It Takes Ages To Read Some Pages

I Have Noticed Another Literary Reference On The BBC's Website
Don't worry, we can get around to zombies in a little while; in the meantime a soupcon of  culture won't do you any harm.  Blimey, are there people still setting off fireworks?  I can hear a positive barrage of them going off in the distance.  Courage, Edna, courage!
     What they've done is - what's that?  Oh, "Soupcon".  French, meaning "a small amount", from the inevitable Latin "Suspicio" meaning "Suspicion" or, the merest hint of something.
     There.  Happy now?  Can we proceed?  We can?  Why thank you so much!
     

Conrad, looking all appreciative, and not at all surly.
(Maybe a little bit surly)

     What they've done is pick 10 very long novels, which I suppose we are intended to ooh and coo about as they're so brilliant, mention the page count (from which edition, hmmm?) and give a precis.  Art?

     As you can see, the first doorstop volume they list is one I've had experience of previously.  It is extremely tedious and I gave up after less than 100 pages, nor do I anticipate picking it up again.  Conrad's Judgement: makes a good paperweight, or substitute for quilted toilet roll when the Zombie Apocalypse arrives.
     What's the second one?  Why, I thought you'd never ask.  

2. A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara (736 pages)

     Art?

"Peeling onions was not Jude's favourite chore."

     It sounds a right bundle of misery, with the Beeb precis stating that you'll be a blubbering wreck by the end.  736 pages of wretchedness, yum!  Conrad's Judgement: a useful implement for throwing at the cat as it tries to scoff your kippers at the other end of the kitchen.
     I notice two major works that aren't included: Thomas Pynchon's "Against The Day", which is well over 1,000 pages long, and "House of Leaves" by Mark Danielewski, which is both long, strangely structured and odd.

HOL: an example

     I think we can leave the long list there and come back to it later on, after the zombies, if that's okay?
     Motley, how about some bread-and-butter pudding?  No custard, can't stand the stuff.

Taking The Pyx
Yes yes yes, more moaning about the MEN's Cryptic Crossword, get used to it or get lost, because - whose blog is it, once again?  Besides, although Conrad got it because I am adept at crosswords, there are other poor souls out there who currently languish in confusion, a state of affairs that will persist until the solutions are published on Monday.  
     Okay, the clue went like this: "Sounds like choosing a consecrated container (3)".
             
                                                          Pics of Pyx
     How are those of us who lack a religious foundation expected to get this one? although I did recall the word from the depths of my memory because I am, after all, brilliant with crosswords*.  I did have another yark about crosswords lined up but shall reserve this for a later date, as I can sense your brains glazing over.
     Bah!

     Ah, the gunpowder barrage appears to have stopped.  Be resolute, Edna, resolute!

Back To The Aegean 
For Lo! It's about time to wrap up the story of Thrasybulus.  Remember, this is a general elected by his troops, whom intend to restore democracy to Athens, where control had been seized by the Thirty Tyrants, so definitely one of the good guys.
     At this point, the D30 as we call them, had been decisively defeated by the army of Thrasybulus and therefore resorted to squealing for help from Sparta, who despatched an army to take on Ol' Thras.

The Spartans: a right bunch of toughs

     Their leader, Pausanias, was quite the realist.  His force defeated that of Ol' Thras, but very narrowly after a hard pitched battle, and he didn't fancy going any more rounds with the democracy-inspired soldiery opposite him.  Instead he negotiated a treaty between the D30, their oligarch backers and the democrats: any oligarchs who wished could leave Athens and head for Euboia, which most of them did.  Democracy was restored, and Ol' Thras proved how wise he could be by preventing any wide-scale retaliation against the oligarchs remaining.

Ol' Thras gets an olive crown

     It might seem very humble to a modern audience, but an olive crown was one of the very highest accolades in Ancient Greece, and shows how highly thought of he was.

What Have I Stumbled Into?
Which is code for "More stuff about Lego and the Lego subculture", one of Denmark's most influential, popular and long-lived exports.  Face it, gastronomes, Lego is going to outlast all the Lurpak and bacon ever produced.  In fact, in the far distant future when aliens come to investigate our long-dead planet, you can bet one of them will hurt his foot when he steps on an unseen piece of Lego.

"It hurts!  It hurts so much!"

     I am referring now to Den Of Geek and their list of 17 horribly complex Lego builds, which I will take as read, since I can't take out a second mortgage to pay for this lot, nor allocate 9 months of my life to building them.  Art?

Only £240!

     This one is a steal, with over 4,000 parts to it.  Conrad unsure how the get the "droopy" look on the support cables, and suspects this part would fall apart if you merely looked hard at it.  Do we have a completed build with puny humans for scale?

Build with extraordinarily puny human for scale

     Note that it has an axis of symmetry down the middle, so to all intents and purposes you're building two identical halves which then get placed opposite each other.

Finally -
One thing that the Ruffians, of whatever political ilk they be, cannot resist is a phenomenon others have called "Gigantomania", which is to say that the biggest, heaviest, tallest, longest, fastest <insert Macguffin device here> has to be - theirs.
     Thus we come to the Belaz 75710, the world's biggest dump-truck, constructed in bespoke fashion for the Ruffian mining industry.  Art?

The crew: the drivers, engineers, catering staff, medics, secretaries, samovar operators and (I think) Uncle Tom Cobley

     This beast can apparently handle a 400 ton payload, which is pretty impressive.
     Wouldn't like to have to deal with a puncture, mind you ...


*  No false modesty here.