That's Not Bill Shatner - It's Gerald Ratner!

I'm Slowly Moving Away From The Trek Click-baiting
Yes what ho, Ivor Novello.  Moving slowly yet nevertheless moving.  Let's face it, the two most fanatical Trek fans on the planet were beginning to get restive, and when they're the Combat Crew Commander and his deputy at Pine Forks Strategic Air Command Minuteman Missile Base, you tiptoe over their feelings.  Hi Mitch!  Hi Greg!  
     Anyway, Gerald Ratner -

It's a bling thing

     Conrad, as you well know, has no time for the human affectation of wearing allotropes of carbon set in heavy metals*, so his awareness of Gerald is limited to a foolishly honest speech he made to an audience about what tawdry gimcracks his business sold.  Now, Bill Shatner would never have done that.  He'd have done a roll across the stage, gotten his shirt torn, punched a Hapless Bystander and vanished into the night with the prettiest woman in the audience.

Anyway, it's late and I should be getting on with what might turn out to be several thousand words.



Lee's Pome
Young Lee left us on Tuesday, a day earlier than expected, meaning that Anna had to come prod your humble scribe into throwing some doggerel together quick smart.  I managed, with the baseline information that Lee is off to do a Masters in Forensic Science at Manchester Met.  Good luck to him!  
     Anyway, the pome:

We’re gathered to say goodbye to Lee

The lad is off to study at University

No lightweight humanities course for he –

FORENSIC SCIENCE! Is his destiny.

You’ve a lot to answer for, CSI!

Putting a dreamy twinkle in Lee’s eye,

Promoting an ambition that means goodbye

To us.  Hello! to ninhydrin skin-staining dye.

When qualified, Lee, it’s not all hi-tec hi-jinks.

There’ll still be dirty cups and squalid sinks.

You can pose like David, but, methinks,

Forensics is really using PCs and making stinks.

Unlike TV, life’s not shot in orange filter

So your job versus dream will be off-kilter

This negativity might, perhaps, act to wilt yer.

Serves you right!  And I hope it guilt’s yer!

Alternative second verse:

You’ve a lot to answer for, NCIS!

Service Delivery is again one man less

Seduced away by David Caruso’s specs

And the laser-chromotography DNA process

    As you can see, I got the organisation wrong in the second verse, so you get a bit extra at the end.
     Most flattering bit - Lee asked for a copy to keep.  Ain't that sweet!

"Almost - too sweet."

That's a lot of text to start with.  Pictures!  Show us pictures!

By The Law Of Averages -
 - even those idiots the Foobs over on Facebook who suggest drivelling inanity like "Cluster-bomb knitting patterns" or "The Cloven-hoof Fish Fanciers Club" get it right once in a while.  Behold the proof of this:

Well, almost right

     Real ales appeal to Conrad, so they manage 50% correct, as your writing entertainer has never been to a racecourse, is not going tomorrow and plans never to go in the future.
     Still, 50% is an improvement over 0%.

More Of Comestibles
Today was the Cancer Coffee Morning, on behalf of the MacMillan Trust, arranged by the lovely Anna**, to which yours truly contributed this:

     This is Halloween Pumpkin Cake, but since it's nowhere near Halloween, you can't get pumpkins in the UK for love, money or a batch of dimethyl cadmium***.  So Conrad used what Wonder Wifey wisely suggested as a substitute, Butternut Squash.  These you can get any time of the year, which is progress as they used to be almost as hard to get as pumpkins.
     The whole layout:

     Of course, given the ganterpies that infest the Seventh Floor, there is little of it left.

Is that the picture/text ratio restored somewhat?  O good.  I do worry so.

Television Programmes: Powers Vs. Poirot
This is only a bit of Conrad pondering whilst the eggs boil, nothing too profound^.  "Powers" is a projection of a possible future versus "Poirot" as an evocation of the past.  We know what the latter looked like and have the ability to judge how close to the truth it gets, in appearance at least.  For "Powers" there is leeway, as we're not dealing with our reality here, but there are limits.  Like most successful science fiction, it Varies Only One Thing, and follows all the ramifications and implications of Superpowers Exist.  You can't change too much or it loses any relevance it might have had.
     There you go!  Two hard-boiled eggs.

Well, there's two of them.
And they're hard-boiled ...

Crikey Dick Van Dikey!  Already over the limit and I've only just begun!  Tish.  Expect a waterfall of wibble tomorrow, gentle reader.

Oh, the blog is late tonight as I was on a late shift, then had to get some food when I got home, all before going and doing the weekly shop.  All this will become un-necessary when I take over the world, of course, but in the meantime an apprentice dictator's got to get his own Cod in Butter Sauce and Jaffa Cakes.

SHOCK HORROR!!!
World dictator's secret weakness revealed!!!

* Diamond rings
** However lovely she gets and stays, and despite all the mentions here, she's still NOT getting a co-producer credit!
*** More of this later
^ Profound comes tomorrow.  There will be a test.