Tonight's Theme - Blue Peter

Let's See How Long We Can Sustain This - 
 - before it peters out ...
     Ouch!  Sorry, couldn't resist it.
     What else can I squeeze into the introductory paragraph?  Well, a word to any foreigners and landlubbers*.
     "The Blue Peter" is a nautical flag thus:

Yes it's blue, no I don't know where the "Peter" part comes from

     If you see this raised then you need to scurry back to your berth as quickly as possible, as it means the ship is ready to sail.  SCURRY!  SCURRY I SAY!
     Any child born after 1958 will be more familiar with "Blue Peter", absent the definite article.  This is a children's show that is still being broadcast, making it the oldest children's programme going.

Behold, the sigil of the show.  Yes, it's a blue ship, and no I don't know why it''s still called "Peter"

     Don't worry!  They have changed the presenters on a regular basis, so they aren't a collection of senile OAPs unable to read an autocue without a PA and binoculars.  You can tell, even online, how old a person is by the Blue Peter presenters they recall with fond regard. For Conrad it was Valerie Singleton, John Noakes and Peter Purves**.

I shall leave you to decide who is whom

More Blue
     One of the questions at work today was - oh you ganterpies***! - "What are you baking for us tomorrow?"
     The answer was that Conrad had already baked it, in between watching the "Great British Bake Off" and composing a blog of rare sublimity.
     Blueberry cheesecake!

It looks faintly purple, doesn't it?
Damn, you blueberries, spoiling my post!

     It seems that the blueberries objected to hiding their cyan loveliness at the bottom of the tin and bobbed to the surface of the cheese mix, desperate to show off.
     We shall see tomorrow what the proof of this pudding was.

Still Not Sure About The Bluishness ...
Conrad is getting rid of this mixture of cider and blueberries, since nobody else will drink it.  Usually it's the date-expired food, the elderly casserole, the tub of something that's been at the back of the freezer for nine months, that he dines on.  This St. Heliers mixture is well within date, sterilised and sealed in a tin, yet it somehow seems - wrong.

     Perhaps it's because I've actually made drinks with blueberries, and they end up pink.  Even the cheesecake looked purple.  So why is this drink a dayglo ultramarine?  Enquiring minds need to know!

The Raw Ingredient
     Most of the pound of blueberries that Conrad bought on Sunday are gone.  Some in the cheesecake, some in the pink lemonade and some in a blueberry smoothy.  Also, apparently, one that I dropped and which Edna found.  She didn't eat it straightaway, no, she did what she does with grapes and strawberries - gave it a good gumming, rendering it soggy and bruised and therefore giving Wonder Wifey an unpleasant experience when removing it from Edna's gnashers.

A Blueberry.  With a fork for scale.  Aren't I thoughtful?

ENOUGH BLUE!  LET US GET US TO PETER

Petruchio
Pondering at the bus stop, glaring at the louring sky that glared right back, Conrad recalled the name "Petruchio".
     Isn't it that Russian thing, a symphony, something like that? I mused.  By Diaghilev?  Definitely Russian.
     (This was in the days when Russians were big on the music scene; now, name me one Russian band famous beyond Russia. Hmmm^?)
     Dog Buns! I discovered on Googling the word at work - don't worry, well before official start-time, Conrad may be daft but stupid no he's not - "Petruchio" is actually the male lead in "The Taming Of The Shrew", written by Bill The Big Man himself.  No!  Not William Shatner, William Shakespeare.  Althought that's an interesting concept ...
     Okay, Petruchio sets his sights on Kate, the Shrew in question - no, she's a woman, not a rodent, do keep up (and see below for such perverse things)! - because she's RICH.  She's also, shall we say, highly-strung and with a low containment threshold^^.  Petruchio sets out to offend every feminist extant after 1900 with his behaviour.
     Why is this relevant?  "Petruchio" is the diminutive of "Pietro", which is the Italian for "Peter".
   There.  These posts don't just get thrown together!

Kate, and Petruchio.  You know, there's something oddly familiar about these two -

Petrushka
Cranking up his Google-fu, Conrad discovered what he'd originally been thinking of: the ballet "Petrushka" by that cracking Cyrillic composer, Igor Stravinsky.  So, not Diaghilev.
In this composition the puppet Petrushka comes to life and experiences love, life and death.  Well of course death!  This is Russian!  Did you expect a happy ending?
     Oh, and "Petrushka" is the diminutive of "Pyotr", which is the Russian for - Peter.
     There.  See the hidden design becoming apparent?

Petrushka

Wheelbarrows
No, this is not a non sequiteur.
"Enter sailors, wet" (stage direction from "The Tempest")
That was a non sequiteur.
     You see, in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, there was a Russian emperor who once took a trip to England.  He and his entourage were given a stately home to doss down in, whilst he took in the sights and sounds and cultures and customs of England and the English.
     What was the one thing he and his coterie enjoyed more than anything in their stately home?  No, not the paintings or sculptures nor the books or journals, but being trundled at high speed around the gardens - and across the flowerbeds and through the hedges - in wheelbarrows, an invention utterly unknown in Russia.
     So, the next time you encounter Pyotr Velikiy, a.k.a. Peter the Great, soften his image with a picture of a madcap garden escapade.

Yes, I KNOW it's Molly Malone, but you try finding portraits of Peter the Great and a wheelbarrow!

Peter The Pumpkin Eater
You probably know the rhyme:Peter, Peter, Pumpkin eater.
                                            Had a wife and couldn't keep her
                                            He put her in a pumpkin shell
                                            And there he kept her, very well

     Those feminists will have their thunderbolts out for me tonight ...
     Let us look at the Peter and his wife a little more critically and closely.  This wife must be extremely small, or she'd never fit in a pumpkin.  Probably about a foot high at most, Conrad would guess.  She must also be extremely weak and have no sense of smell.  Why is that? Conrad, I hear you cry.  Well Conrad has hollowed out many a pumpkin to make a shell, and once you do that, they lose most of their strength.  Nor is that all.  Once hollowed out they start to rot, which renders them smelly and mushy.
     So, let us examine the evidence.  
     Peter is obviously - obviously! - married to a naked mole rat.

The facts all fit!

*  Mister Hand apologises - Conrad's just finished reading "The Cruel Sea".
**  He was in Doctor Who, you know
*** A portmanteau word combining "gannets", "Termagants" and "Magpies^^^"
^  Ha!  No, we don't have political comments about Russian politicians here
^^ Okay, so she's a bit of a cow
^^^  ITV had a kid's programme that challenged Blue Peter, and it was called Magpie.
See?  This blog isn't just thrown together!