The Doctor Is In

 - And Has Been For Nine Years
No!  Not "Grey's Anatomy" or "St. Elsewhere".  Doctor Who.  As you may recall, the programme came back in 2005 featuring Christopher Ecclestone, and has been a whacking big success, thanks to a bit of investment and promotion.  The naysayers are over in that corner, looking embarrassed and angry that the series dares to be an international success and earn a tidy profit for the BBC.  Yah boo sucks to them!
     Over time, we may even see some of the historic episodes (can't bring myself to call them "classic" as some weren't) being brought to light as film canisters in attics and basements get recovered.

In this episode, Barabara gets a perm

Into The Dalek
Possibly the only entity from the series to rival the Doctor himself in terms of popularity, we have - Daleks!
     These have always been a favourite as they take their character development from Snake Plissken - that is, they have absolutely no positive personality traits.  No bother with issues like political correctness, gender, or if you pass port to the left or right, with the Daleks it's down to one thing - can they exterminate you or not?  

Much like these folk.

     If not, they'll go away and come back when they can; they're persistent like that.
     Saturday's episode featured a supposedly "good" Dalek that appears to have it in for every other Dalek there is, and by "have it in for" Conrad means "blam to bits".  The Doctor and friends are miniaturised by nanotechnology* in order to venture forth into the Dalek and repair it from the inside, as it ate a crumpet that was too hot.  Or something.
     We see that this iteration of the Doctor is not altogether squeaky-clean and utterly noble.  He sacrifices one of the Cannon Fodder Members Of The Group, explaining "He was already dead - I was saving us" and also incidentally exploiting said death with a bit of technology.  He also has a constant string of understated insults that he uses when speaking to Clara.  
     I like him!
     Note also that the Dalek describes Peter as being "a good Dalek", which is how Chris got described back in 2005.  Ooh, shades of character definition!

Bernie Ecclestone.  Close enough

     Inevitably, there have been comparisons drawn with an obscure 1960's film about miniaturisation**.  WRONG! Take two Pain Pills and go sit in the corner - yes, right next to the naysayers.  And put a dunce cap on.
     What you should be referring to, obviously - obviously! - is "Carnival Of Monsters", where the Doctor and Jo end up miniaturised inside a MacGuffin facing off the Drashigs.  Alternatively, you may have referenced one of the cartoons from "The Banana Splits", known as "Micro Ventures".

NO! It's not a sun-lamp.  It's the "Micro-Reducer".  A hoot at parties.

     Also, please take note that the human characters aboard the "Aristotle" express worries and concerns about our heroes being Dalek spies - was the word "copies" used?  This is seeding concepts that Conrad will guarantee come back later in this series.
     And Tyres***!
     Also references to Coal Hill School - where the series began in 19693.

"Ambition Pills"
Conrad is not sure quite how he came upon this advert for a patent medicine in the dog years of the nineteenth century, but - there it is.  As with all these pill-form panaceas, the advert promises that they will cure everything from impotence to dental plaque, swinging by wind, gout, male pattern baldness and water retention.

No!  You read the pictures from left to right, NOT right to left!

     Some years later, medical practitioners who were actual real proper Doctors^ analysed these pills to see what they were and what they contained.
     Strychnine!
     No, not a sweet powder you can put on breakfast cereal.  POISON!  Derived from the Nux Vomica plant, and there was enough in a packet of pills - being sold entirely legally mind you - to kill a person if they consumed them all at once.
     If your ambition is to transcend this mortal veil, then these are indeed the pills for you.

Right, I now have to go check the chicken roasting in the Schlemmertopf -

Vegetarians Look Away Now
Conrad is the proud owner of a Schlemmertopf, a German glazed cooking pot that makes cooking joints or whole birds ridiculously simple.  Dunk the lid in cold water, stick the meat in, put in a cool oven for 10 minutes, then raise the temperature.  Leave for 90 minutes.

And the juices and veg render up lots of gravy

     It really is that easy.  Of course, were I mischeivously inclined, I would be loudly declaiming how tricky and fiddly and complicated cooking with a Schlemmertopf is, in order to remain a power in the kitchen. 

