Orthorhombic Crystallographic Systems

Not A Phrase You Ever Expected To Read Today, Hmmm?

In fact it might not be a proper phrase in the first place, which has never stopped us in the past and I see no reason to do so now.  Once again, whose blog is it?

     Do forgive me if I keep you waiting to reveal exactly what today's obscurantist title really means, because I'm horrid that way*.

     Let us now trip lightly into the past, specifically last night, when Your Humble Scribe rendezvoused with the lovely Anna, for the first face-to-face time in years.  Or it seemed like that.  Art!

Little Yang Sing from the inside

     We went there as it has such a good vegetarian menu, for the sake of Anna, as Conrad is a well-known omnivore (bar parsnips and pineapple).  Art!

Anna.  And yes, I DID get her permission

     Do you want to see everything that we had to eat?  This seems to be de rigueur amongst users of social media - O go on then.  The starters:

     - and in fact the whole lot.  There's no picture of my steamed Dim Sum as they were gobbled down pretty quickly.  You can also witness Anna pretending to use chopsticks on her deep-fried seaweed, and our main course, neither of which I can remember the name of.  Delicious and filling.

     Conrad, because he is BAD, sneaked off to the front of house and paid for the whole lot before Anna knew what was going on.  Heh!

     Of course the journey home was untrammelled misery: the Metro and First Bus conspired between them to turn up late at Exchange Square, which meant the tram was sardine-room only.  I had missed my connecting bus so I carried on to the taxi rank at town centre.

     No taxis.

     You must understand that this is all in miserable weather with a cold wind a-blowing round my bones.  Okay!  Off to the bus station, where the 21:57 didn't turn up either.  A despairing text brought Degsy out in The Beast and I enjoyed a warm ride home with a podcast playing.  Art!

     This is Oldham Bus Station's satellite station.  That's not fog on the lens, that's cloud inside the bus station, because filthy lowering diseased-looking clouds had been squatting on the hills upon hills all day long.

     BAH!

Needless To Say ...

Conrad is, as ever, purple-faced with rage about the chronic transgressors who compile Codewords.  I believe that, faced with a world-wide shortage of these pikers, who seem to vanish mysteriously in a puff of radioactive vapour**, editors and sub-editors have been recruiting people from only tangentially-related fields, such as MOT invigilators and Shakespearean text analysts.  This is the only possible explanation for the abstruse solutions they require.

"AUBADE": This is so obviously a lively musical composition of the seventeenth century that - What?  It's not?  It's GOOD LORD ALOFT NO! NO! NO!  <sweats profusely> a range of female lingerie?!  Get out of here!  Ah.  What it is, is a 'morning poem' - DOG BUNS UND KREPLACH! They're coming at me from all sides here.  Quick, Art, change the subject -

Hmmmm possible alternative to the Remote Nuclear Detonator?

"RAKEHELL": Hmmmmm not a word that people are familiar with nowadays, are they, really?  It might have been bandied about in the eighteenth century when the Hellfire Club were taking applications for people who were wealthy and wicked (and possibly witless, too) - but COME ON!  In the twenty-first century?  IT'S JOLLY NOT ON!  <ponders who might fit the bill at the moment> aha!

I think he's still alive.  But cannot swear to it***.

"TOPAZ":  Now we're getting to the meat of the matter.  This was another solution to a question nobody was asking.  ARE WE ALL JEWELLERS NOW?! No we are not, and consider Conrad's position, too, as he detests and avoids all self-adornment and knows little to nothing of gemstones.  It's like expecting a cordon bleu chef to be intimate with servicing a Sidewinder anti-aircraft missile!

     Plus, this is where today's title comes from, because that's what mineral family topaz comes under, which is a lesson for all of us today.  Art!

Much More Of Misery And Murder!

Yes, back we go to "Tormentor" and yes, exactly more of the above THIS IS NOT OUR USUAL FROTHY NONSENSE! 

TWO

Alone and utterly dejected, Louis tried to ring Angela, only to get the answerphone at the first ring. 

              I’m not surprised.  Jesus, what she must be going through right now!  And here I am feeling sorry for myself, all abject self-loathing.  Get a grip on yourself, you pathetic b******!

              After leaving a shaky message for Angela on the answering service he went to bed, not daring to drink any more in his current state for fear of making himself suffer a night of vomiting and stomach upsets.

              Sleeping pills! he suddenly realised.  They’d do.  Could he get an appointment with Doctor Kumar and say that he’d been having nightmares and depression?  Because with what had just happened, the nightmares would come, he knew from experience. 

              ‘Wait a minute, wait a minute, Louis, use your head.  Sleeping tablets.’

              There was a supply in the kitchen cupboard downstairs, where he kept the other medicines, at the back of the top left hand cupboard.  They had been unused for the past eighteen months.

              Stupidly, he didn’t bother to put anything on his feet when he tiptoed downstairs in bare feet, which meant he cut himself on a sliver of broken glass lying on the carpet.  It was in an awkward place, the blood getting between the toes on his left foot.  Still, there were plasters in the bathroom cupboard.  He managed to stop the bleeding with a convoluted plaster, whilst reading the instructions on the brown glass bottle partly-full of tablets, as he sat on the toilet.

