First Of All, Might As Well Get This Out Of The Way -
Conrad is seething, positively seething, with apocalyptic anger. I can't remember why, but if you give me a minute or two I'm sure I can find something to be irate about.
The weather won't work. We are used to living at the bottom of a lake at this time of year. Manchester - a.k.a. City Beneath The Sea. Art!
I think that's pretty clever, myself
Rather more exciting and glamourous than Gomorrah-in-the-Irwell, one has to admit, whose grey grimy grotty gargoyle-ish grimness is only exacerbated* by copious amounts of rain.
Ah! Codewords. One of our persistent themes here, even more persistent than the rain <okay enough about rain we now understand Manchester is wet, move on and don't bore your audience**> which po - hang on, has that piker Mister Hand been interfering? <very long swearing session> WITH SQUID INK!
Ahem <pause to compose self> yes. Let us look to the word "RAPTORIAL" because those numpties at the M.E.N. had this as a Codeword solution. Be strong, Conrad, be strong, don't let loose with the Remote Nuclear Detonator***. Let us resort to that touchstone of sanity, the Collins Concise: "1) (Of the feet of birds) adapted for seizing prey 2) Of or relating to birds of prey".
I'll go raptorial on their hideously hairy hindquarters! Art!
Well yes, these feet seem extremely well-designed at clutching prey in a death-grip. It's not clear why the osprey, a fish-hunting bird, differs from the rest in the 3-1 outlay of talons. Ornithologists, now is your moment to shine!
Here an aside. Yes, an aside. I can aside if I want to, it's my blog. In Robert McCammon's "Swan Song" - an enjoyable post-apocalyptic horror story that will, eventually, get made into a mini-series - and here we pause for Art -
Pretty accurate cover, actually
- he uses the acronym TALONS as short-hand for "TActical LOng-range Nuclear Sanitiser", which is utter nonsense. NONSENSE! If it's 'Tactical' then it is NOT 'Long Range'. Not at the ranges we're talking here, which are inter-continental in nature. "Thermonuclear Attack" is a whole lot more plausible. You may thank my worryingly complete knowledge of nuclear weapons and warfighting later.
In the meantime I have a cake to check on! Catch you in a few minutes.
You know, it doesn't look bad, for a chap who's only baked once in the past year-and-a-half. Art!
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| Blueberry and soured cream loaf |
From the Humming Bird Bakery recipe book. Their recipes are a bit more of a faff to work to than other recipe books, but the end result is delicious. SO I AM TOLD THANK YOU SO MUCH DIABETES. My reason for creating this cake tonight and hopefully another one tomorrow is spending a day on the 18th floor with Colleague Services; naked bribery, in other words.
Of course we can't leave it there. O no! You see, the name "Raptorial" is OF COURSE - OBVIOUSLY! - derived from the Latin, "Raptor" which means "Robber" and not "Squeaky giant lizards who get the better of Bob Peck". Art!
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| Watch out, lizards |
"Raptor" itself comes from the Latin for "Robber" which is "Rapere", so all those squeaky killer lizards cannot claim to be holding the moral high ground.
Motley, have you chiselled the Magma Moat empty yet? Because Your Humble Scribe feels edgily aware that there are far too many steam locomotives in the vicinity.
Roel's Goals
Are quite possibly to have directorial approval over the next Hollywood film that tries to depict armed combat in the pre-gunpowder era, namely from about 3500 BC to circa 1350 AD. You can amend those dates with whatever dating convention you like.
Roel!
ANYWAY we are back with our ancient battle specialist, who probably made the caveat that we have only limited evidence of how Tactic X and Unit Y actually interacted in Battle J (I like to mix it up a bit), which Insider got rid of as what they want is Action! Art?
How is Clive Owen not King Of Hollywood?
This is, pretty obviously, a battle on an iced-over lake. And, since it is patently This Sceptred Isle, you could be talking about nine months of the year. Roel points out that an iced-over surface offers a nice flat battlefield where you don't need to worry about enemy concealed in highs and lows or behind that copse over there, and that such battles did actually happen. Art!
"Aim for the wings. Make them cluster!"
Roel is, unusually, in agreement with the tactics here, where the archers are seeking to compress the enemy formation and hopefully negate some of it's numerical superiority. Art!
ART!
- hang on -
I have never seen the film, yet I guarantee those bad guys end up crashing through the ice and drowning. Conrad is also impressed that the two forces here do not number in the tens of thousands - you can have epoch-making events with relatively small forces involved. Which Roel either forgot to say, or was edited out.
I Bake Of Cake
Lockdown has not been kind to Conrad's baking skills. As you should surely know, Your Modest Artisan is completely inept and hopeless when it comes to matters practical, except in the field of baking, where he has a 20 year history, ever since I crawled downstairs with flu and decided that, unable to get back upstairs, Chocolate Brownies seemed an appropriate refuge -
Art!
I also bought enough ingredients today to make a Yoghurt, Almond and Orange Cake, once again to the Humming Bird Bakery recipe, which will have to wait until tomorrow to be realised. The question is, do I curry favour with future employees, or leave past colleagues with fond memories? Last conference call that we had our boss, Richard, did mention Conrad and cakes in the same sentence - I would like to leave behind sweet memories.
Finally -
Can't hang around tooooo long; since I have to be up before the crack of dawn tomorrow I need a shower tonight, and I can't leave it until last thing or my hair looks like a birds-nest the next morning. And the larks would definitely comment on my commute in.
* I was well aware of this word before "Sean Of The Dead" thanks very much.
** The hideous truth courtesy of Mister Hand!
*** It is so, so tempting. That big red button. Pleading to be used. Pleading!
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