I Put It Like That Because -
I worry that you might be getting fed up with all my references to the spaceship 'Vorga' of late. You must admit that our official attitude towards it on the blog has been wildly erratic; death threats one day, mild disconcern the next. Why, you would almost think we were making this up as we went along!
So Your Humble Scribe bethought himself that we need to ensure you are not diverted or distracted from the real Vorga, thanks all those wannabes out there. Art!
Obviously not a spaceship
You might be confused, wondering how many Vorgas there are out there, thus you need to keep track by tallying how many - except no; as the caption has it, the dreaded Count is mere human-sized, and is distinctly fleshy (even if it is undead) rather than massing several thousand tons of metals. So you can cross (ha! do you see wh - O you do) "Count Yorga" off the list.
Next we have obscure yet terrifying plant-life, as evinced in the BBC's premier dramamentary, "Doctor Who". Art!
VARGA PLANTS!
These colossal cacti were covered in thorns that injected anything that touched them with (mutagenic?) toxins that transformed the victim into another Varga plant. But only after turning them into raving homicidal maniacs first, which is a mixed blessing in my view. Not only that, later generations of these vile vegetables were able to uproot themselves and amble along, making them a kind of third cousin once removed to Triffids.
However. As we can see, they are clearly cacti on steroids, amphetamines and ruby port - so, no possibility of confusing with a spaceship. Art!
wwwwwwwwwwwwWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
<sorry, the cat was on the keyboard>
Then we have director Ben Affleck's rather well-done "Argo" - which is getting rather away from the 'Vorga' once more, so -
I think at this point we can tie things up by loudly exclaiming "Arga Warga" as they do in "Riddley Walker", and adding "Vorga Gaga!" if for no other reason than that it would annoy people, especially that female musician.
Someone's gotten a bit Varga'd!
(That, or 24th century acne is dreadful)
Motley, let's play Cactus Clubbing! I'll have the saguero and you can have a prickly pear.
Conrad - Still Pretty Seethy
Yes, gentle readers, Your Humble Scribe has more to say about the wilfully evil Codeword Compilers, since I had to stop yesteryon before my eyeballs burst from their sockets. Today was only slightly better. Let us begin the etymological deconstruction!
"OKAPI": Fortunately Conrad is widely-read, and had heard of this before. Go on, without looking at a dictionary or using Google, go ahead and define "OKAPI" and I'll bet you're stuck instantly. Art!
Nature does Photoshop
The beast comes from Africa, in the Congo, and is related to the giraffe. Why it adopted the zebra's rump is a question for the sages, Conrad has no idea and less interest.
"BUXOMLY": THEY MADE THIS ONE UP! It's not in my Collins Concise and it makes no sense. A 'Buxom' woman is one who is - how can we put it delicately? - well-endowed in the chest department. So you cannot use a phrase such as 'She went buxomly to the shops' or even 'She went buxomly to the ships', if we're talking about Helen of Troy. Art - and be careful now.
"LUX": The Latin for 'Light' and also a unit of measurement in illumination, I believe. Ha! You see, I remembered this one from a couple of months ago, thus Conrad not taken by surprise. I shall not revisit the Frothing Nitric Ire when I also spotted "LUTZ", the ice-skating move. No, I shall be the better man.
Close enough and much tastier
Enough of this farrago of nonsense! Just wait, I'll see if I can get the MEN tomorrow and we shall see what Crimes Against Lexicography they weazel* in.
It's Muddy, Buddy
Let us cast a liverish and unappreciative eye at the Erie Canal Soda Pop Festival of September 1972, where enormous amounts of drugs were consumed, washed down with Boones Farm Wine, whilst most of the attendees starved and thirsted. On the third day the 50% who had remained finally realised that no, Rod Stewart was not coming. This realisation did not please them. They began looting. The Reis catering trucks were stormed, pillaged and burned. Art!
They stormed the stage, and burned that, too, as well as a couple of trucks behind it. How nobody was killed in this pyrotechnic 'pocalypse is a wonder. As things wound down and people walked back to their cars - a journey of twenty miles for some - they found many had been vandalised, robbed or were completely absent. Because if they had been parked illegally -
Like all the ones on the verges here
- then the Indiana police had them towed away. This meant another long, footsore walk into Evansville to the impound lots, and having to pay lots of money to get their vehicles released. Possibly not the perfect end to the day. The festival site itself resembled the aftermath of a tornado hitting a Third World refugee camp. Art!
Savour the squalor
Of course, the attendees who could proudly say "I survived Bull Island!" had considerable kudos and cachet in the years afterwards.
Conrad is happy to let them. He much prefers a comfortable chair and a pot of tea, without either cachet or kudos, and certainly not illegal drugs spiked with Strychnine**.
Finally -
Now that I've finished "Sir Nigel" I am back on the Official History of the Gallipoli Campaign, Volume 2, where we have reached August of 2015, and a scorchingly hot summer it is, too. Water was a genuine worry for the commanders, as there were no streams, lakes, ponds or rivers to slake the thirst of both men and beasts. Thus water had to be brought in by lighter, before being distributed onwards from the beaches to the troops inland. Art!
Tanked water being used to obtain drinking water
This is howlingly ironic, considering what the weather was like later that year. After water, sanitation was another major issue, especially since there were legions of flies ready to spread disease everywhere, far more than were found on the Western Front. The place was quite horrid enough, before you add in the Turks trying to kill you most diligently.
And with that, we are O so very done!
* Being denigratory whilst not also defaming the entirely different and wonderful weasel.
** Yes, this really happened.
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