INVASION OF THE WEASELNANAS!!

I Know, I Know - Two Exclamation Marks?
However, Conrad considers this to be such a terrifying scenario that it fully merits two such punctuation points.  Not three, that would be descending to near-Continental levels of hysteria.  We of Perfidious Albion like to think that we keep a metaphorical as well as literal separation from those lands where people emote freely, hug on the merest of acquaintances and do that effete cheek-kissing thing.
     Yes, just think of that as a pitch line for a film treatment.  Art?


                                          Flee!  Save yourselves!

     Just imagine the raw terror of not knowing if the next banana you peel will be your last - in fact the last thing you ever do - as a ferocious alien weaselnana mutant attacks and gnaws it's ferocious way through your intestines -
     They have the perfect camouflage, you see: these sinister invaders lie quiescent and dormant within a simulated banana peel, getting distributed all over the globe, because which is Hom. Sap's favourite fruit?  That's right, the banana.*

Yeah.  Favourite.  Right.

     Then, at a pre-arranged signal and time, they erupt forth from the fruit-bowl and the supermarket, out of lunch-boxes and refrigerators and TAKE OVER THE EARTH!  
     Of course, they only have 48 hours to enjoy it before they decay into a repellent brown mush, but what a story, eh?

The End

     I think we could manage a live-action version with animatronic and CGI weaselnanas, plus a few trained ferrets sewn into yellow socks for distant shots.  Hire on a few F-grade Hollywood has-beens to ham badly in front of the cameras, get Asylum to produce and distribute and - Hay Pesto!  - you've got the next Sharknado franchise.**     Okay, it's about time for the motley to see if it can swim across a swimming pool filled with liquid TNT whilst we throw lit matches at it!

Hmmm.  Perhaps not.

More Of The Haul
Yesterday my copy of "The Seventh Division 1914 - 1918" arrived, in the form of a Naval & Military Press print-on-demand volume.  Art?  Less coke more bloke!

      A paperback without the nice colour plate or fold-out maps of the original.  O well.
     The Seventh, lest you be unaware, was one of Perfidious Albion's infantry divisions that fought in the Slough of Despond, a.k.a. The Western Front, up until November 1917.  It then got sent to Italy, where it fought until the end of the war, and not all the Italian battlefronts were sunny and dry.  O no - certainly not the Asiago Plateau!
     Their opponents, the Austro-Hungarian army, regarded the British infantry as a species of seven-foot tall demons, who breakfasted on babies, bathed in the blood of virgins and bayoneted all before them.  Very flattering, if a teensy bit exaggerated.

Conrad Is Worried
I know, I know, I'm either apprehensive or apoplectic, with no middle ground.  My reasons for looking both askance and over my shoulder are that the chap below is getting up on his soapbox and threatening fire, brimstone, lightning, a hint of atomic annihilation and revocation of Flemish-bond brick-laying.  Art?

No!  I do not have another day job.

     This is nothing to do with politics and everything to do with my sensitive skin.  The chap above is John Bolton, South Canadian National Security Adviser, whose motto appears to be "The best defence is a good offense and a good offense is worth getting in first before the other guy's out of bed".
     If people decide that, really, they don't like John Bolton very much, what are they going to do when they see him sally forth, yea verily in the streets of Royton or Manchester, without any bodyguards?

       John Bolton                                        Conrad
   
    <checks his flak jacket fits properly>

"Dead Strange Jam"
You remember this film poster from yesterday, I hope, otherwise your marbles are shot entirely, after all it was less than 24 hours ago ARE YOU A MAN OR A GOLDFISH?***

Hmmm.

     "A large percentage of the world is addicted to an hallucinogenic jam and late-night horror films -" says the tagline, and "£5,000" says the budget on IMDB.
     The poster is probably the best bit about it.  And even then you can't spread it on toast.
     Bah!

Finally -
Do you also recall yesterday's quoting of Syndrome, the improbably well-financed <ahem> "supervillain" from 'The Incredibles", banging on about how, if everyone was super, then nobody would be?
     I am afraid those trailblazers of modern drama, Monty Python and his Flying Fools - something similar anyway, my memory's not what it used to be - got there welllll before Syndrome did.  Why, who can not thrill to fondly recalling the exploits of - 

 - none other than -

BICYCLEREPAIRMAN!  Art?

You will believe that a man can, actually, really, truly, honestly, fix a puncture.

   And, whilst on about a puncture, I think, at this here juncture, it's time to disappear -




*  Do I hear it for the mangosteen?
**  If this ever does happen, I want millions in royalties.  Millions!
***  Or possibly some hideous hybrid mutant combining the worst of both - a rubbish memory and an inability to breathe underwater?