A Rosin By Any Other Name

Bear With Me On This One

For we need to invoke the Barf of Avon, William Shakespeare, whom Your Humble Scribe detests with all the flaming fury of a bucketful of Carolina Reaper chillies, except the pun won't work without his saturnine input, the dirty cur.  Art!

Probably a lot less amusing than it thinks it is

     Okay, so we need to pinch that line from "Romero and Julie Ate" sorry too much zombie on the brain - "Romeo and Juliet" where one of them is banging on about flowers and states: "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet".

     Here an aside.  In that classic television series "Anne Of Green Gables" our heroine takes issue with the Barb of Avon (splendid gel!) and his line above, declaring that people would have an entirely different attitude to the rose if it had been christened (can you do that with plants?) the "Lesser Stinkwort" and she has a point.  Art!

Anne: ginger, prescient and no fan of Shakespeare

     At this point in our narrative I think the only person who could make an educated stab in the park at what's going on is Shelli, thanks to her instruments of choice, that is the Cello and violin.  

         BECAUSE! we are dealing with the repellent outcome of another Codeword, is why, and one of the solutions was "ROSIN".  Conrad needed to look this up in his Collins Concise.  Which states: "A translucent, brittle amber substance, produced in the distillation of crude turpentine oleoresin and used in making varnishes and treating the bows of stringed instruments."

     WHAT ARE WE NOW TURPENTINE DISTILLATION EXPERTS ALL OF A SUDDEN?!

Apparently so!

     Conrad idly wonders if it's possible to strangle with a bowstring.  You'd probably need one from a larger stringed instrument, like a c-

     O Shelli!  Do you have a moment?  There are these codeword compilers who are tired of living, you see ...

"LANDAU": I know what you're thinking, and NO! this is nothing to do with  Commander Koenig of Moonbase <a moment's silence for all those souls lost when the Moon was torn out of orbit in 1999>, as portrayed in the documentary by Martin Landau.  Art!

     There you go, an Eagle, one of the <ahem> workhorses of Moonbase Alpha, with a patently sensible modular construction, capable of getting you to where you need to go, safely and efficiently.

     Now, about that 'Landau' - Art!

     Back in the Victorian era this would have been towed by a couple of horses, doing the work, getting you to where you needed to go, safely and efficiently.  Note the enclosed cab, which kept out noxious fumes, rain and the ragged classes.  The name comes from the Teuton town of that ilk, since that's where they were first made.  Phew!  Imagine if they'd been invented at Bad Pforzheim Unter Der Katzenellengoben Brucke -

     Hang on, I forgot to be cross!  CONRAD IS ANGRY!  VERY VERY ANGRY!  I CAN'T THINK WHY AT THE MOMENT BUT GIVE ME A MINUTE AND I'LL HAVE A REASON.

"FLUMES":  Conrad has a hazy memory of these being associated with logs, is that right?  Hang on - aha, not far off. A flume is a water channel elevated above ground level, used for the transportation of materials, frequently logs.  Using water to float and transport makes for a much quicker method than having to haul them around with horses, especially since they might be off towing a landau.  Art!

Log flume in full bloom

     Nowadays log flumes are used for entertainment purposes, with passengers riding a large plastic sled trying to imitate a tree trunk, which naturally leads to the question about which drunken plonker first had the idea to ride a log down a flume for fun, and did his surviving relatives file the patent?

     I'M STILL EXCEEDINGLY CROSS I'LL HAVE YOU KNOW.

     Okay, that's enough Codeword whining for one day.  The show must goon.

     O you know what I mean.

"From Hell It Came"

This is one of those bargain-basement monster-movie creature features from the Fifties, which Conrad has never seen.  Given how poor it's reputation is, this is a situation unlikely to change in the future.  However!  Art?

A case of the poster picture being far scarier than the film still

     O Noes!  What can possibly happen to that dagger sticking into Tree Trunk's woody hide?  Could someone perhaps shoot it with Chekhov's Gun?  And thus - terminate it?

     Well, yes, but you know a more definite outcome would be to decoy this monster to the nearest log flume, trip it up and into the current and Hay Pesto! it is whizzed away to the sawmill and made into a boudoir table and chairs.

Also makes good hamster bedding

     Job done, monster gone.

     I do apologise, I never intended to go off at a tangent like that.  O what it is to be creative!

     Sorry, what's that?  Why yes, it's made of wood, it will burn.  O - I can see where you're going with this - DON'T mention flamethrowers!

CONRAD PREVAILING!

Your Humble Scribe did allude to how well he was doing with the jigsaw puzzle-cum giant cryptic crossword, so allow me to update you.  Art!

     This part was really difficult, as the print on the cover picture is incredibly tiny, and one needed a scanning electron microscope to read it.  The tin itself is off in a corner, as Your Humble Scribe doesn't want to accidentally see the crossword solutions, because the sheet they are on constantly shifts into my eyeline.

     And that's where we stand as of today.

Meanwhile, Back In Old Bailey Court Number Three -

The murder of Mister C. Robin and the subsequent trial have revealed a possible conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, with the Dove now having undergone cross-questioning due to the possibility of the murder being either contracted out, or being a crime passionelle, with a loyal friend trying to take the rap.  

"Who'll bear the pall?

We, said the Wren,

Both the cock and the hen, 

We'll bear the pall."

     Your Honour, I submit that this is highly suspicious behaviour.  No other witness has appeared in tandem and my tingling Spidey-sense highly experienced legal nose tells me that these two are up to shenanigans.  An officer of the court ought to accompany them and check that the decedent is the one under that pall AND NOBODY ELSE!

"Do any of you have unspent criminal convictions?"

Finally -

Now up to Episode Seven of "Sweet Home" and do you know, one of the creepiest things about it is the ceaselessly signalling mannequin outside the apartment complex.  It seems to be a variety of safety device, signalling to pedestrians and drivers that there is a potential hazard -

     Or so it seems.  It could well be another example of Chekhov's Gun again.  We've got three and a bit episodes to find out.

     Are we done, Vulnavia?  O splendid, we are - pip pip!