21 hits already before posting anything. Thank you, revered visitors! As I type the Schlemmertopf is heating up in the oven, and the chicken in the Schlemmertopf is also heating up. This should have happened yesterday but the unco-operative chicken stubbornly refused to thaw - penguin genes, obviously.
Enough preamble - although, come to think of it, do you ever hear the main meat of the matter under discussion described as the "amble"? No. No you do not! This must be one of the rules of grammar decided upon by those who also don't want you to use the term "gruntled" when you're feeling cheerful, or "construe" when you understand perfectly, or - <Mister Hand pokes with the bamboo skewer of Move Along Now>
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| A volcanic eruption. Far more interesting than ambling, gruntling or construing. |
Today's Book Haul
Once again the team ventured to Bardsley car-boot sale - yes, yes, this is relevant and interesting and it isn't boring - and Conrad scooped the lot below:
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| Pot, plane, pic and epic |
Now, I did say this was relevant, didn't I? The cookbook cost a whole 20p and is full of excellent recipe ideas, including some for the Schlemmertopf.
The RAF book is a massive and weighty tome which nearly escaped me, but Conrad would not be denied!
Also the lady selling it (£2, which is about half of what it weighs*) asked if I'd been in the RAF**. So, clearly I can look both German and like a cashiered wing commander.
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| Would you trust this face with an Airfix kit, let alone a real plane? |
"Shooting Brake"
Again I apologise for having things pop up in my mind like mental whack-a-mole. Given that I last remember reading this phrase in "The Broons" cartoon at least thirty years ago, it's rather a mystery why it appeared out of the mist today.
FIrst of all, it's nothing to do with guns, bullets or things exploding. It is a variety of car, believe it or not. A large car, in fact more like a truck with seats, that can accommodate many people and all their kit without needing people to travel in the boot.
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| Shooting Break. Close enough |
Capercaillie
Yes, another of those words that sprang up like the targets on a shooting range - a useful analogy of Conrad's brain and what it gets up to when not being closely watched. Whilst the shooting brake did at least occur in a car park, and hence has a whisker of rationality about itself, this word - well, read on.
The Capercaillie is a bird, the largest member of the grouse family, found in Scottish woodland in the UK, although it is distributed across the Northern Hemisphere all the way to Russia. The name derives from Gaelic, "Capull Coille", which means "Horse of the woods", and since the capercaillie resembles a horse not at all, one has to wonder what the Scots were thinking (or drinking) when they bestowed the title.
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| A Capercaillie |
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| A horse. In case you were confused. |
The Cybermat
Another in our occasional articles about Doctor Who's metallic monsters. No! It is not a rug used by the Cybermen . The dainty Cybermat is a miniature cyborg based on a rat, and proof that the Cybermen do have a softer side, in that they do need pets, of a kind.
Killer pets utterly hostile to all carbon-based lifeforms, that is. Like the Cybermen themselves, Cybermats have evolved over time. Meet the original:
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| Utterly terrifying. When you are 9. |
Conrad is not sure exactly what this variety could do, except make you choke on your pancake as it appeared suddenly on the breakfast table. The Cybermat, not the pancake. Although I do seem to recall one of these giving someone cramp in their arms on "The Wheel In Space".
Let us examine the Mark 2:
| This gives a sense of scale |
That's some big-ass rat it derives from, eh? More like a capybarya. Anyway, the one above is not giving Sarah Jane Smith a love-bite, it's attacking and injecting her with venom. I told you, Killer pets.
No doubt CyberCommand decided that smaller and more discreet was the way to go, and we get the much more minute Mark 3:
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| "Awww! isn't it cute!" |
And this can really do you a mischief, viz:
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| The aptly-named "Bitey" |
Finally
Conrad, having done his shopping at the car boot in a hurried stroll, ended up looking after Edna in the verdant car park at Bardsley.
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| Edna scoping for treats |
This is the only time she stopped still, and only because I bribed her with biscuits. Otherwise - see yesterday's blog for the grey blur she is when moving at speed.
* None of that metric nonsense here!
** Not possible thanks to my enormous sense of cowardice.
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