A Categorical Calumny!

Also O Dearie Me

Conrad has managed to forget his notebook this morning, since it lay underneath a mound of books as of last night and, when I checked my rucksack this morning, I didn't notice it's absence.  I can get away with that now, I'm an old man.

     Still!  Your Humble Scribe now has to rely on his definitely dodgy memory in terms of creating today's deathless prose.  This might mean abandoning anything to do with Codewords, even if there are still at least seven remaining.  Art!

     An industrial sump unit.  Not merely because, but also another metaphor for Conrad's mind: deep, dark and not something you'd ever want intimate contact with.

     Okay, let's review films, because I can remember three of the four I had written down <thinks extra-specially hard> nope that fourth refuses to appear.  Remember our Anti-Kermode Rules: We go solely off the title, we generalise wildly and may ignore both these rules if we feel like it.  Let the excoriation begin!

"SUCCESSION": Say what?  A whole page advert with two blokes standing there, telling you absolutely nothing about what this program (for we are talking television here).  One is young and one is old (the Brian Cox character) so - taking a wild stab - the young one succeeds the older?  Wow.  Dynamic television there, chaps.  What, is it adapted from a play by Beckett that has only two characters and runs for three hours?  Bah!  Art?

If you get out of there, matey, I'd call that a success

"THE GREAT": As the tagline says, 'Holy Mother Russia!' so Your Humble Scribe has a sneaking suspicion that we're dealing with the Tsarina Catherine here.  Doubtless full of sleazy lowest-denominator drama in order to pull the punters in, rather than anything even nominally historical.  Expect lots of bedrooms and bathrobes, that sort of thing.  Art!

Like this except a lot shorter

"MATRIX RESURRECTIONS": Hmmmmm.  And we need this because?  I suppose the studio rationale is that "Hey Keanu did real kick-ass stuff in those 'Johnny Wack'* films, let's get him to do another Matrix film before he's too old."  Or similar shizzle.  $$$ the motivation, no doubt.  Conrad is hopeful of being wrong but is pretty certain he's right.  Art!

Apologies for the stupid South Canadian date format**

     Okay, that's enough for today's Intro.  Now, what else can I recollect from my aging little grey cells?

Ah!  I know - 

Pretty As A Picture

Yes, more of those runner-up historically relevant photographs (note how I left out the hyphen so that "Historically" and "Relevant" count as two separate words, not a single one, aren't I the sneaky one) as featured on the BBC's website.  Art!

Courtesy Pete Edmunds

     This is Battersea Power Station, as made famous by the Pink Floyd album cover for "Animals".  Your Humble Scribe has no idea what's going on here, and it looks as if matey has Photoshopped in as many cranes as possible, except that would invalidate his photo, wouldn't it?  Let me check -

     Well well well, it seems that Matey's photograph is indeed legit.  This is the power station being turned into EXTREMELY EXPENSIVE apartments - think around a million pounds each - after being in developer-ment hell for 34 years.

Let Us Now Trawl Darker Depths

For Lo! we are back onto "Tormentor" again, and the next thrilling sinister extract, which, as I keep warning you IS VERY DARK INDEED.  I know we can list things of a dubious or dangerous nature in the course of the blog, but believe me BOOJUM! is a whole lot lighter than Conrad's creation for NANOWRIMO.

Angela’s brother, Dave, rang in mid-afternoon, to ask if he wanted to attend the funeral?

               ‘Yes,’ said Louis, simply. 

               ‘Next Wednesday.  Saint Luke’s, half past two.’

               ‘Dave?’ asked Louis, impelled despite himself.  ‘Does Angela blame me?’

               ‘No,’ replied Dave, as brusque as Louis.  ‘She doesn’t.  Don’t bring it up.’

               The funeral date meant he had to ring college and inform them that he’d be absent Wednesday afternoon, when he normally took an English Language class.  The receptionist’s manner changed when he mentioned “funeral”, from slightly-****** off to sympathetic.

               Once he’d finished sawing up the table’s carcass, he had to hoover up all the fragments left behind.  A metal splinter would hurt as much as a glass one – which jogged his memory.

               No, the bloodstains he’d left on the kitchen floor had vanished, except for one that had sunk into the grouting between tiles.  Obviously he’d rubbed them off whilst walking backwards and forward to the bin.

               One of his neighbours, a man he didn’t know except as a face glimpsed on the street occasionally, came round when dusk was falling.  Before the man spoke, Louis knew the message wasn’t good – the man stood, hands on hips, leaning forward and wearing a stern frown.

               ‘Speak quickly, I’m not in the mood,’ began Louis.

               ‘What are you going to do about this!’ snapped the irate neighbour, waving an arm.

               ‘What?  Your compulsion to throw your arms around?’ sneered Louis.  ‘See a physio.  Saint Vitus’ Dance.’

               ‘Not me!  This ****** mess all over your house!’ shouted the man.  ‘The paint.  The spray stuff.’

               ‘Well, I didn’t put it there, so I’m not going to get rid of it,’ Louis informed him.

     Ha!  Take that, interfering neighbour.  Don't forget, from yesterday - Luma does not give a toss anymore, and it's risky trying to push him around.  One chav with a broken jaw and another with a flattened nose can attest to that.

Drink Will Be The Death Of You!

Or it would have been back in Victorian times.  Your Humble Scribe has come across another site that deals with food adulteration, this time concentrating on beer.  O my.  Rather than the original site, which merely listed the Devil's cocktail of poisons added to beer, this site explains why.  Take a look at a pint of beer with a frothy head -

     Back in the days of Ol' Vic - shockingly disrespectful I know - the brewers would add iron sulphate, colloquially known as 'copperas'.  Yes, another heavy metal poison which accumulated in the body.  It was used to help create a nice frothy head on beers, and the devil take anyone who protested.  After all, they were only the customer, and you can imagine brewers hacking and spitting in disgust at having to deal with scum like that.

     We shall come back to this, as it is a stern corrective to those who nostalgically whinge for the days when food was so much better than today.

Finally -

"THE KING'S MAN"!  That was the other film I'd made a note of and couldn't remember.  Having been reunited with my beloved notebook I LOVE YOU SO MUCH I can kick myself for not remembering it.  This is the next entry in the Kingsman franchise, which must have made a mint for the studio to still be making them.  You don't waste money on a failure, unless you're the producers of 'Batwoman', which has to be a tax scam.  Art!

Is that Eggy's grandfather?

     I think we're quite done at this point, Vulnavia.

* Hollywood suits no known for intelligence or accurate memories.

**  When I take over they WILL use proper dating.