BOOJUM!: Quickly! Keep Up As I Type

Time, Like An Ever-Flowing River
- or, if you will, a collection of "wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff"*, has rather run away from me tonight. I didn't expect to be sitting down to type the usual evening's scrivel until 20:00, yet here we are seven minutes early.
"How do you do it, Conrad?" I hear you ask. "Beating deadlines yet remaining impeccably cool!"
I cheat.
Yes, I bought a load of remaindered sandwiches at the Co-Op tonight, which means no time taken in making up tomorrow's lunch. Then I ate one sandwich and hoovered up a pile of stray chips that were in danger of - er - becoming dangerously unstable and - um - exploding. Yeah. Exploding.
Hence time saved. That's important as I have a lot of prevaricating and posturing to do tonight.
On with the motley!

"Kingsman"
I apologise for not providing evidence for my blathering about the poster for this film yesterday, however, I have redeemed myself today:

There's that gal being flexible and dextrous. Flextrous?

"V"
As ever, reading Thomas Pynchon causes coincidences. In some way that only he could convincingly describe, reading his prose messes about with the laws of chance, probability and chaos.
Why do I say this? Well, in the text is a referral to the festival of San Ercole Dio Rinocerenti.
What did Julie post on Facebook?

Exactly!

Then there is his long and detailed description of the Alligator Patrol, a brave band of dirty scoundrels who sweep the sewers clear of albino alligators in two-man teams.
THERE ARE NO SEWER 'GATORS! any more than there are any foxes in "Foxcatcher". I give you a link to the Snopes Urban Legend item:
http://www.snopes.com/critters/lurkers/gator.asp
And that's before any mention of the "WPA", which stands for "Works Progress Administration" not "We Prevent Alligators"

Coincidence - Or Not? Only You Can Judge!
Conrad was stood in the shower this morning, talking to himself, as he frequently does. Don't worry, it's only a problem if you don't make sense to yourself.
Anyway, Conrad was revising dialogue he needs to include in his tales of the sinister-yet-pretty East Sussex village of Eden Underwood. Niall, our hero, is displaying the dessicated corpse of a Karakurt spider to Sophie, wondering if she can identify -
Conrad's attention is then diverted to the inside of the shower's glass door.
What's this?
A small red spider.

RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY NOW! SAVE YOURSELVES THE END TIMES ARE HERE!

Delicious toasted

A Bit Of Musical Reflection
Don't worry Mister Ashcroft, no poking fun at The Verve tonight. No, I was thinking of three of the CDs I got from Fopp this weekend. First up is "The Inevitable End", by Royksopp, a Norwegian dance duo

The tasteful and refined Norwegian jumper

Yes, Vulnavia, there is more to Norwegian music than Satanic Death Metal or A-ha.
Anyway, TIE. I like it. A good CD. And from what the duo have let drop, the last of their intended output, so we will just have to endure until they either produce solo records or avoid the wrath of Conrad by recording again.

A whole lot of rowdier Norwegian jumpers

Then, Apollo 440. Another dance act, this time one that had an alter-ego as the Stealth Sonic Orchestra, who would mix and produce other people's records. Nothing on the record stands with their name. A helpful assistant went off and returned with the grim news that all their CDs have been deleted, just when I was looking to get their last two.
<Sad face>
Lastly, The Drums. I've got one of their earlier CDs and it's a bit "Meh". This one was being played over the house PA at Fopp, and it's a complete change of direction in a very welcome manner. In fact it reminds me of the way The Courteeners and Editors and indeed those Monkeys of the Arctic reinvented themselves.

Just chillin'

My Second Hand Book Purchase
As occasionally happens with an old, old book, mine had a little extra with it: hand-written notes in pencil, obviously from the original owner back in 1937. Given that the notes alone are over seventy years old, I doubt our scribe is still around, so it's a little peculiar to be reading them. Allow me to ~~pad out the blog~~ explain with some photos:

A terrible repair job on the cover

Mr Petworth and his signature. Also possibly his battalion - the 7th East Yorkshires

Oops, forgot to rotate it.

More pencilled notes. In those days you had a fountain pen or a pencil and that was IT.

Aha, A Minty Challenge
Conrad dug out a small tin of mints from one of the kitchen containers this morning, and found it mighty hard to open once he got it to work. Thus: