Read The Recipe!

A Life Lesson
     Applicable to all people in all walks of life, similar as a concept to that dinned into students by lecturers - "Answer the question, not what you think is the question!"
     In my case, gentle reader, I'd misread a recipe that instructed to gently boil "beer and molasses sugar£ together, and instead merely boiled "beer and molasses together".  The resulting, disquieting brown syrup was completely undrinkable despite the beer quotient, and went down the drain.
     Fortunately sense and reason had prevailed before the beer mixture ever encountered the rest of the ingredients and Molasses and Ginger Squares are now baking as I type.

Just like this!  Except there was less of it

Bus Poster Muse
     I had to be selective here.  It has become part of Conrad's routine, en route to work, to check out various bus posters.  Since this is an entirely random process, it can be hit or miss on the day.  So I pass over the First Bus advert about getting someone to - Wake Up!  I'm not going to feature that one!  There was another about saving money - on utilities - zzzzzzzzz - oops!
     What did catch my eye was a poster for "Ride Along", with pictures of Ice-Cube and Kevin Hart, and an explosion at lower left.

Like this, but more splodeyfied

You know, I think the poster people added that explosion.  Because you have no idea what "Ride Along" is about from looking at the bus poster, except that Ice-Cube has indigestion, or perhaps a stone in his shoe*.  I shall pretend it is an inspirational story of two young friends from The Hood, who, against all odds, establish a branch of the Viennese Lippanzer stables in their squalid neighbourhood and melt all the bad guy's hearts by giving free rides to orphans.  Also, kittens.

Fun With The Elements!
    Every so often - periodically, you might say - BOOJUM! kicks the gibbet of hilarity by looking at the elements.  The building blocks of all matter, one hundred and <cough couhg>een of them.  What canny scientific japes can we run to today?
     Well, we might consider an elemental version of The Avengers.  No, no, I mean the spandex-and-eyemask Marvel ones, not Steed and Mrs. Peel.

(Captain) Americium!

Thor-ium!

Iron (Man)

     I got a bit stuck after that.  Hawkeye?  Er - forget him.  There is Polonium, which is terrifying stuff fit only to kill and destroy - 

Er - Black Widow, anyone?

Nothing really appeals for Hulk, either.  Perhaps the stuff that you do not want to get angry ...

Of course.  Never Plutonium!  I mean - destroyer of worlds - named after a cartoon dog?

For the villains, perhaps Litihum as Tom Hiddlestone's character

Because it's quite low-key

"Meretricious"
     In our ongoing attempts to leaven the intellectual balance of you, the reader, Conrad will analyse the above word.
     Obviously - what else! - this word deals with those people who possess obsessive compulsions.  Not ones like filling in all the letter "O"s they can find in today's copy of the Metro, nor those who have to have every single recording ever made by Good Rockin' Doopsie And His Cajun Twisters, nor those who wash their hands every second hour with carbolic soap and sand.
     No!  This compulsion refers to those who have to quantify, measure, span, weigh, assay, odelay, scale, bale and otherwise render a metric into every waking nuance of their incredibly-ordered lives.
     What's that?
     It's not?
     It's merely a long-winded way of saying something is "tat"?
     Grrr!  Reality, you try my patience!


"Cat On A Hot Tin Roof"
      Just as do atoms and molecules pop into existence out of nowhere from white holes,  the title of this play popped into Conrad's head earlier today, and he had to wonder about the image it created.

Atoms and molecules popping into existence - far too hard to picture.  Instead, here's a walrus

     How did the cat get on the roof?  Did the playwright wickedly put it there to spark his imagination?  Probably not, or the ASPCA would be on his doorstep quick smart.  How "hot" is "hot"?  If it's too hot your average cat will begone before you can blink, leaving the play entitled "Cat On The Nice Cool Patio", so - no, it's not too hot.  In fact I think we have some poetic licence here.  Follow me on this - the cat has to get there under its own steam or there's legal consequences - although putting a bit of chicken or some Kitti-Krunchi Kat Treets on the roof would be allowable.  That there roof can't be too hot or the cat won't stay there.  For the cat to be on the tin roof, it has to be a comfortably warm roof.  Remember, if it's too cold then our twinkle-toed tabby will also be off and away.
     And there you have it.  "Cat On A Comfortably Warm Tin Roof That It Reached All By Itself".  Which I admit is rather less pithy than the original.

The playwright's friend

Hurdy-Gurdy
     Just as do atoms and - okay, things pop into Conrad's head for no good reason.  For example, what is a "hurdy-gurdy"?  Do you eat with it, put it on the rhubarb or shoot missiles from it?
     None of the above!  It's a kind of wheeled violin, that looks like this:

Even the Middle Ages suffered from hippies, it seems ...

You crank the handle, press the keys and - hay pesto!  - music comes out.

Finally - 
     I have at last got round to putting-up the artwork commissioned from Darling Daughter in my locker at work:

The Dancing Devil Dogs of Doom!

Tally-Ho!