You Might Think I Was Referring To -
U2 as done in Latin petroglyphs, because they don't have a "U" and instead used "V" and you have to guess which letter it is based on context, which makes it tricky with words like "VAGUE". Art!
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| Batman, you have a woman's lips. |
You would, of course - obviously! - be wrong.
Then again, and sticking with the music theme*, you might be thinking of the second album by seminal punk band The Vibrators, and if I gently prod Art awake with this red-hot skewer -
They're still around, unbelievably. Conrad remembers hearing them on the John Peel show and not being terribly impressed. You're still WRONG. Again.
No, what Your Humble Scribe is referring to is "Vergeltungswaffen 2", the V2 ballistic missile, partner to the V1 flying bomb, which translates as "Vengeance Weapon". These were the weapons widely touted in Nazi Germany as war-winning wonder weapons that would turn the tide of war.
Alas, no, Herr Schickelgruber. Quite how hitting the UK with pilotless bombs and missiles would stop the Red Army from advancing went unanswered. As mentioned earlier, these weapons did not undergo sufficient development testing because they were rushed into production thanks to Herr Schickelgruber's obsession with them. Art!
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| V2 working |
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| V2 returning to sender |
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| Failure to launch |
There were persistent problems with guidance and fuel systems, creating end results as you see above, not to mention the inherent inaccuracy of the V1 and V2 themselves; they couldn't hit anything smaller than a city. The V1s were also interdicted along the south coast by large numbers of anti-aircraft guns firing proximity-fused shells. Those than got through were often 'flipped' in flight by intercepting fighters manned by pilots with the testicular fortitude of champions. Also, the RAF would pay visits with hostile intent to the V1's fixed launch sites. The V2 couldn't be intercepted after launch, so the Teutons were spoofed with false data about where they were landing. Art!
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| V1 being hand-towed. O the howling irony. |
The whole V-weapon program cost 5 billion marks and in total delivered 0.25% of the ordnance dropped on occupied Europe by the Allies in the same period. It consumed enormous quantities of resources and manpower for very little return. In fact the bean-counters in Allied intelligence estimated that the Teutons could have produced 24,000 additional aircraft if their leaders hadn't been seduced by the prospects of missile warfare.
And now onto a possibility that the Wehraboos almost wet themselves about: V-weapons carrying a nuclear warhead.
Sorry, no.
The V-weapons program was so expensive that the Teutons could either have had it, OR a nuclear weapons program, but not both. Art!
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| World's biggest spin-drier**? |
Don't forget, the Manhattan Project, with total government backing, unlimited resources, whatever manpower it needed and - important point! - total absence of of enemy interference, still didn't produce a nuclear weapon until after the war in Europe had finished. To imagine that the Teutons, with far fewer resources and lukewarm support from Herr Schickelgruber at best would have bested this is to indulge in fantasy. Remember, the first hint the Allies got that a Nazi atom bomb project was in the offing would have seen the USAF and RAF paying a prompt visit. Art!
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| Sad Schickelgruber is sad |
We shall gloss over the V3, which was a miserable, abject failure.
Bee Good
NO THAT IS NOT A TYPO IT IS AN HILARIOUS PUN! It is so. For Lo! we are back on the BBC's exhibition of nature photographs. Conrad is still ticked off they removed a plethora of other photographic links, which I had bookmarked and which haven't com
ANYWAY the photo that won top prize. Art!
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| Courtesy Karine Aigner |
This one needs a little background. These are cactus bees, a South Canadian species that is normally solitary. Probably truculent and surly with it, like Conrad. The swarm here only held together for 20 seconds, so the photographer had to be really on the ball. And she was. As you can see.
BOOJUM! Reviews Films
And television, too. Don't begrudge us that. Remember, we go solely by the title and generalise hugely, unless the whimsy takes us, in which case all bets are off. Let the excoriation begin!
"The Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent": Hmmm that looks like Nick Cage on the poster. I wouldn't call him the best actor in Hollywood, yet he can turn in a good performance if the material is good. Unfortunately I believe his finances a few years back were so bad that he'd do anything as long as there was a big fat paycheck at the end. You never know, this might be one of the good ones.
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| Colour Conrad confused |
A self-referential spoof?
"The Bad Guys": Hmmmmm let me guess from the poster, a wacky comedy about a bunch of reformed villains who set out to redeem themselves? It has the potential to be exceedingly grim, frankly. Why not have a film about unreconstructed villains being villainous, and suffering the consequences of their actions and behaviour? Like all getting killed in a shoot-out with the Feds, dying of an overdose, serving twenty-five years in a supermax, fleeing the country without their family and never being able to return? No, it wouldn't be funny, it would be REALISTIC.
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| A shark? Out of the water yet still alive? Psshaw***! |
Yeah yeah yeah, probably box office poison.
"The Midwich Cuckoos": Colour me unimpressed. Whoever decided to adapt this had, of course - obviously! - to muck about with the source material in order to hit all the politically correct tick-boxes. Art!
What was effective about both films is that the children were all eerily alike, reflective of their near hive-mind mentality. That whirring noise you hear? John Wyndham spinning in his grave at 45 r.p.m. Conrad will avoid.
Back To "The Sea Of Sand"
Sarah had tempted fate by asking if anything else could go wrong. You had to ask, young lady, you had to ask!
For a
rhetorical question, it begged a response.
The Doctor responded, pointing northwards. A faint smudge of dark brown discoloured the
horizon.
A
sandstorm. Not fatal, but hideously
uncomfortable and unpleasant, providing they weren’t buried by sand.
‘I had to ask,’ grumbled the young journalist.
‘Help may be
at hand,’ consoled the Doctor. His sharp
eyes were focussed on the middle distance, where a plume of dust appeared,
moving steadily across the desert floor.
The distance was difficult to judge; perhaps a mile away, headed
southwards and away from the oncoming storm.
Not towards them.
The Doctor rolled his scarf up tightly,
keeping one end grasped firmly in his hand, then threw it into the air. Sarah simply stared at this peculiar
behaviour, which the Doctor repeated several times. Seemingly pleased by his bizarre action, he
beamed at Sarah and sat down next to her.
Less than a
minute later the plume of dust had altered course. A small truck was responsible for creating
the trail, becoming visible as it came closer.
The Doctor
took the vehicle in critically; a half-tonner by the look of it, with a small
cargo body behind the open cab. The
front windscreen lay folded forward, allowing the driver a clear view. A red and black square had been painted on
the driver’s mudguard, along with a small black rodent in a white circle. The driver had goggles on, and a dirty
handkerchief tied over his lower face.
His passenger, naked from the waist up, slapped a battered tin helmet on
his sand-dusted hair and stepped onto the running-board as the vehicle slowed
to a stop. A rifle dangled in his left
hand.
‘How perfectly
splendid!’ enthused the Doctor. ‘Hello,
chaps. I wonder, would you mind terribly
offering us a lift?’ he beamed at the
two suspicious men with ingenuous charm.
Well, being British and polite, I don't doubt that they will. Can't have our heroes done in by dust, can we?
Finally -
I think we're over the Adjusted Compositional Ton, let me just check - O yes, well over. In that case we shall blow you a kiss and cast you a cuddle and begone.
* Do you see wh - O you do.
** Actually something or other to do with nuclear research
*** We will ignore the wolf being able to drive.