"Balneomaniacs"
A word cribbed from Mr. Pynchon's magnum opus "Against The Day", and one which he seemingly cobbled together himself - as several other peculiar, unusual and almost unique words have been.
     "Balneo" refers to the Latin for "bath", and thus "balneotherapy", or the treatment of illness by bathing, hence to "balneomaniacs", those who bathe excessively against the advice of their Doctors^^, in order to cure illnesses.

Bath.  Close enough

I Beg Your Pardon?
This is a phrase we British trot out when we actually mean "I cannot bloody well believe you said that, you salted prannock^^^!"  In this case it applies to Facebook, and their "Suggested Post".  After having endured the recommendation of David Cameron and then the Conservative Party, what is the latest imbecilic post put forward?

     "Professional Dance Experience"

     Conrad, as you surely know by now, is getting on a bit - 173 years old at last count - and is thus both rather delicate and lacking in physical dexterity, not to mention ungainly and clumsy, and taking up quite a lot of space standing still, never mind gyrating across a dancefloor.  In fact he would be grateful if he only had two left feet, rather than pedal extremities that appear to belong to a different person operating in a different dimension.
     Thus Conrad's air of bewildered bafflement with Facebook.

Ace Book.  Close enough
Ah yes, PKD - I think it's spelt "craic", Phil

*  That, or magic.  Conrad leans towards magic, personally.
**  "Forbidden Voyage" or "Fantastic Planet", something like that.  In this episode we don't see Jenna Coleman in a wetsuit, but she does get slathered with slime.
***  From "Spaced"
^ Is there a theme here?
^^ I'm sure I've mentioned this word earlier.
     

Hamanuptra, Baby, Hamanuptra!

The Egyptian City Of The Dead
Just imagine how different "Swingers" would have been if Jon and Vince had gone there instead of dull, shallow, materialistic Las Vegas.  They could have gambled with their lives instead of dollar chips, and fought mummified zombies* instead of a Los Angeles gang, and romanced Rachel Weitz instead of a mother cooing at her baby.
     Just remember this intro if every you see a film with the tagline "Swingers meets The Mummy!"

Billy Mumy.  Close enough

Beware Of Footwear
Conrad has just taken delivery of a pair of trainers of the "Zuuk" family, very lightweight and comfortable indeed, and which will make him the trendiest footclad person at work, for a week or so at least.

Conrad's less than dainty Size 11 foot.
Feet, fingers, he's not built on the small side.

     I know it's not really news (hello Metro!) but my elderly Krocks are looking rather the worse for wear, scuffed and covered with what look like the shoe equivalent of liver spots.  Although I think it's actually paint.  Can't show you a picture of them as they are sitting in our brand new atomic-powered dishwasher, which will either a) blast them clean with the scourging power of very hot water and coloured chalky tablets, or b) turn them into a black plastic slurry that blocks the dishwasher drain and floods the kitchen.
    Edna wasn't so impressed by the trainers themselves, but rather more in the plastic inserts that kept them rigid - she went for them with all the vim in her compact body and chewed them into bits.

The victims.  Quite why Edna went for them is a mystery

"Against The Day"
Yes, still reading this, and am now up to Page 640!
     In normal fiction this would be the equivalent of two long novels, but it's still less than 2/3 complete for ATD.  Today we had Gottingen, chloral hydrate parties and German mathematics students brought to wakefulness with a coffee enema, the quest for Shambala (imagine a Hamanuptra of the mind) and confusing speculation about the Fourth Dimension.

MUSIC

An aside to deal with that which calms the savage breast.

The Pipes, The Pipes -
No!  Not problems with the plumbing.  Bagpipes.  And tuneful Russians.  Conrad was slightly disgruntled not to find any interesting books in the charity shops of Royton, but he was recompensed by these:

"Bagpipe Classics" and "1812 Overture" - don't mention the guns ...

     The bagpipes CD was definitely new, but I couldn't remember if I'd got the Tchaikovsky stuff or not.  At £2 the pair it was worth taking the gamble, and I didn't have it.

Public Broadcasting Service
No!  Not films about Charlie the Cat and his advice about matches, nor that creepy one about dangerous water voiced by Donald Pleasance.  The band.  Pub quiz partners Phil and Rosie recounted how they were in the audience for same at the Galtres Music Festival, and enjoyed it as music and amusing entertainment.
     Conrad scuttled on over to Youtube to find this song, dubbed "Spitfire":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_u4Md_aXVJE

     which he really rather enjoyed.  How can you not? Leslie Howard and David Niven, Spitfires, the Battle of Britain and Things Exploding.

