What? You were expecting some horrid fast-food pun? Get out of here, thou varlet!
You might have noticed in the past few months that Conrad has an interest in Slavic culture, language and food, especially the latter, for is it not written that, to understand a country, you need to eat it's food*? Yeah, truly, Conrad is pretty much a stomach on legs.
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| Conrad, inhaling food. |
Anyway, Your Humble Scribe has been listening to "Comrade" Sergei's Youtube channel 'Ushanka Show', where our resident Ukranian details aspects and details of living in the Sinister Union up until 1995, when not only had the Sinister Union collapsed (hooray!) but he had ventured across the sundering seas to South Canada. Art!
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| Youtube have de-monetised Sergei |
One topic that Sergei takes on is that of everyday Sinister food, which - yes, you can change font in this new iteration of Blogger to anything BUT Trebuchet - has lead to Your Humble Scribe learning some new words. For example, "Obed" which is the Russian and Ukranian for "Lunch". Conrad cannot depict in written form the subtlety of pronunciation here; in Russian and Ukranian stress is put upon one vowel in a word, which changes the pronunciation of the rest. Here, the pronunciation is more like "Ahbyed", because the stress is on the second vowel.
| Stressed and Russian |
Sergei discusses various foods here, including 'Vareniki', which are also better known as 'Pierogi'. These, lest you be unaware, are ATOMIC ZOMBIE MUTANT SLOTHS - only joking, as you are so surely aware (had to be sure you were awake and sentient). Conrad has done the Polish version of same, and since they require making a dough first of all, not going to hurry into making these.
Also I have to confess to not yet making syrniki. I will get around to them, honest!
Okay, motley, I think I see the problem. The font option "Trebuchet" is in the same icon as "Times" so - whichever font you select, it comes out as Times.
BLOGGER!!
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| Vareniki: the scourge of Stalin |
"Hitler's Spies" By David Kahn
And once again the SOTCW hive-mind collective comes to one's aid. If you were paying attention WHICH IS THE ONLY THING THAT WILL SAVE YOUR DESCENDANTS FROM THE URANIUM MINES then you recall that Your Humble Scribe was pondering on all the different intelligence agencies of the Teutons during the Second Unpleasantness. There doesn't appear to be any definitive single source on the internet that identifies these, so I appealed to colleagues in the SOTCW Facebook forum, and they duly obliged with the above. Art?
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| Hmmmm. Not sure about the Fraktur font |
The only thing is, Mister Kahn wrote this tome over 40 years ago, so it's not exactly fresh and up to the minute. Conrad likes his reference works to be as up to date as possible, since that means he doesn't have to buy more of them at a later dater. On the other hand, this implies that there's a gap in the market, and if any of you out there happen to have a bit of spare time and a literary agent, be my guest!
Available on Abebooks for £7 inc. P & P, so - don't tell anyone, there might be questions about another book arriving at The Mansion.
Life In The Old Dog Yet
No, not Edna - Me! Conrad Your Humble Scribe, who might be a curmudgeon but who's not a cur.
Apparently "Curmudgeon" is of 16th century date, with no source or origin known to the Collins Concise Dictionary. Art?
I don't know why they gave this one three stars, it's only worth one (reflecting how difficult it was) since I got BICYCLE and CARAVAN without bothering to fill the spaces in. I can't gloast too much, mind you, because I made a complete bodge of the Skeleton crossword. Rather than buy a new newspaper I have felt-penned ARTICULATE in and will complete the rest, which is close to cheating I admit yet which saves me £0.90. So there.
I Beg Your Pardon -
Never mind about promising a rose garden, as you can't eat roses (though you can make tea from their petals) how about an allotment full of potato plants, hmmmmm? mused Conrad the ambulatory stomach.
No, what I'm apologising for is teasing you with that phrase "Will man's sun ever shine?" and not explaining it the next day.
It referred to the quest for a working fusion reactor and hails from (I think) 1984 or thereabouts. In principle, you see, fusion reactors can supply endless clean energy, and the world of "The Expanse" is built on countless fusion reactors providing limitless energy. Art?
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| Known as "Iter" |
The construction will take 5 years and is intended to see if fusion energy can be done commercially. A whole congolmerate of nations are involved, including the Populous Dictatorship and the Ruffians. It's being build in France, presumably so Tsar Putin can't nick it at the last minute and claim it was at Minsk all along. Since part of it will be a "Tokamak", which sounds Ruffian, he'll doubtless claim he invented it and should get a slice of the profits, even if there aren't any. The problem with all fusion reactors so far is that they generate less energy than they consume, the wrong way round for any self-respecting power-plant.
Finally -
We only need a short item to hit the Compositional Ton, so - let's spoof another horror trope, shall we?
WIFE: - I mean, he looks like my husband -
PSYCHIATRIST: How do you know he's different?
WIFE: Well, he's emotionally distant and he doesn't insist on his - ah - conjugal rights any more.
PSYCHIATRIST: I see, I see. Anything else?
WIFE: He doesn't watch football or anything on Sky Sports any more.
PSYCHIATRIST: Oh, indeed.
WIFE: He doesn't stooge off to the pub every weekend.
PSYCHIATRIST: Well, that -
WIFE: And - this is the clincher - last week he remembered our wedding anniversary!
PSYCHIATRIST: Taken all together, this is indeed irrefutable proof that your husband has been replaced by an alien doppelganger.
WIFE: I know, great, isn't it!
* Actually it's probably not written at all, I made that up, but doesn't it strike you as true?
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