Oh The Irony

No!  Nothing To Do With Laundry
Although I do have a lot of Tefal-fodder to cope with at a later date.  No, I refer to the name of the town I am currently working in - did I mention I was working? - which happens to be - in an admin job for the moment - which happens to be in - and there's a long bus ride to get there and back again, I can tell you - in the town of Ashton.  Okay, let Art illuminate things.  Art?  Put down that plate of coal!

Ho ho.

     I was looking for "Ash", Art, but not that sort.  I bet you think you're pretty funny, don't you? WELL YOU'RE NOT!  <terrifying sound of 'Zeus' Tazer being used, Art's plate of coal catches fire> try again.

Art's dinner: ash

     That's better.  Good lord aloft, you do make everything a trial.  I thought this Intro would take up a couple of sentences and here we are nearly at count, thanks to that sub-human revenant Art.  Why, people might think I was trying to pad this out artificially -
     Anyway, Ashton - literally, a ton of ash.  How passing strange that I encounter the following artistic feature on my way to and from the office.

     Water water everywhere, including plenty lurking in the heavens above.  And in a town named after an arid substance notable for utter dryness - 
     Well, it made me think.

A Long And Convoluted Trail Of Reasoning
First of all, when the Mysterons utilise their terrifying powers of retro-metabolism, destroying an original to create a perfect duplicate under their control, does that make a Mysteronised human a zombie?  If so, does that mean Mysteronised inanimate objects like tanks or passenger aircraft are zombie machines*?

This is for kids?  Really?  

     Anyway, that has nothing to do with what follows.
     Eddie Izzard!  We mentioned him yesterday in connection with Doctor Who's Companions, and a skit he did of them being so easily captured.  I shan't recapitulate, go back and read it and boost my traffic.  Art?

Eddie triumphant

     You may not like Eddie's politics, dress sense or humour (though you do have grounds to complain about some of those nail polish shades) but you cannot fail to give the man props for putting his money where his mouth is - 27 marathons in 27 days.  The man is a marathon-mastering machine!  Plus he missed a day so had to run TWO marathons the next day.  Simply thinking about this causes your humble scribe to break out in a hot sweat and lie down.
     Now, where does the marathon event and name come from?
     O I thought you'd never ask!
     Cast your mind back to 490 BC, when there were no flush toilets, reality TV stars or mobile phones**.  What did exist was antipathy between the Persian empire and Greece, because the Emperor Darius I intended to do the Greeks in.

Darius, proving that a man with piles should never join the cavalry

     The Persian army was led by Artaphernes and Datis, against the Athenians and Eretrians under the Athenian commander Miltiades.  Clever tactical deployment helped the Greeks to rout the Persians in a real game-changer of a battle.
     The Marathon bit comes in because that's where it was fought.  It was such an important victory that Thersipus of Erchius ran the 25 miles from the battlefield to Athens with the news, and then promptly dropped dead from exhaustion, the wimp.

Eddie Izzard is over 50

     Yes, a wimp!  If he'd run 675 miles in one day (which, by an amazing coincidence, is the equivalent of 27 marathons) then he'd be entitled to choke it.

I know which one I prefer

     
Finally -
As you surely know by now, Conrad ploughs a lonely furrow in his attempts to persuade the world that Weasels Are Our Friends.  I have seriously suggested that they are a more appropriate national emblem than that feckless foreigner the lion, and now I have more ammunition to prove it.  Art?  Wow, Art, use deodorant, you smell like a bonfire.

Ozzy

     There are some Youtube vides of this frenetic little chap in action, one of these linked below -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hy6oaDzy0-Q

     As his human, Frisco68, informs, weasels do not make good pets***.

Mum agrees!

*  BOOJUM! - never afraid to ask the hard questions
**  So, not all bad then.
*** But excellent rabid watchdogs