Brew Romance

I'm Doing You A Flavour 

Ha!   The Quentin Tara and Chris Slater film, for your information, back when both were worth watching.  And yes, I can keep this up forever.  FOREVER!  Although I shall probably get bored of tea-based puns and move on before then.

     In the meantime –

     There are those who allege your humble scribe goes through his day unaware of the world around him, being rather more occupied by the party in his head going on 24/7 – sorry, neighbours! – than sordid reality.

     Not true!  Well, not completely true.  Okay, okay, MOSTLY true.  Here is evidence to the contrary.  Art?

     Never come across this before, despite working in the city centre of Gomorrah-on-the-Irwell for over 5 years.  I wonder what’s being filmed?  No mention made here, and as I have the unpleasant suspicion that it’s a soap opera, I shan’t expend any energy upon finding out. 

     You may politely inform if discovered.

What On Earth? A.K.A. WoE

This is BOOJUM!’s far more polite equivalent of other blog’s “WTF”, because we pride ourselves here on being SFW.  Worryingly obsessed with nuclear weapons, yes, but still SFW.

     Anyway, this picture is nothing but WoE made concrete.  Art?

Waffle wrapped in piffle

“Extensive VMware optimised hyper-converged and hybrid cloud portfolio”

     What?  What the hell are they blathering on about?  Why did this come up on my Twitter feed when I have no idea what they’re going on about, let alone any interest?  What is a cloud portfolio?  What is WMware and can it help to stir the milk into my porridge – because if not, GET OUT OF HERE!

“The power of hyper-converged  infrastructure”

     What?  What makes it hyper-converged?  Scratch that, I really don’t care.  Really, the modern world.  We didn’t need this stuff when Britain ran most of the civilised places, did we?

     Bah!

Circular Error Probable

As I admitted above, worryingly interested in the big bang nucl – er – foofoodillies*  Foofoodillies.  Yeah.  Them.

     I don’t have my notes with me**, so I cannot remember what that Nork fossil clad in a general’s suit gave as the range of their Dingdong missile, but I seem to recall that it was about 5,000 miles, if that.  No, I can’t be bothered to go look it up.  My word alone should be good enough for you.

     The error he gave for the MPI (Mean Point of Impact) because you can’t use a statistical term like CEP for a single missile, was 7 miles.  11 kilometres if you like using those horrid metric terms.

Titan: made to dig craters, big time

     Now, to be truly ICBM, your missile needs a range of 11,000 miles, or double what the range to Guam is, which means at least doubling your MPI.  Thus, if the Sulky Fat Lad were indeed trying to hit CONUS (Continental United States) with his Dingdongs, the MPI would be of the order of 15 miles.

     This is execrable accuracy.  As mentioned previously, these things are so inaccurate that you’d risk hitting Guam if they were pointed in that general direction, and with the Horny One sitting in the White House that’s not a mistake you want to make.

     If your missiles are that inaccurate, the only chance you have of destroying a target is by having a whacking big thermonuclear warh – foofoodilly and, as the quaint South Canadian term goes, “dig ‘em out in the craters”.

     However!  The Norks plainly have not detonated a thermonuclear wea – foofoodilly yet.  The seismic readings for their underground tests are pretty puny, frankly, and only reveal a fission capability.  Some of these might be “fizzles” or unsuccessful fusion detonations where the primary has gone off but there’s not been any fusion.

     Like we said – worryingly interested!

Underground test subsidence craters in Utah

Shakespoke

I bet if Windbag Willy knew that, centuries later, he’d be getting mocked over his excrutiating  prose, he’d have given up.  In fact, if I can get The Doctor to focus for long enough (she has a short attention span) I may try to – well, enough plotting (UNIT are always watching) for the moment.

     So!  Let the mockery motley begin.

“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”

No!  Bill, there’s just no way.

Our summers here are grey and grim,

And wet and soggy and malingering.

     All true.  You can count on the talons of one hand the number of actual days with sunshine that we’ve experienced in the Pond since the start of summer.  Which technically ends today, no mean feat when it hasn’t ever started in the first place.

