An Ode To Code

SIT BACK DOWN!
For no, I shall not be composing epic verse; you ought to know by now that Conrad's ability level with poetry is along the lines of vaguely amusing doggerel.  No poetic odes, it was a metaphor.  Happy now?
     Okay, now to the Intro proper.  Yes, I am yarking on about the latest M.E.N. Codeword that I completed this morning and no, you don't get a photograph because using your imagination is good mental exercise.  As I have complained of late, whomever the compiler is has changed the rules and have begun including words not normally encountered.
     Of course I still solved the puzzle, because I'm so good.  You?  You'd probably get stuck.  As an example, try ZETA.  This predates Catherine Zeta Jones by several millenia, since it is the 6th letter of the Greek alphabet.  You know - Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsion - Zeta.*

a.k.a. "Zed"

     As if that wasn't enough, they also hauled in HECATOMB.  What the actual flip?  How often do you read about this?
     Go on, admit it, you've no idea what a "Hecatomb" is, have you?  Neither had I, which shows how obscure it is.  My Collins Concise defines it as "A great sacrifice" and of course it comes from the original Greek, since the Hellenes thought killing off a hundred oxen and roasting them made an appropriate sacrifice.  "Hekaton" being the ironic Greek for "One Hundred", and "Bous" meaning "ox".

Doing - heck, a ton?

     No, no, sit back down, I've not finished yarking yet.  The third trawl into wanton obscurity was FACTOTUM, which I don't think has been around since the early 19th Century in normal conversation.  It simply means a general dogsbody.
     Now you may go put the kettle on.  In the meantime strap the motley into that dodgem car loaded with badly-balanced bottles of nitro-glycerine and let the dodging begin!

Let Us Be Frank -
On second thoughts, let's not, for the Frank in question is Frank Castle, better known as The Punisher - though at this point I don't know if this is his given moniker, or if he's simply known as "The Pint-sized Punching Psycho".

Frank, somewhat unusually not covered in blood
(As much his as other people's)

     Frank doesn't have any superpowers that we know of.  I say this because he has been stabbed, shot, blown up, shot again, beaten, sliced, shot some more, and is not only still in one piece, he looks untouched.  Well, until he takes his top off, and then you see the scar tissue.  At the end of Season Two's first episode he leaves a demolished bar and half a dozen dead kidnappers lying in pools of blood, himself also beaten and shot but unbowed.
     "Will there be more of them?" quaveringly asks the Mystery Girl he helped to rescue, referring to her attackers.
     "I hope so," growls Frank.
     !
     This is not a subtle series, one has to say.  On the other hand, if you're looking for people whaling the living tar out of each other - look 
no further!

"Frank was, to be honest, getting a little annoyed."

     Time for a pause whilst I go to get some more Jasmine Green Tea.  Excuse me -

Belated Bread
Your humble scribe went and baked on Sunday, since a bunch of over-ripe bananas had been hintingly deposited on the kitchen worktop, with a mention that they "were just ripe enough for baking" and that banana bread would be quite welcome in the near future, thank you - do you get the sense that Conrad is not good with vague suggestions?
     So, I used a Hummingbird Bakery recipe for Brazil Nut and Banana Bread Loaf, and - it went down very well.  I forgot to take a picture at the time, so - Art?

Almost the real thing

     Since the server isn't letting me download any pictures from my phone, that above will have to do.  Thank you so much, server.  I hope your hamsters go on strike.

Hark!  To The Shark
Conrad's ears are ever-attuned to words that crop up in conversation in the office, and this was proven when Samia mentioned her irrational fear of being attacked by a shark whilst paddling in the sea.
     Of course it depends where you paddle: the chilly, choppy, dirty brown waters off Blackpool beach are hardly likely to hide swarms of Carcharodon Carcharias (the Great White to you).  On the other hand, dipping your toes into the tropical surf off Bondi Beach puts you at a somewhat greater risk.

                    Bondi                                                 Blackpool
     Conrad, as ever, couldn't resist doing a small statistical analysis.  Given that there are 7.7 billion Hom. Sap. on planet Earth, and there are 80 of you us killed by sharks per annum, the raw data suggests a 96 million-to-one chance that Samia would indeed get her toes nibbled by a hammerhead.
     Of course, that's a rather simplistic estimate, since you have to divide by the number of people who visit the ocean each year, then multiply that by the number of people who revisit - it gets quite complicated.
     The long and the short of it is that the odds are literally millions to one.

"Thank you, Conrad: the shark's friend."**

That Makes More Sense
Going back to those influential Nork electronica musos Royksopp, I was re-listening to "The Inevitable End" again, and wondering why and how Jamie Irrepressible got his name, because surely there isn't a glummer person in the entire Northern Hemisphere.  His songs on the album are the sort that make people of a sensitive nature reach for the gin bottle.

Jamie MCDERMOTT

     It transpires that he is from a BAND named The Irrepresibles, and that his parents were not monsters of depravity laughing at his wretched childhood and teenage years.  Well - perhaps they were, except not in the case of his given surname.
     Phew!  I'm glad we got that cleared up.




*  Eta, Theta, Iota, Kappa, Lambda, Mu, Nu, Omicron - from memory.
**  Er - thanks.  I think.