Here At Last!

I Do Apologise!
However, today was Chris's last day, and I like and respect him, have known him for well over two years and so had to - really, no choice - had to attend the after-works drink session.  Not only that, I had to stay sober and sensible as I was driving the Murder Mobile later that evening; you can't run the risk of firing off the Atomic Howitzer because you had fifteen Jaegerbombs too many.
     Anyway, on with the Motley!

Chris, regaling us with the tale about his dad's collectible football programmes.

Anyway - the British V-bomber fleet
During the Cold War we, as part of NATO, maintained a fleet of bombers that were tasked with dropping what we might call "buckets of instant sunshine" on the Godless Communist hordes that began east of the Polish border.  First of these was the mighty Vulcan, coming into service in 1956 and only bowing out in 1984.  These planes were fricking enormous, seeing them in the sky doesn't impart a sense of scale:

Big!  Noisy!  Made up of equal parts aluminium and awesome!

     Fortunately for all Hom. Sap., things during the Cold War remained chilly but relatively peaceful and the Vulcan's never had to create nasty little nuclear volcanoes of their own.
     They did, however, take part in possibly the most technically demanding bombing raid of all time:  Black Buck.  But that's another story ...
     Then we have the Valiant:

Like a passenger jet.  Carry-on luggage consisting of NUKES!

     Not as successful as the Vulcan or Victor, because it couldn't be flown 20 feet above the ground like a stunt jet on steroids by pilots with no nerves.
     Finally, the Victor, which is Conrad's favourite.  As he remarked briefly yesterday, it looks like a jet out of Thunderbirds and this may be art-imitating-life since the Victor went into service in 1958.  Mr Anderson's second-finest series came out in the mid-Sixties, by which time impressionable youths seeing the Victor at age ten would have been working in television.

Real life or Supermarionation?  Only you can tell!

The Sinister Oboe
You can't deny it.  Whenever a director on television or film wants a bit of Suspense, he or she turns to the Oboe.
     Or, the Onde Martenot.  You can recognise the lower woodwind register of the oboe, right?  Well if you watch any horror or science-fiction film from the forties or fifties, chances are you'll hear one of these electronic marvels.

An Onde.  Yes that is a ring-on-a-string that he's using

I'm going to stop here as there is more potential here that I want to develop about Sinister Sounds.  Let me get back to you on this.

Carrying a housebrick in your bag
Not, I hasten to assure you, a real housebrick.  Why, that might get me arrested or detained or have your human law enforcement services pay attention to Conrad*.  Which would be a bad thing for him.

     This is "Against The Day", and a persuasive argument about carrying it to work to read on the bus.  It's big and heavy and will not compress.

Why N & M will never go out of business
Sorry for the shorthand - that's "Naval and Military Press".  These thoughtful folks send out a quarterly catalogue and this one had the splendid news that everything within was £4.99 or less.  Here we see the end result:  

Oh dear.  Too small to read!

     Rest assured, gentle reader, that it comes in at <cough cough> pounds, which I am sure you will agree, is a bargain.

Conrad's Pumpkin Cheesecake -
Went down very well indeed.  Here we see the sole remaining piece after the termagants had descended and devoured the other eleven slices:

     This being a Hummingbird Bakery recipe, I expected more fiddle than it actually called for.  Mind you, I did have to slice the pumpkin top off, scrape out the seeds, scoop out the flesh and then make a puree out of it.  So perhaps more labour intensive than you might imagine "150g of pumpkin puree" involves.


A guaranteed method of winning the Lottery
Buy all the tickets.  Simples!

* Whom, don't forget, is actually a camouflaged alien spy.