Yes, that is exactly what I mean; no NO NO! it is not a typographical error. Have I been wasting my time gloasting over my facility with the English language o'er these past few weeks?
Here an aside. Nobody seems to know quite who the "Pete" is from the expression "For Pete's sake", though there is some speculation that this may be a rather overly familiar use of Saint Peter, the patron saint of fishermen.
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| Maybe? |
Conrad wonders if the "sake" isn't actually Japanese rice wine, and the exclamation is due to the fact that Pete, the dullard, hasn't served it at the right temperature -
There I go, veering off on a tangent. How typical! What I really wanted to talk about was not saints or trout or deep-sea trawlers - although which side would Saint Pete have been rooting for in the Cod War? - <ahem> but -
BOG SNORKELLING!
Yes, this is a real sport, one right up there with Worm Charming and Pylon Spotting. A trench is dug in boggy ground - hence the 'peat' of the title - 60 yards long, which then fills up with water. Competitors then have to swim a length each way, and the fastest wins. Simple, hey?
Not so. We are not talking about clean, clear water here; we are talking about dirty, muddy, root-filled, dank, dark-brown swill which requires competitors to wear not only a snorkel but goggles as well. Art?
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| Quite. |
The recent unseasonal, atypical, unusual, counter-intuitive and lots of other similar nouns weather put this year's Bog Snorkelling World Championships at risk, because the water in the excavated channels - dried up.
O noes!
Fortunately normal service was resumed and torrential rains filled the ditches in. Phew! That was a close one!
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| How refreshing. |
Let's see if the motley can Bog Snorkel, and to help it along, we'll add in a dozen ravenous pike, too.
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| Swim, motley, swim! |
Auntie Beeb, Your Grammar Is Off
As you know, Perfidious Albion invented football, hovercraft and television, but that doesn't mean that this country is actually proficient with any of them. Take today's sideline on the BBC website. Art?
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| One can only wish there had been ... |
This is a consequence of trying to keep captions within a certain text limit, but at this point brevity is competing with sense. If you don't quite get my drift, I think Art can provide a suitable illustration?
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| Ouch. |
Serial killer or no, I think you'll agree he's got a spike in him.
5/10, Auntie - Must Do Better!
Well, Well, Andre Morrell
This might take a bit of explaining. Okay, it will take a bit of explaining.
Andre played the character of Professor Bernard Quatermass in the television production of "Quatermass and the Pit", surely one of the most spooky and unsettling television productions ever, for all that it's 60 years old.
Ol' Quatty, you see, was head of the British Rocket Group, a man determined to get men into space (no PC nonsense about female astronauts in 1955) despite the accountants and politicians. Art?
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| Brave old world of 1955 |
He also, incidentally, saved the entire world three times over.
Now, back to the present. Conrad, ever nosey, was looking for rocket designs as proposed by Werner Von Braun, that rocketry chap with a somewhat dodgy past. WVB, too, was determined to get men into space and because he worked for NASA he managed it in real life. He designed a little bit of kit known as the RM1, which we see below approaching a space-station. Art?
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| Hmmmmm. Seems - familiar somehow. |
In fact this RM1 design is only scraping the surface of WVB's rocketry designs and proposals, and we may well come back to them in the near future.
And In A Blatant Commercial Shilling Dig -
Darling Daughter now has Cats! amongst the hand-crafted designer artworks that she offers for modest sums in return. Where do you think I got my Great White Shark necklace from?
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| Jaunty tom-cat a-strutting |
If you are interested, pop along to her FB page, and for the lazy amongst you (a figure I suspect to be in the region of 95%) here's the link:
Once again, an order from DD will prevent your descendants from a life of servitude in the uranium mines, or being rendered for parts in the organ banks. Your choice - no pressure!
Aha!
I said it seemed familiar, didn't I?
| A bit more streamlined and atmosphere-capable |
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