Armoured Underpants Ahoy!

First Of All -

WASH OUT YOUR FILTHY MINDS YOU DISGUSTING CREATURES! There, I thought I'd get that in first just in case your baser natures came to the fore, as they so often do.  In fact Conrad is unaware if such a thing as armoured underpants exist.  One hesitates to Google for such an item as we all know what will pop up.  O well, taking one in the search for truth -

     These are made of silver fibres and loudly claim to be "EMF shielding" although how you shield against Electro-Motive Force is a moot point.  Perhaps they want to imply "EMR" for "Electro-Magnetic Radiation" but dare not say it because that would be lying.  Conrad is more in the market for underwear that is fang-proof, because ONCE AGAIN the Coincidence Hydra has been preying on my nethers.

     "How so, O snowy-haired word-wielder?" I hear you query.  Well -

     Yesterday, in a complete tangent to a tangent, I came across the name "Booth Tarkington", whom it seems was a big thing in South Canadian literature back at the beginning of the Twentieth Century, for a couple of decades.  He even went on to serve as either a Senator or the other brand of SC politician - the distinction outside their shores is fuzzy - for a term.

     He may have been a big fromage in South Canada - I'd never heard of him.  Which is what matters here.

     Then, whilst watching "Better Call Saul", we have a bit of comedic banter between Jimmy and the taciturn and misanthropic Mike Ehrmentraut.  ART!

     Jimmy, naturally effervescent, calls Mike "the man in the booth" and then goes on to riff about "John Wilkes Booth" (the infamous assassin of President Lincoln) and "BOOTH TARKINGTON"

     What on earth?  I've never heard of this chap and here we have the second mention in 24 hours?  Look, universe, if you're trying to tell me something either send a postcard or use Facebook.

Booth, looking smooth

     The motley cannot partake in any jolly japes as it is currently hammering out sheets of copper to protect my gluteus maximus.

Skeleton!

No, not the bony infrastructure that stops Hom. Sap. from collapsing into a gelid mass on the pavement, and which maintains it's ability to scare people.  Rather, the crossword variant that the "Oldham Times" used to run, and which I've not done for at least six months.  Behold!

     There you are, complete with authenticity-confirming initial error at upper port.  Old wine in new tricks, or some such convoluted metaphor.  For those unfamiliar, you get four clues, and four blank squares are filled in, and you have to complete based on that.  Hah!

From The Base To The Sublime

The BBC, fount of all that's fit to be writ, has an inspirational article featuring exotic photographs of astronomical subjects, posted by candidates looking to win the Astronomy Photograph of the Year, which is fair enough, as competing for Sausage-Sandwich Snapper would lack reason or purpose.  So, let us have a snapshot of item number one on their list.  Art!

     You can guarantee that this took lots of filtering and processing and fiddly photographic trickery to make it look presentable.  FYI, the Bicolour Veil Nebula is the gaseous remnants of a star that went BANG and then some; what you see here are clouds of hydrogen (the reddish tint) and oxygen (the cyan tint), being hurled away from the epicentre of the explosion.  You can't exactly commute to check on how things are settling down since it's just shy of 1,500 light years away.  So what we're seeing here is how it looked in 551 A.D. when a devastating earthquake-triggered tsunami devastated the Lebanese coastline.  Just to give you some context.

Biggest firework evah.

I Shall Now Cheat A Bit

For which read "a lot".  You may recall Conrad's bitter musing on the blog about how few answers he knew in "The View From The Turret"'s weekly quiz.  Two answers out of ten!  Dear me, dear me.  

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC54PQKtvNnekOkci4FivBIg

     That above is the link to his Youtube channel, should you be curious.  Since the quiz is now ten days old and the answers will have been provided, it can't harm anything (except my ego) if we Googlize the answers here on BOOJUM!  Thus -

Q1)  True or False: Captain Eddie Rickenbacker is a relative of the creator of the Rickenbacker electric guitar?

Ed tips his hat

    A)  Conrad would have guessed "False" and, do you know, that would have been WRONG.  Adolph Richenbacher, the electric geetar creator, was a distant cousin of Ed, and changed his name to make it sound more South Canadian and less Teuton.

Q2)  Which is the odd one out in this list of gunpowder ingredients:  Charcoal, calcium, potassium nitrate, sulphur?

A)  Calcium!  I know this one, thanks to all that research I did into gunpowder for the English Civil Unpleasantness.

Gunpowder green tea.  Just to be different.

Q3)  In which battle did Oliver Cromwell have a horse shot dead under him?

A)  Conrad has no idea.  Marston Moor?

     Actually Winceby.  Never heard of it.  Art!

Olly and Dobbin (whilst still animated)

     I think that's enough cheating for one post.  Maybe more tomorrow*!

"EMBEZZLE": Meaning to fraudulently acquire property or money originally entrusted to the criminal.  I did threaten you with the etymology of this word last night, so you can't complain, and if you do Conrad will merely ignore you.  Okay, unlike many of the words we analyse here, this one comes from the Anglo-French "embeseiller"which meant "To destroy", which is, frankly, very wide of the mark.  If Conrad - purely hypothetically - were to come into possession of £1.35 million worth of gold that he had been inquisitively looking over, do you really think he'd fly it to Iceland and hurl it into the volcano at Reykjanes?

Of course he would!

     Because then people would give up on looking for it.  Heh.

Finally -

We need very little here to hit the Compositional Ton, which is good as then I can go get food and torment Edna by eating it in front of her <sniggers in an evil fashion and tweaks moustache ends>.  No gin tonight, the spigot on the tanker truck has jammed and I've gotten through yesterday's bucket dainty glass tumbler.  These little sacrifices I make ...

     Are done?  I think we jolly well are!

*  Or not.  I'm fickle like that.