CAUTION! There May Be Railway Analogies Present
Hmmmm, more along the lines - do you see wha O you do - of there WILL be painful railway analogies present. Not allegories, I'm not convinced any of you out there understand what they are.
SO! You might gainfully consider a mental model of Conrad's brain as being a set of interlocking railway tracks that go round in a circle, with lots of points and switches and alternate and parallel tracks plus a few "Go slow maintenance workers on the track" signs up. A picture might help. Art!
"What's all this guff about siderodromophilia?" I hear you query. Pausing only to nod at your acquaintance with an unusual - ah - 'affection' for railways, I shall proceed to explicate. Art!
Your Humble Scribe has been seeing this poster on buses for a few days now, and assumes it's one of those incredibly time-consuming computer games, probably of that ilk where the visuals are jaw-dropping but the game engine operates like a Sinclair 48* and they have to release
ANYWAY as I'm sure you agree, on pain of Remote Nuclear Detonator, that their title is peculiar. Not the 'Horizon' bit, which is redolent of that BBC program - Art!
- more that strange phrasing "Forbidden West". Not "Forbidden Westwards" nor "The Forbidden West" or "The West Is Forbidden" or even "Why Would You Want To Go West It's Really Passe Nowadays". OF COURSE when I made a note in the notebook about this farrago, it went down as "Forbidden Planet" because what do you think today's title refers to except Your Humble Scribe's monomania?
"Doctor Morbius was a little bemused at his study's spilt-milk artwork."
I had to scribble it out with a wry smile, which frightened nearby passengers. O well, it's given me an Intro of rare quality**.
Peronally, I would view Venus in our own Solar System as a forbidden planet, since it has a temperature at the surface that would melt lead, an atmosphere that will crush you to a thin red slime and rains that will dissolve you into a rickle of bones and mush.
So there you are, we began with trains and ended with rains, a product of Your Humble Scribe's re-arranged brains.
Conrad Is SEETHING!
As per usual. That is to say, he is a lot more seethy than his normal level of Frothing Nitric Ire, thanks to people not being able to distinguish between "Their", "There" and "They're". When I take over there will be a Spelling Death Drive, O Yes Indeed
ANYWAY no sooner have I foolishly prated about Codewords not daring to breach the boundaries of English grammar and the dictionary, when they DEFY ME! To wit:
"PIETISM": <sounds of teeth being gritted violently> "The expression of piety, especially in an exaggerated or overly sanctimonious fashion" according to teh Interwebz (for I am typing this at work and don't have access to my Collins Concise). YOU WHAT!? Are we all mendicant monks now?
Close enough
("Pie schism")
"MILIEU": Conrad has a large bald patch for the time being, thanks to pulling hairs out in frustration at first and then in inchoate rage once he solved this one. Really, how many words jump up and strut around because they have "IEU" in them? " A person's social environment" says the internet. O RLY? Art!
The 'milieu' for Cupid
(This is the surface of Venus)
"CHINTZ": Conrad is slightly amazed he got this one, for as we know he has 0% fashion sense or knowledge, and doesn't feel he's missed out on anything. It's a type of fabric with woodblock designs featuring flowers and other floral shizzle. Originally fsawre verwE
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Sorry! I fell asleep! Who on Earth wants to read about this drivel? Not I - Art!
Instead, let's atom bomb the Moon - much more satisfying***!
Splish Splash In The Wash
"The wash" generally, notice no capitalisation of the "W" because we are not referring to that area of east England that consists of estuary, fen and sandbank, where Prince John <insert feeble laundry joke here>. Art!
"Rapunzel On Fire"
Courtesy Thomas Heckman
Conrad is unsure quite where the underwater bit comes in here, though the photographer insists that the studio is underwater, and that unholy hairdo has been highlighted thanks to three different stroboscopes bringing all the best out. Hmmmmm well I suppose we'll just have to take your word for it, matey.
Bring On The Torments Of The Dimmed
As those who fail to buy sufficiently bright lightbulbs are condemned to live out their existence, what you might call "Gotterdammerung", that being the Twilight of the Gods, or am I reaching a little too much?
ANYWAY we have more of "Tormentor", so let's ruck -
Spirits
from centuries ago, haunting the real world of today. Well, those mediums who infested television
broadcasts seemed convinced that they were in touch with spirits from ages
past.
‘Damn! I have to get a notebook!’ he told the
room. He tracked one down, and began to
make notes on what to ask Professor, if he returned again.
Mid-way through an entry, the
doorbell rang. Bearing in mind that
Morgan might be interested in doing Louis McMahon an injury, Louis got a
carving knife before answering the door.
‘Bit early for turkey,’ said
Father Geoghan, eyeing the knife.
‘I really have an irresistible
appeal, don’t I?’ huffed Louis. ‘Come
in, come in. I suppose you’ll be wanting
a cup of tea?’
‘Why, thank you. This call is by way of a thank you itself.’
‘A what – a thank you?’ called
Louis from the kitchen. He rapidly made
a cup of tea for the priest and a coffee for himself.
‘A thank you. For helping to release the soul of Monica
Belling.’
A sincere thank you was so rare
for Louis that he felt unsure of how to respond.
‘Oh. Okay.’
The priest looked half amused,
sipping daintily at his cup.
‘The soul is immortal,
Louis. Our mortal remains don’t last long,
but the soul – the soul lasts forever. I
think scientists have managed to phrase it in terms of energy – you cannot
destroy matter, only convert it into another form.’
Okay, Louis thought. I’m sitting on a settee talking about
immortality and the afterlife with a priest who thinks I’m in touch with the
spirit world. Will it get any stranger?
‘Jennifer moved on. Is that how you express it? She said – sorry, her spirit said that it wasn’t bound here any longer, now that her
killer had died.’
Father Geoghan nodded, sipping
tea and watching Louis, who felt guilty.
He’d felt guilty every day at high school under the eyes of the nuns and
priests, and this felt like a reprise.
‘Yes. I heard about that. Did you have any responsibility there, Louis?’
He confessed – how ironic was
that phrase! – he confessed about helping Jen to haunt Eric Miller, trying to
mitigate his actions with the reining-in of his spirit companion.
Ah, what a card that Father Geoghan is! Conrad reckons you'd never get near him with a knife; those mighty fists have a mighty frame behind them.
Finally -
Conrad is on the execrable 10:00 - 18:00 shift at work, and is working in the sinful city itself, Marineville, this week, which makes it more likely than not that I'll not get back to The Mansion until 19:45 <insert tired Second Unpleasantness pun here>. It could be worse, I used to have to do an 11:00 - 19:00 shift, and Rick, Our Mighty Leader, held forth today on even older times when they worked a 06:00 - 13:00 shift. This would have been tricky for Your Humble Scribe to manage, the buses don't run that early and if they did would be as unreliable as ever. I'd have had to get up at 04:00 to make it in on time. Bah!
Just NO!
* This is about as bad an insult in the computer gaming world as you can get. Trust me on this.
** In my head at least.
*** Or is that just me?
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