Conrad - Feeling Malicious

Well, More Malicious Than Usual

I am contemplating writing a letter of complaint to First Bus due to the awful service they provide on the 409 route.  This will be a challenge, because I need to avoid writing in BLOCK CAPITALS, using bold text or ******* swearing.  That last is especially hard.  Conrad is minded of the madly irked passenger in Oldham Bus Station, whose patience broke when the pre-recorded message about observing safe distances in the station and on the buses came over the Tannoy.  "There have to be <big swear here> buses here in the first <more swears> place!"

Nothing to do with First Bus.  Pure clickbait.

     I know how it will begin: "Dear sirs, please do not reply to this letter, as the effort involved in either doing joined-up writing or typing will probably bring on RSI of the brain."  Further than that I have only sketched in a few details; I can add in what I replied to a disgruntled lady as she was refused entry on a 409 that terminated in the bus station: "You're only a passenger".  Clearly First Bus loathe and despise passengers, and are doubtless of the opinion that things would run so much better without scum like us.  O and it would involve a crack about First Bus timetables: "I used to say that First Bus timetables were the biggest work of fiction since "Lord of the Rings".  I would like to update this epithet to include "Gormenghast" and the collected works of Shakespeare.  Plus "A Dance To The Music Of Time" if I'm feeling rather liverish.  Art!

     I've never read any of these books, and have little inclination to start now. Life is short and I already have a positive mountain of books to get through already.

     If I ever do manage to scribe an appropriately cutting letter you can bet your stylish leather footwear that it'll also appear in BOOJUM!

     And with that the Intro is over.  Motley, would you like to try some turnip and tuna-flavoured ice cream?

Musical Musings

As you should surely know by now, Conrad likes music, and is quite eclectic in his tastes.  Enter Joy Crookes, who was choosing her personal play list to celebrate Bangladesh turning 50 this year on the BBC playlist.  Say what?  'Joy Crookes' doesn't sound very Bangladeshi; ah, I see - her mum is Bangladeshi.  Interesting play list, and Your Humble Scribe liked her second choice - Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan with "Nothing Without You".  Art!

     Conrad was especially intrigued by the use of what sounded like an accordion.  Surely not present in Pakistani music?  It definitely sounded like one; perhaps a different type of instrument using the same principle of pumped bellows?  I may have to dig further, and will let you know.

Conrad Is - Of Course! - Angry

It's my default state, after all.  If I open the curtains and the day is grey and foggy, it angers me.  If instead the skies are blue, I am still angered.  Snowy?  Icy?  Rainy?  Angry every time.  Then we come to Codewords, which of course - obviously! - stoke my ire and press my Frothing Nitric Ire buttons all at once.  Let us proceed.

"PRESCIENT": This one really threw me, because I'd already reasoned that 16 was "E" but simply could not come up with a word that ended in "-IENT" and thus began to second-guess myself and perhaps it was "A" instead?  Except that didn't jibe either.  I had to get "P" and "R" before the lightbulb glowed.  And, really?  Who on earth uses this word except poseur journalists trying to look clever.  "Knowledge of events before they take place" according to my Collins Concise.  Art!

Look out!  Palantir thief!

"MAMMOGRAM": Honestly, a word with four "M"s in it?  How evil is that?  Plenty evil, let me tell you.  An X-ray photograph of a lady's bosom, in case you weren't aware, and you can bet your elegantly-tooled leather footwear that none are going to appear in BOOJUM!  Yes yes yes, there was that one time, except it was a statue.  Art!

Unlikely to ever need one

"MORPH": I dunno.  Is this even in my Collins Concise?  <checks> Only kinda - "-Morph" as to indicate shape, form or structure.  Soooooo technically WRONG.  Mind you, everybody here in the UK has seen Morph, who used to crop up on Tony Hart's art programs.  Art!

Morph

And Now For Your Next Instalment of "Tormentor"

Because nobody has yet said "Stop" Conrad is free to interpret that as being exactly the same as saying "Continue", at least in my head, which is the one that matters here.

‘Okay, I think I’ve adjusted enough not to go screaming down the garden path.  You want revenge on the ******* who killed you?’ and how peculiar did it feel to say that to the person who’d been murdered.

               ‘Yes.  The ******** who raped and strangled and hacked me to death,’ replied Jennifer.

               ‘Language!’ warned Louis.  ‘Christ, he did that to you?’

               Jennifer shuddered.

               ‘Please!  Luma, don’t use language like that!’

               ‘Alright, alright,’ he agreed, rolling his eyes.  Blasphemy went down badly in the spirit world.  ‘Who was it?’

               Jennifer described the man; early twenties, a shock of dirty blond hair, five o’clock shadow, one of his upper incisors rotten black in the gum, tattoos on his knuckles and a London accent.

               ‘Great.  Terrific recognition, Jen.  What do I do with the description?’

               ‘Go to the police.’

               ‘And say what?  “Excuse me officer, a handy passing ghost told me who murdered her, here’s the description, and why are you getting me a coat that laces up the back?”  Can’t you track him down?’

               ‘I’m a spirit, not an oracle.’

               ‘This is going to take some doing.  Look, I think I’d think better if you weren’t here.  Can you go away and come back in a couple of hours?’

               ‘Is six o’clock okay – right.  See you.’

               Once again the spirit vanished, leaving a bemused Louis.  He wrote down what the spirit – Jennifer, in actuality – had told him about the murderer, then sat back and considered what he knew.

               Spirits existed.  He’d sat next to one and spoken to it.  Ergo, the supernatural was at least partly true.  God, the Devil, Heaven and Hell – were they all real, too?  For a twenty-first century sceptical man, such a disturbing insight came as no welcome novelty.  Louis had parted company with religious belief at high school, been confirmed in his atheism during his teens and twenties, never finding any reason to change his views, until now.

     An Oooer Matron moment indeed.  I think Luma's taking it pretty well, considering the awful time he's had recently.

Finally -

Time for my constitutional into Royton, at least if my Fitbit has charged up enough.  Allow me to check for a moment -

     Nope, didn't charge up at all.  It's rather temperamental about this process; fortunately I only need to do it once per week.  Let's try again, shall we?

     <short period of loud cursing ensues>

     Ah what the heck I've just put it back on and if the digital boke-bag runs down to 0% then it runs down to 0%, and I can gleefully smash it with a hammer.  What do you think of that, Fitbit?