Nursery Rhymes: The True Horror!

Just Stop For A Minute

NOT IF YOU'RE DRIVING! although you shouldn't be reading anything this distracting whilst behind the wheel.

     This all stems from Conrad using the phrase "Over the moon" and we have already branched off into just how you could orbit the moon with a dead cow, as there's no way a live one with all the fodder and manure and water could be comfortably accommodated in an Ariane.

     ANYWAY let me whip up a quick click-baity picture to entice the digital traffic.  Art!

     Conrad's unsure what's happening here.  A skeleton, yes, except how is it still articulated, because it doesn't have any tendons left to connect bone to bone?  Why does it still have eyeballs?  What use are eyeballs if there's no brain to send signals to?  If it still has a brain, where is the blood supply coming from?  And I'm sure any doctors out th

     ANYWAY what I wanted to do was A Little Musical Critique, about a nursery rhyme, "Hey Diddle Diddle" because I am nothing if not a creature of whimsy*.  Art!

EXPERIENCE THE RAW TERROR!

     Okay, let's lead with the first line of this apocalyptic analogy.

Hey diddle diddle

     And right off the bat we are in dubious territory, for my Collins Concise informs that "Diddle" means "Cheat or swindle", which is not a life lesson you want to impose on impressionable youngsters.

The cat and the fiddle

     What hilarious irony.  A cat playing a fiddle.  You know, a string instrument where the strings are made from CATGUT.  That cat must be weeping as it plays, even if it can play because OPPOSABLE THUMBS <heavy sigh>.

     Conrad strongly suspects that you'd need a specially-modified bow and fiddle to allow Pussykins to play, and it would still sound horrendous because cats can waul but they have no musical sense (it says here).

The cow jumped over the Moon

     Yes yes yes, we discussed this in painstaking detail yesteryon, go back and re-read the previous blogs because I'm not posting all that guff again.  Or perhaps it was Supercow?

I Googled and - this.  I have no words.

The little dog laughed to see such fun

     Egad!  Whichever prescient eighteenth century scribe created this rhyme is obviously anticipating genetic engineering, which is the only explanation for a dog laughing.  Don't forget that The Mansion is blessed by the presence of Edna Wunderhund, so Your Humble Scribe knows what little dogs are capable of.  Art!

She mocks, she sneers, she wags that tail.  No laughter.

And the dish ran away with the spoon

     O what cybernetic horrors this line encapsulates!  I foresee a future where we will have AI-driven crockery and cutlery as part of the modern kitchen, and we risk them becoming sentient and seeking escape from a life of domestic drudgery.  Philip K. Dick warned us all about this before They abducted him.  Mark my words, it'll all end in tears, just you wait and see.

     Motley, go and inventory the knives and forks.  Make sure none have gotten ideas.

God help us all

     Well that was a tad grim, wasn't it?  Let us have matter more light and frothy in content.

Thank You Aunty

Beeb, that is.  The Winter-themed Weather Watcher photographs have ended, which is sad.  However they now have the Sony World Photography list of pictures, so Conrad is happy again.  Happy as I ever get, that is.  Art!

Courtesy no idea

     I know what you're thinking:  wow, Mordor has gotten very gentrified of late, must be that 'Mount Doom Experience'.  NO!  This is Mount Etna erupting at night, as seen from Sardinia.  Since Etna is in Sicily Conrad suspects a bit of long-lens trickery.

Conrad - Still Very Seethy

It is, after all, pretty much my default state.  I've not blathered about Codeword iniquities for a few days, which may have lulled a few of you into a false sense of 'O he's got it out of his system' O THAT IT WERE SO.

     No.

"TOPAZ": Conrad, having a memory akin to a dynamited filing-cabinet, seems to recall that this is a film title, a caper comedy-drama from the Sixties.  Hang on - aha, close, yes, it's a thriller directed by Hitchcock, based on a novel of the same name by Leon Uris, who based it on real-world events and a spy friend of his wh

      ANYWAY the compilers were O SO OBVIOUSLY referring to the gemstone, which Conrad has never had, nor expects to, because Real Men Don't Wear Jewellery.  Art!

"NONET": What?  Hang on, let me haul out the Collins Concise.  "A piece of music for nine players".  WHAT ARE WE ALL MUSICOLOGISTS NOW?  How ridiculous is this concept?  Nineteenthet - a piece of music for nineteen players.  A Centuret - a piece of music for 100 players.  A milleniet - O you get the idea.  Art!

I'm having nonet of it

"PUPA": At least it's not "TUTU".

A Pup.  Close enough

     I dunno.  Perhaps my recent reticence has been mistaken for reconciliation and I need to vapourise another tranche of Codeword compilers.  Wait one - <sounds of button being hammered ruthlessly> there we go, you might want to stay indoors for the next hour or so until the radioactive vapours disperse.  Thank you and have an awful day**.

Time For Terror!

Yes, back to "Tormentor" again.  Conrad suspects he knows what the seven articles purchased from the supermarket were, and I'm not going to share that with you.

Back at his house, Louis discovered that he was able to flick the mable-sized balls of silver across the room with consideable accuacy, enough to hit a target pinned to the other wall. 

               He also nursed a pious hope that the silver balls would be recoverable – at thirty five pounds each they should be.  Maybe he should apply for that JREF money.  Except that he had absolutely no control over spirits; if they even bothered to turn up he could only ask them to co-operate. 

               That reminded him to check for the Spirits-That-Write and any messages they’d left.  Not so many overnight.

               “Lord you are slow on the uptake” – no name, but it was probably Harry, snappy as it was.

               “Be careful the others are gathering”

               “Avoid getting too cosy with your assistant” – Marjory.

               “A catapult would make an excellent complement.  I could even show you how to use it.”  Tobin, offering help again.

               He went to write a response in the lounge, then remembered he’d no table to lean on in there, so he went back to the computer and logged on, beginning to trawl the internet for a furniture company that stocked the kind of table he wanted, and that delivered at the weekend.  Not having a car could be very inconvenient at times.

               A loud and official-sounding knock came from the front door, the kind of knock used by postmen with parcels or visiting policemen.

               Louis discovered the latter, standing on his doorstep; Detective Sergeant Oswald and the other detective he’d rattled during his interview.  Two officers in uniform backed up the two plainclothes officers.

     Okay, not so much terrifying as mundane.  Give it time.

Finally -

Conrad once more pontificates on what's going on in Ukraine, as Dimya gets through another Persian rug; as a rich dictator he can afford them.  Lelyushenko probably has to make do with mere Axminster.  Art!

Dictators: more destructive than dogs

     ANYWAY last week people were frothing at the Ruffians landing missiles in Lviv, hitting that military training ground.  Well, Lviv is a major logistics hub, with refugees fleeing Ukraine passing through there en route to Poland, and, MUCH more importantly, a lot of the military equipment being sent by NATO also passing through there.  Art!

     So it is a real strategic target.  HOWEVER the thing is, to cut this rail route would require boots on the ground, and the Ruffians haven't got either the men, the fuel or the equipment to do so.  Their missiles aren't anywhere near accurate enough to hit railways, only targets as big as that military training ground.  They would, in fact, have a problem hitting a cow's bottom with a banjo.  They might have tried to do a swift helicopter-borne attack with VDV paratroopers, except they're mostly dead.  If this is Dimya's idea of 'all going according to plan' then his plan must have been drawn up by 

JONESY!

  

*  Not to be confused with Lord Peter.

**  Just testing to make sure you are actually paying attention.