A Day Of Two Halves

Part The First
     This was the idle bit.  Up late, pot of tea, reading "Austerlitz" by Chris Duffy, then!  In a stroke of inspiration wrote a letter to Manisha, as she's been off for ages and really needs a bit of background about the situation at work.
     Then I realised I don't know her address.  Faugh!  This is a proper letter what is wrote on lined paper with a signature and everything, so it can't go by e-mail.
     Northwich!  Or is it Northvic?  That's where she lives.  Probably not enough for the postie to get it right.

Sandwich.  Close enough.

Part the Second
     Next, the active bit.  Things picked up after mid-day when the four of us set off to find a pub that allowed a puppy in the grounds.  No luck at the "Spring Inn" so we tried "The Summit", which is only a few hundred yards from home -
   - success!  Waitress coming out to set the table was completely unfazed by a dancing puppy.
    - failure!  The sun went in, dark clouds appeared overhead, it began to rain.  Puppy was sent back home, family adjourned inside, nice meal was et.
    Then came the weekly shop, carried out by Conrad, at a Morrisons over-run by pensioners on tranquilizers practicing slo-mo doddering.  So slowly they walked!  Conrad did not give into temptation and deploy light-sabre but it was a close-run thing ...
     After shopping came baking - gluten-free Roast Banana Bread With Walnuts.  The recipe calls for a glaze of maple syrup - can I be bothered - maybe.
     Then - do blog.  Which is where we are now.

"Bake for 40 minutes" my hairy white ass!  An hour and forty minutes is more like it.

Multiplicative Indices Of Choice
     You might know this better as the card game "Play Your Cards Right".  For those not familiar, nine cards are placed face-down on a board in three rows of three.  Contestants have to guess if the next card is higher or lower than the present one.  You can only guess higher or lower, so if it's the same number - tough, you lose.

Obviously face-down.  It's too easy the other way

At least, that's the version played in our pub after the Quiz (which we won - Oh noes!).  Why does this post have such a complicated title?  Because Tom, boyfriend to Darling Daughter and a scientist-in-waiting, worked out how to calculate the possibility of actually getting to the end card and winning the jackpot.

Imortalised on a metaphorical fag-packet

     As you see, gentle reader, one starts with a simple decision, "H" for higher or "L" for lower, with a branch of "Yes" or "No" resulting.  This tree only goes to the fourth card, so you can project the permutations of getting to the ninth card.  Whilst you mop your brow and sip a nerve-settling chota peg*, consider that the television version has twelve cards.
     No!  I am not going to check on how many people won.  The telly program was presented by Bruce Forsyth.  Everyone knows space aliens (like what Conrad is) are allergic to Bruce Forsyth.

Conrad, as he would be after 5 seconds of Bruce

"The Founding Of EvilHold School"
     This is a children's book written by Count Nikolai Tolstoy** back in 1968.  Conrad remembers reading it and finding it hilariously funny.  

It's real.  It exists.  Fear it!

It concerns an evil schoolmaster and his attempts to establish an evil school, so he can be evil towards the pupils.  "Let us face facts, you swine," is one quote I remember, when he talks to himself.  Of course, being evil, he even insults himself.  When his pupils escape his evil clutches, he goes after them with his evil companion, attempting to track them down in an evil manner.  The pupils outsmart him at every turn and divert his evil search at one point by sending an anonymous warning to him:

"The wicked children have been seen

At Mile End Hall, near Bethnal Green"

     Of course the escaped pupils are nowhere near and enjoy a day of being unpursued by evil teacher.

"And this has what to do with the blog?"

Patience, Valentina, patience!

Darling Daughter's Trip To The City Of Sin
     - and museums and art galleries.
     London!  Not Babylon, London.  She's off there next week for three days, and needs to carry out research into dolls.  Specifically Victorian dolls, the ones with creepy china faces and wooden hands that came with a dress impossible to detach without chlorine triflouride.  As opposed to contemporary dolls like Barbie, who appears to have been designed by a teenage boy using Japanese manga comics as reference material.
     "The Victoria and Albert Museum of Childhood", offered pub quiz partner Rosie.  "Out at Bethnall Green."  Which is when that rhyme above popped into Conrad's head, as nothing he's read in the past 45 years is ever really forgotten.

Tee hee! I bet you can't sleep tonight after seeing this!

Today's Edna Shot
     In terms of activity today was a lethargic first half and a more active second.  In terms of weather we had a wonderful morning and a damp, chilly afternoon.  Who enjoyed lying in the sunshine this morning?
     No!  Not Conrad!  Edna - oh you lot are hard work.  

Conrad basking in the - no, hang on -

*  I believe this is Hindi for a "gin and tonic"
** Yes, direct descenant of Leo.