Hack, Slash And Balderdash!

I Realise I Am Going To Have To Explain Some Etymology

That's the study of word's sources and origins, NOT the study of insects and other creepy-crawlies.

Jeff Goldblum gets into character

     Okay: "Balderdash".  You and I know that this means "A load of old rubbish", although people not hailing from This Sceptred Isle might not have known that.  BOOJUM! - educating you one factoid at a time!  Where does it come from?  Well, do you know, my Collins Concise doesn't know.  Fortunately my "Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable" is more up to speed: the phrase emerges from the sixteenth century and means "Frothy water" (NOT beer!).  Art!

     Which language it comes from is, again, uncertain, with Danish and Icelandic (!) being possible contenders.  My favourite is the Welsh "Baldorddus", which means "noisy".

      ANYWAY we are referring back to "Le Mort D'Arthur" and the trials and tribulations of Sir Percivale, whom we last left stranded in the wilderness, without a horse (he had been riding a demon steed, which had galloped into a nearby river)*.  Yes, he still has his armour and sword and spear, but you can't eat them in a pinch, can you?

     Then along comes a giant serpent, carrying a lion cub -

     Excuse me?  Did that demon horse grow a pair of jet engines and transport them to Africa?  Art!

Sir Per carves a fresh joint

     Here is where I call 'balderdash' on Sir Thomas Malory, because the Anaconda and Panthera Leo are NOT (we've been using that word a lot today, haven't we?) native to This Sceptred Isle.  Actually that should be a Boa, Anacondas are found in South America -

     ANYWAY the lion cub either has a very tough hide or the serpent carried it amidst it's coils, for it romps away unhurt, much to the delight of Dad, who fawns upon Sir Per.  No, it doesn't eat him; if it was hungry there's a huge dead snake lying there, which is much easier to tackle than a man wearing a tin can.

     Matey isn't out of the woods yet - not that there's much timber in this barren wasteland, so one wonders what Lion and Serpent live on - for Gosh! here's a ship ALL CLAD IN BLACK approaching from the sea, and here's a beautiful lady aboard said ship, also ALL CLAD IN BLACK.  Sir Per is a tad naieve and unworldly, you know, which Sir Tom claims to be splendid attributes, whereas Conrad under these circumstances would be hearing DANGER WILL ROBINSON!

Another Tin Can Man**

     Conrad will leave things here on a cliffhanger, in order to keep you in suspense.  Motley, I've got you a tub of coal-flavoured ice-cream, if you're interested?

Hey!  That's MY Job!

I have recently been posting Facebook entries from years and years ago, which usually have a bad visual pun incorporated.  I wonder - can we replicate one such, Art?

     This one is about Your Humble Scribe being thoughtful, or <mild groan> "pensive".

     ANYWAY you may remember, unless you are a literate goldfish, that I was banging on yesteryon about a comic strip from 2000AD called "The A.B.C. Warriors", whose leader was 'Hammerstein.'  Art?

The Robot With Two Heads

     Now, Hammerstein and another robot were actually imports (or survivors) from another comic that had gone toes-up whilst 2000AD was positively thriving: "Starlord".  So 2000AD absorbed the other title, which allowed it to keep a couple of strips that had run in the other comic, "Strontium Dog" being one, the other one being "Robusters", who were a robot disaster team.  Art!

Terrific Dave Gibbons cover art

     That other robot's name?  'Ro-Jaws'.  Art!

     He was a rude, crude sewer-cleaning droid and creator Pat Mills must have laughed himself sick at their daft pairing:  'Ro-Jaws and Hammerstein".

     Your Honour, I rest my case***.

One To Conjure With

No!  Nothing to do with Harry Potter.  Conrad spotted an interesting photo on the BBC website earlier this morning and would like to share it with you.  Art!

     Hmmmmmm.  Seeing a Teuton plane in slate-grey, bearing a Maltese cross, and with the name 'Luftwaffe', does bring back memories of the First and Second Unpleasantnesses.  This mission, if you can read the small print, is one of purely humanitarian intent, as it brings medical supplies and personnel to Portugal in order to help batter Covid-19 into submission, or at least remission.

     HOWEVER!

     Because the world is full of bampots, and there is no known cure for transmissible stupidity, in a few years this picture is going to be trotted out by the swivel-eyed loonwaffles as "Evidence the Germans are taking over!  The MSM refuse to cover it!  Wake up sheeple!" until their meds kick in.

Immune to vaccine or common-sense

     So remember, gentle reader, you saw it here and Conrad called it first.  Any donations gratefully received.

"Vapourware"

Somewhat to my surprise, I only came across this term on Tuesday, even though it has been floating around since the mid-Eighties.  It cropped up as a word in one of the links at the end of an article about "The Dig", and you know Conrad; curiosity is his besetting sin.  Art!

     The term is usually applied to computer hardware or software, although it has bled over into other fields.  It refers to products that either arrive late or not at all, in the latter case because they never existed in the first place.  Typically they are promoted to jam a spanner in the gears of competitor's products, as in the case of the IBM machine above, which only came off the production lines three years after it was announced in a blaze of publicity.  Conrad would call this less "Vapourware" and more "Fraud".  Wikipedia mentions a case of outright fraud: the "office suite" that Ovation demonstrated to the technical press in 1983.

     The only problem was that no such thing existed; they had tried to use the demonstration to scam more investors, and failed.  Unsurprisingly they went bankrupt.  How did they not get sentenced to serious jail time?  Conrad not impressed.  Not entirely surprised, either.  Greed and stupidity two of Hom.

Saps defining features!

     Whoops, not sure what happened there.  Is the line-formatting gone to the dogs again?  Time, methinks, to cut and run.  Goodbye, Vulnavia!

"But - but - don't I get a mention?"

*  It's a long story.

**  I made this one up all by myself.  Aren't I clever!

***  It's lined with lead.