Never Trust The Quiet Man

For He Is Formulating A Cunning Plan
It must be true, a man from the CIA told me so!  For Lo! I am referring back to the r/askreddit channel on Youtube that beards the dragon in it's lair.  Or, if not quite that, an ex-CIA spook holding forth on topics that folks ask him about.

"The Work Of A Nation.  The Centre Of Intelligence"

     One of his rules was "Never trust a quiet person", because they are listening and learning from what's going on around them, whilst, if they have any nous at all, looking as if they're not doing anything.
     Another pertinent question on this Youtube channel is one that tends to undermine the perception of the CIA as Evil Personified Under The Sun, wherein it tries to run the world by Various Divers And Evil Means - a bit like the Catholics and Jews have been portrayed in the past.


Yeah, this sort of thing

     I paraphrase, but someone asked if what they'd read about the CIA denigrating the Drug Enforcement Agency was true and accurate?
     "Hell yes!" responded our ex-spook.  The CIA sees itself as the alpha-male Big Dog, and wants all the other intelligence agencies to acknowledge same.  The FBI equally considers itself to be the alpha-male Big Dog and will never bow the knee to the CIA; there have been bitter turf wars in the past between the two agencies, with the Feds being super keen to arrest and detain CIA spooks to make their point.  Both look down upon lesser mortals such as the aforementioned DEA, the spooks especially since they have their own drug enforcement agency.  These organisations have to compete with the much more recent Homeland Security body, both doubtless plotting to try and take it over. 
     Oh, we mustn't forget the National Security Agency, those people who are the South Canadian equivalent to GCHQ here in Perfidious Albion; you know, eavesdropping on everyone's e-mails and phone calls and letters and heliograph signals. 

CIA HQ

     All these agencies look down upon the Bureau of Alchohol, Tobacco and Firearms with contempt, considering them only slightly above the Inspectorate branch of the US Postal Service.
     So, Evil Government though they may be, the CIA is a lot more admin-based than you'd imagine and is almost as obsessed with acquiring territory and empire than waging the war on terror.  Imps, you might say, rather than devils.
    I think that's enough sinister and shadowy intelligence posting for the moment.  Come on, motley, let's play Blindfolded Tag With Automatic Weapons!

This Will All Make Sense On Facebook
I am jumping around within this blog like billy-o, so forgive me for bringing the bottom up to the top, in a way of speaking.  Art?

Vicia Cracca
(Also known as Vetches)

Back To Those 51 Top Sci-Fi Novels Of All Time
Yes, once again I'm typing this up at home, because the BookBub website will not load on the office PCs, for no good reason.  I don't get a screaming red warning sign that the IT admin spotters are watching me access a dodgy site; the screen just won't load.  Art?

Nope, not quite.

     I've not read the book, though I have seen the film.  Does that count?  Probably not, as I've no idea how different or similar each is to the other.  It was a pretty bleak and depressing film, I have to say, and I doubt the book will be a laff-riot, either.  One to buy and put on the shelf without reading.  Next!

Yup!

     Now, this - this I have read, back when it came out.  As I mentioned to Fifi in the office, when she enquired about the new edition I'd just bought, this is one of the most important sci-fi books of the last 40 years.  Immensely influential, it's been decades since I last read it, so I'm going to enjoy it when I eventually get to the bottom of my book pile.  Gibson invented a frighteningly new world where it's unclear if humanity runs the technology or if it's the other way round, where civilisation barely manages to evolve faster than it crumbles, and where national boundaries matter less than who your multinational employer is.  A fascinating dystopia!
     Wow.  Get me.  Conrad wonders how nobody's made a film of this yet.

It may happen

     <Much later - there is a film supposedly in the works, but "Neuromancer" has been in development hell for at least 10 years, so don't hold your breath>

The Death Of A Legend
A metaphorical one (though you could read Nicholas Parsons into that if you like).
     This one comes courtesy of the Pub Quiz, where the True or False Question was: Cows sleep standing up.
     Well, obviously!  There's a line in James Blish's "A Life For The Stars" where one character states that cows sleep standing up because their "plumbing" is so badly designed.  Art?

Daisy is dozy.

     Conrad then assuredly stated that, over in South Canada, drunken rural youths go out at night and tip over sleeping cows, for hoots and hollers -
     Except not.
     Some South Canadian scientists, obviously either bored or with too much grant money, did a study on how feasible it is to tip a cow.  The answer came back: not very.  A single adult cow weighs in at about half a ton and it would need at least six and as many as fourteen people to push one over.  Nor are they easily surprised, as they sleep only shallowly when standing up.

You  also risk making your target angry

     A sensible farming chap (the splendidly-named Jake Swearingen) also points out that so far nobody has ever posted a film of cow-tipping on Youtube.  That's the clincher - film or it never happened.
From Flabbergast To Arbogast
Because Conrad's mind likes to make connections.  We don't really have an origin for the former, but we do for the latter surname.  It is Alsatian in origin, from that region with an uneasy relationship with both the Franks and the Teutons, so it has roots in both French and German.  The breakdown is: "Arbi" meaning "Inheritance" and "Gast" meaning "Stranger".  So, this bloke from out of town gets all your goods and chattels, and if you don't like it, go take it up with a lawyer.

Saint Arbogast, patron saint of Alsatia, about to catch a fly?

     So - now we know.  Are we flabbergasted yet? Finally -
Just what is a "Ketch"?  I ask because this was part of a Cryptic Crossword solution.  Your Humble Scribe is aware of the word, and that it's a boat (that is, too small to be a ship) and - what then?

A ketch

     Wiki defines it as a two-masted sailboat where the main mast is taller than the mizzen mast, which must mean that one at the back, and they tend to be in the forty foot range.  So, if we're not exactly flabbergasted, we can be said to be - waitforitwaitforit - flabbermasted.

     Thank you and goodnight!