O! A Banshee With An R.P.G.

Don't Worry - 
Unlike Harvey the Pooka with his deadly bazooka, this lamenting lady is entirely harmless, although she might bore the pants off you.
     In this case "RPG" does not mean "Rocket Propelled Grenade" but rather "Role Playing Game".  You know, like <thinks> Dungeons and Dragons.
     Roll a six or more on a D10 to progress to the next post -

This is a ten-sided dice?

A Little Musical Critique
Aw, look at Simon and Garfish Garfunkel cower in a corner!  You can come out of hiding, lads, you're not the target tonight.
     No, tonight, in a fit of perversity, Conrad is going to put Turin Brakes' "Painkiller" under the spotlight of analytic acerbity.  I do like the full band version of this song, yes I concur Richard Masur, but - Oh dear the lyrics!  So without further ado -

"Batten up the hatches, here comes the cold"

  Er - chaps?  I think it's "batten down".  Nail 'em shut.

"I can feel it creeping, it's making me old"

What is?  Is this the cold?  That's because you took the battens up.

"You give me so much love it blows my brains out"

Good lord, chaps, you need to work on your romantic dialogue a bit!

"You need something better than the bacon and eggs!

NO!  There is NOTHING better than bacon and eggs.  Except bacon, eggs and mushrooms

"The creaking in the walls and the banging in the bed"

Does this house have a great big "CONDEMNED" sign on it, perchance?

"You give me so much love it blows my brains out"

You're exaggerating.  You can't do that twice!

 - and there's more to come.

Today's Language Lesson
 - derived as ever from Thomas Pynchon's "Mason and Dixon" - now up to page 536, so only a couple hundred more to go, or to be endured, depending on which end of Conrad's shaky perspective you sit at.
     "Nidor": never heard this one before and the context didn't give it away, either.  It means "Strong smells, especially those of cooking".  So when I grilled those beef burgers tonight, it generated nidor.*

Chickenidor?

     "Ecce! Cafeat": Aha, now Conrad did guess this from the context: "Behold! Coffee", and this also translates another phrase - "Ecce Homo" - "Behold the man".

Ecky thump.  Close enough.

Look, Coincidence, This Has To Stop
As you may be aware, the Murdermobile parked in the Mansion's heavily-defended garages on the Motor Service Level - just across from the Arsenal and diagonally opposed to the Vampire Chicken Roost - is a Fiat Qubo.
     Now, these are not common cars.  Not only are they not common, ours is a bright shade of green that is also uncommon.  Uncommonly uncommon.
     Come on!  This morning, what did I see driving past on Great Ancoats Street but a bright green Fiat Qubo?  With driver and passenger.

Ours comes with atomic howitzer, acid throwers and Parking Ram as standard

     Five minutes later, at the crossing on Miller Street, what do I see but another bright green Fiat Qubo - a different one since it only had the driver in.
     I wonder how close to breaking this pushes the laws of probability?

Please, Think Of The Weasels!
What is it with adverts and the excessive use of "cute" animals?  Conrad is a mild-mannered and amiable man whom it is hard to annoy,***but it did rather get his goat bother him quite a bit - of course the source of the annoyance was The Metro.^
     First, dogs:

It's advertising - sorry, attention span not long enough

     I think this is a common front page advert but frankly I have better things to do with my time than check back issues of the Chip Shop Wrapper.
     Then cats:

Cats.  Making dog noises.  A comedy classic!  Sorry, a tragedy classic.  

     This is O2, which is the oxygen molecule in chemical notation, and Conrad wonders if the advertisers were short of this particular element, leading to lightheadedness.  Also stupid.  Plenty of stupid.
     Then a bush-baby (I think):

Creepy little rascal, ain't he?

     Imagine waking up one night to find one of those sitting on your chest, looking silently at you. 
     And finally - squirrels:

Dog buns!^^  Not even British RED squirrels!

     What On Earth!  Good lord aloft, is there a collective madness at work in the advertising agencies of this nation?  I think we should be told the truth <cont. Page 96>

The Metro
I normally shovel several layers of shellack^^^ over Tomorrow's Papier Mache, but I will give them a muted nod and grunt of approval, as today in "60 Seconds" they interview the very wonderful Dame Helen Mirren.

Delicious. 
Talented!  I meant talented!

     That is all.

Right!  60 minute deadline is up, and we're at 841 words -

* Did Rodin cook for himself?  If so then you'd have Rodin nidor!**
** Sorry.
*** Utter lies - the truth courtesy of Mister Hand
^ This explains a great deal.
^^ See what I did there?  See, the article is ab - O you do.
^^^ I don't know what this is, although it sounds like a terrible fate.  Just terrible.

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