Another Episode Of The Steve And Oscar Show!

I Apologise In Advance

As today's title may not make a whole lot of sense to those of you who haven't been reading BOOJUM! for many years, WHICH SHOULD BE ALL OF YOU because only that way will you avoid the organ banks or uranium mines when I take over.  And don't forget, all musicals will be banned.  This facet of Life Under Conrad's Thumb didn't appeal too much to Donna when I shared it with her at work.  Don't worry, I'll think up an especially unpleasant punishment for her.  A diet of nothing but eggs?  Shoes filled with crushed walnut shells?  Subscription to New Statesman?

     ANYWAY back to a nice click-baity picture to lure the victims in.  Art!

     Conrad unsure what this is about, it came up when I Googled "Pulp cover art".  Please note that the young lady here HAS ALL HER CLOTHES ON, even if she seems to be in a state of distress.  Is that chap sleeping off a three-day booze bender - or has he reached room temperature?  Those structures in the background appear to be oil drills, so possibly set in Texas, which would explain the fiery background colouring.  Let me guess, a novel about lust, passion and petroleum?

     Where were we?

      O yes.  As long-term readers may recall, a fair amount of the blog's content comes via words or phrases that pop up in my head for no apparent reason.  This content is attributed either to Oscar - my subconscious, so named because <sighs at very dated inherent humour> he's so 'Wilde' - or Steve, my memory.  Sorry for the boring name, Steve.  Yes yes yes, 'Cornelius Van Der Plonk III' is more distinctive, I cannot deny, except it's too long and you're going to remain Steve.  Art!

Steve.

     Hmmmm.  This was only supposed to be a paragraph.  Conrad's verbosity in type strikes again!  Just be grateful that we no longer allow Alternative Editors to guest-present the blog, or you'd have Conrad's Liver or Eyeballs delivering a commentary, instead of me.  ME!  CONRAD! I'll give you 'Who are you then?'

     At this point we usually end with an insult or order directed at the Motley, leaving the exact nature of the Motley unclear, apart from it being definitely un-human, robust, cheap, easy-replaceable and nothing to worry the RSPCX about*.  Probably a cyborg made using Sprong.  Art!

Yeah.  Chock full of Sprong there.

     Since we seem to be doing a retrospective on blog content, I need to point out that Sprong is a miracle-material created using nanotechnology, which will serve all your domestic and light industrial needs.  Available from Conrad via The Mansion at reasonable rates, with insured P & P and discount for purchase in bulk.

Possibly Sprong

Here An Aside

Currently listening to the random tracks as played by my i-pod via the Giant Television Monitor, and it's a Deep Purple track I'm not familiar with.  One of the things that I really liked about Deep Purple was Jon Lord's organ playing, as it really lifted them above the run-of-the-mill hard rock bands.  We will doubtless come back to this.  O yes.  Art!

Back in the Hairdresser Is Essential days of heavy metal

Conrad's Ire Is Kindled

Not that it takes much to do so.  Earlier in the week Your Humble Scribe took a trip to Royton to arrange things at the Health Centre.  This was an event in itself, as it's about five years since I tried anything like booking an appointment.  What you need to know for this to make more sense is that there used to be an entirely separate pharmacy within the HC premises.  Alas no longer.  Art!

     As you should surely know, Conrad is a spelling-Nazi of such epic proportions that Tsar Putin might declare war on him any day now.  It was unworthy yet I couldn't help thinking how just it was that the business had gone under.  Because yes, I am a terrible person**.

Time For Torment

I've already had mine, what with the spelling mistakes above.  You, however, have to put up with more of my long-form fiction, because once again, whose blog is it?  NO!  IT IS NOT STEVE OR OSCARS! bring on the extract and preserve my blood pressure

A sudden raucous shout came from under the bridge.

               ‘Oy!  Shut it, you ******* nutter!’ shouted a slurring voice.

               ‘Look at the nutter!’ shouted another, as a knot of brawling, drunken teenagers came out from below the bridge on the towpath.

               Louis looked back at the spirit with a See? expression on his face.

               ‘Well, it must look a bit odd, you talking to thin air.’

               Louis shrugged.  The next step would be the gang making their way up the bank and onto the main road to pick on him.

               ‘I’ll be moving on,’ he warned the spirit.

               ‘Here!  I’m not having that!’ said the entity, aggressively.  ‘Young folk ought to look up to the elders, not insult them.’

               Just as Louis feared, the noisy gang began to spill off the towpath and scramble up the bank.  The spirit vanished from Louis’s side and reappeared at the top of the bank, kicking the leading youth firmly in the stomach.  He fell backwards and knocked everyone else over, rolling down the sharp slope.  One teen rolled clumsily off the towpath and into the water, sobering up in a hurry to stand waist deep in stagnant water, mud and reeds.

               After that rebuff, the gang lost all interest in picking on their previous victim, instead blaming each other, taking swinging punches and pushing violently.

               ‘Er, thank you for that.  I’m Louis.’

               ‘Harold,’ said the spirit, shaking hands.

               ‘Well, I only came out to stretch my legs and look at different scenery for a second, so I’ll be moving on.’

               He walked slowly back home.  Who’d have imagined that a spirit would be living at the bottom of his road?  There must be more, unless  this was unusual.

               The little aside with Harold and his decisive, if unasked-for, help, sustained Louis in a good mood until he decided to head for bed.  

     All, I believe, set in the locale in Chadderton where I used to live.  There is a canal there, with a road-bridge over it.  Conrad unsure if haunted by spirits.

Back To "The War Illustrated"

Aptly enough, "Spitfire" by Public Service Broadcasting is currently playing, one of their best tracks.  Samples from "The First Of The Few" 'Hello Hunter Leader, Hello Hunter Leader, can you hear me?  Bandits approaching "

     ANYWAY back to March 1943.  Art!

     An interesting montage.  This selection depicts the Royal West Kents giving the Axis - specifically the Italians - a right shoeing in Tunisia, where the war had ended up by the date given.  Top port picture shows a Vickers machine-gun in action.  This particular bit of kit could fire tens if not hundreds of thousands of rounds, as long as you topped up the water jacket and poured oil over the working parts.  To starboard is a mortar team; you can tell they are going for maximum distance thanks to how low the barrel is, as this is how you extend range with a mortar.  And at bottom is one of the Allied pieces of kit that the Axis loathed above all else: a 25 pounder gun-howitzer, which could fire as fast as a soldier could fire a rifle.  They could hit a fly in the eye five miles away, within minutes of said fly arriving to sit on a leaf, and track the fly as it flew off.  Lest you be unaware, by this point in the war the Axis were definitely on the back foot and could not look forward with any expectation of things changing for the better.  Of course - obviously! - we know this now; back then it was all less definite.

Springtime for Herr Schickelgruber

*  Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Xenomorphs, since you ask.

**  But we knew that already.