HAIL! To Our (Robotic) Overlords

Well, Perhaps Robotic
Maybe only a bit cyborgish, on the side.  If we're lucky.  And a nice cyborg, like that Steve Austin, not like the Cybermen.
     Bear with me on this, I'll return to this theme, don't you worry. 
     Firstly, let me skirt the topic of Current Affairs and Politics, two subjects that we normally steer well clear of here on the blog.  When I say "skirt" I mean "approach vaguely in an oblique manner not guaranteed to involve actual contact", if that puts your mind at rest.  If that doesn't work, try gin.

Also good in cocktails

     I happened to be scanning that fount of all the news that's fit to read, the British Broadcasting Corporation to you, and it's News website.
     "Trump Era Top Sellers" declared the headline, which immediately intrigued me.  The Trump Era - he's a big cheese in South Canadian politics, in case you hadn't heard - is only 10 days old, so the reading public must have seized the day, rather.  In one way this is a reassurance as we are constantly being told that Print Is Dead, which is indeed a worry if you happen to be christened Mr. Peter Rint (yes this is a real surname).
     So, what are these topical tomes?
     I thought you'd never ask!
     Number One: "It Can't Happen Here" by Sinclair Lewis.
     Never heard of it.  Next!

Except it did ...

     Actually, here an aside.  This is pretty close to "It won't happen here," which is a line from that seminal proto-punk song by The Desperate Bicycles, "Advice On Arrest".  Nothing whatsoever to do with either Sinclair Lewis or The Big Cheese, but I thought you might like to know.
     Number Two: 1984, by George Orwell.  I have read it, and mighty depressing it is, too.  The - Spoiler alert for those of you who have been living in a colony on the Moon since 1947 - the bad guys win, forever.  Normally this would warm your humble scribe's heart, as he is ever one to back the trend.  Normally.  Consider me a frightful old reactionary in every other sense, yet I cannot fail but jib at a civilisation that has rendered the art of writing* a sin. 

Not sure if Art is being satirical here or not ...

Number Three:  Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley.  First off, Conrad dislikes this work on principle, as it quotes from the Beard of Avon.  Read it once, not tempted to bother again.  The future is dulled and dullard consumerism.  Not sure if they still have 
books.

The New World to some.  Brave or not?  Only you can tell!

Number Four: Farenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury.  Good old Ray!  He was always more of a story-teller than a science fiction author.  Note that he goes for the Farenheit scale here, rather than Degrees; obviously making a point**.  The conceit behind the novel is interesting.  Interesting and TERRIFYING!  I shan't write it down, the very idea gives me the billy-crinning wim-wams***.

Art, you monster!

     There was some boring business bumf in bound form at Number 15 from someone called Potus but since it didn't feature laser battles or atom-powered zombies, I'm giving it a miss.
     Right, enough motleying around, let's get on with the main attraction.
"Elementary"
As ever, Conrad sits with pen and notebook to hand when watching this series, ready to note down Sherlock's vocabulary, because he is nothing if not an anal retentive grammar gadfly.  Conrad, not Sherlock.  Although ...
   Well well well, what's all this?  "Druthers", "Nefarious", "Defenestrator", "Cloistered, shrivelled things" (of his and Watson's existence), "Alluring", "Dissemination", "Reconciliation".  Enough to stretch the vocabulary of even the most reticent South Canadian, wouldn't you say?

A defenestration

ATOMIC LUNCHTIME
Sorry, it only works with capital letters.  A Tom-ic lunchtime is one where Quiet Tom is either the subject of attention, or the source of waspish wit.  You can't pick on him at the moment, the lad's not well.  I shan't go into details, except to say that this is an ardent lesson in why you should keep your flensing billhooks sterile.
     "Er - yes," I hear you question.  "So what venal verbiage of vengeance did you visit him with?  Forsooth."
     Pausing merely to point out that only Shakespeare uses words like "Forsooth" and it doesn't make you look big or clever, I shall continue.  Tom, absent on Friday last week, missed my act as Quizmaster in reciting questions from the Pub Quiz the night before.  In the interests of clemency and ergonomics I shan't read them all out to you, simply a couple.
     Q1: where in the human body would you find an "Astrocyte"?
     Q2: known in Germany as "Blutwurst" and France as "Boudain Noir", what is this dish known as in English?
     Q3:  who was Queen for nine days in 1553?
     Answers after the asterisks.
    


*  WITH A PEN!!
**  Not sure what it is.  Avoid sinister modern thermometer metrics?
***  The shakes <translation from Conradical courtesy Mister Hand>

A1:  The brain.  I did help Tom to get this
A2:  Black pudding.  Or, if you want to be pedantic and off-putting, Blood Sausage
A3:  Lady Jane Grey.  Tom got the "Jane", which was ruled insufficient by the Quizmaster.

Either astrocytes or mutant octopii