BOOJUM! Hits 500 Posts

No! Not In The Sense Of Punching 500 Concrete Pillars*
I mean, obviously - obviously! - that I've posted on the blog 500 times.
Now, to those who have leisure time enough to manage that many in a week, the Exit Door is OVER THERE!  Don't let it hit your bottom on the way out.  I have to get up at <thinks creatively> 4:30 in the morning and work until 7 p.m. then walk twelve miles home before making lunch for the next day and swilling a dry crust down with a cup of water.  Tepid water.  So I think I can say, without exaggeration, that Conrad is managing pretty well.

An RAF Victor, looking like it came out of "Thunderbirds".
And yes, that is a good thing.

The Mammoth Book Of True World War One Stories
Yep, still reading this one.  It throws up the odd interesting word, being written waaaay back in the Thirties.  Oh, look, here's one such:
"Battue"; said of a quite horrid scene a doctor witnesses, a giant marquee filled with dead bodies on stretchers.  Apparently it derives from the Old French "batre", meaning to beat grass and bushes to flush game-birds, which are then killed - the noun being extended to human beings in this case.

Baton.  Close enough

"Rooti": Bert, a thirsty, hungry soldier complains about not having any food.  Conrad, knowing how much mutilated Hindi the British army picked up in India, suspected it to be Indian in origin, and it is - a type of flat, unleavened bread, obviously taken as shorthand to mean food in general.

Rooty.  Close enough

Whalley Range Hospital:  many decades ago Conrad lived in a student hovel that made the degraded abode of "The Young Ones" look like an Ideal Homes showcase.  This was in, yes, Whalley Range.  It may be slightly more gentrified than in my day, but oh! it was rough.  Nor did I recall a hospital.  Ladies not wearing a lot on street corners, yes the name for them does begin "ho-" but there the resemblance ends.
     A dash of Google-ful reveals that the character referring to "Whalley Range Hospital" actually meant St. Joseph's Hospital on Carlton Road.

And here it is

     BOOJUM! - bringing you up to speed.

Tomorrow's Cake - 
 - will be Pumpkin Cheesecake, a recipe from the Hummingbird Bakery cookbook.  Why so?  Well this is the only time of year when it's easy to get pumpkins, and also because A Certain Someone** requested it.  Apparently I made it last year and it was enjoyed.  I will take their word for it, it's impossible to remember exactly what I made when, and I have said I will make It if people ask for It.

Gutting a pumpkin.  Hmmm.  Doesn't look too edible, does it?

Boiling the hapless pumpkin's flesh into a pulp.  Bwah-hah-hah!

Roasting the pumpkin alive.  Boy, I really have it in for pumpkins, eh?

More Of Food
This is Tegellio or Tellegio Tallegio Cheese, something along those lines.  Italian and going cheap - Conrad is unsure if it's supposed to be covered in green mould but trusts that this is intentional and since he's bought it, it will get eaten!

A Fruitful Metaphor
Actually no fruit involved -

- except I had to add this one

<short pause as I go to check on the cheesecake>

Needs a lot longer, I think.  Anyway, I was considering an analogy that might explain why some of the more - shall we say arcane*** - ideas and words pop up in my head.
     Premium Bond.  
     No!  Nothing to do with the better 007 films and stories.  More usual in the plural, these are bonds issued by HM Government.  You, the punter, buy them and every so often some are chosen at random and win win win!
     The selection is by ERNIE.  Who may be wise but he isn't Wise, if you see what I mean.  It's an acronym derived from "Electronic Random Number Indicator".  Conrad will let the extra, UNEARNED "e" slip as he likes the acronym.  And it seemed like an analogue of my mind - each day certain random facts or ideas or words or horrid little rants will pop into my consciousness like a Premium Bond number.

