The Foggy Foggy Blew

Once Again Conrad Proves What A Terrible Person He Is

But we knew that already, didn't we?  Because it's New Year's Eve I will mercifully refrain from Remote Nuclear Detonating those who point out I have mangled the title of that (awful and horrid) English folk song "The Foggy Foggy Dew".  Me being abstemious will only be for today, tomorrow we go right back on the annihilating schedule again.  Art!

     Nope, this is nothing to do with the Intro, it's just here to act as clickbait.  See how honest I am in defrauding you?  As an aside, Conrad notes that the dreaded Brass Bra Of Sci-Fi Beauties strikes again.  Your Humble Scribe has never worn one but would imagine they are far less comfortable than the underwired cotton version.

     ANYWAY we are here about one of the later entries in "Bermuda Triangle; Mystery Solved" by Larry Kusche, namely the V. A. Fogg, which was involved in a calamitous accident that killed all on board in 1972.  This meant there wasn't much time for it to be incorporated into the Triangle Myth by the time BTMS was published, yet Lazz included it in the certain knowledge that it would, eventually, be attributed to the <exaggerated air quotes> Mysteries Of The Triangle.  Art!

The V A Fogg

     The thing is, this beast sank just off Galveston, Texas, well on the other side of the Florida peninsula, hundreds of miles beyond The Triangle.  In fact, do we have a map to illustrate the point?  Art!

V A Fogg would be in square 56

     There's no special mystery about what happened to the vessel.  She had put out to sea in order to flush out her tanks of benzene residues, because benzene is HIGHLY FLAMMABLE and you don't carry out this kind of maintenance work in a port or harbour.  There is some speculation as to whether sparks from her funnel ignited the benzene, or if a 'Red Devil Blower', as used to vent fumes from cargo tanks, might have shorted and thus created a spark.  Art!

A Red Devil, blowing

     The explosion was so large it was heard ashore, 50 miles away, and created a mushroom cloud two miles high (this is why such tank-flushing is done out at sea).  Expect some ghouls trying to see more books to describe this tragedy as 'mysterious' and 'inexplicable', and generally drape it in woo-woo.  Don't worry, once I take over and all musicals are banned, those woo-woo promoters will be up for the organ banks*.

"Love And Monsters"

Conrad is now able to view Netflix on a large monitor, which makes a lot of difference to the viewing as the screen is easily nine times the size of my modest laptop.  Thus I have been binging a little quite a bit okay a whole lot.  Thus we come to LAM, which I finished watching last night.  An unpretentious little sci-fi adventure film, with a nice animated opening sequence.  Art!

     The central conceit is that a whole host of nuclear missiles were launched to intercept and destroy Earth-impacting asteroid Agatha 616, and their exhaust fumes then caused all cold-blooded creatures to mutate into enormous bloodthirsty beasts.

     Yeah, except no.  That's not how mutation works; it doesn't transform a creature overnight.  Not only that, giant insects would collapse under their own weight whilst suffocating.  Art

     There's a reason you don't see beetles as big as a car, and it's nothing to do with missile exhaust fumes, which are far more likely to kill you dead than transform you into The Incredulous Bulk.

     Besides that, an enjoyable romp.

Here's Some Literary Monsters

Yes, another thrilling extract from "Tormentor" and no, I still cannot remember why it got called same.  

Louis stopped to think.  This entity, which had been Jennifer, was now learning what her human counterpart could not have done.  The spirit was developing, growing, learning.

‘How many other spirits are there?’

‘Hundreds.  Thousands.  Maybe hundreds of thousands.  They live all over the place.’

Typical teenage exaggeration! dismissed Louis.  If there really were that many of them then he’d have seen them.

‘I have a suggestion to make, given your ability to be present and invisible.’

‘Oho, Luma, you don’t want me to catch you looking at porn on the internet!’

‘Behave.  If you are present in the house, turn Jackie’s photograph to face the window.  Turn it back to face the kitchen when you leave.’

The spirit made a face at him.

‘I still can’t accept this, not really.’

‘You will when the police catch my killer,’ replied Jen, with vigour.  ‘I’ll get my revenge then, just you wait and see.’

