Yesterday, whilst manning the Disaster Recovery Station at Elland, your humble scribe went back to BOOJUM! 2013 and the posts of that July, just to see what was what.
What what what! as the much-missed Jane Meehan used to say. Today the blog is at least a little less pretentious - o the language I used then - and is also considerably less sweary, whilst also being a lot Safer For Work.
Allow me to i) impress you with how witty I was way back then ii) see how far the blog has evolved** and iii) illustrate one of the Great British Obsessions:
For those reading this who live in sunnier climes, allow me a moment of enjoyment. We haven't had a consistent summer here in the UK for years; maybe a week in May and a week in September if we were lucky. So a period of days in July with sun! is something to marvel mildly about. Several years ago I proposed economising the seasons here in Britain: for two weeks in August we would have Summer; for the remaining 11 months and two weeks we would have Slutch, defined as grey, windy, wet and cold. The DoE rejected my idea on the grounds that calendar and pizza makers would be confused and what about Vivaldi?
I could have created and posted this last week or last year and it would still apply.
Anyway - on with the motlei!
Conrad In A Car
To be specific, driving a car***. This is a skill he does not practice that often, and hardly ever on a Friday morning. It did mean he could motor home and do the weekly shop en route, instead of having to bus it and then start from scratch. In fact I'm typing these lines at about the same time I'd be arriving back with the shopping, were I a bus-bound bloke.
Now, as ever in life, there are swings and roundabouts, snakes and ladders, plus and minus^, dimetrodons and dilophosauri^^.
| A dilophosaur on a bad hair day |
So, the plus side: I can play my music VERY LOUD INDEED, and if you are one of those pedestrians who gets annoyed by passing motorists with their windows cranked down playing dreadful rap music noise, then you will be both alarmed and annoyed as you get strange alternative rock bands from Iceland singing in made-up languages booming out of the driver's side. Also, there is no crawling along in traffic, stopping to re-schedule or picking up whole country's worth of people whose bus didn't turn up on that same route.
However, on the minus side, there is 0% time for reading or writing - far too dangerous! Although years ago I had a Car Book present, and when stuck in a traffic jam...
Although, having arrived at work ridiculously early I did have time to read a little and make notes.
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| Page 251 is "A concatenation of conspiranoid speculation" |
Pens
Yesterday Conrad wore a shirt with two pockets, which meant he was able to stick about 18 pens in this dual-accomodation garment, an act that seemed to alarm and offend every staff member he came into contact with.
Don't they understand!? Not only are you not properly dressed without a pen - or ten - the pen is an instrument and artefact of our modern world and iconically and defintively shows our superiority o'er the beasts of the field.
Anyway, today I limited myself to only nine pens:
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| Jowly, scowly and - all in all - pretty fouly. |
Plus the ones in my pencil-case:
Oh, and there were a few hiding at the bottom of my Office Box:
Plus the ever-present ones attached to notebook^^^ and diary:
So no more than 20.
"100 Bloody Acres"
A film advert I saw in The Metro, which just goes to show you, the film came out in 2012, and this is what The Spilt-Tea Soaker-Upper thinks is "contemporary"?
I notice the mention of land, and speculate that this is a film about farming.
Farming.
| Of course, some farms are a little different. Just a little ..... |
Now, I grant you, "Black Sheep" makes sheep-farming both hilarious and hideously scary, but this is very much the exception in films about farming. Oh, and I think "The Living Dead At The Manchester Morgue" also has a bit about farming, which really just gets in the way of the zombies.
Conrad also takes notice of the vulgarism in the title. What, are they going for the "blokey" audience? The ones who decided to watch a film after necking 10 steins each in the Bier Kellar during the 60 minutes of Happy Hour and who subsequently get thrown out of The Bay Horse for pretending to be jockeys?
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| Close enough |
* This sounds frightfully impressive but in actuality I've no idea what it means.
** "Not by much" some would argue, and - they may be right.
*** Those with fears or fantasies of Conrad bundled up, helplessly gaffered-taped into immobility, in the boot of car - are very sick people!
^ The title of Mew's new album which you ought to go out and buy tomorrow
^^ I think one of these is a carnivore, and one a herbivore, but I'm not exactly sure, and how likely is anyone reading this going to go check?
^^^ After a few pints of Old Golden Hen this becomes "The Journal", with capitalisation.
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