You Lucky People!

And Lucky Old BOOJUM! Too
     Far be it from Conrad to boast boast boast about blog traffic, but he got 30 hits yesterday and another 7 today.
     In a rare moment of seriousness, thank you if you happened by yesterday.  Come back often!  Bring your friends!
     Oh, and don't forget, reading BOOJUM! is an automatic get-out-of-being 1) Annihilated 2) Mind-control enslaved or 3) Being rendered-down as fertiliser.  Just so you know!

(Cont. below)

SURPRISE!  Bet you didn't expect a Moray eel to come out of the screen at you, eh?

Daytime Television
     Feeling quite chuffed at being able to turn the television on, Conrad wasn't quite sure what to make of the channels on offer during the day.  He could advance channel by channel, and did so.
     Where did all these television channels come from?  Viva?  Drama?  Dave - actually I knew that one already - QVC? Pick? ITV 1, 2 and 3?  Channel 4 Film?  BBC 1, 2 and 3?  I recall back in the day when there was BBC1, BBC2 and ITV, with long displays of the Test Card or a potter throwing a wheel.
     "Pick" seemed to be aimed at old people.  One annoying advert, repeated in different forms, had an old codger salivating at the prospect of sitting in a chair.
     If Conrad ever descends to that level, please take me away and render me down as fertiliser.

A Pick.  Close enough.

Secret Weapon On The Somme
     But!  What's this!  "Yesterday", which seems suspiciously like "The History Channel" rebranded, and there's Tony Robinson - and that's Peter Barton with his trademark hat, so this is bound to be about World War One.  

The hat, with Peter underneath it.

     Aha! Perspicacious Conrad proven correct!   They were trying to locate one of the gigantic Livens flamethrowers built to go live when the Allied ground attack began on 31st July 1916 - the Battle of the Somme.  It took them until the very last minute, but they did dig up a whole lot of flamethrower.

The original being tested

     Not satisfied with that, they had a bunch of Royal Engineers build a working replica of Livens' monster, with 5000 litres of fuel to burn, a mix of diesel and kerosene.  After safety testing with water first, they ran it with fuel.
     It was filmed remotely, with Peter standing well off to one side and still feeling unpleasantly hot.  This was because the thing generated a roiling mass of flame about a hundred metres long that looked utterly terrifying.  Strike that, it was terrifying, full stop.

Victim's-eye view of the reconstructed monster

Condensed Films
     Another chance for Conrad to score cheap shots at films he doesn't like, or to extoll the virtues of those he does, and yes, I have abandoned all pretence at being objective or impartial.  It's my blog - I'll be blatantly discriminatory if I feel like it!

FILM                                                    FIVE WORDS

Elysium                                               Bald criminal.  Big space wheel
The Day The Earth Stood Still               Don't worry, Keanu saves everyone!
2001: A Space Odyssey                         How the future WILL look
Limitless                                             "Faust" for today, done well
Godzilla*                                             Giant lizard monster trashes cities

Tapioca.  What A Joker
     Alas, Conrad is making slow progress with the creation of tapioca flour from tapioca.

On the left - Before.  On the right - After.
MUST TRY HARDER!

   Grinding it down in the herb-chopper did help, and then going at it with the mortar and pestle helped a little further, but it was the stand-alone blender that did most of the work.  About half remains to be processed <sigh> but Conrad is patient.  And stubborn.  

Our Pet At Manchester Met
     That is, "Manchester Metropolitan University", where Dogsitter Daughter is studying.  Today she had to clear all her artwork away because the studios are going to be adapted into an exhibition space, and there was no way she could have carried her stuff home on the bus. E.g.

5 feet by 3 feet, 15 square feet of bus-phobic awkwrdness

     And also:

Yes that's a giant spoon in there

     So Conrad became chauffeur for the afternoon.  Unfortunately this mission coincided with the weather clearing up and rain stopping, so I couldn't take Edna for her afternoon walk (we'd played Ball In The Hall in the morning) in Royton.  So!  I took her walkies to MMU, where she frantically tried to accost every stranger crossing her path.

Grosvenor Square foreground, art building background

     - and drank out of puddles where possible.
     Conrad's not entirely sure what he got out of this arrangement but is sure recompense is somewhere on the horizon ...

We're Going To Need A Bigger Bowl ...
     - and fill it with a whole lot of bran-based food.
     Yes, yes, I can hear you pondering "what is he babbling on about now?"
     Well, the Mansions were running short of their hand-pressed, perfumed, quintuple-ply monogrammed toilet roll, so Conrad stopped off at Aldi whilst returning with Dogsit Daughter and Edna the Wunderhund to get replacements.
     Horrors!  Aldi don't stock our very select brand of toilet paper!
     In fact they stock only one variety.  This:

Damn you Aldi! Damn you!

     If Wander Wifey comes back from the cruise and sees this generic stuff in the bathroom, oooh there will be trouble.
     So, as I say, we're going to have to get moving with the high-fibre diet ...



* This works for any Godzilla film up to and including the new one