Please Weight A Minute

If You Think Conrad Has Made A Spelling Mistake -
 - then you have not been paying attention for the past three years!  Firstly, your humble scribe is a fearful spelling and grammar Nazi of the worst kind.  Conrad is one of those sad bores who would ring up the BBC to bother about their Emergency Nuclear War Screen Warning broadcast.

Conrad:  "Damn it, why can't I get a signal?"

     CONRAD:  Hello?  Hello!  Is that the BBC?  I have a complaint about the spelling on your Emergency Nuclear War Screen Warning
     HAPLESS BEEB MINION:  What?  You what? <sounds of sirens and screaming in background>
     CONRAD:  The spelling.  The grammar.  It's incorrect.
     HAPLESS BEEB MINION:  Look, we're about to get hit by a hundred missiles, all of them carrying nuclear warheads, so -
     CONRAD:  EXCUSE ME!  Some things retain importance, young lady.  Firstly, it says "You're" in the "You're time is up" sentence, when it should be "Your".  Next -
     You get the drift.
     Secondly - for yes, there is a second part to this nonsense - your modest artisan is ever one to muck around with words.  "Wordsmith" is the term Sophie used, which your gifted author is happy to adopt as a mantle.

Freemantle. Close enough

Avoirdupois
You're going to have to stick with me for this one, it takes a bit of generating and explicating.  Also - step on stage! - thank you Oscar* for bringing this bizarre word up in the first place. The reason we have our title for this post.
     "Clearly French in derivation, Conrad", I hear you muse.  Yes, yes it is, and refreshingly novel to acknowledge a word without a Latin or Greek etymolgy, eh?
     "Very flattering, but what does it mean?" I also hear you ask.
     Good point.

Weight, what?

     Okay, going back to Thucydides and The History of - no, put the gun down, I'm only joking.  The "Avoirdupois" refers to a system of measurement based on pounds and ounces.  Any South Canadian readers will be instantly familiar with these measurements, and any British or Commonwealth readers ought to be familiar.  Ought to be since these are what made the Empire great, no silly nonsense about metric measures on the battlefields of Waterloo or at Trafalgar!

Someone Is Fired!
If you follow the blog over time, or have any long term memory skills, then you know Conrad is not at all interested in cars.  To him, a car is a metal box with a wheel at each corner; you put the magic juice in and it moves from A to B.

A possible exception

     Given this attitude, seeing adverts that boldly and, indeed, proudly declare "Go Fun Yourself" about a car lead to a case of The Spits - that is, Conrad virtually voiding a wad of phlegm onto the pavement in disgust at the stupid advert promoting a car.
     Of late, I have noticed several bus posters promoting "Go 3xplore", which also seems associated with cars.  Sadly for the advertising agency involved, I have failed to notice which car is being promoted.  A hasty Google fails to supply any answer.  Thus the ad agency has failed.  Thus - yeah, you guessed it, somebody gets fired.

"The Forest"
Conrad presumes this is a film, as it has been cruising past the windows pasted to the side of buses all Saturday morning and into the afternoon.
     Really, can't these people give a blogger more to work with?  Of late we've had "The Walk", "The Program", "The Martian" and "The The".  A chap needs somewhat more than the most bland and boring title possible.

This sounds more interesting!

     Where is this forest?  Northern Hemisphere, surely, as otherwise it would be "The Jungle".  Is this a nature film or a documentary?  Or a Post-Apocalyptic thriller when there is only one small patch of woodland left, and Our Heroes have to prevent The Man from cutting it down?  In other words, a live-action version of "Ferngully".
     Of course, I could be over-thinking this a bit ...

Turbot
NO!  Not a Japanese anime series about a TURBO-powered roboT.  The fish, damn your eyes, the fish!  Here it is:

Delish

     We will be coming back to this.  Oh yes.  Oh yes indeed.




* Either my memory or subconscious.  One of the two.