As One Door Closes ...

Another One Falls Off It's Hinges -
Actually it doesn't, I was just being melodramatic (tweaks moustache).  No, in reality another door opens.
     I can hear your puzzled voices, enquiring "What is he banging on about now?  It's only eight o'clock and the drinks cabinet has a palm-lock on it now, plus the cooking sherry went last month."
     Don't worry, neither have I resorted to drinking Jeyes Household Cleaning Fluid*.
     No, what I mean is that I've nearly finished my manuscript of "Revelations", my erstwhile zombie novel.  Once complete I'll have to go back and redraft, but, like faery thistledown born by zephyrs o'er the compost beds, my mind is turning to other things.

Conrad.  Thinking.
Yes, they are deep and sinister thoughts.  After all, we are talking Conrad here.

Eden Underwood
I don't think this place really exists.  Hopefully not, as although it greatly resembles a Cotswolds country village - it isn't.

Eden Underwood.  Population:  857 (of which 855 are human ...)

     I have to admit that - er - I dreamt it.  About a year ago.  There was a standing stone, and something huge lurking in the village pond, and a pair of cursed stones set into the walls of a sunken path, and a single barn-door standing in a field - 
     Inspired by Robert Rankin's creation of the London borough of Brentwood, I now feel like creating Eden Underwood as a proper setting.  Quite what comes after that is another question.  Would it be background to a novel or short stories?  Satirical?  Comic? Unpleasantly horrid?  Who would the characters be?  A single narrator, or third person perspectives?
     We shall see, gentle readers, we shall see.

"A Rolling Stone Gathers No Moss"
I take issue with whoever dreamed up that particular proverb.  Firstly, because it's fatuous.  Of course a rolling stone doesn't gather moss!  To gather moss a stone must stand - or sit, I'm not sure about lithic posture - static for years if not decades.  And as for "rolling", how long are stones able to roll?  Hmm?  At best for a couple of hours after an avalanche in a very high mountain range, I suggest.  So.  The moss-free time window for a stone happens to be - being wildly generous here - six hours.
     That's quite beside the stone possibly acquiring a surface layer of accreted matter as it passes over muddy ground, which isn't moss but it does constitute a boundary layer.
     Of course, I could be over-thinking this ...

Apparently this Moss did gather a Stone.
They deserve each other ...

This Is Going To Annoy Me
As you surely know by now, dear audience, Conrad flies into a frothing rage over countless things that would pass other people by with little or no comment.  An apostrophe missing from an advertising slate!  Horrors!  "Parisienne" mis-spelled on a price label?  Outrageous! The Comsat Angels denied their rightful place as one of the best rock bands ever to come out of Sheffield Planet Earth?  Where's my atomic howitzer!
     Etcetera.
     What I rant about now is an advert from years ago, probably (but not definitely) made by a travel company.  Two young ladies in bikinis are disporting themselves at a poolside, drinking, chatting and giggling.  Suddenly the pool shudders and the water slowly gets transported away horizontally and Thunderbird One** roars out from beneath it, creating havoc at the poolside. The voiceover warns about who to book your holiday with.
     But your aggrieved scribe cannot find out what product this advert promotes.  Dog Buns!  If I knew that I could find it on Youtube.
     Bah!

Thunderbird One takes to the air.  No, hang on a minute -

Apropos Nothing
If you recall the hilarious doggerel that Conrad posted about the Weasel Shark, you recall it had to be sung to the tune of the cartoon "Spiderman" television series.  Conrad also has a short verse that addresses the serious issues that Spiderman would have in real life. Pithy yet poetic, it - O! you want to hear it?  I thought you'd never ask.

Spiderman, Spiderman!

Does whatever a spider can.

Hides in cupboards, scares housewives.

Likes to eat dirty flies.

     Brevity, as ever, being the soul of wit.

Piederman.  Close enough

Halva
Good Lord aloft!  How could I have forgotten about Halva!  I used to eat it by the pound back in the Eighties, when it could be bought in a sugar-free version from a - excuse the stereotype but it is accurate - hippy food shop opposite Cavendish Gardens called "The Eighth Day".
     What is it?  A sweetmeat would be the best description, a Middle Eastern confection based on tahini.
     You're going to ask what "tahini" is, aren't you?  Imagine peanut butter made with sesame seeds, that's tahini.  Delicious but incredibly fattening.
     Conrad, getting on in years and with a memory that has gaps bigger than those between traffic cones on the M62, cannot remember if he's made it in the past.
     Rest assured once the blog is posted I shall be looking up the recipe.

Cucumber Relish
Now that we have definitively established that the cucumber is a scentless vegetable  -YES WE HAVE! - allow me to present my Kilner jar of it, made last night:

NO! It is not bottled snot!

      We've had that jar for an age and it's never been used before last night.  It has special rubber seals to keep the contents hermetically sealed, and since I only used a quarter of the recipe's ingredients, there was no need for any more jars.

* Deliberate consumption of this is a definite problem.  Extremely small but still there.
** Anthony corrected my assertion that it was Thunderbird Three.  If I had a sword, I would have had to fall upon it.  Fortunately all I had was a blunt butter knife.