              ‘What the ****, who cares,’ he told the room, taking two tablets with a glass of water.  ‘What more harm can they do.’

              For the next half hour he tried not to think about that pathetic covered bundle brought out of that alleyway, the stark implications of the dayglo bag encased in plastic.  “A body has been found”.  Samples for DNA.  Which meant that there must be traces of the assailant at the scene. 

              I’m a suspect of course, since Jen was last seen with me.  Hah!  For what that’s worth.  As if I’d harm her.  What do they take me for, a complete raving loon? 

              Remembering the destroyed coffee table, he groaned in anguish.

     You might say things have gotten interesting.  They are about to get stranger as well.

The Sands Of Time

Yes, a quick revisit to the BBC's display of historically-relevant photographs, and the next one is of two freight vessels that collided on the River Severn in 1960: the Wastdale H and the Arkendale H.  Art!

Courtesy Ian McCallum

     This one was taken with a drone, presumably because it's too difficult and dangerous to get out to the physical location.  Truly a picture of Sic Transit Gloria Mundi.  There's a lot more to this than a single photo - we shall be returning here again!

*  And in a whole lot of other ways besides.

**  

Remote Nuclear Detonator!

***  And not especially bothered either way

Positively Painless

 So Far .....

This may change later on.  You see, like a properly-compliant employee, Your Humble Scribe re-started his work laptop this morning, which automatically ditched Word, which is where I've been keeping "Tormentor" open.  So I cannot open it up and post another screed of murder and misery, and my pen drive with the actual document, is, of course - obviously! - at home.  

     Not only that, I'm on the late shift this week and don't finish until 18:00 AND I'm meeting the lovely Anna and her only-slightly less-lovely sister Georgina after work, and we are off to gorge at Little Yang Sing.  Art!

Big Trouble In Little Yang Sing*

     If we stop to gabble then it might be 21:00 or even 22:00 before I totter on my aged feet into The Mansion.  Aged feet in great big boots, I might add, thanks to the amount of snow up at Gravel Pit.  There's hardly any in Gomorrah-on-the-Irwell, you know.  

Said feet in said boots

     There you have things as they stand at 14:22.  Conrad unsure what the weather has in store for us; the clouds did roll away from the hills set upon the hills a short while ago, however they have rolled right back again, the dirty curs.  You know Conrad and his aged feet; not looking forward to a long plod home if the buses are diverted.

     Motley!  Let's test that comic-book trope about substituting tennis rackets for snowshoes.  You first.

"Wanted on centre court -"

Following On From That

Where do they use snowshoes all winter long?  British America, that's where, that proud Commonwealth nation that gets to show the South Canadians what they're missing, being a republic and all (yet a republic that CANNOT GET ENOUGH of This Sceptred Isle's monarchy).  Art!

"O Canada!"

     Here an aside.  People tend to forget that Greenland is a Danish territory, and for all it's enormous size Conrad wonders what the population is.  Shall we find out?  Yes!  Yes we shall.  56,000 total, for an island of 836,000 square miles, which means one person per 15 square miles.  

     ANYWAY back to British America, because Your Humble Scribe was reading about the Canadian (I shall reluctantly resort to the conventional names here for your convenience) ace William George Barker, who flew stringbags in the First Unpleasantness.  Art!

The terror of the skies

     He was tragically killed in a flying accident in 1930 and the city of Toronto came to a dead stop for his funeral, which was witnessed by 50,000 people.  He was so impressive that the Americans sent an honour guard.  His list of medals sounds like the collected awards of eight or nine people, not one.  They were: the Victoria Cross (amazingly rare for a pilot); the Distinguished Service Offer (TWICE); the Military Cross (THRICE); Silver Medal for Valour (TWICE) and the Croix De Guerre.  Plus 3 Mentioned In Despatches, which is where his OC decided a more personal attribution was needed.  We will doubtless come back to this chap, interesting bloke.

A Froth Of Righteous Rancour

Your Humble Scribe is, as ever, furiously angry, both thanks to the ridiculous state of the roads this morning - and I guarantee there will be a reckoning when I take over TWENTY PER CENT OF YOU DRIVERS WILL BE EXTIRPATED**! - 

     For Lo! we are back on the vexed subject of Codewords, and those compilers have really been pushing both the envelope and their luck.  For instance - 

"HAJJI":  Okay, an unfamiliar enough word to provoke FROTHING NITRIC IRE in itself, but how do you think Conrad felt when trying to parse a solution?  The "I" had already been given, so the most logical solution was RABBI - except that way led to either nothing or madness.  FYI, it refers to one of the faithful whom has conducted the Hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca.  Conrad too cross to continue.  Art!

"VESICLES": This sounds like a swung censer full of incense as used in liturgical ceremonies by that church as espoused by the Vatican - let's check -

     NOOOO! Not even close.  "Any small sac or cavity, especially one containing serous fluid" according to the Collins Concise.

     Bah.  I think MY definition was immeasurably better.  Art!

