By Jingo - It's Ringo!

Where Did That Name Come From?
Apparently, according to "Brewer's", it was part of the patter of 17th century conjurers, and may have been derived from the word "Jesus", albeit in a slightly more acceptable form -
     - sorry, what's that?
     You thought I was referring to "Ringo"?
     Because he wore lots of rings, if you must know.

Lord of the - no, can't bring myself to write that.

Where's Wally?
Well well well, where indeed.

Wally

   Yes indeed, here's <takes deep breath> Wally the Wide-eyed Wonder Weasel Wimping His Weary, Wary, Woeful Way Westwards, Wincingly, In A Wet Wolverhampton Winter Wonderland.
     That's 15 "W"'s but I think with a bit of imagination it can be increased.

The Weather
If you remember yesterday's post, I unconsciously called "uphill" "upstream" due to the disgusting weather.
     As they say, what a difference a day makes.

From the same spot

     Blue skies, yes, and a fair amount of surface water - clearly it had only finished raining about an hour earlier.
     Oh you poor people who live in boring lands with predictable weather!

The Metro
One of the things about driving to work is not picking up the latest edition of Tomorrow's Papier Mache.  If we go on with the Letter theme, I would describe this paper as "A tidal-wave of torrid trivial tabloid tat", and feel quite proud of myself*.
     Take "60 Seconds".  Admit it, Metro, people pay you to get their faces in this section, which might be better titled "15 Seconds" as all sorts of non-entities get into it.
     Today, for example - Alex Horne.
     Who?  Perhaps we could redub him Alex Who-rne.

Enough With The Coincidences!  Enough Already!
I blame Thomas Pynchon; I think my reading all his novels back-to-back has somehow breached the laws of causality and chance because these things keep happening.  Either that or Philip K. Dick is somehow tweaking things from his secret underground base on Rockall.
     What was I banging on about on Sunday?  Dad's Army.
     What pops up on Facebook last night after I'd posted the blog?

This.  THIS!

     Notice they mis-spell "Your".
     What - I ask you WHAT! - are the chances of that happening?  
     This kind of thing keeps happe - DON'T SNEAK UP ON ME LIKE THAT**!
     
Superheroes With Their Pants Down
Mary, I keep telling people, it's a metaphor.
     Today we do something a little unusual, and return to a previous character, in this case Hellboy, who has a place close to my heart since I discovered Mike Mignola's comics all them years ago.  Let's see what day-to-day problems being a loveable red demonic-looking supernatural troubleshooter might have.
     1)  Not Horny***.  HB takes great care to keep his stumps ground down, part of his daily ritual being going at them with an angle-grinder.  If he's off in the wilds of Africa or a secret sub-Himalayan city, or the bottom of the sea, he's going to have problems.
     2) And thereby hangs a -  Well, yes, again, this contributes to his overall devil-ish appearance and is also a potential embarassment when rolling under rapidly descending vertical doors.
     3) A weakness for cats.  Cats, you see, have long been considered the intimate familiars of witches.  And HB - well, look at him ...

Shakeshaft
This never gets old for me!
     I don't care about you, it's my blog and I'll insult the Barf of Avon if I feel like it.
     And I feel like it.

"Brevity is the soul of wit."

Of course, Bill, you mewling nit!

Ranting on at length is bad.

I refer you to BOOJUM!'s Conrad.

     Well it makes me laugh.

Star Trek (The Original Series): "Turnabout Intruder"
I watched this again last night for probably only the second time ever.  It was the last ever episode of the original series, and whilst not a particularly strong entry, it is enjoyable for a couple of reasons.  

WHACKING BIG SPOILERS AHEAD!

SERIOUSLY - SPOILERS!

OKAY I WARNED YOU -

In this episode we witness Janice Lester, an old flame of Kirk's, use exotic alien technology to swap bodies with him.
     Don't laugh, an episode of "The Avengers" had a similar premise, with Steed and Peel swapping bodies with another couple.
     I can imagine William Shatner having a word with Gene Roddenberry, who wrote this episode.
     Bill Shatner: Look, Gene, I've been noble and heroic for three years, three long long years, and if this is the last episode I wanna go out with a blaze of glory.
     Gene Roddenberry: Really?  Dying whilst saving the galaxy, that kind of thing?
     BS: Er - not exactly, Gene.  I want a real carpet and scenery-chewing scenario here.
     GR: Oh, I see! Turn your character on it's head?
     BS: Exactly!  Make me a real chuffing rascal, an odious cad.
     GR: I'll see what I can do -

Bill having a hammy moment.

     And he did.  We see the Kirk-body inhabited by Janice become an utter tyrant in a matter of hours, ready to execute half the command crew in a fit of pique.  I bet Bill loved being able to ham it up like this!
     The second remarkable thing is that one of the Expendable Nonentities Known As Redshirts - actually tries to fight back when Spock attempts the Vulcan Nerve Pinch, and alerts his comrade outside -

I think this was Gene mixing up the trope a little.  The sly dog.

Well there you are.  I was going to post more about coincidences but I think the space-time continuum couldn't take any more.

Chin Chin!


* Misha and Grisha, I hope you're taking notes.
** Sorry.  Nerves not what they were.
*** No sniggering at the back!