Conrad, ever the high-spirited idiot at work, waltzed into the office declaring to Anna "Dancing through the raindrops back to your heart!"*, which she took tolerably well (busy being serious doing upper-echelon things). Followed by my loud declaration "Nice weather - for fish!"
Yes, it was a wet beginning to Friday, and you can tell autumn has indeed arrived as I am wearing shoes. I also like to annoy people by not merely being cheerful and chirpy, but being irritatingly cheerful and chirpy.
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| Traffic on Portland street was heavy today ... |
Times tend to do that, after all. You may be aware that the past Sunday and Monday was the anniversary of "Kristallnacht", when the Nazi's peeled off their mask of civil behaviour and went around smashing up Jewish things.
Mutatis mutandis**. You may also remember a much more wholesome and wholescale smashing of things with the same anniversary date - the toppling of the Berlin Wall. This was one occasion of Germans smashing things that Conrad can sincerely get behind.
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| It's a wall in Berlin. Close enough |
To the whippersnappers amongst you of less than 23 years vintage, this won't seem especially noteworthy. But it is! Before the Soviet Union went toes-up this simply would not have happened. The Russian state trusted it's own people even less than the evil decadent Westerners; those women would never have gotten out of Minsk or Orel or Vladivostok - you needed an internal passport to travel in Russia if you were a Russian. If they had made it to Britain they would automatically have been seen as Glamourous Female Spies by the natives, and they'd certainly not be chatting openly at a bus stop.
| The consequences of Russian around in a car |
The Voles proved themselves to be nothing if not resilient, and retained a sense of humour. They were invited to be support on a North American tour by Lloyd Cole, who declared that the band were "Like cockroaches - you could nuke them and they'd still be making daft puns and poking fun." Typically, they changed their name for the fourth time.
Their breakthrough came when they played an acoustic version of "Guinea War Pigs" on Unplugged in 1991, taken from the album "Volestead Act(ors)". Biff Bunkum, unofficial spokesman for the band, explained:
"We'd heard of the "Volstead Act" somewhere - I think it was Iain on his Modern Political History module at St Andrews - but we didn't know it was the act that brought in Prohibition. And we played the set with bottles of beer all around. The Yanks loved it, they thought it was piercing British irony. Actually it was just us getting -"
"Gross as guinea-pigs! Gross as guinea-pigs!
We've got a great big whisky bottle
And we're going to take swigs!
Gross as guinea-pigs! Gross as guinea-pigs!"
Suddenly their back-catalogue began to shift, and in considerable volumes. Or, as Biff would have put it, "high vole-umes".
| "A more sinister hive of scum and villainy you will not find ..." |
"Rat-Proof Cellar"
No! Nothing to do with the Skreeming Voles, nor their songs. No, this came up in conversation with Anthony at work, who can come out with interesting items at times. We were debating the subject of rats, and Mandy expressed her intense dislike of them. Conrad - ever willing to fight the corner of an unloved animal that begins with "W"*** - explained that rats are clever, affectionate pets. Not long-lived, sadly.
Anyway, Anthony said he'd once been having a conversation with an architect, who proudly boasted that there was only one rat-proof building in Manchester: The cellars under the Refuge Assurance Building.
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| A photo taken on one of the 7 rain-free days in the Manchester year |
Ground glass, explained Anthony. Ground glass had been included in the plaster and mortar and concrete making up these building basements, and if the gnawing rodents armies of massed Ratdom tried to chew their was through, the ground glass would kill them.
That's what he said. Ground glass doesn't do much to humans (it is akin to eating sand) but as for the digestive system of Mr Rattus - who knows!
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| This is a real thing. Surely there must be a Skreeming Voles joke in there? |
Ultima Thule
More Latin, sorry! It's just that Conrad always considered this geographical description to refer to Britain.
Not so! The Romans used this term to refer to any geographical area of the far north. It probably refers to Norway, but has also been taken to mean Iceland or Greenland.
That's it. Just thought you might like to know, and be able to say "Oh yes, Siggur Ros, Bjork and the Apparat Organ Quartet - they all live on Ultima Thule."
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| Norwegian Forest Cat. Equal parts lion, wolf and kitteh |
Come on, admit it, you've heard this description and not quite understood what it meant.
You haven't?
Is it just me?^
Well, dammit, I went to the bother of looking it up so you can jolly well hear me out!
"Thick ear" is taken as a synonym of "tough", "rugged" and "rough" in thrillers, with James Bond novels given as an exemplar, also Bulldog Drummond^^, and Conrad thinks he could also add "The Sweeney".
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| More "Red eyed" than "Thick Eared" |
Finally
I came across this customer yesterday.
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| "Beware puny humans! Beware! RARRR!" |
"Oops. Busted!"
* From Donald Fagen's excellent "The Barfly" album.
** Changing things that need changing. Latin, damn it, Latin!
*** I know "R" is not "W" but if you lisped ...
^ Yes, says Mister Hand.
^^ Nothing to do with cutesy talking animals. Sorry!
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