BRADAWLS

Ah Me, Remember "Ren And Stimpy"?

It doesn't matter if you don't, I can remember enough for both of us.  The thing is, you see, Ren was only really happy when he was being angry about something which had made him unhappy and yes, it was a Catch-22 situation.  Art!

Raging Ren

     I know what you're thinking right now - no, no, honest, I returned the Telepathy Helmet to DARPA last year! - because I'm so clever and intuitive; you're wondering what on earth BRADAWLS have to do with Ren or Stimpy or both.

     Everything and nothing, as it transpires.  For Lo! Your Humble Scribe has finally gotten to do another MEN Codeword, which took at least 40 minutes to solve because of ALL THE UNFAIR WORDS THEY USED.  Thus the R&S mention; Conrad is delighted to have Codewords to be ferociously angry about at last!  Art!

Conrad either being tremendously angry or full of wind.

     I have, of course - obviously! - made a list, which we are going to go through, and let us begin with today's titular word.

     "BRADAWLS": To which the obvious rejoinder is "Does he?".  Conrad is vaguely aware of them as a tool of some description, so let us resort to the Collins Concise: 'an awl used to pierce wood, leather, etc.'  Not very helpful.  Art!

     I see.  What they might be better off calling 'a pointy stick', as that's what it clearly is.  Why is this different from an awl?  And why did the compilers think it was okay to include it in a Codeword?  WHAT ARE WE ALL D.I.Y. EXPERTS ALL OF A SUDDEN NOW?

     "TOFU": Yes yes yes, fermented bean curd with practically no flavour of it's own, Conrad eats it occasionally when it's going cheap.  Why are we using foreign foodstuffs as solutions?  WHAT'S WRONG WITH BRITISH FOOD!

     "TORTILLA": This is why it took 40 minutes to solve!  You see?  You see?  This is what I am forced to deal with.  The only reason I've not used the Remote Nuclear Detonator on the compilers is that their replacements could well be worse.

Tofu Tortilla, the Codeword killer

     "GODLIEST": Are they just making these up out of thin air?  Okay no, I just checked my Collins Concise.  Conrad feels a few carefully applied thunderbolts would be appropriate for choosing this obscurity.

     "ANIMUS": Again?  They used this a few weeks ago.  Still very confusing, all the more if you're not familiar with the foundations of Jungian psychology.  Art!

     Probably nothing whatsoever to do with Jungian psychology as the knight in armour looks pretty hateful, probably brimming over with <ahem> animusity.

     "NOSEGAYS": What on earth? Let me hie me hence to the dictionary.  Ah.  "A small bunch of flowers" which originated in the Fifteenth Century and comes from "Nose", that large fleshy protuberance on the face that allows one to smell things (unless you are Conrad), and "Gay", which meant "Toy" back in the Fifteenth Century.  Yes, I see, and IT HASN'T BEEN USED SINCE THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.  Good job I didn't go for "NOSTRILS" hmmmmm?

This is bound to offend someone*

     The motley is still in the burns unit, thanks for asking.  Who knew a glowing barbecue coal could travel so far by accident! and yes, perhaps we should have put up a screen over the petrol pool

Hunger Pains

If you are about to eat, you'd better pass on this one, as it involves inedible sharp objects being eaten.

     Okay, we travel backwards in time to find John Cummings, a seaman in 1799, who witnessed a circus faker pretending to swallow knives.  He loudly proclaimed to his shipmates that this wasn't so difficult, and proved it when pressed, as he ate four knives without any seeming harm.

Definitely not this variety

     In 1805 he found himself amongst different crewmates, none of whom believed him about his knife-noshing activities, and so - helped along by a whole lot of grog - he repeated the exercise, going a bit further this time with fourteen knives.  After a brief spell in hospital, he - er - 'passed' all the knives and left, once again without any seeming harm.

      Then he got drunk in December of that year and really went at it, swallowing twenty knives, which took until 1807 to at least be partially passed.  This twenty proved to be a bit too much, causing Cummings to die in 1809, whereupon an autopsy was carried out, and the following were found in his stomach and intestine. Art!

     You can't really call him a Darwin Award winner as Ol' Chas hadn't sailed forth upon the 'Beagle' by this date, though you could say his knife-ingestion - er - cut short his life.  And all the above is scrupulously recorded in the Royal Society of Medicine's Transactions.

Another Long List!

Conrad found a list of weird films over on The Flop House's Facebook page and patiently made a list of them in longhand, because as we already know by now, 'weird' equates with 'ínteresting' to him.  I have seen a few of them already - "The Good, The Bad And The Weird" which is a Korean western set in Manchuria during the late Thirties and very entertaining - but most are new to me, which means Your Humble Scribe had to track them down on teh Interwebz.  Art!

     No, not the cosy cuddly horror film featuring William Katt; this is a much weirder Japanese one, although that poster looks like it was done by the Poles, as they specialise in frantically creepy posters.

Finally -

Last night I managed to finish watching "Ben Hur" and quite the bum-number it was, even without watching the "Making Of" or the screen testing.  I need to set another two-and-a-half hours to watch it with Charlton's commentary running.

     ANYWAY, I had bought and watched it to try and find examples of matte work, which was surprisingly difficult.  This is because the artists and technical crew really knew their onions and blended paintings in with film in seamless composites that you can only spot if pointed out to you, which is where NZ Pete comes in.  Art!

     You can see how much the matte painter, Matthew Yuricich, added to the scene, negating the need for vast and expensive set construction.

https://nzpetesmatteshot.blogspot.com/

     Pete's link, should you feel the urge.  There's a ton of stuff there, which will eat up your evening!

*  Heh.