THE DIAMOND DACE OF HALE AND PACE!

No Apologies For Reversion To Fish
Obviously fish are far finer fare than football, as the traffic yesterday didn't scale* the dizzy heights (or should that be depths?) of previous piscine posts, so! we are back to traducing various celebrities in a blatant attempt to boost blog stats.
     For our overseas customers, "Hale and Pace" were a comedy duo around in the Eighties, in fact they might be around still, I just can't be bothered to look them up.  They were a one-trick pony act, being "The Management", a pair of sinister nightclub bouncers.  Or something.  It was a long time ago.  I am pretty sure, however, that they never appeared with, or possessed, or featured, dace of any kind, let alone ones made of precious stones.

Close enough

Alpecin Caffeine Shampoo For Men
This is why Conrad doesn't watch much television - he'd be too busy shouting at the adverts as his Rage button got pressed continually and with great force.  This tendency of his to express his opinions made television viewing with Darling Daughter when she was younger something of a trial for her.

Picture of a traumatised daughter

     Well I haven't changed.  Last night I caught this unpleasant bit of drivel in an advert.
     Why is it for men?  We're not told.
     What does the caffeine do?  We're not told.
     Why should we buy it?  We're not told.
     ENOUGH ALREADY WITH THE NOT TELLING!
     We are supposed to trot off to the shops to buy it in order to find out what wonderfulness lies concealed in the bottle, also because it's big in Germany.
     Well so is David Hasselhof.  That's not going to make me watch "Baywatch Nights**" anytime soon.
     Conrad suspects it would be easier and cheaper to just step in the shower with the dregs of last night's bedtime drink and annoint one's self with old cold Gold Roast

A pencil.  Close enough.

"Plappergeist"
Conrad and his memory, eh?  This creature is from R A Laffrety's "Fourth Mansions" and is a cross between a dog and an ape, only visible to people out of the corner of their eye.  Conrad remembers liking the name, and wondering if it's real or invented.
     Invented, sadly.
     Still, "Fourth Mansions".  Got for the price of 40p as a remaindered book from John Menzies, I seem to recall, and the joke was on them as it's rather a good read.
     In fact, with payday hailing this Thursday, one is tempted to go on Abebooks ...

That might be a Plappergeist.  That or a frog with laser eyes.  Great fun at parties!
And that's a rather ambiguous quote from Roger Zelazny

Bah!
Another hateful advert, this one didn't work very well as I've no idea whom the manufacturer of the mascara is.  Fail one!
     They did succeed in annoying me with their adjectives, a whole string of utter nonsense about how this mascara will cure acne, prevent water retention, bring about peace in the Middle East and also render your lashes "Punkified".
     GET OUT OF HERE WITH YOUR PUNK!
     Besides which, if you're going to aim at a specific demographic, try to be a little bit more subtle about it.
     
The Metro
Ah, what would BOOJUM! be without a little wistful woe directed at the bus-litterer?
     Conrad is convinced the unknown "celebrities" that this rag pushes in it's "60 Seconds" page are the ones whose agent has ponied up the most money that week, and that the well-known ones have been bribed to speak to the bin-liner.

The Metro in it's natural state

     Typical unknown: "Vanessa Mousehole was a runner-up in an audition to be a presenter on "The Story of Sago" three years ago and is currently -" yes enough.
     Typical known: " <imagine a whole lot of slobbering adulation going on in a gushing style over a whole page>"

Gerry Anderson Ergonomics: The Roadlayer
This monstrous vehicle lays roads, six-lane motorways in fact, across the landscape where-ere it wanders.  It is so monstrously huge that it needs an atomic engine to propel it and create the motorway that unfolds behind.

Behold the behemoth!

     Not only does it transform nature into tarmac'd travelway, it also comes armed with a cannon "for removing obstacles".  One wonders if environmental protesters come under that banner ...

"Oops!  Sorry, we totally didn't see you there"

Nor is that all.  Oh no.  As you can see from the carefree way that our descendants of 2065 allow nuclear-propelled vehicles on the roads**, so their attitudes to nuclear weapons have become rather more lax, as the Roadlayer's support vehicles also carry atomic warheads to get rid of very large obstacles.

Roadlayer encounters a ditch.  Or a swamp.  Of forest.  Basically, anything

Okay, get that?  This is a vehicle that weighs thousands of tons, is armed and can throw around nuclear bombs.  How big is the crew?
     Two.
     Not only that, they are both in the driving cab at the same time.  This means that eventually one or both are going to fall asleep.
     It would have been simple common sense to have three crew, serving eight hour shifts so that two can be resting or asleep whilst the third member is at the wheel.
     "Oh no!" said the builders of this gigantic machine.  "That would mean paying an extra man!"
     Yes but it would mean not risking killing millions when your atom-bomb-on-wheels crashes with the crew asleep at the wheel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DB5a_3J71iY

"Asleep at the wheel" by Working for a Nuclear Free city, an absolutely corking instrumental.







* See what I did there?
** A real and apparently terrible follow-on to the original "Baywatch" series.
*** Not technically correct but you get my drift.