Conrad: STILL Hates All Musicals

This Is Not News

Nor is it new.  If you've stuck with the blog over these many years - Kreplach Dog Buns, nine of them! - then you know this has been my position since forever, and it won't change.  All the cast and crew for theatre and films and television and any other media I may have overlooked are going to find gainful employment in the uranium mines when I take over, O yes indeed*.

     Why am I frothing at the lips over this issue right now?  Let us first have a picture of - Art?

     A Vickers Light Tank Mark 6, in the desert, because I have a soft spot for these ineffectual little beggars, and the complicated cradle arran

     ANYWAY I am venting and tenting because whilst traversing Oldham Bus Station I spotted a poster.  'That looks SUSPICIOUSLY like a musical,' I mused, silently because we don't want to frighten passing members of the public.  "Dreamboats and Petticoats" it smugly announced.  Cue Googling at home when I finally got there, no thanks to Worst Bus, and what do I find?  Art!

     This farrago appears to consist of songs from the late Fifties and early Sixties, stuff that's about seventy years old, which has been played to death on the radio and which Conrad cordially hates in the first place.  Dog Buns! get contemporary you bafunes, there are scads of bands out there in Gomorrah-in-the-Irwell alone that could knock this old, tired, decrepit past-pensionable-age sonic sewage into the middle of next week month decade.

     Besides which, there is the worrying precedent set by "Wet Side Storey" (sp?), which was disgustingly well-received for a remake nobody asked for nor wanted, probably because it had a Big Name Director associated with it, as if anyone needs to hear about a multi-floored house with plumbing problems.

     Bah! is my considered opinion.

All-round wet storeys

Steppe To It

You'll see how clever I am in a minute.  Okay, obviously those FSB chaps who were arrested and gulagged for reading BOOJUM! got their mates interested, probably along the lines of "come and read what this cheeky get is saying about His Highness!".  Except they've now come up with an excuse that they need to sample decadent Western media to see just how decadent it is, AND it has to be SFW or the Internet Police will come a-knocking and O Look A Site That Does Just That.  Art!

     I did say I'd uplift the Ruffians a little, given that we've been relentlessly mocking Tsar Poutine, so <thinks> aha!  'Roadside Picnic' by the Strugatsky Brothers.  This novel is crying out to be done as a blockbuster, because 'Stalker' was as miserably minimalist as it's possible to be while still being a film.  Hello Mister Speilberg are you paying attention?  After all, it is set in British America, so there wouldn't be a problem with the accents.  "Gusliar Wonders" is too episodic to make a good film, but it would make a splendid miniseries.  Art!

"Funny Russian" is not always an oxymoron

Looking At Lego

One of the minor highlights of a morning when working in the Dark Tower is passing by the Lego Shop BE STRONG CONRAD DO NOT SUBMIT WALK ON BY WALK ON BY and seeing what new models they have on display.  Their 'Titanic' seems to be a fixture now, it's been there for months.  Two new structures took pride of place last week, if Art can be bothered to -

     Being typically perverse, let's look at 'The Globe' to starboard.  Yours for only £175 if you feel the urge to create it, which seems rather pricey to Your Humble Scribe, as his wallet sighs with relief.  Art!

     Er - that's Europe?  Was there an asteroid strike I missed?  And - how can Perfidious Albion be reduced to a couple of green dots?  The Mediterranean is now landlocked at the western end?  Where are Sardinia and Sicily?  Cyprus?  Crete?

     Hmmmmmm.  Nope.  Okay, okay, have the whole confused artefact in one picture.  Art!

Bringing A Touch Of Harmony To Matters

I feel a touch mischievous ...

     Only joking!  I didn't realise until after posting that I'd used this photo on Sunday in addition to Monday, but what the heck the description was entirely different and nobody's complained yet.  Bring on the next Sony World Photography picture - Art!

     Ho hum.  This one, we are informed, is Geldingadalir, yet another volcano that has erupted in Iceland; hardly news, is it?  They seem to sprout a new volcano every other week.  Is this the one that people were getting married in front of, so they'd have a nice bright backdrop?  That also incidentally gouts out poisonous gasses?  That way you could have a wedding and a funeral simultaneously, perhaps also a barbecue**.

Bring On The Torment!

Yeah, if standing next to rivers of stinking molten rock - believe me, lava does not smell like lavender and pot pourri - isn't harsh enough for you, try standing next to a spirit.  Yes, another extract from "Tormentor".

‘Let us see.  So far these things have attacked at night, in my home.  Morgan, or  whoever is in charge of them, is trying to scout out what defences I have.  That implies another attack. So, what if they come while I’m alseep in bed?’

               Unbidden visions of his mutiliated corpse lying on a bed awash with blood immediately came to mind.

               ‘Then I’ll wake you up,’ said Yvonne, gently.  ‘The Professor asked me to look after you, and I will.’

               ‘Wouldn’t you be at risk?’

               ‘Only a little.  You are the big threat to the Dark Ones, not me.  They might turn on me, after having dealt with you.’

               How flattering it was to be a deadly threat to a deadly threat.

               After a hasty meal he got down to marking for next week’s classes.  This, in it’s own way, felt just as peculiar as conversing with spirits.  Yvonne vanished for a couple of hours, then came back and remembered to slap the lounge bible.  Still no news of the Professor.  She checked what the Spirits-That-Wrote had left –

               ‘ “Chingley Hall you ****** buffoon!  Hope you enjoy your waste of time”,’ read Yvonne.

               ‘That’s Harry.  Curmudgeon.  Do me a favour and write underneath “why are you such a miserable *******?”.  Anything else?’

               ‘ “If you want haunted, try The Sweetwater Inn”.’

               Louis paused in his assessment of Jonathan Swift and post-Renaissance science, took up his notebook and made a jotting of the name.

               ‘ “Do watch out for Laura there’s a dear, dear.”’

               Marjory.  Everyone’s spirit granny.

     I think I've edited all the swearing out, leaving in only the mundane and the pant-wettingly terrifying.  And you're welcome.

Finally -

You may want to skip this bit if you're a big fan of Dimya, or wish to avoid more guff about the 'Special' Military Operation in Ukraine.

     One wonders how the Ruffians are getting along with not being allowed to call a spade a spade, a shovel a shovel and a bottle of vodka a good time.  Imagine Yuri nattering with Kyril, about the cold snap they've been experiencing in Moscow.

"I say, old gopnik, it's not very Special-Military-Operation-m, is it? cracks Kyril.

"Now now, druk," replied Yuri.  "Bad punning.  I'm Special-Military-Operation-ning you, none of that."

     Both are being especially Special-Military-Operation-y, as the police and Loyalty Special-Military-Operation-dens are always on the prowl.

     Conrad could go on but has probably squeezed all the humour there ever was out of that joke.

The town of Special-Military-Operation-Special-Military-Operation-owka***

*  "The Blues Brothers', "The Return Of Captain Invincible" and "This Is Spinal Tap" are ALL comedies with music.  That is all.  No more discussion or I break out the Remote Nuclear Detonator.

**  I know, I know, I'm a terrible person.

***  Honestly!  Google it.