To find out what had happened in the case so far, Louis went to check out the local newspaper’s website.  “Police still searching” read the headline.  No details about how Jennifer had been killed, nor about the killer beyond that vague description concerning clothing. 

‘I have a favour to ask you.  Tomorrow I go into college to try and teach a class of idiots who can barely breathe, let alone read.  I could do with your support in the classroom.’

Privately, Louis wondered if he wasn’t risking punishment in the fires of eternal damnation by co-opting a spirit into tertiary college tuition practice.

     Perhaps because Luma is a tormented soul?  Or - O I give up.  Make your own reason up.

Conrad Is Still Seething! 

Just not as much as before, since I've just done the three Codewords in the MEN's puzzle pages and cannot find anything to fault about them.

     For the weeks preceding these, however - O boy do I have complaints!

"KUMQUAT": For those who are not as sfisticated as what I am, these are miniature citrus fruits that you eat whole, pith, peel, pips and pulp.  They're pretty exotic and not normally seen in the fruit bowl of your average British family.  Plus it includes two of the least-used letters in Codeword-ology**, "K" and "Q" which makes it MOST UNFAIR.  Art!

With human hand for scale

"ACME":  I know what you're thinking, "O yes, that company featured in all the Roadrunner cartoons, that Wily E Coyote buys remarkable products from.***"

     WRONG.  My Collins Concise defines it as achieving the ultimate in perfection and OF COURSE it comes from the Greek, "Akme".  Art!

The acme of cartoons

"BEBOP":  A word Your Humble Scribe is only familiar with thanks to a live-action version of "Bebop Cowboy" being bruited about at present, which The Critical Drinker typically detests with not only every fibre of his being, but yours as well.

     I think this version is to do with jazz and am too angry at their using a word with two "B"s to go look it up.  Art!

This version is the real deal, apparently

Finally -

You recall, I hope, Conrad's gloasting about finding a Polish-language newspaper when browsing at the Co-Op?  I'm sure we can dig out a couple of pictures for you.  Art!

     In the first picture, that title means "Polish Weekly" and the artwork is for "Girl Scout Angels".  Bottom picture translates as "Tobruk and it's victories", except I had to ignore the Polish for 'Tobruk' because that literally translates as 'Pavement'.  Slow work, indeed.  I shall let you know how I get on.

Chin chin!

*  Under anaesthetic or not?  I haven't decided yet.

**  If this gets to be a word, I want royalties.

***  Despite NOT HAVING A PAYING JOB!  Whose credit card is he abusing?

No Sno' In Low Blow

Watch It

I've already Remote Nuclear Detonated five people who were harping on about a spelling mistake, so be advised my itchy button-pushing finger remains POISED.

     NO, that's not a typo.  It comes because I was reading an account of yet another 'mysterious disappearance' in the Bermuda Triangle, as reviewed by Larry Kusche, who actually went to the bother of digging up the full story (in his work "Bermuda Triangle, Mystery Solved").  He tells the tale of the 'Sno' Boy', a repurposed air-sea rescue craft, turned into a chartered fishing vessel.  Art!

ART!

     I do apologise - he got another cheesecake calendar of (the unquestionably sultry) Mara Corday as a Christmas present.  He'll get Tazered later, I'm busy creating right now.

     There are no pictures of the Sno' Boy, but that above is a South Canadian air-sea rescue boat, which will give you an idea of the dimensions and size of a 63 foot boat.  It was purchased and converted by one Boyd Snow (so you can see where the name comes from, ingenious, hmmm?) with sufficient accommodation for seven people, including the crew.

     When the boat set out from Kingston, Jamaica, the weather was good, yet she never returned <cue spooky music> from a journey of only 160 miles, almost as if she'd been ... abducted -

     Pshaw, right.

Kingston

     What the myth-makers leave out is that search planes and ships from the South Canadian Coastguard and Navy found lots of debris from the boat (including a tabletop with the boat's name upon it) and even spotted a body, but couldn't retrieve it.

     It also had fifty five people aboard.  Conrad has found a couple of websites that detail how to work out the safe carrying capacity of a boat, and this one should have had no more than FIFTEEN people aboard.  Fifteen people weighing an average of 150 lbs each* comes to about a ton.  I couldn't find anything listing how large a freight capacity the boat would have had, so we'll just double the allowance for people, thus making a total of three tons total.  Art!

