You needn't worry that Conrad is going to rip off his human camouflage and reveal his membership of an alien dictatorship from Theta Reticuli Britain First, but you will need to put up with some references to recent political history over in South Canada. There was an election over there last November, and the incumbent - whom we will anonymise as Dee Tee - lost. Since having to move out of the White House (so-called after we Brits burned down it's predecessor), he has been twiddling his thumbs, rather, especially as he has no access to social media any more.
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| Come home to a real fire - let the British invade you! |
That's a whole other story in itself. Suffice to say that Dee decided to create a blog, in order to promote his stories, the likes of which the world has never seen before - at least according to the hype before it got established.
Ah yes. About that. Art?
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| Ignore the reflections! Ignore the reflections! |
There you have some of the traffic stats and global audience for BOOJUM! Conrad can assure you that these figures did not develop overnight; it's taken years to get to this level of audience visits, by virtue of ceaseless posting and <modest shrug> endless creativity. You can peruse seven years of back posts if you care to take the bother, in pursuit of which I shall be posting links later this evening.
Dee's blog didn't last a month. Obviously his traffic was a lot higher than mine, which comes of being a political figure frequently in the limelight, yet it was still infinitesimal compared to his old social media tallies. That's the thing about a blog - it takes time, effort and patience to build an audience*. I'd say you need at least six months to see if things are advanced enough in terms of popularity before making a decision to pull the plug.
"Should BOOJUM! continue?"
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| "YES!" |
It seems Dee lacked either the work ethic or patience, or spent too much time playing Dungeons And Dragons, to put a proper effort in. Also, would you like to see what he wrote? Tough. The whole blog has been deleted, not archived.
WHAT!
Do you see BOOJUM! deleting ANYTHING? No! Absolutely not! I like people to be able to see what poison pearls of perfect prose I've posted in the past, not to mention needing to check if I've posted about any particular subject before (memory not being what it used to, you know, old age and all that). One would almost, very nearly, reasonably suspect Dee was embarrassed about the fruits of his mental labours. Conrad, however, has no shame and there's no question about this post or any other being deleted**.
So - give credit to the bloggers of the world, since we work hard for our scant rewards.
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| "Typically, Conrad's book had over 500 pages." |
This Is Going Two Bore You
NO THAT IS NOT A SPELLING MISTAKE IT IS AN HILARIOUS PUN! <ahem> Yes, so Conrad was idly looking at thumbnails on Youtube when he caught sight of one by "Forgotten Weapons", about a "2 Bore Rifle".
Erk.
For those of you out there not intimately familiar with guns, shotguns are classed in terms of their 'bore', that is, how wide their muzzle is. The smaller the bore, the bigger the gun, counter-intuitively. Art!
This was explained to me decades ago and made as little sense then as now. To determine the bore of a shotgun, take one pound of lead. How many pieces in spherical form do you have to divide it into until one will fit into the barrel? That's the bore. Most shotguns are 12-bore, with lower bores being uncommon. So - a 2 bore? That's got to be enormous! Art!
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| The beast in question |
This thing was built to order for a customer. It weighs 44 pounds and if you had no ammunition left you could club the charging rhino to death with it. Art!
Ammunition comparison. That at top is a 0.50 Browning round, the biggest bullet in the South Canadian arsenal. Below it is a 4 bore round, and below that the 2 bore round. Heck, if you lacked the rifle you could club that rhino to death with the round alone. Art!
Ian, experienced armourer that he is, could only hold the gun in this position for less than a second thanks to the weight and balance. One feels the firer would need to be built more along the lines of Conrad for this to work. I am unsure if there are any videos of this monster being fired; I may look for them.
Heath Robinson
I've got it down in my notebook so we have to at least brush the subject. HR got typecast as the illustrator of countless exotic devices held together with string and actioned by pulleys, performing basic tasks in the most convoluted way***. So, let us have one of his inventions to the fore. Art!
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| Kenwood Spiralizer Prototype? |
Your Humble Scribe wonders what speed that turntable is revolving at, because at the probable 78 r.p.m. yonder potato is going to be peeled in seconds. I'm surprised it doesn't have a shute and trap to collect the peelings. Note that down for the Mark II, HR.
Finally -
I bet you were thinking "Oh we've gotten through a whole blog post without any mention of Conrad's blood pressure and Codeword solutions, lucky us." HAH how wrong you are! If I've written them down you can jolly well suffer experience the awe and mystery th - no, hang on, that was "The Outer Limits", wasn't it? <sighs> O what it is to be old and confused and old and conf - er - quite.
"CREDO": Of course - obviously! - it comes from Latin, and means "I believe" WELL I DON'T BELIEVE IT! ARE WE ALL CLASSICAL SCHOLARS NOW OR WHAT? and no, you don't get a picture. I'm too angry for pictures.
"WHEREBY": Are you serious? This is the kind of language you'd expect to hear in the judge's summing-up at the Old Bailey, or a personal memoir from 1768 by an engineer constructing a bridge. You simply would NOT expect to hear it in conversation today, still less in print. Art!
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| Close enough |
"SIXTEENTH": <sound of teeth being ground ferociously> this is BARELY acceptable. Barely. Yes it's English, and you might VERY OCCASIONALLY hear or see it in use, but - really! The only example Your Humble Scribe can think of is a one-sixteenth drill bit, which is just the right size for clearing any sprue from inside the road wheels on Airfix tanks, and you can only admit that's a niche use and no mistake. Art!
* A unique weltanschaung also helps.
** Despite what UNIT or Spectrum have to say.
*** I like him already!
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