A Think About Drink

There Will Be Blood Beer
Right here.  Usually Wonder Wifey tuts disapprovingly when Conrad necks his ninth can of Carlsberg Special Brew, crushes the empty can against his skull, then heads it into the bin whilst belching "Rule Britannia" with farts for punctuation.  
     Usually.  
     For the past week, however, he has been sternly rejecting all blandishments to imbibe Caramel Vodka, in any amount whatsoever - sober for April, remember? - until 6 p.m. today, when the sober stops and the revels begin.
     In fact, WW not being known for either patience or the ability to keep to a timetable with Conrad's Teutonic precision, I got a sample of this particular drink all of 5 minutes early, and it really is jolly nice, slipping down with nary a trace of bite or aftertaste, a little like drinking liquid toffee.  Which, considering it's 20% proof, ought to give one pause for thought.
     It can now be portrayed against the array of bottles and cans that your humble scribe has amassed over the past four weeks - Art?

     This evening's first course, so to speak.  There are other bottles - Art?

Et tu?

     Hopefully those bottles of pop in the background prove that Conrad is not going to indulge wildly in an alcohol-based diet from now on.  There is also the procurement of a new packet of EBT - English Breakfast Tea - to celebrate, as Conrad - that Teutonic precision I mentioned earlier - likes to drink Breakfast Tea at Breakfast.  Assam would do at a pinch, if I had to make do.  Art?

The cup that cheers and not inebriates.

     I realise that this tea-making is probably a mystery to the younger readers amongst you and may in future devote a photo-essay to "Conrad Makes A Pot Of Tea", as hopefully this will dissuade the police from raiding the Mansion under the impression that Conrad does Pot A Lot.
     Right, Intro over, on with the motley!

The Metro Lives Down To It's Reputation
As I hope you are aware, I am off to the "Sounds From The Other City" event tomorrow, this being a multiplicity of musical events put on around the Chapel Street area of Salford from mid-afternoon.  I see Ex-Easter Island Heads are performing at Salford Cathedral and would like to go, except that the website states "sundown" instead of a time, which implies late evening, by which time the buses back to Royton are erratic and occasional.

The Heads at work.  Your humble scribe just out of shot to the left

  Liam from work - no, not that Liam, this Liam - is going, and mate Ian is performing in a band called "Grotbags" who appear to have been created purely for the event.  Ba Duncle is co-hosting what seems to be televised performances, which will be an improvement on their venue last year - dank underground arches beneath the railway.

Exactly like this

     "But Conrad!" I hear you call.  "What has this to do with the daily free newspaper?"
     Apart from commenting that you get what you pay for (in an acid tone) Conrad explains: absolutely nothing.  Under the "Weekend" section they mention events going on elsewhere, the usual sort of stuff: combat tiddlywinks, extreme Subbuteo, speed-eating curried whelks - no mention AT ALL of SFTOC.
     Bah!  I feel a bit of destructive rage a-coming on.

Talking Of Which -
Conrad's mind, as has been explained often enough, operates in an obscure fashion that not even he or Oscar (his memory, or imagination, or both*) can explain.
     So, why did the phrase "I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds" pop into his mind earlier this week?
     No, it doesn't apply to Conrad (camouflaged alien spy that he is) as he wants your world's population intact and alive, so they can be used as mind-controlled slaves.  Apart, that is, from those of you who have been reading BOOJUM! as this earns a reprieve.
     It is - sorry, the quote, do keep up! - it is a quote from classical Indian literature, the "Bhagavad Gita" scripture, said by Robert Oppenheimer upon witnessing the "Trinity" nuclear test-shot. Given Conrad's unhealthy interest in atomic foofoodillies, it's not surprising he read this in the past and it's now popped up again.
    Thank you Oscar.

Bob Opp, probably a little conflicted after creating the atomic b - foofoodilly.

     I should explain that "Trinity" was the first nuclear explosion** carried out (IIRC) at Alamogordo, where "Gadget" was detonated.  

Here's An Epigram Your Boss Won't Like
Whilst finishing "The Grenadier Guards In The Great War", I came across the following, which pretty much sums up Conrad's attitude to paid employment:  "The Army was no longer a profession, where a man could reduce to a science the practice of doing the least possible amount of work without getting into trouble."
     Inspiring words, inspiring words.  What they inspire is open to question, mind ...

An Idler

* Or, worryingly, neither.
** The first nuclear explosion ever, that is.

Sorry, World Take-Over Slightly Delayed

That' Me All Over
Hideously dilettante.  You do know what that means, don't you?  Of course you do.  "One who is forever dabbling in matters without ever resolving them", which is why we put "dilettante", as it keeps the word count manageable.
     I can give you proof posistive of Conrad's idle and dabbling manner - Art?

