Small Weed

Okay, I Cheated

It ought to be all one word, i.e. "Smallweed", except that's not very click-baity, is it?  Because of course we are referring back to "Bleak House" and a set of minor characters who have the surname 'Smallweed'.  Hang on whilst I hunt down an appropriately click-baity picture that will ensnare random passers-by on the internet.  Art?

"Killer robot aids with calisthenics"

     Your Humble Scribe has no idea what's going on here, nor yet when it is.  The Fifties? the Sixties? We may come back to this because enquiring minds may want to know.
     Okay, back on topic again <chorus of booing> and the wretched Smallweed family.  There is the sullen and sour grand-daughter Judy, the sly grand-son Bart, the senile old grandmother and of course Grandfather Smallweed, an odious objectionable, greedy, grasping, money-grubbing money-lender who cannot walk and is carried around in a chair.  Art!

Art!

     I do apologise for our resident Neanderthal, let me just lightly apply the cattle-prod and we'll see what electrical motivation can do <sounds of crackling and wailing ensue>

The article in question

     Mister Smallweed's two greatest passions in life are making money and throwing things at his wife when she makes a noise.  She does this at random, being aged and witless.  Not a winning family.
     O very well.  It was nicknamed "The Beetle" and General Electrics - you know what, we'll do a separate item on it.

     Motley, you have accumulated a lot of spare cash over the years, and bearing in mind that injunction about "Neither a borrower nor a lender be", I stole it.

From The Sublimely Long To The Patently Ridiculous
Conrad has now picked up "They Came And Ate Us" by Robert Rankin, which is not only a lot shorter than a three-inch thick Charles Dickens novel, it is also a lot quicker to read, having been written in a racy late-twentieth century style with lots of passing references to pop culture.  Including some you might not recognise.  Art!

     Ol' Bob makes mention of the volume above, as compiled by the "mad Arab" Abdul Alhazred (he was made because someone had tattooed "Wakey" and "Wakey" on the inside of his eyelids?) in the translation by Olaus Wormius, which was in Latin.  All of which sprang from the fertile mind of one H.P. Lovecraft, not real life, Vulnavia.  Ol' Bob also has a bit of a pash for the General Electrics (yes them again) M134 Minigun.  Art?

One of these puppies

     And as Conrad has noted, no RR novel would be complete without a sprout*.

You What?

Conrad, on occasion, finds himself so out of touch with the modern world that it's amusing.  One suspects that sports commentators and those obsessed by reality television would be utterly dumbstruck at Your Humble Scribe's sheer ignorance about their particular field of faff.  For example -

     To which Conrad can only look on blankly, shaking his head in bemusement.  "Origin 11"?  Who is Xavier Coates?  What "Bank" are they referring to?  What, who or where is "QLD"?

     Yes yes yes, I could go and Google for these terms, yet it is my old-fashioned belief that a news source should edify the reader, NOT require them to go and do the lazy journalist's job for them.  You can edify me in the Comments if you wish.

Seething Wells

Well well well  - er, so to speak.  Conrad had always thought that this was merely the stage name of a 'Punk Poet' from the early Eighties, back when you could get away with spouting doggerel on stage and looking edgy.  Art?

     In fact it is the name given to a suburb of London, where once upon a time there were natural springs, and which ended up being the site of a waterworks in the mid-nineteenth century, where water from the Thames was processed into almost-cholera free potability.

The filter beds

     These filter beds are all that remain of this industry nowadays, with an occasional pumping house belonging to Thames Water being a reminder of what once was.  Not so much seething as simmering Wells, one might say.
     There is a whole separate item, which we might come back to, about the provision of clean drinking water to the citizens of London, against a background of water-borne diseases.  Not to be read whilst eating, mind.

More Of Idiots At Work And Play

We must document these characters whilst they are yet still alive and unmutilated, for poking fun at them once they are dead or dismembered would be in rather poor taste.  Let us now look at that rich source of Darwin Award contenders, the Home-made Wood Chopping Device.  Art!

     This one, as you may be able to discern, has no motor or engine to propel it, and relies on human muscle-power to get it going, the giant spring, kinetic energy and what seems to be a bit of girder welded to the end to deliver the required chopping action.  Notice, too, as with all these devices, that there are NO safety measures in place, and that the operator is able to move his head freely into the impact zone.  It isn't apparent from these shots, as they are stills, but that cutting head keeps bobbing up and down until all energy is expended, rather than coming to an abrupt stop as a device driven by an engine would.  So it could keep on hitting you, until all energy is expended or you are unconscious, whichever comes sooner.

     As the other person arrived, Conrad half-expected the operator to turn round in surprise and either lose several fingers or have an eye removed.  But no!  For he is experienced and wise in the ways of the <thinks> wobble-chop.

"I still have both hands and all my fingers," boasted John
("I am patient," cautioned the Wobble-chop)

     Yes indeed, John, and you seem determined to continue 

     - THERE!  THERE!  THEY'VE DONE IT AGAIN!  TWO 409 BUSES BOUND FOR ROCHDALE WITHIN SECONDS OF EACH OTHER!

   - to continue until the law of averages catches up with you, judging by the pile of chopped wood next to you.

     And with that, we are ever so very done!

*  A fine vegetable if NOT OVERCOOKED