Not, however, "Cross" in the sense of being angry, because that really wouldn't be news - Conrad being in a state of barely-suppressed rage at the best of times - instead referring to his morning dabble with the anagrammatic allusions of the Cryptic Crossword.
Yesterday Tom and Rick were harping on about crosswords, and - obviously! - your humble scribe modestly declaimed that he'd completed The Metro's Cryptic Crossword. Inevitably this annoyed Tom, who holds that anything but a Quick Crossword is a kind of lexicographical heresy, and Rick, always one to poke fun at an easy target, questioned whether your modest artisan had completed it properly?
THIS WILL NOT DO! My honour has been impugned, and I had to rise to the challenge, so this morning Tom got a copy of today's Metro with the solution and my hand-written completed Cryptic.
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| My response |
Conrad: grammar Nazi, spelling boor and now crossword crusader.
What A Difference A Day Makes
Of late your gifted author has posted photos of the view into Royton from his fixed position at the bus stop, which is a useful illustration of the horrid variety of weather we here in the UK are blessed with: Wet and Cold; Wet and Warm; Wet and Windy; Wet and Wetter; Wet, Cold and Windy -
- you get the point. Today, for a refreshing change, we had fog. Either that or the clouds were sitting low on the hills today. Art?
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| No vaseline on the lens |
Make Cake Bake
Ah yes, Orange and Almond Loaf, actually a cake in all but name. Our erratic lower oven has now been resuscitated thanks to a new F.S.D. - "Flame Safety Device" not "Funny Seeming Dirigible", which is the size of a thimble yet which cost £670. So your modest artisan decided to test-drive the oven last night by baking a cake, with positive results, in that the temperature was Gas Mark 4 (as it should be and not Gas Mark 6), for an hour (not an hour and a half) as the recipe states, some recompense for forking out £770. No need to fudge the temperature, the time, the tenting or the turning.
A good start, just a shame that it cost £870. Art?
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| A thing of beauty |
"Dr. Strangelove"
Or
"How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb*"
Watched this again last night for the first time in years and was struck by the sheer quality of the production, not to mention the humour, which is of the very grimmest variety, mostly (absent the giant food fight at the end). In fact I have so much to say about the film that I'll be posting about it on several future occasions. What a treat for you**!
Conrad^ was awestruck at the amount of Sixties electro-mechanical equipment on show. All utterly obsolete now, but great to look at, and state-of-the art back in 1964.
Art?
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| B52 navigation section |
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| Rear view of the CRM 114 coding device - a crucial plot Macguffin |
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| All these computers have less calculating power than your mobile phone |
Also, Conrad spotted an error. I have yet to check on the IMDB "Goofs" for the film, so it may already be listed, but we see the B52 bomber Wing identified in the radio operator's communications log-book:
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| A little hard to see, but believe me - |
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| Again a little awkward - |
It's also worth noting that the B52 sets were constructed from minimal references since the US Air Force - perhaps understandably - didn't want anything whatsoever to do with the film. Despite this they look convincing, and (strictly unofficially and a long time later) the USAF admitted that the sets were pretty damn accurate.
Oh - Hastings Ismay? British general and adviser to Winston Churchill during the Second Unpleasantness
* Worryingly, this is close to Conrad's stance on atomic foofoodillies.
** Yes IT IS!
*** There is no footnote to this sigil, just testing to see if you're awake and alert.
^ That's me. Just so we're clear.
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