Let Me Elaborate
(You know I will anyway) Okay, pilgrims, cast your mind back to 1985, when Conrad was younger yet still as handsome*. There was a nifty little thriller that came out called "Warning Sign", which we will use a Polish film poster to illustrate -
- because all Polish film posters are frightening. No, it's not about a cereal killer; rather, it's about an outbreak of a rage-inducing virus in a research laboratory, and the struggles of the un-infected to both remain uninfected and alive. Because their colleagues are raving homicidal maniacs, is why. Art!
Garish and inaccurate
It's well worth watching, and it scores 6.1 over on IMDB, so the bit I refer to is a quote from one of the head researchers, who is in televisual communication with an uninfected security guard: "I feel rage, Joanie, BEAUTIFUL RAGE!" They even address the elephant in the room that "28 Days Later" ignored and have some of the infected attacking each other.
The speaker, before he went ga-ga
Because that, gentle reader, is where we find Your Humble Scribe today, for I have made a list of all the boundary-breaching words in the most recent couple of Codewords I solved NO THANKS TO THE COMPILERS and there's the rage again. Let us kick off with the first one.
"SALSAS": That is, the plural of 'salsa'. What a swine of a word this one was! And how often do you find it in everyday use? Never! It's O so simple to look at once you've solved it but disconcertingly difficult to figure out.
"TOFU": Technically, unfermented soya-bean curd. Another foreign food word, and, again, short and simple unless you're trying to solve it as part of a Codeword, in which case it becomes bafflingly hard. Art!
Tofu 'n' salsa
Since the word is in my Collins Concise Your Humble Scribe has no room to carp EXCEPT I AM GOING TO.
"ACQUIESCE": O come on! Three different vowels next to each other? In a word you will only find in solicitor's accounts of a internecinety**?
Nod "Yes" to acquiesce
"CYAN": Or, to be exact, a blue-green colour. It derives from the Greek 'kuanos' meaning 'dark blue'. Like Tofu, short and simple once you've solved it BUT B***** DIFFICULT UNTIL THEN I CAN TELL YOU. I'd like to imagine, at this point, the Codeword compiler's lips turning a delicate shade of cyan as my fingers
"EFT": Is this a proper word at all? Conrad had to check he'd got the letters and numbers correct, and he had. My Collins states that it's obsolete dialect for a newt, which sounds hard to credit. I wonder, because I distinctly remember Bertie Wooster using the word "Eftsoons" in conversation, and am pretty sure it wasn't a conversation with Gussie Finknottle (who is obsessed with newts). Art!
The eft abounds
"RYES": Another swining plural. Tell me the last time you ever encountered this word, either written or spoken. Exactly. Never. It really threw me because one assumes a vowel after a first-letter "R". Rlly.
Yeah. Whatever. I hope it burns going down.
Thank you for reading my little screed, which has probably enhanced your vocabulary and has definitely been good for me, even if I need to replace the "E" key on the keyboard from hitting it so hard. Cathartic!
Speaking Of Which ...
Last night the family got together and watched "Army Of The Dead", which is an entertaining blast of a big-budget zombie thriller that doesn't take itself too seriously. Conrad immediately nailed Omari Hardwick's character as the team's intellectual because he used the word "Cathartic", and I was right as he quotes Joseph Campbell at the end. It comes from the Greek 'Kathairein', meaning "To purge". Art!
Do. Not. Mess. With.
There's some interesting cover versions on the soundtrack, including "The End" which is definitely not by The Doors. Who is it? <pause for check> aha The Raveonettes. Never heard of them. Anyway I may watch it again to suss out the beginning, and to find out how a zombie horde manages to down an A-10 Warthog with - angry stares?
Dog In A Manger Don't Be A Stranger
Conrad has pondered occasionally - what else is there to do at a bus-stop? - about that old saying about a dog in a manger full of straw. Or hay. Dried grassy material anyway. The implication is that the dog cannot eat the straw (or hay) but that, by lying on it, no horse (or any other straw- or hay-eating animal) can eat it either. Art - Exhibit One!
Yes yes yes, I know it's a woollen sweater, the principle's the same. The dog is in the manger because the straw (or hay) is COMFY. Certainly a lot more comfortable than a cold hard barn floor. And he's not going to let Dobbin (or Daisy or whatever they nickname donkeys) consume his comfortable bed.
Thank You. But No Thanks.
Conrad is aware that social media's tracking algorithms can result in strange adverts cropping up in streams or threads, as Professor Gary Sheffield has been complaining of late. At one time Conrad was baffled by adverts that loudly and proudly proclaimed the efficacy of 'Log Counting Software', as well as only the best and finest 'Portable Lumber Mills'. Conrad possesses exactly one tree, which has been allowed to grow these twenty-two years. Art - Exhibit Two!
You may indeed make the words "What on earth?" with your mouth. As far as I can make out - because Your Humble Scribe most certainly didn't click on the "buy now" option - this is an automated door to the chicken coop, allowing the chickens to egress. So - pitched at chicken farmers who hate having to get up early in the morning? Fine. Why am I being targeted?
Finally -
Okay, I finished "Heart-Shaped Box" earlier this morning, which is why the blog is a little later than it ought to be. I shan't spoil the ending, except to say that it was far happier than I expected it to be. I am now off to Royton to get my Fitbit steps up and if I'm not too late there may still be some papers left. Gotta get my daily dose of Codeword in.
* If not quite as sinister <the horrid truth courtesy Mister Hand!>
** A fight. This is a word I made up so it's now real and proper.
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