Fear Beer

I Realise This Is A Shocking Concept
After all, if you cannot trust a delicious can of Old Speckled Hen, then what is the world coming to?*
              
                                                One of these.  Take your pick.
This will take a bit of explaining, which I will have to do whilst standing up, as the Coincidence Hydra has been at my nethers - AGAIN.  Those of you who are regular readers will know that the Universe has a malicious sense of humour, which it delights in exploiting in the case of Conrad, causality and the rules of probability.

The universe, personified

     Okay, yesterday I used the title "Free Beer!" which led to getting the second-highest number of hits this year, and you can guess why.  I actually meant that we humans have a duty of care to free beer from it's wicked confines, and then mercifully put it out of it's misery by consuming it.  I went so far as to demonstrate the terrible living conditions that beer lives in prior to being exiled from it's birthplace - and don't start me on spirits!
     Right, now that I've squeezed the last morsel of humour out of that idea, let's abruptly change course by 137 degrees and look at Thursday's Codeword in the M.E.N. (which, confusingly, is available from 07:00 ante meridian).  Art?

     Take a look at the first Down solution.  You were given "O" and "G" so it was pretty obvious the answer was an "-ology" of some sort.  As you can see, I first thought "CYTOLOGY" and then later on, when that didn't fit, "TYPOLOGY" except that didn't fit, either, nor did "MYCOLOGY".  What the Dog Buns! could it be?  Eventually I cracked it - because I am good at these things - and you can see the somewhat illegible answer: ZYMOLOGY.
     What the actual flip?  Go on, admit you've no idea what it is.  I do - that's where the "good at these things" comes in.  It is the scientific study of fermentation.
     Which is used to make beer.

Beer here.

     This is why I use the noun "Fear".  The universe is plainly up to something.  You can mock, you can mock - wait until you see tomorrow's headlines about "Middle-aged Man Gored By Unicorn" and then you'll be sorry.
     Oh, didn't I tell you, motley?  Those juggling balls - you're doing really well there, by the way - are full of nitroglycerine.

Ooopsie.

"Thalassa!  Thalassa!"
Or, if you know your Greek, "The sea!  The sea!"  This is the cry that went on from the Persian Expedition as described by Xenophon, when at last the surviving ten thousand Greek mercenaries reached the Black Sea.  

You'd better keep that horse under control, matey.

They rejoiced because once they reached a shoreline town, they could get passage home, not because they were so knocked out at the sight of water -
     - which brings me onto my cry this morning, which would have been "Helios!  Helios!" if I were Greek, except I'm not, so it came out "The sun!  The sun!" because Saturday had been like living at the bottom of a lake.  I, too, could have exclaimed yesteryon  "Thalassa!  Thalassa!" with good reason; parts of this county got a month's worth of rain in one day.  Art?

Edna, strolling and sniffing

     I only left the house yesterday to dash to the wheelie bins, and still got wet.  No prospect of walking the dog, either, as Edna's swimming skills are poor.  That above is me trying to get my steps total up on the old Flexi-Fitbit, and a walk into Royton looms imminently.

A Interesting Question!
That font of all that's fit to be writ, the BBC, poses the query in a leading headline:  Can you murder a robot?
     Not really, because a robot's not alive, is it?  It may mimic a real live entity, yet that's only a pretence, and you can batter it to bits with a large enough hammer.  
     The real question to be asked, is - Can You Batter A Robot To Bits With A Hammer?
     That, it seems, depends on what your robot looks like.  Something like this -

"GREETINGS, PUNY HUMANS."

     - and you'd have no problem turning it into a large heap of iron filings.  No big question about that, really.  On the other hand, if your robot target looks more like this -

Meet Hitchbot

     - then the reaction is more likely to be "Awwwww!" than "SMASH! KILL! DESTROY!"
     Hitchbot, you see, was deliberately designed to be as non-threatening as possible: small, colourful and made of pool floats.  It was left at the roadside and got taken all over South Canada by friendly passers-by for months and months, until - inevitably, given what Hom. Sap. is like - it encountered some dirty curs who ripped it apart.  It had a good life while it was around, though.
     Expect this question to be asked more often and more loudly by real scientists in the real world, because - Welcome To The Future!

The future is Hmmm.

"Somewhere Boys"
I wouldn't say that "Nowhere Boys" is my guilty pleasure, since my viewing is entirely conscience-free, and, if it comes to that, I really don't care what you think.**
     Anyway, Season One has finished and I don't think I'm giving away too much by revealing that our heroes have made their way back to their own reality.  Hooray!

Uncharacteristically static.  These lads run around a lot.

     However - there has to be a "However" because there's another season awaiting - they've also brought back some unusual abilities relating to the four elements (Earth, Air, Fire and Water***), and also Alice, who is possibly a demon and definitely a witch, and doubtless very bad news for everyone.  
     Sounds great!

     Okay, time to post this, then grab some scoff and then to venture into the zombie magnet that is Royton!


*  NO!  Not the 'End Times'.
**  I'm horrid like that.
***  Sorry, "Pizza" is not canon.