How many strawberries grow in the salt sea?

Not counting the drive-by occasional glimpse, I had not been to the Mystic since the early part of the summer, before I got really sick. The afternoon was brilliant blue and white with snow and sunlight, so I layered up and headed out.

( As many a ship as sails in the wood. )

I left my boots in the hall on account of road salt and other substances insalubrious for little cats and fed said little cats as soon as I got back in. As far as I'm concerned, the best thing about John Sturges' Ice Station Zebra (1968) is Patrick McGoohan's self-described "sneaky bastard," a nervy veteran of ungentlemanly warfare with his hands shaking around a cup of coffee and whisky as he details with rapid-fire bitter precision exactly how he would have sabotaged the submarine had it been his brief to do so, which for all we know it may yet be, but once we hit the half-burnt, shell-shocked Arctic research station with its frozen corpses and paranoia of moles and double agents, I couldn't see how this film, no matter its faults, wasn't an influence on John Carpenter's The Thing (1982). I may still try to track down Alistair MacLean's Ice Station Zebra (1963) on the understanding that much of it is extremely different.