Meat The Spew Boss

No!  That Is Not A Typo

Nor is it a reference to that classic song by The Who, "Won't Get Fooled Again", which is from their absolute masterpiece "Who's Next", which is definitely one of the greatest rock albums ever, and if we can cattle-prod Art out of his coal and coke-induced stupor - 

     As others have said, all killer no filler.  There is a line - what?  Where was the picture taken?  At a place called Easington Colliery.  Art!

     The story goes that the band were heading back south after performing in Sunderland and happened to spot the monolith in a moonscape of rubble and slag, and because Pete Entwistle and Keith Moon had been banging on about the monolith from "2001: A Space Odyssey" they felt the artistic urge.

     ANYWAY there is a line in WGFA that goes "Meet the new boss" followed by the bitterly citric line "Same as the old boss".

     Of course - obviously! - none of this has to do with the rest of the Intro, because you shouldn't be here if you expect common sense or a narrative that doesn't leap around like a gerbil on crystal meth.  What we are covering here is another tale from Reddit about Malicious Compliance, and this one, unusually, hails from This Sceptred Isle.

     The Original Poster stated that he was a maintenance engineer in a food-processing plant which supplied meat products to supermarkets.  Art!

This kinda thing

     Plants like this have extremely rigorous quality control checks to ensure that what get's processed is safe for human consumption.  Conrad can confirm this, he used to work with someone who had been on a meat-processing line, and if they felt aggrieved or wanted a break, they'd bin the line's entire load and claim "there was a boil on a piece of meat'.

     OP comes in to work (at the unholy hour of 05:30) and finds a cluster of people standing around a halted line, next to a metal detector, a joint team of Hygiene and Operating staff.  This device will scan meat and let it pass on the production line, unless it encounters metal, in which case a valve turns and the meat goes into a reject bin.  There's an argument about the valve and which position it ought to be in.  OP informs the gaggle which position it ought to be in.  Art!

     Another thing about plants like this is the volume of product they process, up to 2 tons of meat per hour, and the fact that any downtime on the production line immediately starts to rack up costs.  

     Enter manglement.  The plant manager comes up, orders OP to put the valve back in the wrong way and won't take no for an answer.  "I am more experienced" he tells OP when he beefs about it.  Cue Malicious Compliance.  OP does, but also takes care to cover his bottom by sending out e-mails to the PM and his boss.

     You are probably ahead of me here.  After 15 minutes OP gets a call to go see PM, who tells him the metal detector is broken and needs fixing. OP informs him that the valve is in the wrong way and it's PM's responsibility to fix it, because it's neither broken nor a maintenance issue - O and there's a call for me to attend a real issue goodbye!

     PM had to bungle the fix himself and took an hour.  Remember, this equates to a ton of meat sitting not being processed, in addition to another half-ton sitting in the reject bin that has to be disposed of.  Art!

<Conrad sighs at the waste>

     Yes, disposed of.  Can't have it going anywhere for consumption thanks to the possible metal content, and as it's not being processed to be eaten, it's not stored hygienically, hence the 'Spew' part of today's title.

     Inevitably PM gets hauled over the coals thanks to the downtime and lost meat, and promptly tries to get OP the chop, which fails thanks to those cover your bottom e-mails, which leads to him getting a royal chewing out from his boss and a demotion.  Justice prevails!  OP saved from an offal fate <cough cough>.

     

Conrad Admits Crossword Defeat

<pause to allow gentle readers to get back into their chair>

This isn't any old Crossword, it's that one in a Lord Peter Wimsey short story.  The clues are fiendishly difficult and one had a quotation in Greek.  Allow me to illustrate one such.  The clue: " Backward observe her turn her way; The way of wisdom, wise men say"

     And the solution? "TNA"

     What?  It must be an abbreviation, except - which one?  Total Nonstop Action?  Tamil National Alliance?  Training Needs Analysis?  Texas Nurses Association?  Art!

     I was going to mention another; instead Conrad is going to string these out for positively weeks.

Bring On Another Young Person's Astronomy Photograph

These entries are from an international competition and this is one of the adult entries.  Art!

"Disconnection Event" by Gerald Rehmann

     This is Comet Leonard in full array, with the 'tail' streaming out directly opposite the Sun, as it's the Sun's rays that are heating up and out-gassing the comet.  The caption says it will never be seen from Earth again, which means either it's next return will be in a few hundred thousand years, or it's going to break up.

"The Sea Of Sand"

We left the Doctor trying to find cover and concealment from the alerted and alarmed bio-vores in their complex of buildings, after committing a little improvised sabotage.

Despite his speed and concealment, it was a close-run race.  Aliens stamped and ran, in faintly comical style, around the steps of The Temple, whilst he snaked across the sands and burrowed into the piles around the middle building of the three.  A loud cry went up from The Temple's interior, no doubt as the Webley was discovered.  The Doctor dug himself in, grinding down into the sand in order to cover his face, leaving only a small space for his mouth.  Dragging a biro from an interior pocket, he stripped out the inner tube and used the outer one as a primitive snorkel.  

     Another yell went up from the aliens, muffled by his covering.  Providentially they had found the tracks left by Albert and the Professor and were, suspected the Doctor, following them up to the basin wall.

Predictably, the Detachment Leader was enraged at the damage caused to the trans-mat pylon.  The transmission process was impossible to carry out until the damage was assessed and repaired.  Several Technicians went over the pylon nervously, keeping one eye on Sorbusa, the other on their equipment.  

     Sorbusa sent a squad of scouts to sweep the HQ building, and another to scour the entire site.  He'd foolishly assumed there were no locals in the Infiltration Complex and now needed to remedy that.  His searchers called in that they had discovered non-bio-vore tracks leading away from the complex, further into the desert and away from the complex.

     There you go, surprising what luck and a bit of forward planning will get you.

"Consider Phlebas" By Iain M. Banks

Conrad finished this sci-fi novel yesteryon and, as I feared, The Missing Finger is never resolved or mentioned after the protagonist Horza -

     SPOILERY BIT AHEAD AND AHOY!

     You see, he ends up the prisoner of a cult, whose grotesquely obese leader likes to put in his metal dentures and bite his victims extremities off, starting with the fingers.  He strips the flesh from one of Horza's fingers, which is A VERY BAD IDEA.  Horza's had his genotype mucked around with sufficiently that he has poison glands beneath his fingernails, and his saliva will blind instantly if he spits in yer eye.  He can also disconnect from any feelings of pain.  Art!

Flabby's like this

     Predictably, Fatty proceeds to die slowly and painfully.  Horza escapes, pulls off the finger-bone, hides his lost finger for a day AND THEN IT'S NEVER MENTIONED AGAIN.  Not once.  Not by Horza, not by anybody.  

     I realise this is more my problem than Iain M. Banks.  So be it.

Finally -

Whilst walking Edna this morning I rashly remarked to her "Tempting fate, but no dogwalkers".  Seconds later when I turn around there's another dog-walker, who must have come up the side road as they'd been invisible mere seconds ago.

     That'll teach me.