Flowers

There Is A Moment -
 - in the scariest documentary ever made, by the Journalist Who Knows No Fear John Carpenter's!* "The Thing" -
     Here an aside.  Yes, it is early for an aside.  So what?  I do think that JC could have chosen a better title for his film.  "Alien Assimilator" or "Who Goes There?" or even "When Spare Ribs Bite Back", which all give a flavour of what he uncovered in the Arctic, rather than what some might mistake for a low-budget beach-bikini beer-and-babes movie.**

Close enough

     Where was I?  Oh yes - THE CLATHRATES!  THE CLATHRATES!! - o no wait a minute we covered those back in January.  Ah!  Yes, I remember.
      - one of the science staff observes a head sprouting a set of chitinous legs, plus eyes on stalks, before it scuttles - scuttles, not stalks - away.
     "You've got to be JOLLY WELL kidding!" he exclaims.***
     This is how your humble scribe feels on reading an unbelievable sideline on the BBC website.  Art?

Are you JOLLY WELL joking?
Well, are you?^

     How can it be possible for a country as thoroughly WET as the Pond of Eden to ever, EVER, EVER suffer from a lack of water?  Dog Buns, we're an island, we're surrounded by the stuff!  I recall a Pakistani artist, on moving to the UK, being incredulous at how wet the country was.  Why do you think it's a "Green and pleasant land"?  Because all the plants are so well-watered!  The mighty city in which I work sits squarely on the River Irwell <Mister Hand redacts 847 pages about water>
     The BBC article states that we here in the Allotment will be short of water by 2050.  Okay, I am going to make a point of surviving until then (no mean feat - robot rebellions, zombie apocalypses and global thermonuclear war all loom on the horizon) and then hurl it back in their mis-aligned teeth.
     Bah!

The height of summer in Gomorrah-on-the-Irwell

     Oh, and that Beeb photograph is of Ladybower Reservoir and the overflow tunnel, which is being flooded because THERE IS TOO MUCH WATER!! rather than not enough. 

The picture they should have used

 We have covered this rather scary structure in an earlier BOOJUM! and even shown people abseiling down the inside; obviously in dry weather with no rain in the offing, as being drowned can spoil your day.
     Did you pick up on the pun?  "Flowers" not as in "those blooming things in the garden" but "Bodies of water in motion".  Flowers.   Right out of a crossword quiz.
     Now, time to put the motley in the drum of a concrete mixer, right before we add the concrete!

Quiver in fear, motley, quiver in fear!

Flowers
And now for some of those blooming things that also require a fair amount of water to thrive and survive. 
     Here an aside.  Yes, another!  If an idea pops into my head I either write it down or create an aside.  Hence "clathrates" - where was I?  O yes - if it was down to Conrad the back yard of The Mansion would be a giant slab of pink concrete (because grey would be DULL!) but because we have Wonder Wifey on the case, instead we have a flocculation of flowers.  Art?

Flowers.  No water currents involved.

     Don't ask me what they are: coloured flowers is about as technically botanical as this alien spy gets.  There are more lurking over in a corner, too, and if our resident Neanderthal JPEG-juggler can just bestir himself -

What are they?
Dunno.

Finally -
I've been squeezing in some of the uncanny and unusual ships that the Van Oord shipping group use in the Outro, because they are definitely different.  Recall the 'Bravesnes' of yesterday, which is guarded by armed Dutch Marines, because - um - because <thinks hard> er, crushed rock is really valuable and stone thieves are a thing?

"Stone dead thieves, if they try it on.  Ja"

    Anyway, here is something a little more mundane and everyday, Crunchy Treacle Bars.  Art?

     They were definitely crunchy - I have to take their taste on trust, THANK YOU DIABETES - and had all gone by the end of the day.  Plus making them helped to use up gluten-free oats that have been sitting around taking up cupboard space to no good purpose, and some old treacle.



*  Who seems to have a weird parallel career in music.  Strange, eh?
**  "The Thong".  There.  You made me say it.
***  Okay, he swears.  BOOJUM! however is not going to descend to his level.
^  "Well" - water - do you see - O you do.