Just a reminder about size again

     All those extra people increase the weight to over three and a half tons.  O, and Lazz states that she was also carrying nineteen tons of ice.  O, and ninety-nine 35 gallon drums of fuel on the deck, which comes to another twelve tons.  Besides 50 rolls of bamboo.  O, and sixty-six 35 gallon drums of water, which is another eight tons, again on deck.  That brings it to 42 tons.  The Coastguard described Sno' Boy as "tremendously overloaded", and definitely top-heavy given all the deck cargo.  Even a slight swell would have capsized her and she would have had little freeboard (i.e. how high the hull is out of the water).  All together now, "What can possibly go wrong?"

     Okay, taking a short pause from creating words of wit, wisdom and wonkiness to pick up my Tazers and teach Art a lesson.

O Go On Then: The Sinisters And "The War Illustrated"

Because they complain so if not mentioned prominently.  Art!

     As of this issue's date, 25/12/1942, things at Stalingrad (now Volgagrad - do keep up!) had got a quantum level worse for the Teutons.  The attempted relief attack to raise the siege had failed a couple of days earlier.  Not only that, the main airbase at Tatsinskya had been over-run by the Red Army, with 72 transport aircraft being lost.  This meant having to fly from much further away, limiting the amount of freight that could be carried into the city.  Very much an Oooer Matron moment, and not in a good way.

     There, Dimya, are you happy now?  You can stop your snivelling and put that soggy hanky away.

Back To More Of "Tormentor"

Even a mundane bus ride or walk home can be a little adventure when you're being escorted by a spirit that only you can see or hear.

After leaving the bus at his stop on the main road, Louis held a hand to his ear.  He wanted to talk to Jennifer, who had followed him off the bus.

‘What are you doing?’ she asked.

‘Pretending to talk to a mobile phone, so I can talk to you without seeming like a raving nutter.’

‘That’s clever.  No wonder I came to you for lessons.’

To get to Baytree Avenue and thence to Kensington meant passing by Jennifer’s home.  Louis slowed down whilst walking past the windows, not daring to knock on the door and offer condolences.

‘Have you been in?’

‘No,’ replied the spirit, sadly.  ‘They couldn’t see or hear me.  It would only make me feel bad without having any benefit.’

They had to pass the shrine of flowers and notes left at the entrance to the fatal alley-way.  Louis noticed that the small and discreet card he’d made lay atop everything else.

‘Did you - ’

‘Yes.  Just to show how much I appreciate it.’

There were no teenage lads hanging around ready to cause trouble, nor any graffiti, nor thrown paint, outside his house today.

‘If I were there, they’d have suffered!’ hissed the spirit.

Louis refrained from comment, aware that he was close to the neighbours on either side and that nosey old bat across the road might also be watching.  Once inside, he threw himself down on the settee and sighed hugely.  The spirit threw herself down alongside him and sighed, too.

‘So.  How has your morning been?’ asked Louis.

‘So-so,’ replied the spirit.  ‘I’ve learned how to listen for you across the void, and how to unsettle other people – like that man on the bus.’

     Lots more to come as nobody has yet said "STOP!  Just, please, STOP!" which is, of course - obviously! - exactly the same as saying "YES!  Keep on with it!  We cannot get enough!"

<looks out of window>

     What a dirty day it is.  The kind of day where you need to keep the lights on from dawn to dusk.  Speaking of which -

Someone's Going To Get Fired As A New Year's Gift

Let me just present a picture that tells a story in eight words.  Art!

Ooops!
(Please, no 'Santa' jokes)

     Conrad read that 75,000 accounts were credited with money, which would come to £1733.33 per customer if they're all credited equally.  The tricky bit is that the recipients are mostly rival banks, not Santander, which makes it much harder to claw back the money.  The error is stated to have happened "when payments from 2,000 business accounts were made twice".  Who managed to bodge that up, then?  Don't they have any kind of audit procedure?  If they do it's not fit for purpose.

     Conrad used to have a Santander account.  I'd better go see if anything surprising has landed.

Finally -

Your Humble Scribe is lazily munching his way through a looooong lunch, including a chicken ciabatta roll, thanks to Wonder Wifey declaring "This chicken's rank - I know, we'll give it to Rob!".  Refuse nothing but blows.  It smelt fine to me, anyway, and of course because there's 1) Food and 2) Meat involved, a certain small domesticated wolf has been gazing despondently at me.

