"Do You Know Who I Am?" Syndrome

This Is A Regular Question On Quora

"Have You Ever Had Someone Ask 'Do You Know Who I Am'?" and there are several different iterations of why this question gets asked.  Often it is asked by people pulled over by the police who suspect Driving While Intoxicated, the implication being that Self-Important Idiot In Car is SO IMPORTANT that they cannot possibly be detained or prosecuted.  Art!

For example, but un-prosecutable because dead

Or, they are a minor celebrity convinced they are actually a major celebrity.  Or, they are a major celebrity, who is simply being an arrogant bottomhole.  

     Here an aside.  Art!

Yes, he has indeed put foot in mouth

     This is Robin Thicke, whom Conrad wouldn't know if he tripped over him.  He had his fifteen minutes of fame with a song about dirty washing or some such shizzle, which instantly inflated his head and ego to the size of the Hindenburg.  Original Poster on Quora was one of the wait staff at a Hollywood party that RT was present at, and he snapped at them when they came near: "Don't expect an autograph."

     OP proved to be quicker of with that Mr. Thick, because they responded "I'm sorry, sir, I would need to know who you were in the first place to want an autograph."

     ANYWAY, rather than Quora, this Intro comes from Youtube and actually a Comment on a story, which was quite pithy in itself.

     Okay, take the East End of London, if you will.  There are lots of textile factories here, which are incredibly modern on the inside - Art!

     But the area they exist in was designed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, when a wagon and horses was the means of transportation, well before the advent of motor vehicles.  Art!

     Lots of narrow streets, as you can see.  This is relevant as the Commentary Poster's husband drove a 'wagon and drag', which is an articulated lorry towing a trailer of considerable size, usually several tens of tons capacity.  The lorry and trailer were full of bales of fabrics to be delivered to the factories, WHICH HAD TO BE SIGNED FOR.  Capitalized because this plays later.

     Hubbo used to drop the trailer at the entrance to these cramped thoroughfares, then back his wagon down to the factory, park and have the staff come out and unload.  Until -

Self-Important Idiot In Car Strikes!

     An oik in a BMW turns up behind the wagon, ranting and tanting about how he's being blocked in and he's so important and he's the business owner and how dare he block him in because he's so important and did he mention how important he was?  "DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM!?"  SIIIC wasn't willing to wait until the wagon was unloaded, so hubbo gives him the 'Delivery Refused' form to sign, which SIIIC does, apparently not being able to read.  Hubbo drives off, SIIIC can get his shiny BNW on it's way, and hubbo returns to depot after doing the rest of his deliveries.

     When he gets back the boss is 'doing his nut', as we in This Sceptred Isle call a person in a fit of anger.  The business owner had been ringing every 20 minutes shouting about his fabric bales not being delivered, and where the <insert swear here> were they?

     Ooops.

     

     It emerged the next week that the bumbletuck who signed the Delivery Refused form wasn't the owner, he was the owner's son.  Owner had son personally pay for an expedited weekend fabric delivery and they still got an order out late, losing lots of money.  Yes, but son got to race his shiny car, didn't he?  Probably not much of a compensation.

     So, this is one of those questions you need to be very careful about asking, because it can come back like a boomerang and bite your butt.

Citizen Trump, The Gift That Keeps On Giving

Honestly, for the sake of the endless blog content this chap keeps generating, Conrad hopes he stays at liberty as long as possible.  The instructions that he was given at his arraignment last week included the admonitions "Do not commit crimes" and "Do not attempt to influence jurors".  This is rather like telling you or I not to breathe or have our blood stop circulating: impossible.  What did Citizen Trump immediately do?  That's right, post threats on 'Truth Social'.  Art!

     Jack 'Shark' Smith immediately asked for a protective order thanks to this post, at which Darth Marmalade panicked, deleted his Truth and had a bland statement about it substituted.  His name was not to be associated with the climb-down, apparently.  Can't look like a loser, y'know.  Of course - obviously!! - now I cannot find that rebuttal statement.  Why, it's almost as if it had been deleted itself ...

Just A Bite-Size Piece -

If you follow the blog, AND YOU OUGHT TO, then you know the Ruffian currency, the ruble, is in a consistent and sustained decline, and has been since this time last year.  It is now at - Art!

     About the only silver lining here is that the decline has slowed.  Which may not last long.

The Ring

No!  Nothing to do with Ol' Tolky.  No, this refers to the 'Ring Nebula', which is one of the mis-nomered 'Planetary Nebula', from when eighteenth-century astronomers thought that they were a planetary astronomical formation.  Well, they're not.  They are formed by stars undergoing a late-life crisis.  Let us have one of the old standard photographs of this sight.  Art!

     Enter the James Webb Space Telescope.  This brings a level of clarity and detail that renders everything previous dull and akin to that Robin Thicke track - blurred.  Art!

     This phenomena is caused by a star in the last stages of it's life, when it blasts off layers of it's surface, which then move outward as gas, which is consequently impacted by further explosions as well as other stellar formations.

     Yes, it is very pretty.  No, you can't go visit it close up for a selfie; it's 2,600 light years away.  Even at the speed of light it'd take you 5,200 years on a round trip and, knowing Hom. Sap., there wouldn't be a human civilisation left when you returned.

"City In The Sky"

Arc One, baby, Arc One!  Ace is trying to defend the sanctity, if not the integrity of the TARDIS, which need not fear the latter yet needs treating with a bit of the former.

‘Stop attacking it and move away,’ warned the Warden.  ‘All of you.  Move away!’

     Up close, the TARDIS displayed no unusual signs of assault with edged tools.  The big man gestured with a shovel.

     ‘Nat, I tried to knock a piece off for analysis.  You can’t knock anything off!  This thing looks like painted wood but it’s more like – I don’t know - a kind of fantastically hard ceramic.’

     Ace rested on her laurels as the bewildered Warden inspected the timeship at close range.  A good ten minutes of inspection resulted in Nat returning to her with less disbelief apparent.

     ‘Okay, okay, this thing is clearly beyond human technology.  Clearly.  So I believe what you said about you and your boyfriend not being from – from -  what? What?  What is it!’

     Ace doubled over at the crack about her and the Doctor, a long laugh that carried on beyond what she initially felt.  When the laughter stopped and her eyes started working again, she looked up at the annoyed Warden.

     ‘Boyfriend!  Right tent, wrong desert.  Ah.  Okay, okay, you want a sensible answer.  I already gave you one and you thought I was taking the mickey.’

     ‘Let’s move on,’ hissed Nat.  ‘We’re drawing an audience.’

     They were, indeed.  

     The definition of 'hysterical laughter'?

Finally -

I have shed my somewhat grubby jeans and am now wearing my long shorts, so hopefully the weather isn't going to be either too cold or rainy on my constitutional into Lesser Sodom.  Why, there are even some thin streaks of blue sky outside!

     Wish me well*.

*  You don't have to.  But I have a long memory.