Conrad's Sojourney

It That's Not Already A Word, It Is Now

And I will have the royalties delivered by wheelbarrow to the front door of The Mansion.

     However, just out of interest, Your Humble Scribe is going to look up the definitions for both "Sojourn" and "Journey", which I suspect have a common Latin root.  Hmmm 'Journey' comes from the Old French 'Journee', meaning 'a day's travelling' and yes it comes from a corruption of the Latin <hack spit> 'Diurnum'.  "Sojourn" is 'a temporary stay', from the Old French 'Sojorner', meaning 'to stay temporarily'.  Art!

     I realise this has nothing to do with journeys or sojourns, but I did intend to put up the cover artwork for The Moody Blues album "Seventh Sojourn", only to find that it's the epitomy of Incredibly Dull.  Art!

Brown, personified

     ANYWAY I am winging it on this Intro, because I am making it up as I go on, even more than usual.  Let's see how many words Conrad can accumulate here before he runs out of creative steam.  Art!

     Okay, this is the gloop I have to now rub into my feet on a regular basis, i.e. more than once a week.  Problem is, the level is getting low, SO! I decided a trip into Lesser Sodom was called for, in order to get another tub/pot/container of same.  This non-branded stuff is immensely cheaper than anything with a big flashy label.  After all, it's only for one's feet.

     Because I am conscientious, and a wasted trip to Royton is an hour out of my precious time, Conrad checked that Wells, the pharmacy in the town precinct, was open.  O yes.  Art!

     "Open 09:00 Sat" said teh Interwebz.

     THEY LIED!  When my feets took me into the precinct at 10:06 the shutters were down.  Yes yes yes, I should have taken a picture, sue me.

     It wasn't a completely wasted trip, mind you, because Sweet Deals was open.  Their opening hours are somewhat hit and miss, and they don't open on a Sunday, so I took full advantage.  Art!

     No, six packs of sweets is not greedy.  For one thing, my job requires that I speak on the phone all day long, which affects my throat grievously because it's not designed for constant speech.  Thus I need constant lubrication, effected by sweets.

     Those two sad remnants at bottom are all that remained of my sugar-free collection, so this purchase was pretty timely.

   Conrad was also abstemious, because all the charity shops were open for business, and yet I stayed away, so the Book Mountain did not increase in numbers.

     Not only that, I bumped into Siobhan, and we had a quick natter and catch-up, proof that the Coincidence Hydra is still slinking around on the edges of causality.

     For Your Information, I have "Seventh Sojourn" playing in the background as I've never heard it and, for 1972, it's not bad you know.  They appear to have discovered the string synthesizer and used it to replace their faithful old Mellotron, whic

     ANYWAY allow me to upload a picture taken from the bus as it pulled away from the new-build homes at the bus stop.  Art!

     Proof that the above is a true and correct account of events.

     And, at 539 words, I think that's quite enough for an improv Intro, especially when it's a "Conrad's Riveting Slice Of Life".

They Prove Me Right Every Single Day

Okay, I have just returned from a quick trawl of "The Daily Beast"'s website, and they seem to have changed their advertising model.  As you should surely know, in the past they would post up blatant puffs on miscellaneous mystery tat, which was quite diverting.  Now?  Art!

     Conrad is puzzled.  Is she about to commit suicide by frying a two-inch hole through her head, with the 'LYMA laser'?  That would prove it's efficacy for use in engineering applications but the ASA would doubtless object, the pikers.

     ANYWAY I really meant to post up an item about how the South Canadians seriously miss being subjects of the Crown AGAIN.  Art!

     That's Kingie in RAF uniform, which Conrad finds a little surprising, as he did his service in the Royal Navy, his dad's branch of the forces.  Ah, read those titles and weep TDB, because they have "Royal" in their titles and you never will*.

Thunder And Lightning

Welllll Storms and Tornadoes, at any rate.

     If you're not interested in missiles and the Ruffians getting a right shoeing THEN WHY ARE YOU HERE you might want to skip this item.  I'm going to be doing it in several parts, as the whole thing would take up a couple of entire blogs.

     Okay, for back-story, in July last year Ukraine got the HIMARS systems, firing GMLRS, which are a cross between a rocket and a missile.  The Ruffians were appalled at how devastatingly effective these weapons were.  After a few months the Krembots, trolls and fanbois were boasting that 137 of the 16 launchers had been destroyed and treacherous Ukrainians had sold an entire system to the Ruffians, and the S-300 now had software updates that allowed it to intercept the GMLRS in flight.  Art!

From an iconic Youtube clip

     I'm afraid this was "Ruffian truths", which we all otherwise know as "Great big lies".  If you trawl Youtube you'll see countless HIMARS strikes, entirely unaffected by any supposed countermeasures.  In fact it's possible there were Ruffian countermeasures, and thanks to their loud braying about the fact, the Ukies and South Canadians came up with counter-countermeasures.

     This leads us to July 5th 2023.  Art!

    These are bits of a crashed Storm Shadow in Zaporizhzhia.  I'd be careful of sitting anywhere near those cylindrical objects, it's both parts of the BROACH warhead.  There's footage on Twitter of these heroes loading it into a truck, which is foolhardy to understate wildly.

     O Noes!  The Ruffians have a Storm Shadow!  Or - well, they have bits of one, there's no pictures of the nose-sensors so that part of the missile may have been smashed to flinders.

     So, to leave on a cliffhanger, unlike HIMARS, the Ruffians actually DID get hold of a Storm Shadow (slight return) back at the beginning of July.  The horror!  The horror!

      To be continued.

"City In The Sky"

The Doctor is, as usual, plotting twenty moves ahead and has a dozen plates spinning on poles all at once.

‘I was upbeat and confident about solving Arc One’s problems because these people need hope above all else.  They will die up here unless a near-miracle arrives – your observation and report underlined that.  If you came back Upstairs after having the alternative of remaining Downstairs it will impress them that things are not terminal, that there are options remaining.’

     The nominal weight of twelve thousand people fell upon Ace’s shoulders.

     ‘Couldn’t you take them all down in the Tardis!’ she exclaimed, struck by sudden inspiration.

     Gloomily, the Doctor shook his head.

     ‘Shuffle over twelve thousand humans through the Tardis, Ace?  The Timelords would be apoplectic.  And probably carry out a retro-temporal sweep that puts everyone back where they were.  No, not unless there’s no other option.’

    

     Twenty minutes later they had been given a bag of ground coffee, Alex came back beaming with pride at his parents allowing him to depart the sphere, and Davy saw them into the Tardis.

     Predictably, Alex stood in silent, wide-eyed amazement once he’d crossed the threshold, and remained mute until Ace shook him back to the present.

     ‘Hello?  Better get ready for the take-off.’

     The young engineer looked around wildly, even as the time rotor began it’s strident and unlovely working.

     ‘How is it bigger on the inside!  Where are the seats and safety harnesses!  Where has the sphere gone!  Where are - ’

     ‘We’ve arrived,’ chirped the Doctor cheerily, the time rotor grounding at cycle end with it’s usual dismal clonk.

      Hmmm methinks the TARDIS could do with a billion-mile service, nicht wahr?

Finally -

Conrad has occasionally mentioned to you, gentle readers, how the traffic algorithm on my Blogger has gone very wobbly over these past few months.  It regularly clocks up enormous traffic counts that are incredibly overstated, which is flattering if a bit hollow.

     Until last night, where I updated Traffic and was rewarded with a total of -

     2!

     The thing is, I think I updated shortly before going to bed at just after midnight.  Because today - Art!

     That's before posting this collection of wit, wisdom and wonder.

     I dunno.  Perhaps BOOJUM! really is that popular.

*  Hah!  <snaps fingers at doubtless envious South Canadians>