     And with that, Vulnavia, we are done.

*  None of that metric drivel here!  Imperial all the way!

A Rabbit Hole Ten Miles Deep

Okay, I Exaggerate

Nine miles deep.  Get a drink and a pack of crystallised ginger to munch on, this will take a while.  You ought to remember that Your Humble Scribe was banging on about Benjamin Bathurst, a British diplomat who vanished in 1809 whilst on a mission in Prussia, an event which sparked countless fanciful tales speculating wildly about what befell him.  Robbery and murder, actually, not kidnap by Wonder Weasels From Erewhon.  Art!

Regardless of how many eyes they possess

     In other words, a completely manufactured mystery.  Naturally, Conrad's thoughts wandered, as they are wont to do, and he remembered that excellent skeptical resource "Bermuda Triangle: Mystery Solved" by Larry Kusche.  This is a case-by-case dismantling of the myth that there is anything unusual occurring within the Bermuda Triangle.  You know, a deliberately manufactured conspiracy.  I fancied re-reading it - but where could it be?

     Aha!  It was literally the first book that came to light when I emptied my giant (now im-)mobile book case, so I put it aside and have been re-reading it.  Very interesting stuff.  Ol' Laz decided to go back to sources, checking newspaper reports of the day, as well as checking meteorological records, and cross-checking between the two.  Art!

My edition, from Dillons
(When they were still a thing)

     I am currently on the entry for the Carroll A. Deering, a five-masted schooner discovered to be run aground on the Diamond Shoals in 1921.  Despite heavy sees a search party got aboard and found her abandoned with her lifeboats gone.  Art!

The Deering, doing some steering

     Here an aside.  The Diamond Shoals are very dangerous rocks off the coast of Cape Hatteras, South Canada, long recognised as a navigation hazard.  They were marked by lightships until 1966, as the first attempt to build a lighthouse there failed miserably, when a form of lighthouse known as a 'Texas Tower' was erected on the shoals.  Art!

     It was decommissioned in 2001, then put up for auction in 2012 and purchased by a chap who said he'd renovate it.  We may come back to check on him.

     ANYWAY, back to the Deering.  None of the crew were ever found again.  The most likely explanation, backed up by documents and baggage removed from the ship, is that the crew abandoned her in the midst of a severe storm, took to the lifeboats and were then lost at sea.  It is also possible that another vessel which  sank in the severe storms wracking the area at that time, the Hewitt, had seen the Deering's distress beacons and had recovered the lifeboat evacuees.  O unfunny irony.  Art!

Not looking so hot

     Of course - obviously! - when there was a perfectly rational explanation, people made a real effort to come up with ridiculous ones, because human nature.  Such as: mutiny, hijacking, piracy, rum-runners, Communist conspiracy to hijack, one-eyed wonder weasels or other paranormal explanations.  No evidence to back up any of them, mind you, apart from various swivel-eyed loons listening to the voices in their head.

     Motley!  We're going to replicate the CAD by towing you on a rope across the pool and onto a large, strategically-placed rock.

Let's Continue With Spooky Themes

No, not time for "Tormentor" yet, I refer to another 'Brocken Spectre" image on the BBC's page about such phenomena.  It's rare and they like to publish when they can, if you the public manage to snap a shot of them.  Art!

Courtesy Steve Churchill

     This shot is from Lord's Seat in the Hope Valley, in the Peak District, so a different location from yesteryon's shot.  One can imagine getting quite a start if you witnessed such a phenomenon without understanding what it is.

     Conrad vaguely remembers reading an article in the children's magazine "Tell Me Why" about this effect, with a horribly creepy picture that completely mis-represented the actual effect - a ghastly caricature of a person floating a few feet in front of a pair of mountain climbers.  Brrrr!

Now "Tormentor"

The practical difficulties of communicating with a spirit invisible and inaudible to everyone else.

Louis wandered off to the staffroom, picking up mail from the Bursar’s office in his pigeonhole.

‘You’re a rare bird here on a Monday.  What happened – wet the bed?’ asked a tutor he barely knew.

