Eating For Charity

A Dirty Job But Someone's Got To Do It

Today we had a McMillan's Cancer Coffee Morning, with an assortment of food brought in to be dined upon, although things didn't really get going until 12 o'clock, so a Lunch-cum-Afternoon-Graze would be closer to the truth.  Tactically positioned, Conrad was next to one of the worktops where food was put out.

     "What food, Conrad?" I hear you ask.  "And what did you make?"

     Here is a panorama of the provisions:

The pink slips denote "Home made hummus" and "home made bread batons" - made by this author
Conrad is to the left of picture

Anna's cupcake tower and Becca's very nice strawberry tarts

      Notice those balloons.  There were eight, and they needed disposing of.  Back in our old office Claire would never let Conrad burst them BUT SHE ISN'T THERE ANY MORE! so they were all burst by knifestab.  High point of the day.

"Dracula Untold"
So sayeth the bus poster that went scooting by earlier this morning.  Hmmmm.  Conrad remains to be convinced.  The poster has a chap wearing a big cape standing on a big bit of granite, all black and moody.
     How much, one has to wonder, of Dracula has not yet been told?  I mean, the real thing was a nobleman of the fifteenth century, giving us six hundred years for him to be told about.  I suppose you can blame two people for Dracula:  Bram Stoker, who invented him, and Christopher Lee, for playing him as a handsome ladykiller.  No, Bela Lugosi doesn't count because his name is an anagram of Is Glueable, referring to his prosthetic teeth being fixed-on with gum arabic*.

Close enough

"The Maze Runner"
Another bus poster.  Judging from the featured faces on the poster, this one is intended for the young adult demographic, as those fresh faces are all young adults.  The colour palette is bright and verdant, meaning - "adventure and romance**". No doubt the success of "The Hunger Games" has brought about this infliction.
     What is it about?  Forsooth, Conrad cares not a jot wot it is abot***!  Kids running in a maze, I would hazard; nothing to do with life on a run-down housing estate in Wythenshawe with gangs and drugs.
     Oh - MTV staff? Your film reviewer needs to be taken outside and bloodily  bludgeoned blithely by baseball bats.  Why?  What did they put as a review?
     "A-Maze-ing".
     Baseball bats braced by bloody big barbs, thanks.

Kites, Bats, they both fly, right?

The War The Infantry Knew
This book is actually in journal format, with an entry for each day of the years that the 2nd Royal Welch Fusiliers were on the Western Front.  Today, on the 26th September 2014, I am reading about the 26th September 1917, with the battalion being at Tower Hamlets in the Ypres Salient.  This was a ghastly place, described unforgettably in "A Passionate Prodigality", and the 2RWF suffer casualties in an advance over a muddy moonscape and then from ceaseless shelling.  They do not, as the myth-makers and ill-informed would have you, spend endless time in the front-lines, although they do march continually from Flemish village to French village rather than being left alone in a single one.

BOOJUM! being serious for once.

Choctaw
Alas what it is to be old and deaf and daft.
     No!  I mean you.  Conrad is perfectly - well, perhaps not quite perfect - okay, a little imperfect - okay he's a raddled old wreck with deficient hearing and attention.
     "Choctaw,' said Dave "Yorkie Refugee" Kerry, way over to my right.
     By the various vicissitudes and vagaries of memory and attention, this word instantly brought Conrad to full wakefulness, and he called over:  "It's a helicopter."

The ugly but chock-full (ouch!) of character H35 Choctaw

     Dave, Roxy^ and Rebecca (who were conversing before my interruption) all looked somewhat bemused, Dave actually having to stifle a grin.  Possibly the first time I can write that and sincerely say I saw it happen. 
     'Oh, no,' beamed Roxy.  'I was talking about "Cut Off".  You know, when you stick your hand out of the car window - and it gets cut off!  Not "Choc taw"' "
     A nice young lady, Roxy, though I do worry what goes on in her head at times^^.



Evening Refreshment
I give you a glass of nice cold Guiness - actually I don't, I'll fight you for my glass of Guiness! - what I mean is, here is a glass of Guiness, which Conrad is damn well going to enjoy.  After a hectic week, a nice sit down and a rest from answering phones is pleasant indeed.

I'm surprised there's that much left

     As Wonder Wifey is off at a jolly tonight I am also dogsitting Edna, who has recently been informing me - in Dog - that she does not appreciate being less than fawned over extensively.  Thank you, Edna.  

"Edna, disgusted. No sitting on Conrad's lap, tug-of-war games with soggy toys, cossetting or pampering? GRRR!"

     
*  If you don't know what this is - GO AND READ THIS WEEK'S BLOGS!
**  I can't remember the film, but one character remarks to another about "adventure and romance" and is sternly chided, being told there is no such thing, only "trouble and desire".
***  Yes, I know it's mis-spelt, but it rhymes this way.  Whose blog is it?
^ It takes a great deal of effort to avoid adding a compliment of the vulpine variety.
^^  She is perfectly entitled to be worried abot what goes on in Conrad's head.