"Clack!" Went The Clock

Or, An Unpleasant Reminder
Yes, that resounding retort of plastic-upon-plastic is a warning to Conrad about his alarm clock.  Being set for eighty-thirty this morning, which I could ignore for another forty minutes, it now requires setting for the unpleasantly early hour of six a.m. since your modest artisan is due in for an early start at work.  Which might be possible if the bus turns up on time - or turns up at all - and there aren't too many people waiting - that is, if the preceding service didn't break down again - and there aren't too many traffic jams and there aren't any roadworks.

"Greater Manchester Police warn of delays on the A57 into Manchester -"

     Except there are roadworks, since the bus back from town yesterday took a diversion due to same, and it's really too too optimistic to expect whatever's being done to be done by tomorrow morning.  You can imagine the utility company responsible sending round a communication to it's workers:  "We get the same amount of remuneration regardless of how quickly we do the job, so take your time, take your time!  We need to keep you busy until the next job comes through, which might take weeks.  Months even."  Expect to see workmen excavating with teaspoons and mixing tarmac in egg-cups.
     This is all before I even get into the office.  Heaven alone knows what will be waiting there; probably a whole bank of empty seats, where ranks of colleagues have been thinned-out by the flu going around at present.

One of your five a day
Drink it, keep flu at bay

     Is there a silver lining?  Probably not.  I bet, even at that unpleasantly early hour on a dark, cold, damp morning, those annoyingly exuberant little swine the birds will be chirping away in their usual mocking fashion. 
     And yes I know calling avians "porcine" is mixing metaphors, but - once again! - whose blog is it?

The Two-Headed Monster That Spits Blood!
OR
Sunshine, Flowers And Happy Smiling Russians
Congratulations if you recognised a blurb from Alice Cooper's live tour of a couple of decades ago.   When I say "spits blood! I am of course being metaphorical, as the beast in question spits out something that causes blood to be spilt.
     "Come now, Conrad!" I hear you call.  "Stop being coy and clickbaity and tell us what you're droning on about now."
     Okay, here you go:

Undeniably two-headed

     These are torpedo tubes aboard the Russian warship "Vice Admiral Kulakov", no sniggering at the back there!  "Vice Admiral" is a rank, not an occupation, you dirty-minded rascals.  Stephen Rosenberg, BBC correspondent, was allowed on the ship to be told what it's up to.  Not allowed to ask questions, mind! - that would be dangerously C21 for the Russian Navy.

Dalek's Great-grandaddy?

     Now, these are of interest to young Mina at work, since the Russian for "Torpedo" is "Mina", which could lead to terrible confusion, not least if coupled with a demand or request for Chicken Korma*.  The Russian for "Torpedo Tubes" is just as liable to mis-interpretation, being "Minnie Apparati".  You can just see Mickey getting jealous that she's at a party and he's not ...

"Mikki Mais"?

You What?
Earlier today Conrad was indulging in one of his guilty pleasures, "Motorway Cops", of course about police tooling around in cars, accompanied by a camera crew.
     No, no, that's not what this is about.  In the commercial break Conrad mutes the sound and trawls the Guide, looking for anything interesting, and he found it.
     "True Christmas" the channel.  I think perhaps someone ought to give them a gentle nudge into 2016.  And what was the film?  "Submerged"; about the USN submarine "Squalus" and the recovery of her crew after she sank.
     Well, one can imagine that the crew of a sunken submarine, hitherto doomed to a lingering death, might well feel that Christmas has come when they get rescued by a specialist diving chamber.  But what about the rest of us?

They have got part of it painted red.  Perhaps the interior is green and strung with fairy lights?

Dangerous Doorstop
Conrad can tell which of Jenny (Cyborg Sentry Cat) or Edna (Mobile Alarm System) is entering the Upstairs Lair when the door is ajar, because Jenny pushes the door open, whereas Edna barges it with considerable speed.  This necessitates your gifted author having to get up and close the door again, so I usually put a doorstop down.  Previously this has been a shoe or a large book.  Yesterday it was this:

Harmful Hot Water Bottle
(ignore the feet)

      I shall not make this mistake again.  The rubber bottle, thanks to it's lack of friction, remains firmly in place when the door opens.  Unlike shoe or book there is no "give" at all, so when I absently barged the door open, it only went so far before abruptly stopping.
     The tea in my cup, abiding to the laws of physics, however, continued on going, landing all around my feet.
     "Must do something about that," I muttered to me.  Did I write it down?  No!  So it remained purely theoretical.
     Next time I barged the door open, the water bottle again sat firmly in place on the carpet, meaning your large and hefty scribe bounced off the bookcase below -

"Ouch!" said the bookcase

     Precariously-balanced objects fell to the floor.  Luckily none were fragile, and the bookcase itself didn't tip over.
     So - learn from my mistakes!  Never use a full hot water bottle as a doorstop.

I Made Lemonade
Since there were lots of lemons, this is pretty much a no-brainer, hmmm?
     Wrong!  You need to select fruit that have been around for a couple of weeks, if possible, as the skin on them thins out over time. This means the final drink is less bitter as there's a higher proportion of sugar-to-peel.  The evidence for you skeptics:

I know you can't taste it.  So you'll just have to trust.

There we've hit the 1,000 word mark. And there was me worried I had nothing to write about!

* To make sense of this, read yesterday's blog.