BOOJUM!: Life On Mars

That's BOOJUM! For You

Tasteful and restrained, except where a bit of subterfuge might generate more blog traffic.

Spiders. From Ma's.

As I'm sure you're aware, David Bowie died today, and social media everywhere are clogged and clotted with various tributes and favourite lists. Well, don't expect any of that nonsense here on BOOJUM! as this is pretty much the definition of Current Affairs, which we avoid. When the dust has settled, we will conduct a sober and serious appreciation of the man and his music. And also of his role as assassin in "Into the Night" (don't mention "Merry Christmas Mister Lawrence").

I did detect a pattern in dead rock stars of late. Lemmy, gone at 70. Bowie, gone at 69. If the pattern continues, expect single-name rockers aged 68 to start looking a bit worried.

Oh, and there may be life on Mars, there may not - there's certainly water on it*.

Drum roll, cymbal crash

Cold Enough?

No! No snow over the weekend (was it promised?) instead the inevitable persistent deluge. However, Monday is dawning clear and cold enough to warrant a frost, a promising start because it implies cold and dry. This is good. It might make the delicate human hot-house flowers at work cringe and whinge a bit, but it's still cold and dry. Small mercies, eh?

PS I take it back. The trip home was endured under a freezing drizzle. WHERE IS MY SNOW!

Conrad's idea of a nice sunny day.
-50 degrees, but sunny.

The Chirruping Classes

"The birds," croaks a singer who is not Guy Garvey on Elbow's "The Birds", " - are the keepers of our secrets."

Not if they resemble the ones that live round here! There they were this morning, chirping and chattering away as if they had important things to impart. What the heck have they got to be so amused about?

BLACKBIRD: Good MORNING!

THRUSH: GOOD Morning!

BB: Most chortlesome start to the day - Fatty missed the bus this morning.

T: Tee hee! Is that why he's quivering like a pudding - an attack of rage?

BB: No, not at all.

T: An hysterical seizure?

BB: No, no, wide of the mark.

T: Vibrating-plate syndrome?

BB: NO! He's shivering because he's cold.

T: Oh, I see, I see. Hey, his teeth do rattle amusingly.

BB: Puts me in mind of castanets.

T: Can't he just put more clothes on?

BB: Not really. He can barely get out of the bedroom door as is.

T: True, we don't call him "Fatty" for nothing.

BB: If he put on any more clothes he'd get get jammed in the doorway.

T: Ha! Jammed in the jamb!

BB: Quite.

T: In fact, a win-win situation all round.

STARLING: Cripes, him again! I was looking in the bedroom window and he had this set of women's tights and -

- then the bus came.

Guy, you're trying too hard.

"The History of the Pelopponesian War" By Thucydides

I hope you appreciate me being a stalking horse for you with this work of classical history, allowing you to swizz your way to importance in any conversation, if you've been paying attention.

You have been paying attention, haven't you? Because the consequences for NOT paying attention are almost too fearful to contemplate. I may elaborate**.

Right, cast your mind back 2,500 years. They had a very definite idea of doing things in classical Greece. You may have heard of the modern phrase "We never leave a man behind" - just so about the armies Thuck is describing. Win or lose, it was deemed to be barbarously uncivilised to leave your dead on the battlefield. Using heralds, no doubt, you arranged an armistice when waging war against your fellow Greeks to recover and bury the dead. If versus barbarians then a ferocious struggle might well ensue in the midst of battle to retrieve your comrades bodies (q.v. Leonidas at Thermopylae).

Come in Sigmund Freud

Another example of Good Behaviour is that of people taking sanctuary in temples. Any temple was sacred ground and it was strictly forbidden to spill blood there, nor were you allowed to venture in and drag people out (Conrad's suggestion of a large sharp hook on a chain would probably be frowned on, too). So, those in hot pursuit had to cool their heels. They usually had to wait for starvation to do their work. Less commonly they would tempt the suppliants out with promises of good behaviour and fair treatment and then treacherously KILL THEM! Although in doing this the guilty party then became "Cursed", which had real stature amongst the polities - it could hang over your collective head for decades.

- even into the twenty-first century

"Hippopotamus"

Whilst on about Greek, although for your benefit in the Roman alphabet. "Hippo" is Greek for "Horse" and "Potamus" is Greek for "Water". So, this is a Horse of the Water, or a Water-Horse.

You WHAT?

Were these Hellenes functionally blind? Let us compare and contrast a Horse and a Hippo: