It's MURDER! - Or Is It?

Good Afternoon!
Conrad is pretty chipper at present, having just started to sluice down his second pot of tea for the day - Tea!  The cup that cheers and not inebriates, which is a quote from someone, somewhere.  And nothing at all to do with the rest of the Intro.
     As mentioned yesterday, I caught a stretch of the Star Trek's "The Conscience of the King" episode all the way from 1965, and it got me to wondering about phasers.

A phaser.
A PROPER phaser! not one of those silly ones from The Next Generation

     More specifically, about phasers and BLOODY MURDER!  Except I believe that the concept of gore and sanguinary blood-spurting death-rattles was excised by having the phaser as a weapon.  It can stun, you see, which is jolly useful and more effective than a baton round, or it can Kill-to-death, which is also jolly useful when up against the censor, as nary a drop of blood is spilt and you don't need to edit or go to a "12" rating.

E.g.

     Now, what Conrad wonders about is how you'd go about proving that Kaptain Cirk* had actually murdered say, Yeoman Rand for being all clingy and broody and otherwise preventing him from having his way with all those green-skinned exotic alien princesses he stumbles across all the time.
     Well, if he'd zapped her with a phaser on "Barbecue" setting (or whatever it is), then there wouldn't be anything left of her.  Nil.  Zero.  Nul.  Please don't mistake getting Full Microwave Zap Power for getting people disintegrated, as there isn't even a small pile of dust remaining.  No, Yeoman Rand would have been completely vapourised, leaving nothing behind, bar perhaps a bit more effort required of the Enterprise's air-conditioning system.
     So, say old Cirk does get hauled up in front of a tribunal:

     Tribunal (played of course by Elisha Cook): Where is Yeoman Janice Rand!
     Cirk:  What, old Randy?  No idea.
     Tribunal: I put it to you that you brutally murdered her, Kaptain!
     Cirk: Nah.  Besides, where's the proof?
     Tribunal:  You killed her by shooting her with a phaser.  Brutally!
     Cirk: Nah.  I was warming a coffee.
     Tribunal:  So - you admit to firing a phaser?  Brutally!
     Cirk:  Yeah.  To heat my coffee.
     Tribunal:  Let the records indicate the enormous energy output of this phaser.
     Cirk:  It was a big cup.
     Tribunal:  Ah.  Er - 
     Cirk:  I'll just be running along now. Let me know if Randy turns up.

     You see?  No habeus corpus.  There would be even less of a case if the murder occurred outdoors, as any residual vapours would be instantly lost to the heavens.
     So - Star Trek's Federation - a licence to kill!

Also useful for cheating husbands

Ian Was Right
Conrad was brought up in a time of vinyl disks and rotary turntables, which he was glad to wave goodbye to once the CD arrived, believe me.  Vinyl disks were fragile and large and weighty in any number, and the turntable was a pain to maintain.  Conrad once watched in horror as a greenfly landed on an LP he was playing, on exactly the wrong place, and got minced underneath the needle as it got swept along.  Of course that would never happen with a CD - that greenfly would have been blasted to atoms by the CD player's laser (see above post re phasers).
     Anyway, ex-workmate Ian is big on vinyl.  Not only does he release music on vinyl LPs (as "A Day For Airstrikes") he also buys them.
     A passing fad, thought Conrad, unaware that Vinyl Exchange in Manchester has a basement full of vinyl - the name is probably a hint - and then The Metro had words to say.

Panasonic's Technic SL 1200

     This puppy allows you to play vinyl and record it to CD if you feel the need to back stuff up, or just play vinyl.
     Heck, if The Metro is going on about this stuff Ian was right and I was wrong.

Nork Airframe Deployed In Support Of H-Bomb Foofoodilly** Programme
Okay, if I say "Nork" and it's in a light and amenable manner, then I am referring to Norway and the Norwegians, who have inherited some pretty awesome scenery.
     If, on the other hand, I state it with sneering contempt, then I refer to North Korea.  You might class this as satire, perilously close to current affairs or even (Gasp!) politics, but back in the blog's early days we used to pick on Norks as they were an easy target and still are.

North Korean Strategic Bomber at readiness

     I know there is some controversy about whether the Sulky Fat Lad's regime has actually managed to detonate an H-Foofoodilly or merely an A-Foofoodilly.  The difference is that an A-FFD*** has an upper limit (500 Kilotonnes) but the H-FFD has no upper limit.  You could build your bang as big as blazes.

Too many words!  More pictures!

Strange Growths
I now have to share the breakfast table with these specimens:

The mushroom things, of course

     I cannot complain as they were purchased at a fraction of what they're worth.  Conrad merely hopes they get shifted quickly in order to free up the table for ice cream.

Undying Jam
Behold and bow down to the awesome wonder that is Persimmon Jam:

Talk about the jam.
Don't talk of the pork.

     I made this last summer, possibly even earlier and it was the easiest jam ever - equal amounts persimmon pulp and sugar, brought to the boil then bottled.  Still perfectly edible and delicious on toast with butter.
     Nothing world-shaking, just an affirmation that Persimmon Jam is a zombie very well-preserved preserve.

Next Generation crew looking suitably embarrassed  -
- are those hoovers? razors? calculators?

* Subtle Mirror Universe allusion here.
**  It's a long story but I'm trying to avoid using certain words
*** Heretofore the official abbreviation