The Sunday Scran

No!  It's Not A Weekly Newspaper
"Scran" is Northern dialect for "food".  If you remember anything about your humble scribe, it is that he likes tea and ice cream for breakfast.  Art?

Evidence

     How controversial!  Two different types of ice cream!  Not to mention grilled Stilton on bagel, which tends to arouse the ire of Wonder Wifey, who on occasion has stormed into the kitchen to demand to know why the house smells like baked vomit?
     Let us move hurriedly on from that rather unpalatable image.  No sooner had the above been laid out on the table than company arrived.

Jenny pretending to be uninterested

     I tipped her off the chair, got a paper towel, tipped her off the chair again and sat down to Sunday brunch.
     Which was delicious, thank you for asking.
     Intro over, the motley can begin!

"Bleeding Edge" By Thomas Pynchon
More of My Notes What I Have Made.  More a Dedicato of Desire than a Labour of Love, which I hope will benefit all those readers of Tom's work who are not South Canadian, and not simply the ones who communicate in English*.
     "Ah!" I hear you qualify.  "Surely there's a Wiki for that?"
     Yes there is, and I have checked it out, and it doesn't answer the questions I made note of.  So there <snaps finger> for your trying to be clever!
"Maid Rite": Page 21; Defined as a "casual dining franchise" which seems to be a horrid South Canadian re-branding of "fast food", in the same way "second hand" has been massaged into "pre-loved".

To Be Honest - not very appealing.

"LIBOR": "London InterBank Offered Rate"; an average of interest rates calculated by a bank if it were to borrow from another bank.  Meaningless money-maker gobbelydigook.
Check Kiters: Circular fraud passing non-existent money between different accounts via cheque, in order to bolster them.

Checked kite.  Close enough

"French Roundoff": A note of caution here as the only place this came up was on the Wiki for Bleeding Edge.  A computer accounting fraud where interest payments of less than half a cent are paid by default into the fraudster's computer account.
"Kashruth": despite the preceding, nothing to do with money.  Jewish dietary law, pronouncing food as kosher, i.e. fit for consumption.

Babe Ruth.  Close enough

"Alexythymaic":  Pathological mental state where the sufferer is unable to recognise their own or other's emotional state.

The Lap Of Last Resort
Edna Wunderhund, our mobile four-legged alarm system, only comes to lie on the lap of your humble scribe as a last resort.  Wonder Wifey is Primary, Degsy is Secondary and,as mentioned, I am at the bottom of the list.
     But hark!  What's this?

"When will you accept, Edna, that the pen IS mightier than the sword?"

     I looked across the room and burst out laughing as both other laps were fully occupied by laptop computers - no place for pooch to perch, so she resorted to me.
     "I'll get a photo!" exclaimed Wonder Wifey, putting aside her laptop to pick up my phone.  Edna instantly darted from my lap in order to get to WW's, proving my point but also spoiling the photograph, so I tempted her back with a piece of popcorn and we fudged the shot above.
     So now you know.

You What?
There is currently an advert for Maynards Wine Gums playing on the commercial channels, featuring a long-haired drumming puppet beating out rhythms on a set of giant wine gums.  Apart from the fact that Conrad is not especially on any brand of wine gums, since they taste of flavouring and gelatine, - giant wine gum drums?

See?  Not simply a fever dream

     HOW STUPID IS THIS!
     How did such a thing come to be?  Well, picture the scene -
Maynards Confectionery Executive:  Tarquin!  Tarquin!  Have you ever considered the percussive qualities of the wine gum?
Steve: No.  And it's Steve, not Tarquin.
MCE: The sound of thunder, Tarquin, the sound of thunder.
Steve:  You've been drinking Jeyes Household Cleaning Fluid again**, haven't you?
MCE: Battle rattle!  Gum drum!  Punch crunch!
Steve:  Hello?  Can I have an ambulance to the following address ...

And finally, a Nimean Dreadnought Timecrashing:

- and why not!

*  Not merely the Queen of Languages, but the King, Regent, Archbishop and Bomb-Throwing-Anarchist as well.
** A thing in real life