Beer O'Clock!

That's Right, It's 18:00 At The Mansion
Any earlier would smack of desperation; any later leaves insufficient time to down the pints.  Six p.m. we deem just right.  And Conrad has 4 cans of John Smith's that were going for 60p each as they were dented.  Doesn't bother me - even if you have to bash the tab in with a pair of scissors, it still tastes the same.
     To quote a quote from the incomparable PG Wodehouse, "The lark is on the wing, the snail is on the thorn" and Conrad is on the beer.
     That's the intro out of the way, on to the main course -

A Short Discourse On Cats
Here we have a scene loaded with irony:

     Because it's a dog bed, before you ask.  Jenny moved in when Edna moved off, and then sat there for three hours fast asleep.  Edna not daft enough to try and challenge her for it.
     I am sure there's folding money and/or a Nobel prize for the scientist who determines why cats always, but always, sit where they shouldn't.  When I did my Weekend Morning impression at 10:05 Jenny was happily asleep on a kitchen chair.  I put my plastic board carrying all my kit down on the table:

"Thank you for my new sitting place, puny human"

     Later, after I had chivvied her from sitting on my books, I got up to pour more tea and returned to find:

"Yes, puny human?"

     One day, Jenny, one day we'll identify the relevant DNA strands or that particular bit in the feline cerebellum - and then watch out!

Ah.  Coincidence.  That's MY Seat
Been hit twice by the Coincidence hammer, last night and this morning.
     Whilst Conrad composes the blog he usually plays music, via i-pod or a list assembled on Grooveshark; silence is our enemy!  Last night the tunes were from Grooveshark, including Orbital's covers of the "Doctor Who" theme tune.
     Blog finished I zapped on over to Twitter to promote things and Blimey!  First Tweet at the head of the list is one by Neil Gaiman - about Doctor Who.  It being ten years since it came back.*
     Then today, a concatenation of coincidence arrives.  My current reading material is two books,** "Mason And Dixon" and the "History of the 51st Highland Division".  Whilst reading Chapter 50 of "M & D" I came across a mention of the Black Watch and Scottish pipers present in Continental America.  Here is a supporting photo:

Chapter 51!

     This is an echo of a coincidence last year, reading about the 29th Division who were present at Gallipolli; and a scene in Tom's "The Crying Of Lot 49" is also set at Gallipolli.
     Thomas Pynchon: to read him is to automatically generate coincidence, it seems.

"Harvey"
I beg your pardon for bringing this splendid film*** up again.  I neglected to report that it's IMDB rating is a colossal 8.1, meaning a work of absolutely outstanding quality.^

NO!  ART DEPARTMENT GET IT RIGHT!

     Oh, and in these days of astronomical sums paid for film rights and screenplays, Universal acquired the rights for $750,000.  But those are 1950 $$$, so they probably need to be multiplied a few times to bed-in 21st Century style.

Late-breaking news:  Art Department redeem selves and avoid hideous punishment

     I also neglected to say that Harvey is actually a "Pookah", a type of spirit described in Irish folk-lore.  Here's the Wiki link if you wish to know more:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C3%BAca

     Okay.  Enough Harvey for one day.

Back To Bedlam
In spirit if not actuality.  I did make a comment yesterday that skirted current affairs, getting away with it by referral to the Eighteenth Century, and it is to The Age Of Reason that we now return.
     This is a rather pompous way of referring to - writing.
     As you may know by now, Conrad never ventures to work with anything less than 8 pens, usually 10, with half a dozen more in his pen-case, and a few also left at work just in case.  He works with the fibre-tip out of convenience, but prefers the fountain pen - go away and Google it, I'm not explaining here.
     He also possesses a facsimile quill pen - hang on let me get a photo - 

The pen is mightier than the sword, just mind your spacing

     As used to write in the Age of Reason, and, as should be evident, to write with this one dips the nib in a bottle of ink or an inkpot; there is no reservoir of ink so this needs to be done very frequently, which is rather time-consuming.  Imagine how long the Bard Of Avon took, scratching and scribbling his works out with one of these!
     Conrad, being mighty long in the tooth, remembers at primary school that the desks did have a space for an inkpot - although they were actually long gone.
     Well, here we get to the essence of the article.  Yes, yes, I know I've taken ages to get here.  Whose blog is it?  I won a leather-bound notebook on Red Nose Day and have decided that it will only ever be written upon with a quill pen.

     It really is very inefficient writing with a quill pen, yet I love the end result.  And - bear with Conrad The Unpublished Writer here - it does give me a feel for those authors of yesteryear, scratching away by candlelight.

Well that's the 60 minute deadline up.  Time to scatter BOOJUM! to the electronic corners of the earth!

*  I know I'm old but this makes me feel old.
** One fiction, one non-fiction.  The way I role.
*** The Jimmy Stewart version, obviously - obviously!
^ You don't have to see it.  But we won't be friends again till you do.
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