Under The Whip Again

Only In Metaphor!
     On a late shift at work, then did the shopping, then unloaded and put the shopping away (with minor combined help/hindrance from Wonder Wifey and Darling Daughter), downed some left-over Thai chilli*, sat in the lounge and allowed Edna to use me as a bed - the evening has been a mad hectic whirl.

Bristley and dozy.  And so is Edna ...

The Ides Of March
     Recall Caesar's wife warning him about these Ides?   I thought they might make a blog article.  Except they were on the 15th of this month.  BOOJUM! has missed the boat.  Let's move on -

The Chi Kappa Theta Toga Party suddenly went bad -

A Little Musical Criticism
     If you remember yesterday - you DO remember yesterday, don't you?  You are a human being reading this, not a goldfish? - I posted about how it's difficult to do a critique of the lyrics of Sigur Ros.  Now, by wild coincidence -

I'm not sure how many coincidences need occur before you

start living in Philip K Dick-land, but I happened to be watching

television tonight - a vanishingly rare event in itself - and on came

an advert for perfume.  Featuring "Brennistein", the first track from 

the Sig's "Kveikur" album.  What are the chances of that happening, eh?

"Could you coin a phrase less obscene-sounding?  "Dickalia" has a nicer ring to it.  Ta."

- I ran into my old friend Roald, who speaks fluent Icelandic, and he translated the lyrics that I posted yesterday.  Here they are again:

"Hlustar a

Hjartad sla

Innanfra

Briostkassin

Ut-og inn"

     
     Roald went off with a piece of paper and came back with a rough translation.  For some reason he asked me not to post it until he'd flown back to Rejkjavik.  Well, here are the lyrics, translated:

"Woke up with a bit of a dilemma.

I'm such an awfully hairy fella.

All of my razor's blades were blunt.

So I went back to bed, thinking "You -**"

     All I can say is that Icelandic is an impressively compact language.  Imagine squeezing all that meaning into so few words!

Guess - go on, guess! - which one had the blunt razors.

Batrachian
     I realise why these words pop into my head - it's the special surgically-implanted antennae in there that are picking up random radio broadcasts.
     I know what you're thinking about that word.  "I say!" you're gasping.  "That sounds ever so much like a species of herbivorous dinosaur,  the ones that loitered around in swamps, eating tons of reeds and ferns, giving off unbelievable amounts of methane."
     If I were to add "Batrachotoxin" your eyes would widen as you amended "Herbivorous" to "Carnivorous", believing that the feral hunting dinosaurs injected this poison into their hapless prey, pre-digesting it in -
     STOP RIGHT THERE!  
     Let me show you a source of "batrachotoxin":

NO football team jokes, please.

     Yes, a frog.  Now, the one above is a deadly little devil, since the poison in his skin will kill you stone dead in seconds - the South American tribes who use blow-darts get their killer punch from these cyan chaps.  I've actually seen them in the Manchester Museum vivarium.

A Bactrian.  Close enough.

 So - Tanks?
     Yus.  I don't know if I've featured the Whippet before, in which case apologies for - actually no I'm not apologising, you're lucky to get this so be grateful.  The Whippet:

Rear view.  Note the profligate presence of machine guns

     This little chap could manoeuvre at a dizzy 8 m.p.h., twice the speed of the much heavier Mk IV, since it only weighed 14 tons.  It bristled with machine guns - you can see three in the photo above - one on each side.  Lest you think it a comedy pantechnicon, they wrought considerable execution upon hapless Germans caught in the open.  Google "Musical Box" for a Whippet that fought a one-tank war for a whole day.

*  In return I have to Schlemmertopf a beef brisket tomorrow
**  "Runt".  What did you expect?  This is BOOJUM! - no swearing!