Once Again - Contemplation Causes Chaos

At The Cafe This Morning
 - the staff there have to dextrously* mill and tamp and attach and generally bang about their coffee in order to produce hot drinks, which can take time, which in turn generates a queue, which means once again - obviousl! - Conrad has time to pause and ponder whilst he waits for his Double Espresso.
     "Shall I get a copy of Doctor Who Adventures?" went though my mind, as a copy stood bagged-up in the magazine stand, looking tempting.
    'No', decided Oscar**: 'No you shall not.  Instead I shall cause the word "Stoichiometry" to appear in your mind.  Heh!'

Eh what?

    
Stoichiometry
I had to look up what it means.  Essentially, it's a term used in chemistry to determine the amount of reagents and products in chemical reactions  - H2 + O = H2O at it's simplest.  There's a lot more to it, dealing with chemistry and mathematics and so on, which is deadly dull fare, so here's the link if you want to follow it up yourself:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoichiometry
     Now - why on earth did this particular word appear in my mind?  Presumably because the staff were producing: liquid suspension of ground coffee beans + very hot H2O = shot of aggressively strong caffeine-delivery system.

Pamplemousse!
I know what you're thinking, and no, it isn't a dessert.  This is the French word for "grapefruit", and it derives from the Dutch "Pompel" which means "swollen/large" and "limoes" for "citrus".

Goosed pamplemousse

     This is a far better descriptive word than our stupid English one.  Does a grapefruit have any resemblance to the fruit of the vine? No!  No, it does not.  

Trample moose.  Close enough

"Dying Inside"
A science-fiction novel by Robert Silverberg, this one deals with a telepath who is losing his ability, which is a neat take on an old idea.  There have to be countless books in the sci-fi milieu that deal with gaining telepathy, but I'm pretty sure this is the only one to deal with losing it.
     Anyway, the paperback featured an exquisitely horrid cover illustration that I just recalled today:

Not exactly fluffy bunnies, is it?

     There you go, tonight just as you're dropping off to sleep - bingo!  This image will pop into your head.
     No, don't thank me, just doing my job.
     My evillll job.

"The War Of The Second Best Guns"
Another present from Oscar, Conrad remembered reading this strip in the "Victor" comic back in the late Sixties, except the comics were part of the stock in our school classroom and they weren't all present.  So - I was never entirely sure why the guns were second-best.

Copyright holders, look away now -

     If you can't read the caption, "second best" because the strip was set in Italian-occupied Abyssinia, a far cry from Europe and an arena the youthful Conrad knew nothing about, and the guns were relics from the First World War.
     Speaking of which -

TWTIK
After finishing off "Bloody Victory" I am back to "The War The Infantry Knew", which mentions two French streets in Amiens: "Rue Des Corps nues sans Testes", which translates as "Street of nude body without testicles" and "Rue des Trois Cailloux" which translates as "Street of Three Pebbles", except Conrad suspects the idiom is probably a lot ruder than that.
     And the former street was mentioned in "Agincourt", so it had been around for five hundred years at least.


                             Three Pebbles.  No, hang on -

And here I pause to go and watch, and makes notes of***, "The Great British Bake Off".  I missed it last week because I was - baking.

The Great British Bake-Off
Aaaand once again this programme demonstrates (emphasis on the "demon") why Conrad will only ever appear on it if dragged in behind a Challenger tank.  This week we had Pastry, starting off with "Signature Savoury Pastry Parcels", which are awkward little rascals to make because you've no idea what the middle is doing while they're boiling or baking.  "Not exploding" is a good start, followed by plenty of filling - the judges are greedy gluttons in this respect - and a nicely browned exterior. Kate and Luis did not cover themselves in glory.
     Then there was a swine of a Technical with a Breton yeasted puff pastry that nobody had heard of, and which the programme didn't have the good grace to spell out on screen.  "Quienamant" is how it might be spelt, and - given that the process was complicated and instructions missing, only Richard did well.
     Then we had the Showstopper, where Richard once again triumphed, Chetna coming a close second, and Martha joining Kate in not making nice eclairs.  Choux pastry - really, what is it good for!

Sioux.  Close enough

* Funny how the word "Sinisterly" does not apply here, isn't it?
** My memory.  Do keep up!
*** Yes, sad, very sad.