Yes That Is A Proper Sentence!
Firstly, because I say it is, and secondly because it's English, if somewhat archaic, which makes it all the more relevant and apt. You'll see why.
Okay, yesteryon's blog has done fantastically well in terms of traffic, which Conrad can only speculate about, although he did deliberately include a bit of "Lord Of The Rings" click-bait to entrap the unwary. With that in mind I shall include another click-baity picture from LOTR. Art!
To be pronounced with a rolling "R"*
From the novel, not the films. What is the connection between Mister Tolkien and Dorothy L. Sayers? for she is the "Dot" of today's title.
Wellllll this is a bit thin; Ol' Tolk began liking Dot's Lord Peter Wimsey character but by the time "Gaudy Night" and "Busman's Holiday" had been published he had grown to loathe them. Nobody's entirely sure why, just that he disliked them intensely. There is a learned article about the whole matter which I cannot be bothered to read as I've got 13 episodes of "My Love From The Star" to catch up on, plus I'
ANYWAY I have been making notes on odd words or phrases in Dot's collected short stories about Lord P, because a few of these stories are 95 years old, meaning what would make sense to a contemporary reader makes 0% to Conrad. Here follows a list.
"Carmelite House": From the story "Mirror Mirror". Conrad kind of gathers from context that this is an institute storing individual records of British citizens, possibly a precursor to Somerset House, but there isn't anything definitive I can find in a Google search. I can provide you with a picture of the building. Art!
A splendid pile indeed
"Peppermint Jumbles": From "In The Teeth Of The Evidence" and from context this must be a very hard sweet. It seems the South Canadians call them 'Peppermint Bark' which shows how peculiar they are. Art!
They seem a lot softer than I'd imagined. O well, recipes change.
"Immured": Again from ITTOTE. Conrad wondered if it was a legal term. Not so. My Collins Concise has it that it means 'To be confined or shut in' and seems to refer to the decedent's shrewish and horrid wife.
"The Rouse Case": Again from ITTOTE. We've mentioned this event from the Thirties before, although it was three years ago and I bet you don't remember, if you were even reading BOOJUJM! at the time. Essentially, Mr. Rouse was having to pay out inordinate sums of money because he'd fathered numerous illegitimate children, at least five of them. He decided to fake his own death by murdering a hitch-hiker of similar build, leaving the body in his car and setting it alight. He hadn't thought the plan out very well as he was spotted walking down a country lane by a couple of witnesses, and his mistress turned him into the police after he refused to marry her. He was hung and is known to ghouls who dote on this sort of thing as the "Blazing Car Murderer".
Car minus corpse
"Hyoscine": Also from ITTOTE - which I have discovered was written in 1939 - and the context appears to indicate it is a sedative drug, presumably widely known at the time since no explanation is given about it. Let us check - Aha, an alternative name for 'Scopolomine'. Which is used to treat motion sickness. There's a very bad taste joke in there somewhere, which I'm not following. Art!
Also goes by the lovely name of 'Devil's Breath'
"The new planet Pluto": From "The Necklace Of Pearls". That dates this short story prettttty precisely, because Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto in 1930. Art!
Pluto and Charon
Since 2006 it has been re-classified as a 'dwarf planet' because it's so small and puny, and there are other objects in the Kuiper Belt nearly as large. Sorry, Dot.
O, that 'Wot' from today's title? It means to have knowledge of, and by Jove do we have that now but in spades.
What's Wrong With This Picture?
If you're working on an Indonesian oil rig, you expect to see fish, gulls and ships out at sea. What you don't expect to see is this - Art!
Conrad was looking at this and instantly realised this is wrong. A tank of that size weighs at least thirty tons and would immediately sink. There's no flotation screen or protection for the engine intakes. Art!
The Indonesian Navy, curious, went out and took it under tow. At close range it's pretty obviously a wooden mock-up with a metal barrel, which is why it floated; it's hollow inside and is made of wood, which is inherently floaty. Art!
You won't get a chance like this again
Where did it come from? The answer seems to be China, which has mock-ups of various foreign tanks to help train their military deal with NATO or the US or the Ruffians. Art!
Of course - obviously! - that begs the question of how it got out to sea. They're still working on that one.
More Matters Martial
Yes, we are back with "The Sea Of Sand" thank you for asking. We left off with the Doctor keeping a weather eye on the newly-revived aliens at the archaeological dig, whilst Albert and Professor Templeman escaped.
Adopting a suitable martial pose, hands on torso, Detachment Leader Sorbusa pivoted to look over the Infiltration Complex and his technical complement.
Damn but it was still hot here! Not that he could or would ever admit it, not in front of the staff, since that would be admitting weakness. After undergoing centuries of perfectly-balanced metabolic equilibrium, emerging into the harsh and relentless daylight of this world had been a real trial-by-fire.
He looked ruefully at the collapsed Telemetry Tower, shattered apart. That meant resorting to a slow and laborious trawl among the electro-magnetic wavelengths of this planet's native species, even presuming that the primitives were able to broadcast now.
Nor was that all the bad news. No, in it's ruin the Tower had fallen across Survival Dome Two, shattering it, smashing the cryo-cubes of the Warriors inside. Twenty-seven sleepers down already.
A shout from one of the patrolling scouts called him over to the Headquarters building.
Sorbusa looked in surprise and astonishment at the bizarre material structure erected over the steps of the Headquarters building, designed to make access more difficult, it seems.
Sub-Leader Emdoko came up behind him, appraising what the patrol had found.
A nice little puzzle for the aliens. Don't forget, the Doctor is still watching them.
Back To The BBC
And their "Countryfile" photography competition. Let's hope there aren't any more painful puns involved. Art!
"Diamond geezer" by Jack Allerton
This is a puffin coming in to land. There is sea in the background. Conrad is unsure where the reference to gems derives from, unless it's an oblique reference to the puffin's bill, which does make them look faintly ridiculous. Nor do puffins live in London and speak Cockney. Bit mystified here.
Another Post-Apocalyptic Film
From Cultured Vulture. This is Number 21: "The Divide". Conrad not familiar with this one. Art!
From 2011
The blurb has it that a group of survivors take shelter in a nuclear fall-out shelter, and then begin to fall out amongst themselves. Very depressing indeed, says CV. Sounds right up my street!
Finally -
Can't stay up too late tonight, an engineer is coming to fix our washing machine, this time without us getting an option to choose a time-slot, so they'll arrive between 07:15 and 10:15. Last time they messaged us with an ETA of 30 minutes, so we'll see after getting a full 8 hours beauty sleep tonight.
* Think your job's hard? Try working for the Mordor Tourist Board
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