Apologies All Round!

 In The Spirit Of Skeptoid

Over at their website, the creator, Brian Dunning, will publish a recursion of older posts where he got things wrong - genuine mistake or typo both, or where an answer has now emerged from more recent scientific research.  

SCIENCE!

As James Holland pointed out on Twitter recently when an error was pointed out by a keen-eyed reader in one of his works, there are all sorts of processes and procedures along the way to a book being published, especially when it's a factual one, to weed out mistakes.  However, things can be missed.  Ol' Jim said the book had been out for eight years, has sold thousands of copies and yet this is the first time anyone's spotted the mistake*.

Close enough

     The first apology comes as regards doing the recent 'A Little Musical Critique' on "Blinded By The Light", as apparently I did this four years ago.  They are quite different, one hastens to assure.  In fact, let me bring in a portion of what we delivered back in 2015:

What a fruitful topic this analysis of "Blinded By The Light" has become!  Into our third session of satirical hilarity - which it is because I say so - and there's still enough lyrics to string out another two or three analyses*.  On with the motley!

"With this very unpleasin'"

It wouldn't be properly American if they didn't drawlingly omit the "g", would it?

"Sneezin' and wheezin'"

See?  I bet Canadians pronounce the "g", no messing about.

"The calliope crashed to the ground"

Where did this calliope mysteriously come from?  Same place as the boulder?

"The calliope crashed to the ground"

Again?  Or is this a different one?  The airspace there sounds extremely dangerous.

"Some silicone sister"

Actually that's quite sharp, Bruce, well observed.

"With a manager mister"

"Mister" as in opposite to "madam", i.e. the sister is one of his stable. Again, Bruce, sharp.

"Told me I got what it takes"

Hopefully this includes a helmet and body armour, as you live in a very dangerous neighbourhood full of falling objects

"She said I'll turn you on sonny to something strong"

This is getting a bit NSFW in Conrad's eyes and is probably to do with DRUGS!

So we'll end it there.  Still more to come*!

Don't sulk, so, Bruce.  It doesn't become you.

     There you go.  Next time I do ALMC I shall check to make sure we're treading virgin ground.

     Apology the second concerns my commentary on the Siege of Drogheda, carried out in 1649 by Oliver Cromwell, who would definitely not appreciate BOOJUM!'s nickname for him, "Crommy".  One of my criticisms of the garrison commander at Drogheda, the much-loathed Sir Arthur Aston, was that he'd neglected to prepare for a siege as Crommy's artillery train rolled north from Dubln.

     WRONG!  Crommy's artillery train went by sea.  Art?

A ship

     This makes perfect sense if you control the seas, which the Parliamentary navy did.  Moving cannon that weighed up to two tons, as well as powder and shot, was far more efficiently done by marine transport than across any road network of the day.  I am not sure where Crommy's artillery unloaded, but will endeavour to find this out.

     So, Sir AA was perhaps not quite the bottom I have made him out to be.  But pretty close to it.

     Third topic of apology today is the jigsaw I began earlier this week.  I already knew that the edge and corner pieces were missing, and as I began assembling it, certain other tiles seemed to be absent, too.  Art?

     There's about 300 pieces on that piece of plywood.  I took the rest downstairs, weighed 50 and found them to mass 35 grams.  Weighing everything left in the box came to 109 grams, so there were about 155 pieces there.  Thus only 450 pieces of the 1,000 whole.

     The jigsaw, gentle reader, is now in the bin.  Sorry if you wanted to see what progress I was making along the way <sad face>.

     Motley!  Put out some watermelons, and bring me my crossbow, for I wish to sate my temper.

And with that, we are done!

     No, we're not, I was only joking.

"The Goon" Is Back!

In reality he's been back for a while, Your Humble Scribe simply didn't realise.  Thank you Eric Powell!  Who is the creator of The Goon, not some chap whose name I pulled out of thin air.  As ever, the artwork is fantastic and one reason Eric's won shedloads of awards, and the stories seethe with black humour and macabre amusement.  Art?

     The little guy is Franky, whose favourite dirty fighting tactic is a knife to the eye, and of course that hulking brute with bad teeth is The Goon.  In the background you can see new antagonists: Vinnie Nosferatu, Seti the Southside Mummy, and The Hobo God.  I think Vinnie might be a recurring character.

     This trade paperback came out last year, so hopefully not too long to wait until the next one.  The film?  That's anyone's guess.

Finally -

We only need a short article to make the Compositional Ton, so I am NOT going to spoof a horror trope, as they always expand waaaay beyond what I anticipated.  One of the consequences of 1) not having an editor and 2) having entirely too much imagination.  Sorry about that.  Oooops, I seem to be in an apologetic mood today, for which I beg your par - dammit, I'm doing it again!

     Okay, I shall be posting this slightly later than usual because I've already done the weekly shop.  Still earlier this afternoon we had a trip to Rochdale, where Your Humble Scribe of course headed for one of the charity shops and acquired a book.  Art?

That's Kingy on the cover
(Before the head-choppy thing)

          You see, when Chas Two took the throne, those responsible for the regicide of his dad were not going to get off with a handslap after they said "Sorry".

     And on that note, we are really done this time.  Cheerio!

*  Describing a Lancaster's hull as being made of steel, not aluminium, IF you must know.