The Creepiness Of An Almost Empty Office

IF You Have Been Paying Attention -
Then you'll recall that Conrad works in that veritable state-of-the-art wonderland, The Electric Goldfish Bowl.  

An artist's impression

Normally it's a bustling, folk-filled noisy workplace, viz:

Ignore the large unseemly grey lump in mid-shot

     As you can see, the lights are on and there are obviously people present, as well as the man responsible for the international pen drought.
     Today, being mercenary and foresaking much of a lie-in, Conrad went to do overtime in the office, alongside Katie, Anna and Pete.  Thanks to ergonomic electrical efficiency those overhead lights you see in the photo above will turn off if they fail to detect activity beneath them for several minutes.  When the office is bursting with with a brouhaha of bodies, this isn't a problem.  In a dark mid-afternoon in late November, when the lights turn themselves off sequentially, leaving you in a small oasis of illumination because there's only four of you, not one hundred and fifty, it creates a sense of eeriness.
     Hence the post title for today.  Thank you for reading this far.

Carnival Of The Animals - I Did Warn You
Although this might not be quite what you expected.
Mouse

The splendid Don Cheadle in "Devil in a Blue Dress"

     Although he's not big, Mouse is definitely scarey.  He likes guns, he likes killing, he likes killing people with guns.

See?

Moose
This is Moose Heyliger, one of the characters in "Band of Brothers".

Can't see the resemblance myself

     He doesn't die, just gets very seriously injured.

Goose
This swaggering aerial bandit is from that hymn to fighter jets, "Top Gun".

Again, where is the resemblance?

     Anthony Edwards back in his more hirsute days.

     There you go, three animals, in a way.  Why?  Why not!

A Caboose
At a considerably younger age than he is now, Conrad once had a tee shirt bearing the legend "Caboose" upon it, and he's never bothered to look up exactly what one of these is until now, since it rhymes with "Moose" and "Goose".
     So, it's a railway car* that accomodates the train's staff, which can be quite a number given the size of these trains and the length of territory they have to cross.  Art?

Did Moose or Goose ever travel in a caboose?

The N.M.E.
That is, the "New Musical Express".  Back in the day this weekly was one of the Big Three of British weekly musical papers, alongside "Sounds" (died 1991) and "Melody Maker" (died 2000) <two sad faces>Sounds went in for metal and "Kerrang" is actually a spin off, so the old rag's DNA continues still.  Melody Maker was more your prog rock paper, whilst the NME fully embraced punk and New Wave.  Journo David McCullough had very similar musical tastes to mine; wondering what happened to him, I did a quick search and he seems to have bowed out of the music scene circa 1985 and gone into teaching.  The two enfants terrible of the NME were Tony Parsons and Julie Burchill, who could be relied upon to hack bands apart with all the subtlety of a drunkard wielding a chainsaw.
     Let me illustrate:

I remember reading this -  a 4 page review of "Apocalypse Now" that Copolla said was the best he'd read

    Sadly, Real Life catches up with us all, and I witnessed Tom at work reading what looked like The Metro, except it was titled "NME".  Apparently it is now free, and you get what you pay for.

How have the mighty fallen

     Conrad flicked through it and analysed thus:  50% adverts; of the articles 75% are made up of photographs; of the text 50% is in VERY BIG FONT.
     Plus Tony Parsons is now a novelist and Julie Burchill apparently found out where all the pies were**.  

You What?
The Foobs manage a 50% success/failure rate with their Suggested Posts.  First, let me allow you to witness this:

"Looking for a drone on Black Friday"?
NO!

     If you are familiar with the shopping habits of your humble scribe, then you will know he goes to bookshops, Fopp! and the Co-Op on the way to the bus stop.  That's it.  Plus, if I go shopping, I know what I want and go get it, then I go home.
     WHEN HAVE I EVER EXPRESSED AN INTEREST IN BLACK FRIDAY!
     WHEN HAVE I EVER EXPRESSED AN INTEREST IN BLACK FRIDAY!
     I realise this is the same protest twice, but I wanted to make the point.  Beyond that -
     WHEN HAVE I EVER EXPRESSED AN INTEREST IN DRONES!
     I think the bolding makes my point.  The only drones Conrad has any interest in are the ones that come attached to bagpipes.
     Yet, look at this -

Correctly, "Django Django"

     I actually have an album of theirs, purchased at Fopp! thanks to the staff playing it over the PA, the cunning wallet-vacuuming rascals.
     I'm still very cross, however.



* We use this word because caboose is South Canadian
** She was a lot crueller to others in her day, believe me.