NO! That Is Not A Typo
The English language dances to MY tune, thank you very much. No, it is an hilarious pun about what happened at The Mansion on Thursday morning, which began with things not happening. Your Humble Scribe gets up a lot earlier than necessary, so he can faff about on the internet; checking e-mails, seeing what blog traffic is like, catching up with news headlines, that sort of thing.
Except none of that was possible, since there was no internet connection. Rebooting didn't help, either. Eventually I gave up, with bad grace, and went down to make breakfast. Art!
No, Art, no. She's a good Grace <sigh>
What did my eyes espy? Apart from the tray with porridge and toast and loose-leaf Darjeeling tea a-brewing. Art! and get it right this time.
A whacking big truck wrestling with a telegraph pole, which probably has some way to go before becoming a recognised Olympic sport. Art!
There you have the barely-visible telephone line, which is normally and usually connected to the top of that telegraph pole alongside a dozen others.
"What on earth?" I mused, before stepping outside to catch one of the two artisans visible; there may have been more lurking in that smaller van, or perhaps only two workers are sufficient to replace a half-ton telegraph pole thanks to modern hydraulic machinery?
"The old pole was rotten, so we're replacing it," he informed me. "Should be done in about an hour."
This was said at 08:30, so that seemed reasonable enough.
However - a word you could surely see coming - there was the problem of no internet connection, meaning no ability to check on blog traffic
Here an aside. The blog traffic figures in November were off the charts, and then seemed to reset to normality for December, which is less flattering but allows one to judge how successful BOOJUM! really is. Art!
Or - is the blog really that popular? It's a conundrum.
More appositely, no internet meant no connection to work websites, and no virtual phone.
Ooops.
It would have been nice if BT had, you know, warned us about this pole replacement, the numpties - hence today's title - and I could have informed the office about it. As it was, I left two messages on a mobile number I thought was that of Alex, our Team Leader. He flatly stated he'd had no messages and his works number was completely different.
Anonymous stranger, sorry to bother you with details about our telegraph faff. Art!
We think that BT had then to re-activate the telephone line, which may have been immediate or may have taken hours. You see - Art!
Our router had stopped working. With no internet connection Wonder Wifey had to text the Plusnet helpline via her mobile, and have them explain the protocol for resetting a router on a Plusnet account that wasn't a Plusnet router. This took until about 13:15 in the afternoon. The devil on my shoulder was suggesting that I claim the lines weren't restored until 16:59:59 when I finished the day at 17:00, which OF COURSE I rejected.
Time to go stir the chicken and sweetcorn stew.
Then, on trying to access Netflix, I got another error message about 'Not Connected', which vanished after - you may be ahead of me here - turning it off and on again.
I think I'll add BT to the List Of Those To Be Severely Eviscerated And Sold Off As Body Parts When I Take Over.
Killer Kitchen Kit
Or, as in this case, not. Art!
A what maker? What the dickens are 'S'mores'? They have to be a South Canadian aberration as I cannot see the honest citizenry of This Sceptred Isle eating food with such a daft name. Art!
They are said to be marshmallow and chocolate layered between two crackers and toasted over a campfire. Why you need a Dada plastic monstrosity to facilitate this is beyond me.
In The Interests Of Trimming My Browser Favourites List
There's a lot of stuff on there that needs to be removed, after I utilise them on the blog first, which is why they are there in the first place. Art!
 |
| "So I said **** this stinky-ass cabin. Let's go to Cabo and get wasted!" |
Eminently sensible decision, young lady. The film isn't then a horror film and only last fifteen minutes, which you might feel disappointed at. Console yourself that you don't get to see four people making staggeringly stupid decisions that kill them off one-by-one until the last survivor makes it to either freedom or a sequel.
"Hell No!" is available on Youtube and is only 3:22 long. An eminently enjoyable spoof of every horror trope going.
"City In The Sky"
The Doctor is playing a living lightning-rod as he's already experienced one murder attempt.
Mirkan 93 stood in front of the human slave, which had earlier exhibited
all the symptoms of dull terror that habitually came to those who served the
Lithoi in preference to their own kind.
Mirkan 93 adjusted the neural-net processor over the human’s head,
getting the best purchase for the programming.
‘You will kill Doctor John Sssmith,’ hissed Mirkan 93, allowing his
internal processor to broadcast. It
wasn’t possible to do this in the world at large because hearing people speak
without moving their lips tended to create suspicion amongst humans.
‘Iwillkilldoctorjohnsmith,’ droned the slave, devoid of emotion, eyes
watering, mouth slack and drooling.
‘Iwillkilldoctorjohnsmith. Iwillkilldoctorjohnsmith. Iwillkilldoctorjohnsmith.’
‘Enough!’ hissed Mirkan 93, annoyed at the mindless repetition. Mental control was only good up to a certain
point, after all. ‘Since you have failed
to kill him on at least two occasions already, if you fail again you will use
this device. Use it in a crowd.’
‘IfIfailusethisdevice,’ droned the slave. Mirkan 93 pressed the small metal oval,
complete with self-sealing suture, against the slave’s bare chest, creating a
brief stink of cauterised flesh as the edges glowed white hot. ‘OWW - ’
‘Sssilence!’ hissed Mirkan 93, and the slave obediently ceased
complaining.
‘Whatever the outcome, you are to destroy yourself,’ added Mirkan
93. Leaving any loose ends behind would
be a bad idea, especially given the drastic nature of what he was about to do.
‘Destroymyself destroymyself destroymyself destroymyself,’ babbled the
human proxy, until Mirkan 93 stopped it physically, and began to prepare for
the forthcoming revelation.
I should point out that 'Mirkan 93' is one of the sinister, eeeeevil aliens. Just to be clear.
Boardroom Bloodletting
Hopefully you still recall the gory financial statistics I posted about how poorly Disney's slate of films did this year, to the tune of losing a billion dollars at the box office.
Whilst this is eye-wateringly bad enough, it's not the end of the story. O noes. Art!
That's Bob Iger, Chief Executive Officer at Disney and the man whom the buck stops with. Art!
That's Nelson Peltz, a billionaire who has set his sights on Disney and Iger, along with a billionaire pal (Ike Perlmutter) who has given him voting rights over their shares. Ol' Nel claims that Disney's shareholders, rather than audiences, are the ones being disappointed and that they have lost - sit down here - $70 billion in share values since February 2022. Plus Disney's stock has underperformed for the past decade, regardless of who was the CEO.
Ol' Nel wants a seat on the executive board, which Iger refuses to sanction, so Nel is going to make an approach to shareholders and see if he can't persuade them that he is a better member than any appointed recently.
It's all connected; poor box office performance undermines confidence and stock prices, and means visitors are less inclined to visit theme parks.
Watch this space!
Finally -
The Chicken And Sweetcorn stew is done, and it's pretty tasty. This is a good thing as there's about nine helpings of it to be gotten through next week. Yes, I did take a picture but cannot be bothered to load it right now. Maybe later.
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