BOOJUM!: Welcome To

In The Future There Will Be Only Two Seasons
Summer: in the UK this will last for two weeks. These two weeks may not - in fact probably will not - be consecutive days.
Slutch: the other eleven and a half months will be the season of "Slutch". This will consist of grey skies, rain, wind, chill, sleet, rain, occasional tornadoes, flooding, rain, high tides, landslides, meteorides* and rain.
If you doubt honest Conrad - just look out of the window.

The view from Conrad's front window

History Needs You!
A Twitter page of interest to Conrad, as he likes to look back on the past and extrapolate it into the future.
As we seem to have had a lot of recent contact, and some minor conflict, with the Hellenic deities, let us skip across the Middle East to Assyria, and the artefact below:

Translation: "Kids nowadays! A clay tablet and a stylus isn't good enough for them - all they want is that new-fangled papyrus and an inked quill! Back in my time -"

Should you wish to see the Twitter page, here is the link:

https://twitter.com/HistoryNeedsYou/status/432125601773015040/photo/1

BOOJUM! - bringing the past to life! Not the dead to life. Not yet, anyhow.

Crow Versus Bee
There are two popular sayings that refer to the concept of a "Geodesic" - that is, the straightest line between two points, more formally put as: " In the presence of an affine connection, a geodesic is defined to be a curve whose tangent vectors remain parallel if they are transported along it. If this connection is the Levi-Civita connection induced by a Riemannian metric, then the geodesics are (locally) the shortest path between points in the space."
Got that? Good. Now, which of these two is more apposite: "Making a beeline" or "As the crow flies". Same concept, different expression, different creatures.
Personally I would favour the crow. It's faster. Also, see the picture.

Here they both are, crow and bee. Where's the bee? Inside the crow!

The Tempest
No, not the weather - though you could be forgiven for thinking so - but the play by Shakespeare.
Here an aside. I hate Shakespeare! MacBeth, All's Well That Ends Well, King Lear, the sonnets, all the stuff I had to study at O and A Level.
But! I am well aware of the plot, characters and situations of The Tempest, because they were all lifted for one of Conrad's favourite films, "Forbidden Planet". In the film Propsero becomes Professor Morbius, his daughter Miranda becomes Altaira, the spirit Aerial becomes Robby The Robot, Caliban becomes the Id Monster, Ferdinand becomes Captain Adams and Sycorax the unseen witch becomes the equally-unseen Krell, indigenous to the planet Altair IV (showing Morbius doesn't have much imagination in the christening stakes).
In revealing this I may suffer somewhat in Anna's opinion, since I responded with bright recognition when she mentioned the character "Aerial". If she knew the truth ...

The ethereal and nimble Aerial. No, hang on -

An Aerial. Close enough

The Secret Alike of Arabia**

I've been listening to the 4th disk of this collection, which titles itself "Simply Chill - With A Beat" and Track 12 - "Sseiff Kittar" by Nasim Rai, definitely reminds me of a track from another, contemporary Western act. I can hear it in my head but, dammit! I cannot remember who plays it. Future Sound Of London? Friendly Fires? Working For A Nuclear Free City?

So - Tanks?
Imagine, if you will, that you are driving your tank across Europe, chasing the bally Hun at top speed (30 m.p.h. on a good day) and casting caution to the winds. Suddenly! you come to a canal or a river or a fair-sized stream and the fiendish Hun has blown up all the bridges. How do you get across?
If your answer is "petition the local council, have them submit tenders, assay the firms who give quotes, give permission to proceed and wait for two weeks" then you will find yourself promoted to Deputy Assistant Veterinary Manure Inspector. If, on the other hand, you proclaim "Churchill Bridgelayer!" then you will go far.