In Suspension

Not, I Hasten To Add, 
 - being something kept pickled in a solution of formaldehyde on a shelf at the back of the laboratory.  Formaldehyde, for your information, smells ghastly, and coming from someone with no sense of smell, that's criticism indeed.  Also, it's highly toxic and ought never to be drunk, Sherlock Holmes to the contrary. Yes, it can cause vertigo and a stupor, which is what alcohol does, yet it also causes death, which is the kind of dead drunk you want to avoid.
     None of which has anything to do with what follows, but then you shouldn't expect it to.  For today we talk of Spring!
     No, not the season.  Yes it is late Spring but the type I'm talking of is made of metal and sits on a vehicle, to soak up the effect of potholes in the road.
     Yes, we now get around to the Suspension that is in today's title.  This is an issue because of <cue drum roll and trumpet fanfare) First Bus.  Art?

A rather small bus

     That schematic shows what a bus suspension ought to look like and where it is positioned in the carcass of the thing.  These are obviously precision-engineered pieces of metal, making them expensive, so First Bus have decided to cut a few corners.  Art?

Precision-engineered according to First Bus

     Here we see what you'd find if a First bus got broken down into constituent parts.  As evidence of this corner-cutting I append a picture of my handwriting whilst travelling on the 24.  Art?

Eyes left!

     DON'T LOOK AT THE RIGHT HAND PAGE!  because it contains notes from my viewing of 'Guardians of the Galaxy 2', and there are a couple of spoilers.  The stuff on the left hand page was written on the top deck, where the appalling bouncing bus motion was magnified many times over.  At times I felt seasick.

     Well, now that the natural order of things has been re-established with a bit of vitriol directed at First, I think we can proceed onwards from this Intro.

Natural Order Restored
In another respect.  As you should surely know by now, Edna Wunderhund considers all human laps her rightful resting place, no arguments.  So, as far as she is concerned, the photograph below is how things should be, no arguments. Art?

     She is on my lap and the laptop isn't.  Nice work if you can get it.

More Natural Order Restored
The incredibly bizarre (for which read hot and sunny) weather that has increased the number of flies and killed off flowers*, and various unwanted phenomena like that, has thankfully given way to a more traditional variety of British weather, that is as follows:

     At upper left all you can see is an amorphous grey mass; if the precipitation ever clears then you can see Oldham Edge, which is not in itself a thing of beauty although it does remind you that there is weather other than slutch.

"Code Breakers" By James Wyllie
And the other chap.  This book is about the British code-breaking effort in the First Unpleasantness, and pretty much develops the theme of Albion being utterly Perfidious, and woe betide those who think they can chat to each other without being eavesdropped.  Why, towards the end of the war, when the crews of Teuton warships were rising in revolt, waving red flags and generally getting Bolshie, the head of Room 40 had fake British newspapers printed that claimed this was happening in the Royal Navy, too.  Pour encourage les autres, you might say.

Room 40 breaking those codes

     The other point your humble scribe would like to make is that these codebreakers tended to be a little, how can we put it? - eccentric.  They came from a variety of sources, but included plenty of crossword fanatics - oh thanks**! - and historians.
     "But Conrad," I hear you quaver.  "Doesn't that make you a prime-"
     At which point modesty forces me to stop

I did have a clerihew I'd composed about Ringo Starr, but now I can only recall the first two lines.  That'll teach me not to make notes whilst walking the dog.

Ah!  got it -

Ringo Starr

Liked a cigar.

He liked other things as well.

But they are illegal, so I cannot tell.

This  is undoubtedly some hideously seedy drugs metaphor

*  We'll not go into detail about this, okay?
**  Wonder Wifey has just come back from shopping with a copy of The Metro