Clutching At Kex

There, That'll Test You
No doubt you are familiar with the act of clutching, as in grasping desperately, although in this case you'd be wrong to think about human hands.  No, I refer to the clutch of a car, that mysterious interface between gear pedal and engine.

A clutch, or so I'm told

     You will have to have been taking notes or paying close attention or simply have a good memory to know what "Kex" are - the dead stems of plants.  Straws, in other words*.
     Conrad, as you know by now, possesses zero knowledge about cars.  He's utterly ignorant about football and, indeed, most sports as well, in addition to being an information black hole on single-name celebrities or reality television.
     I digress. Back to the clutch.  If you remember from Saturday's posts, Conrad failed to nurse his ailing car up the Snake Pass.  Let me paint you a word-picture:  the rev counter running at 40,000 RPM, the engine shrieking like a mechanical banshee, lurching along at a top speed of 25 mph, Conrad shrieking as much as the engine.  When I took my foot off the accelerator the revs dropped back to normal, going from RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR to a muted throb, and the speed dropped also.
     Today, the rest of our staff at the Mansion, having thoroughly Googled back and forth for a day, confidently informed your humble scribe that the trouble did seem to be with the clutch.

A clutch, possibly

     This will set us back many a £Hundred, which might make the eyes water a bit, but you just have to grin and bear it.  Lemons and lemonade, you might say, or turnips and - and - I'll get back to you on that.

So Much For That
Finally got a reply from Gollancz about my submission of the first 50 pages of "Revelations" and it was a "No", but a politely written "No".  Art?

See?  Polite.
(Sobs quietly)

     You can't get upset at rejection in the world of authordom or you'd lose the will to live, and it's not the first time I've been rejected.  Still, I am curious as to how far along it got before the thumbs-down arrived.  Don't suppose I'll ever know ...

I Say Sergei!
And once again I must congratulate the Foobs on a Suggested Post that is actually applicable.
     No!  I have not gone into the lumber business and do not consequently need "Log Counting Software"**!  I refer instead to Serge:

I confess I added an "I" to his name to make it rhyme.  I know, I know, I'm a terrible person

     If you remember last week there was a clip of a pianist performing an extract from "Romeo and Juliet" - "Montagues and Capulets", that ever-so-sombre-sounding piece that I once misunderstood to be the "Love Theme".
     If you cast your eye to the lower left corner, you can just see the name "Boosey", referring to a firm of classical music publishers.
     There you go, a BOOJUM! post that isn't mocking, shocking, punny or funny, just educational.  Hopefully without being boring.

If I Said "SKS" To You -
 - and even hinted that it had a military application, you would doubtless come up with this as the answer - 

Guns!

     NO!  Wrong!  Go stand in the corner.  I am re-reading Albert Palazzo's seminal work "Victory on the Western Front", all about the British army's use of gas in warfare in the First Unpleasantness; the gases, the techniques and the organisations.  I may have mentioned the gas SKS briefly in the past, although a little recapitulation won't harm anyone.  Unlike SKS.
     This was a combination of Ethyl Iodoacetate and Ethyl Alcohol, and a bitches brew it was indeed, although here is the kicker - it was non-lethal.  The long word for it was "Lachrymatory" or as Mister Hand would have it, "Tear Gas".  It didn't kill you, just rendered you hors de combat as your eyes ran like waterfalls.
     That's not all.  It was also highly persistent, meaning that it arrived and contaminated the ground it fell upon, giving off vapours for hours, days, or even - if it was cold enough - weeks.  Ground so contaminated had to be avoided where possible or you'd pick up the vapour on boots and clothing.
     There you go again:  BOOJUM! being educational, and also probably a bit frightening.

SK Gas.  Close enough

* Gosh how clever I am.
** This is a real thing, honest.