The Grand Tour

No!  Not The Television Program

You know the one I mean, the knock-off 'Top Gear' with Clarkson, Hammond and May, which is centred around cars, and which had to skate around various legal issues to avoid having it's bottom sued off by the incredibly litigious BBC.  Conrad can't say if he's ever watched it, since it's restricted to an obscure channel called Anaconda or Orinoco.  I do recall watching some episodes of TG - solo, as Wonder Wifey would rather sandpaper her eyeballs rather than watch Clarky - and remember with fondness that one where Clarky was trying to escape from a Challenger tank.  Art!

Enter the Chally

        The rather hokey premise was that Clarky would be driving the very latest model of Range Rover to test it's off-road performance, whilst the Chally would also be going off-road, and try to off Clarky, too.  No, Wonder Wifey, not with real ammo; they have a laser rangefinder that would light up our daring presenter if they got 'gun on'.  Art!

The fun begins

     It was a wild five minutes that ended with the Chally getting a solid hit on the Rover, but props to Clarky for lasting that long.

     ANYWAY that, of course - obviously! - has nothing whatsoever to do with The Grand Tour, which I was minded of yesteryon.  This was a species of overseas travel, indulged in mostly by the British nobility and other wealthy beggars, over a period of two hundred years from the mid-seventeenth century.  Art!

     The idea was that a wealthy scion would tootle across the Continent, inevitably in the company of an erudite elder tutor-cum-mentor, visiting various cities along the way, usually ending up in Italy and Rome.  This was deemed to be a literal widening of one's horizons, and an introduction to actual classical civilisation, bringing the tourer into contact with art, politics, customs and music that were simply unavailable in Great Britain.  Culture with a capital "C", and definitely nothing as low-brow as a television show.  Art!

Modern equivalent

Conrad: Still Seething

     

Face it, if Your Humble Scribe is still breathing then take it for granted that he's seething.  For Lo! we return to Frothing Nitrically at Codeword solutions.  I shall try to rush through a few of these before my blood pressure hits the troposphere.  I can't whine about BREVE since they used that one a few weeks hence.

"EXPUNGE": Come on, now, whom do you know that uses this word?  Well yes, Conrad does -

BOOJUM!: When "Tree-Hugger" Is Not An Insult (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

 Which is the exception that proves the rule.  "To obliterate" is the essence of the word, and it inevitably derives from the Latin "Expungere" meaning 'To blot out' which itself comes from "Pungere" meaning 'To Prick' and I think we'll stop right there.  Art!

Ex-sponge.  Close enough.

"RETROCEDE": You what?  Conrad had to look this one up in the Collins Concise to make sure I'd gotten it right.  "To go back, recede".  So, in order to sound more pseudy and poseury they add three letters to simply make the word longer?  <sound of Remote Nuclear Detonator being mashed like a Morse key>.  Art!

Close enough

"BEREFT":  I know this one sounds like a Tolkein character but trust me, it's a real word. For example, were Conrad to be deprived of his many hundreds of military history books, he would be bereft*.  You only find it used by poseurs and BOOJUM! so once again <Remote Nuclear Detonator breaks loudly>

I am bereft

More For The Ban Hammer

Thank you, dear colleagues, for providing me with a hit-list of musicals that will go under the hammer when I take over.  I may resort to more baiting next week to tease further titles out of my unsuspecting compatriots mouths.  Not Josh - apparently he loathes musicals nearly as much as I do and neatly summed up why they <long creative swear involving donkeys redacted> which I might borrow, except being highly moral I shall ask first.

"Little Shop Of Horrors" is one that nearly crept under the radar.  Conrad remembers having to suffer it when Wonder Wifey rented it.  That dentist was the only good thing about it, and they killed him off.  Did you know the original was by low-budget maestro Roger Corman?  Art!

     You know, it would be deliciously ironic if my Mad Science Research Division could grow an Audrey after my takeover, then we could feed all the musical fans to it.  Serve them right.

"Kinky Boots": Might get a bit of pushback from Josh on this, seemingly the only musical he likes.  Well, I am ever one to work out a compromise, Josh, so we can redefine this as a comedy with music IF IT'S A FILM.  If merely a stage-show then it's into the organ banks for everyone involved.  No debate or discussion.  And did you know the title is from a novelty record of the Sixties that cashed in on "The Avengers"?  Art!

     I can't resist a commentary from a senior British pundit about the Ruffian armed forces and their performance in Ukraine.  "The Ruffian armed forces are large and modern.  However, the part that is large is not modern, and the part that is modern is not large."  Poached from Doctor Johnson, but still hilariously apt.

And Now For More "Tormentor"

I can't quite believe we've got this far and nobody's so much as squeaked the slightest objection, so we shall indeed continue.

Louis spotted the two science staff muttering together, then stopping when he got closer.  For an uncomfortable second he wondered if they were talking about him, except they had no reason to.  Hopefully.

               ‘Hello.  Did you have a member of staff with the initials “JREF”?’

               After a pause for wondering what on earth he meant, both of them shook their heads, Nige wondering about using the past tense in the question.  Louis walked away wondering what “JREF” meant if it wasn’t a person.

               Another strand of thought was possibly being attacked by a mortal suborned by the evils who wanted him dead and destroyed.  From the Professor’s information, the spirits had to be selective about who they picked on; the weak-willed.  Did getting blasted on alcohol weaken your wits?  Or Class A drugs?  Or was it a state you inherited?

               Laura noticed enough about his abstraction to mention it when he finished writing up his observations from the rear of the classroom in her seminar.  Her students were polite or clued-up enough not to bother him.

               ‘Only another two sessions, then the review with Rowell,’ he replied to her question.

               ‘No!  I said you seemed to be elsewhere today.  Here in body but your spirit elsewhere.’

               Use of that word in particular made him pay close attention to her.

               ‘Spirit?’ he asked, suspiciously.  ‘Oh!  Sorry, wrong end of the stick.  Er – yes.’  He sighed and put the pen down.  ‘I had a nasty experience a couple of nights ago and it lingers.’

               ‘Go out and get legless,’ suggested the novice.  ‘Wash the blues away.’

               He made a rueful face.

     He has mellowed a tad, hasn't he?  One supposes having your entire world-view upended violently will do that.

Finally -

Time to end Future Sound Of London, get my coat on and take Edna for a trot.  Only got 545 steps on the Fitbit so far today, which is both a bit rubbish and a consequence of not working in Gomorrah-on-the-Irwell (it's relatively dry at present, another reason for walkies)

*  Not to mention ferociously angry.  Were this to happen keep me away from the Remote Nuclear Detonator.