The Killer Shoes Of Jason Mewes

Okay I Lied
The shoes have nothing to do with Jay, it's just that his name rhymed, and - er - the shoes aren't technically shoes, either, it's just that I'm a terribly dishonest person who will stoop to any depth to attract readers.  I realise this may risk alienating my adoring public yet I feel you should know.  Just to be clear.

I put it down to being raised by Mum, pictured above

     Now, the shoes are more akin to clogs, for we are talking of sabots.  Art?

This, from a British point of view, is showing off

     Sabots are big on the Continent.  Supposedly they were used by strikers or protesters in the Industrial Revolution, who would hurl them into the machinery in order to break or destroy it, hence "Sabotage" but both Brewer's and Conrad have doubts about this.  Can you imagine a mighty steam engine being thrown out of kilter by a sweat-soaked shoe?

Ozzy appears to be wearing clogs, so it's all good

Armour-Piercing Discardable Sabot
Usually abbreviated to "Sabot" as the above and it's acronym are rather a mouthful.
     Okay, this is an armour-piercing round invented during the Second Unpleasantness by the British, designed to make the life of opposing tankies considerably more fraught.  Art?

As is

     The idea is that the sabot is the width of the gun barrel, giving the maximum surface area for the propellant to work on.  Being plastic it actually breaks when fired, but is held together by the gun barrel.  Once it exits the muzzle, the sabot flies apart and the business bit - known to British tankies as the Long Rod Penetrator* - flies off to the target, where all the energy delivered across the large sabot impacts with the LRP which has a far smaller surface area.
     Originally made from tungsten, these now tend to come in the flavour of depleted uranium, which is incredibly dense and thus more effective.  Yes it is also highly toxic but when the LRP comes tiptoeing uninvited into your tank, long-term health effects take a back seat.

Example sample at Bovington Tank Museum

     There you go, BOOJUM! facilitating it's didactic rationale.  Why yes I am still reading Dickens, how can you tell?

"Coast To Coast"
You may have read recently of the death of Peter Vaughn, that fine British character actor who could effortlessly play menacing or sinister, and who is therefore a man after Conrad's own heart.  He has a sterling part in Terry Gilliam's utterly brilliant "Brazil" - if you have not seen this film CHECK IT OUT IMMEDIATELY! - and of course mention was made of his appearance in "Citizen Smith".

Art, you baffoon!
<sound of Tazer charging up>

     Here an aside.  Conrad has pondered what, if anything, the South Canadians would make of a sitcom about a British Communist trying to bring about the revolution.  He is also rather curious about what the Sinisters made of it at the time, as surely their spies <ahem> "cultural attaches" present in London would have been aware of it.  Approve?  Disapprove?  Ignore it and pretend it never happened, or send out a KGB hit-squad to terminate the writers and cast?

The Citizen in question

     Right, back to Peter and a film he was in called "Coast to Coast", which I had to look up on IMDB.  I remembered him, and Lenny Henry, and Peter Postlethwaite, but mostly I remembered Peter's dialogue.  He plays a gangster who, with his colleague, had been torturing the hapless Postlethwaite's character in order to get information.  They found a note on Kecks McGuiness.  Later on, Peter Vaughn's character passes it over to his partner in crime.
     Partner In Crime:  This note's all soggy
     Peter Vaughn:  I know.  I've still got his tongue in my pocket ...

Real Life Consequences
Conrad occasionally shares a lunchtime with Pete, that chap whose stag day he attended back in the summer.  You know, the one at Red's True Barbecue where we unwittingly ordered the bucket of cooked meats that came to £84.
     Anyway, Pete asked, out of politeness, what your modest artisan was up to this weekend, and I said I was definitely going to get a haircut.  We then proved that men are creatures of habit by me saying I'd been going to Pepe's for 20 years, and Pete admitting that he'd kept going to the same barbers in Withington for years, even after moving**.
   We then got onto phlebotomy - that advert about "No experience required" and "two day course" bothered me, and they bothered Pete, too.
    None of which has anything to do with what I meant to post about - the latest comment in the "Comments" section of BOOJUM!  By "Unknown", of course.  Let me quote:
"The cryptic clue for peppers was very good - perhaps weekend lethargy played a part"
     Since Pete is always enquiring if he can help whilst I tackle the crossword at work, I STRONGLY suspect him of being the traducer behind this post.  STRONGLY! 

Proof I can do crosswords.  PROOF I TELL YOU! 

"What's this about me and shoes?"

*  No sniggering at the back!
** Note, Pete, if you will, that I make NO MENTION of prices here.  Man of my word.