Back With A Ban

No!  I Didn't Mean "Bang"
You should know by now that Conrad is nothing if not a hair-splitting pedantic grammar and spelling fascist of the very worst acid.  Normally the phrase is " - of the very worst water" but that doesn't begin to get close to the description.  

Fuming Nitric acid at that!

     So yes, I mean "Ban".
     "What can you possibly mean now, o aged scribe?" I hear you mutter.  Also "Oh heck did he - what good ears you have Conrad!"
     Quite.
     Pausing only to put my voles in a Faraday cage*, I shall expound.

Michael Faraday.  Hope that's not a phial of AAA he's got ...

     What Do We Not Do here at BOOJUM!  That's right, Politics, Religion and Current Affairs.  What happened in Paris yesterday?  A nutter with a hammer attacked the police and was rapidly perforated.
     What is the theme for today's Clerihews?  Why, stars of the Hammer horror milieu.  So my original title of "Back, Back, With A Hammer Attack" would have sounded shockingly insensitive and click-baity.
     Besides, picking on Mr. D. Trump is like making off with low-hanging fruit; it takes so little effort there's no thrill in it.  I reserve the right to poke fun at Ol' Vlad Putin, as he is clearly one of the Tsars brought forward in time.  I must have a word with The Doctor about that ...

Meanwhile, Back In Dangerland -
Another thing you ought to also know by now is that your humble scribe is - how can I put this? - intensely interested in things that go BANG and things that are poisonous, and most especially so in those substances that combine both qualities.  So I have been trawling through the Wikipedia article "List of Extremely Dangerous Substances" with interest, seeing if any of them are cross-referenced on Youtube.
     Just in case MI5 are back on the case, I should point out that all this is PURELY THEORETICAL, and in no way do I condone anyone reading this being inspired to build their own thermonuclear weapon**.
     So - Azoazide Azide, formula C2N12, which means 2 carbon atoms and 12 Nitrogen ones.  This is not a winning combination, for the non-chemists out there: generally speaking, the more nitrogen atoms are present, the greater the chance of an explosion, and formulae like these usually include a few hydrogen atoms, which act as a kind of molecular diplomat.

As it says on the tin.
(Although even writing that on a tin of AAA would make it - explode)

     Not so here.  C2N12 is a substance verily itching to explode.  Measurements of it's properties are sketchy at best, because it explodes with the slightest shock, or amount of friction.  If you touch it, it explodes; if you move it, it explodes.  It explodes under anything less than the lowest-powered infra-red source possible.  It even explodes when diluted in solution.  Only tiny amounts have been made because - you may be ahead of me here - it explodes.

The opposite of AAA

And Now For That Hammer Yammer
Another fruitful session of walking the dog produced the following clerihews.  I was cheeky enough to write them out in the Job Centre whilst waiting for an interview; hopefully the staff were all impressed by how diligent Conrad was in making notes about work whilst waiting ...

Christopher Lee

Was rather scary.

He had some Italian ancestry

And was good at singing Opry.

Like I said.  Scary

    
 A bit of poetic licence there in using that South Canadian term for their hideous caterwauling country music, but if you have any quibbles then - whose blog is it?  Also less an insult than a matter of fact, he could indeed sing opera, and did.

Peter Cushing

Didn't like rushing.

He played his wargaming slow

Planning carefully before each go.

     Hmmm.  I'm not really being insulting enough here, am I?  Peter was a keen wargamer and there are pages on the internet of magazine articles showing him playing.  Larger scale stuff than I prefer, 1/72 I think.  A true British gentleman of the first water.

Donald Pleasance

Didn't give tuppence

What he did in acting parts.

He could be the Knave or the King of Hearts

     Is this traducing an actor?  He did have a family to support after all, so you can't really criticise the man.  He did play the good guy - check out "The Great Escape" for one - and the bad guy - check out "Will Penny" - with equal relish.  His role in "The Black Windmill" is a tad more ambiguous.

Oh, and of course, Blofeld, with his dog.

Oh.  There we are, at count.  Don't worry, more scrivel tomorrow!


*  Well known in scientific circles as a precaution against vole-explosion
**  Besides which, they are verrrry difficult to make.  It'd take you years.