Validated, Vindicated And Verified!

What Did I Say?
Earlier this morning about twelve hours ago?
     "Yeah, Sun, you're here NOW.  Where are you going to be in ten hours?"

Here it is after ten minutes!

     Behind a screen of grim grey clouds, that's where, after a morning of driving rain that fell as a wall of water from the sky*.

Conrad about to be boot-clad

     So here I am putting on my shoes, rather than trainers.  I know, I know, this is very small news in the scale of things - okay, takes off your shoes, go paddle in the bath and then put your shoes back on, and leave them on for eight hours.  See how you feel about wet feet then ...

Oh! Coincidence!  Er - Fancy Meeting You Here
Not one but two strikes of the coincidence hammer.  Yesterday I posted about Chink Dorman-Smith -

Chink, cap raffishly askew

 - who was an officer in the Northumberland Fusiliers.  At lunchtime I was reading Siegfried Sassoon's "Memoirs of an Infantry Officer" where he recounts meeting an officer from - yes, the Northumberland Fusiliers.  Given the timeframe (early 1916) it's unlikely to have been Chink - but then again ...
     Second whack of coincidence-hammer attack came with Sophie's** posting about ferrets, and her dad responding with a crack about "Shredni Vashtar".  This is bordering on the uncanny, since it's a short story by an author not well known now - "Saki", the pen-name of H. H. Munro, and is a tale I remember well from reading it in "Alfred Hitchcock -" and I forget the title, a book of horror stories anyway.

I think Clovis was a talking cat, but stand ready to be corrected.

     On the bus this morning, reading "Operation Sea Lion" by Peter Fleming*** - an amusingly citric read, by the way - who gets mentioned?  That's right, Saki.
     I'm sure there's a perfectly logical DON'T SNEAK UP ON ME LIKE THAT!

Sodium Laureth Sulfate
As you surely know by now, Conrad is a poisonous old pedant who can be relied upon to analytically squeeze the joy out of every passing moment of life^.  See this list of ingredients on the back of a bottle of handwash:

Second ingredient in

     If you go look at any of your ingredient lists on the back of bottles and jars in your bathroom, you'll find SLS on the back of nearly all of them.
     So what is it, apart from being the kind of name eeeevil New Age parents might inflict on their daughter?
     It is a detergent and surfactant, with considerable foaming action, and is similar to soap.  What's that, you ask?  What is it's formula?  O I thought you'd never ask!

CH3(CH12)10CH2(OCH2CH2)nOSO3Na

     BOOJUM! - education and entertainment in one large white-haired package^^.

Puny Humans!  Stop Picking On Conrad!
Thank you Manisha, for merely observing that Conrad has ice cream for breakfast and for not making any value judgements.
     However - "however" repeated ten times over - I have been getting a lot of stick for my angled monitor.  Which see:

I like to dramatise.  Look at the angle on that!

     "Oooh! Oooh!  Conrad, you are breaking all the rules of acceptable office conduct with your wonky screen!" I heard all day yesterday and today.
     What, are the Office Posture Police going to come tell me off?
     When I look at this monitor I am leaning on the desk at an angle.  At an angle!  So it appears level to me.
     Also, it is not a "wonky screen".  It's an ANGLED MONITOR!
     That is all.  Thank you for reading.

The Metro
Ah, not one but two pieces of scrivel generated by the Table-Leg Support.
     Okay, first off I am not going to apologise about the poor quality of this photograph, because the subject material <wince> see for yourself -

I - really, words fail me.
Oh, no, wait a minute, they don't

     This is wrong on so many levels, it will take me weeks of therapy to get over it.
     A superhero powered by green tea?  If tea is all it took, matey, then Conrad would be out fighting supervillains^^^at the weekend after his gallon of English Breakfast, Darjeeling and Russian Caravan.
     I am minded, however of Dan Dare.  And if any of you dare to even furrow a brow, let alone ask the question, then yes, out of the airlock you go.
     The Dan I refer to is from the early years of 2000AD, when they had hold of the rights to him and were grimly determined to squeeze every ounce of profit artistic benefit out of him.  They ended up trying to turn him into a superhero with a spandex uniform and a power glove.

Art by the immortal Dave Gibbons

     Where was I?  Oh yes, ranting and tanting.  Second item of scrivel coming right up:

No lying this time about "Four pages" - obviously they heed the wrath of BOOJUM!

     "Rita" they loudly declare.  Rita.  Ah, yes, Rita.
     Rita who?  Another of these Dog Buns! single-name would-be-celebrities, in Conrad's opinion, since the only famous Rita he is aware of is Rita Coolidge, unless this is the personification of Rita the Meter Maid.

Whoops!  Already at over 900 words, and I was about to post a long text piece about "Superheroes With Their Pants Down" concerning Black Widow - put your tongues back in, chaps, this is metaphor only.  Maybe tomorrow.

In the meantime, Chin chin old sport, and don't let any Sprong near your vole collection!

* Excuse my pretentiousness.  I like to dramatise.
** Not this Sophie, that Sophie.
*** Yes, brother of the more famous Ian.
^ You can jump right into the Comments & dispute this if you like. Any time. Aaany time.
^^ With a Hairy Underside
^^^ Or being one, he's a bit amoral like that