Oh What Gaiety - Here's Some Velleity

I Shall Refrain From Adding An Exclamation Mark
 - as one can have entirely too much of a good thing.  Except Old Golden Hen, unless you take a bath in it*.
     I'm sure you're wondering what "Velleity" is, and so was I up until a minute ago, when lo and behold, Google mighty Google revealed it to mean "a wish", or a feebly-held desire.  Kind of like Conrad and his wanton longing for Annette Peacock.

Gorgeous.  But also a bit potty

     You could compose an entire day's blog around Annette (she's a musician) as you could about how unlucky the Comsat Angels were, and if you're not good one day I will.

"Gravity's Rainbow" By Thomas Pynchon
192 pages in, which is almost a quarter of the way.  I hope you're taking notes on these reports, as you can then impress your intellectual friends without having to go through the bother of actually reading the damn things.  And yes, "Velleity" did come from these pages.  As did "Cretonne"; now you know Conrad is a big fat coward - all my better characteristics! - but I am also a cheese-paring pedantic hair-splitter so of course I went off to look this up - and it's real!  "A heavy cotton fabric with a floral print".  That old lady used it to cover up her unspeakable home-made sweets.
     Then there's "Jenny Greenteeth".  A spectral lady of dubious dining habits - okay, okay, she eats naughty children - and of North West of England origins.  Remember that Tom is a South Canadian - where on earth did he get to hear about Lancashire's ghostly folklore?

Jenny only really wanted someone to love her -

"Nabob"
I'm sorry, I'm sorry, this just kinda popped into my mind yesterday before lunch and so I had to go look it up.
     "A Muslim official or governor under the Mogul empire", and also an obsolete word for a person of immense wealth and riches.

"Me?  Modest little me?  Conrad you flatterer you!"

Why I Cannot Bathe In Old Golden Hen
Even if I wanted to.  The best I could do now is stand in a bucket and have people pour cans of it over me.  I imagine there are folk out there who would pay for the chance to do this, especially work colleagues.
     Anyway, enough of my loyal comrades.

BEFORE

Taken far enough away you can't see the grime ...

DURING

You have to admit, Old-Golden-Hen retaining qualities not good

     It'll take a couple of days before the AFTER shots come up, but don't worry!  You will get to see them, o yes indeed.

Shakeshaft
If you read my Internet Guide To Make Millions The BOOJUM! Way, you'll appreciate that Conrad likes to batten onto a theme and suck the creatives juices from it, till it is but a dessicated husk**.  In the case of mocking the Bark of Avon, the potential is there to torment his literary legacy for months.  So let's get to it:

"I do not like yond Cassius.

In fact I think he's an ass-ius.

He has a lean and hungry look,

The skinny conspiratorial crook.

I distrust his mewling jabber

He strikes one as a backstabber.

He thinks too much,

The bag of slutch.

Such men are dangerous

Kick him off the bus!"

Harhar, Will, take that!

Meanwhile, At Strategic Rocket Force's Base Number 16, Novi Palatinsk
Let me introduce you to Misha and Grisha.  Formally, Mikhail and Grigori.  Bestest of pals, they are two Russian conscripts serving in the Strategic Rocket Forces, out at the Novi Palatinsk site.  A combined mass of forty stone of muscle, they are clever lads, bored silly out at Number 16 as there's nothing to do - they are fifty kilometres from the nearest Siberian village - and the evil Americans not declaring war, all they get to do is polish the worktops and shine their boots.  They dream of perhaps making it to Moscow one day, where sophisticated womenfolk wear skirts and perhaps suspender belts, several quantum levels of elegance above the local lasses at Uralmash Traktorfabrik, who have heard of skirts ...

Misha:  Damn it, Grisha, that was my last rouble!
Grisha:  I'm not climbing down after it.  And payday is a week off.

     To stave off the boredom, and to learn a foreign language, both have been reading the works of Shakespeare, which led to a discussion recently:

     MISHA: This mocking rascal Conrad, I feel we should do something about him
     GRISHA:  What?  And keep your eyes off the Big Red Buttons.  You make me nervous.
     MISHA: Forsooth, he is verily taking the mickey out of the Bark of Avon -
     GRISHA:  That's "Bard".
     MISHA: The cream-faced loon!  He's got me doing it now!
     GRISHA: Perhaps - perhaps we could set him up.  Get the Spetznaz*** onto him.
     MISHA: That'd never work.  He's a big fan of "Doctor Who", and so are the Spetznaz.
     GRISHA: Really?  I had them pegged more for "Star Trek".
     MISHA: Never mind that!  Conrad.  What do we do about him?
     GRISHA: Let us sleep on the problem.  Besides, President Putin probably has plans ...

Misha and Grisha's ride to work
(NOBODY cuts them off!)

* See below
** This is me being Shakespearean.  Good, innit?
*** Russian special forces.  Not bad, but not up to SAS/SBS standards.  Sorry, Mish & Grish.