Retire, Then Die

No!  Nothing To Do With Desperate Last Stands
I imagine you are picturing The Alamo, or the Brest-Litovsk Fortress, or Position 'Snipe'.  All fascinating stories, yet nothing to do with our subject matter today.  Which is a lot more tenuous and subjective than people shooting each other.

Position Snipe.  Not conducive to long life.

     Today is the day, when those of us working in the Dark Tower find out whom is going to be moving forward into the sunny uplands of perpetual employment, and who else is going to win the unemployment lottery - which means getting to lie in of a morning, read through the resident Book Mountain, drink tea for Britain and work those Cryptic Crosswords.
     Er - you may detect a subtle undercurrent of irony there <drifts off into idle fantasy where he gets paid to read books, drink tea and do crosswords>
     About that title.  What I meant to say is that your humble scribe cannot be counted amongst those who, when they pack in working to earn a living, roll over and die a month later, for there is nothing in their hollow empty lives to sustain the will to live.
     Not Conrad!  For not only do I have BOOJUM! to sustain my septic self, there is also:
1)   The ever-present Book Mountain.  This is unlikely to ever disappear, since I buy books faster than I can read them.  This is no slur on my reading ability, some of those books are three inches thick!
2)  Crosswords and Codewords.  Again, these are unlikely to ever go out of fashion, as is Conrad's pathetic inability to resist doing them.
3)  Wargaming.  Given my dilettante attitude toward this hobby, I confidently predict that by 2025 I will have played at least two - maybe even three! - more games. 4)  Jigsaws.  A true drain upon one's personal time.
5)  DVDs.  Currently up to 6 large packing boxes of the rascals, with at least another one to fill. 
6)  Baking.  Seriously, this takes up a lot of time.  Measuring out the ingredients, prepping them, making up the batter, etcetera etcetera.  It takes hours.  Hours! 

Your diminutive, shy and very retiring host

Don't Panic
No!  Nothing to do with The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. I am merely giving you fair warning that what follows is to do with <shudders> sport, so you may skip this item if you so wish, and I will not even track you down via your ISP to inflict hideous retribution, that's how forgiving I am.
     Now, if you happen to live in Gomorrah-on-the-Irwell, then you cannot fail to notice that this beautiful fair ghastly city possesses two ballfoot teams, the fans of whom loathe and detest each other.  Which is putting it mildly.  Most of them would gladly asphyxiate rather than breathe air contaminated by the foul effluvium exhaled by their opponents.
     Which makes for hilarious and entertaining reading when one team or the other wins at the ballfoot game; you can guarantee the opposition fans will swarm to the BBC's Have Your Say and screech as loudly as the forum rules will allow.

Case in point

     Take note of that total.  When I finally logged-off last night another hundred HYS had been added, and you can bet your bottom farthing that a lot were not congratulations.  And, no, I don't know why it's called a "hat-trick" either.
     Then we have - cricket!  This is a sport most baffling to those who do not reside in the Allotment of Eden, and also to a lot of us who do.  Silly mid-on?  Googlies?  Leg before wicket?  All Greek to me.
     Here an aside.  They play cricket in Corfu, you know (which is Greek).  There's a permanent pitch in the centre of Corfu Town, and the locals swagger out weekly in the season to play the game, having taking a liking to it whilst their island was under the tender care of Perfidious Albion.
     Right!  back home again -





     Take a look at that: that velocity is why cricketers wear protective clothing.  Conrad imagines being hit by a weighty, solid object travelling that fast would be similar to being hit by one of the old rubber bullets, back in the day when they were made of rubber and bullet-shaped to boot.  Art?

Rubbery and bullety

     Here another aside.  Many years ago, as your modest artisan was piloting the Murder Mobile to work, he was listening to Radio Four, and there were a couple of short interviews presented: one of a cricketer, another of a footballer.  The cricketer almost came out with a seminar on the hermeneutics of stochastic philosopy*, while the footballer put forth a few grunts.  This difference was explained by my sporty friend Phil, who explained that cricketers tend to be a product of the university system, whereas the ballfoot game takes it's players from anywhere, and is not remotely fussy about their class or background.
                                                               I forego the obvious pun.
Meanwhile, Back In The Allotment Of Eden ...
Pott Shrigley!  No, it isn't a variety of meat spread that you put on toast, so put any recollections of Bloater Paste out of your head.  Bloater Paste sounds disgusting, by the way <said the man happy to eat tins of whole sardines, added Mister Hand>, being made of smoked herrings with their insides left inside.
     Anyway, back to The Shrig, as I'm sure nobody who ever lived there announced.
     It is a small village in rural Cheshire, lest you be unaware.  Art?

The Shrig

     It's not really notable for anything outstanding, unless you like listed buildings, in which case knock yourself out.*** 
     Ah yes, that name.  A "Pott" is a sunken glade or forest feature that has a large population of thrushes present, and "Shrigley" is thought to derive from Anglo-Saxon, meaning a shrike - a variety of bird.

The delightful shrike in action

     As for those thrushes -

(Facepalms)

     No, Art, no.  And you'd been doing so well.  Put down your Mara Corday cheesecake calendar, lest it burst into flames due to the enormous voltage delivered by this Atomic Tazer ...




*  This might almost be a real thing.**
**  Or not.
***  After you finish reading this.