As Our Trans-Atlantic Cousins Like To Say
The Devil is in the details. No! I am not referring to Father Loomis' quotation in "Prince Of Darkness", where he states, in reference to Old Nick "He lives in the smallest parts of it. In the atoms... smaller... invisible... he lives in all of it. In the sum of its parts." Yes, you could consider those the details but that's not what we're after. Of course - obviously!- having said that we can now wheel in a picture as perfectly legitimate and not click-bait at all. Art!
This is a pretty literal illustration of what happens later in the film, which is not as atmospheric as the inexplicable and creepy original.
Here an aside. When the film came out I asked Kris at work if she knew what it was about, as I'd only seen brief trailers on television and couldn't really make sense of it. "Probably something about Dracula," she opined. O that it was such a light-hearted film! Interestingly, t
ANYWAY this tale of revenge does involve religion, tangentially. OP explained that her dad was a 'contractor' as they call construction firms in South Canada, who (naively) believed in handshakes rather than official contracts. He had done all the foundation work on a build of nine luxury houses for a Despicable Idiot Businessman who refused to pony up the $200,000 he owed. Art!
x 9
Surprise! During a festival at a local seminary, who should OP bump into but DIB, who was being fêted by the priests, since he donated lots off $$$ to them. Sign of a guilty conscience, says Conrad. Also buying a stairway to Heaven.
ANYWAY, DIB ignores OP's attempts to start a conversation, until he asked her if she knew who he was?
Ooops. NOT the thing to say! She informed him loudly, in front of the priests, that he was the swindler who'd done her father out of $200,000 dollars. The priests, seeing their magic money maker's memory being mangled, stuck up for him as a good man.
OP was quite the opposite of her dad. She had religiously* kept an extensive paper trail of all business correspondence with DIB: fees for delivery of concrete and cinder blocks, labour expenses, any other overheads and additional expenses, all of which were signed for as delivered to the luxury construction site. Art!
So, no wriggle room there. OP and her mom applied a lien on the whole site, which means nothing could be sold until the lien had been paid off in whole beforehand. DIB was sitting on a multi-million dollar housing site that he couldn't make a cent from. For good measure OP also reported DIB to the Internal Revenue Service, probably out of sheer spite and an inkling that somebody so dishonest just had to be fiddling their taxes, too.
Surprise! OP's dad got paid in full. This was a bit of a foregone conclusion, since DIB would be massively out of pocket if he didn't sell his properties on, and would be looking at interest rates whittling away his profit margin the longer he took.
Surprise surprise! He HAD been fiddling his taxes; he was found guilty of tax fraud, paid a huge fine, went to prison and was utterly ruined, because OP's dad was only one amongst many he had stiffed in the name of business. That reminds me of someone ...
Surprise surprise surprise! The disgrace of DIB was covered in the local paper, which OP bought many copies of. I suppose she kept one each for herself, her mom and her dad - and she also went to the seminary and handed out copies to the priests, too. Schadenfreude made actual.
South Canadian Argot
NO! I do not mean 'ergot', the mould that grows upon rye and which is a precursor to LSD, and don't ask me how I know that. Let me move along swiftly and look it up in the every-trusty Collins Concise: "Argot: slang or jargon particular to a particular group esp. a group of thieves." Conrad heard a phrase on Quora about how various minions indicted alongside Agent Orange would roll over on him "quicker than a Circle K weenie roaster".
What is this strange device? Art!
I think he meant one of these, an electrical cooking device that rotates the hot dog cargo component so they don't burn. Not, technically, a roaster. Just to be clear.
"The War Illustrated"
At the time these photographs were being taken, March of 1944, the Allies were slowly slogging their way up the Italian peninsula and were being held up at Monte Cassino. Art!
The title is utter guff, as we now know. The Allied insistence that the Teutons infested the monastery, using it as an observation complex, was completely wrong; the Teutons kept well clear of it. Then it was turned into a giant pile of rubble by 1,400 tons of bombs, which created an enormous number of secure hiding places and improvised bunkers for the Teutons. In the lower picture the monastery is still untouched but Cassino town is getting another fearful plastering by Allied artillery.
"City In The Sky"
The alien Lithoi invaders are reviewing how Earth's devastated ecosphere has recovered, along with the flora and fauna that live there.
‘This is film from the flying eye,’ added
Arkan 22. High-definition pictures of
the
‘This is one of their scouts, watching from beyond our perimeter.’
‘It does not show up in infra-red,’ observed Nilkan 34.
‘No. I conjecture it has coated
itself in loose earth or mud to prevent being detected.’
All heads turned to face the low-set silver table, a habit they had when
thinking. After a second’s contemplation
(or five minutes in human terms) they began speaking again.
‘Is it possible that a pack overwhelmed Tulkon 125 and Gilkon 670?’
Arkan 22 unfroze the film, which showed the flying eye darting down to
burn the hidden dingo into ash. A
sensible precaution, just in case, and the Lithoi seniors had been wary of the
dingos since the recent disappearance of two lesser workers.
However, when the eye swooped back up again, a distant racing speck on
the horizon proved to be another dingo, rapidly lost to view.
These dingoes are smarter than some Hom. Sap. I know.
That's Interesting!
As you may be aware, the Ruffian ruble has been sliding rapidly in comparison to the dollar of late, and hit the 100 ratio at the weekend.
Cue panic amongst the high and mighty! Emergency meetings were convened, and the Ruffian interest rate got immediately hiked from 8.5% to 12%, an increase of 40%. The hope is that this will bring down the exchange rate, thanks to a lot of crossed fingers. Art!
The experts and pundits and Kremlin spokespeople are all chuntering about having to hold out until November 2025, because that's when they piously hope Darth Marmalade will get elected Prez and abruptly do whatever Bloaty Gas Tout tells him.
I think the metaphor of a drowning man clutching at a string of bacteria has never been better invoked.
<excuse me whilst I go retrieve a pizza from the oven>
Finally -
Okay, it's my birthday tomorrow and I shall be 62 years old, again. This is because I was convinced about this time last year that I was already 62.
You know those men who get mellow in old age and take up gardening, or collect stamps, and smile benevolently at passers-by?
Well that's not going to be me. I fully intend to qualify for the Curmudgeon's Stipend, and will continue to be execrable in nature.
Pip pip!
* Do you see wh - O you do..
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