‘Just stay there till I come back with a gun,’ he replied, flipping through other mail and concentrating on it, rather than the other tutor.  ‘Dum-dum bullets.  It’ll hurt a lot.’

The tutor had gone when he looked up, maybe out of fear, maybe out of need to get to lecture room.

‘Another job well done,’ he remarked to himself, and the pensive stares of other staff.

 

The bus back home got stuck in traffic, so he had time to ponder – or would have done, if the spirit hadn’t turned up and sat next to him.

‘Hello!’ said Jennifer, brightly, making him turn sharply in surprise.

‘What if someone sits there?’ he whispered, trying not to look like a typical loony-on-the-bus.

‘Aha, keep watching.’

When the bus got busy, a middle-aged man with no hair and thick glasses did indeed sit down next to Louis.  From Louis’s perspective, the man’s body intersected with that of Jen.  Within seconds, the interloper was twitching and fretting, until he jumped out of the seat and made his way off the bus at the next stop.

Impressive, Louis had to admit.

‘Well done,’ he mouthed almost-silently.

‘Thanks!’ beamed Jennifer, well-pleased at whatever mischief she’d managed.

     So if you ever get an hideously uncomfortable feeling when taking up a seat on the 409, now you know why.

Going Back 79 Years ...

Yes, another photo-essay based on the pages within "The War Illustrated", which is actually after the fact, the edition I'm working from was dated 25/12/1942, which is when things really started to look bad for the Axis.  Art!

Russians fighting Prussians

     You see, whiney Sinister ingrates?  Front page news*.  Let us have a look at the situation in North Africa.  Art!

     The Axis had been confined to Tunisia, effectively a bridgehead with no strategic depth, and Herr Schickelgruber, as he was wont to do, immediately begins to reinforce failure, shipping in Panzer and infantry divisions that would have been better-used on the Eastern Front, in addition to fleets of aircraft.  Art!

     This photograph illustrates two points.  The first is that logistics was one of the most important aspects of war in a region that had absolutely nothing, and here we see over fifty trucks (I counted) as part of a supply column.  Secondly, they're all bunched up together, on a road in a single line, which intimates that they have no fear of Axis air attack.  Perfectly reasonable, since the Axis were running away <ahem> 'strategically withdrawing' so far off and so fast that they had absolutely no chance of projecting air power beyond their own rearguards.  Art!

     A little background here.  Benghazi had been an Italian town and harbour, until the British (and Commonwealth) bombed it and occupied it in early 1941.  Subsequently it was bombed and occupied by the Axis later in 1941.  In early 1942 it was occupied by the British, after - you may be ahead of me here - being bombed.  By mid-1942 the Axis had re-taken it, with a bit of bombing on the side.  By then the harbour was choked with sunken ships, which the Axis didn't have time to clear, causing supply chain problems.  Then, as you see here, the British finally occupied it for the third time, and began to clear the harbour.

     Bottom picture is of South African armoured car crews having a brew-up and Christmas dinner, with their ugly but reliable and almost indestructible Marmon-Harrington a/cs in the background.

Finally -

I know it's childish and spiteful but I am a terrible person and I can't resist.  Hey, Dimya, the Sinister Union was a big pile of <swearing redacted>!

*  Dimya gets very sulky and petty if the Sinisters aren't praised to high heaven

Something's Gone Badly Right

Conrad Is A Tad Worried

Don't worry, he's also seething with anger at the same time - we must maintain our standards, after all - because he finds it easy to do both simultaneously.

     The cause for apprehension?  Our daily stats.  These have been worryingly high for the past couple of days.  Conrad seriously expected figures to be low, since it's the Christmas season and folks have better things to entertain themselves with than a grumpy old man's peculiar musings.  Now, I ought to put up a picture taken of the Stats page on Blogger to illustrate my point.  That would be rather dull, though, so instead let's have <thinks> Beer!

     Breakfast in a bottle, hmmm?  A touch extreme, I think.  If you delay until 12:01 then that should be okay.

     Okay, now let's have a clip from the Stats page on Blogger.  Art!

     91 hits before lunch-time?  Hmmmm, worrying, worrying.  "Why is this, O white-haired sage?" I hear you question.  Pausing only to state that I prefer "Snowy-haired sage", Your Humble Scribe will explicate.

