L.S.D.

NO!  Nothing To Do With Drugs
This is BOOJUM! after all, where we may plot world domination - excuse me, that ought to read WORLD DOMINATION!!! - but we are SFW and do not propound anything along the lines of illegal chemical consumption.  Caffeine and alcohol are the only drugs ever present in my Upstair Lair.
     So, put all thoughts of Lysergic Acid Diethylamide to bed, and whilst you're there tuck in "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" alongside it, too, because this has nothing to do with The Beatles.

Close enough

     "Well, what does it have to do with?" I hear you question.
     Veering one hundred and thirty three degrees off course, it has nothing to do with extinct British specie, either.  Back in the days before decimalisation, our peculiar island currency consisted of pounds, shillings and pence, 144 pence to the pound and twelve pence to the shilling.  We also had the farthing and the guinea but I don't want to overcomplicate things.  This currency could be expressed in a shortened version as "LSD" because the pound sign "£" looked a bit like an "L", "S" stood for "Shilling" and the symbol for a penny was "D", which I confess lacks common sense or logic.  Peculiar, as I said.

When the wren 

     Okay, if today's title is nothing to do with The Beatles, drugs or money - and I wonder how often those five words have been put together - what is it about?
     Bear with me on this, it needs a lot of explanation.

"Liverpool in the Stars with Deadly"
Hence the abbreviation to "L.S.D."
     I realise that typing that title implies your humble scribe has been drinking tea spiked with psilocybin, yet hear me out.  There is a kind of logic at work here*.
     James Blish.  There you go.  Science fiction author who composed the "Okie" quadrology, about cities from Earth that use his fictional but convincing Spindizzy device to become self-contained spaceships that travel the human-settle galaxy seeking work.  "Earthman, Come Home" is the best of the four, and remains one of Conrad's favourite sci-fi reads.

Best edition cover

     So, these space-faring cities travel between the stars, negotiating with settled planets to do work.  Once terms are agreed the city will make planetfall, using a battery of mesotron cannon to excavate a landing site.  These utilitarian tools are also highly effective as weapons, lest you be inspired to go hijack New York New York.  

Those cannon - you can't see 'em but they're there

Blish notes in his text that Mayor Amalfi, the effective chief of NYNY, was in conversation with a local who appeared to have picked up his colloquial English from a native of Liverpool, since only the inhabitants of that city spoke with such an adenoidal accent.
     There you go, it all worked out splendidly in the end.

"That Sneer Of Cold Command"
Perhaps surprisingly, for one who enjoys reading and throwing words around, Conrad hates poetry.  He never had to study that wretch Shakespeare's sonnets or the nervous breakdown might have arrived at 18.  One or two do stick in his head, like "Ozymandias" by Shelley.  There's a line in there about how the statue's "Sneer of cold command tell that the sculptor well those passions read", or something along those lines**.
     Anyway, I posted recently about looking stern.  Art?

     The white hairs are constricted by the comic hat, I admit, but - I don't think I could claim to have the sneer of cold command judged by this, do you?
     Ignore Stephen in the background.  
     So this morning I hauled my unhappy carcass out of bed when the alarm went off at 8:20 a.m. and it was still dark, damp and gloomy, then went and got a haircut at Peppe's, where I have been going for the past 20 years.  Creature of habit.
     Let's see the result.  Art?

     Stern, unyielding and cruel-eyed, I think you'll agree.  Back to normal!

BOOJUM! - With The Power To Wash Really White And Scare Bus Companies
Okay, I exaggerated about the laundry - come on, you expect it by now - yet there is proof positive that BOOJUM! has terrified First Bus into tightening up it's act.  Must be all the new readers.
     "!" I hear you gag, unable to speak properly thanks to surprise.  Raw, untrammeled surprise.  "H.O.W.C.A.N.T.H.I.S.B.E." - that's you tapping out the question in Morse.
     Observe!

Wowsers

     I was sitting rather far away and so the important bit isn't entirely legible.  It reads "It's unacceptable for a journey to run early.  Our aim is that no bus leaves a stop earlier than the advertised time."
     Well I should cocoa!  This will have to be explained to the bus drivers clearly and simply in terms that a six-year old could understand, of course, as reading is not their strong suit.



*  BOOJUM! logic - variable and inconsistent at best.
** Go Google if you want chapter and verse, I have better things to do!