Dogs And Grogs And Blogs

But First - A Blast From My Own Bugle
Yesterday Facebook threw up an old post, linking to BOOJUM! that came from 5 years ago, which made me rather gawp in surprise that I've been churning this scrivel out for nearly 6 years now.
     My retrospective basked in the glory of having 4,000 people view the blog, which had as many as 300 posts!  Art?

The stats themselves

     Okay, that's more visitors in one month than in the first 10 month's of BOOJUM!'s existence, and getting on for 200,000 hits.  It has been a long, slow process of gradually acquiring an audience, and then keeping them, which is the hard bit.  Obviously there is a market out there for a bizarre world-view interspersed with non sequiteurs and gross slanders, with some obscure English words thrown in for good measure.
     Speaking of the Mother Of Languages, if you recall yesterday I was castigating Blogger's spellchecker, which seems to be of a distinctly South Canadian bent and which STILL does not recognise this blog's name as valid.*  
     This caused me to wonder why the South Canadians have chosen to spell certain words incorrectly, such as "labor, "harbor", "center" or "odor".

"Pearl Harbor" should clearly be spelled "Giant Turkey"

     The root cause is apparently Mr. Webster's Dictionary of 1823, published in South Canada and in which he selected various INCORRECT spellings as above.  He didn't create these, they were already in use, it's just that his selection immediately made them legitimate.** They have been promulgated ever since.
     Whereas the rest of Ye Worlde knows that the only correct First dictionary was that compiled by Doctor Samuel Johnson, hailing from the Allotment of Eden, as of 1755.  Art?

The lexicograph in question

     This publication firmly cemented the proper and accepted spelling for words in English, which up to that point could vary quite dramatically, and if you don't believe me go read the Collected Works Of Shakespeare, then get back to us.
     Well, there we go, typical BOOJUM! fashion, all over the place, which is valuable mental training for you indolent lot out there.
     Motley, take hold of this wire, won't you?  Ta - yes, it will tingle a bit, that's the bare end of a cable plugged into the local transformer station -

Motleys are flammable - who knew!

     I didn't intend to write a single word of the above when I turned on my laptop, it all flowed freely, which is how I can manage 2,574 posts in this blog's lifetime.  Whether this is a good thing or bad is, once again, a matter of perspective.

Grogs
I confess to stretching definitions here, but only a little.  This will also take a bit of explaining.  Okay, "Grog" used to refer to a drink popular in the Royal Navy, a type of watered down rum, rum being the spirit of choice in the Caribbean, where that particular bit of the Royal Navy lived, rum being made from sugar cane, which again grew in the Caribbean.

Grog - a drink for proper MEN!

     Thus, by extension, "Grogs" are alcoholic drinks.  Got that?
     Now, once again in typical BOOJUM! style, let us flit to the word "Fiasco", which Conrad was pondering upon, as he is wont to do about words that strike his fancy.  It means "to undergo a complete failure, usually to a humiliating degree", and as you can guess from the spelling, derives from the Italian.  Which translates as "Bottle".  Notably a bottle enclosed in a basket made of fibre, thus - 

     Now, this particular fiasco of Chianti was the one I used to cook the Ragout on Sunday, which is once again proof of the Coincidence Hydra SINKING IT'S TEETH INTO MY NETHERS!!***

Ooops.  The motley's mortal remains

Game Of Thrones
Don't worry, we shan't have any spoilers here - OR WILL WE!
     No, seriously, we shan't, as I think the Facebook Space Opera guidelines are good enough to follow here: for a film, no spoilers for two weeks after opening; for a television show, no spoilers for a week after broadcast.  If you recall, I was generous enough to post Spoiler warnings about "Nicholas Nickleby", which has been out for 180 years.
     Anyway, I can tell you that I've not won the sweepstake at work on who gets to sit on the Iron Throne.  Read into that what you will.

I don't think this is spoiling anything -

     - they did take all of last episode setting up this one, after all - I dubbed it "People Talking In The Dark" since that's what it amounted to.
     Conrad would have added a whole lot of obsidian-tipped caltrops as a protective minefield in front of Winterfell, too.  Art?

Caltrops

     No matter which way they fall, there is always one spike pointed upwards.  Therefore, if those spikes are made of obsidian, any wight that treads on it, dies. Given the way that wights simply rush forward en masse, it's highly likely that said caltrop will get trampled on again as the original crushed revenant is stomped underfoot by following wights. 
     You see?  No spoilers, simply more excellent suggestions as to how the good guys can win.  Any vacancies going for a handy Hand?

Going To The Dogs
Obligatory shaggy dog story of the day, for the benefit of those overseas.  It turns out the quick trip to the shops to get a newspaper isn't that quick, and is almost as long as the turn down Tandle Hill Road.  Healthy exercise for the both of us!

The Tandle Hill turn

     After which Edna has recourse to her Human-Shaped Cushion, in all her weariness.  Art?

     I tricked her on this one, calling her name when she was dozing quietly, and she wasn't chuffed about being woken up for nothing.



     I shall have to take five - Edna is whimpering in that "O!  The Wicked Neglectful Humans are deliberately starving me!" way- 


*  I'm sure you feel my pain.
**  Hack!  Spit!
***  Sorry about the double exclamation mark.  I was nettled.