<thumbs up>

"APEXES": Hmmmm Conrad is suspicious of this one.  He isn't convinced that it's not APICES.  Shall we check it out?  O go on then.  AHA!  Yes, APICES is an acceptable plural.  O and it means the highest point, or the vertex, just so we're clear.  Art!

Very much an apex, among a collection of apices

     Conrad had a clue here as the plural of 'Vertex' is, indeed, 'Vertices', which goes to prove how clever he is***.

HA HAR!

Since I am now back at The Mansion writing this, you SHALL go to the ball, Cinde - no, sorry, I mean you SHALL have another extract from "Tormentor".

     CAUTION! not the usual piffle we write about on here, this is dark stuff that's going to get darker.

Louis decided, in a distant way, that enough was enough.  Enough.  Was.  Enough.

              ‘NO!’ he shouted, stamping the coffee table squarely on, smashing the glass, drawing his foot back and stamping on the metal frame, crushing it, stamping again with the other foot.  ‘No! I won’t have something precious taken from me again!’ he yelled.

              Both constables, suddenly shaken from their air of complacent suspicion, backed away as far as possible in the confines of the living room.  The female drew a canister of pepper-spray, the male officer pulled out a baton.

              ‘That’s enough!’ he snapped.  ‘Any more behaviour like that and I’ll arrest you.’

              ‘For what!’ snarled Louis.  ‘For suffering twice over?’ and he trailed off into muttered cursing. 

              ‘The sample?’ prompted the female officer, looking at her colleague, as if daring him to not bother thanks to the suspect going beserk.

              ‘What do you need?  Blood?’ snapped Louis, still breathing through nostrils flared with impotent rage and hatred.  ‘I’ll get a knife and slash my wrists if you want,’ he continued, with twisted humour.

              ‘Calm down, sir!’ implored the male officer.  ‘All we need is a surgical swab from the inside of your cheek.’

              The practicalities of the DNA sampling were so mundane and prosaic that Louis felt almost mocked: a swab like a q-tip was rubbed along the inside of his cheek, bagged and the specimen annotated.

              ‘We may need to interview you again, sir.  Your job doesn’t require you to travel, does it?  Then don’t leave the town or cross the county border.’

 

Constable Burnham took the samples he’d collected to the Mobile Incident Unit, set up alongside a verge near the junction.

              ‘What d’you think?’ he asked Contable Scott.

              ‘I’m not so sure now.  Our witness across the road definitely saw the victim leave at seven.  McMahon himself didn’t leave by the front door until after ten.’

              ‘He wasn’t faking that temper,’ opined Burnham.  ‘Either he’s a schizophrenic killer, or innocent.’

              Scott tapped the case she carried.

              ‘This’ll sink or save him.’

     Those results won't be back for a while, by which time Luma is wondering if he is, in fact, an amnesiac killer.  O the torment ...

Finally -

Well, as you're aware from the above, Your Humble Scribe has just gotten in from Submarine City, to the City In The Clouds.  Literally.  We'll have more on this tomorrow as I have photographic proof.  Just you wait.

*  Hopefully not, I just couldn't resist.

**  Done via a lottery system to make it entirely fair.  Heh.

***  Perhaps.

"Make Me A Coffee"

Sorry, Not An Update

You remember, about the historical plasterer who was fired by an idiot manager flexing his bully muscles, and who cost his own company about £150,000?  And he was fired.  And prosecuted for tax fraud.  All because said plasterer wouldn't go make him a cup of coffee.  Boy, that has to be the world's most expensive cup of coffee!

I have no idea what's going on here, just that it looks interesting.  And historical.

     No, this tale comes from Malicious Compliance over on Youtube.  The setting was a British Army workshop, where Corporal Steve was busy working on artificing a widget.  Perhaps even a MacGuffin.  Certainly not a doo-hickey, as that is a South Canadian piece of kit.  In strides a WO2, the equivalent of a Regimental Sergeant-Major and one of the highest non-commissioned ranks there is, certainly miles above a lowly Corporal.

     "Make me a coffee!" he orders Steve.

     "Shazam!" replies Steve, brandishing his arms like a wizard.  "You're a coffee."

     If the WO2 had any sense, he would have given up right there.  No, he decides to keep on with the ordering.

     "I want a cup of coffee!"

     Steve returns with a cup three-quarters full of instant coffee granules.

     "I want a cup of coffee with coffee, hot water, milk and sugar!"

     Steve returns with an undrinkable soupy mass that the spoon stands upright in.

     "What's this?" gurgles the indignant WO2.

     "Well, there wasn't much room left for the water and milk and sugar," explains Steve.

     At which the WO2 goes off to complain to the workshop Captain, who has absolutely no sympathy and tells him that Corporal Steve is not his 'brew-bitch'.

Not Steve but he looks a no-nonsense type of chap

     Conrad has recently acquired coffee bags, which produce a far nicer brew than the instant stuff we have at work.  Just so you know.

O! The Snow

As you should surely know by now, Conrad lives on a hill on top of a range of hills, and our climate can differ considerably from that present in the lowlands of Gomorrah-in-the-Irwell.  Thus I wished to provide proof of a minor snowfall on Friday morning, before it all melted.  Art!