Blitzkrieg Commander wargame

     This is a game I set up in July.  July 2014. So, during my period of dog-sitting leave last week I only managed one and a half moves, yet this was more in five days than in the previous eighteen months.  It's also more of a getting-to-know the rules event than a proper game, as I'd forgotten everything about the rules in the meantime.
    "I say, Conrad, you evil camouflaged alien spy," I hear you quibble, "What's taking so long in assuming World Dictator pre-eminence?  I mean, we have the summer holidays to plan for."
     Well, you know how it is - you get into a bit of a routine: get up late, make a litre pot of tea, guzzle hot-cross buns and ice cream, read books - it's 15:30 before you realise it.  And I really need that wargaming practice for when I make my bid for total control, so you've got a few weeks of freedom yet*.
     
"The Making Of Full Metal Jacket"
I take it you have seen the film itself, one that Stanley Kubrick considered to be one of his best.  If you have then this documentary is well worth a visit, especially as it's only 30 minutes long so doesn't outstay it's welcome.  Available on Youtube.
     FMJ was Vincent D'Onofrio's (Private Pyle) debut (which I didn't realise) and at Stan's wishes he put on weight, ballooning from 200 pounds to 280, to look the part.  Since then he's done over 50 films, all of which he credits to Stan casting him in FMJ.

Look, he's smiling!  What a happy chappy.

     We also got to see R. Lee Ermey out of character - a genuinely nice old chap until he puts on the Drill Instructor Hartman persona.  In persona, as observed by Dorian Harewood (Eightball), he had an inexhuastible supply of novel obscenities.  None of which I can quote here as we cherish that SFW rating**.

"You what Conrad?  I amuse you?  I AMUSE YOU!  You ****ing pinko ****-******* slimey Limey ****-*****!

     Recall, if you will, the scene when Doc J and Eightball get sniped.  This took a month to shoot; for each take all the explosive squibs replicating bullet strikes had to be reset (plus, one assumes, all the bullet holes filled-in), a process that took up to three days each time.

"Roger that, Stan wants another take.  Take three days, men."

     Then there's Location.  If you've ever seen "The Bridge at Remagen" then it has extra realism because the Czech town it was being filmed in was being demolished to make way for an open-cast mine.  Thus the film crew blew up, knocked down and variously blasted the place to bits.  Same with FMJ: the giant East London gasworks it was filmed in was also being demolished, so - gratuitous mayhem ahoy!  Blow stuff up!  Knock it down!  Burn it!  Bash it! Crash it!
     Then add palm trees and it looks like Vietnam.  A lot of people still believe it was shot in the Phillipines.

The art of set-dressing: Before and After

"Houdini And Doyle" - "Bedlam"
Well now, here we have yet another creepy coincidence.  Finding strange marks on the bodies of possibly-possessed ex-mental asylum inmates, Doyle gets the name for this wrong.  It's "Pareidolia" - recognising apparent patterns in the random.  Art?

     Nothing spooky about that, no, except what does Houdini jump right in and gives as examples?  The Man In The Moon and a slice of toast.
     What were the examples of this that Conrad gave for the very first episode of "H&D"?  Yes, The Man In The Moon - and Nun In A Bun, and the only reason Houdini didn't use that was because it's from the Nineties, so the 1905 equivalent would indeed have been - a slice of toast.
     So <pauses to remove the Coincidence Hydra's teeth from arse>

 - And That's Not All
For coincidences, that is.  Remember Felix and TOP CAT, and Explosive Ordnance Disposal from earlier this week?  And Al Murray's simultaneous posting of Top Cat?

http://comsatangel2002.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/can-i-have-word-cross-word.html

     There's a link to the first.
     What did Conrad encounter on his walk into work?
     No!  Not flocks of purple fairy unicorns standing-in for traffic wardens - Top Cat, AGAIN.  This time for a building society.  Art?  Confound the disbelievers -

That cat ain't got pants on

   I'm beginning to get worried now.  


* Not to mention the time it takes for my laggardly comrades in the starship invasion fleet to get here.  2247AD at the last reckoning.
** Evil, alien and a spy - nonetheless Conrad does have some scruples.

"When Shall We Three Meet Again?"

Yes, Yes, Quoting Shakespeare Again
If the Devil can recite scripture to his own ends, surely your humble scribe can yark on a bit about the Bark of Avon?
     I mention this ahead of the Large Hadron Collider, because I want to see if Facebook's default picture illustration is the LHC - 

Large.  Hadron-ish.  Collider-y.  

     - or three women with boxes on their head -

Erm.  Yes.  More like Macbox.

     Be that as it may, I bring up the witches from Macbeth for a reason: they live in Scotland, where sub-zero temperatures are pretty much the best one can hope for, yet that question about their next coffee-morning only specifies three weather conditions:  thunder, lightning or rain.
     Given the weather today in the lowlands of Greater Manchester, perhaps Bill should have added in another line:

"In thunder, lightning or in rain.

Or gigantic snow blizzards, again."

