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Thursday, 1 September 2022

Traffic Jamb

 NO!  That Is Not A Typo -

It's an hilarious pun, hilarious I tell you!

Okay, because leading with a picture of today's blog traffic would be terminally dull, I think instead we'll have something a bit saucier.  Art!

"He loves chillis!"

     Yes yes yes, I know this is bordering on salacious, but the lady's erogenous zones are still covered, if only just.  For your information those things on her legs are stockings, held up by a garter belt; Your Humble Scribe is unaware if these are still in use, not being up on ladies lingerie.  We shall gloss over the absence of bra straps be

     ANYWAY here we have the old trope of Damsel In Distress, with a balding brute being the one about to dish out distress with a knife, because that stance is how you deliver an overarm stab.  Our Hero either has no idea of how to use a firearm or has run out of bullets; if the latter then he will rapidly discover how unpleasantly hot a gun barrel can be.

     Or - could it be that the balding brute has come to cut the lady free, and the wicked kidnapper is trying to beat him off?  

     ANYWAY let me put up the traffic stats.  Art!


     The thing is, yesterday the "Today" figure remained at 9 all day long.  Even when I disabled the "Don't count my own pageviews" and went to view my own pages several times, the count remained at 9.  Cue long face from Conrad as traffic stats are my reason for existing, you know, in the same way a jamb keeps a door upright so do traffic stats keep me going from day to day*.

     This morning the figure for yesteryon had gone up to 17.  Say what?  Later still it jumped to 20, then 27 and now it stands at 36.  Clearly peculiar things are going on in the background with Blogger.  Today's figure now stands at 8 when it was 7 a while ago, so there is hope that traffic will be counted properly today.

     That was an unusually succinct Intro, so let's finish with another hilarious pun.  Art!

Traffic jam

Conrad's Dirty Laundry

No metaphor here.  Our washing machine was on the blink, so an engineer came to visit yesteryon.  He ran it for fifteen minutes without a problem but is coming back next week to replace the heater and master-board.  His suggestion was to - GET THIS - turn it off at the mains, and then on again.  Don't sneer, it worked.  We did a small fast wash of towels and - success!

     Hopefully this has not jinxed things and I can do my smalls later on.



The Perils Of Reading Century-Old Stories

Your Humble Scribe has been re-reading stories from "Lord Peter Wimsey The Collected Short Stories" because I can only remember the plots from a couple of them.  Too much gin at bedtime I suppose.  Checking the publishing blurb shows that a fair number of these were written in 1928, so getting on for a century old.  This means that contemporary references occasionally fall flat, such as the reference to a "Scott Flying Squirrel".  Rather to my surprise, this was very much a real artefact.  Art!


     Yes, a motorbike, and apparently it was a business tradition to name them after a squirrel.  I shall go no further than that, go Google it if you want to know more about the clutch and cooling system.

     There are other words that Conrad simply didn't recognise.  "Entailed", for example.  No, not the sense you're thinking of, but in the legal sense.  It means to "restrict the descent of an estate to designated heirs".  O I'm glad we got that one cleared up, it would have haunted me for days.

     Don't think we're done with this subject yet.  O no**.


"The Sea Of Sand"

We are at the point when Something Is About To Be Revealed.  I shall let the story speak for itself.

Remembering his earlier quote from 'MacBeth', The Doctor felt his skin crawl with apprehension, and possibly premonition, his wilful and erratic parapsychological talents at work, perhaps.  What was that quote again?

     "Something wicked this way comes."


     Farmer Imgelissa had come up on the Overseer's rota to take supplies of bottled algae to the great, grey-granite pile of the Northern Littoral Research Site.  He had four hundred bottles to take, carried on the special sled with static-friction runners, and need of a colleague to help tow or push on hard stretches.

     He chose Farmer Nurbonissa, the short yet stocky newcomer from the Inland Lakes region.  Nurbonissa wasn't big, so didn't need lots of algae to keep himself going, but he was young and strong and willing.

     The gaggle of Overseers approved Imelissa's choice without quibbling.

     Most unusual! he thought.  Miss out on a chance to point out their superiority in the caste ladder?  They seemed to be discussing secrets amongst themselves, rather than paying attention to normal, humiliating ritual.

     Nurbonissa was pleased and flattered to be chosen as an assistant.

     "Don't be too happy, young one," warned Imgelissa, drily.  "We only get one per cent of the cargo to ourselves - four bottles."

     Ah, there you go, Conrad leaving you with a cliff-hanger.  Ain't I a swine!


Conrad Is Happy

Or as happy as he gets.  I shan't put up that photograph of me grinning maniacally, it would give you bad dreams and it frightens small children.

     "Why are you happy, Conrad?  Did Tsar Poutine fall down a manhole and break both legs?" I hear you ask.

     That would indeed make me smile.  No, that's not the reason.  "My Love From The Star" is back on Netflix after being absent for an age.  Art!


     Ostensibly it's a sci-fi comedy, with a humanoid alien stuck on planet Earth for over 400 years, and the incredibly vain and shallow actress he gets involved with.  There's very little sci-fi about it, really, and it's a quite sharp and amusing satire of modern Korea.  Plus the Korean actresses are all really attractive.  I think there's only one season and I'm onto episode Five.


Bring On The Picturesque

Time for that 'Countryfile' calendar photo competition again.  I know you probably couldn't care less about the photos and only read this item to see what Conrad adds in value thanks to his viperish wit.  Art!

"Capture the castle" by John Burrows

     For your information, this very dramatic shot is of Bamburgh castle.  Not sure where 'Wild and free' comes into it, but you can't deny it has atmosphere.  Let me just Google about the castle a moment - Art!


     It's on the coast of Northumberland, in North-Eastern England.  I must say, it looks very well preserved, almost as good as Conrad is.

Finally -

Wonder Wifey has beaten me to the washing machine, and there's not been any loud cursing, so it's possible that it's still working, hurrah!  Conrad needs to go down and put away the towels and bathroom rugs that got laundered yesterday, and I need to put the black bin out.  O the undying excitement of my rock and roll lifestyle.

     Okay, Vulnavia, we are totes done.


*  See?  Told you, hilarious punnery

**  Just to inform you that the date mentioned in the current story is 1921.  So over a century old.

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