     I shouldn't have worried about getting proof of snow, because it began earlier today and persisted for hours.  Art!

Picturesque but a pain

     Your Humble Scribe decided to continue with his normal Sunday afternoon constitutional into Royton, in his shoes.  This is a mistake, as they have absolutely no traction and if I can dig my boots out for tomorrow then I shall be wearing them.  The problem about today's snowfall is that there's not that much traffic on the roads, it being Sunday, and consequently they don't disperse the sludge as would happen on a busier day.  Art!

     Another problem is that the sun doesn't get high enough at this time of year to melt snow in the shadow of our terrace, which then gets pounded into ice by the passage of countless feet.  And if the snow on the slopes of Tandle Hill gets too much, the 409 can't get up it and has to detour, meaning a long walk home for Conrad.

     Truly, snow does have limitations.

Back To Those Historical Photos

As you should surely know by now, Conrad seeks to be as constructively idle as possible, meaning he takes advantage of any short cuts to creating content here, and Lo! here's that BBC page listing historical photography winners.  Art!

Courtesy Sam Binding

     This is the winner of the Historic England category, being the Clifton Suspension Bridge at dawn, where the mist adds an ethereal quality to the image.  Next!

"Hauntology"

Conrad hadn't heard of this word before a couple of weeks ago, when it featured in "Into The Unknown", the biography of Nigel Kneale, and it refers to a musical genre that seems hard to pin down precisely.  It appears to be using the tropes of past entertainment in film and television to create soundscapes intended to evince this past.  Art!

BBC Radiophonic Workshop

     Ghost Box seems to be the go-to record label for this sort of stuff, so Conrad may head over to Spotify and see if he can listen to a song or two.

More Of Misery And Mayhem

Yes, back to "Tormentor".  Once again, a warning I will keep on repeating, this is NOT my usual amusing twaddle and is pretty dark stuff.  If you're not interested in supernatural horror stories, it is entirely permissible to bunk off and not discover what's going on.   Besides which, nobody's posted any dislikes in the Comments, so - you're going to keep on getting this!

An ambulance trolley emerged from the alleyway under the merciless illumination of the torch, whatever was lying on it completely shrouded in a dark green zipped-up bag.  The flourescent clothing of the paramedics contrasted starkly with the dull green bundle on the trolley, but they complemented the bright yellow bag that the policeman held, suspended inside a transparent plastic bag.

              ‘J****, no,’ wheezed Louis, his vision spinning. He leaned against the garden wall on the corner, feeling a trembling in his thighs.  Only dimly aware of moving, he staggered back down the road to his own house, dropping the key twice as he tried to open the front door.

              He blundered into the lounge, tripping over the settee’s arm and half-falling onto the cushions, cradling his face in both hands, feeling hot tears run down and soak into his shirt cuff.  For at least an hour he sat and alternately cried and stared at the ceiling, trying not to think.

              No.  Unbidden, all those memories of Jennifer came crowding back, and Natasha and Jackie too, piggybacking on the misery of the moment.

              When the doorbell rang at quarter to twelve, Louis had cried the sorrow away and was well into the self-hate, blaming himself for whatever had befallen Jennifer.

              Stomach churning, he opened the door to those same two police officers who had interviewed him earlier, this time carrying what looked like an attache case.

              ‘Can we come inside?’ asked the female officer.  Her eyes were sharp and hostile.

              ‘Mister McMahon, we need you to provide a sample specimen of DNA,’ stated the male officer once he was inside the hallway,  hard-faced and hard-voiced. 

              ‘She’s dead, isn’t she?’ asked Louis, feeling ill again.

              ‘A body has been found, Mister McMahon, and we need to eliminate people from the enquiry.

This – C*****!’

     You can only push a person so far.  This is where things start to take a turn for the different, and a murder case becomes - different.

Horses

No! Not the Patti Smith record, even if there is an article about her on the BBC website, still going strong at 74 and gigging like a 24 year-old. I know my mate Richard likes her, and she has a very impressive pedigree of writing and co-writing tons of songs for other artists

     ANYWAY I wish to introduce you to the works of Charles Marion Russell, a South Canadian artist whose oeuvre was of the Wild West, featuring horses especially.  He's rather a brilliant resource for the blog as he did at least 4,000 artworks in his lifetime, meaning I could use one of his pictures for the next 11 years.  Art!

"Smoke of a .45"

     Conrad is only guessing, but I think there is some nefarious activity going on here.

     And with that, Vulnavia, we are well past the Compositional Ton.  Pip pip!

Sunday's Shenanigans

Yes, Here We Are Again

Happy as can be.  I believe that's how the song lyric goes?  Not entirely sure if we are all happy little campers here at BOOJUM! as the Positive Pills have run out.  Jut have to make do with the Ecstatic Elixir instead, I suppose.

     First things first: we need a click-bait-y picture to enthrall and draw in the unsuspecting masses.  Art!

