My Cup Runneth Over

That'll Teach Me
     Next time I shall remove it from under the tap before it does overflow.
     Anyway, if I can stretch the metaphor a little further, to just before breaking point, I did mention that I might post again today if circumstances permitted.

What the Containment Staff never hoped to see Conrad manage

     Well, I have now typed up over 10,000 words of Dialogue from my longhand notes of "The Kraken Wakes", so that allows me to post another blog.  Yes, really, it's in the Bloggers Code Of Conduct - " - persuant to additional postings of the same inst., this is permitted if, and only if, the blogger has accrued in excess of 10% of previously rendered typescript/longhand/shorthand/electronic representation in that same inst., not withstanding any heretowith -"
     You get the general idea, Conrad hopes.

Minor Irritations Of The Working Week
     One     
Conrad has to walk to work from his alighting point on Oldham Street - oh, wait one - you do remember the indecent delight when I posted about the Mercedes that got hit with a parking ticket earlier this week?

Where he parked

     The car wasn't there on Friday morning.  How strange!
     Just out of view to the right, twenty feet from where Mister Mercedes chose to gamble on the double-yellows, is a car park.  For the sake of £3.50 he's now cuddling up to a £60 fine.  Awww.
     Two
     Not sure how this happened, and then happened again, but Conrad managed to pick up a stone in his shoe.  It's not as if my shoes are open-plan at all, nor do I wander across acres of disintegrated rubble, kicking up the gravel with every other footfall, and I change my socks daily.  No! Its not a minor thing, having an unpleasant squatter in your footwear.  Is it possible for your enemies to teleport small inorganic objects into close proximity to your tender skin, wonders Conrad?  Perhaps DARPA are using him as a guinea pig.
     Three
     Damn it, I keep getting assigned to an early lunch.  Twelve o'clock.  
     Why is this bad?  Well, it means a longer wait across the ineluctable wastes of afternoon duty, answering the phones, plus I don't get to go to lunch with whom I want, and AND AND it means I won't be able to get to the BookBuyers stall outside the Arndale after it opens.

The stall, pictured during opening hours of 12:01 and 12:05

     Bookbuyers is very, how shall we say, idiosyncratic.  The owner only opens it in the afternoon and closes again at four o'clock, as the early part of his day is spent travelling about the region to collect books - do you get the impression that we've spoken once or twice on the subject of books?
     So Conrad was somewhat dismayed on Thursday when he travelled over to spend as much as £50 £30 £15 £3 on books, only to find the stall - shut.
     Bah!

Soupcon
     Damnit, can't get the accent under the "c".  Okay, this is French, pronounced "Soop-sonn".

soupçon

      There you go!
     Conrad is, of course, wary about trying to define this word after the long, long trail of failed definitions posted previously on BOOJUM!  Instead he will take a giant leap and guess that it is nothing whatsoever to do with soup.
     And, do you know, he's right.
     The derivation is from the French for "suspicion", and almost applies to soup - it means that there is the most subtle flavouring possible applied in the process of cooking, the merest hint -  a suspicion - of flavour.  So Darling Daughter's application of several ounces of Sweet Chilli Sauce to her sandwich is definitely not a soupcon.  Enorme, yes, Grande, yes - but not soupcon, especially since it's bread not broth.

A Blaster Pistol from Star Wars.
Yes, I know it's not a soupcon, but - it's MY blog.  Besides ...*

Ugly Or Unloved Beasts
     Beginning with "W".  Well, we've had the Walrus, the Warthog, the Wolverine, the Whippoorwill, the Weasel - no!  "Welsh" is not appropriate!  Go stand in the corner with a dunce hat on! - and now we come to "Wildebeest".

Ah, is there nothing gnu under the sun?

          This spectacularly ugly animal occurs by the multitude in South Africa, and if Conrad's workplace acquaintance Mark reappears in the near future, he'll try to get authentic chapter and verse about this hideous horned beast.  It really is something only a mother would love, isn't it?
     Now, don't mock to excess, since this critter is Mobile Dinner, Hooved, to every predatory form of wildlife in South Africa.  Perhaps not the Elephant Shrew, but everything larger.
     So.  The Wildebeest.  Filling dinner plates across the continent. 

A Little Critical Analysis
     <sound of knives being sharpened>  Why hello, Art and Paul!  I found this collection of your lyrics.  You don't mind me de-constructing them, do you?  
     I thought not.  Let us proceed - 
     These are the lyrics to "Bleeker Street", which sounds as if it's an unlovely road on the Weaste estate in Salford:

Fog's rollin' in off the East River bank

(So what?  Fog is endemic in Salford!  "Clear blue skies" would be shockingly different)

Like a shroud it covers Bleeker Street

(Isn't that in the John Cooper Clarke poem?)

Fills the alleys where men sleep

(Oh now really!  Let us not discriminate - men and women)

Hides the shepherd from the sheep

(Eh?  The only sheep in Salford are lamb chops, the only shepherd is in Shepherd's Pie)

Voices leaking from a sad cafe

(There was a crap local band called "Sad Cafe", who were pretty wet. Is this the leak you mean?)

Smiling faces try to understand

(I used to have a cat called Boris)

I saw a shadow touch a shadow's hand

(Please refer to "A Vanishing On Seventh Street"  for all shadow-shadow interaction)

On Bleeker Street

(Mr Cooper Clarke, are you there?)

     There is more but I have to go polish my brass hand.

* Star Wars weapons.  There's enough for an article there.