Stop Press: Conrad STILL Hates Musicals

I Don't Expect Any Quibbles About This

Those who challenged me on this matter have long been dispersed on the four winds as radioactive vapours, thank you Remote Nuclear Detonator!  I'm currently working on Russell Brand and Alan Carr, whom have been tipped off about my undying enmity and as a result are constantly on the move.  One day, maties, one day.

     ANYWAY I just thought a reminder was in order, especially since the South Canadians made a fetish out of their IGNOBLE REVOLT AGAINST THE MOTHER OF PARLIAMENTS and came up with that farrago "Hamilton".  See?  I don't even afford it the colour fuschia that I do other media titles.  Art!

This Hamilton I can get behind
(NO SNIGGERING AT THE BACK!)

     "But Conrad," I hear your querulous voices quaver.  "Surely you need to 

   

     NO!  Do you think I need to eat coal to know it's horrid and unpleasant to the taste?  Should I bathe in lava to understand that, really, it's pretty hot stuff?  Should I have to watch any of the 'Twilight' films to understand that twinkly emo-vampire Young Adult guff is, indeed, utter guff?

     Be off with you.  And your little dog too.

     For your further enlightenment, I can inform you that "The Blues Brothers" and "The Return Of Captain Invincible" are comedies with music.  Do not try and debate with me on these two.  "This Is Spinal Tap" is a documentary about a rock band, that's all.  There was another one about a million people sitting in a muddy field for three days, "Woodsmoke" if I recollect proper, and I only know of that because it was featured in the far, far more entertaining "The Omega Man".  Art!

The music of the Madsen SMG plays on!

     I think that's enough of a stern corrective of an Intro for you, at least 

     DAMN!  I nearly got Russell Brand!

Conrad Is Unsure About This

By now you, gentle reader, ought to be familiar with Your Humble Scribe's incessant quest for interestingly named bottles or cans of beer.  We here at the blog used to have a thing going on with chocolate bars and sweets, which only come out with a new brand very rarely.  Beers, wines and spirits are always coming up with new brands.  So - 

     Quite an eye-catching design, don't you think?  Which is why I purchased it.  However, there is a caveat.  Art!

     "Coco-Pops"?  That disgusting breakfast cereal heavily contaminated with chocolate?  Chocolate?  You know, that stuff that Conrad dislikes almost as much as musicals?  

     Here an aside.  I will make an exception for Moser Roth's Dark Chilli Chocolate, which I have been saving in the kitchen cupboards for Lo! these many months, and which is as delicious as I remember it.  HOWEVER I still recall that the Brewdog brand I liked least of all from my Beer Advent Calendar was a chocolate-flavoured one.  

     I have poured out the stout.  This may not end well.  Whether or not it does, Conrad will inevitably keep you updated.

I Believe In Seethe

Okay, after removing countless Codeword compilers thanks to the RND*, I find that their staggeringly inept replacements are committing the same errors.  Perhaps I should work a little higher up the food-chain?  It's a double-edged sword; they annoy me to ATOMIC LEVELS OF DISTRACTION, true enough, yet they also generate content for BOOJUM! which is a help of sorts.  O well let the farrago commence.

"ATAVISM": Hmmmm Conrad only familiar with ATAVISTIC, which has to do with being a knuckle-dragging mouth-breather, as I recall.  Let me consult my Collins Concise.  Ah.  "Reversion to a former type".  So, as a Hom. Sap., if you revert to a former type, you'd be a Neanderthal, like Art.  Yep, knuckle-dragging mouth-breather.  Art!

Oooh, Art's in a snit.  This is his crush, Mara Corday.

"RHEBOK": No!  Not a poorly-spelled trainer; do you want me to go RND on your bottom?  Conrad confesses he was baffled by this one, so once again a resort to the trusty Collins Concise.  It is, so they say, a variety of South African antelope.  OF COURSE IT IS!  HOW COULD WE NOT KNOW THAT!  <sounds of the RND being hammered to the point of destruction>.  Art!

     "STANZAIC": Once again, nothing to do with Stan, that chap who features in Ben Fold's song - 

     ANYWAY this refers to the poetical term 'stanza', and I've never seen it used like this before.  If I can bring in the CC again - "Stanza: a fixed number of verse lines arranged in a definite metrical <hack spit> pattern, forming a unit of a poem."  From which you get 'STANZAIC"

     IS THIS EVEN ENGLISH ANYMORE?  It sounds like Late Byzantine fresco work.  ART!

Stanzas are dull.  Have an Atomic Pangolin instead.

    I shall call a halt there, since my blood pressure is now greater than the interface between Jupiter's atmosphere and it's metallic hydrogen core.

And Now For An Appreciation Of Madonna

HA!  Fooled you!  Conrad detests she whom he calls "The OAP of pop", because she thinks she's still thirty when in fact she qualifies for free public transport (at least here in the UK) because she's so OLD OLD OLD.

     No, we are back at "Tormentor" again, because it's not over until the - er - outsize lady sings.

‘What was that crack about the lab assistant you made? I assumed you were talking about me.’

               ‘Not you, the idiot pulling faces and flicking “V” signs at me.’

               Nige looked at the floor whilst shaking his head.

               ‘Paula and I were the only ones in that booth.’

               ‘Oh!  Oh.’

               ‘What are you trying to pull?’

               ‘Nothing,’ said Louis, realising that he’d already said too much and ought to try silence.  ‘Did you get any results from the tests?’

               Nige contemplated not answering before dismissing that as petty.

               ‘Activity in the Occipital lobe.  Deals with vision.  Nothing unusual.’ 

               ‘There you go then.  Now, I need to get this stuff sorted out for the VP.’

               The science tutor left feeling puzzled.  He’d had to test people before, who were convinced that they had hidden powers, at the behest of Paula.  Failing to corroborate their pseudo-abilities always brought out the worst in them, temper-tantrums, accusations of incompetence, retreat into denial.  McMahon didn’t bother one way or the other.  And what was that tosh about a third person in the booth?

 

It had been a day of ups and downs for Louis.  He sat and wondered about the collection of evil spirits that associated with the now-infamous Morgan.  Oh, and weak-willed mortals who would also do the monster’s bidding.

               Fine, a silver crucifix and bracelet, plus the holy water, would keep malevolent spirits at bay.  How did you keep a hostile human at a distance?

               Hmm – energy, and how to project it.  Bingo! he suddenly thought.  A eureka moment.  In fact Jen would have been proud of him.

               The shrine of flowers at the alleyway entrance had been scaled back by police, leaving a small collection wired to the fencing.  Out of a morbid desire to see what people wrote, Louis went and looked, which was a mistake.  His eyes began to sting and he went home in a hurry.

               Half a dozen sheets of A4 lay on the lounge floor – damn he still had to get a new coffee table! – with messages scrawled on them.

Finally -

Conrad is back in the Sinful City, Gomorrah-on-the-Irwell, Marineville, The City Under The Sea, Manchester, whichever floats your sea-travelling device.  This means hours of travel on the treacherous and unreliable First Bus, yes, and also lots and lots of steps as counted on the Fitbit.  And perhaps a visit to Forbidden Planet before catching the bus <wallet squeaks in anguish>

*  Not to be confused with the Royal Naval Division