Toga Honk

It Goes Without Saying -
That you cannot take this title at face value.  You should know both Conrad and BOOJUM! by now, as we are both treacherous unreliable narrators, who lie all the time*.
     So!  No doubt the mention of the word "Toga" inspires visions of Romans, busy spectating at chariot races, or perhaps one of those peculiar South Canadian college parties where people wear that particular item of de rigeur clothing.  Art?

Not a costume to be worn in colder climes

     Okay, so it's not that.  Glad we got that out of the way.
     Nor does the second word match up with what you are anticipating: the sound of a car's horn as it's driver curses and dodges the idiot doing 30 miles per hour in the right-hand lane on the motorway.  Art?

Mister Seething Rage personified

     Nope, nothing to do with either, because Lo!  We are back on that list of Viking sports and games as defined by the Hurstwic website.  "Tong Honk" translates as "Tug of Loop" and is one of the rare Viking games that doesn't involve risk to life and limb.  Art?

Toga honking

     It's a variant of a tug of war; the two competitors sit with their feet braced against the others, and pull on a loop of rope, the winner being the one who pulls the other person across a middle line.  Speculation is that this helped spot people who might make good rowers.
     Then there were what Hurstwic calls "Scraper games", involving the use of  implements that normally scraped skins and hides.  The actually play and rules are unknown; what is known is that these were hideously dangerous exploits.  It is recounted that, in one especially fraught game six people suffered fatal injuries.  Art?

A scraper for the scrappers

     Clearly, Vikings didn't suffer from any snivelling regard for human life.
     Motley, shall we emulate the Vikings, except with rubber knives?

Coulrophobics Look Away Now
Your Humble Scribe was quietly attempting to complete The Metro's Cryptic Crossword earlier this afternoon, when in walks Wonder Wifey, having forgotten that today is my day off (but you're only getting the one post today).  She asks a most peculiar question: Had I heard of Puddles Pity Party?
     "No," was my eloquent and fulsome reply.  WW then demonstrates that we can get Youtube on our big-screen television, and looks up a cover version of "Come Sail Away" as performed by PPP.  Art?

Not CSA.  But this is PPP.

     PPP does not speak, and if asked any kind of question or in any kind of conversation, he will mime a response.  He does cover versions of classic songs, usually rock ones.  It turns out that CSA was originally by Styx, whom I think were a soft-rock hair band from the Eighties.  I've played the original and have to say I prefer PPP's cover, which has a lot more adrenaline to it.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdLPCADw2MI&list=TLPQMjAwMjIwMjBh_NxeOYqy2Q&index=1

     That is the link to CSA over on Youtube.  PPP appeared on one of those hideous South Canadian reality shows, "America's Got Talent", where he absolutely wowed a panel of four people out in front, who appeared to be a jury of sorts.  If Art will accomodate -

PPP in full flow

     He absolutely smashed it; the audience were giving him a standing ovation.
     There is more to this tale, which I'm not going to tell you today**.  
     Well, that's today's musical introduction, so I'm not going to bang on about K-Pop's 50 best bands.  Not today.

More Of Those 51 Sci-Fi Novels You Cannot Afford To Miss
This might take a little while to resolve, as I am working off very blurry background images that are further obscured by a dialogue box trying to get me to register.
     NO!  I WILL NOT REGISTER!  NOT NOT NOT.
     Okay, Art.

"Foundation" by Isaac Asimov
(A Chris Foss special)

      Yes, I have read it, and even got the edition above last year in order to re-read it.  It's definitely Space Opera, concerning the galactic Empire, which various heretical scientists know is going to collapse into ruin, and the resulting dark age will last for thirty thousand years.
     Enter Hari Seldon, who has a plan that will reduce this interregnum to (!) only one thousand years; he plans to establish a Foundation that will be a shelter and repository for human knowledge, able to help resurrect things once the fall is over.
     Of course no plan survives contact with the enemy, which however makes things entertaining, for a flawless execution of Seldon's plan would have been quite dull.
     Art?

Nope

     Conrad hasn't read it, although I do remember reading a review of it in the long-vanished "Science Fiction Monthly", and an interview with the author.  I have read "The Jewels of Aptor", mind you, and what's that other one about the future city?  <Googles> Aha!  "The Towers of Toron".
     "Dhalgren" seems to be a bit of a Marmite novel: you either love it or hate it.  It centres on partially-destroyed city of Bellona, where the narrator arrives after suffering amnesia.  The whole thing appears to make little sense, and was created as an intellectual exercise.  Not, I think, one for Conrad.  Oh, it does include one thing I remember from an old book on science-fiction weapons that I had and regret not having, and cannot even remember what it was called - anyway, the "Orchid".  Art -


     The closest I could find in a rather barren field

Finally -
Ha!  I found it!  I remembered that the artist in question for the Orchid was Vincent Di Fate, and a little Googling brought about that below.

Bingo

     From what I recall, that cover illustration is of a soldier in a power-suit, carrying a firearm that delivers miniature nuclear warheads.  I remember that the blurb accompanying it went along the lines of " - the rifle weighs 149 pounds and is entirely unsuitable for non-military uses" in case you were thinking of buying one and using it for skeet or deer hunting.

     And with that, we are most certainly done!


*  This, itself, is a lie.  Or - is it?
**  Aren't I a swine?