Marsupial Mayhem And Antipodean Assertions

But First, I Would Like To Bask In My Own Glory
If you know anything about Conrad, you will know that to him mathematics is a puzzling and frankly perverse field of human endeavour; whereas the written word is something he has a fair degree of facility with, as hopefully this bloggorhea as spewed out over the past 7 years proves.
     What I want to - what's that noi

O Noes!  Invaded by the steam trains!

     GET OUT OF IT YOU LOT!  Go on, clear off!  This is my blog.  No trespassing by uninvited guests, even if you were responsible for helping to kick-start the Industrial Revolution.
     I do apologise.  This sort of thing does happen from time to time, even on the best-regulated blogs*.
     Where were we?  O yes - being clever with words.  Art?

     This is the "Skeleton" out of the Oldham Times, and as you can see I got the whole lot without making a single mistake, probably for the first time, and as you can also see they didn't overburden us completers by adding in ridiculously obscure words.  The Dog Buns thing is hard enough in the first place.
     And with that gloasting I think this particular Intro is done with.  Motley, can you give Art a mixed grill on a plate?  Coal, coke and a bit of anthracite should do.

For those whose minds are perpetually in the gutters

And Now For Today's Language Lesson
Your Humble Scribe mentioned "Antipodean" in today's title and would like to gloast a bit about how he uses obscure terms like this to look clever.  I refer to Australia and New Zealand and their denizens, the Ockers and the Polite Australians respectively.  The word "Antipodes" is Greek for "Opposite the feet" and it's implied that our southron cousins live exactly opposite us here in Perfidious Albion, which is nearly true.
     For Lo! we are back to How To Cook That, where Ann Reardon once again shows what lying deceitful bumbletucks there are on Youtube, especially 5 Minutes Crafts.  Art?

     This is a 5MC "meringue", which Ann did in a microwave as per the recipe.  As you can see, it is a squishy, flaccid mess.  Enter the valiant Dave, Ann's long-suffering husband, who has to taste-test the gubbins she produces when following their recipes.  Art?

Dave: not impressed

     As Ann points out, and any baker worth their salt knows, you have to bake meringues in a very cool oven over a long period, so they dry up and become crisp without burning.
     I think I'll post one more illustration of how 5MC are utterly without shame or scruples tomorrow, after which we will meet Dave's alter-ego: Crusading Investigative Journalist.

And Now The Kangaroo
Here's a question.  How would you tell the difference between a midget kangaroo and a giant wallaby?  I've no idea myself, it just sounded like a cool thought experiment.
     Anyway, I was plodding dutifully through my Reader's Digest book of puzzles and brain teasers, and came across a list where you had to pair off words, one pair of which was "Kangaroo Court".  Art?

Er - yes.

     Of course I looked it up in my Brewers, which stated that it's a variety of mock court unrecognised in law, set up to mete out a particular brand of retribution disguised as justice.  They flourished in South Canada in the nineteenth century, as you might expect, our South Canadian cousins on the frontier not being given to lengthy judicial processes and much preferring a stout length of rope and a nearby tree.  The "Kangaroo" bit seems to be a reference to the leaps and bounds cases would make through said courts, in contrast to the sedate normal procedure, with all it's recesses and future dates and jury selection and the judge going for a game of golf.

LOOK OUT!  GIANT WALLABIES!

Back To Rolling Stone's 'Top 50' List Of Sci-Fi Shows
And here we have Number 45 - 

Hmmm

     I have a vague memory of Degsy mentioning this, many years ago, and nothing else.  The RS blurb describes it as having a couch-potato dad's brain transplanted into the body of a genetically-engineered fighting machine, you know, the sort of thing that accidentally happens all the time**.  Doing a bit of background checking, I see that the doughy dad is played in the pilot and flashbacks by the mighty John Goodman, which is a pretty fair pedigree in it's own right.  I may consult with that vade mecum of pop culture, Degsy, to get his input on the series.  It only ran for one season - but then so did "Firefly" and you know what fearful afficionadoes those fans are.

Erics Mark One and Two

Big Birds
I have mentioned the mythical Roc, a gigantic bird of prey that flapped around the Middle East and allegedly stole elephants.  In fact a bird that big would collapse as it's bones wouldn't be able to support it's mass, which is a tiny detail the tale-tellers haven't bothered to address, the pikers.
     However, there is a tradition of Extremely Large Birds in myths over in the Orient.  Take Persia, for example: their battle-beast of a brontosaur bird is the "Simurgh", which, if Art can put down his lunch-scuttle -

Note the archetypal flowing tail-feathers

     The simurgh parallels the roc in that it is big enough to carry off elephants - pachyderms again! - and whales, but there the resemblance ends.  For the simurgh is a benevolent birdie, that is all-wise and all-knowing and practically ageless.  According to the myths, it is so old it has seen the world end three times, though nobody has come up with a suggestion as to where it went roosting whilst Planet Earth went pop.
     And how do they know it carries off whales?  Whales are creatures of the ocean depths, whom frequent the distant parts of the ocean.  Don't tell me, Sinbad saw them fishing whilst he was passing by, hmmm?

Mrs Simurgh ponders the housework

Finally -
Ah, poor Edna.  She is getting used to the idea that Your Humble Scribe is working from home, which means she can come pester to either get a morsel of toast crust - or none at all if I ignore her and eat the lot - or to sit in loyal attendance as I open rustling packets of Hula Hoops or Sweet Chili Rice Crackers.  A single susurration of plastic and she's there at my feet.  Art?

     No, Edna!  Not so much as a sniff of a cracker!

     And with that, we are done done done!

*  Which this is not!  <the awful truth courtesy Mister Hand>
**  In Hollywood, anyway.