Logic And The Death Of Fairy Tales

Cold Cruel Logic!
As you should know by now, we here at BOOJUM! revere nothing more than icy logic*, that highest of all intellectual pursuits, and which is pretty much the bedrock of Your Humble Scribe's mental landscape.  It's not something Conrad can turn on or off at will; it's always there, working away in the background.

 - like a sinister torture device

     And so we come again to "Bluebeard", that French fairy tale.  Let me recap: Bluebeard's young, attractive wives all keep mysteriously vanishing.  Nobody is apparently bothered by this - ah! for the days when women were kept firmly in their place (the kitchen) and there was none of this modern nonsense about voting or working in the skilled trades -

Ah, yes.  Read on -

    He hands his latest wife a bunch of keys and tells her not to go into a certain chamber OR ELSE.  He then rides off.  Wifey, of course, promptly investigates said chamber and discovers the corpses of all matey's previous wives, the chamber being ankle-deep in blood.
     Welllll at this point cold cruel logic intervenes.  Obviously Bluebeard is a mental incompetent, if he doesn't realise that, as a murderer, one should, O I don't know perhaps GET RID OF THE EVIDENCE.  Do they let this senile biffer out on his own?
     His advanced senility is presumably the reason he mentions this forbidden chamber in the first place.  As I said yesterday, what Wifey doesn't know, won't bother her.
     Then we have the blood.  Human go-juice, as you may be aware, has this function we call "clotting", meaning that you don't leak to death if someone pokes a knife into your left buttock as an hilarious joke**.

I had to work this in.  Had to.

     Therefore, this disgusting oubliette would have been ankle-deep, yes, but not with liquid blood, more likely the revolting end product of years and years of clotting action.  Frankly, the whole place would have reeked like a butcher's offal bin on a hot day, and there would have been flies.  Lots of flies.  And maggots.  Even more maggots.  Somehow the fairy tale neglects to mention these details, but Conrad's brain will out.
     Back to the fairy tale.  Wifey drops the keys in shock, gets blood on them, which cannot be washed off BECAUSE THEY ARE MAGIC KEYS and thus does Bluebeard find out what she'd done.  Given his state of general imbecility I rather doubt this, since he probably can't recall what he had for breakfast.  Did he even remember to put on underwear?  - rhetorical question, no need to prove it or not.  And suddenly adding in that the keys are magic smacks of deus ex machina far too much.

Black Magic Keys!
(ouch)

     So, Ol' Bluey is about to murder Wifey - can we trust this dotard with anything sharp? since he'll probably slice his gizzard open - and then her brothers show up and kill Bluebeard, the end.
     A bit of a hurried resolution there, one feels.  But what do I know?

The Grapes Of Rath
NO!  That is not a typographical error, you weazened bafoons.  When do we ever make spelling mistakes here?  Think carefully before you answer, for we know both where you live and whom your ISP is.
     Anyway, this is another offshoot of that fruitful short story "The Residence At Whitminster" where that villain of the piece, one Lord Saul, is said by his father to mope about in "raths".  Conrad has never bothered before about the word until yesterday, when he decided to find out what they are.  Art?

Thus

     They are ring forts, prevalent in Ireland, and long defunct by the time the beginning of the story starts (1730 A.D.), so an unusual and worrying kind of place to be hanging about, unless you are up to some particularly grim mischief ...
     Perhaps one shouldn't look for cause-and-effect in stories of the supernatural, yet Conrad still can't see the connection between the first part of the story (with Lord Saul) and the saw-flies, but what do I know?

Is That Good?
As you should surely know by now, Your Modest Artisan knows and cares very little about sports, with a few honourable exceptions concerning the ballfoot game, which I have picked up from the BBC's "Have Your Say" over on their ballfoot pages; parrotting other people's remarks probably doesn't count as erudition if we're being strict, but it makes the point.
     So, what do I see at the prime top position on the Beeb's home page, the one that will be seen by countless millions across the globe (bar Tsar Putin's domain as he doesn't like his version of the truth getting challenged)?

"Archer takes six wickets as Australia bowled out for 225"

     With a photo I can't reproduce.  Imagine a man with a bat.

No, Art, no.

     My quibble is - what on earth does this mean?  Presumably they mean a person named "Archer" did this deed, not a toxophilist, though a confirmation would be nice.  Is this feat good?  Bad?  Middling enough to raise an eyebrow?
     I can't lie and say enquiring minds want to know, 'cause they don't, it's just that context and detail would help the average reader who doesn't know silly mid-off from a fine leg***.

Finally -
I am having to finish the blog at home thanks to First Bus, because my morning ride in now takes ten minutes longer, which is ten minutes that I don't get to create words of wit, wisdom and wonder before starting work.
     My first bus home left early, meaning I got to stare at it's rammed-full single-deckerness as it went.  The next one came in so late it promptly changed signs to one that ought to have arrived half an hour later, and it came in at the wrong stop, and it was a single-decker, too.  
     You have to wonder who dreams up these bus schedules.

"Ssssssssssssssssssss!"

     And with that, we are done!


*  This is an outrageous lie! Conrad's attitude towards logic shifts like a weathervane in a hurricane <the ghastly truth courtesy Mister Hand>
**  I still insist it was hilarious, unlike the magistrate, and I think a fine and suspended sentence were way over the top.
***  And no, you're not getting pictures of ladies either without any trousers or with extremely short skirts.