I Cite Spite Site

Really I Do
Conrad was unaware of the very concept of a "Spite House", which only came to light as a result of seeing a click-bait sidebar on Facebook about a house built out of sheer, toxic, trammell-less spite.  
     Actually the house in question may have nothing whatsoever to do with spite.  Art?

The one on the left, okay?

     Conrad, loath to have to look at 128 slooooowly loading pages in order to view 5 lines of text, Googled instead.  The domicile in question was built in 1926 and there are no definitive answers or explanations about why it was built.  Spite, possibly, yet also a simple determination to take advantage of available building space, or even as a bet, are equally probable explanations.
     Nevertheless, Conrad found this to be fruitful ground.  The Spite House seems to be a predominantly South Canadian phenomenon, surely an indication of people with more money than they need or deserve, in addition to minds more bitter than Prussic acid*.  They tend to be built to deliberately obstruct, or spoil the view of, other people in nearby properties.  Here's one of the earlier ones:

Art!  No.  Get it right, or this Nerve Gas Tazer -

Better!  Actually more a fence -

     The blued area is a brick wall surrounding a property that the owner would not sell, so it got fenced-in.  Completely.  Kind of admirable that someone is so skewed out of true that they're willing to go to such lengths, ain't it?

"The Punic Wars" By Brian Caven
Don't worry or panic about long forthcoming screeds on this work; I've finished it.  
     "Phew!" I hear you expound with relief.  "Dodged a bullet on that one!"
     Ah no.  You gloated too early.  Yes, I've finished it, which means you get a kind of plenary post to sum up my thoughts about it.
     First off, I suppose, is to explain exactly what the Punic Wars were, as they didn't happen yesterday, or even yesteryear.  They occurred in the Third and Second Century BC and were a protracted period of conflict between the empires of Rome and Carthage, ending in triumph for Rome and utter destruction for Carthage.
     You could have predicted this early on, since the Carthaginian generals were almost all uniformly supine, cowardly or inept, or any combination thereof.  At several points victory was within the Punic grasp if they could but manage to be mediocre - yet they fluff it.
     "Oh we are up against an incredibly stubborn foe who never forgets or forgives and who throws legion after legion and fleet after fleet into the war and regards not the cost.
     "Anyone for tennis?"
      - just about sums up the Carthaginian attitude.

Carthage in better times

Today's Coincidence
This takes a bit of a tour, much like the Romans in Carthage except with less blood and thunder, so be patient.
     Okay, I was listening to the Flophouse podcast on the way into and from work today, where they were kind of riffing on "Smalltember" where they focus on films with a lower budget than their usual fare.  Today they took even longer to get to the subject matter than usual, which is quite an achievement: the Flopsters are not exactly known for rigourous scripting, nor for an homogenously-structured podcast, in fact they are pretty much the definition of "winging it".
     Today they were giving a light critical roasting to the film "Christian Mingle", which your humble scribe mis-heard as "Christian Mengele" (South Canadian pronunciation and all that) and assumed they meant a German actor, or director.

Close enough

     Nope.  It's a film. A film about Christian dating via internet websites, Manichean guilt and how many angels can dance on the head of a pan*.     When settled down at work behind my desk, alongside Janice, Precious and Emma, what did their conversation rapidly turn to?  Men. Dating.  And, inevitably -
      - how they'd use internet dating websites to pair up with men.

     And the Coincidence Hydra once again buries it's incisors in your humble scribe's behind.
"Born In The Echoes"
I had completely forgotten about this Chemical Brothers album from last year, mostly because it's quite disappointing and sounds like alternate tracks from "Exit Planet Dust", although "Radiate" is very good, and I like "Sometimes I Feel So Deserted".
     So, I played that last track on Youtube, and - Goodness Me!  What a scary video!  About mutant cyborg rebellion, with lots of oil-as-blood-substitute.  It improves the track, although it ought to come with a warning.

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

     WARNING!  Not for those of a nervous disposition.



*  Which, in a very clever analogy, is also toxic.  We'll get to it in due course.
** Is this correct?  Pans come in a wide variety of sizes.