Better than finding just enough tea leaves at the bottom of the caddy to make a last pot of tea before bedtime, or realising that you're on leave tomorrow and DON'T HAVE TO GET UP FOR WORK! or finding a small dead rodent on the doorstep courtesy of the cats.
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These have always had a slightly surreal feel to them - the ones flogging websites where lonely old men aged 50+ were being pursued with succubus-like devotion by nubile young ladies have, thankfully, vanished. Now the latest asks "Do you have a piano to sell?"
NO!
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| Not quite a kitten on the keys |
No, I do not. Not only am I not looking to sell my piano, Conrad does not possess a piano in the first place. I now know how Wayne feels when his ex-girlfriend offers him a gun rack.
Spaced
Ah, a moment's silence please for this classic comedy from the late 90's/early 2000's. There were two series of seven episodes each, finishing back in 2001. The cast and director went on to film success - "Shaun of the Dead", "Paul", "Hot Fuzz", etcetera, which always made a third series of Spaced unlikely - if you're a film star living the high life in a beach-house in Malibu, would you want to come back to soggy foggy boggy England?
Anyway, Conrad looked up the series on Wiki and found that the prospect of a third series was indeed dead in the minds of the cast and director. It is, after all, thirteen years since it finished.
A Twenty Years After Christmas special for 2019 wouldn't go amiss though. Are you listening, Edgar?
Oh - why Spaced? No, nothing to do with Conrad's idiosyncratic memory; Simon Pegg was tweeting with current photos of himself, Nick Frost and Tyres.
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Another Weighty Tome
For this to make sense, you need to read today's earlier blog.
Okay, I will assume you have had long enough to do so. This volume weighs in at 1971 grams:
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| But it has a dust jacket, unlike "Against The Day" |
Looking at "World Air Power" by his left foot, Conrad strongly suspects that this tome will come in ahead of BIITSWW, but he can't be bothered to do that weighing thing in the Non-Dangerous Kitchen. Maybe tomorrow.
Three Dimensional Design, Baghdad 1918
This one is for Darling Daughter, who is a Three Dimensional art student, due to attend Manchester Metropolitan University in September. She has used a potter's wheel to make pots, a process that requires excellent hand-eye co-ordination. The chap below is building a pot using the "coil technique":
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| Less Bag, more container |
Photo used from History Needs You, the excellent Twitter resource of Matthew Ward.
The Kraken Wakes
As you must all be bored of hearing by now, Conrad is attempting a screenplay of this seminal science-fiction novel by John Wyndham. Currently have typed-up 22,000 words of dialogue and have perhaps another 10,000 to go.
A commentator on Twitter pointed out that, to ever get this screenplay to see the light of day, permission would have to be obtained to get the rights to the novel.
Bugger!
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| Whilst loose lips may, indeed, sink ships, so does the Kraken |
One thing Conrad had entirely failed to calculate was that whoever owned the rights to the novel, which is bound to be a legal collective since Mr Wyndham popped his clogs back in 1969, would need to approve a screenplay.
There may be more of this to follow. Conrad will keep you posted.
Revelations
Sorry to bore you with the literary conceits of Conrad, but! it's my blog and I can post a list of hypergolic rocket fuels if I so feel -
- that would actually make an interesting list of incredibly explosive, corrosive and toxic substances - but we are getting off-topic -
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| The quite well-behaved Zombie contingent at Glasto |
"Revelations" - I shall be asking questions later so PAY ATTENTION! is of course Conrad's Zombie Novel. Two years in the making, delayed by - well, this blog actually, as well as a mountain of books to read, TKW, the hex-and-counter wargame, books beer, DVDs. books, baking - various other occupations. Anyway, Chapter Nine of the last fourth part looms. Conrad realised this would or could be a view of the literal and metaphorical landscape of the UK in the tail end of The Crisis' Year Four. Things are not going back to normal, not ever, and we have to see the new reality via the vision of lead character Dee, with his companion Sergeant Hussain, as they travel from Manchester to Southampton.
That's the chapter outlay - Conrad now has to plot a literal course via motorway and A-road, from North to South and from pre-Crisis UK to post-Crisis.
The Third Reich At War
If you read today's earlier blog, then you know Conrad is reading this fascinating but horrifying work. The author makes a point that he felt the emotional burden of researching material that was disturbing and distressing to the nth degree.
But what's this? A joke from Polish Jews, about a Nazi police inspector come to confiscate the contents of a Polish Jew's flat. He gives the occupant a choice - guess which of his eyes is artificial correctly, and he'll walk away and not steal anything. The resident guesses the artificial eye correctly, explaining that "it had a kindly look about it".
But what's this? Conrad used to have a book called "Russia Dies Laughing" during the Cold War, where a KGB officer challenges an arrestee; correctly guess which of his eyes is artificial, and the prisoner can go home. The prisoner guesses the artificial eye correctly, explaining that "it had a kindly look about it".
Humour versus totalitarian dictatorships!
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| The Residents before their "Eyeball" phase. Here we see "Third Reich ;n; Roll.". And no, I've no idea what's going on here. |
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