"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!