Hey Hey Hey
Thank you - I think - to Ian Breen for highlighting this very odd Youtube clip with a moving mannequin singing a song inside a very small room:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLy-AwdCOmI

     Or, perhaps, it's just a very tall mannequin?

I-Tunes
Conrad = slightly shocked at the total of CDs he possesses now according to the I-tune status bar:

Get out your microscope!

     For those of you who don't have infra-red telescopic eyes, that's 585 Cds, 54 Gb of space taken up and the whole lot would take 19 days to listen to non-stop if you played them end-to-end.  All of which sits in a device smaller than a pack of cards, and which means Conrad doesn't need a wheelbarrow to carry the collection around.
     This is quite beside the 1,000 plus songs he has as a saved Collection on Grooveshark -

End of aside, you can come out now.

Get A Load Of This
This was a birthday present from the very thoughtful Anna at work (as opposed to Anna at play, Anna at Turtle Bay or Anna at PDSA).  It's a small nightlight for reading in the dark, a useful thing to have on the bus during the kind of bleak, black cloudy weather we have just now**.

     To operate it, a small piece of plastic insulation had to be removed from the battery compartment.  Conrad unseated the battery cover and gently tugged on a projecting slip of plastic.  Ping! went the three tiny batteries, taking flight like grouse on the moors.  Conrad - restricting himself to the officially-BOOJUM! sanctioned swear "Dog Buns!" grovelled in the gravel on the ground*** before finding them and refitting them into the nightlight.  He closed the battery compartment -
     Ping! went the batteries again, flying to all corners of the room.  Well, three corners, there were only three batteries.  Once again, with his quivering sausage fingers Conrad collected them all and carefully slid them into the nightlight and carefully slid the cover home and -
     - I know, I know, it's not really news, but it was a present and I have great big clumsy fingers.  I'm not even typing this, you know, thanks to clumsiness and those salami-sized digts, I've paid one of the cats to do it -

Conrad - still exploiting cute animals -

*  Or were they zombified mummies?
**  "Just now" meaning 365 days of the year, potentially
*** Mister Hand points out this is alliterative but also lies.  There's a carpet, not stones.

Conrad LIED!

Apparently.
Our team at the Halfway House pub quiz won again, the third time in a row.  So much for claims about "going out to lose", eh?

The Halfway House.  Because it's halfway up Tandle Hill

     However, put your indignation aside, gentle reader, for this was the last quiz at the pub for an indeterminate time - the mighty Harry Davies, Quizmaster and ignorer of all things PC, is giving up the job.  Not only that, Diana and Mark, landlady and landlord, are also moving on and having a break from the publican lifestyle.

Harry.  With some bitches (as he would most definitely have said!)

     Fickle and transient*, we now plan to head for the Pleasant Inn's Thursday night pub quiz, which is a bother as it is a much smaller venue, and other teams from the Halfway House may have similar ideas.
     Also last night was a rather late finish - "Play Your Cards Right" was played by 14 teams until somebody won the pot, which took until 11:45.

TWTIK**
As ever, there are amusing incidents amongst the horrors of trench warfare in this recounting of the 2nd Royal Welch Fusiliers - which unit you already knew about because you read BOOJUM! regularly, right?  Right?!
     Item the first was when some of these Welsh soldiers went abroad in a French town, seeking "Patè".  They returned and then produced half a tin of pink paste and asked the unit doctor if it was "all right", having eaten the other half.  He identified it as "Pâte", not a meat paste.  
     It was metal polish.

Polish Metal.  Close enough

     Then there was a mild gas attack, fumes wafting into the battalion's billets from a more distant engagement.  Dr. Dunn, the author, asleep in an upstairs bedroom, woke up when the gas gong sounded, decided he was out of reach in the upper storey and promptly went back to sleep.  A man of some nerve.  This vapourous assault was hoped to see off the local rat population which were much detested - one officer being awoken in his dugout by the hideous spectacle of two rats mating atop his blanket.


