I Know What You're Thinking
Before you start yarking on about D.A.R.P.A.'s Telepathy Helmet, yes I replaced it before they ever missed it (their Inventory team are useless and are probably outsourced to First Bus). You are just so entirely predictable; that's how I know what you're considering. Art!
There you go, no longer sitting on top of my wardobe in The Mansion.
Where were we? O yes - sinister. Now, normally you would be entirely correct in predicting Conrad trotting out an aspect of his personality or behaviour that is, indeed, sinister. Like his recital of cutey-pie children's nursery rhymes in a hissing undertone that would give most children nightmares. Why do I do it? Because it amuses me. Art?
 |
| Suitably dark |
"Sinister": Since I'm typing this at work, I cannot resort to my Collins Concise, so here's a passel of definitions from an <shudder> internet dictionary*.
Yes yes yes it does up the word count, that's entirely incidental PAY ATTENTION WHILE I'M DEVELOPING YOU! Thank you. So kind.
Here an aside. "2000 AD" had a strip back when I bought it weekly, entitled "Sinister Dexter" about a couple of 'bullet monkeys' in the future Europe-wide city of Downlode. Art!
Inspired, they say, by the John Travolta and Samuel Jackson characters in "Pulp Fiction".
Where were we? Sorry, the party going on in my head 24/7 makes it hard to concentrate. O yes - Sinister.
You may not know it, but this word is the Latin <hack spit> for 'Left', and is used in heraldry to describe the left side of a shield (call it an 'Escutcheon' if you want to be a pseud) from the bearer's point of view. Guess what the Latin <hack spit hack spit> for 'Right' is? You got it, 'Dexter'. The sinister side is always the lesser or inferior side, which must upset it and put it in a bad mood, hence all the negativity. Art!
Conrad would like to thank Steve and Oscar for bringing this fascinating subject to the fore of his mind for absolutely no reason whatsoever. What a team we make!
Motley, can you check Greek mythology and see if Aegis (the shield of Zeus that we described yesteryon) had any heraldic designs upon it? Just curious. And I have no fear of the Coincidence Hydra because my underwear is shielded by armour.
I Forgot!
We also have another insulting nickname for Puffy Petrol Pimp - "Tiny Toxic Terror Toad". Just thought I'd bring you up to date on that one. Art!
Dimya's namesake.
(Still preferable to him)
Conrad will leave the creative juices on a low simmer to see if we can come up with another pithy title like Putin On The Fritz.
Conrad: Cannot Resist A Pun
Nor can I resist showing how clever I am <gloasts mildly> by sharing said word-wanging. Your Humble Scribe spotted this one yesteryon as the bus was approaching and didn't feel like tempting fate by turning his e-pass off. Art!
 |
| "Dogs must be on lead" |
Ignore the '7 5', I have no idea what it means.
SO! Conrad, of course, reads 'Lead' as being the metal, because he's perverse like that - see the Intro - and thus imagines said dogs being dangerously radioactive thanks to Plutonium Paws. Art!
The closest I could find
Just imagine, a hapless council employee decided to save themselves the bother of typing an "A" which meant CONRAD IS RIGHT IN THERE.
You may politely applaud and laugh now.
Meanwhile, Back In 1943 ...
Yes, back to "The War Illustrated" and Your Humble Scribe has news for you, good or bad depending on your Weltanschaung. Firstly, he got told how much of a bonus he was getting - which softens the blow of redundancy a little BUT ONLY A LITTLE - and took the plunge of purchasing all 10 volumes of TWI. So we are near the end of this one - yet shall have 9 more to draw upon! No, no, don't thank me, readership is it's own reward. Art!
 |
| "Breakthrough at Gabes" |
For your information, these are Valentine and Crusader tanks of Eighth Army, advancing north into Tunisia after breaking the Axis defence lines near Gabes, which has a narrow corridor of land between the coast and difficult terrain inland. Rommel the Lucky Liar had, in the meantime, left Africa, because he'd managed to fail in every battle since Alamein. Art!
"Nach hinten vorruken!**"
Note how the tanks are all sitting in dead ground, in order to be safe from both prying eyes and Axis anti-tank guns, in terrain that it a lot more typical of Tunisia than the Libyan or Egyptian desert - hilly and with grasses present.
"The Sea Of Sand"
No, nothing to do with that film of the same name, except that they are both set in the Libyan desert. Recall, if you will, that we are now in June 1940, and things are going badly for the Allies in France.
Cherif frowned at this, and Roger
cast an appraising eye at the lean, aged supervisor. Privately, Roger didn’t believe that the
labourers were stealing artefacts and it seemed Cherif shared that opinion, but
the graduate couldn’t very well disagree openly with his senior.
The
argument had caused some of the expedition’s other members to wake. A canvas tent flap twitched open and the
tousled hair of Fulgoni preceded the Italian archaeologist, who rubbed his
eyes, stretched and yawned enormously, then set to getting breakfast
ready. The French members emerged from
their tent, looking unhappy, conversing in a low mutter. They headed straight for the radio tent. Fulgoni spared them a single glance, then
unfolded a collapsible table, normally used for dealing with finds. He unpacked the battered enamel plates, cups
and cutlery from the cardboard box they usually sat in, checking each time he
lifted a plate that no desert insect life had settled in the box overnight.
‘What are you
arguing for, Professore?’ asked the Italian, lighting the primus stove to boil
water. ‘Another disappearance?’
Templeman
chewed his lip, then his thumbnail.
Damnation! he
thought. Our last Libyan labourer gone,
vanished into the night like the others, and with his arms full of looted finds
the expedition would never lay eyesight on again. That meant only the European expedition
members and Ben Cherif remained, which meant that excavating would slow down
even more. Damned untrustworthy natives!
You can't accuse the Prof of having a single PC bone in his body, can you? Don't worry, Roger has enough urbanity for the both of them.
Finally -
Once again we only need a short article to hit the Adjusted Compositional Ton, and Conrad is notably avoiding anything to do with contemporary bloodshed. Instead I shall refer to "The Daughter Of Time" and a mention in the text about people in This Sceptred Isle of First Unpleasantness vintage believing an urban legend about legions of Ruffian troops (Tsarist and thus our valiant allies against the wicked Teuton) pouring through en route to France. One of the incidental details was that they 'still had snow on their boots'. As if! A journey of hundreds if not thousands of miles and the snow of Holy Mother Ruffia still sat on their leathers? Preposterous nonsense without a shred of truth to it. Art!
That's the Tsar and his uncle, who was immensely tall.
And with that we are done!
* Such things exist? Horrors!
** "Advance to the rear!"
No comments:
Post a Comment