     BOOJUM! freely slanders and libels all sorts of people and institutions, including low-hanging fruit such as The Metro and First Bus, who might decide to wheel in their barristers were this blog ever impinge on their awareness.  There are others, such as The Only Fat Man In North Korea, who we don't care about, as well as Tsar Putin and I'm not going to stop belittling Dimya because it's fun to make him cry.  

Cry me a Volga, Dimya.

     So you can see why I am a bit bothered, and keep looking over my shoulder to check for lawyers.  Yet the desire to get as much traffic also pushes me to ask that you ask your friends to take a look, but to keep it secret.

     Okay, motley, time to clean the Magma Moat clear again.  I'll use the power drill and you can have the lump hammer and cold steel chisel.

"Don't Look Up"

Conrad watched this enjoyable satire a couple of days ago, taking advantage of the new pre-owned television that was already linked to Netflix.  It is a bit sweary, so be advised NSFW.  O, and there is that thing about nearly all life on Earth being exterminated, so not for the faint of heart.  Art!

I CANNOT find the image I want

     There are a couple of gaping plot holes, however, that Conrad The Pedantic Astronomy Nerd would like to point out.  Comet Dibiasky is an astronomical phenomenon, not an industrial secret, so astronomers in Ruffia and The Populous Dictatorship would pick it up in short order.  And do you know, they wouldn't be worried about mid-terms or popularity ratings or alternative strategies, they would send off robot spacecraft armed with multi-gigaton warheads - we've discussed this as a method of asteroid diversion previously - and they would blast the living daylights out of CB.  And they'd do it immediately, because the farther away the comet is, the less effort is needed to divert it.  Art!

Hairy scary

     This is what Oglethorpe should have tried to pressure the South Canadian politicians with - "the Ruffians and Populous Dictatorship will have saved the planet whilst you sat on your waffle-patterned ass and did nothing."  That would have got them moving.

     Secondly, which is why I'm cross I cannot find any relevant pictures, that prat Isherwell is proposing to shatter the comet with brand-new technology that has never carried out so much as a test run, with insufficient redundancy and no fall-back plan.  What can possibly go wrong!

Well, yes, there is that.

     Conrad would like to reassure nervous readers that a scenario like that in DLU is inherently unlikely*.

More On Don Gordon

You remember, the actor chap?  Bezzie mates with Steve McQueen, which may explain why he had a featured role in "Bullitt" and "The Towering Inferno", since Steve had a lot of clout.  He must have been a husky well-fed lad growing up, because he managed to lie his way into the South Canadian Navy when Pearl Harbour happened.  At age fifteen.  Art!

Steve and Don (in later years)

     He 'persuaded' his mother to lie about his age and say he was eighteen.  Whilst serving on the briny deeps his ship got in harms way no fewer than eleven times, and you can tell because he was awarded a battle star for each battle.  So not sitting it out in a sinecure.  I bet this impressed Steve, who had been in the South Canadian Marine Corps but whom never saw action.

More "Tormentor"?  Why Certainly!

If you recall - and you ought to - we left Luma with the Reverend Sharples, resident pastoral care vicar at the college our protagonist works at, explaining what sounds like a psychotic hallucination.

‘Yes, yes, I know it sounds like a delusional hallucination.  I thought that originally, that I was going mad.  However, this spirit can affect things, physically.  I’ve seen proof of what it can do.  That is, objective evidence that can’t be disputed.’

               ‘Such as?’ asked the vicar.

               Louis felt embarassed, a reaction he was unused to.

               ‘Er – she emptied all my spirits down the sink and threw away a bottle of sleeping tablets I’d been using.’

‘I see, I see.  That could be explained away as you acting in a fugue state.  Anything else?’

‘Oh, yes.  What else – ah, she gave me a description of her attacker.  When the police came around to check if I’d seen any potential suspects hanging around, he was in their files already.’

The vicar paid close attention.

‘Really?  So you indicated the suspect.  You didn’t give your source to the police, I take it?  No, doing that would make you a suspect.’

‘I’ve been a suspect already.  Apparently the DNA evidence got me dismissed.’

The vicar gave a low whistle of surprise.

