Crommy The Pop Star

 That's Oliver Cromwell To You

And we still cannot choose Trebuchet, instead being landed with the repellently odious Times.  Well, lemons and lemonade, one supposes.  

     Okay, there will now be a short pause as I go log onto Microsoft Teams and wave a happy hello to my compatriots; our planned Tuesday meeting was cancelled and we didn't have any such same last Thursday, meaning I've forgotten what some people look like, except Lee will probably sport an even bushier beard.

     Right, I'm back!  I notice that Blogger is now adding an extra line after each paragraph, which again is not something I wanted or chose.  Grrrrrr!  Conrad is angry*.

Angry and suspicious

     Okay, I made a note in my Pukka Pad "Oliver's Army", which refers - obviously! - to the catchy pop song by Elvis Costello and the Attractions.  Art?

                

Twice because why not.  Yes indeed, the "Oliver" in this song title is the Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell, and the Army in question was the New Model Army.  This entity was a revolutionary change in how Parliament created and used it's armed forces, since prior to the NMA soldiers would desert if made to serve beyond their local area.  It was a full-time professional army, rather than being a conscript militia force, and was intended to be completely divorced from politics - though this latter was more honoured in the breach.  It campaigned all over the place, to the discomfort of both Ireland and Scotland.

     <pause whilst I get me some lunch>

BOOJUM! Demolishes Idiots

Unless they happen to be reading BOOJUM! in which case we will allow their idiocy to go unremarked, until later.  Conrad has less than no time for the conspiranoid loonwaffles who breathlessly repeat utter tripe " - because it was on social media".  As soon as you read an item that claims authenticity " - because a friend of a friend - " you should navigate away, as this is code for " - I have no idea about Subject X but will nevertheless pontificate about it as if I do".  Art?

     Okay, what streets and where?  First off, that's a Ruffian tank, a T34/85, which has been obsolete since the Fifties, so unless you're talking about the streets of some Third World dictatorship, you are peddling loonwaffle.  Secondly, it never happened.  Thirdly, see Secondly.      WHICH IDIOTS PROMOTED THIS DRIVEL!

     The very real tragedy of Beirut is, of course, the equivalent of an open jar of jam to flies, as these people with questionable connections to reality boldly hold forth.  Art?

     "Our evaluation is guesswork" says it all.  No, sir, your evaluation is drivel, is what it is.  There was no bomb, no nuke, no Hezbollah and no missiles being stored.

Because many people are gullible idiots?

     Lebanese media was notably empty of claims about fireworks.  Here we have another idiot who thinks a mushroom cloud instantly means "atomic", showing they know nothing about large explosions.  The thermodynamics of any sufficiently large explosion will create a fireball that rises; however, a nuclear explosion also releases an actinic burst of light powerful enough to melt the exposed human eyeball, which patently did not happen in Beirut.  Your Humble Scribe saw an 11 second clip of the explosion on Twitter and immediately thought "ammunition dump" NOT "O Good Lord Aloft A Mushroom Cloud It's Totes Nukes".  Note the absence of any radioactive fallout, which you would get plenty of in a nuke going off at Ground Zero at ground level.

     Yes yes yes, Conrad has a long acquaintance with nuclear weapons and explosions, however a little critical thinking also helps.  After all, I don't post on social media about the ballfoot game's technical details as if I know anything about the matter, do I?

     Bah!

Back To "Rolling Stone"'s Long List: "Legion"

There there, we've reached Number 14, we'll be done with this list in a couple of weeks, don't cry so.

This pretty much sums it up

     Conrad actually watched a couple of episodes of this series when it was first out.  I never really warmed to it, yet enough of you out there did, because it ran for 3 seasons and only finished last year.

     It concerns one David Haller, part of Marvel's X-Men universe, who is telepathic and telekinetic and also mentally-ill, or is he?  After all, you are telepathic, those voices in your head might be mistaken for going round the bend.  Appropriately enough it begins in a mental ward.  It had a very trippy feel to it, and you wouldn't mistake it for anything generic, an interesting take on superheroes.

     I may give it another chance**.

 

O Marketa!

Hello again, sweet Czech lady.  What unusual yet useful Czech word do you have for us today?

     "Blesak": flea market.

     Aha!  If you do a hard return the extra added line is omitted.  Splendid.  Where were we?

     So, they have flea markets in Czechia, do they?

Kolbenova flea market, Prague

     Conrad, being an anorak, wonders if there were any flea markets going when the Sinisters invaded in 1968, because they seem to represent the evils of capitalism and profit and pretty much everything the Sinisters were against.  So much so that their soldiery doubtless broke them up and moved people on, with cries of "Blesak!  Blesak!" as they would take it to mean "Flee, market".

Finally -

Nope, the extra line's back in.  Blogger!  Conrad is even angrier than he was before, and I was already pretty angry.

     Where were we?  O yes, we're nearly at the Compositional Ton, so this item only needs to be short.  I know at this point Your Modest Artisan usually throws in a spoof of an Horror Trope, which adds five hundreds words because NO EDITOR.  Not today.

     No, I just wanted to mention that I've heard several tracks on "The Umbrella Academy" which I've liked, including one from episode 8, "Sister of Pearl" by Scott Baio; for Lo! some kind soul out there has put up the sountrack for each episode, with a precis of what's happening as the song plays.  Thank you kind web-page creator, Conrad salutes your work!

          And with that we are done done done!

*  I  know, I know, I'm always angry.  Angrier than usual.

**  Noble, that's me.