     I know you lot are bitter cynics who don't believe anything unless there's empirical evidence, so let me kick Art awake to illustrate the point:

Uphill

     Turn through 180 degrees - the compass measurement not the temperature you feckless lons! -

Downhill

     As I said yesterday, disgusting not destructive.  Three inches of the nasty wet white stuff* greeted your modest artisan as he left the Mansion today, slush that will take on a repellent grey-brown colouration more reminiscent of farm slurry than snow.  Then, unless the temperature does rise, it will be trampled flat by hordes of scurrying feet, compacted into ice, to the peril of elderly men of an uncertain stance and poor balance**.

Shakeshaft
I was going to add this to yesterday's post, except it had already hit 1,000 words and I don't expect you to commit too much time to reading what is, after all, inessential scrivel***.  Take it away Conrad the Bad!

"When shall we three meet again?

In thunder, lightning or in rain?

Have I mocked this line before?

It touches upon a subject sore.

No!  Not witches casting spells, 

The haggish magic ne'erdowells.

I mean our English weather, Wet:

Soggy, boggy, and foggy, yet.

     I have a feeling I've skitted this verse before, and then spent a good ten minutes not finding any trace of it in old posts, so I may be wrong and merely wonderfully creative.  Or bad at searching.


Last Day Sober!
Maybe I ought to correct that to "last full day sober" as my self-imposed sobriety for April ends 6 p.m. Saturday, thank you for asking.
     "But Conrad!" I hear you ask, "Why bother to - oh ta, and a whisky chaser please."
    Because I can.  Also, Mister Liver appreciates the lighter workload, as does Mister Wallet, and Mister Waistline, too.

Conrad.  Old, grumpy and sober.
But mostly grumpy.

"The Grenadier Guards In The Great War"
Amidst the chaos of the day there are a few amusing anecdotes hidden in the text.  I have mentioned about the Grenadiers present in France not having grenades until well into 1915, whereupon they were blessed, or cursed, with an hideously dangerous collection of ordnance that probably earned their inventors the Iron Cross Second Class.
     Finally the Mills Bomb arrived by late 1915, an horrid little implement used by the hundreds of thousands by British troops, those being specially trained in their black art being known as "Grenadiers".

The terror of the battlefield.
(and the Grenadier Guards)

     This did not sit well with the Grenadier Guards.  O dear me no!  Colonel Streatfield protested in writing to the Guards Division Officer Commanding, Lord Cavan.  Major General Cavan took up the issue with vim and vigour, writing to the War Office to protest about the purloining of the Grenadier's good name.
     The War Office, in the formal language of the time, rudely snubbed Lord Cavan.  They weren't backing down on "Grenadiers".

"Heh-heh!  Back Down?  NEVER!"

     Neither, however, were the Grenadier Guards.  One suspects that the War Office, a collection of superannuated pen-pushing bureaucrats of limited intellect who stuck together because there's safety in numbers, didn't realise quite who they were taking on.
     Craftily, the Guards approached His Majesty King George, who quietly took up their case, as he was their official patron.  Then as now, the monarch rarely intervened in domestic matters, but when they did, everybody stood up and paid very very close attention.
     Outmanouvred, the War Office capitulated in May 1916 and ordered that men trained in the use of grenades were to be officially known as "Bombers".
     Sic transit tyrannus scribulus!

King George V.
The "V" being made with first finger and forefinger in the direction of the War Office ...

"Bleeding Edge" By Thomas Pynchon
Just to let you know that I've started to re-read this, and am making notes of the text where I don't recognise the strange South Canadian idiom or personalities.  We shall see what level this runs to, since this novel is 30 year closer to the present day than "Inherent Vice", thus possibly less culturally adrift.
     Then again perhaps not - TP has worked in a lot of detail about computer systems and forensic accountancy. 
     As The Doctor says, "Time will tell".  Yes, yes, I know it's a documentary reconstruction series, but I think the quote fits.

Weeding sedge.  Close enough.

And If You're Reading This -
- hello Beth and Alison!
     I have arrived - Beth officially described me as a Grumpy Old Man, which is a perfect recapitulation of the truth.  She asked what I'd be doing this weekend and of course BOOJUM! came centre stage, leading to the question of "What's in it?"
     I couldn't show her my notebook as Alison - sworn sentinel of the workplace - sat beside me, though I described some of the fixtures - insulting First Bus, The Metro and William Shakespeare.
     Imagine a sea of flotsam and jetsam of the imagination, bobbing randomly on a shoreline, with some of the mental detritus being washed up on shore with no pattern or reason, then picked up, juggled and put in a sack before being tipped out of a moving car, and that's pretty much BOOJUM! in a most flattering light.
     Or, as Sophie one put it in a single word: "Nonsense"

Lewis Carroll, who started it all, nursing his Pet Pot

Thank you and goodnight!


* Snow.  Not heated marshmallow.
** I.e. - me!
*** ACTUALLY IT'S NOT!  I was just testing you.