Oh! The Infamy!

To Purloin A Line From A Classic - 
"Infamy!  Infamy!  They've all got it in for me!" quotes Kenneth Williams in "Carry On Cleopatra"*.
  So indeed did the ganterpies at work. Fortunately for Conrad, K-Mo was off today or things would have been awful.
     Firstly, recall the rather unsuccessful Halloween Pumpkin Cake?  Feeling a tad glum, Conrad sent round an e-mail saying folks could feed on it for free.  Within minutes the Operation Support ganterpies had descended and scoffed it, which is good, as my second paragraph had stated I would pay people to eat it.
     Next came my jar of pickled mushrooms:

Mushrooms marynowane

     I love pickled mushrooms but apparently this passion is not shared by others.  "What's THAT!" exclaimed Hazel.  "Yuck," commented Phi.  "They look like eyeballs!" informed Anna.  Thanks, Anna.  "What if - I'm not trying to put you off - you opened them and found an eyeball in there!"  Yes, really, thank you, Anna.

The X Factor
Yes, Conrad can imagine your jaws dropping as you read the title, but read on, dear audience, read on, because I refer not to the television programme** but, obviously - obviously! - to the science-fiction novel written by Andre Norton.

I had this edition many many moons ago

     The novel concerns one Diskan Fentress, whom Conrad warmed to straight away as he is i) large and ii clumsy and so is Diskan.  
     Plus there's some science fiction.

Christopher Walken: 100% Scary
Once again that bathetic***poster for "Sleepy Hollow" stating that - ah, stuff it, never mind.  What it did inspire were thoughts about Tim Burton's pretty scary "Sleepy Hollow" fillum, featuring Chris Walken.  With pointy teeth.

You will probably see this face in your dreams tonight.
Sorry, meant to say "in your nightmares tonight"

     This is gilding the lily.  Chris looks scary without any makeup or prosthetic teeth.
     Oh yes he does!  For one thing he avoids sunlight: he dislikes it.  Let me built my case.  Recall his character in "The Dead Zone"? he was the hero and a good guy and still frightening.  What was the title of the dance video he did with Spike Jonez?  "Weapon of Choice"; see, even his dancing is sinister.  There's that bit in "The Dogs Of War" when he tortures a villain with a piece of broken glass, and you can see the director wincing at how much passion he puts into that bit of shattered window.  In "McBain" he kills the entire Columbian army - and air force - without looking the least bothered.  Which is after he kidnaps and threatens Mafia dons to extort money out of them, looking as if it were no more than torturing a man with a piece of broken glass.  Even his relatively calm and pacific character in "Seven Psychopaths" sports a really scary surprise that I won't reveal.

Okay, possibly the only occasion when Chris hasn't been scary.

Ah, Bus Poster, Thou Unfailing Source
I saw an advert for "Storm Flower" today, with the byword "Cheryl" added to it.
     I'm sorry, whom is this "Cheryl" of which you speak?  Is she supposed to be so famous she only needs one name, like Bono or Banksy or Adele?  Sorry, not going to work with Conrad, who doesn't watch television.  I do read "The Metro" but that hardly counts as a newspaper.

Excellent for lining one of these, though

     So.  I declare "Cheryl" to be "Cheryl Crabtreefrog", seven-times divorced thirty-stone fifty-two year old mother of eighty-three children who lives in a shed on the Isle of Dogs.    Also, let me just put BOOJUM!'s resident botanist on the case.  Doctor Bush^?
     "Storms tend to destroy flowers.  If winds above-'
     - yes yes yes, that's enough, Doctor.  Can't have her getting above her station.
     Storm Flower.  Art department?

"Storm Drain?"

     Try again.

"Cauli Flower?"

Close enough.

"How To Get Away With Murder"
Seen on the giant mobile advertising hoarding outside work - repaired, as last week the hoarding had a giant concertinaed mess from which the only word that could be read was "MURDER".

Of course it could be "how to get away with Muldel

     Now, despite what you may have read elsewhere, Conrad is not a murderer.  Not at all.  No.  So he cannot speak with definitive authority on the subject^^, but I strongly suspect that if you do want to get away with murder, a good first step is NOT ADVERTISING IT ON A GREAT BIG BLOODY^^^ HOARDING!
     Thank you. That is all.

So - Tanks?
Yes indeed.  Today we feature one of what were called "Hobart's Funnies", tanks from the 79th Armoured Division.  These were specially designed tanks used for specific purposes on D-Day and afterwards:

A Churchill "Bobbin"

     This model unrolled a giant mat of canvas reinforced with steel rods, ensuring that the laying tank and any vehicle that came behind it did not sink into soft sand or bottom-out on pebbled shorelines.


* Made with the abandoned sets and props that the Liz Taylor film had left behind in England, so far higher production values than usual.
** Which I have never watched.
*** Yes this is a real word.  Go look it up.
^ First name "Rose".  Some parents can be cruel.
^^ And if he did, why the GMP might be knocking on his door to clear up a few unsolved cases ...
^^^ Not swearing - look at that poster's colour scheme.