They Paved Paradise -

  - And Put Up A Parking Lot

They did?  GOOD!  I've been onto the council for years about Paradise and it's lack of drainage, not to mention how it turns into a sea of mud from September to March, AND it's got an infestation of Himalayan Balsam and Giant Hogweed to boot.  Art!

The evil weed itself

     You see, where Joni went wrong was assuming that 'Paradise' is a one-size-fits-all nirvana which we all aspire to equally in the same way.  Conrad begs to differ, because no two people will have the same idea of what Paradise is.   Some folks, you see, will think that a parking lot is positive perfection that cannot be bettered, and what, exactly, was Paradise?  Pshaw!  Who wants rolling acres of grass and flowers when you suffer from hay fever!  Or gambolling lambs, because you're allergic to wool.  Plus, who, exactly, looks after the sewerage and plumbing systems in Paradise?  Art!

       Conrad can tell you, as one who had to use an outdoor toilet when a student, that a plumbed-in china toilet is pretty close to Paradise in itself.  What about money and specie?  Because if pound notes grow on trees then sterling as a medium of exchange will cease to have value, and you'd have to fall back on a barter system, which means either goods you've made yourself, which are unique and cannot be replicated, or you'd have to isolate and guard your particular orchard that grows towels or dinner plates or Axminster carpet.  The former means hard work and the latter means security fencing and patrols 24/7, neither of which appear particularly paradiasical.  Not to Conrad, anyway.  Some people like working with their hands or being Big And Important, so that scenario would indeed be paradise for them.  Do you see the weakness in your assertion, Joni?

"Joni was then attacked by a head-eating hat"

     Let me continue this theme by abruptly changing tack and heading back in time to the Middle Ages, where we see the legend of the land of Cockayne come into being.  I think Soft Machine did an album of the same title.  NO!  It has nothing to do with the drug WASH OUT YOUR FILTHY MINDS although that does illustrate how Paradise changes over time.  Art!

     It's actually derived from the French 'cocaigne', which was a small cake.  The mythical land of Cockayne (English spelling variant) was a land of plenty, where it rained cheese and cooked fowls flew into one's mouth, and where edible livestock walked around ready-cooked, with eating utensils conveniently stuck in them.

     This, you see, was Paradise to the wretched medieval peasantry, who had to toil all day long for scant provender.

     To us, the population of 2023?  O the horror!  How fare the vegans?  Those who cannot tolerate gluten?  The dangers of obesity and diabetes would become pandemic.  Small children would die from being hit by wheels of Cheddar, and how many would suffocate from inhaling roast quail?

     Whereas the youth of today probably see Paradise as having unlimited phone data and a permanent internet connection, and cars made out of foam-rubber*.  Take heed, Joni, take heed.

Metal, foam-rubber or spiked?

     Okay, having insulted all the Joni Mitchell fans out there, let us move on from this Intro and insult everyone else!

More Of Manglement

Because idiots always get promoted to one level beyond that which they are capable within.  Art!

     Picture the scene: a business enterprise amounting to many thousands of people has moved into a brand-new office block of 14 storeys.  Naturally, the executives feel like marking their new territory to prove that they are Big And Important, so they forbid their peons to eat at their desks.

     Ooops.  You can see where this is going, can't you?

     In an act of calculated malice, the organisation's entire IT staff, all 200 of them, left the building to get lunch.  They would be out for an hour.  

     Productivity tanked.  

     Their Chief Information Officer saw the light - and the figures - and the policy was instantly revoked.

     Productivity increased beyond the norm, because then people would continue to work during lunch.  O wise CIO!

     Rest assured, gentle reader, that Conrad sought permission to dip his stale rolls into a cup of hot Marmite and that it didn't count as eating hot food at his desk.  I know you worry so.

Seeing Stars

More illuminating prints from the James Webb Space Telescope, which is a telescope in space, for those unaware.  This makes a difference as it doesn't have to cope with all the problems created by being at the bottom of an atmosphere.  Art!

Wolf-Rayet 140

     This rather intriguing picture is a star throwing off clouds of gas, as these particular stars do towards the end of their lives.  The star is one pair of a binary, and the invisible companion is having a tidal effect on the gas, compressing it into waves of dust.  And for your information, those rings are a light year in diameter.  No small phenomenon!

"The Sea Of Sand"

We now switch perspective to one of the bio-vore invaders of planet Earth, who is frankly smug about his situation.

Assault Leader Icono felt moderately satisfied with the progress of his detachment to date.

          True, they had suffered forty losses.  However, fifty Warriors were now budding a new offspring, so the losses would be made good in days. 

Two Transport Cars had been badly damaged and another two destroyed by the alien’s fully-covered gun vehicles.  Once again an unbelievable use of metal!  To have a completely enclosed war-fighting machine.  His sub-leader, killed in the first Transport Car, underestimated the small aliens.  Once again, with the Mobile Repair Unit the two damaged Transport Cars would be operational soon.  Not only that, with all their recycled metal the Factory building could manufacture more Transport Cars, or remote sentinels.

The life-signs scanner didn’t show any more viable victims.  A hitch in the device's operation made it throw up a random blip a short distance from the conquered supply site.  Apart from that it didn’t show any more targets.

A pity!  Those last humans, ninety of them, were most welcome fodder.  Small yet satisfying.  Once the trans-mat was sending again, he could send a tribute party to Excellency Lord Sur.  In the meantime his detachment needed to put up with half a dozen Farmers, stuck on Target World Seventeen when the trans-mat failed.  

     Yeah, yeah, feel smug whilst you can, matey, for the Doctor is plotting.

Finally -

Blue skies!  Sorry if this exultation seems out of place, it's just that when I leave the house in the morning, it's dark, and when I get home in the evening it's once again dark.  My desk doesn't face a window in the office so the best I get is second-hand daylight, which has been mostly of the grey variety.  In fact it looks nice enough outside for me to don my Crocs and take Edna for a trot; up to the Summit rather than down Tandle Hill Road because every dog walker in the North-West will be heading for Tandle Hill Park.  Trust me on that - EVERY one of them.

*  So that, when they impact idiots crossing the road whilst glued to a mobile's screen, said impact is non-fatal.  In Conrad's paradise the cars come with added tungsten-steel spikes.