To You - A Punishment

Or, At Best, A Chore
But to Conrad, a convivial way of passing the time.  

No!  I don't mean brewing and drinking pints of loose-leaf tea to be taken without milk or (shudder) sugar.  No!  I don't mean taking compulsory exercise by walking the dog, because that gives me time alone to compose clerihews and test them on Edna, who loves them. That is, I think she loves them because she whimpers with enthusiasm when she hears the word "Walkies"; maybe the dog treats have something to do with it.
     "Enough of what's not the issue, Conrad!" I hear you quibble.  "Clarify what you are blethering on about."
     Well okay.  My collection of "Purnell's History of the Second World War".  Art?

Scads of 'em!

     I got them in a bundle from the late-lamented Oxfam bookshop in Rochdale a good few years ago now, and have never bothered to organise them until last night.  "96 Weekly Issues" states the blurb under the title.
     (If you aren't a bean-counting number-crunching pedantic hair-splitter you may want to jump to the next item).
     Well, I have 79 of them, so that's 17 missing, right?
     Wrong!  There are no copies from either Volume 1 or Volume 5; they start at Issue 1 of Volume 2 - "Hitler's Revenge on Yugoslavia", which is mid-1941 for the historically incapable.  Nor is there anything about D-Day or the aftermath, thus a lot of 1944 appears to be missing.
     So there appear to be 33 missing, which is confirmed by a quick check on Wiki; the original run of 96 issues was extended to a 7th additional Volume.
     I enjoyed counting and arranging them, although, as today's title suggests, your mileage will almost certainly vary.

You see?  You see what I'm missing?

     The next question is, do I bother going after the missing copies to make a complete collection*?

Okay, the messing about with numbers and beans is over, you can come out now.  Let the motley begin!

More About Fyre: Less About Burning And More Of Bungling
Ah yes, that delicious feeling of Schadenfreude - the malicious enjoyment of other people's misery.  I did touch on this festival yesterday and came across a verrrrry interesting article by one woman who had been recruited to be a talent liaison for the festival.  Herein the link:

https://www.thecut.com/2017/04/fyre-festival-exumas-bahamas-disaster.html

     Chloe - the talent liaison lady, not just a random female name - flew to the island to begin her job.  She was warned not to swim in the sea - sharks.  She should also have been warned off the beach - sandflies. This is mid-March, mind, and the festival was supposed to begin at the end of April, yet nothing had been built.

Putting up a luxury villa tent.

     There was no stage, no sound gear and no lighting, which - as this was going to be a music festival - is kind of a major stumbling block.  No luxury villas, either.  Conrad is pretty much a novice when it comes to construction, but if you haven't even begun building, let alone providing power, light, heating, water and sanitation to those buildings, and you're on a six-week deadline, things have gone badly wrong.  
     It gets worse.  None of the acts supposedly appearing had been paid, which means - musicians being quite devoted to getting their dollar - that they wouldn't be appearing, let alone performing.  Another stumbling block for a MUSIC festival.
     Ja Rule, who appears to have a rudimentary musical background, turned up to party on a yacht whilst this trainwreck rumbled on.  One presumes, since he has possibly graced a stage or two in his time, that he noticed the conspicuous absence of any music festival infrastructure.  Or perhaps not, because - yacht.

A yacht.  Well, it would have been at the Fyre Festival

     Chloe's production team were all sacked at the point where wiser heads amongst the planners calculated it would cost $50 million to stage the festival, and it still wouldn't hit the promised levels of luxury.
     She chose to quit, and ends her expose with the telling detail that nobody at Fyre bothered to have her sign a Non Disclosure Agreement.
     Ah, delicious Schadenfreude!

Here's A Festival That Worked
The one that was happening in Sadler's Yard on Friday, remember?  Strictly limited in size and scope, dedicated to that most basic of human activities, drinking beer.  Art?

     They had a great big marquee, lots of different types of beer, some street food vendors and wandering security chaps.  Plus you didn't have to pay £76,000 to get in, which helps.

Finally -
Do please retain a place in your hearts for the Walrus.  This unfortunate creature looks both odd and scary, as if someone designed a seal whilst drunk.

"I know - we'll give ick vampire fansgsh."

   



*  Yes!