If You Can't Be Yourself -

 - You Will Make A Lousy Someone Else
     A motto seen on a Lees' delivery truck this morning.
     How do they know that to be a fact?  I might very well make a fantastic someone else.  In fact I do make a fantastic someone else, someone pretending to be human and normal with a normal job, not an alien spy in camouflage.
     If MI5 happen to ever read the blog, Conrad will of course deny everything until he can get to the emergency teleport station -

What Conrad sees in the mirror every morning before donning his disguise.  I know, I know - what a handsome devil!

Chicken, Chorizo And Bean One-Pot Meal
     Since Conrad is on leave, he is also able to prepare slow-cooker meals in the daytime for evening consumption.  Behold the meal now cooking:

No!  No, that's not big-assed bits of carrot, it's sweet potato

      Unfortunately for Darling Daughter, not ready until 6 p.m. - although it's nearly that time now.  Also unfortunately, I think the recipe would feed  6 people and there's only the two of us at present.
     No!  Edna cannot have any.

Slake
     Not to be confused with "Sleak" by Alberto Y Lost Trios Paranoias*.
     Edna went at a bowl of water with great gusto after a long walk in the sunshine, causing Conrad to muse on the word "slake", as in "to slake one's thirst".  Where did this word come from?
     I can confidently inform you that it is Old English, or Anglo-Saxon if you prefer, originally "slacian" meaning "to lessen".

Stake.  Close enough

Condensed Films
     No!  This is not Conrad taking cheap shots at defenceless films unable to fight back - well, it is, but there is more to it than that.  Yes there is!  Brevity, I'll have you know, brevity.  NO! Not the sandwich-toaster manufacturers - brevity, being short and to the point.  Oh, let's get on with it:

Film                                                  Five Words

Superman                                          A man who is super
Superman 2                                       Yes, he is still super
Superman 3                                       Unsupered!  I lied.  Still super
Superman 4                                       You know what?  Still super
Super Mario Bros                                Bob Hoskin's finest film portrayal
Super 8                                             Where are the other seven?

Conrad also needs to apologise for not explaining the * he put after describing "Jaws" yesterday.  "Hunted shark eats people. Explodes*"  I should have added * But not like a Lycopodium** explosion.

Paws.  Close enough.

Fun With The Elements!
     Next up we have Potassium, chemical symbol K, atomic number 19.  Most of the uses for potassium are straight out of the Book Of Dullness  It's essential for human biology, it's used in fertilisers, gunpowder and is the main constituent of baking powder*.

Also, it does not begin with the letter "K"

    I know, not very exciting.  However, when you get potassium on it's own as a metal, then the fun begins!
     If you are stupid enough to drop a lump of metallic potassium into water, it will very likely be the last thing you do - K will explode on contact with water.  Not only that, it generates hydrogen from breaking down the water, and the reaction is hot enough to cause the hydrogen to explode.  The other product of this explosive reaction, Phosphorous Hydroxide, will cause chemical burns to the skin.  If you merely have your Potassium finely chopped up - it will explode on contact with air.  If you have a big lump of Potassium as a paperweight, don't heat it.  It will explode. 
     Combusting potassium forms compounds called peroxides and superoxides, which may in turn react explosively with the potassium they were derived from.  If stored for more than 6 months, superoxides of potassium will form in the container.  What will these do if they experience any friction or shock (like opening the container they are in)?  That's right - they explode.
     Plainly, metallic potassium is an element just bursting with the need to EXPLODE!

This explains why the dinosaurs died out.  Because they were stupid.

So - Tanks?
     We've not had any giant metallic monsters for a while.  Let us look to the TV series "Ike: The War Years", featuring Lee Remick and Robert Duvall, from 1979.  Lee looked very nice in uniform (a lady sadly no longer with us) and Robert Duvall, an actor's actor, looked convincing as Ike.
     But oh dear the tanks!  At one point Ike - Conrad saw this once over thirty years ago and it really made him fret - approaches an American tank crewman, who complains about how the German tanks utterly outgun his feeble Little Willy***.

At this range, that M3 might - just might - scratch the M60's paintwork.

     In this photo the M3 that the crewman complains about is the smaller, undernourished tank on the right.  The M60 actually used in the film is the beefy monster at stage left, which would have shrugged off any shells the Germans cared to fire and it, and would have been turning them into colanders a mile off.

* Yes they were a real group.  Go Google them!
** For this, go see yesterday's blog.
*** The world's first tank.  No sniggering at the back there!