Today's Big News!

No!  Nothing To Do With That Thing With The M83's
A Palatial election or somesuch, because that would be politics - sorry, Politics, and we don't do that here.  Although I do recall a thesis by a couple of French M83 authors who said that the real tactic of intent was to lose the election and become the party in opposition, because that way you can sit on the sidelines and carp endlessly, without actually having to do anything yourself.  I also believe that the President's security detail have standing instructions that, once they are asleep, they are not to be awoken for anything less than nuclear war.

A carp

     Whilst on the subject of making the biggest bangs imaginable, let me inform you that the M83s have their own independent nuclear arsenal, with ballistic missile submarines, stand-off missiles, and they used to have a set of silos at the aptly-named Plateau d'Albion (Albion being all, y'know, perfidious and all).   They have a lot of nukes, to put it plainly, and, since they have always been pretttty ruthless in warfare, it is not recommended to rattle their chain.

Freud would have loved this.  It's called "Le Terrible", by the way

So What Is The Big News?
That the genome of the plant used to make tea, Camellia Sinensis, has been decoded!
     Sorry if this does not rock your world as much as it does mine, it's just that tea is an important element to everyday life here in the Allotment.  

My cuppa, in prep

For example, at the beginning of the Second Unpleasantness, HM Government bought up all of India's tea production for the duration, just to make sure.  I'm not certain what the correct figure is for annual tea consumption here in the UK - hang on - Oh My! - 60 BILLION cups per year.

Nuff said

     So, to us here in the island Eden that is the Allotment, this is impressive news.  There is potential for this research to open the way to improvements in plant breeding, and if it means that Morrisons or Asda, preferably both, stock loose-leaf Darjeeling, then I'm all for it.
     Palatial election?  Pah!

A Taste Of Malta
You know, or ought to know by now, that Conrad has a streak of perversity in him that lies close to the surface.  Thus, when a soft drink native to Malta named "Kinnie" was described by the returning travellers as - well, I don't want to insult the George Cross Island, but Degsy said that drinking it was like putting a copper penny on your tongue and sucking it -  Art?

I kinnie think of a pun for this
(To be said in a Scottish accent)

     - I was rather disappointed to find they hadn't brought any back with them.  The drink describes itself as "bittersweet", and is flavoured with bitter oranges and a handful of herbs.  
     All is not lost, however.  It is exported to many other countries - okay, okay, a few - and the Allotment is amongst them, so - my time may yet come.

I Do A Clerihew
Once again walking the dog proves to be a time for quiet reflection and working out how to insult celebrities and famous people - providing their surname is reasonable to rhyme with.  William Shatner proved hard to roast, as did Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Winston Churchill

Was rarely ill.

Because he drank a lot of brandy,

Which killed off his germs, thus being handy.

     This might get me in trouble with MI5, but I can always plead that he was really half South Canadian.  I think he also did bricklaying for stress relief, which might be an inspiration for a future clerihew.

Lloyd George

Loved to gorge.

He thought that all food was fine,

Which enormously expanded his waistline.

     I suppose it's alright to traduce LG nowadays, under the assumption that this is History, not Politics.  For those not familiar with him, he was a big cheese in the First Unpleasantness, but had become a cipher by the Second; he had a very influential rhetorical style and could not be trusted to tell the truth, in print or the spoken word.

Right, off to put my ten-day-past-it's-sell-by-date quiche in the oven!  Back shortly ...

Ted Heath

Had awesome teeth.

He could thus eat tough pork chops

And fearlessly crunch aniseed drops.

     Another UK politician and ex-Prime Minister.  Art?

Known for his love of yachts