There's No Haydn It

Ha!
I might not be punning about tea or James Bond, but I didn't promise to give it up altogether, did I?  I don't think Joseph Haydn lends himself to anything to do with tea, which is more to the point.  Being a Mittel-European he probably drank coffee; you know, like a lot of Viennese.

Yeah, them

     "But what is this, Conrad?" I hear you mumble.  "Conversing about musicians of the Enlightenment?  Forsooth, you are usually banging on about Blue Oyster Cult or Doves."
     Well, as I am driving to work this week, and cannot distract my mind with either crosswords or novels, I was listening to Radio 3 - the only music station for us music snobs.  Not sure about the program, where the presenter kept making witty jokes about classical music - rather lost on me - but he did jest about "The Complete Haydn Collection", which came in at 167 CDs.  "A pity if you bought the previous Complete Haydn Collection," he chortled, "Which only came in at about 150 CDs.  They've found a few more."  Art?

The talented old codger

     One reason there are so many CDs is because he was pretty damn prolific.  Over 100 symphonies, for example, and nearly 40 concertos.  This fellow did not sit on his laurels!  Although there may have been laurels on the distant Eszterhazy estate where he was the Kappellmeister.

The Esterhazy estate water park

     I also thought that the soothing sounds of classical music might distract Edna.  Not a bit of it.  Probably more into jazz.  Well, I did have slight hopes, music having charms to soothe the savage breast and all that (a quote from that William Congreve chap).
     Although, riffing on that - 

Pacifying a single boob's no good, Bill,

If the rest of the body wishes you ill.

You need to quell the corpus entire,

And extinguish it's evil zombie ire.

     Perhaps I am reaching a bit by mentioning the walking dead.  Clearly that's what Bill was thinking, even if he didn't make it explicit*.  Art? - careful now.

Done with good taste
 
     Okay, I think it's time to grease the motley and push it down the slide**.

The Fruit Of My Labours
I refer to my careful assay of the Goofs page on IMDB for "The Longest Day", which still needs some time-stamps adding and then sorting into chronological order.  I will add in here one example of utter nonsense spouted by people who know nothing and wish to prove it to the entire world.  Take it away!

The American paratroopers are incorrectly shown jumping with a jumpmaster standing in the plane and commanding them to "Go!" "Go!" one at a time. On D-Day, as on all combat jumps, the jumpmaster was always first out the door, with the rest of the paratroopers following immediately behind him, exiting the plane as fast as they could in order to land as close together as possible.

Utter Drivel!  The Jumpmaster is in charge of the drop procedure within an aircraft, and REMAINS WITHIN THE AIRCRAFT to ensure the paratroopers exit safely and efficiently, which is frankly frikkin’ impossible if he dives out first and foremost.

     I think you'll admit I have a point here.
     Being a film anorak - somebody's got to do it!  Art?

Jump Master to the left, busy MASTERING THE JUMP!

To Purloin A Phrase -
"The lark is on the wing, the snail is on the thorn," which is used several times in Wodehouse, in order to get across the concept of Early In The Morning.  I hope to attach a photograph to this post, of your humble scribe taking madam for an early morning trot, but in the meantime, have a lark.  Art?

                                                    Larks


     Okay, here we are at just after dawn broke, pacing the pavement.  This is the first of her walks, probably three in number, which end up with her draped across your humble scribe's lap all evening.

And Because We're Promoting Chondrichythes
Or sharks, to you.  Here's a metric that ought to stick in your cerebellum; whilst reading the article on Chris Fry's reckless assault on a shark that made a perfectly understandable mistake, I noted that across the Land of Ocker (Australia to you) there had been 18 shark attacks, one of which was fatal.  Frankly, if the shark is really a set of teeth with an appetite attached, they are letting the side down.  I wonder how many fatalities there from snakebites in the Land of Ocker annually?

A very bitey Snake - NO, Art, no - on second thoughts, yes.

     I checked.  3 last year, and one person succumbed to a spider bite.  Now, whilst there are indeed films where spiders are the unredeemed villains ("Lavalantula" I'm looking at you), snakes are less well-represented ("Anaconda" and "Snakes on a Plane" are the only two that spring to mind).  However, how many films with Shark As Eeeeevil Villain are there?
     Scads.  Simply scads.  Herein a small list:

Ozark Sharks (surely only chosen for onomatopoeia!)

Snow Sharks

Passion of the Sharks

Planet of the Sharks

Atomic Shark

Shark Exorcist (hmmm wonder what they're ripping off here)

Jersey Shore Shark Attack

2-Headed Shark Attack

3-Headed Shark Attack (The sequel!)

Empire of the Shark

Shark Island

Jurassic Shark

     I could go on, and on, as there are countless others, but I think I've made my point.  Several points.  Several sharp points.  Several sharp points suspiciously like teeth ..

A Shark with HIGH EXPLOSIVE TEETH***!

 

                          
*  This is my assertion and I'm sticking to it.  Disprove it if you can.
**  Don't worry, the pool at the end was emptied of broken bottles. I think.
***  Metaphor only.  Not to be taken literally.  Soup made from fins liable to be unpalatable.