"As Above So Below"
Now, this is how to promote a film!  Conrad spotted the advert and it immediately caught both his eye and his imagination.

You can't deny this looks interesting

Unfortunately the IMDB blurb reduces it to a thriller in the sewers - and we've had so many of those already, haven't we? - but, dammit, it's a hell of a lot more appealing than that "Lucy" poster.  

Maltodextrose
Yes, a product of Conrad standing waiting for the bus whilst the Atlantic Ocean moved itself from the seabed and into the skies over Manchester.  Again, I apologise for Oscar*** producing this one.  De profundis, you might say.
     What is it?  A sugar that features in human metabolism, and also a mixture of dextrose, maltose and dextrins that is used in confectionery - so it might have come to my attention yesterday whilst blathering on about liquorice.

Walt and Dexter.  Close enough

Today's Metaphorical Metro-Mashing
I know, BOOJUM! ought not to venture into current affairs, but there are certain constants in the ghastly incestuous world of celebrity gossip, agents, promotions, publicity and the press that have existed for decades.  
     Today's storm in a teacup - no, actually, make that a light drizzle in a thimble^ - concerns Cheryl Whoosit-Whatsit, who bears a remarkable resemblance to Cheryl Cole.  Does she have a sister?  Remember Danni Minogue piggybacked her way to fame on the name of her sister, despite having no obvious talent for anything except "being Australian". 

D. Minogue sans make-up or Photoshop

     Anyway, Cheryl.  There is some blather in the article, which consists of an attempt to make no-news sound like the secret of immortality, peace on earth and how to get chewing-gum off seats all rolled into one.  This, you see, is how these people operate.
     Sharks.  That's what they remind Conrad of, sharks.  No!  Not that they have sharp teeth and eat people^^, just that a shark has to keep moving to have water circulate through it's respiratory system.  If a shark stops swimming, it dies.
     So too this endless parade of people with no other talent than being able to shake their arse - Richard Feynman I'm looking at you!^^ - has to keep their faces in the press, otherwise the public will forget about them in 75 seconds or less.

Cheryl.  Cheryl Coal.

The Great British Bake Off
This, dear audience, is why the blog is later tonight.  Conrad was forced - forced! I tell you! -  to watch the last episode~. 
     I made notes.
     First up, the "Self-Saucing Pudding", a pudding that produces it's own sauce, either by having a filling placed in the middle of two batches of batter (the fondant method), or by having it rise up and deposit the "sauce at the bottom".  Surprisingly Sue Perkins did not come out with a smutty one-liner about this - probably distracted by something with chocolate in it.

Sue, obviously a big fan of Star Trek.

     Next is the horrible Technical Challenge, where 80% of a recipe is provided and the hapless bakers have to try and come up with the goods.  This was a Tiramisu Cake, a multi-layer effort where splitting the sponge horizontally was verrrrry tricky, and getting definition and soaking the layers properly proved a hard task indeed.
     The Showstopper was a Baked Alaska - ice-cream over a sponge  and under a meringue shell, with a 4 1/2 hour deadline.  The bakers had to make their ice-cream from scratch, and having done this himself Conrad knows this takes hours to manage successfully.  Not only that, the sponge needs to be completely cool or it will melt the ice-cream. Nor is that all - bakers were finishing off their meringue with blowtorches - and what lies under the meringue?  Ice cream!

I Scream

     Lots of contestants, and Mary Berry also, mentioned how hot it was in the tent - but there doesn't appear to be any air-conditioning.  When the temperature reaches 25OC, this is going to impact people making a cake with ice cream the core ingredient!

Finally
As ever, Conrad ruthlessly exploits the cute to promote blog traffic.

Edna, feeling unloved because she couldn't slurp tea dregs out of a cup

*  Like lunar phenomena.  You will know about these IF YOU READ THE BLOG!
** "The War The Infantry Knew", author Capt. JC Dunn, 1938
***  My long-term memory. Yes, we are on first-name terms.
^  A small device worn over the thumb whilst sewing.  Trust me - it's small.
^^ Remember the Weasel Shark, which is too small to eat people. A whole person, anyway.
^^^  An hilariously ironic reference to probably the 2nd cleverest man ever.
~ Mister Hand would like to point out that this is a lie.  Conrad takes no forcing at all to watch GBBO