Barton, Books And Blue, Blue Smoothies

Allow Me To Enlarge On A Facebook Post
Actually I don't care if you want to allow me or not, I'm going to do it - once again, whose blog is it?  Damn straight it is!
     Way back in 1965, Keith Barron starred in a drama called "Stand Up, Nigel Barton", about the son of working-class parents who gets a scholarship to Oxford.  

Keith with trendy National Health specs

It got repeated in the 80's, when I saw it and one scene stuck in my mind, where Nigel is being interviewed on television and describes his father watching him "like a hawk". His father does not appreciate being so described and complains bitterly that everyone at work will now be calling him "The Hawk".
     Conrad felt sure he'd seen the actor playing Barton Snr. but the truth didn't come into focus until standing at the bus-stop - he'd played Staff Sergeant Arnold in "Doctor Who - The Web Of Fear".
     Jack Woolgar!  It's only taken 30 years to identify him, but we got there in the end.

Jack Woogar as Barton Senior, squabbling at the dinner table - no, hang on -

     He was also apparently in a soap called "Crossroads", but since Conrad would rather poke out his eyeballs with red-hot radium rods than watch a soap, he cannot advise on this.

Mention Of Smoothy
Let's see, considered Conrad in the kitchen.  Blackberries.  Old bananas with a bad case of liver spots.  Milk - tick box filled; yoghurt - tick box filled also.  Honey - final tick box filled.
     Hay Pesto, Blackberry Smoothy!

On a white paper towel to enhance the colour contrast

     As pointed out by Wonder Wifey, it's more lilac than blue, but BOOJUM! is edging there gradually.  Hopefully a blue smoothy or lemonade will arrive before the passage of 30 years.

Books
The Sunday morning routine has been observed as usual, with a giant pot of tea, scrambled-egg toasted sandwiches, a chug of Mister Connolly's Purple Poison*, and a glass of mango juice.  And Books!  I am now up to Page 580 of Against The Day, and acknowledge that the detail and complexity of this novel mean you don't pick it up after a gap of several days; you need to keep reading it daily or the plot and characters will overwhelm you, like the tidal wave of mayonnaise.  The action has just jumped from Ostend to Venice, and from Kit to Dally, and from Quaternionists to mirrors and glass.
     I've also got "British Intelligence in the Second World War" which is almost as long but is far easier to understand.

Fork thoughtfully added to give scale.

A Small Aside
That Michael Caine gets around.  I just recalled that he was in the trailers for both "Kingsman" and "Interstellar". Then again he was in"Inception" and "The Dark Knight Rises".  Busy chap - obviously not one to sit around counting his earnings.

Mutiny, Caine.  Close enough.

Nocturne
No! Not describing how you use  a doorknob.  "Nocturne" meaning "of the night".  A nocturne normally refers to a piece of music, most famously those by Chopin,  but it can also refer to painting.  In this case, Conrad would like to mention James Whistler, who apparently painted more than his mother**.  He created several nocturnes, viz:

Nocturne: Blue and Silver

Nocturne:  Blue and Gold

Nocturne: Grey and Gold

     There are more, but I do not care to be accused of padding-out the blog with pictures.  The opposite of nocturne would be along the lines of "diurne", except this may not be a proper word.  "Diurnal", meaning "occurring during daytime" is the closest.
     Anyway, enough of Latin derivations!

Trees
As you ought to know by now, devoted reader, the Mansion has a very large tree in the corner.  Over the years it has grown, the treacherous swine! until it now threatens the phone lines.  So, when the weather is good and the wind is low, various family members

Before

 venture forth to hack, prune and saw.  It's surprising how a huge heap of sundered leaves and twigs comes from so few branches.  Anyway, yesterday it was a case of humans vs. dendrons, end result = humans triumphant thanks to opposable digits and hacksaw blades.

We have slain the beast!

     Of course you can't please everybody all the time.  This chap wasn't too happy with us -

And Finally
We did have help of the non-opposable digits, non-metallic blade kind:

Edna, prepared to gnaw the tree to bits

*  The Pink Lemonade, remember? Do keep up!
**  To clarify - he painted a representation of his mother, he didn't actually slather her in Dulux.