Country For Old M.E.N.

Oh I'm So Clever!
At least in my own head.  Please don't disagree, allow an old man his roseate optometry.
     "Blimey!" I can hear you say.  "Sober for April and senseless for May.  No happy medium with you, Conrad, is there?"
     Cheeky whippersnappers*!  I mean, of course, the Manchester Evening News, which for some peculiar Manchester reason is never, but never, called the "Men", only ever the "Emm Eee Enn".  Art?

NO!  Art, I'm getting my Tazer -

This, Art, is what you will be if you don't shape up

     Now, hold the thought that there is a venue called the MEN Arena in central Manchester, where many a pop group has performed.  Art!

Splendid!

     You see, you can do it if you try.  Bear in mind that on Friday Conrad had to pass this place to get to the far-less-salubrious Bunker in Salford.  Who were playing there?  Nought but James, who have been around for decades and are hence Old Men.
     Not only that, unbeknownst to Conrad, he'd exchanged a few words with the legendary Clint Boon, who was DJing at the Black Dog Ballroom.  Our musical tastes appear similar.  Good thing?  Bad thing?  Only you can tell!
     Not to be judgemental or anything, but Clint is getting on a bit as well, making him another Old Man.
     Then, at The Bunker, who was DJing in a separate part of the venue but that other chap from Leftfield, didn't catch his name, and yes he's a bit long in the tooth now, so making him an Old Man.
     So.  A lot of Old Men.  As the title states.

"I Don't Understand How Your Mind Works"
As once said to your humble scribe recently.  Really?  Me neither.  As proven by - 
     Oscar!  Who is either my memory or subconscious, depending on how I feel.  Why Oscar?  Because he's - wait for it wait for it - Wild**!
     Oscar is a little unpredictable - okay, rather unpre - okay, he's completely hatstand and you can never tell what's going to surface from the depths.  This time I woke up with the words "Corfe Mullen" rolling around my head, so I quickly jotted them down on the notepaper I keep at bedside for events like this.
     Who is Corfe Mullen and why is he saying all these terrible things about me?  I wondered, thinking he sounded like a character out of Sir Walter Scott - "Lochinvar", perhaps.
     Ding!  Wrong, Conrad, go to the back of the class.  A little Google-fu reveals -

A town. Hence unable to speak

     And if you want a little enhancement of this corner of the Allotment of Eden, Art is happy to oblige, if he'll put down that coal he's chewing on -

Bucolic CM

     Conrad has never been here, nor even near here, and has ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA why it would crop up at break of dawn.  If you have any answers, a career in forensic psychiatry probably beckons.
      Ta, Oscar.  Food for thought.
     
Bitten By The Coincidence Hydra.  AGAIN!
If you read BOOJUM! with any regularity, then you know that your humble scribe constantly looks over his shoulder, worried that the causes of determinism, probability, causality and What On Earth are ganging up on him.  This sounds very intellectual but mostly consists of Conrad gaping open-mouthed with disbelief at what the Hydra has come up with.

Conrad.  Okay, laser-eyed not open mouthed, but do you really want to see what he's been eating?

     It may interest you to know, or it may not, in which case skip this paragraph yet that way you'll never know if you missed a classic witticism***, that Conrad has changed the metaphor for being stricken by coincidence.  Originally it was a Hammer, not a Hydra, until the coincidences got sufficiently numerous to risk serious concussion.  
     "Get on with it, man!" I hear you call.  "Corrie is on soon!"
     Overlooking your mis-spelling of "Curry", I shall explain.  
     Recently I have been banging on about S.A.G.E., the acronym for "Semi Automatic Ground Environment" which was the South Canadian nuclear attack electronic warning network up until the mid-Eighties.  Of course Sage can also refer to the herb, a character from The Herbs, a children's animated television programme, or a wise old man (See photo above for example).

Lower left corner

     It can also, apparently, be billy-crinning wim-wam  software, because what cropped up last night as a "Suggested Post" on Facebook?  Correct - "Sage"

Add caption - I'm too stunned to add a caption

     What is going on?
     Not only that, there's another coincidence about S.A.G.E. and Oscar -

      - except we're now at count, so you will have to wait until tomorrow's excursion across the mental landscapes of Conrad's mind (bring stout walking shoes, a firearm and GPS).

Chin Chin!


*  Some of you may be old, so I shan't bring age into it.
** Sorry
*** Just to put your mind at rest, you didn't^.
^  Then again ...