‘So there’s quantifiable evidence.  Really, this is quite unique, Mister McMahon.  I’ve had people come to me in the past, quite convinced that they had, quote, “psychic abilities”, only to be rapidly disproven.’

Louis made a despairing gesture.

‘Look, I didn’t ask to be haunted by a spirit.  I’m searching for answers.  Last week I would have cheerily condemned the whole of organised religion.  Today I don’t know what to think.  My view of the world is changing.’

The reverend sat back firmly on his chair.

‘Mister McMahon, you need to speak with someone rather better versed in these matters than I.  Normally my time here consists of advising young Christian students on practical matters, like where to volunteer for missionary work, or when the soup and sandwich van is touring the city centre.  Can I consult with a more learned colleague?’

Louis waved vaguely.

‘Go right ahead.  Oh - ’ he got up and turned.  ‘One thing you might like to know.  This spirit doesn’t like blasphemy.’

This Parthian shot left the Reverend Sharples rubbing his chin in contemplation.

From The Mysterious To The Equally Mysterious

Except this is real life.  Really, I promise!  We've had a sequence of photographs of spectacular thermal inversions in Caledonia, and in a related follow-up, the BBC also had several examples of what's known as "The Spectre of the Brocken".  Let us witness one of these.  Art!

Courtesy Jonny Oldbury

     This rather creepy phenomenon has a giant, shimmering, rainbow-auraed shadow appear before you.  It happens when the sun is behind the observer and thus casts their shadow onto mist or fog lying ahead of them.  As the mist moves, so the shadow appears to move also.  The name comes from Brocken, in the Harz mountains, where the ideal conditions for creating such an apparition are frequently encountered.

*  But still not impossible

Oaks And Acorns And All That

Conrad Is Minded -

Of that old Castlemaine beer advert.  In case 1986 was before your time, or you have no idea what I'm talking about (Conrad suspects this to be a common occurrence) allow me to explain.  You have a general store in the Australian outback, with men busy humping pallets of Castlemaine XXXX onto a much-abused pick-up truck.  Art!

<Cue ominous creaking>

"Something for the ladies?" enquires one of the buyers.

"Yeah, two bottle of sweet sherry, mate," orders the other.  Art!

<Loud 'runch'>

"Looks like we've overdone it with the sherry,' laconically comments one.

     "What pettifogging nonsense is this?" I hear you query.  Pausing only to admire your use of an unusual and Dickensian adjective, I shall explicate.  Okay, as we all know by now, Conrad has a huge, mobile bookcase that sits in front of him, so he can gloatingly rub his hands in glee at all the books he has they are stored properly.  Yesterday he took charge of the slightly-despoiled giant (for which read 'heavy') television from the lounge, which is showing a small white spot on the screen where a few of the magical electronic display whatnots have gone out of alignment.  Art!

Thus

     There was a slight problem, which the eagle-eye of Wonder Wifey spotted when she came to see if I'd broken the pre-owned telly yet.  Not the television, no, but one castor on my mobile bookcase felt that adding a large and heavy television was going beyond it's duties, and did a sweet sherry.  Art!

Wonky!

     You can't see this clearly, so let me tell you the MDF had given way and the castor collapsed, digging into the base.  There's no way to repair this unless you Gorilla Glue the whole corner, with no guarantee it would hold. This is cutting to the chase, for to manage to examine the damage I had to empty the entire bookcase, which is when I began to realise how many books it contained.  A whole lot.  I've not bothered to count, as it's easier to show you a picture.  Art!

     This omits a big batch of comic books now stored in a box that hadn't been filled completely.  Let us now see the results!  Art?

THE HORROR OF AN EMPTY BOOKCASE!

     I know, scarier than "The Mezzotint", isn't it?  The solution was to take the wheels off, then move it into a space against the door, after moving the CD stacker and the base unit and storage unit over, so the TV can be placed upon them.  Art!

     It will, of course - obviously! - take ages to re-fill the now immobile bookcase, since the shelves are all upside down.  Into each life a little rain must fall, hmmm?  In recompense I do have Netflix on a really big monitor and was thus able to watch Episode 5 of "Midnight Mass" which had a truly surprise ending I didn't see coming.  And "Don't Look Up", which is an hilarious satire with an altogether prescient look at modern culture*.

