Conrad: HATES ALL MUSICALS!

As You Should Surely Know
After all, you do read the blog on a daily basis, don't you?  Because if you have been reading with due diligence, dear audience, you know the above to be true.  Which has made the all-too-prevalent posters of "Mary Poppins" an offence to mine eye.
     So.  Conrad - HATES ALL MUSICALS*!
     Bar two.  "The Blues Brothers" and "The Return of Captain Invincible".

The Man.  Or Men. Or The Man and The Man.

     They are the only two good musicals ever.  Pay attention, Tom, I have spoken.
     Well, written/typed, but the Voice of Authority is there.  In my own head at least.

The Haul
This is what I purchased whilst on the recent holiday:

     My notes from that time state: "Combined results of excursions to the "Endeavour Bookshop" and the "Robin Hood's Bay Bookshop", which are the way a proper bookshop should be - essentially chaotic and under-organised and the very opposite of the corporate institutional* one.  Waterstones I'm looking at you!  Of course this presages that I don't already have these works - since I'm not at home I can't check my big booklist.  Oh well.  Trust to an old man's failing memory."
     Dog Bins!  I've already got the George Forty one.  Oh well.

FILM REVIEWS

     
As it is quite a while since I last reviewed films, to hilarious effect, allow me to explain the BOOJUM! policy.  1)  No research whatsoever  2)  A frighteningly literal interpretation of title.  We might also throw in a Rule 3: Arbitrary, partial, biased and generally grumpy at the whole cinematic world.
      Having set the scene, let us proceed ...

"Joy"  
Probably a grim slice of life, bleak, grey depressing and set in the night of a decaying Northern mill town.  I already live this, why would I want to watch it, too?

"Joy" promotional poster

"Snoopy And Charlie Brown"
The Smug Pug and his Balding Boy are back.  Yes, yes, I know it's a beagle.  Find an apt, citric word that rhymes with "Beagle".  Charlie, meanwhile, displays Male Pattern Baldness at he is over 60 years old.  
     There.  Stomped the schmaltz out of that one, didn't I?

An eagle.  Close enough

"In The Heart Of The Sea"
Given that there is a whole LOT of sea, where might this particular circulatory organ be located?  Not only that, it would have to be the size of Greenland.  Not only that, the speed of the currents passing within it's interior would be phenomenal and almost certainly fatal.
     Of course, I could be overthinking this -

Waaaay too small

"Bridge Of Spies"
Dear me, this sounds deadly dull.  Deadly!  I don't care if it's not, that's what I've decided and damn the facts.  Also why did they colour in the "I" of the title?  A desperate attempt to introduce excitement into a film as entertaining as watching the Hoover Olympics?  Eh?

Bridge of Sighs.  Far more interesting

     Dear me, Tom Hanks being worthy.  Remember him in comedies?  "Big" and <Conrad is aware he's painted himself into a corner>  LOOK LOOK!  A flying saucer crewed by Mutant Weaselnanas!

There's one!  Quick, take him to our leader!

Conrad - Boxed In
I am, of course, disgustingly healthy since my alien constitution repels all but 0.0034% of all human illnesses, leaving me to worry principally about tennis elbow and Kondratowski's Syndrome***.  I did worry yesterday, however.  
     Below is the table layout:

                                                           ANNA               Rachael             Stephen

                                       Tom              Conrad             Cathryn

     Illness to the front of me - Anna scarcely able to speak - illness to the left of me - Tom, popping so many pills that he rattled, and so many potions he sloshed - and Cathryn - paroxysms of coughing that led to speculation her lungs were about to come flying out of her mouth - and Rachel - coughing yet not quite as impressively as Cathryn - and Stephen - also coughing in sympathy with Rachael.
     My robust constitution, also the nitro-methane & lava that runs in my veins, successfully beat off all your human micro-organisms.

A Canny Dog In Action
It must be obvious to you that Man's Best Friend, the Dog, does not have mutually-opposable digits.  Yet they can get by with another flexible bodily part, namely the tongue.  Viz:

Tiny bit of tongue just visible

     This is a trick we use to distract Edna, cheaper and more convenient than throwing a sirloin steak into the hallway.  We carefully position a small dog treat on the handle and she has learnt that her tongue will extend just far enough to knock the treat off.
     Come to think of it, mutually-opposable digits would be a very bad thing.  Clever dogs like this one would make Hom. Sap. extinct.  And we can't have that^.



*  I'm repeating myself in case you missed the subtly nuanced headline
** Only three consecutive "i"'s.  Sorry.
*** Where all the fluids in your body vapourise at the speed of accelerated light. Nasty.
^ Not out of any moral sense, it's just I'll need you lot as slaves.