Tea Amigos

If I Can Only Keep This Up -
 - for another day then that makes 2 months of hilarious tea-based punnery.  I don't know about you but it impresses me, and since I'm the important one around here, that's what matters.

Look out!  A scary Polish film poster is trying to hijack the blog!

     Which has nothing to do with John Le Carre, nor his novel "The Looking Glass War", which I dug out of a pile of unread books, as it is a small and compact paperback that fits very nicely into my enormous bag of impedimenta.  Quite beside being an entertaining read.  It details a rather slapdash operation mounted by a particular body within British Intelligence - but it would spoil the surprise if I told you any more.
     Nevertheless, remember that title. 

Polish film poster, meet my flamethrower.

     Okay!  What's this I spy before me?  No, not a dagger.  You're confusing me with MacBeth.  MacBeth = king of Scotland; Conrad = aspiring world dictator.
     It's an advert for a television program calling itself "Snatch".  Art?

Quite bandy, not so snatchy

     Look a them.  A right bunch of villains.  A band, you might say, in which case they would be a band o' snatch, wouldn't they?
     Okay, for further proof that everything is connected to everything else, let us introduce - the Bandersnatch.  Art?  Hustle now!

Looking pretty snatch, but spotted rather than banded.

     This ferocious critter hails from the meandering mind of Lewis Carroll, and you can see that it certainly deserves the epithet "frumious" in respect of it's jaws.
     "Wowsers!" I hear you comment.  "Can you tell us further of this terrifying beast?"
     Pausing only to frown at your appropriation of my current buzz-word, I shall explain.
     Lewis Carroll wrote "The Hunting of the Snark", from which we get that splendidly evocative word "Boojum" - this  may ring a bell with you - and he also notably wrote another work that mentioned the Bandersnatch, that being "Alice Through The Looking Glass".

A bit literal

     There you go.  Told you: everything is connected to everything else.
    
The BOOJUM! Stable
I did threaten/promise/predict to introduce these beasts, as we seem to have a pretty beastly theme today.  First and most fatally, we have Clarissa the Cannibal Combat Chicken.  Art?

Flee!  Save yourselves!

     The horrifying end result of South Canadian genetic tinkering, Clarissa escaped from her cruel captors at Fort Detrick - or maybe it was Groom Dry Lake* - and proceeded to tear a bloody swathe across the south-east, where she continues to hide out to this day, covered in Spanish moss as camouflage.  If you see her and are not running in the opposite direction at a speed in excess of 25 m.p.h. YOU ARE DOOMED!
     Then we have Tony the Ten-Ton Terror Toad.  Art?  Jump to it**!

Caution: for illustrative purposes only

     Another hideous result of over-feeding, and living in the cooling pond of a nuclear power station, Tony is a freelance assassin for both the FBI and the Bethlehem Steel Company.  Although surprisingly nimble on his feet, he's not subtle; he assassinates people by sitting on them, which usually reduces them to a sticky red smear.  Unless they're from the planet Vulcan, in which  case a sticky green smear.
     Next is Wally the Weasel.  He exists in an hideous limbo, only called into existence when the snows have fallen, so that Conrad can alliterate horribly.  Art?

Wally
(Real name Betram Ffortescue the IV)

     Like so:  Wally the Wide-eyed Wonder Weasel Wimping His Weary, Wary, Woeful Way Westwards, Wincingly, In A Wet Wolverhampton Winter Wonderland.  As I said, that's 15 "W"s, which might well be increased with a little imagination.  Heh!


Finally -
Well well well, guess what came up as a Google image when I searched under "Bandersnatch"?  Art?

A Border Terrier

     As you should surely know by now, the breed of small domesticated wolf present in The Mansion is - a Border Terrier.
     Connected to everything else, I told you!

Cherish what you got tonight, as the plan is for Conrad and the family to congregate for a meal at Mi And Pho tomorrow evening, which means I may work up words of wonder, but I certainly won't have time to post 'em.


*  Better known as <sinister oboe cue> Area 51
**  I don't want him getting ideas from those Dog Buns minions in "Despicable Me"





My Name Is Earl Grey

Not, It Has To Be Said
One of Conrad's preferred teas.  Too much of perfume about it, which always brings on worries about migraines.  Your humble scribe used to suffer from these, until he stopped using aftershave (a.k.a. perfume for men).  Still, it has served a purpose in creating a title for the blog.

