A Time Versus Ideas Problem

It's A Nice Problem To Have, Mind You
What I mean is that there's only so much time I can dedicate to hammering away on the keyboard, creating words of wit, wisdom and wonder <delete two of your choice where applicable*> that we - hang on, is that traitor Mister Hand and it again? 

<hideous crunching, hammering noise reminiscent of a cabbage being murdered>

     There, tht'll fix him for a whle even if it means typingg left handed only for a while.
     Ah, Motley%  come overr here and type for m

Mister Hand, the Treacherous Appendage

     As I was saying: when time is limited the ideas seem to positively crowd in from all sides, jockeying for attention.  They are in competition with the crosswords and codewords I have to do - really, there's no choice - to keep my wits sharp, and the Book Mountain, which shows no sign of ever decreasing, and my annotation work, and the weekly shop, and organising and playing a wargame, and watching "Wynona Earp".     
     Not only that, Wonder Wifey has recommended a television series called "The Luminaries", which would occupy even more time.  Art?
                                     

     I see "The Sun" has a tagline about "Viewers rage about the plot", which probably means their Entertainment correspondent didn't understand the long words.
     There are those out there, of course, who lack any creative spark at all, and whom relentlessly and ruthlessly plagiarise others in order to turn a fast spondulick.  I refer, of course, to those Mimic Mill "authors" Sutherland and Canwell, whom we mentioned last night.
     It appears their business model, which is approved implicitly by the publishers who commission work from them, Pen & Sword, is to crank out a new 'work' every 3 weeks, by copying wholesale from other authors.  To the extent that 75 - 80% of each book is content merely copied over from several other authors.  Art?

Note the hilariously ironic random advert that came up

      I don't know if you can read the text there or not.  It's from Mr. J. Foyne, who details his legal action against the S & C Axis of Awful, who promptly settled out of court to avoid establishing a legal precedent.  Again, their business model seems to be that they are willing and able to risk legal actions, since they are not frequent, and if sued they will immediately settle out of court; if they actually went to trial and lost, then they would be ruined, as all the other plagiarised authors would have gotten to hear about it and come for their pound of flesh.

 

     The blurb above is taken from S & C's 'work' about the Teuton battleship the "Tirpitz".  Here they simply make things up.  According to them their book features photographs from an unpublished photo album which belonged to a member of the Tirpitz' crew, showing the crew - not on the "Tirpitz".  On a sailing ship in the Caribbean, of all things, where the battleship went on a shake-down cruise before the Second Unpleasantness began.
     Trouble is, the "Tirpitz" never went near the Caribbean.  It stuck to the North Sea, the Norwegian coastline and the North Cape, and it didn't put to sea until 1941, long after hostilities had commenced.
     This drivel is still up on the Pen & Sword website, which I will have to take other's words for, as I'm i) not going there and ii) not buying books from them again.  Art!

A proper book by a proper author

Conrad's Football Team Model
I have proposed this before, so you may be familiar with it.  However, it is so strongly reminiscent of S & C's approach to writing books that I am inspired to bring it out again.
     Firstly, and most importantly, Conrad proudly maintains an ignorance of the ballfoot game that takes genuine perseverance to keep unsullied.

A football. 
(Apologies for getting technical)

     Shelli, talking about Pooliver (sp?) on Facebook, admitted she knew nothing about the ballfoot game.  Well, I know even less**.
     Okay!  So, in Conrad's team of Pocklington Sodbury, the goalkeeper will be a 55-stone mountain of blubber who takes up almost the whole of the goal.  In order to cover the bits he doesn't already cover, so to speak, he will also have hands like shovels.
     Of the other 10 men, five will be raving homicidal maniacs recruited from <thinks> those expelled from the Pocklington Sodbury fan club for being too extreme, for abusing illegal drugs, and for resorting to violence as a very first resort.  They will be trained to the peak of physical fitness, and when the match begins their sole aim and intent will be to cripple as many of the opposition as rapidly as possible, before they get sent off.
     The remaining opposition players won't know that Pocklington's last five aren't psychopathic kicking-biting-punching machines, and will consequently cower behind the referee, thus losing the match.

Conrad, ballfoot manager extraordinaire

     What do you think?

     I knew it!  Mere minutes to go until nose-grindstone-interfacing, and there's a scad of readable articles on the BBC's website - Fate conspires again!
     Bah!
     Okay, from the bizarre world of ballfoot, to that of -

Judge Dredd
Anyone who reads BOOJUM! on a more than occasional basis knows that Your Modest Artisan is a big fan of Old Stoney Face (as Dredd is never called to his face), and the gleeful nihilism that animated every frame of the strip back in the old days.  Art?

The icon himself

     The thing is - the Judges of Mega-City One are identified by that whacking great shield effort they wear on their chest - not going there in the case of female judges - with their name proudly embossed upon it.
     What about Judge Smith?
     Or Judge <thinks> Gomez?
     In fact, with a judge force of 65,000 (I believe that's the correct total) how many duplicate surnames are there going to be?  Hundreds!  Do we ever see a badge with "Judge Jones #37" on it?  No we do not!
     This is a gaping plot hole and I want to know how the writers are going to resolve it!
     Of course, I may be overthinking this ...

"Criminal charge Code #584, Conrad: excessive cerebral activity.  YOU'RE UNDER ARREST, CREEP!"

     Just to let you know, I'm letting that porridge settle before starting on my pot of tea.  Porridge is damn filling stuff.

Thank You, Brain
Whilst I was thinking up my hilarious slander of Rupert the Bear on Facebook last night, I also needed to balance it with something else, and the name "Bogdan Khmelnitsky" popped into my brain, as things are wont to do.
     Well well, Margaret Atwell.  It turned out that Ol' Boggy really existed.  Art?

Bogdan and his - er - "hat"

     In fact, whilst the English Civil Unpleasantness was a-raging in This Sceptred Isle, there was a horribly complicated five-way conflict going on in Eastern Europe between the Cossacks (essentially today's Ukraine), the Crimean Tatars, the mostly Polish Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Russia and Sweden, and old Boggy was was right in the middle of this, stirring it up with a stick.  He was the Cossack 'Hetman' or Big Chief Head Guy, which possibly explains the hat.
     His whole life is far too complicated to go into in a few lines, or even a few paragraphs, so we may come back to this.  Unless brain throws up another random historical figure.

Finally -
I shall be off to the Health Centre in the evil metropolis of Royton later on, which means I may be able to venture into the Co-Op and get an MEN with cryptic crossword and codeword!  For only the third time since mid-March.  How they must have missed me.

The Gates Of Paradise
(Open 7 days, no dogs allowed)

*  Anarchic commentary courtesy Mister Hand!
**  Looks smug