They Lied To Me!

Jim!  Al!  How Could You!
I refer, of course, to that podcast "We Have Ways ..." which I am about a month behind in terms of what I've listened to and what there is to play, and to which my wallet squeaks in fear, as they are always - ALWAYS - mentioning new books that you simply have to have, and you know Conrad and books, my one near-criminal indulgence.  

Librarian porn

If <eyes go misty>  I were a superhero*, then my weakness would be books.
     You can imagine the scene, can't you?

CAPTAIN CONRAD <resplendent in dayglo green and red>: It's over, Professor Profiterole.  Your Kitchen of Karnage is finished.  Surrender now and face justice.
PROFESSOR PROFITEROLE <looking like a bowel movement in his horrid brown uniform>: O, you thinks so, eh, Conrad? <messes with a brown paper bag>
CAPTAIN CONRAD <gasping>: Is it - can that be - a signed first edition of "Gravity's Rainbow"?
PROFESSOR PROFITEROLE: Yes, and - see this book of matches?  I'm going to light it up unless you let me leave!
CAPTAIN CONRAD <with feeling>: YOU MONSTER!

     Anyway, that, as usual, has nothing to do with what I really wanted to talk about, which was Doctor Alex Richie, who is a guest on the WHW podcast.  
     The Doctor is A GIRL!
     In fact, !!
     You could have knocked me down with an avian flight component made out of aerogel when I heard her melodic British American tones.  Art?

The good doctor
(A female Doctor - that rings a bell somewhere)

     You know Conrad, who is either a pervy old letch, or a letchy old perv, one of them anyway, and clever women -
     Well!  The good doctor is an authority of the Second Unpleasantness on the Eastern Front - O noes squeaks wallet - and has written a touchstone work on the Warsaw Uprising.  She appears to have married into a Polish family and lives in Poland, and given the works she has published, is fluent in German and Polish (and possibly Ruffian as well).  <insert heart emojis here>.
     It is a fact, a sad one if you are a Social Justice Literary Critic, that the military history field is overwhelmingly a male one.  I can only mention Barbara Tuchman as a female military history scholar and author, so I doubt you can do better.
     Righto.  Next week is pay week, so Abebooks here we come -
     O noes squeaks wallet!
         

     ALEXANDRA, CHAPS, ALEXANDRA
     
Conrad: Even Angrier That Usual
I know, I know.  Your Humble Scribe wakes up and the first thing he does is froth at the world.  What can I say, I'm a frothy kind of guy, especially when the froth is made up of capsaicin and nitric acid.
     ART!

     Really?  "ASTHMA" "ECRU" "ETYMOLOGY" which must win awards for self-referentialism, not to mention "GYMKHANA" and "LING".
     O and "HAIKU", too, because haiku haiku haiku, here's a haiku for you -
     Here an aside.  Conrad distinctly remembers Ilya Kuryakin, the Sinister member of our favourite "Man From U.N.C.L.E." team, reciting a haiku, which was absolutely groundbreaking back in the early Seventies.  Art?

"It was something about a frog and a pond.  After that - sorry, too much vodka."

     <hazy reminiscences of an Utopia where East and West could work together>
     Sorry, allow me to work myself up into a state of muted rage.  What the heck is or was or are LING?  Art?

Once more with fee-

     Aha. It's a fish.  Okay, good so far, Conrad is always open to being able to eat something.  
     It did, however, trip a memory within my mind (CAUTION!  This may be dangerous!) about "Leng", which definitely had something to do with H. P. Lovecraft, possessor of the world's most ironic surname.  
     "The Plateau Of Leng" - that was it.  Ol' Howie and his mates were always conjuring up strange and mysterious places out in the back of beyond that had unpleasantly intimate connections with The Old Ones**.

The Plateau in question

     Howie et al cheat a bit with the precise location of Leng, as it seems to be interdimensionally unstable and wanders about the globe somewhat, though it's in Asia.  Who knows, even now explorers from the Populous Dictatorship might be probing it's dark and sinister secrets ...***

Bilious Invective
Or, if you like, Further Proof That Conrad Is A Terrible Person.  For Lo! I have been enjoying more Have Your Say commentaries on the BBC's sports pages, concerning The Manchester United and Chelsey (I think).  The meat of the matter was that The Manchester United's "goal keeper" performed dreadfully, and cost them two goals, and then one of their own "players" (sorry for all this technical jargon) scored a goal, except it was into his own set of goals.  Thus they lost 3-1.
     And the comments!  I had to record two of them, as they made me laugh out loud.  Art?

     "Fergie Time" is alleged to be extra time that the ex-manager of TMU, called Edwin Shufflebottom Fergie, used to bully out of match officials, thus allowing TMU to come back from being down in terms of goals.  "Penchester" made me giggle as I'd not heard that insult before; the poster is alleging that TMU are favoured by the referees and always get awarded penalties that are undeserved - just another example of conspiranoid loonwaffles at work, if in an amusing way.
     O schadenfreude, thy taste is sweet, which is ironic coming from a diabetic.

Finally -
Let us go, cap in hand, to Marketa and ask what unusual Czech word we can slip into casual conversation in order to sound clever today.
     O Marketa!   Marketa, my sweet, what - 
     "Chatar": 'A person who owns a cottage and goes there quite often'.
     I see.  I see indeed.

Here's some!

     And with that terrible parting pun, we are done done done.

* A topic for another day
**  Very probably nothing to do at all in any way whatsoever no sir with The Old Ones mentioned in the Star Trek episode "What Are Little Girls Made Of"
***  If this happens then, of course, Hom. Sap. is completely and utterly doomed.  Tee hee!