Rimsky Korsakov! And Doctor Who

There's A Name You Never Expected To See Today

I know Ruffia is not flavour of the year, exactly, and indeed any Ukrainian readers will be crossing themselves and spitting, but hear me out.

     Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov was indeed a Ruffian, but since he popped his clogs in 1908 you can't fault him for the contemporary Ruffian state.  He was a big cheese in classical music circles from 1870 onwards, frequently using traditional folk stories in his compositions.  Art!

     Also, I seem to recall that the carbonated swill known as "Cresta" used to promote itself with an animated polar bear announcing that 'It's frothy, man" and downing the hideous blue concoction in one go, leading to - not acute gastritis or endemic flatulence - but a shout of "Rimsky-Korsakoff!".  Let me cattle-prod Art into wakefulness and he can back me up on this -

     Conrad dares not speculate on what chemicals this drink contained to make it froth so much, bec

     ANYWAY back to Nikolai.  There I was in the office, scrolling through the musics on my i-pod - the young folks taste in music is so Dog Buns! awful that I felt only gratitude that Degsy had Billy Joel on in the car whilst in transit - and I came across "Rimsky-Korsakov" and what was labelled as "Cossack Sabeltanz", which is Teuton for "Cossack Sabre Dance" because the CD is comes from is performed by a Teuton orchestra.  Hence today's Intro picture above.  If you've never heard the tune before, go Spotify or Youtube it, because it's a 120 m.p.h. bit of bonkers.  Art!

Note the film title

     Conrad has seen a performance of CSD where the dancers fly at each other with swords, repeatedly.  Yes, they may be blunted swords but they hack at each other so fiercely that one wrong move and you've laid someones face open or removed an ear.

     'But - but - but -  "Doctor Who"?' I hear you quibble.  PATIENCE!

     From that very same video - Art!

     These exotic young ladies are from Georgia - the country in the Caucasus, not the South Canadian state as evinced by that name to upper starboard.  If a name ends in "-vili" or "-adze" then it's Georgian.  Art!

Stalin a.k.a. as "That Little Sod With The Moustache"

     That font is Georgia, not my usual Times.  Stalin's given surname was Dugashvili, and yes, he was Georgian.  Before Peter The Average became a second-rate copy of him, there were precious few statues of Stalin left in Russia, but you could always find one or two in Geo

     ANYWAY those Georgian ladies have very long, heavy skirts, because nothing inflames the male passion more than bare ankles tradition.  They move across the stage with tiny footsteps, meaning that they appear to glide via telekinesis rather than mortal means.

     One such dance was being broadcast in the early Sixties, and who happened to catch it?  No!  Terry Nation.  Art!

     He was mightily struck at how these female dancers moved.  "Wouldn't it be cool," he mused, " - if ..."

     And thus the Daleks, the Doctor's most implacable foe, were born.  Art!

     There you go.  Alien nation via soft drink and Ruffian composer.  We tick all the boxes.

Conrad: Yup, Still Angry

Just you wait until I take over.  The ballfoot game - gone.  Musicals - banned.  The pineapple - exterminated.  August 17th will be Comsat Angels Appreciation Day.  All rap musicians, plus Alan Carr and Russell Brand, will be sent to work in the uranium mines.

     In the meantime I am going to vapourize a whole tranche of Codeword compilers, because of what follows.

"KIMONO": Yet another foreign word!  We do not live in Japan.  In fact there's a law in Japan that states all Codeword solutions have to be Japanese, loan or foreign words are forbidden and you can be fined up to ￥3,000 for breaking this law*.  Art!

"SCYTHED": No, nothing to do with the Scythians, who lived where the Ukrainians do now.  From the Old English 'sighte', which means "a long-handled implement for cutting grass having a curved sharpened blade that moves parallel to the ground.'  A seven-letter word with only one vowel?  How is that fair?  Art!

"VATIC":  You what?  Conrad is widely-read yet had never encountered this word before.  Collins Concise to the rescue: "Of, or relating to, a prophet" from the Latin <hack spit> 'Vates' which means 'Prophet'.  Art!

More Of That Crossword

You know the one, and I hope you appreciate how impossibly difficult it was.  Next clue is: "Sing Nunc Dimittis and Magnificat; But look a little further back than that."

     And the solution?

     CANTICLES

     The only time Conrad has seen word this is in Walter M. Miller's sole novel, "A Canticle For Leibowitz" and as far as I recollect it's a liturgy sung by monks?  <resorts to CC again>.  Ah.  "A nonmetrical hymn."  Thanks for clarifying that.  Art!

"The Sea Of Sand"

The now-allied Italians and British are pondering their next move, given that there's only a handful of them left.  Also, the author seems to feel the need to do a bit of exposition.

‘Brothers,’ nodded Dominione, in bad English.  He held out a hand.

‘Frateri,’ ventured Roger, shaking the offered hand.

Over in the truck, slightly raised voices could be heard.

‘You effing well pay attention Private Menzies!  If we get the chance to kill those horrid mucking  monsters, we take it – I don’t want to hear about how we were unlucky and the Eyeties were incompetent.’    

Nineteen:  Mouse and Lion

 

Sarah felt depressed. 

She had good cause.  The Doctor and she were stuck in the deserts of North Africa, in the middle of the desert war of 1941, with the TARDIS gone astray in time.  Gone astray in space, too, once the Hostile Automatic Displacement System mechanism suddenly whisked it away from them.  Not even K9 to help them.

          The warring terrestrial armies were not her greatest concern  No; that was reserved for the impending invasion of aliens from a dying desert world, aliens who regarded humans as mobile fodder and planet Earth as a storehouse to be plundered to exhaustion.

          An alien vanguard had already arrived.  Hundreds of bio-vores – so-called because they lived by directly draining the life energy of whatever living matter they encountered – had arrived in the depths of the Saharan desert via a trans-mat, sent from their barren homeworld.

     If Harry Sullivan were there he'd doubtless chime in with "Chin up, old girl!" because he had a way of putting his foot in his mouth when talking to Sarah.

Finally -

It's a Bank Holiday today, which Conrad didn't realise, since New Year's Day fell on a Sunday.  That probably explains why the buses were even less punctual than usual; there is talk of bus drivers going on strike, to which I would respond "How can you tell?"  

     Then, too, I feel cheated somehow because this is Day Two of my four days off.  I also came across jars of Sushi Ginger in Sainsbo's earlier; you know, the sliced stuff in a sweet vinegar, which Conrad guzzles by the bowlful at Yo! Sushi.  I shall have to ration myself because it would be ridiculously easy to gob the whole lot in one go.

*  Okay, it's not true.  But when I take over ...