First Of All -
WASH OUT YOUR FILTHY MINDS! I know what you're like, you disgusting reprobates. How many times do we need to remind you that BOOJUM! is entirely SFW?
What I refer to OF COURSE is the arrangement of prayer hours in the Medieval Christian church, which went along the lines of: Matins; Lauds; Prime; Tierce; Sext; Nones; Vespers; Compline.
Close enough
Because the monks who used this system cared not one whit about logic or rationality (the Enlightenment was a good four centuries off), they started the day at 06:00, meaning that mid-day, what we call 12:00, was six hours after Prime. And "Sext" here is the Latin for "Six". They had no choice about praying at noon, O noes, not at all; they prayed at noon everyday. Every single day. Hence - a life full of observing sexts*.
All this is because Your Humble Scribe is now laying into his recently purchased tome "Sir Nigel" and, as diligent and pedantic as I am, Conrad has been making a note of words that are unfamiliar to him. Art!
Sir ACD
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is primarily known for creating Sherlock Holmes, whom became a kind of literary millstone around his neck; he wanted to move onto other things, and - well, the public wanted more Sherlock. Even today you can find the staggeringly attractive Lucy Liu featuring in a modern adaptation of
Stop slobbering so, Conrad! <the hideous truth courtesy Mister Hand>
- sorry, where were we?
ANYWAY Sir ACD was justifiably proud of his historical romances "The White Company" and "Sir Nigel", which he put a lot of effort into researching. In his Introduction to SN he lists books that were part of his research, in order, as he put it, to bring to life a culture and civilisation that are so far removed from the modern world (actually he wrote this Introduction in 1905) that they might well seem to be on another world.
Er - quite. Thus we have 'Tierce, sext and nones", which are the hours of three, six and nine, as observed by monks in the Abbey of Waverley. Sir ACD doesn't mention a clock, although Conrad is pretttty sure that by this timeframe - 1349 AD - large institutions like abbeys could put up clocks. I seem to recall doing a bit of background checking on clocks for "La Mort D'Arthur". We shall be coming back to this topic in the near future as I have lots of strange words to check up on.
Motley! We successfully saw off the evil encroachment of the steam locomotives thanks to the Magma Moat. The only trouble is, it now needs to be rendered empty, having cooled and solidified. Here's a lump hammer and a cold steel chisel.
Know your enemy!
"Army Of The Dead" Reducks
I thought that was apt, since we're going to give it a drenching. The Critical Drinker, over on Youtube, HATED this film, although Conrad thinks he's over-analysing it somewhat. It's a zombie film, you're not supposed to take it too seriously. However, it cannot be gainsaid that, after watching it, the odd plot hole or two does appear. We've gone over the initial scene already - see yesteryon if you feel a big empty hole in your life about this - so we shall move on to the - er - 'plan'. Art!
"We had to execute the guy who made this."
You see that tiny helicopter atop the towers? That's the teams way out. We don't know how long it's been up there, whether it can fly or not, and if it can fly, how much load it can carry. The team are carrying in fuel, some of which has to feed the tower generators, so - is there going to be enough to get a team of <thinks> ten people (I think Mister Bautista counts as two), plus £150,000,000 out of the quarantine zone? Art!
Then you have the dress code. Our elite team of zombie-busting mercenaries are experts at killing the undead, right? Art!
No Tig Notaro, so I think the only person here with their sleeves ROLLED DOWN never made it to the final cut. Everyone else? Acres and acres of naked, biteable, zombie-friendly, undefended SKIN. Sheesh. You know what? Let's leave it there for tonight.
Jim Nabors
Apologies to my fellow humans citizens of This Sceptred Isle, for you will most probably have no idea of whom I refer to. I'm not sure why this name popped up in my head, for I have never seen any of the television shows he was part of. All part of Steve's remit, I suppose - Steve being in charge of memory around here.
ANYWAY Jim was an actor, who appeared on that most wholesome of South Canadian Sixties programs, "The Andy Griffith Show", which was about a psychopathic serial-killer who butchers - whoops! Nope, sorry, turned over two pages at once. Art! (quickly now)
Jim, then and then
Jim got his own spin-off from TAGS, which is ironic, as TAGS had been a spin-off in it's day. He starred in "Gomer Pyle USMC" which ran from 1964 to 1969, and which was extremely popular. Conrad had to blink and read that back twice, because this is during the South Canadians involvement in Vietnam, when the USMC was undergoing trial by fire on a daily basis. The show dealt with this by - er - never mentioning it. Well, it worked, they got five seasons out of it.
That hat -whatever it is - is iconic USMC wear
Jim was also renowned as a singer, almost as much as his Gomer Pyle persona, and used to sing at the Indianapolis 500 until unable to, because he was dead, as it took the Grim Reaper to stop him.
We may come back to Jim, as there is more to tell. Of course, the big question is - what on earth caused his name to bob up in my mind?
Finally -
Well, Your Humble Scribe made it into Royton and the Co-Op with minutes to spare, as they were shutting 30 minutes early. "Because of the football," explained the lady guarding the entrance doors.
Football?
What football?
Ah, you see, the Youro 2021 is on, which means people will try to buy beer at the very last minute, because - er - football is only palatable if you're sozzled? Or something. Regardless, I hustled around the store so quickly I forgot to get a paper. Hence no wretched whinings about Codeword again.
* This better not bring us up in seedy search-engine results. My Remote Nuclear Detonator is back in service, you know.
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