ERNIE in his youth; note the hilariously pretentious "futuristic" lettering

"Fandom Of The Operator"
With a determined reading regimen today, I finished this book off at lunchtime, snubbing both Manisha and Hazel to do so.  Manisha obviously didn't mind one bit as her enormous laugh could be heard across the cafe; she must have a special amplifier built into her voicebox as she is very wee.
     Anyway, FOTO.  About halfway through - oh, excuse me 

SPOILER ALERT

     the narrative suddenly takes a very dark turn.

     Gary, our narrator and slightly useless hero, is really a psychopathic mass-murdering serial killer who also caused the death of his wife and then brings her back as a zombie.  And after starting in the nineteen fifties, it ends in 3012 AD with a battle between Gary, who is now dead, and an author who created aliens that beamed messages into people's heads.  I think that's how it ends.

Cranes and Trains

Okay, I stretch a point to make a rhyme.  "Cranes and Trams" doesn't rhyme, and "Crams and Trams" doesn't make sense, except to me, but you need to understand what's going on as there will be a quiz at the end.

"Crames"?

      Here you can see that only one major strut remains to be placed, and that plastic sheeting is going over the blue plastic cladding.
     If I can be bothered, and not tonight as it's Pub Quiz in thirty minutes, I may put together a montage of the pictures taken of Victoria Station.

*  I could do it, but destroying 500 pillars - too much like mindless vandalism, hmm?
**  Ah, why be coy - Anna.
***  "Shall we say bizarre and worrying?" opines Mister Hand

An Embarrassment Of Riches -

 - Kind Of
That is, if you can call the drivel that pours forth from my keyboard "riches".  Perhaps more along the lines of "well-offs", or perhaps "not-quite-poverty-strickens".
     "Conrad!" I hear you calling.  "Have you been at the cooking sherry again?"
     Not a bit of it!  No, I refer instead to the gems of illuminative thought that pour from my mind, via a pen and notebook and into BOOJUM!  I have about three hours worth of input and it's already nearly half nine - part of the reason being that it was the final of The Great British Bake Off, so I didn't sit down to type until well after nine - pumpkin puree, don't you know* - and I was late home after doing overtime.
     Enough preamble**!  On with the motley!

First, a joke
Q) Why is a First Bus driver like a cranky pensioner?
A) Because they can't handle change!
     Entirely true.  If you wave a £20 note under the supercilious nose of a First Bus driver, they don't want to know and you get a free ride.  One imagines that if it were a £50 they'd grovel at your feet, sell the bus and give you the proceeds.

Like garlic to vampires.

Tartarus
No! Not a confectionery business.  Conrad has a passing interest in classical Roman and Greek culture, the roads, the baths, the wars, and of course the mythology.  Until today his understanding of exactly what "Hades" constituted was a bit hazy.  And to get to Tartarus one needs to get past Hades, metaphorically.
     Hades was the abode of the dead.  No, not the ancient equivalent of Hell, it was merely a region specifically for the dead to reside in, divided into different districts.

Shades.  Close enough

     Tartarus, now, that was Hell.  Situated - this is really poetic - as far beneath Hades as Hades was below Heaven, it was the ultimate destination for the corrupt and the wicked***.  One exemplary resident was King Sisyphus, who despite the name (say it out loud) was nothing of a sissy at all.  In fact he was a bit of a dastard, killing guests who stayed with him, in addition to seducing his niece.  What really got him into trouble, however, was blabbing about whom Zeus was sleeping with.  In those days there was no "News Of The World" ethic nor tabloid paparazzi either, so it was down to Tartarus for Sisyphus.  He was condemned to roll a rock to the peak of a hill, except that just before he reached the top - the rock rolled all the way down again^.
     Sisyphus.  Inventor of rock and roll.

Tarts R us.  Close enough

The Great British Bake Off
Yes, the final tonight, with only Richard, Nancy and Luis left.  And what do the programme makers do that sets Conrad's (surgically-sharpened) teeth on edge?  They do not provide a spelling of the exotic titles being baked!
     Bad Auntie!  Naughty Auntie!  No licence-fee increase for you^^!
     I shall guess that we are talking about "Viennoise" in the Signature round.  These are pastries, and what does Nancy choose to bake but "Kites"!  Damn I missed that one for the themed blog.  Anyway, they had to make two different kinds and each came out 50/50 in terms of achievement. No differentiation between them.  Still neck and neck!

