I know the BOOJUM! slang for the fair city of Cottonopolis is "Gomorrah-on-the-Irwell", but the joke won't work without it being called by it's Sunday-best. Yes, yet another day of drab deluges, and it does indeed feel as if the wide Atlantic is falling vertically from the heavens, vertiginously*. Your humble hack got dismally damp at the bus stop this miserable morning - I'm not laying it on too thick, am I? - because it's only a pole with a sign attached, no means of taking shelter.
Thus, given the fact that the ocean had come to visit, it most definitely did feel as if I was living in Manchester-on-Sea.
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| All we lack is a shower of fish |
You can't deny that our weather here is currently disgusting. Cold, wet, windy and raining, whilst the Continent - for thus we dub Europe - is broiling/baking/roasting <delete least applicable cooking metaphor> in a heatwave. If you care to dig deep enough there's a Brexit joke in there ... Italy has declared a state of emergency because of the temperature. We here in the Pond of Eden have a different emergency: you cannot look up with your mouth open, or you'd drown.
Said weather has already seen off one festival, the Y-Not in Nottinghamshire. Y-Not? Well, because of the weather in the Pond, for one reason! Art?
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| Or - is it "Tony" backwards? |
It's pretty much a given that it WILL rain before, during and after a music festival in the Pond. Why pay £545 to stand in a slough of mud, getting rained upon, paying £25 for a sandwich and hearing a poor rendition of a couple of singles, when you can sit at home in the dry, sipping a cup of Oolong, nibbling on a digestive and watching the whole thing on television? Besides which, you can laugh and point.
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| This picture argues for me. |
Enough word-mincing! Do not pass "Go" - instead join in the ancient Chinese game and when you are done - edge past the stultified motley and out of the Intro.
The Wand Of Despond
No! Not Dis Pond. Well, kind of the Pond, except long ago. Any fule kno that George R. R. Martin based his cultish novel "Game of Thrones" on the War of the Roses here in the Pond. It might have been five hundred years ago but the folk round here have loooong memories and trying to get them to eat Yorkshire Brack is a tough sell.
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| Deliciously fruity and flavoured with tea |
I am talking, of course, about the latest television program version of GoT, and the siege and storming of Casterley Rock**. Conrad is not impressed, to be honest. What was the justification of Lop-handed Larry when facing down that Tyrell Corporation lady in her own castle?
"Oh yes we deliberately allowed it to be taken, because we're so clever," or words to that effect.
Excuse me, NO! You had no idea it was going to be taken because you'd no idea that there was a secret hidden entrance that allowed the Unsullied inside, unseen.
"We emptied the larders before we left."
Oh, then maybe you did expect it to be taken, because all the besiegers had to do was stick around for the defenders to starve. How very clever. I wonder how long they'd have stuck it out on your behalf?
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| Psychological warfare, if cooked downwind of Casterly Rock |
Then there is the equally-cunning plan of leaving a garrison behind. How many were there? Because none escaped, did they? 1,000 dead? 2,000 dead? So at least 10% of your army is dead. What will that do to the morale of the remainder?
Here an aside. I remember Alan Moore on a television program a long time ago - before the i-pod was invented - dismissing the antics of Malcolm Maclaren and his supposed genius in managing those pop rascals The Sex Pistols.
"Oh yes I always intended to jump out of the airplane without a parachute", he drily intoned.
"Because we're so clever."
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| Larry Lop-handed's strategic adviser |
Mithridatism
If you feel a certain sneaking regard for the female head of the Tyrell Corporation - I am describing it correctly, aren't I? - and mourn her passing, then Beware! For Conrad has news for you.
Did you actually see her die?
No. No, you did not.
"But Conrad!" I hear you quibble, querulously. "She drank deadly poison!"
Oh did she? How do you know it wasn't switched or swapped for a solution of Angostura bitters?
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| Mum to the Smirking Whore |
Not only that, she seems rather up on her poisons. For your information, Mithridates the IV of Pontus had a concoction of 30 poisons that he drank daily, starting off very very weak and gradually increasing in strength over time. Thus after a couple of years he could drink off a pint of poison and call for more.
So - will we see more of Mum to the Sniggering Trollop?
* I did warn you I'd be using that Collins Concise Dictionary
** Named after caster sugar. There you go, more baking punnery.
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