As Evinced By Conrad, The Utter Hack
It has been a week since I started posting links as usually done on a Sunday evening, rather than fresh new content, being in rather a snit that the readers had deserted us. This had two results: it bumped up traffic significantly as people explored The Steve And Oscar Show going back eight years, and it saved Your Humble Scribe at least an hour of slaving over a clacking keyboard. Great! I get to tackle that jigsaw, read old long-form fictions written years ago, and discover new Netflix shows. Plus crack on with "Reclaiming History", now up to Page 1,200, so just over 300 to go.
But first! We need a click-baity picture. Art!
"Tomorrow"
This is a Sork supernatural drama comedy, and the three on the left are a Risk Management Team, whose duty is to prevent humans from committing suicide; they are part of a larger organisation run on conventional business lines whose business is dealing with souls. That chap on the right is head of 'Escorts', who essentially ensure people meet their justified end. Some of it is very powerful drama indeed, the initial two episodes dealing with the consequences of bullying.
That's Choi-Jun Woong, the human element of the RM Grim Reapers. Not to put too fine a point upon it, he's an idiot. But - he has a good heart and there's room for improvement. He is also the comic relief, because you can't have all wall-to-wall misery and depression.
Okay, we have a lot to get through so I shall call this Intro to a succinct close right here.
Looking To The Past
As you should surely know by now, Conrad is an inquisitive rascal whose long nose gets poked into all the corners all the time. Thus we look back at one of the click-baity pulp covers I used to tempt the viewers in. Art!
Hmmmmm so the sinister shadow is begin cast by a titanically-taloned creature in front of her, so naturally she's looking behind her rather than the creature itself? How does this make sense? If you retort that obviously this is one of the 'Usurpers' then how can an invisible creature cast a shadow? Hmmm. Yeah, got you there. Then look at that tagline "THE EARTH OVERRUN BY AN INVISIBLE HORDE!" which begs a little intellectual parsing. For starters, HOW DO YOU KNOW! if the horde is invisible? For all you know there's only a few hundred concentrated in Lesser Sneddlepool or The Sanjak Of Novi Pazar (doubtless after the pistachio harvest) and the rest of the world is Usurper-free.
Also, "The Man Who Could Not Die" seems to be a logical fallacy, because have they tried every possible combination of every possible thing in order to test this assertion? No! For all They know a batch of fudge irradiated by Cobalt isotopes and garnished with Sprong could finish him off in seconds. Ha! Didn't think of that, did They? Art!
Very possibly Sprong*
Each Step Is The Inevitable Consequence Of The Preceding One
As said by Albert Einstein. You know, clever fellah, Mad Scientist hairdo. Let me add in the initial spark for this mental conflagration. Art!
There you go. As we all know, Conrad's mind resembles a skip two miles wide, six miles long and one hundred and fifty seven miles high**. This means that nothing ever gets thrown out, even if it might take a little while to locate an item. So, as soon as I read the above I was instantly reminded of - Art?
As played a few times on Sir John Peel's radio program before he was a 'Sir'. They were exactly what it says on the sleeve - a group who played modern rock tunes on an array of kazoos, a fact which tickled Peely enough to play their sonic nonsense a few times.
That's a link to their - ah - 'performance' of "Whole Lotta Love" and if you revere Led Zeppelin even a little, you'll steer well clear.
Hence this item's title.
Say Hello To Vanya And Lizza!
Conrad has been steering clear of any commentary about Putin On The Fritz's dirty dealings, which seems to have encouraged our Ruffian visitors to delicately dabble dangerously with BOOJUM! for even thinking of reading our raving scrivel is probably a gulag sentence of, oooh, eighty years solitary confinement in a turf hut on the tundra, with only defrosted mammoth for provisions***. Art!
Apologies for the synchrony artefacts, I can't get a screenshot with the number of readers present. Note we seem to have readers also in Korea and Lithuania. I wonder what they make of us?
You Can't Escape The Shadow Of Conflict
Although this reference is to the Second Unpleasantness in North Africa, and yes we're referring back to "The War Illustrated".
Here an aside. If you've been following my commentary on this publication then you were either relieved or vaguely disappointed that I was nearing the end of Volume Six. Er - except I bought a set of all ten volumes, in much better nick that the single volume bought in a charity shop. So - long story short, we are not going to run out of TWI source material any time soon.
ANYWAY - Art!
"The Sea Of Sand"
Excuse me whilst I catch up with where we left off on this Doctor Who fan-fiction. Aha! A petty squabble amongst the Templeman-Bartolomei expedition members.
The Frenchman darted a venemous
look at the speaker. He might have made
a barbed comment in his native tongue had not Bartolomei, the expedition’s
leader, emerged from his small tent. As
usual, the Italian’s moustache was neatly trimmed, his hair brushed and oiled
and his chin freshly dashed with aftershave.
His linen suit, salty, creased and dirty, nevertheless gave him an air
of importance. The jacket would come off
during work at the dig, the only concession Bartolomei made to heat and
sunlight.
‘Gentlemen,
I heard raised voices,’ he chided gently.
‘There is no need to export the unpleasantness of Europe here, into
Libya. Let us begin the day in a
civilised manner, if we can.’
Taking
a seat at the head of the table, he sliced up stale bread and began to sip the
strong, milky coffee that Fulgoni had brewed.
Professor Templeman glowered in annoyance at being told off, and
attacked his bread and ham with a vengeance.
Borguebus left the radio in disgust and joined the seated party,
choosing only coffee. Di Fellica, the
last man to wake, came late to breakfast and got the dregs of the coffee.
Finally, when he deemed everyone
to have finished, Bartolomei looked mildly at Professor Templeman and moved his
head slightly forward, a gesture of invitation.
‘The
last Libyan ran off last night,’ said Templeman. ‘Now all we have to help us is Ben Cherif.’
Bartolomei
looked puzzled.
‘Another
disappearance? After we doubled his
wages? Really, this is most odd.’ He muttered quietly to himself in his native
tongue for a few seconds. Templeman
stoked up his meerschaum whilst others smoked cigarettes.
Finally -
Much to my dismay I haven't come up with any new nicknames for Puffy Petrol Pimp. Very remiss. I shall have to go away and cogitate.
* It's a long story. Go read a few of my early blogs.
** At 1,884 cubic miles not quite as impressive as the Krell Machine. But still quite impressive.
*** Don't knock it until you've tried it.
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