Big Bad Boy in the background

Conrad's Mind Is At It Again

You recall that my recall can be not at all.  Meaning odd words and phrases will pop up in my mind for no good reason, nor for any bad reason either.  They're just there.

     Hence "Bustopher".  Who?  Quite.  Your Humble Scribe considered that this might have been a saint from the New Testament, before he Googled for an explanation -

     GREAT SQUEAKING BATS!

     Art?

<gags in revulsion>

     It is a character from that loathsome musical farrago "Cats", which Conrad has never seen and never intends to see**.  Why on earth did this name pop up in my mind?  I may have read "Old Possums Book Of Practical Cats" once, forty years ago and that's it.

     FYI Bustopher Jones is not skin and bones, and in painful fact is a morbidly obese cat.

Well, If I Have To Suffer A Few Outrageous Slings -

You can jolly well suffer through "Tormentor", too.  I've written it so you can be darned sure and certain you're going to read it.

Monday morning was every bit as unpleasant as he’d expected.  He woke to more consternation about life, the universe and the meaning of what he’d experienced. 

               Plus, the dirty dishes from last night that he’d left lying about the lounge were all neatly washed and arrayed on the draining board.

               ‘Thanks,’ he said to the empty house, not knowing if the spirit was there and invisible or not there at all. 

               Which made him wonder how long, exactly, Jennifer’s spirit would hang around.  If her killer was identified and arrested would she depart this mortal coil?  In fact, how could she depart?  Did she want to?

               Getting to college this Monday morning was his own idea: the vicar who offered pastoral care to students would be available today, as he always was on Monday mornings.  Louis found the small non-dedicated office, door open, and the reverend Sharples sitting making notes from a book.  Knocking, he went in, careful to close the door behind him.

               The vicar looked at him curiously, then very intently, very intently indeed.  Louis found the scrutiny uncomfortable.

               ‘Mister – McMahon - isn’t it?  You’ve undergone a sea-change.’

               ‘You know me already?’ replied Louis, surprised.

               ‘Your reputation precedes you,’ said the vicar, with a touch of sly amusement.  ‘I must say, you are the very last person I’d expect to see in here.’  He paused.  ‘Except you’ve undergone a change.  Can’t put my finger on it, but you seem different.’

               For a second Louis wondered if the vicar meant the experience of loss, of Jennifer being murdered, then dismissed the idea.

               ‘This is going to sound insane, Reverend, but I’m going to tell you anyway.  I’ve been seeing a spirit.  In my house.  A girl I know, you may have seen the news, she – well, she was murdered.  Then I woke up to see her spirit sitting on my bed.’

               The vicar leaned back in his chair, frowning, then realised his expression didn’t look encouraging.  He waved a hand for Louis to continue.

     Prescient Reverend Sharples; perceptive chap, that.  I don't think he crops up again, so don't get attached to him.

Benjamin Bathurst

You may have heard of this chap in connection with umpteen science fiction stories and supernatural tales that were created about his 'inexplicable and mysterious' disappearance.  Briefly put, he was a British ambassador travelling in Prussia in 1809, during the Napoleonic Unpleasantness.  He had been recalled to London and, whilst in the town of Perleberg, vanished the night he was due to take a carriage to Hamburg.  Art!

Ben in better days

     Cue all the woo-woo about how he'd been taken away by aliens, or stepped into an alternative reality, or fell into a dimensional rift, or was kidnapped by cyborg weasels from the future, that sort of stuff.

    In fact the truth was far more prosaic.  He had been wearing a very expensive fur coat, Prussia at the time was practically lawless and he was very probably murdered for his coat.  The finger of suspicion pointed at a local family called Schmidt, since his coat was found in their possession.  Not only that, in 1852 a skeleton was dug up near the inn he had been staying at, the skull of which had been shattered at the back.

Wrong!

     Which proves the efficacy of Occam's Razor: entities should not be multiplied un-necessarily, and you don't need to invoke time-travelling wonder-weasels in order to explain a sordid murder.

     I think it's time to get back to ordering and filling that bookcase, Vulnavia.  Definitely a first world problem.

Chin chin!

*  Or lack of it.  Which is dabbling in Politics, so we shall stop there.

**  Remember our Mission Statement: CONRAD - HATES ALL MUSICALS!