How Now Brown Cowl

Once Again, I Amuse -
Myself.    Okay, bear with me, this Intro will take a bit of explanation.
     Do you ever get that annoying brain-tickle that comes with a half-remembered tune?
     Given Conrad's immense age and vast number of CDs, this is quite a frequent occurrence, and is one reason he doesn't listen to the radio, since the last thing he wants is come vapid dirge concocted by a studio in Amsterdam, arranged by a music software programmer in Los Angeles and lip-synched by the likes of Justin Re-Launchedbyrecordlabel to go echoing round his head.

The intellectual equivalent of Justin Thingy

     Well, I did find a snippet of music doing a loop in my mind over the past week.  Instrumental, so no singer to pin it down.  Wild processed electronic effects, which narrowed the field a bit (I knew it couldn't be Bach or Beethoven).  Contemporary, which excludes everything pre-2000.
     "Could it be Working For A Nuclear Free City?" I pondered.  I played their "Jojo Burger Tempest" album on the bus home tonight and - Hay Pesto!  It was the track "Brown Owl".
     "How's that?" I mused.  "I've got it now!"
     You know the rest.

A cowl, worn with a scowl.

Mephistopheles
Ah, yes, the very devil of a name!  There is a bit of debate as to where it comes from, although I can tell you where it ends - in German folklore, in the legend of Faust.  You know, that chap who sold his soul to the Devil in return for Ultimate Knowledge.  Or it may have been Forbidden Knowledge, I'm a bit hazy on what the soul-exchange rate was in Medieval Germany.

A Panzerfaust.  Close enough

     Anyway, Mephistopheles.  He didn't actually tempt Faust with the promise of Quite Exciting Knowledge, apparently, being rather more subtle than a Soul Broker jobbing for Lucifer.  No, he only sought out those who were already corrupted.  
     Personally, this smacks a bit of the "I was only following orders" defence.  Just you wait until the Last Trump, Meffy old chap!

I think the Civil Aviation Authority also want a word -

Doctor Who: The Woman Who Lived
I'm terribly sorry* to be so late bringing this incisive review to your eyes, it's just that I have to much to do.
     Well, I liked this one a whole lot less than last weeks, although it did have it's moments.  For one, when the Doctor, in an aside, mentions that it's the Terileptils who burn down London in the 1660s, which only Real True Fans like Conrad would ever get.
     It starts slowly, and Goodness me!  Lady Me, that is.  She spends a good ten minutes banging on about her immortal condition, blah blah blah - GET ON WITH IT!  BLOW SOMETHING UP!  SHOOT SOMETHING!  SAY SOMETHING ONLY A REAL TRUE FAN WOULD GET!

Can't really see this burning an entire city.  Still, if it's in the script -

     She also has a Sinister Companion, who lurks in the bushes.  This is either because he is a terrible sneak and a coward, or his wardrobe is embarrassingly poor.  He has glowing eyes, never a good thing when trying to get into the better London clubs.  He also breathes fire, meaning he could make a fair go of it at county fairs, so if he chooses not to he's probably also lazy.
     Then we have more Lady Me being clingy.  Clingy clingy clingy.  Look, Ishilder, the way to get the Doctor interested is to be mysterious and aloof, not treat him like Tom Jones and practically throw your kirtle at him (no knickers in 1651).

Lady Me's Method Motivator

     The comedy relief promptly show up, two soldiers who are both greedy and stupid, two of Hom. Sap's finer qualities, and who allow the Doctor to escape his bonds and tear off on horseback to London -
     - just an aside here.  This chap plays a mean guitar, is a master archer, knows how to remotely drive a Chieftan tank and can canter with the best of them.  Is there nothing he cannot do**!? -
     Leonardo, Lady Me's scoundrel in chief, emerges from the shadows in order to - er - do something Really Evil.  Yeah.  After Sam Smith gets a reprieve from execution, Lady Me sticks a blue brooch on him, which causes the Really Evil thing to happen - a portal opens in the sky and starts to lambast the locals gathered for the hanging.  Dying for a killing eh?  Except Lady Me recants and saves Sam, which is a bad thing as he's full of awful puns and there can only be one punster in this world***!

Perhaps a soothing cup of mnt tea, Leo old chap?

     Really, you could have cut this episode down by fifteen minutes and only lost Lady Me being whiney.  I hope she learned her lesson, because I'd hate for her to crop up again.


Ethyl Paraben
No!  This is not the heroine from a Thomas Hardy novel, set in the West Country with sheep and winsome young ladies romancing shepherds beneath elm trees.
     It is, if you must know, an anti-fungal preserving agent, present in foodstuffs, and - of course! - in my little bottle of balm.

An Ingredients List - IN POLISH!
Ha!  Yes, as you know Conrad is one of those sad souls who take an interest in the ingredients list on the back of bottles of balm, Ben & Jerry's frozen youghurt and Polish Cherry-flavoured Jaffa Cakes.

Highly polished!

     I know they're cherry-flavoured because I ate them, and there was a picture on the front.  "Cukier" is Sugar, "Syrop glukozowo-fruktozowy" is glucose-fructose syrup, "koszenila" is cochineal, but what on earth is "Jaja"?  

How many words are we at?  Oooh, time to publish.  And maybe tomorrow we'll do the theme of "X"^.



* Actually I'm not, not one bit.
** This is not a challenge, lazy scriptwriters.
*** Me!  What do you mean, "Who can that be?"
^ And maybe we won't, as I am capricious like that.