Good Friday, Better Saturday

Because Of Ice Cream!
Yes indeedy Ally Sheedy, Conrad of ice cream is needy.
     It makes sense to me.  Yesterday I had no ice cream left, having scoffed it all at work as my Start The Day The Ice Cream Way breakfast.  Today I had Mint Chocolate Chip!

Just out of shot: six toasted crumpets

     Any day that begins with ice cream is automatically better than one without; don't forget, we're talking about ICBM* here.

A Very Rare Event
As part of my dog-sitting duties, I make a point of lying on the settee, so that Edna can lie on me - when in the Upstairs Lair I'm on an Ergonomic Stool that pitches my lap at 45 degrees, so she can't sit there but tends instead to sulk on the bed - and whilst there I thought "Let's put television on, and on a commercial channel, so I can be annoyed at the adverts!"

Edna, comfortable on well-padded Conrad

     Actually I happened to intercept an episode of "Agents of SHIELD" at the very beginning, and what do you know, it passed the time very pleasantly:

Evidence

  I think it was called "Who Are You" and focussed initially on Lady Sif, who - drama staple and cliche combined - had lost her memory.  There she was, wandering on the shore carrying a whacking big sword, proclaiming "I must find Cava" to all who were listening.

Available in all good off-licences and supermarkets, love

     There were some references that meant you needed to see previous episodes - the Obelisk, HYDRA, Howard the Duck** - but it chugged along as a standalone episode well enough.
     One scene bothered Conrad the Pedant - when the VTOL "Bus" comes in to land and turned it's jets to vertical, not one bit of clutter, paper or dust comes up from the hangar floor.  How realistic is that?
     Although, given that we have Asgardian warriors, memory-sapping Truncheons, a man brought back from the dead and force-fields, this may be quibbling a little.

Ah Yes The Meerkats
Unfortunately - or fortunately, depending on your point of view - the adverts during "Agents -" were mostly bland and uninteresting, apart from the latest Meerkat one, which was as amusing as ever.  They got to knock down Arnie and scald him with coffee.  Snicker.

Sergei, time to engage Reverse

     - er - what are they advertising, again?

"The History of the 51st Highland Division"
If not interested in military history or the official volumes on British divisions that fought in the First World Unpleasantness, you are permitted to move on.
     For the rest of you:  Conrad didn't realise that the 51st was a Territorial division. This meant it's members were not obliged to serve overseas when war broke out.  No statistics are given for how many refused to go overseas, but for the Seventeenth Division the refuseniks appear to number about ten per cent.

Also known as "Devils in skirts"

     Next up was the battle of the mines, which sounds at times like a description of war between trolls and dwarves straight out of Tolkein, fought underground and occasionally in pitch darkness.  A little explanation: both sides would drive a shaft vertically in their front line, then dig out horizontal galleries to a position underneath the enemy, place a ton of explosives there and then blow it - literally - sky high.  They would also attempt to detect the other side's galleries being dug, and "camouflet" them - that is, use a small explosive charge in their gallery to shatter the enemy's.  The author describes how the Scottish tunnelers took particular professional pride in doing this successfully, being far more impressed with this than blowing up "mere infantrymen".

Danger!  Killer troglodytes at work

     Then there is the "Stokes Gun", as it was known then, or Stokes Mortar as we call it now.  The descendants of this lethal drainpipe still serve with the British army now.  The Germans detested it, as a well-trained Stokes team could put 10 bombs in the air before the first one landed, and the History recounts an ambitious shoot on the German trenches that fired 1200 bombs over the course of a day - over 5 tons of bombs.  

 - also breaks down for convenient carriage to any party you get invited to.

It was also used in  1917 as an improvised anti-aircraft gun - not sure how they fused it to burst at altitude - with a range of about 800 yards.  They didn't down any German aircraft but did force them to stay at height.  Conrad's never heard of the Stokes Gun being used in this way elsewhere.  Singular.

The great-grandson in action

Enough of war and misery!  On to more cheerful matters -

"Mason And Dixon"
Well now what have we here?  A giant invisible Golem, standing as tall as the trees in the forests that Mason and Dixon are chopping down to measure their boundary line all the better.
     Conrad is not - let's first explain what a "Golem" is.  It's a staple of Jewish folklore and the classic example is the Golem Of Prague, a clay man brought to life with the inscription in Hebrew on it's forehead of "Emet"  ("Truth").  To deactivate your golem, the first letter is removed, yielding "Met" ("Death").

NO!  Get it right or Mister Hand and his Bamboo Skewer of Pain will pay a visit.
I'm sorry, Art is such an idiot.

     Quite why and how a sixty-foot Golem turns up in the woods of Pennsylvania is another question, which will probably get answered about the same time as the Glowing Indian, the Black Dog and how Lepton Castle was discovered in a rustic cabin in the woods.

The Golem and his dad

This Is A Bit Dull -
Conrad took a look at the corner kitchen cabinet and realised he'd forgotten what was stored in there.

Before

     This is a four-day holiday, he can afford to give up some time to a bit of sorting out.  Still, there's no denying kitchen cleaning is dull, dull, dull, so here's a screenshot from "Harvey" to tide you over:

Aunt Veta confesses all.  Rashly, as it turns out.
(They lock her up)

     I did discover a few items that I'd forgotten about - the cookie-cutters, camomile tea, a glass bowl, cupcake caption markers - and decided to keep the ready-to-roll icing.  After all, a best-by date of 2013 is practically up to date, isn't it?

After.  Yes it IS different!

* Ice Cream Breakfast Man
** Only joking