We Return To Normality

No More Themes Today
That's as close to normal as I care to get.  Don't you worry, I've got three more Themed posts already partially-worked up and ready to go.  Mars and the letter "W", if you must know.  Quite how we started working-backwards-through-the-alphabet-from-Z is a bit of a mystery, however it takes a little of the heavy lifting out of being creative so I shall continue.  It'll be interesting when "Q" arrives as the only thing that springs immediately to mind is "Quetzalcoatl", that flying serpent of Meso-American folklore.  

Quetzalcoatl having a light snack.
A flying snake is probably high on some people's phobia lists

Oh, and "Quotidian", because Thomas Pynchon is always using it.  It means "Daily", as in the sense of "Conrad caught the quotidian bus into work, although it was late, slow and overcrowded", so it must have been a First Bus, which inspires me also to think of "Quibble", "Querulous" and "Quaker Oats".
     However!  Enough of the high-scoring Scrabble letters!  let the motley begin!

You What?
Ah, dearie me, the Twits are at it again.  Here is another of their asinine "Suggested Posts":

     Conrad is not sure who this Elle Golding is, although given her apparent musical ability to bare her chest at the world, he will lump her in with that talent-free arse-waggler whatsherface - Smiley Virus?  
     Actually what I wanted to quibble about in a querulous manner was Spotify.  I've not been on the site for years, when it would only let you play a song once, interrupted it with hideous aural adverts and limited your time to an hour a month.  By now it probably wants a pint of blood and your firstborn as a sacrifice.  <Insert very rude word here> off, Spotify!

A Never-Ending Source Of Entertainment
NO!  Not Spotify!  Do keep up - I mean the weather.
     I've yarked on about this many a time.  The weather here in the UK is fabulously and woefully unpredictable.  You can get four seasons in one day, five on occasion.  Since you readers are all utter skeptics, allow me to prove my point:

     Taken from the same chair in the kitchen.  In the first photo you can see the blue skies shortly to be illuminated by glorious sunshine, twenty minutes after a torrential storm where the rain blew along exactly as it does in films.  Then you have the weather as it has been the rest of the day - grim.  Querulous, even.
     Oh, and at this time of the season two years ago I walked into Royton in sandals and a tee-shirt as it was so warm and sunny***.

Twinkies Twice!
If you follow the blog with any regularity - which I recommend as it's the only thing that will save you when my starship invasion fleet gets here - then you know that Conrad has a sweet tooth.

Tee hee!  I used this photo already!

     Make that thirty two sweet teeth, as you can see in the breakfast above, which consists of ice cream.  One other weakness of Conrad is his fondness for Twinkies, which are rather more difficult to obtain here in the UK than in South Canada; they are part of American* pop culture after all, and feature as a plot point in "Zombieland".
     So today Conrad got his large, sausage-like fingers upon both regular Twinkies and NEW BANANA FLAVOUR TWINKIES**!

     I've already had a Banana Twinky and they pack the same delicious artificial flavour, except now with - hang on, Thomas Pynchon had a word for this beginning with "M" if I remember - "musa-something" - added banana.

A Rare Thing Indeed
Stephen, whom I work with, has the characteristic quick repartee and tongue of the classic Scouser wit.  He is never short of a caustic comment, put-down, wind-up, patently insincere compliment or camp gesture.  Given that he's also good enough at kick-boxing to run his own school, it's also unwise to take him on in close combat.
     Normally he is utterly without shame.  On Friday, however, I managed to make him fire-engine red about the face after reading out the pome he's been nagging me to write for him, which is a fine reward for forty minute's slaving over my notebook on the bus.

Whilst we’re on the subject of poems

I’ve been pestered by Mister Holmes

He wants one before he roams

Across international time-zones

This favouritism might seem unfair

About my colleague who festers there –

But he’s persistent and devil-may-care

So I’ve written this, so there.

I did argue this insistence is risible

A birthday’s not special ‘cos it’s divisible

By five, which made him miserable

Thus we end up with my scribbleable.

Speak well, colleagues, of this Scouser  rough

His feet of fury mean he’s one tough puff.

His tongue of tattle is sharp enough

And ceaselessly spouts Lisa-baiting guff

Stephen’s proud boast is “I don’t read books –

I don’t need knowledge, I’ve got the looks.

See me, at Christmas, wearing a tux.

And a kilt, and a sporran too, gadzooks.”

     Every word true!  He's 25, by the way, hence the crack about "divisible".



* Sorry, a typo:  "South Canadian" pop culture
** Note the banana-coloured font
*** Not just sandals and a tee-shirt.  Just so we're clear.