We are a hopeful lot

*  This will fool not only IT but UNIT and MI5

**  I like saying this as it makes me sound important

The Green Tea Mile

I Shan't Leave It Alone

Conrad not overly fond of green tea.  Gunpowder green – that’s a different story, as it’s an entirely different kind of tea.  And yes!  Still with the tea-based puns.  Conrad not keen on “The Green Mile” either.  Hollywood take note.

     Here’s the thing.  This being a blog, we can certainly present you with stuff to occupy the eyes, and even the ears, thanks to Links and our very occasional video.  If I wield the pen well enough then you may get a sense of what I’ve been eating (generally, food just this side of rotten).  What we cannot do, with the technology of 2027, is – oops, sorry, that comes of time-travelling too much – the technology of 2017, is gift you with scent.

     Fortunately for you.

     “But Conrad!” I hear you blench*.  “Wherefore and of what do you speak?”

Blanch.  Close enough.

     Well, The Mansion occupies a kind of watershed: from the front door you can observe the ceaseless traffic humming between Babylon-lite and Ur-ochdale.  From the back door it’s Tandle Hill Park and farmland.

     Where, let me tell you, they lay the manure on at this time of year.  Good lord aloft, the stench that assailed my nostrils as I got off the bus last night!  Ghastly.  No passing and transient zephyr this, no; this stink hung around and invited itself in.  You could have sliced it and served it up with chips.

     AND Conrad has no sense of smell.  Who knows how you humans must have suffered!

Typical human.

“Have Spacesuit Will Travel” by Robert Heinlein

Well now.  I haven’t read this in a geological age, and only bought it because I have fond memories of it as a smaller entity than I am now.  It is definitely of it’s time, although so far nobody has mentioned slide-rules, but we are less than half-way through it.  Mr H spends a lot of time and effort describing Kip’s effort to win a slogan competition, because the prize is an all-expenses paid trip to the Moon.  It will be a holiday destination in the future, apparently.  Who knew!

My old edition with the not-very-good cover

     You can tell it’s one of Mr H’s juveniles because he doesn’t lay the right-wing politics on very heavily.  Nor does he mention sex.

     It is an odd thing about Mr H – definitely a right-winger, yet with a very liberal approach to sex and sexuality that more belongs to some impossible tree-sloth – no, that was “Forbidden Planet”, wasn’t it?  Like a very crimson liberal indeed.

Death Cab For Cutie

Yes, today we are using the correct spelling.  I did pop into the now-handily located Fopp! Record shop last night after work, only to find that they didn’t have “Transatlanticism” in stock.  And that detour meant I missed the 24 bus.

     I realise this isn’t really news, it’s just that I like to keep you informed**.

BOOJUM! Reviews Films

In our accustomed manner.  That is to say, speculatively, shallowly and sardonically.  If you want a proper review, go speak to Mark Kermode, who is a big fan of the Comsat Angels, which is enough to save him or his descendants when my starship invasion fleet gets here.

     Okay, shall we review?

     “Victoria And Abdul”: Oh no.  Judi Dench as Queen Vic?  Get out of here with your Big Skirt Film!  A genre that Conrad has happily dismissed for decades***.  Who’s Abdul?  Who cares!

     “American Assassin”: Well, the title looks promising.  Unfortunately the posters are trying too hard to be all serious and gloomy and shizzle, and you can’t see a thing.  Not even a tagline.  Is it me, or is that title ambiguous?  Is he (presuming here yes but the odds are in my favour) an assassin from South Canada, or does he go around assassinating them?

     I think we should be told^.

American ass.  Close enough.

     “IT”: What?  “IT” tells one absolutely nothing about the film.  In fact there can be few film titles that are vaguer and less informative than this one.  The tagline doesn’t help AT ALL.  “You’ll float too”.  I beg your pardon?  Conrad may have lost weight thanks to his Hideous Wasting Disease, yet he remains a fairly hefty individual.  Floating is not on the agenda.

???

Finally –

Because that default Facebook description keeps coming up and mentioning tanks, here’s the Automitralleuse de Reconnaisance Renault Modele 1933, which was effectively a self-propelled machine gun.  Not that impressive if it came up against a tank with a real gun, although if all you had to defend yourself was skin and a greatcoat, then you were in trouble. 

Quiver in fear!

*  Yes this is a real word.

**  Informative, that’s me.

***  AKA chick flicks

^  Well, I should.  You lot can remain ignorant.