You Have To Be Of Conrad's Vintage To Get That Reference
It was from a radio program called "Listen With Mother" for small Hom. Sap. because you could get away with fearfully sexist stuff like that back in the Sixties and early Seventies -
Blimey, there's something going on in Ur-On-The-Roche tonight, that's the seventh police car to go by in the past few minutes.
ANYWAY
- heck, there go eight and nine -
ANYWAY Art!
It was frightfully twee and vanilla, because you couldn't scare three year olds with Spine Chilling Tales Of Terror, so BEWARE because here at BOOJUM! we are going to treat you to an old Gypsy Folk Tale that Conrad recalled today,
- Number Ten -
and it's not very cosy at all. "The Red King And The Witch".
It was the Red King, and he bought ten ducats' worth of victuals. He cooked them, and he put them in a press. And he locked the press, and from night to night posted people to guard the victuals.
In the morning, when he looked, he found the platters bare; he did not find anything in them. Then the king said, 'I will give the half of my kingdom to whoever shall be found to guard the press, that the victuals may not go amissing from it.'
The king had three sons. Then the eldest thought within himself, 'God! What, give half the kingdom to a stranger! It were better for me to watch. Be it unto me according to God's will.'
He went to his father. 'Father, all hail. What, give the kingdom to a stranger! It were better for me to watch.'
And his father said to him, 'As God will, only don't be frightened by what you may see.'
Then he said, 'Be it unto me according to God's will.'
And he went and lay down in the palace. And he put his head on the pillow, and remained with his head on the pillow till towards dawn. And a warm sleepy breeze came and lulled him to slumber. And his little sister arose. And she turned a somersault, and her nails became like an axe and her teeth like a shovel. And she opened the cupboard and ate up everything. Then she became a child again and returned to her place in the cradle, for she was a babe at the breast.
There you go, an image that you won't be able to unsee easily. And you're welcome.
Don't worry, we'll come back to this.
I know what you're thinking - and yes, we shall have to raise the Adjusted Compostitional Ton to compensate for all this quoted text.
Out Of This Earth
From the nadir to the zenith - astronomical terms, doncha know <pause for applause, gets a scattered hand-clap> - we come now to the recently-published photographs as taken by the James Webb Space Telescope.
The JWST was launched late and over-budget, and deploying it remotely to activate well beyond Earth's orbit was a nerve-shredding affair where a complex series of operations had to follow with unfailing precision upon one another. Art!
With puny humans for scale
Since launch it has been undergoing 'running-in', which has now progressed to taking real research photographs, now being displayed to exhibit what can be expected from it. Art!
This is the Webb version of the Carina Nebula, an interstellar cloud of dust and gas that will end up creating stars as the matter coalesces under gravity. Hubble has also taken photographs of the nebula - Art!
Just to give a sense of scale, this puppy is 230 light years wide.
We may come back to this - after all our charter does include 'Astronomy'
"To Love And Be Wise" By Josephine Tey
Just to give a flavour of how long it took me to read "Reclaiming History", I purchased this who-dunnit novel months ago and only got around to reading it recently. Art!
Most unusually for Conrad, I shall now have to go back and re-read it thanks to the twist at the end, which of course I am far too discreet to go into here. You'll notice I don't call it a 'murder-mystery' because the blurb on the back deliberately obscures this; is it a murder, or an accident, or a practical joke or all of the above at once?
Let's Up The Word Count!
Er -
I Meant Here's More of "The Sea Of Sand"
That'll teach me to type without thinking. As you recall, The Doctor and Sarah had been trying to find out why they had been diverted to wartime in North Africa instead of being allowed to continue their day-trip to Mars.
‘No sign of a large blue
crate, I suppose, one that happens to look like a police box?’ enquired the
Doctor hopefully. Roger looked puzzled.
‘No, we certainly don’t have anything like that here,
Doctor Smith.’
‘Oh, well. Just a
pious hope.’
Once again Roger directed a searching look at Sarah, who
rolled her eyes.
The Doctor appeared to be nosying at the contents of
stacked crates containing hundreds of red tins full of petrol. In actuality he was plotting how to get out
to that archaeological site, where a distinct energy anomaly existed. Judging by the telemetry, a significant drop
in overall temperature happened to be taking place at the site’s location, over
an area – a bit of a guesstimate here – of three square miles. Not a natural phenomena, and too much a
coincidence not to be connected to the dig.
In fact, given the present date, he didn't think human technology could
manage the heat-sink effect being generated.
Oh yes. That dig had
to be the place the Time Lords aimed him at.
Sarah and Roger were chatting inconsequentially,
Sarah trying to nod and laugh in the right places, which was difficult when she
failed to understand Roger’s army slang and discussion of popular culture.
Found it for you!
Bring On The BBC's Booklist Again
Conrad unsure what decade we're up to now. What better reason to jack up the word count reassure our readers than to copy and paste?
2002-2011
Small Island - Andrea Levy (2004, England)
The Secret River - Kate Grenville (2005, Australia)
The Book Thief - Markus Zusak (2005, Australia)
Half of a Yellow Sun - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2006, Nigeria)
A Golden Age - Tahmima Anam (2007, Bangladesh)
The Boat - Nam Le (2008, Australia)
Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel (2009, England)
The Book of Night Women - Marlon James (2009, Jamaica)
The Memory of Love - Aminatta Forna (2010, Sierra Leone/Scotland)
Chinaman - Shehan Karunatilaka (2010, Sri Lanka)
Wellllllll I am aware that "Wolf Hall" was made into a television series but, really, not interested in werewolf fiction. And that's it as far as I'm concerned. Hang on, the BBC has thoughtfully appended a synopsis for these titles. Let me peruse for one minute - hmmm let's see; immigration, transportation, Nazi Germany, civil war -
Nope, thanks. Heck, I might go back to the werewolf novel.
That item ought to put paid to the scurrilous allegations that Your Humble Scribe has intellectual tendencies. I mean, seriously - a fan of cheesy Fifties sci-fi films and "2000AD"?
Finally -
You may be wondering at the paucity of "Conrad Is ANGRY!" posts of late on BOOJUM! which is explained that the only Codeword I've done recently was completely unobjectionable, which is great for my blood pressure if not for the blog, as - less content.
ANYWAY let us bring on another picture from "The War Illustrated", which was having a bit of a problem itself in terms of content. The war in North Africa had been won, and nowhere else invaded yet, so they had to resort to publicising the boastful Sinisters, and promoting conflict against the Japanese, which wasn't going terribly well for the Allies. Art!
This is an interesting one, displaying the various methods used to land troops in an amphibious operation, which was surely going to be coming in the near future. Principally they show shallow-draught landing-craft, which, as seen in the upper photos, land on a target beach, rather than leaving chaps having to wade ashore. The tank at centre starboard is a Valentine, widely used for testing armour concepts but obsolete at this point in the war. Well, why not use them for testing then? It's not a disaster if it sinks at sea or is immured on a beach (though the crew might disagree).
And with a stratosopheric word count, Vulnavia, we are done!
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