"Vermin infestation on Mars was a serious business"

     I have a fair idea of what's going on here.  There's your exploring astronaut, and there's a giant ant that can fire gamma ray lasers from it's mandibles, and Hay Pesto! said astronaut meets an untimely end.  Not so much 'Cosmic Terror' as 'Well You Shouldn't Have Been Poking Around There, Should You?'.

     And without further ado -

2020

BOOJUM!: An Experiment (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2019

BOOJUM!: Sorry For The Cliche (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2018

BOOJUM!: How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2017

BOOJUM!: Pet Sounds (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2016

BOOJUM!: Te Fala Dhe Urime! (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2015

BOOJUM!: V (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2014

BOOJUM!: Everton (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2013

BOOJUM!: Fret not! For BOOJUM! Has Returned! (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

I Type - Of Snipe

No!  Not The Bird

<martyred sigh> I suppose Conrad needs to demonstrate what he's NOT talking about, since none of you out there are ornithologists, are you.  Art!

<loud exasperated noises>

     No, Art, that's a Sopwith Snipe, a scout from the First Unpleasantness - O go on, now that we're here.  It came into service in October of 1918, only being issued to a few squadrons.  Speed was only average but it could whiz in a circle on a sixpence whilst upside down and back to front with the pilot having a refreshing cup of tea, and it could climb like an Olympic sprinter going up a high-speed elevator.  One of the most successful Snipe pilots was 

     ANYWAY the bird, Art, the bird!  

D'you want it in Latin?
Scolopacidae Gallinago

     Blimey that snow's not letting up, and it's sticking, too - I wonder if that will affect Worst Bus' already dismal Sunday service?  Better keep track!

     ANYWAY we've already spent <counts> a hundred and sixty words on what we're not talking about, which is about par for the course here.  Art!

From "The War Illustrated"

   Briefly put, 2nd Battalion The Rifle Brigade got itself dug into a position codenamed "Snipe", which just so happened to be in the middle of the Axis defence lines.  They brought with them nineteen of the new 6 pounder anti-tank gun, which would turn any Axis tank into a colander up to a mile away.  Next morning any Axis tank that came within range was knocked out, until it finally dawned on the enemy that there was a large anti-tank force squarely in the middle of their position.  Ooops!  There were relentless attacks on Snipe by tanks and infantry and both combined, all of which failed with heavy losses.  The survivors evacuated their position just before midnight, taking the breechblocks and sights from the few workable guns left.  The Axis left 37 burned-out hulks on the battlefield and recovered another 20, meaning that 15% of Rommel's tank strength had gone in failing to over-run a single position.  Art!

     That cockily smiling chap in the TWI article is Sergeant Callistan, who got a DCM, and who went back to kiss his gun when they were pulling out, the big softy (probably unwise to say that to his face).

     

Still snowing heavily and I've not noticed the sound of any buses going past.  Oooer Matron!  O there was one, and it was going uphill - hopeful sign.  ANYWAY

Is Conrad Seething?  You Betcha!

As ever, the two-sided nature of Codeword's unfair solutions crops up.  Yes, they send me into my state of Frothing Nitric Ire, yet they also provide grist for the content mill, as they are always abstruse and exotic and frequently foreign.  For instance:

"PLEXUS": No!  Not a sequel to Baron and Rude's "Nexus".  My Collins Concise details this as "Any complex network of nerves, blood vessels or lymphatic vessels".  Inevitably from the Latin, 'Plectere" which means "To braid".  Art!

FAR cooler than a bunch of nerves

"BHAJI": Admittedly this isn't that obscure, but you can't argue that it's not foreign, and like a lot of the boundary-stretching words, is a foodstuff.  From the Hindi 'Bhaji' meaning 'fried vegetables'.  Makes a change from Greek or Latin, I suppose.  Art!

Close enough

"HYDROXYL": WHAT ARE WE ALL CHEMISTS NOW! Do you see why I seethe so seriously?  Two of the most infrequent letters of the alphabet show up, one of them turning up twice, in an eight-letter word that has only one vowel?

CAUTION! Explodey stuff.

     Best I end now or the red mist might descend again.

Poisoned Provender

More of the fascinating and horrifying adulteration of food in the Victorian era, after which series of articles you will be heartily glad we live in an age when the worst that might happen is your ready meal has horsemeat instead of beef.  Art!

The staff of life!

     Except not so much.  In fact in the Victorian era as a staff it would have been applied with force to your head, because nearly all commercially made bread was made with alum.  Nowadays this is used as in detergents or styptic pencils and most certainly NOT in bread.  The bakers back then mixed in generous amounts of alum because it made the bread look whiter, and retained moisture, so a loaf seemed heavier.  Never mind that the levels used caused chronic constipation and stomach upsets that could be fatal to small children - baker's gotta make a profit!

Time For "Tormentor"

CAUTION!  This is not the usual cheery nonsense and shooting from the lip that constitutes the rest of BOOJUM!  You can look upon it as being my Every-clown-wants-to-play-Hamlet gig.  Dark stuff.  I have attempted to censor the swearing but it's still not suitable for small children.

He rang Angela at ten, only to get the engaged tone.  The engaged tone was still there at half ten, when he tried again.

