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The Consequences Of Having A Retentive Memory
As you should surely know by now, Your Humble Scribe has a mind like a skip; there's all sorts of rubbish in there, going back decades, as well as newer stuff that's only just arrived. Occasionally there's a crack of lightning, a whiff of sulphur and an actinic flash as a connection is made (dead poetic, hmmm?). Which is what happened this morning. Art!
It will make sense. Eventually
There I was, perusing "Into The Unknown", about Nigel Kneale, and his deceased father-in-law (Alfred Kerr) happened to have a posthumous success with a collection of his literary works. So much so that Ol' Nige proposed that there be an award given annually in his name: the Alfred Kerr Darstellerpreis. His FIL was German, in case you were wondering. Art!
Ping!
It would seem that "Darsteller" is Teuton for "Actor", at which point Conrad immediately recalls "The Darfsteller" by Walter M. Miller*, which he read once as a teenager (so a long time ago). The title is a conflation of 'Darsteller' and "Darf", which means "To wig out and do one's thing". It involves a live human actor taking the place of a robot actor, which he had sabotaged, and he ends up getting shot - can't remember if fatally or not, hence that book cover above. It won awards. Conrad wasn't impressed**; even so, you know, that old retentive memory. A blessing and a curse.
And no, you're thinking of "Selective Memory" by Eels.
Blimey. For the first time in over two years I've had a bowl of porridge in the office and am now officially a-swill with porridge and tea.
This Mince Will Make You Wince
Conrad, in search of something or other, came across an eye-opening web article on deliberate food contamination during the Victorian era. This kind of adulteration was very common indeed, at a time when there were absolutely no health standards, and is one of the reasons The Co-Operative Society came into being. One of the commonest adulterations was of milk, which was diluted to go further, the shortfall disguised by the addition of water and chalk. Art!
Yes, strychnine, the INCREDIBLY POISONOUS extract from the Nux Vomica tree. Art!
Erk. You see, unscrupulous publicans would dilute their beer to get pounds from pennies, except diluted bitter would lose it's tell-tale bitterness. Strychnine to the rescue! because it is disgustingly bitter to taste - take this as read and do not experiment yourself - and the diluted dishwater would taste authentic.
O, the mince? Well, up to a quarter of all meat sold came from animals that had died from disease. Art!
Heartbreak steak
You Couldn't Make It Up
Because people wouldn't believe it. There is, lest you be as unaware as I was, a thriving heavy metal scene in Iran, of all places. This is despite the theological dictatorship hating HATING HATING all Western music, and heavy metal most of all because of it's association with blasphemous lyrics and imagery. One feels that one of these odious imamic bodgers would keel over and die if they had to attend a Norwegian death-metal concert. Art!
CAUTION! This means ten years in jail and a public flogging
The HM band Arsames recently fled Iran rather than face public floggings and 15 years in jail for playing heavy metal. Dearie me, I wonder what they'd mete out to Ozzie Osbourne? Death, probably, and then they'd try to resurrect him a few more times so they could kill him again. Art!
Female HM band members are flouting rules that forbid them from singing in public or with a mixed-gender audience.
Well, it's nice to see the younger generation living down to the rock and roll rebel role, especially in such a turgid toxic dictatorship. After all, one way to make heavy metal popular is to ban it, because then people start to get curious.
Christougenniatikophobia - the morbid fear of Christmas. Just so you know.
Dispensing Destruction
Allow me to put up another of the large physical exhibits from Imperial War Museum North - rather surprised they retained the "Imperial" in this O-so-PC age as it's bound to offend someone - even if it comes with puny human attached for scale. Art!
This, gentle reader, is the adopted and adapted 57 mm <hack spit> gun from the Teuton Terror Tractor the A7V, of First Unpleasantness vintage. Art!
An A7V with it's 25 man crew - gun to port
Basically an armoured box on a couple of tractor tracks. It was not a success as it tended to fall over or get stuck. Mind you, with 25 crew they might have a chance of pulling it either upright or free. O and they cut corners with the gun, too, because they were 'pre-owned' by the Ruffians.
More Of - "Tormentor"
Nobody's bothered to Comment about these inserts - which have the fabulously coincidental effect of boosting the word count - so, here we are again.
Jennifer nodded.
‘Okay, I shall try to be less predictable. Before you go, is there anything you’d like
to say about the revision so far?’
The teenager rolled her eyes, thinking.
‘Welllll – the only thing is that I never realised how
much politics there was in Gulliver’s Travels.’
Louis beamed in happy agreement.
‘Dead to rights!
You can work all sorts of contemporary allusions into work about
Gulliver, and I guarantee that goes down well with the exam board. It’s a shame you didn’t get “Frankenstein” as
a set text. You can read whatever you
want into that.’
‘Mary Shelley,’ replied Jennifer instantly. ‘Proto-feminist of the nineteenth century.’
Louis tutted in amusement.
‘That would be a degree-level thesis! Don’t bite off more than you can chew, okay?’
‘You’re such a stern tutor. Not!’ she teased, gathering her notes
together.
‘Hey hey, remember you’re getting this tutoring to
help with coursework and exams, not to blind the panel with your sheer
brilliance. Walking before running.’
He saw her out onto the front doorstep, and she
reached up to give him a goodbye peck on the cheek.
‘Careful!’ he whispered. ‘That nosey old bag across the road is
watching us.’ The curtains in the house
opposite had given the tell-tale twitch, allowing early-evening interior
lighting to be seen for a split-second.
That prescient analysis of "Gulliver's Travels" is absolutely spot-on, I'll have you know. There is a great deal of satirical intent in the novel, bordering on Politics, at which point we shall stop. Art!
Finally -
We have well and truly hit the Compositional Ton, thanks to the above. So what can I wibble about here? Aha! "Leviathan Falls", due out at the end of this month. In case you've been living in a sealed research lab on the ocean floor, you will know that this is the 9th and last in "The Expanse" series, and it has a lot of loose ends to tie up. Or it may not tie them all up. Art!
If you recall, the Laconians had been VERY VERY UNWISELY using Protomolecular engineering technology, for a couple of decades. This had the unfortunate effect of awaking whatever it was that had wiped out the Engineers, and it's temper had not improved in the two billion years since it was last around -
Oooer Matron!
* People usually add "Junior" but since I've never encountered his dad, I'm not going to, because I'm horrid that way.
** There were no ray guns! There were no rockets! There were no slimy green tentacled aliens!
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