Look around you. What do you see that will still make sense and resonate in the minds of people in a hundred years time, or even eighty? The buildings, probably; the cars, not so much; the ephemera of daily life, little to nothing.
Now, I know what you're thinking*. "Has Conrad been at the cooking sherry and mixed it with Jeyes Household Cleaning Fluid**? Again? Because he's sounding a bit odd. Odder than usual."
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| "I sound odd? My larynx probably needs to re-boot" |
Sense The First - Historical Recreation
I promise I will try to read "Against The Day" as fast as possible in order to prevent you getting bored by my references to it, but dammit, Jim! I'm not a robot! Oh no wait I am a bit (see above).
Anyway - the past. The novel has approached 1899 and mentions a frontier town of evil repute, "Jeshimon" (where they have arnophilia - do keep up!). So many locals get hung that they ran out of telegraph poles to hang the corpses from. Conrad was curious. Is there a Jeshimon in the United States?
| An average Friday night in Jeshimon, Utah |
Sense The Second - History In Passing
Get settled, there's quite a bit here. I mentioned a collection of Dorothy Sayer's short stories entitled "Hangman's Holiday". The stories date from the early 1930's and are a window onto a long-forgotten age. Allow Conrad to elucidate:
Sir Roger/Sir Roger de Coverley
This is mentioned in a sketch and again when the mansion's guests and staff assemble. It appears to be a kind of complicated dance with partners pairing off and - dancing, one supposes. Conrad, not familiar with dancing from this day and age, had never heard of "Sir Roger" and wondered how one chap could be in two places at once on the sketch.
Waits
These are mentioned in passing several times before a more definitive paragraph or two provides more background. They are young choristers, escorted by the vicar, come to provide midnight song on Christmas Eve. Admit it, you've never heard of "waits" in this context, have you? And remember Conrad's got long-range lie-detectors.
The New Planet Pluto
Well now! A gift for someone interested in astronomy. It also dates the story, as it was only discovered in 1930, and obviously - obviously! - it is no longer considered a planet, but rather a "plutoid", that is, one of several large lumps of icy rock*** - or rocky ice, if you like - loitering at the edges of the Solar System. No jokes about Disney. They might sue.
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| Bluto. Close enough. |
One pet peeve of Conrad's is that publicly-schooled authors of a hundred or eighty years ago assumed that their readers were adept in both Latin and Greek, and rarely provided translations. Why! Here's a paragraph in Greek in "The Elopement Of Lord Peter Wimsey", the one where he pretends to be a wizard in a Basque village.
Typically, this is on one of the days when Anna, occasional feature in these pages, is not in - as she can read and translate Greek.
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| The Geek. Close enough. Nice pen collection, sir! |
And from that story above, we get mention of "Maskelyne", "Devant" and George Robey. Ignore George, he's only a music hall perfomer. But of course you recognise (Major) Jasper Maskelyne, and David Devant, because you've seen all the good episodes of "Jonathan Creek", haven't you? If not, the door is that way!
Bas Cuisine For Bonzo
That's "low cuisine", as opposed to "haute" - oh you know what I'm getting at.
What should your dog not eat?
Plutonium^. Plutonium is bad for dogs. Yes, it is! Amazing but true.
Fuming nitric acid. Incredibly, fuming nitric acid is bad for dogs. Who knew?
Rusty scalpel blades. I know, hard to credit, but these are bad for dogs, too.
What do the above three items have in common? No, they are not eagerly sought by North Korean families when holidaying abroad! They are all harmful to Hom. Sap as well.
On the other hand, there is stuff that you and I guzzle quite happily that would put Bonzo, Trigger or Maleficent-Throat-Ripper in a very bad way indeed. "Like what! Like what! Tell us, Conrad, tell us!" I hear you calling - yes I have very acute hearing^.
| Happy live dog. Good. |
Alcohol. "My Name Is Bruce" is a poor role model. Don't let Rebel slurp your whisky!
Almonds. These transform Fido's bowels into an violently venting volcano.
Chocolate. See Almonds
Coffee. Only an idiot would feed their dog coffee. Message to idiots - DON'T!
Grapes. Fruit of the vine, puts your dog in a decline.
Macadamia nuts. Protein-packed balls of Death-for-Dogs.
Onions. They make you cry, they make Fluffy die.
Sugar. Makes you fat. Oh, and it's bad for dogs, too.
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| Ticked-off undead dog. Bad! |
The Creative Process
Do you want to know how Conrad generates such pearls of wit, wisdom and winseomeness?
Tough! You're going to discover how anyway.
First, the notepad:
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| This is called "writing", on a piece of "paper", all you texters |
The blog then gets laid out as an outline, headings followed by paragraphs, followed by more refreshment -
Then the asterisked notations are filled in at the bottom of the page - hang on, did I forget something? - oh yes the refreshment -
Conrad proof-reads the blog, makes sure the spellings are correct - nothing worse for a Spelling Nazi than to get his spelling wrong! - and by this time the refreshment has run out and so has the inspiration -
So it gets published and then pimped on Facebook and Twitter.
* Not literally! That would be silly, because telepathy's not been invented. Yet.
** Addiction to this is a real thing.
*** Like The Doors! Get it? Rock? and - O you do.
^ That, or telepathy. Did I say it hadn't been invented? I might be lying.
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