              Coldly sober, Louis put on a coat and left the house, slamming the door with force.  Sod the neighbours, he was angry and upset.

              Walking out of the cul-de-sac, he noticed a strange intermittent blue flashing at the junction, coming from a light source hidden from him by the houses on his left. 

              Burglar alarm?  No – police cars.

              In fact it was an ambulance, parked opposite the alleyway that led to the rear door of houses fronting the main road.  Louis found his rapid pace slowing with dread, a horrid twisting sensation curling up around his stomach.  He stopped opposite the ambulance, unable to bring himself to get any closer, mind racing yet dwelling on nothing, his thoughts chasing themselves around in a circle.  Off in the alleyway a policeman held up a powerful torch, shining it into a rear yard.  Light reflected intensely off flourescent, high-visibility clothing, the type worn by paramedics. 

              ‘Can you move away, sir,’ asked another policeman, crossing the road to Louis, who looked dumbly at the dancing torchlight, the frosty exhalations of the police, and the bobbing motion of the party-hidden paramedics.

              ‘Is she alright?’ blurted Louis.  ‘Have they found her?’

              ‘Can you move away, now, sir,’ asked the policeman again, beginning to sound less polite and more annoyed.

              The flourescent coats were rustling and moving around, clanking a metallic object along the concrete yard.  Louis began to back off, walking backwards, keeping the alleyway in sight.  The policeman followed him.

     Not good news.

Finally -

It's still snowing, if not quite as heavily as before.  No, strike that, just as heavily as before.  Conrad can see his constitutional into Royton being rather risky, because if there aren't any buses running to Rochdale, I'd have to walk back on foot as well.  Of course - obviously! - people are turning up in hordes to go sledging in Tandle Hill Park, so were Your Modest Artisan to take the car, we might well lose our parking spot.

     Anyway, I shall have to finish here.  Our new tumble-drier arrived earlier this morning, and for the first time in over a week I can put on a wash, which I have done.  Now Conrad has to go negotiate the dials and settings of the new one.  Wish me luck!  Art?

The beast in question!

Virginia Wolf

NO! That Is NOT A Typo!!

I apologise for the near-Continental levels of hyperbole that come with using TWO exclamation marks at once, but I wanted to make a point.  You should know by now that Conrad doesn't make spelling mistakes, and if any particular word looks odd or unusual then it's because it's at the heart of hilarious punnery or satire.

     As with this one.  This title is actually a misnomer, because wolves have been 'extirpated' from the state, as the Virginia Department of Wildlife and Resources puts it, because 'exterminated' has far too much of a Dalek ring to it.

"Extirpate!  Extirpate!" - just doesn't have the same ring to it.

     They used to be all over the state until people with guns took umbrage.

     ANYWAY that has little or nothing to do with Virginia Woolf, who was an author of frightfully important literary worth, which means her works doubtless lack tanks, atom bombs or zombies, unless that author who tries to do pastiches of classics comes up with "Orlandof The Dead"*.  Art!

Viggy

     "What's the old gin-sozzled fart on about now?" I hear you quibble.  Pausing only to point out that gin is perfectly horrid, I shall extirpate explicate.

     One of Viggy's most highly regarded works is "To The Lighthouse", which, to judge by the precis I've read about it, sounds like an insufferable bore where nothing happens, and it happens VERY SLOWLY.  Art!

     This is the first thing that popped into my rubbish-tip skip of a mind when I discovered that the BBC had put up a list of Historic Photographer Of The Year photographs; there was also much gleeful rubbing of hands, since a theme like this definitely lightens my creative load for many days at a time.  Art!

Courtesy Steve Liddiard

     Oodles of atmosphere, hmmmm?  Indeed, it more resembles a Tesla Tower than anything else.  In real life it is the Whiteford Point lighthouse off the Gower Peninsula in Wales, put up to mark the dangerous Whiteford Point shoals.  Most unusually, it is constructed of cast iron rather than the usual stone, and has been standing for over 150 years.  If the fancy takes one, it can be walked to at low tide.

     Do you know, it was the troops of Perfidious Albion with matches who transformed the White House into a Light House.  Heh.

     Motley!  Come be a test subject for this coal-flavoured ice cream.  Don't wolf it all down at once, now.

"The War Illustrated"

We have now caught up to the actual publication date of 27/11/1942 as seen on the front of this fortnightly work, for which we are all grateful.  Art!

The RAF's Giant Flying Mallets of Bomber Command

     When I say GFM I mean the Avro Lancaster, the Brylcreem Boy's weapon of choice.  The caption says there are 47 of them present, which we have to take on trust, although Your Humble Scribe did get to at least 40.  That's over 85 tons of bad news about to be delivered.  In this instance it was on the Schneider arsenal at Le Creusot, i.e. in France, which was working for the Teuton war effort.  Safe to say the arsenal did not work as efficiently after this visit with prejudice as it did before.  Art!

     The raid put the factory out of action completely for 3 weeks, and repairs were still going on eight months later, nearing completion - at which point the RAF came back and repeated the process.  Heh.

