There Is No Z In Manchester Airport

In Case Of Zombie
Yes, I know I was rather off-target with allegations of Rochdale being infested with the walking dead - although to judge by the number of hits that post got, a lot of people out there wish it had been - and there hadn't been any consequent risk to Oldham.  
     But what if there had been?  As you ought to know, a zombie infection spreads in an arithmetic progression as the number of infected increases.  This means that, from Patient Zero arriving in The Spindles, to the walking dead hammering on your front door, take as little as a couple of hours.

This could be YOU!
(I admit it's not very probable)

     Conrad then needed to find out how long it would take for a panic drive to Manchester Airport, and the answer was thirty minutes.  This presupposes that you have your Disaster Bag already packed, that you know where your passport is, and that you remember to turn off the hob.
     The transit time allows you to plan how to board an aircraft without a ticket; robbing another passenger is always an option, though you might try bribery, too.  I think my chosen method would be to run shrieking through the entrance hall - "SAVE YOURSELF THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE IS UPON US!!!" and follow the stampede to a departure gate.

I Googled, and this came up.  I am now officially worried.

Which Is Looking Ahead A Little
My Zombie Apocalypse MSS, "Revelations", never actually states what date the tale is set in, which I thought was frightfully clever.  You can make an educated guess at 2022, because the next Football World Cup is brought in, so my panic-timing drive was perhaps 5 years too early.  I also know who the guilty party is, and why, which I intend to keep a secret.

The Haul
I travelled to the airport on a dual-mission today - recovering Wonder Wifey being the cover story if MI5 or UNIT wanted to know where I was going at such breakneck speed*.   She returned from Malta bearing gifts, in appreciation at the care and attention I devoted to Edna, who thankfully cannot tell of the Wicked Neglect suffered at being displaced by a laptop.  Here you go:

     Those are various alcoholic liquers in the bottles, various decoctions involving figs or prickly pears, which sound interesting and may get sampled later tonight.  The 'Tondini' are curious little biscuits with a list of odd ingredients.  That small pile of pre-packed biscuits in the foreground has been acquired under the "Give It To Conrad" principle.  That is, if a foodstuff is tried and found to be ghastly, inedible, foul or near-rotten, it is given to Conrad, as he will eat anything**.
     I shall let you know.

That Coincidence Hydra - AGAIN
Last night Conrad was - er - conducting internet research - yeah, that was it, research - and he stumbled across a Youtube clip detailing "10 Tiny Mistakes That Caused Massive Disasters".  They do include the Castle Bravo thermonuclear test shot which I've mentioned before - the one where a supposed 5 megaton explosion ended up being 15 megatons instead - but the bit that made me sit back and use strong words  crops up at 5 minutes 25 seconds.  Here's the link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFr2gQbgDAQ

     It details the story of Heinrich Albert, one of the top German spies in South Canada during the First Unpleasantness, who left his briefcase on a train.  A briefcase - Art?

A briefcase.  Just so we're clear

     - we have to be clear here, as all you youngwhippersnappers use mobile phones to carry information nowadays.  The unfortunate Heinrich's briefcase was simply stuffed with lots of juicy information about his spying activities, and it was promptly stolen by an agent of the US Secret Service.
     "That name seems familiar," I said to myself.  I can do this when at home, it's just unwise to do it on the bus.  It was indeed familiar, because who had I been reading about in "Code Breakers" - Art?

Breakers of codes

     None other than Heinrich Albert.  The Youtube presentation rather over-eggs the pudding, as the revelations leaked about all those documents didn't push South Canada into war, but Boy! did it annoy them.  Page 83 of the above edition, if you care to know.

Well, here we are at count again.  No worrying coincidences today, at least not so far - well, there was that episode of NCIS when McGee mentioned the TARDIS, to the puzzlement of Di Nozo ...



*  55 m.p.h. is breakneck, right?
**  Except pineapple and parsnips.