I Have Bean Greedy

NO!  How Many Times Do I Have To Shout It Out -
That's not a spelling mistake.  Conrad does not make spelling mistakes, despite the best attempts at sabotage that Blogger's South Canadian spellchecker can try.
     Okay, let us backtrack a few days, to when I made Ragout in the slow cooker.  I did mention that brewing a stew whilst all on my own is a tradition, hence the ragout.  
     Conrad was not satisfied with this alone.  O no.  For had I not picked up at least half a pound of bacon going cheap at Morrisons?

One of the sons of Morris.  And close enough.

     There is a recipe in my slow cooker recipe book for a "One Pot Bean Stew", which required a ton of bacon.  Conrad thus begot himself to the shops yesterday and bought in the rest of the required ingredients, making the whole thing up this morning since it takes up to 9 hours to reach completion.  Art?

The end result

     You may be able to judge how much stuff is in there by scaling it via that pint glass at upper right.  This is, after all, the end result of: 4 x tins of baked beans and pork sausages; a tin of kidney beans; a tin of butter beans; a pound of mince; half a pound of bacon; an onion (to keep it healthy!); three ounces of brown sugar; three tablespoons of cider vinegar and most of a bottle of barbecue sauce, since I hate and detest ketchup.  I've also thrown in some stale beer and some finely-chopped apple.
     Only after finishing this process did I bother to check how many people this concoction is supposed to serve.
     Ten.
     Ten!  Ooops.  I suspect I shall be eating this for a few days on the trot.

Conrad, looking both guilty and mortified.*

     Of course, Edna would be simply delighted to help, but - no.  Onion, you see.  Sorry, Edna, you can gaze with slavering anticipation but you can't have any.
     
Speaking Of The Wunderhund -
For our morning stroll we headed up to the local off-licence, for we had run very low on bread, down to only three slices -
     Here an aside.  Wonder Wifey asserts that it would be ridiculously easy to entrap Your Humble Scribe: merely put a sandwich on a plate in the ambush and he'd inevitably fall into the net as it hoists his carcass into the air.**
     Anyway, I hadn't been up this way since the last time I dogsat, back in November.  There were a couple of cats skulking next to a car, whom rapidly darted beneath it upon seeing Edna, who was busy looking elsewhere and didn't notice.  Art?

At ginnel end.

     We went up fairly rapidly.  Coming back, though, the Four-Footed Alarm System had to pause and sniff every single patch of grass.  I think this is a consequence of the small domesticated wolf's nose being perpetually so close to the ground.
     Right, that will hopefully satisfy WW and concludes today's Dog Report.

Conrad: Pedantic Hair-Splitter Of The Highest Order
A badge I wear with pride.  Remember yesterday?  Your Humble Scribe was holding forth on a particular episode of "Hercule Poirot", namely "The Mysterious Affair At Styles", and fulminating about dates.
     Poor director! (Ross Devenish - I looked it up) I now know that the events were set in late June 1916, from the 19th onwards, which means that  Lieutenant Hastings bad dreams about tanks were positively clairvoyant, since they didn't go into action for the first time until September 15th 1916.

Hastings

      As I said, poor Ross - you can't possibly imagine him suspecting that, twenty years later, some nit-picking internet nerd with a mind like a skip would pick up on the issue of dates and tanks.

Date palms, okay?

     For any South Canadian readers not familiar with English idiom YOU SHOULD BE! <ahem> what we call call a "skip" is not a method of rhythmic motion proceeding from one foot to the other, it is what you inelegantly term a "dumpster".  Art?

Thus

"Game Of Thrones" - A Winning Strategy
Currently downloading Episode #3 of Season #8.  You can take the fingers out of your ears and open your eyes, I'm not going to watch it until after I've posted today's BOOJUM! so you need not worry about spoilers.
     Okay, because Conrad is both an anorak and fond of military tactics, he has come up with yet another method that leads to the good guys winning against the army of wights.
                
                                                                  Wights
     Okay, recall young Arya Stark if you will.  You know, small, feisty, possessed of a potty mouth at times.  Art?

Also a killer bodkin

     Right, what outstanding ability does she have?  Why, that of being able to shape-shift into another's form.  So, we give her an obsidian dagger, or five, after giving her some training in throwing them.  She hides ahead of the wight army, and before they arrive, transforms herself into - a wight!  Then she bimbles around carefully, getting as close to the Night King as poss, then - she shivs him.  Plus throws her throwing obsidian knives at the other White Walkers.
     Collapse of stout party, along comes a dragon to airlift her to safety, end of Episode Three, leaving another three for the Big Battle between Cersei's mercenaries and the assembled armies of the north.

No, Art, I don't think that will work.  Nice try

     Okay, you may talk amongst yourselves as I go and stir ten peoples-worth of bean stew.  Also, Edna is getting a bit whimpery, so I suspect her stomach is telling her it's tea time as well.

     <looks out of window>

     I say, I'm glad we got our two dog-walks in earlier today, the sky has a distinctly gloomy cast to it.  This is a mixed blessing because whilst rain will make the world a much more miserable place, it will also water the flowers and thus do one of my chores.

     Off to port over GoT!

I thought swords were made of steel?

*  And greedy.
**  However, unless it's a very robust net with high breaking-strain mesh, he might not stay there.  Our Conrad is a hefty lad (see first article).