"Warriors For The Working Day" By Peter Elstob

Another unjustly forgotten work re-printed by the Imperial War Museum, this one concerns a tank crew just prior to D-Day and the campaign afterwards.  The reason I mention it after only just beginning to read it is down to a catering note.  One of the tank crew offers to make 'Burgoo' whilst they are stopped.  Conrad immediately pictures a gigantic cooking vessel with at least a stone of meat and vegetables simmering for hours -

     But no.  This is not the South Canadian 'roadkill stew'.  It is a vile-sounding porridge made by cooking army oatmeal biscuits in milk over a primus stove <shudders at this being called 'porridge'>, the resulting concoction being mashed up.  Art!

Burgoo

The Mayhem And Misery Multiplies! - "Tormentor"

CAUTION! The following is in quite the opposite spirit of BOOJUM! and consists of horror themes and the supernatural.  Do not read it expecting a load of non sequiteurs and puns.  It's what I wrote at least 6 years ago but more probably 12 or so.

‘Might she have gone to see a boyfriend?  Not wanted her mother to know?’

              Louis shook his head emphatically.

              ‘Hardly!  She’s a sensible and well-behaved girl, not some airheaded bimbo.  Besides, I’d pull his arms and legs off if he tried to get her over there in secret.’

              There were a few other inconsequential questions before both police officers stood and made to leave, followed by Louis, chewing his lip .  Once in the hallway at the door, as if on a whim, the male turned to Louis.

              ‘You wouldn’t mind if we just had a quick look around your house, would you, Mister McMahon?’

              ‘Yes I b***** well would mind!’ he snorted.  ‘You haven’t got a search warrant, have you?  So I could say “No”.’  Before either officer could speak he continued.  ‘But I won’t.  Go on. Search away.’

              They were discreet and quick, only returning to ask if he could open the garage door.

              ‘Not easily,’ he replied, frowning.  ‘I need to find the keys.’

              Five minutes of searching in kitchen drawers revealed the keys to the main garage door and the smaller access door. Louis led the constables out and they inspected the empty, dusty, mouldy garage.

              ‘Park on the road?’ asked the male officer.

              ‘No car,’ growled Louis.

              Neither seemed convinced of his innocence, from what he could see of their reactions.  They took their leave, then went to visit the old bat, Mrs Ingle, who lived opposite.  Louis felt a nasty satisfying twist of relish when he realised the old cow would be watching the constables leave his residence – and approach her.

              ‘Serves her right,’ he muttered.  For all the whisky he’d consumed, he didn’t feel at all drunk, merely malicious.

     One hopes you are picking up on allusions to cars and the past.

"Dear Earth, Having A Smashing Time"

Also on a serious theme, we here at BOOJUM! have gone on at length about the risk of collision with Near Earth Objects, and how early detection is critical: the further off the potential impact is, the less effort is needed to steer any impactors away from an intercepting orbit.

     Can we steer any such sky rocks away?  The NASA DART mission intends to find out.  "Double Asteroid Redirection Test" before you ask and Conrad wonders if there's a place for him at NASA coming up with these names and acronyms, because he's

DART

     The idea is that DART is going to target the smaller of a binary asteroid pair, this system being named Didymos.  NASA is able to track both very precisely, so when DART smacks the oof out of hits the smaller body at 5 miles per second in September next year, it will affect the orbit.  Not by much - yet still an affect, which is just what you want.  NASA telescopes will be watching closely.

*  I think that's pretty clever myself, even if Ol' Virgie would definitely sniff at it.

Eye Eye Didn't Expect THAT!

If You See What I Mean

O! how hilarious I am.  Just not today.  Let us get into this Intro without further ado.  Conrad went for a diabetic eye-test on Thursday (hence today's title) which involves having stinging liquid drops THE PAIN THE PAIN put in one's eyes, after which you hang around whilst your pupils dilate.  Then you go back and get insanely bright lights flashed in your eyes.  O and the nurse keeps asking for your date of birth, because of course - obviously! - there are many elderly men out there with a white moustache who might try impersonating Conrad.  Art!

Either Conrad or John Bolton.  It's not clear which.

     Actually it is; that's John Bolton, South Canadian politician and frankly Conrad is glad he's out of office, because he'd inevitably get mistaken for him on the 409 bus, and violence would ensue.

     ANYWAY the practice nurse queried whether I was travelling home by bus and I said yes, because I was; I've got a weekly pass and intend to get value out of it.  "Good," she explained, because the Tropicamide used for eye-drops is now classed as a controlled drug, and if the police happened to stop Conrad whilst driving they'd not fail to notice those enlarged pupils, and he could get charged with being a junkie drug fiend.  As if!

Conrad inhaling food, not drugs

     Pshaw! was my response, until I got home and did a bit of Google-fu.

     DOG BUNS UND KREPLACH!  Art!

     The Ruffians, who are not known for being sensible in the first place (lethal selfies, anyone? or that dreadful Krakodil shizzle?) are injecting Tropicamide as a cheap way of getting high, which of course - obviously! - Conrad would never do, as he is a massive coward who is scared of needles.  Not to mention it would be complete guesswork as to what the difference between an intoxicating dose and a lethal one is and you only need to make that error once in order to never make it again.  Conrad happy to stick to caffeine and alcohol*!

