What's In A Word?

Not Literally -
"A bunch of letters" might be correct yet it's not in the spirit of what your humble scribe is looking for.  Meaning, you know, that thing that philosophers like Kant and Descartes went looking for in the steaming jungles of South America, swinging from the trees and - no, wait, that was Professor Challenger, wasn't it?  
     "Meaning".  This is especially important when doing Cryptic Crosswords, and one reason Conrad is a bit annoyed that our 21st Century printed media can't speak.  Don't mention digital devices, for they truly are the work of Beelezebub (especially Bluetooth), I mean a physical copy of a paper rendered with ink on that very same paper.
     "Oh my, he's sulking because he didn't get a clue," I hear you snottily dismiss my musings.  "Man up, Conrad!*"
     I am not sulking, I am making a perfectly relevant and pertinent - okay, yes, I am sulking.  The clue was down as 4 letters, "Florence's flower".  I had no idea what the answer was, and since there are 456,976 possible variations, I wasn't going to guess, either.  What flower had a connection with Florence? I mused, not being blessed with botanical knowledge.  Dammit, where's a Zoology graduate when you need them!
     Okay, that's not the wolf at the door - technically perhaps, if you consider the dog to be  variety of domesticated wolf - it's Edna, and she'll whimper until I let her in, because she might be missing something.  Of I might have dropped food.
     Okay, that's the Intro out of the way, let the phaeton of phantasy roll forth!

Stretching A Metaphor Cruelly
I should explain that last sentence of the Intro a bit further.  I used to finish with the line "let the motley begin!" except the motley went off-road, crashed and had to be scrapped.  The substitute Pantechnicon didn't do too well as it caught fire and ended up a shattered metaphor.  So, we have ended up with a phaeton.  It is being driven slowly and carefully and may eventually be trotted.
     Just so you know.

Comment 18
As you surely know by now, a Comment about BOOJUM! is a rarity indeed.  After nearly three and a half years there have been only 18, and some were patently spam: Climan Transportation of Canada, and the Mumbai Escort Service, for example.
     I'm really not sure about Comment 18.  I can't copy and paste, and I wouldn't anyway or it would fill up the entire blog word count, but it seems to have been sent by a person worried about insults and enmity.  Here is a sample:  

"I know an old man, who was in the habit of insulting others. This was his entertainment.  One day, he became the most unwanted person of the society.  Hardly 7 or 8 persons were present at his funeral.  This was his life time achievement."

     This is from "Jagdish", for whom I suspect English is not his mother tongue.  Is it a parable intended to shame Conrad into better behaviour?  Hardly!  7 or 8 at my funeral would be an outstanding attendance!

South Canada And The Pond Of Eden
Actually today has been a really nice sunny day, if a little blustery.  We here in the Pond tend to bow down in thanks that we get a day like this at the weekend, instead of it mockingly arriving Monday morning after 48 hours of incessant rain.
     Well, you overseas readers out there know that Conrad hilariously maintains the fiction that the American Revolution never happened, and if it did then it fell a bit flat.  Occasionally, however, reality breaks through, as Philip K. Dick always insisted it would.I stumbled across this last night and was amused enough to follow it through - "25 Areas In Which The United Kingdom Totally Triumphs Over the United States".  Art?

Creator and host

     This guy makes a plaintive plea not to take this too seriously.  I was intrigued, all the more so as he manages the comparative list in less than 6 minutes.  The link if you like -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtLhOz703Zw

     I shall be selective, so there won't be 25 entries and certainly not many tonight.  Close to count, doncha know.

Sales tax!

     Apparently on the wrong treasonous disloyal other side of the Atlantic, the price on a product is not what you pay at the till; you have to pay the display price plus sales tax.  Here in the Pond what you see is what you pay.  Which sounds far easier!
     Then there's item 23.  Art?

     As our host states, "Two words:  David.  Attenborough."  Technically I think it should be 3, as he is actually SIR David Attenborough.  But we will generously let that pass.
     We shall finish with number 20:  Roundabouts. Art?

Roundabouts

     Apparently we in the Pond are obsessed with roundabouts, which our host credits as being entirely understandable - even Mythbusters concluded they were more effective than traffic lights.  Hey, if Mythbusters back it - then you can take it to Fort Knox, not merely your local bank.

     Oh!  Sorry, completely forgot about the answer to the Cryptic Crossword.  The clue in "flower" is NOT a bright floral bloom, it meant "something that flows" - i.e. a river.  The "Arno".


* You will regret saying this.  Oh yes indeed.