This is BOOJUM! which is never less than SFW, and depending on your viewpoint this may be "Safe For Work" or "Sanity Free Words" or any other acronym I can come up with.
Anyway, I am glad to be able to report that the University Boat Race took place unencumbered by exploding ordnance left over from the Second Unpleasantness, and that Oxford won.
None of this, of course, has any connection with what follows, but then you were expecting that, weren't you?
I refer, of course, to that comic classic by Charles Dickens, "Martin Chuzzlewit", which I have just realised is well over 900 pages long, so a bit of a commitment in terms of reading time. The reason for "Beaver" is because CD describes farmer's wives at market, wearing their beaver bonnets. These, it seems, as not very helpfully explained in the Notes, are a variety of "Poke Bonnet", which Art can provide an illustration of. Art? Wake up, you coal-chewing sloven and do some work!
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| No, I don't know where the poke comes from. |
Very Dickensian, I'm sure you'll agree, which is a good thing, as if they were Pynchonian or Orwellian there would be trouble*.
There, with a nice neat Intro out of the way, let the medley of motley begin!
"The Albatross"
To make sense of this you have to be at least passing familiar with Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner", the bird rather than a Teuton aircraft of the First Unpleasantness. If you recall, the AM unwisely killed an albatross, which meant he was condemned to spend eternity wandering the world as a consequence. One way to gain immortality, I suppose, but the RSPB would be very unhappy if you were to try this today.
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| A bit unwieldy for everyday wear, one feels |
Now, if your only contact with Conrad's written work is BOOJUM! then you might be alarmed, or impressed (or seriously worried) to know that the blog is a relatively recent development and that he's written lots of genre stuff previously. Lots. Let us now examine one of these earlier - SIT DOWN! SIT DOWN RIGHT NOW! - one of these earlier works.
I started with a very simple idea: "Captain Scarlet for adults". No characters or plot to begin with, and it could never be published or Sir Gerry Anderson would come out of his grave to sue. Although I was creative enough to camouflage things - SPECTRUM becomes UNION, Captain Scarlet is really Fidelio Rossi and Cloudbase is ICE07 (Isolated Command Environment, FYI). Our heroic narrator is rootless, idealistic Serb with a horror of guns. I was re-reading it and it's not bad, if a tad idiosyncratic. I thought the title was rather clever - the Mysterons and their war of nerves, doncha know.
| The terror of the Mysterons - no, hang on - |
I Say, Did You Want Your Mountain Back?
As you know, the blog avoids Religion, Politics and Current Affairs as if they were poison, or pineapple, which is pretty much the same to Conrad. Er - unless there's a cheap pun in there or we're discussing Father Brown.
So! Gibraltar.
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| Also known as The Rock |
I bet you're wondering why we mention Gib, as it is rather prominent in current news headlines. The name, gentle reader, the name. "Gibraltar" is a corruption of The Rock's original name, "Djeb El Tarik", meaning "The Rock of Tarik".
Thus, whilst all that sabre-rattling is going on between Britain and Spain, remember that at any moment Tarik might turn up and ask for his rock back.
Whom To Insult Today?
I did a rhyme at work for Janice, working on our Newsletter, but left the notebook containing it at work, so you'll just have to be patient. In the meantime, it's time to pick on some hapless celebrity and mildly traduce them.
Kim Jong Il
Likes eating krill.
He said "I make of necessity a virtue.
They're not that nice but are better than shoe."
Okay, okay, allow me to elucidate. Art?
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| Your fill of krill |
Harvey Keitel
Was confused by the Krell.
"You can see what they did,"
He quotes. "But not them, as they're from the Id."
Boom!
* Probably involving that nosey Gallifreyan The Doctor.
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