Pearl, grey.  Close enough.

     Hmmm.  BOOJUM! is always trying to persuade readers that it is authentically British, as British as sentient fish and chips doing a Morris dance in the rain, so perhaps I ought not to disparage Earl Grey so.  After all, it is the captain's tipple of choice in that South Canadian cult success "Star Trek: The Next Generation".  Although he is French.  But played by a British actor.  In a series created by a South Canadian.  Who was inspired by a film based on a play by a Brit.

This one, WHICH YOU SHOULD ALREADY KNOW ABOUT!

     Truly, life is a series of infinitely recursive spirals.
     I think that's enough to count as an Intro.  Motley?  Don your shark-suit and get into the water!*

De-Fanging The Shark
As you should surely know by now, your humble scribe cannot resist punning about films (or television titles - see today's blog title for proof of this), and has been known to nearly arrive late at the Pub Quiz because some fool created a Twitter feed to do precisely this.

A shark with no teeth.  Yes, really.

     So!  Imagine my glee when The Flop House delivered a post inviting people to "De-Horror" a film title.
     Oh boy!  That title above would echo - instead of "Shark Attack" it would be "Sark Attack".
     "Tell us, Conrad, tell us what your peculiar yet inventive mind conjured up!" I hear you asking**. 
     Well, okay.

The Tring (after the town, if you hail from abroad***)


Cream
The Frog
Marshmalloween
The Hunting (amended to "The Shunting" as "The Hunting" was still a bit scary)
Planet Error
The Evil Bread
Hallboy
Hallboy and the Golden Arm
Frankinsencestein

     You get the idea.  I had to drag myself away and get ready for work, or I'd probably still be there, cackling with amusement.

Further Of Films
There was a bit of a backlog of these to be reviewed in our inimical BOOJUM! style - that is, shallow as a desert stream - and here's the rest of them, plus a couple of odds and sods which don't quite fit in anywhere else. 
"The Death of Stalin":  Ah!  Now this I look forward to seeing, probably next week, for as you know Conrad is a fearful bore on the subject of history, especially the grim tales of the Sinister empire under "That little sod with the moustache" as Stalin was known - although not in public, as you could and would be sent to do ten year's hard labour in a camp for that crack (see "A Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovitch" by Alex Sol).  One rather sniffy critic condemned it by saying "You wouldn't make a crude comedy about the death of Hitler, would you?  Well why would you make a crude comedy about the death of Stalin?"

Er -

     He's probably a disgruntled Commie, pining for the Sinister Empire.  Oh, and as for mocking Josef Dzugashvili (his real name) -

Already done!

     Ha!  Take that, you Commie sympathiser!
"Daddy's Home 2": Oh dear.  A sequel, and one that lacks the wit or imagination to vary the title.  It was, sadly, inevitable given that the predecessor made $150 million on a $50 million budget.  Hopefully this horrid thing will die a lonely box-office death and we'll not be troubled by a third iteration.  But I fear the worst.
     "Despicable Me 3":  Hmmm.  Conrad is not entirely sure that the lead character here is all that despicable, really.  He takes in orphan girls, for one thing.  He also appears to be responsible for allowing minions to get an inflated opinion of their own importance, something that your humble hack disagrees with on a fundamental level.  I cannot afford to let Art, Oscar or Mister Hand think that they actually matter!
     So in that sense, yes, despicable.


Now, that's how you treat your minions.  Take note, Art.

"Gran Turismo":  It's that Dog Buns computer racing game again.  

Look!  Look at it, infesting an entire building, the evil little swine.  Conrad rarely drives nowadays and doesn't miss it one bit; contending with idiot drivers, roadworks, traffic jams, bus lane cameras, terminal homing diving attacks by smart munitions and kamikaze seagulls - no thanks.
      Bah!


*  Don't worry, they won't bite, the motley tastes horrid.
**  Or is that the party in my head?
*** I feel your pain

"Hay!  You came through for me - thanks, Conrad."