Beautiful and cultured, at the centre of Europe: Vienna

     Then the Technical.  Nothing complicated: a victoria sponge, a scone and a tart au citron, except the judges wanted 12 of each - in 2 hours.  With no recipes given.  For those of you not familiar with baking, this is really against the clock.  Time management as much a skill as baking.  Luis and Richard didn't manage too well, but Nancy scored with both Paul and Mary.
     Lastly, the Showstopper.  Again no spelling Auntie!  Conrad makes a stab at "Piece Montaigne", that is, a giant bit of confectionery.  By coincidence both Richard and Nancy make windmills, whilst Luis makes a mine - as in coal, not explosive.
     Who won?  See the asterisk list below as I don't want to spoil anything for you!
     As our resident lodger, part-time author and full-time American, Degsy declared: "Very British!"
     Conrad won't know quite what to do of a Wednesday evening now^^^.

Piers Morgan, easily confused.
(Guns?  In America?  Who knew!)

Film Faults
As you surely know by now, Conrad is a monstrously pedantic hair-splitting spelling and grammar Nazi (and those are my good points).
     Anyway, I suddenly took umbrage - don't worry, I put it back later on - at a film title.
     Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I present "Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea".
     True, the television series has an awesome theme tune:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufYqySOf9V8
     - never have electronic chickens sounded better.
     My point is that the Seaview travels to the bottom of the OCEAN in addition to the various seas encountered en route.

Not entirely sure how this got to the bottom of the ocean.
(Unless it's in the Somerset Levels)

     But wait!  That's not all.  Remember "Arachnophobia"?  That film from the Nineties with Jeff Daniels and a busload of spiders.  Jeff, I salute you.  You will never have to prove your courage to Conrad in any way after this film.
     Let us move from hero to zero.  Julian Sands plays a British entemologist - Hooray! a British character actor in an American film who's not a villain! - although he is an idiot.  Supposedly all knowledgeable about spiders and other hideous crawling vermin, our Intelligent Idiot strolls into a barn full of GIGANTIC SPIDERWEBS.  He sees countless insect and rodent corpses strung up in GIGANTIC SPIDERWEBS.  He walks up to a GIGANTIC SPIDERWEB - I may be labouring the point here but I want to get across that these GIGANTIC SPIDERWEBS were probably created by a GIGANTIC SPIDER.  Mr Intelligent Idiot would, you suppose, realise that.  What does he do when he encounters the GIGANTIC SPIDERWEB?  Why, he twangs it like a guitar string.
     And then the GIGANTIC SPIDER kills him.
     Good!  The world can always stand to have one less idiot in it.

Morecambe Sands.  As intelligent as Julian's character

There is more to come.  Conrad has been keeping a weather eye out for posters advertising "Fury", the WW2 drama featuring Brad Pitt.  Out on October 22nd, and you know I really will have to go see it, if only to determine if the tanks are done properly.
     I have seen the trailer, which looks the business.  Oh, and what's this I also espy on a bus poster?  "WAR IS COMING"
     Wow, no beating about the bush there!  There's WAR, and it's not dodging about in the background.  No, it's on it's way and it's COMING.  Where, pray tell, is it coming to?


     Sleepy Hollow.
     Bathos.  Utter bathos.  Gentlemen, look at "Fury".  Even the name is evocative.  "Sleepy Hollow"? It sounds like a suburb of Ambridge.

Chucking-out time in Ambridge

* Take note Ms Pavlou, take note.
** Funny how you never hear about getting beyond the preamble and into the amble, eh?
*** Like Radio Two, but without the music
^ Don't knock it, this is incredibly mild by the standards of Tartarine justice.
^^ No, this isn't currant affairs, it's been an issue for generations.  Says I.
^^^ Oh!  yes I do!  Plot to take over the world.  I've neglected this shockingly of late.  And Nancy won