     Motley, have you seen that horse-syringe lying around The Mansion?

That's the one!

My Anchor Is Rancour

(They are pronounced the same)  I use this title because, as you should surely know by now, it takes little more than waking up to put Conrad in a festering, apoplectic rage; there doesn't have to be an initial reason, I'll find one soon enough.  For Lo! we are back on Codewords, one of my most productive and content-generating regulars, not least because the solutions come up so randomly.

"BORDEREAU":  Confess!  You've never heard this word before, have you?  Neither had Your Humble Scribe, despite being extensively read.  At first I wondered if it was an heraldic device, or a fabric pattern, or even a cake.  Not so.  Let us consult that touchstone of sanity, the Collins Concise <clears throat in attempt to seem more impressive>: crickets and tumbleweed.

     Okay, teh Interwebz then <grumbles at having to slum it>: A bordereau is a memorandum or invoice prepared for a company by an underwriter, containing a list of reinsured risks

     It's French for "Slip".  Art!

O what the heck.  A bordereau would be boring as ballfoot.

"AVERMENTS": What-ments?  Once again, have you ever read this word in a book, a magazine or a paper?  Of course - obviously! - not!  And I bet you've never used it in conversation, either, because it would have gone out of use in the eighteenth century amid the Age Of Reason.  Let us cautiously approach the Collins Concise: "A positive statement".  A noun derived from "Avers".  To which I am AVERSE**!  Art?

A positive statement slip

    
"LOQUAT": What Quat?  No - I seem to have a dim and distant recollection that the 3 Mustapha 3 mentioned this in a song, and it was a tree.  Is it perhaps a kind of fruit?  Far distant cousin of the mangosteen?  Art!

Orange mangosteen

     Ooops!  No, that was a slip of the keyboard, those are definitely loquats, even if they do indeed resemble an orange mangosteen.

     O!  That was such a good guess I forgot to be angry!  Hang on -

     I AM VERY VERY CROSS!!

Talking Of Food -

Yes, back to the fascinating and horrifying adulterations that villainous Victorian victual vendors used to resort to in the pursuit of profit over human life.  Here's the next heavy metal poison they resorted to:  Art!

Yellow colouration courtesy Lead Chromate

     It's perfectly fine to use LC to paint a bus, as one does not see small children nor grown adults trying to like said pigment off the sides.  However, it is entirely unacceptable to have it worked into mustard; lead, as we have already learned, is a HIGHLY TOXIC HEAVY METAL***.  It was mixed in, for your information, to give it a bright yellow colour.

     The same was done with snuff - and that is bordering on bad taste (do you see what I - O you do) so we end this item here.

"Tormentor" Begins To Live Down To It's Name

Luma has just gone to hopefully answer a knock on his front door, hoping that his missing ward Jennifer has turned up.  Nope.

No.  The two callers were uniformed police constables, a man and woman, both looking professionally detached and emotionless.

‘Mister McMahon?’ confirmed the male officer.  ‘I wonder if you would mind helping us with a few questions.’

‘Would I mind?’ asked Louis, belligerently.  ‘Yes I would.  You ought to be out looking for Jen.’

‘Other people are doing that, sir,’ said the female constable.  ‘We’re here because you were the last person to see Miss Hargreaves.’

Louis fumed momentarily on the doorstep, whisky coursing around his brain.  Oh, why not let them in.

‘Come inside then,’ he told them, with bad grace.  ‘In here.’

He told them the usual arrangement, that Jen would arrive at six promptly, depart at seven after he rang Angela to warn of her daughter’s imminent arrival, whilst he watched her walk to the top of the road.  From the corner where she vanished from sight to her back door was fifty yards if she went down the alleyway, seventy five yards if she went round on to the main road to the front door.

‘Why wouldn’t she use the back alley?’ asked the male officer, his female counterpart keeping a close eye on Louis.

‘It’s dark, and muddy when it’s been raining.  People let their dogs run up and down it and drunken chavs hang about there.’

‘Do you live alone, Mister McMahon?’ asked the male constable.

‘Yes,’ said Louis, his tone daring them to ask more.  The officer glanced at the pair of framed photos that sat on top of the mantlepiece, and decided not to press the point.

‘Did anyone see Miss Hargreaves leave?’ asked the female officer.

‘No – oh, maybe.  The nosey old bat opposite keeps close tabs on me.’

              ‘We’ve got a description of Jennifer’s clothing from Mrs Hargreaves.  Any other identifying feature you can think of?’

              ‘Her bag.  It was bright dayglo yellow.’

     Remember that detail about the bag.  Unlike BOOJUM!'s cheerily irrelevant nonsense, this is a pretty dark fable.

Finally -

We have hit the Compositional Ton, so time for me to stop typing and start drinking - - polishing!  Polishing my shoes!  That's what I meant, honest ...

*  Not nicotine.  It's disgusting.

**  Ha!  Take that, language!

***  The Persian Pustule screams and bans BOOJUM! at this point