Sound Affects

Be Careful!

For no, we are not talking about that album by The Jam - which is "Sound Effects" by the way - and secondly, my finger is paused - PAUSED! - over the Remote Nuclear Detonator button if you so much as twitch in the direction of Spelling Mistake.  

     No, what I refer to is a combination of the wind outside and "Locke And Key" on television.  The setting is a vast creepy old mansion, and the scene is at night and - the wind outside keeps making the windows creak at inappropriate moments.  Art!

See?  Creepy even in daylight

     Plus Your Humble Scribe, whom we all know to be an utter snivelling coward, is all on his own.  Even Edna has abandoned me.
     First, a matter of correction.  Conrad subscribes to a weekly e-mail from 'Skeptoid' which publishes a list of corrections and emendations when necessary, good practice that BOOJUM! has absolutely no intention of following, apart from the following.  The meat of the matter is "Batwoman", that trainwreck-with-added-dumpster-fire television program.  Art (and be careful now, the stooopid is catching)!

Art dodges a bullet

     You see, Conrad was looking at statistics for BW, and working on it having the usual 24-episode season.  This was incorrect; due to money/reviews/Covid-19 <delete where applicable> it is only going to have 13 episodes.  The second part of this correction is the viewing figures, which were definitely finalised at 659,000  for the second season premiere.  Foolish Conrad went with the interim figure for episode 2 (642,000) when in fact it was 621,000.  

No, I don't know why the fright wig, either

     This is not good news for the CW studio, because STATISTICS! that's 17% of your audience gone in a week.  Coincidentally it means my prediction of 240,000 viewers by the end of the season still holds true, and also reinforces my belief that one of the writer's Daddys owns the studio.
     Having both corrected ourselves and indulged in a little unseemly gloating, we shall now move on.
     Motley, would you like some ice-cream?  We have Tea 'n' Turnip or Parma Ham flavours -

Me Correcting Somebody Else

Conrad being a hair-splitting pedant - who would have believed it!  Okay, this will take a bit of background development.  Jim and Al - I can call them that as we're such terrific chums - were nattering about "Operation Sealion", the Teuton invasion of the UK that never happened, on their podcast "We Have Ways".  They had invited listeners to e-mail in prospective ways such an invasion might have succeeded; one prerequisite was that the BEF was never evacuated from Dunkirk.  Art!

British tourists at the seaside

     The thing is, they rather forget that the troops rescued from Dunkirk were emphatically not the only ones This Sceptred Isle had on the Continent.  In other evacuations coming under the umbrella of "Operation Ariel" almost 200,000 troops, plus equipment including tanks, were returned to the shores of the Pond of Eden, from ports in the west and south of France.  Not only that, if there is no "Halt!" order, it is highly likely that the entire 51st Highland division would have also been able to evacuate.  

Jocks in frocks*

     They also fail to take into account the forces left in the UK.  This is an item for another blog, but from what Conrad recalls there was a complete New Zealand and Canuckistanian infantry division on British soil, and these chaps were not antediluvian LDF volunteers armed with pikes, they were some of the best troops in the Commonwealth.
     Excuse me, I have to go check on the haggis.  Back shortly**!

Giving One The Bird

No! we are not talking of that irreverent South Canadian gesture.  Though this does concern South Canada.  Art!

He's having you for dinner

     This, gentle reader, is a Bald Eagle, a species native to South Canada.  My idle query is: whyfore do they call it "Bald"? because it is patently clad entirely in feathers.  Vultures are bald; eagles are not.  Art? prove me right.

Beautiful on the inside

     That is definitely bald.  As for the eagle? <checks Wikipedia> aha, so in olden times "bald" could be interpreted as "white-headed"***.  Which it most certainly is.  Apparently it also builds the most giganticest nests ever, which can weight up to a ton.  Wowsers.  Art?

Arguing over who placed the very last twig

     It is also the official South Canadian emblem, making it very, very illegal to do anything to the bird or it's nest or eggs.  You can get two years in prison and/or a £20,000 fine if caught doing *anything* to a bald eagle.  It might be safe to satirise one, since the Muppets got away with it, but that was decades ago and I wouldn't recommend trying it nowadays.

"Lawyers stand ready"

     The Bald Eagle has come back from the brink of extermination and now only stands at "Threatened" rather than "Endangered", which, again, is what you'll be if you do one in.

     Blimey, still horribly windy out there.  Thankfully my new double-glazing keeps both the noise and cold out - as I have relocated from the lounge to my Sekrit Layr.

Finally -

We need but a short item to hit the Compositional Ton, so - what do you do when you have lemons?  Apart from making Sicilian sorbet, of course - obviously! - you would make lemonade WHICH I CAN NO LONGER DO THANK YOU SO MUCH DIABETES <ahem>.  What do you do when you experience significant snowfall?  You can build a snowman; Darling Daughter once built a snow bunny.  However, if you want to think BIG then there cannot be any other option but - 

     GODZILLA!  Art?

     A couple of body-paint artistes created this beast, then used their paint supplies to ink in the finer detail.  It stands nearly 6' high, although unfortunately I cannot find any pictures with puny humans included to show scale.  Art!

     Imagine passing that on the way home from the pub at night ...

     And of course I cannot leave without the by-now traditional complaint that some people have far too much time on their hands.

*  CAUTION!  Do not say this in real life.  Hospital food is not great.

**  Simmering nicely, thanks for asking.

***  Lest you think to so classify Conrad, remember - Remote Nuclear Detonator.