" - I'm from Iowa. I only work in outer space."

You Guessed It
Coincidence again.  Conrad happens to be watching an episode of Star Trek - "What Are Little Girls Made Of" - and his mind wandered a bit*, as it tends to do, whilst recalling that great quote from Star Trek IV - "You're from outer space?"  to which Kirk responds "No, I'm from Iowa.  I only work in outer space."
     Of course you have to take my word for it, but be reassured that I never lie**.
     Then, mere minutes later it gets quoted in a manic sci-fi story I'm reading on the internet.
     What are the chances of that happening?
     Phil, got any input?

"Let me guess - you're reading Thomas Pynchon, aren't you?  Goes with the territory."

Cat-Fu: A Short Photo Essay
Cat owners!  Let Conrad explicate a few of the moves your beloved/infuriating/eerily intelligent live-in lord or lady of the household may throw.

"The Leaping Butterfly"

     Poised like an Olympic athlete, here the cat is pretending to sleep, until food.

"The Drunken Scholar"

     Here the cat is expressing disgust at lack of food.

"The Bin of Groats"

     Still no food, so cat is not paying you any attention, until food, or attention, or - even better - food and attention.

"The Fearful Pantechnicon"

     Cat thinks she hears food.

Prostrated By Heat
It gets rather warm in the kitchen when the sun is out, and Edna had been left to the tender mercies of Conrad whilst Wonder Wifey went to trawl the charity shops in Royton.  As I have said before, watching her is like watching a small child wearing a fur coat - silence is worrying, unless she's asleep on your knees.  Hence I realised things were rather quiet in the kitchen -

You might well say "Awwww!"

     - only to be reassured by this picture of domestic bliss.
     It won't last, one of them will wind up the other eventually.  Cats and dogs, it's what they do.

Conrad Displays His Ignorance Of The Modern World
 - and is cocky enough to treat this as a badge of honour <snaps fingers at world, hurts self, tries not to cry>. Take this, for instance:

Er - what?

     This is about that scourge of modern society, the mobile phone, you can't fool Conrad.  What the technical details amount to I have no idea, but - you probably guessed this already - being a pedantic nit-picker I did read the small print.
     That £34.99 figure for a monthly total?  £35 a month my Hairy Underside!  You have to commit to 2 years of payment plus another £30, making £870 total.  You could buy an awful lot of books with that.
     Don't flee in terror - there's more -

"IDE"?  PyCharm? Django? Python?

     Another of the Twits vapid, pointless and mystifying Suggested Posts.  Conrad has ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA what any of this means.  Nor, given his level of distaste for the bafoons who promote this tat, is he inclined to find out.

Shout! Shout! Let It All Out!
A lyric from Tears For Fears, sorry couldn't resist when I saw this photo on the front page of the Fish & Chip Wrapper:

Clearly, letting a whole lot of it out

     They're shouting.  Why are they shouting?  Why, in order to stay awake.  
     After all, it is Wimblenod.



  
* I am getting-on rather a bit, so I have an excuse.
** <this is a lie> - addendum courtesy Mister Hand