- if one can describe it thus, as tradition usually has a fair few decades behind it in the understanding of Conrad. Imagine then a few decades compacted laterally into a few years and - Hay Pesto! you have Cake Day at the Mansion, in celebration of a birthday. Mine, in this case. Today I am 153 years old and I don't care who knows it. Apart from MI5 and the UN Special Committee on Alien Invasion, nor the Justice League of America*. The BPRD can go whistle as I am nothing supernatural, Conrad fears them not.
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| This is "Before". Gaze upon it, HRPS, and weep. |
Yes, Conrad can hear the sceptics harping on - "photos or it didn't happen" , "what is the square root of minus two?" and "how much cake was there?**"
Well there was Tracy, and Siobhan, and Kate and Eileen, then Ivan and Dawn and Ella and Gru***, and Oxsana and Zoe and Kyle and Kenyon, and Andy. Tom, Colin and Julie couldn't make it due to their car dying on the motorway, leaving them with the option of either 1) getting home and eking out a bleak existence with biscuits, or 2) Daring all and being stranded in Royton BUT WITH CAKE! Sensibly they chose 1).
Edna and Gru formed a formation racing team - after Edna had barked herself hoarse with delight at having a new chum in Gru - who scuttled all over the house, and outside. In fact I don't think Edna has ever been so exhausted. After Gru and party left, she lay down and slept, which is unusual for her before dark.
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| Edna and Conrad's trainer |
Beside the Waterstone's voucher that will get spent next week, I got two things from Anna: a bookmark and a night-reading light, which is proof that she is thoughtful, and know's Conrad's secret weakness: books. Don't pass this along, as I said above the JLA put themselves about a bit.
From Degsy I got "Undermind", a 60's B & W sci-fi series that I've been intrigued about for the past 10 years since reading about it in "The Encyclopedia of Television Science Fiction". It simply wasn't available until recently, and has been pretty hard to track down as I have tried without success. If I don't post much this week then blame Degsy.
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| A Man In Black. Now, where have I heard that before? |
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| We are not all Doomed! (With apologies to "Dad's Army") |
Another attempt by BOOJUM! to educate you, dear audience, and to enhance your vocabulary beyond those prosaic words you bump into everyday, in your quotidian routine^.
You may be familiar with the phrase "batten down the hatches", which means to nail down timber over hatches in ships that might be vulnerable to storms and wild seas and winds of high velocity.
But! There is another meaning to "battening" and it has nothing to do with planks of wood. Recall Conrad's analysis of "The Kraken Wakes" - you had better, there may be a surprise quiz later on - and that poem of Tennyson's with the line:"Battening upon huge seaworms in his sleep". In this sense "Battening" means to grow fat or prosperous, especially at the expense of others. It originates from the Old Norse "batna", which means "to improve". These Old Norse were a bit euphemistic, one feels, as this ought to be more along the lines of "to improve - by treading others underfoot" extending even to "to improve - by treading others underfoot, with ruthless abandon" or even "to improve - by treading others underfoot, with ruthless abandon whilst enjoying it"
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| This is Scott Plank, in "Holes", battening on onions. Every word true, honestly |
Yes indeed, my Pub Quiz partners are off in Spain, more specifically San Sebastian, which is why neither were able to turn up for Cake Day -
- what's that? Not that Rosie and Phil?
Oh, I see! The Rosetta probe and the Philae lander, currently orbiting Comet 67P.
I had no idea the comet was so large, until this excellent BBC infographic:
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| The Rubber Duck from hell |
* For a superhero team supposedly based in America, they surely do get around
** The sceptics in this case being the ganterpies of HRPS. My work colleagues.
*** A pug
^ Mister Hand apologises for this pretentious drivel and will poke Conrad with a bamboo skewer later on.
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