46 Visitors today and Conrad has yet to post anything! Can this be due to the floating on Facebook this morning of yesterday's blog? I wonder, I wonder ...
Don't worry, I shan't rest on my laurels and fail to post anything, or merely post a big collection of photos with the tiniest amount of text attached (other lazy bloggers take note!). No, today began with blog-worthy beginnings, continued that way, made a few minor diversions and - here we are.
The only blemish on an otherwise spiffing day is the vanishing from the fridge of my date-expired sushi. Who, I wonder, could have appropriated my piscine treat?
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| Sally opted for zombiedom rather than answer and incriminate herself. |
The Noise And The Neighbours
Currently the Mansion does not have anyone living in the house attached to it. It's entirely possible that any viewers have been disconcerted by the barbed wire and mines around the Mansion, not to mention the Guard Hog and the Messenger Mice, and our odd visitors*. Possibly also Conrad's taste in music has caused horripilations - one thing I will miss if next door does get sold is being able to play my music as loud as I want. Volume, you see, is an important component of Norwegian Death Metal.
Oh, I ought to mention the slamming of doors audible from next door, despite the house being entirely empty of human beings**.
Conrad 1 - Public Service Vehicle - 1
There are pros and cons to travel by bus. You can drink as much as you like the night before - if the feeling takes you then you can get loaded shortly before getting on the bus as with the drivelling numpty on the bus tonight - and not worry about getting breathalysed, someone else has to tackle the stress of driving, you can - most importantly - read the whole journey through.
However, one of the drawbacks is having the bus turn up several minutes early, which it did today whilst Conrad was ten metres from the bus-stop. His cat-like reflexes, not to mention his profound sense of paranoia, enabled him to hail the 24 bus -
- which didn't stop.
"Dog Buns!" he expostulated, for, knowing that there might be small children and frail old ladies present, he avoided swearing. No, really I did. Then along came another bus, the 409***, which drove along, hot on the heels of the 24, which paused in the centre of Royton to get back on timetable, Conrad leaping off the 409 and onto the 24, yes, result!
Also I know what that 24 driver looks like now.....
| The number 22. Close enough. |
"Hat Trick"
One of the frivolities that Conrad practices at work to make the 28,800 seconds fly by all the faster is to eavesdrop on other folks talking, which in the case of Dan and Dave usually revolves around sports - football, cricket and anything else contemporaneous. Today I picked up on the term "hat trick" and wondered where it came from.
For anyone not intimately aware of sporting phrases, a hat trick is a triple event, usually a score. It originates in nineteenth century cricket, where apparently HH Stephenson took three wickets with three deliveries^ in 1858. A collection was taken up for him and a hat bought with the proceeds.
Simples, no?
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| Cheap Trick. Close enough. |
As readers near and far have been informed almost ad nauseum, Conrad has been working on a screenplay of John Wyndham's "The Kraken Wakes" for at least eight hundred and twenty five years, and he recently finished reading "Trouble With Lichen", another Wyndham opus.
What did he hear mentioned on "The World's End" making-of documentary? John Wyndham, and the novels "The Day Of The Triffids" and "The Kraken Wakes", and how critic Brian Aldiss described John's works as "cosy catastrophes".
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| The world ends. Easily confused/ |
Hmmm. Recall, please, that in TDOTT, our narrator encounters a blind doctor who
throws himself out of a window. He also encounters a blinded young couple who
contrive to commit suicide. Then, in a pub, he encounters a man trying to get so
drunk that he can commit suicide, as his wife has just gassed herself and their two
children. Now, Conrad might be a tad cold-hearted^^, but none of that sounds very
cosy to him. Recall also that in TKW at most twenty percent of the world's population
survive, possibly as few as twelve per cent.
Whoah, Dobbin! Conrad dismounts from his high horse, narrowly avoiding stepping on Beej. Beej? You're looking a little flat ...
A Couple Of Freaks
Conrad daily deals with a detailed database of people. He had never come across the surname "Freke" before until last week. Today it was the turn of "Freake". What are the chances of that happening? Naturally his interest was tweaked, imagining surnames like that had to have a common ancestor, possibly Anglo-Saxon.
Surprise! Correct. The surname has evolved from and includes Frith - so now we know where Fred Frith's surname hails from - Firth, Freed - disk jockey monicker - Vreed, Frift and Fright. Dating back to the 7th Century.
Oh, sorry, the meaning. "One who dwells by scrubland". No! not a scrubber - o I give up.
| Gilbert Shelton. Creator of "The Furry Freak Brothers" |
Yes, Oscar, I'm looking at you -
Do forgive me, gentle reader, I did not wish to upset you. One takes it that you are on better terms with your long-term memory than Conrad is? Hopefully so.
| Conrad suspects his memory models itself after this chap/ Rather Wilde. |
FRICKIN' BIG RAZOR-TEETHED SPOILERS AHEAD!
- thus gets across the shark-infested waters and stops the detonation occurring.
Now, quite how and why this popped into my head today is a mystery, but Conrad narrowed his eyes, realised that narrowed eyes made him look like Kate Moss, opened them and Googled manfully.
And the name of the film is "SOS Pacific", with a cast list full of interesting names. Nope, I'm not going to name them for you, go forth and IMDB yourself!
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| A bit of a cheat - it's all in black and white |
I put this to you - which came first, the mandolin or the balalaika?
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| NA ZDRAVYE! |
** Don't panic, it's just wind making the doors move. At least - we think it is -
*** Not being too technical here, am I?
^ Nothing to do with milk, this might simply mean he was throwing cricket balls. But this is cricket - you can never be entirely sure
^^ There is a lot of refrigeration piping around his central pumping unit, after all
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