Okay, I Lied
There are no atomic death zombies here today. We've had them in the past, I think most notably back when "Z Nation" hadn't jumped the shark, so go search the blog if you're that desperate.
Also, the critically-precise definition of "Fox" and "Fish" has been - er - interpreted a little creatively, shall we say. Art!
Don't complain, contorting yourself into a pretzel is perfectly acceptable if it means you can make sense of BOOJUM! Okay, so what is that word about a third of the way down the page? Why, none other than "VIXENISH". Quite apart from being a disgraceful misuse of English, what has the blog been hammering on about lately? Yes, Foxes. These coincidences can only go on for so long before the universe implodes, or politicians become humble and law-abiding.
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| (De Havilland Sea) Vixen |
There was a dark, aniseed-flavoured version of these that I CANNOT EVER HAVE THANK YOU SO MUCH DIABETES YOU DEPRIVE ME OF MUCH-LOVED SWEETIES* <ahem>. You are now obviously asking yourself "Why a polar bear?" and why indeed. The idea was to play on the fact that these mints were transparent and hence looked like ice (or glass), and what better to promote it than an animal that lived where there was lots of ice (or glass). Art!
There was a series of adverts where a crafty fox tried to usurp Peppy (the polar bear's name) from his crown position, which always came to nought. And because they were invented by Eric Fox, if you must know.
Enough vulpine vagaries. On with the motley - whom we have duly contorted into a hat-shaped being.
Possibly a motley. Then again, possibly not.
"Piranha Rota Chef"
- was a title I read on the Guide whilst scrolling through television listings to see if "Doom Patrol" was back yet or not. Actually hold that thought -
Hmmmm. So it was out last June. So, it will be coming to Netflix at an undetermined future date. Will note in diary.
ANYWAY the juxtaposition of those three words was so odd that I wrote them down - for my trusty notebook is never far away - and then realised, looking at the title blurb, that "Piranha" is a brand of kitchen goods.
Well, I'm glad we got that sorted. Art!
Well. Conrad fondly imagined a piece of matt-black lacquered digital high technology that roasts as it chops as it liquifies, at the touch of a button and which can access Netflix whilst you wait. Instead we get cheap plastic tat that you have to <gasps in horror> hand-crank. You can do better and cheaper with a hand-grater.
A school of the beggars
BOOJUM! : Your Window Onto The Fifteenth Century
Because Lo! we've not had any mention of "Le Mort D'Arthur" for at least a couple of days, and because the word "Malfeasance" popped up in Your Humble Scribe's head today, which surely has to be thanks to reading all that English of early modern times, when they still larded it with French and Latin. Art!
It turns out to be worryingly appropriate for these troubled times. My Collins Concise defines it as: "Law. The doing of a wrongful or illegal act, esp. by a public official", derived from (I know you all love this bit) Old French "Mal Faisant", meaning "To do evil", itself derived from ATOMIC ZOMBIE LANGUAGE Latin, "Facere", meaning "to do". Of course, the real question is - why did this pop up in my mind?
The Ex hard at work. Or asleep. One of the two.**
Who knows!
(My mind - a metaphor)
I think it's time for more LMDA. We've already noted the convention of knights fighting for "Two hours", which simply means a long time in any one day. The convention "seven years" is used to convey a long period that takes up a significant part of one's lifetime. "Three English miles" is a long, long way.
Then we have the mysterious lands that Ol' Tom throws into the mix. I have already mentioned the "Sessoins", and now we're getting "Listinoise", which has a definite French sound to it. Finding out if this mystery land referred to a real geographical area is rather harder, because we have a lack of convention at play here: early modern spelling. This had not settled into a commonly-agreed language with rigid spellings and you can find considerable variation in English up to the late seventeenth century. Art!
A fine map, which only lists half-a-dozen of the dozens of regions we read of in LMDA. Here, indeed, we see "Listinoise" as being the north-east and down into the Midlands. However, in other references, Listinoise is the mythical home of the Grail. Who to believe!
I should also point out that Sir Tristram proudly claims to be a knight of Cornwall - which usually provokes mocking laughter from anyone listening*** - and that his title is "Sir Tristram de Liones", where "Liones" should more properly be written "Lyonesse". This was a mythical land between Land's End and the Scilly Isles which was swallowed by the sea overnight, and which may have influenced J.R.R. Tolkein in his "Lord Of The Rings" writings of "Westernesse", from where came the Numenoreans as refugees aboard ships as their nation sank beneath the waves.
Finally -
I am happy to say that I finally located my edition of "Leviathan Wakes", which is the first in "The Expanse" series. All the other copies I have are in my new, large, mobile bookcase (which remains immobile just to taunt Wonder Wifey, heh heh) and for a while I thought it had either been thrown out or donated to the charity shop alongside all MY BEAUTIFUL BOOKS. But no. It's in the Books I Have Read pile beneath my desk. Phew! Dodged a nuclear-tipped torpedo there.
Space Opera done believable
* Dog Buns, now I'm reliving the taste of the Glacier Dark sweets. I HATE YOU DIABETES.
** Hopefully you weren't looking for incisive satirical quippery here.
*** Ironically in the English Civil Unpleasantness, the Cornish Royalist regiments were some of the best in the land
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