Yes indeed - NO! That is not a spelling mistake, you should know better by now. If it's there then it's deliberate, because the English language conforms to Conrad's desires and wishes, so there. Art?
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| CAUTION! Will not eat hay |
Bear with me on this one, because we're looking both backwards and forwards in time, and we are back to that most Central European of Central European nations, because it is in the centre of Europe: Czechoslovakia. If you have any kind of memory then you remember Jan Hus, the proto-Protestant from fifteenth century Bohemia (a province of Czechoslovakia), who was tricked into attending a meeting by the Catholic church, on the false pretence that his skin was safe.
Well, it wasn't. They burned him at the stake as a heretic. This was a colossal mistake as it instantly established him as an immortal martyr - they couldn't do anything else to him, could they?
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| Jan getting a toasting |
So he served as a motivator and rallyer for the Hussites, who went on to cause untold mischief and trouble for the church, by the cessation of which the episcopalian (ho, another word you never expected to hear today!) authorities probably wished they'd merely given him a spanking and sent him home.
Fast forward to 1968, when the Sinisters invaded Czechoslovakia in order to ensure a rigid Sinister dictatorship held sway over the people, who'd been getting used to things like being able to make a right-hand turn without being sent to the gulags.
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| "Grateful Czech comrades greet their beloved Sinister liberators" |
Your Humble Scribe can guarantee that there were people in those crowds who'd seen the Teutons march in during 1938; they're the ones with the "Why us? again!" expressions.
Within a couple of years, The Plastic People Of The Universe band had formed. Their line-up varied over time but no group of five people could have caused more problems for the Czech dictators. They were avowedly non-political, stating only that they wanted to play their rock music, not challenge the status quo. This did not go down well with the elderly, tone-deaf fossils in charge of the Communist Party, who probably complained that "It's too loud!" or "Nothing decent in music has happened since 1945!" and certainly "Get a haircut!"
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| "Muj boze! Chloupky!" |
The band were persecuted and prevented from playing live and couldn't record disks in Czechoslovakia, they got arrested and put on trial and were sent to prison.
This merely ensured that their records were taken up and produced outside Czechoslovakia, and thanks to the publicity surrounding the trials and prosecutions and prison time, far more people got interested in them than if the Tone-Deaf Fossils had left them alone to make music. By 1977 the Tone-Deaf Fossils were probably mimicking the Catholic church in 1415 and wishing they'd never seen or heard the long-haired hippy rockers, because in that year you get the Charter 77 movement, who were partly inspired by the mistreatment meted out to TPPU.
This, of course, drove the Tone-Deaf Fossils into an apoplectic rage, and they took extensive and prolonged measures against the Charter 77 signatories. Which was all looked on with interest by the vast majority of Czechs, who never saw the Charter, but who were now verrrrry interested in it.
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| How to scare cats the Vaclav Havel way! |
In answer to those of you who are now shouting and pointing, this is all History, because - obviously! - BOOJUM! avoids anything involving Politics or Religion.
And we're not finished with this yet.
I was going to poke fun at "Bohemian Rhapsody" again, I even had a box of tissues ready to be couriered around to Brian May, and then had second thoughts. Maybe tomorrow.
Taunt Me! Taunt Me With What I Cannot Have!
It was the lovely Anna's birthday recently, but I'm not telling you when, nor her surname either, as I cannot trust you lot out there.
She had birthday cakes made by the extremely talented Sophie - this Sophie, not that Sophie - and the wicked strumpet had the chutzpah (it was a crossword answer and I felt like including it) to put up photos on Facebook. Art?
Dammit. Just looking at them is enough to trigger a diabetic coma <sobs quietly into his bucket of gin>.
Conrad Will Wait And See
There have been several teaser trailers put out recently, announcing the arrival next year of "Foundation", a television series based on Isaac Asimov's definitive space-opera. The initial protagonist has apparently been changed to a young black lady, when the original novel's version was indubitably a man. This has caused some commentators to worry that the whole thing will be an agenda-driven PC "interpretation" of the novels, rather than an actual, you know, adaptation. Art?
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| Nothing with Jared Harris in it can ever be truly bad |
The real issue for Your Humble Scribe is that it's only available if you subscribe to an entity called "Apple TV". Subscribe to yet another streaming service for the dubious pleasures of watching a single series and not until next year? Not ruddy likely!
In terms of what it actually is, as opposed to fans' hopes and fears - well I guess we'll just have to wait till next year.
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| Nice try, Art. But no cigar. |
Incidentally, that splendid Chris Foss picture has absolutely 0% to do with the novel. Nothing at all.
You What!
I am fated not to get "Military Operations Togoland And The Cameroons", aren't I?
Go on, you've no idea where either of them are, have you? <dramatic sigh> Africa. For we are talking about the British Official History Of The War, that is, the First Unpleasantness. Art!
| Thus |
I had a copy on order from Caliver via Abebooks, and then suddenly got an e-mail saying the volume had mysteriously vanished into another dimension without warning and they suspected it was Doctor Strange mucking about. Or something.
Okay. I scouted around and found a cheaper edition, and an original 1931 one at that, in New Zealand, which meant paying £18 postage and packing. This is about what you'd expect from the Antipodes as I've seen similar charges for volumes of this size.
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| Land of the Polite Australians |
Then yesterday I get an e-mail saying that the vendors have no choice but to send the book by registered courier (which is guaranteed proof against inter-dimensional meddling from mystic arts practitioners), and that will be another £18, please -
Er no. This would mean paying £36 for a book that costs £34, which is getting on for South Canadian vendor levels of embezzlement.
Bah!
Finally -
It's a good 20 minutes until nose-grindstone interaction needs begin, so I am going to venture downstairs from my Sekrit Layr and go stir what's a-cooking in the slow cooker, which is Conrad's take on "Bigos" or Polish Hunter's Stew. THIS is what I wanted artichokes for, just to make it a bit different. I bet there's scads of them available when I go shopping tonight.
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| It's a bloke with an artichoke |
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