The Anarchic Arctic Char Of Bruce Grobelaar

I Will Stoutly Maintain That This Is Possible
Bruce Grobelaar, for those of you who have been living up a pole in the middle of the Gobi Desert for the last three decades, was a goalkeeper for a football team - I forget which, it's a minor point* and doesn't get in the way of the story - and he gained infamy upon being accused of taking bribes in order to throw matches.
     I should elaborate:  " - taking bribes in order to throw football matches", not the contents of a packet of Swan Vesta.  He might have done that as well, the media wasn't really clear on any pyrotechnic pitching activity -
     - where was I?
     Oh yes, Bruce.  Well, I'm pretty sure the team he played for were well-off, and so he would be as well.  The two things kind of go hand-in-hand, or hand-in-glove if you're a goalkeeper.**So!  He could afford to have rare and expensive fish stocked in his ornamental ponds (if he has any).
     The Arctic Char is a very rare fish in the UK!
     Quite how it would be anarchic is a matter for speculation, and another blog.

Cloudy Lemonade
This continues the theme of "What's in this fizzy swill that I'm addicted to and drink far too much of?" of the last few days.  I now give you Cloudy Lemonade:

As it says on the bottle

     And the list of ingredients:

Look!  That counts as one of my Five-a-day, surely?

     Up to a whole 4% lemon juice.  That means a whole 8 grams of lemon if one consumes the whole bottle, and surely - surely! - counts as one of the 5 a day?

Still Out
I'm going to recycle a photo from earlier this week, because I can, and because it means I don't have to drive back into Manchester, park, walk to the Electric Goldfish Bowl, get in through the back, take a photo, walk back to the car, drive home and download the picture so I can upload it again.

     I wonder if there would be comedy mileage in counting the days until the bulbs get replaced?
     I'll let you know.

"Into Battle"
Ah, I can see your sad little faces lengthen and the light in your eyes dim ever so much.
     "But Conrad!" I hear you wail, "Surely you have finished retailing stories of the 51st Highland Division?"
     Well yes I have.  "Into Battle" is an autobiographical journal written by John Glubb, about his times as an officer in an engineering company during the First Great Unpleasantness.
     Here a little illumination.  Engineers, also called "sappers", carried out specialist construction work behind the lines and in the lines.  Normally they avoided combat as they were expensive to replace if they suffered a lot of holes in themselves.  Glubb went on to a distinguished military career but this is where he started, and he is quite candid about his personal feelings at the time - frequently soaked wet, covered with mud and very cold.

The Black Sapper at work.  When he was being a villain

     He provides a useful description of what the engineers had to cope with in the aftermath of a successful attack - building roads across what he accurately and humourously describes as "Porrige mud" - miles of it!  And also how a light railway was far more efficient at moving supplies up to the front line - with the drawback that the Tommies who had pushed it up the gradient to the front line would take great delight in riding the empty trucks down the gradient, at very great speed and risk to life and limb.

"All aboard for Zillebeek, High Wood and all points west of Thiepval!"

"Mason And Dixon"
By Thomas Pynchon.  Running out of book to bore about, now up to page 622.  He mentions:
     "The Hollow Earth" - I did think this was a C20 conspiranoid nonsense, and was rather surprised to see Tom's characters discussing it.  With a little digging it seems that this had been a folkloric myth, which the Age of Reason killed stone dead, with logic and science.
     I say "dead" but, zombie-like, the myth has rather dogged the heels of Hom. Sap. ever since.  I distinctly remember reading a scientific screed by the Late But Oh So Great Sir Patrick Moore***, where he researched this idea, and found that members of the Nazi Party were consoled that they didn't have to believe in the Hollow Earth theory to be good Nazis^.

Come in Jules Verne, your time is up ...

     "Seneca" - given with no explanation, although the context implies one standing in judgement.  Conrad, he of the rubbish-tip mind, seemed to recollect this person as an item in Classical History.
     One quick Google later, I am validated!  Seneca the Elder wrote a long series of ten books that dealt with legal issues in the forensic sense.
     "Kastoranthropy" - this is quite peculiar.  I know that Tom does shuffle off the logical grid and into what might be termed "Science peculiar fiction" on occasion but here we have what can only be called the "Werebeaver".  I did dance around silly were-creature earlier this year - didn't we end up with a were-whale? - but this is a giant of modern American literature going on about <ahem> werebeavers.

Werebeaver

      There you go.  Let nobody say that Tom is without a sense of humour.

A Beerweaver

"Woman In Gold"
I say!  If Helen Mirren can look quite delicious at 69, there is hope yet for Conrad, who is nearly 187^^.
     I saw an advert in the Fly-Swatter Daily (a.k.a. "The Metro") for this film and immediately suffered from a hot flush.  "Woman in Gold" can surely only refer to that sensual artist Gustav Klimt and his utterly wonderful compositions?

Definitely in gold.

    Oh, and here's Gustav:

Gustav and Zef

     He's smiling!  Do Tortured European Artists know how to smile?  AND - he's cuddling a cat! - instead of <redacted in fear of Anna reading this bit>.  How human and humane is that?

We have now hit the 60 minute rule, also 1,000 words, so time to bale and exhale.

* Yes it is, Dan!
** Probably the first and last time BOOJUM! hosts a football joke.
*** The man deserves a whole post to himself.
^ Yes, I understand that "good Nazis" is an oxymoron.  I'm daft not stupid.
^^ This may be a slight exaggeration.  Or utter tosh.
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