Evil Chief O'Brien - No I Ain't Lyin'!

Actually I Am
 - but you should be used to that by now.  Chief O'Brien is the Irish Transporter Chief in Star Trek The Next Generation and The Babylon 5 Rip-Off Deep Space 9.  Here he is being evil:

Kind of.  Sorta.  Okay, not at all.

     Only a hair-splitting pedant would point out that it's actually actor Colm Meaney being a bit of a git in "Alan Parker: Alpha Papa"*.

Right!  Normally the blog begins with a photograph of Conrad's dining arrangements, but today was different.  Viz:

Foliage trimmed

     A haircut so severe it stopped the monster in the cupboard from emerging.  Getting this done at Pepe's meant a long delay in travelling to Manchester, and time constraints prevented me from getting a delicious grilled cheese sandwich at Northern Soul, nor of throwing money at the till in Travelling Man in return for buying comics.
     I did get to Fopp, herein the haul:

"Fury", "Lucy" and "A Walk Among The Tombstones"

     I saw Fury at the cinema, but the other two were <ahem-hem-hem> ones.  However, The Rule is, if I do that and like them, I have to buy them.  So I did.

Cherry Ghost, M83 and the mighty Chemical Brothers

     I've not heard any tracks from Cherry Ghost or the Bros, but the M83 has one of the most infectious dance tunes about people being transmogrified by psychotropic frogs that you'll ever hear.

Doctor Who The Trailer
Caught this on television recently, with the bold, even possibly overstated headline:

BORN TO SAVE THE UNIVERSE

"So - no pressure, eh?"

The Great British Bake Off
I know you may be sitting castigating your humble scribe on how lax and lazy he is, the GBBO being on Wednesday and this being Saturday, but - it's my blog and I can type up whatever I want whenever or not.  Actually I was at a gig on Thursday so the notes didn't get typed up and there wasn't time enough to do it last night.
     Enough pre-amble.  Take up your runcible spoons!
     The theme was that of "Free From", and the Signature bake was to be a cake made without sugar.  So our amateurs would be using a syrupy substitute - honey, dates, agave nectar, treacle and - another first for Conrad that he hadn't heard of before - mulberry molasses.  Typically our anaesthetist Tamal injected his cake with a syringe, which is impressive, although his statement about being rubbish at maths is a little worrying.

Would YOU let him gas you?

     The Technical was a rather tricky one - 12 identical gluten free pitta breads.  Conrad has made the normal version, which was easy enough with a recipe.  Given that the Technical omits lots of important details, making a gluten free version is difficult.  Ian and Nadiya did well, Tamal poorly and I felt sorry for Alvin, who appears not to have ever encountered a pitta bread in his life before.
     Finally the Showstopper.  A dairy-free ice-cream roll.  Pretty tricky as the bakers have to make the ice-cream and the sponge and the jam, and manage their time to ensure that it doesn't fall apart in a deluge of melted ice cream because the sponge and/or jam were too hot.  The background noise of ice-cream machines echoed through the tent, a sound Conrad is intimately familiar with - although these models were top of the range £300 versions.  Alvin's secret weapon was "Buko Pandan", a radioactively green flavouring from the Phillipines.

- it also glows in the dark**

     Here we are only in week four and there are some extremely elaborate designs being tried out here, Nadiya's in particular being quite the artwork.
     Now - spoilers ahead -












I warned you!







Star Baker:  Nadiya     Going Home: Ugne

Time management and heat, remember?

Pens Envy
Yes this is safe for work - go back and read the post title closely.

There you go

     Dom had been cleaning out his locker and discovered a large store of pens, very nearly as many as Conrad has about him on a daily basis.  Don't forget from earlier this week:

All the pens.  All the time.

A Pome For Russell
Russ is moving out of our team and across to People Support, who deal with horribly complex stuff like redundancy calculations.  They get paid more, and deserve it in my opinion because it sounds like stressful work.  Anyway, Conrad threw together a pome for the lad, and don't worry about the ending, this is BOOJUM! and it's all SFW:

A POME FOR RUSSELL

Russell don’t like us no more.

He thinks us all an utter bore,

And he’s sick of being poor,

So he’s moving across the floor

To People Support and earnings galore

Such a job would make me nervous

Dealing with stuff like Death in Service,

Terminations that need reverses,

A workload that brings out curses

And put Russ in need of nurses.

I warn you, Russ, that altogether

People support is heavy weather

You’ll need Dumbo’s magic feather

Nor will there be time to blether

With your favourite Aunty, Heather.

Traditionally, we now wish you luck

But actually Russ we think you suck –

Being a man down means we’re stuck

We can no longer pass the buck.

Russell Prenderghastly, you selfish –

-          Rascal.

      

Whilst not exactly deathless prose, it did raise a titter or two.  Which is as much as can be expected.

Done better today than last night - 3 out of 18 topics covered.  Anyway the time limit has hailed into view again, so -

 - Chin Chin!




* Claims that Conrad himself is a hair-splitting pedant, whilst true, will be ignored.
** And stains the tongue bright green