a cup of it as a hot drink on a weekly basis for the B12 it contains.  Art!

Crowned with success

     There had been a pack of 12 on the shelf at Sainsbury's, of which 9 had already gone, so I got 2, just in case they never make it again.  Only 4 packets of Darjeeling left, sufficient to keep me going until June.  Phew!  I didn't get any old ham, but did get some remaindered chicken drumsticks, which is close enough.  O hang on - let me just check with "S**** A**" which only us Special People can access - ah, next delivery of Darjeeling on Tuesday.  No news on the Dynamite <sad face> which may be premature, as I've not tasted it yet.  I shall have a butty washed down with it once this blog is done, and report back.

Not "Darwin Award" Stupid

But still STUPID.  The BBC, that font of all that's fit to print, has an article on an estate agent conducting a potential buyer around a property, presumably one not in occupation.  The prospective purchaser was shown around the house, and then the estate agent (I think they call theses specimens "realtors" over in South Canada) opened the garage door.  To see this - Art!

A cannabis farm

     Ooops.

     The prospective purchaser was a policeman.

     He came back later with a search warrant and the ganja garage was emptied of weeds, whilst the house owner is now in very hot water.  One wonders what, exactly, he was thinking.  "These plants are very sick and need tender loving individual care in order to thrive and get transplanted back into the garden," said whilst crossing all fingers.

Talking Of Farming ...

A tenuous link, mayhaps, but once again, whose blog is it?  For I am reading Jack Swaab's diary about his time as a gunnery officer, and have reached the slogging phase of the Normandy campaign, where he encounters a French farming family and then compares them to "Starkadder".

NO!  Wrong kind of snake.

     You know Conrad, unable to let anything slide if he can help it.  The reference turns out to be from "Cold Comfort Farm", a novel that parodied then-popular  rural romances, and where the Starkadders are supporting characters.  Conrad enlightened if not that much wiser.  Perhaps a trip to the library is in order.  Are they still open?  That's how long it's been since my last visit.

A Retrospective Perspective

Naval And Military Press are seeking to siphon money out of my wallet again, having sent yet another e-mail comm about new publications (I don't really mind, it makes me feel that someone cares about Conrad).  This time it is a triple edition called "Then And Now: The Battlefields of 1914 - 1918 Twenty Years Later" where the title explains all.  The photographs of wartime France and Flanders are juxtaposed (did you expect to read this word today?) with photographs taken in the late Thirties.  Art!

     These were originally published in serial magazine form and are here collected into three volumes.  The hardback set will drain your coffers to the value of £145, which you can run by Wonder Wifey and then explain/exclaim that, if you order it NOWNOWNOW then it will be only (!) £85, saving £60.

     Yeah, but no.

STILL NO!

Finally -

As promised last night, I sat through "Dalek Invasion Of Earth 2150" and took photographs at salient points, intending to do a kind of photographic commentary, which would be far too long to add in here.   I shall whet your appetite for this epic endeavour by adding only a single photograph here.  Art!

     Yes, that is a poster for "Sugar Puffs" in the background.  Anachronistic and incongruous, yes, until you understand that they coughed up £50,000 to publicise the film, and in return we see these signs on several occasions.  And unlike other signs, they're not worn, torn and faded into obscurity.  Strange, that ...

*  Still our friends!

**  Apologies to any surviving Strugatsky Brothers