Conrad Is ANGRY!

I Know, I Know; I'm Always Angry
Let us just say extra-specially angry as a starting point, for reasons we shall go into shortly.
     However, to balance the titanic temper tantrum, Conrad is also simultaneously very pleased, which contrasting state of mind is no problem for me.  We shall go into this shortly also.
     "What is it now?" I hear you sigh.  "Low cloud over the Halle Tower?  Sugar in the salt shaker? Alien spies hanging out in your wardrobe pretending to be coat hangars?"
     None of the above - though I shall have words with you about that last one.  Art!

THIS!  THIS!  THIS IS WHY I AM ANGRY!
And thank you for asking.

     I am taking it on trust that you can see the deliberate error here present, which I couldn't believe at first.  This ghastly garish gratuitousness is (I think, I didn't hang around to read it) to do with Manchester making a bid for the Titanic Games, or Britannic Games, something like that, and one supposes it is going to be publicised across the Pond.  Art?
     

Corrected!  My blood pressure is reducing already

     Whatever would David Bowie say?
     That's not all.  I have noticed an electronics odd-and-ends shop opposite the Dark Tower's Shude Hill entrance, which has an electronic sign up informing passers-by that their phones can be "FIXED IN MINUT".  
     Honestly, I don't know how to respond: tears of laughter or rage?  Answers in the Comments section please.
     Right, motley, we each have five sausages, five rashers of bacon, five poached eggs (healthier than fried, you see), five slices of black pudding, five slices of French toast,  five sausages, a serving of baked beans, a serving of scrambled egg, a Portobello mushroom and some hash browns.  We are eating against the clock with a ten-minute deadline - GO!

We love a challenge

It Was The Force, Of Course
Conrad often travels past the Lego Shop at the base of the Dark Tower, and occasionally stops to look at their ever-changing displays.  Your Humble Scribe dare not set foot inside, or he would end up leaving £865 down with a stack of extremely advanced building kits, having just acquired an expensive new hobby.
     This morning, there had been an unusual posing of a major display.  Art?

     Putting undue stress on this thing is a bad idea, since it will probably come apart, at which point John, who spent six weeks of his spare time building it, will come at the member of staff who knocked it over with a gun, a spear and a bludgeon.  You've been warned, member of staff!

The Reason I Am Very Pleased
You may, or may not, have heard of a television sci-fi series called "The Expanse", in which case YOU ARE DEAD TO ME IF YOU HAVEN'T I recommend you watch it.  At present it is about to appear in Season Four on Amazonian Pireme, or similar, in December.  The plot is that of competition on an alien world that has been settled by squatters ahead of the official pioneers turning up, and the shenanigans that ensue, and are all the alien artefacts left lying around really long-inert?

They are looking at you.  Will you be looking at them?

     That, at least, is the plot of the novel (I forget exactly which one - hang on <Googles> - "Cibola Burn") and it's a fan favourite because of the extensive descriptions of an alien world that The Engineers* had terraformed to their own criteria - which fortunately closely resemble those for Hom. Sap.      What makes the television series interesting is that it mixes up characters and introduces them out of novel-order, as well as adding in things that are completely new, so - you cannot predict precisely what will happen.
     Interesting times ahead ...

Welcome to Ilus!
(CAUTION!  Everything can kill you and there is no coffee)

The Vengeance Of The Vegetable
Conrad had time to think - always a dangerous thing - on the way into work this morning, on the mean streets of Gomorrah-on-the-Irwell, and one thing that struck him with all the force of a rutabaga hurled at the head was the intrusion into our - what's that?  You've no idea - O alright.  Art?

For your education

     What struck me was how the pumpkin has become a symbol of our subjugation to South Canada's cultural conquest of this Sceptred Isle.
     "What do you mean, O aged and pensive ponderer?" I hear you query - which is uncharacteristically polite and appreciative.  I shall explain.
     First, an aside.  Yes, right here!
     Take it away Bard -

Raw source material

     There are several things wrong with this.  Very wrong.  First of all, even if it's an especially large pumpkin, you simply cannot fit a fully-grown adult human inside a pumpkin.  Not possible.  What did Peter do, put her in a blender first so he could pour the reduced remains into said shell?  Hello, police?  I want to report a murder ...
     On the other hand, shall we fondly imagine that our South Canadian poets anticipated a genetically-engineered pumpkin as big as a shed, courtesy of Man Meddling With Things He Was Not Meant To Know?  Yes we shall.  Art?

On the way but not there yet

     If we allow this flight of farming fantasy, then we must also allow that Peter hollowed out the pumpkin to make room for his prisoner wife, probably by sawing the top off.  Here's another problem; once you scrape a pumpkin empty and hack bits off, it begins to rot.  Within days Peter's wife would be suffocating under a gigantic mound of festering vegetable.  Sorry, but that's how it is.      Where was I? O yes - Attack of the South Canadian Pumpkins.  You only ever see pumpkins in October, since they are not native to the Allotment, and they are absent from the land for the other eleven months of the year.
    Why, then - WHY, I SAY! - do we see all these Halloween decorations and artefacts all sporting a vegetable that is not native to the Allotment?

The evil article in question

     I think this makes me angry.  Let me just check - yes, it makes me VERY angry.  VERY angry indeed!

Finally -
I shall have to finish here as we're over the Compositional Ton, and I need to try and get an appointment at Peppi's, as my locks are getting rather tatty, ratty and generally batty.

Later peeps!



*  I call them this rather than "The proto-molecule makers" as it's a bit less clumsy.