A Free-Wheeling Spree

Do Not Confuse With The "Graf Spee" Spree

Because one of Conrad's sprees is a wild whimsical slalom between random different subjects, and the latter is a Teuton warship sunk at the beginning of the Second Unpleasantness.  After, mind you, it had been going after British merchant shipping.  Art!

     Yes, it was immortalised on celluloid as a film with the title "Battle of the River Plate", as above with a young lady featuring a prow as prominent as that of the warship itself, and also with, waaaay down the cast list, young Christopher Lee.  Art!

Thus

     If I recall correctly, there is Italian blood in his background, so not that big a stretch.

     Okay, let us prod Art awake with the high-voltage cattle prod and get him a-working.  Don't be silly!  A low-voltage doesn't do more than have him snore louder and roll over on the futon.

     A sight you won't easily unsee.  This, lest you be unaware, is the 'Before' shot that I thought to take, because I had an appointment at 11:30 with Peppi, at 'Peppi's', which is an haircuttery establishment in Chadderton.  You can tell Conrad is a creature of habit as I've been going there for over 20 years, and Ol' Pep knows me well.  Art!

     Ol' Pep - he won't like me calling him that, and he looks younger than I do whilst being at least 10 years older - likes big cars, and he leaves his motoring magazines on the tables for waiting clients to peruse.  He's Sicilian in origin and despite being here in the UK for 50 years, still has an accent.  His wife is also Sicilian and today his mother in law showed up; Conrad wondered who this elderly lady was and why she was sweeping all the cut hair up with a broom.  She gets her hair done there on a Saturday, glad to have that cleared up.

     O by the way, have a picture of how Oldham Bus Station was cut in half for no very good reason, apart possibly from the 'If We Don't Spend The ENTIRE Budget Then It'll Be Cut Next Financial Year" council excuse.  Art!

     Say hello to Cheapside Bus Station, which is now entirely separate from West Street Bus Station.  Once again, remind me how the Dog Bun! we ever acquired and ran an empire?

     ANYWAY Conrad started something when he asked if Ol' P - if Pep had heard the term "Bivacco", which we here at BOOJUM! have encountered via Bruno Pisani, the Italian hiker and mountaineer.  Art!

     Pep brought up a picture of this, the "Bivacco Monte Bianco", by speaking Italian into his phone <shudders at the dark sinister magics involved>.

     We then got into where Bruno goes hiking and climbing, namely the Dolomites, and Pep mentioned that up there one is very close to the Austrian border - which Bruno's Bivacco mate up on top of Marmolada had also explained, pointing towards the distant boundary.  Art!

Note mountains

     Then Pep gets a Sicilian map of Sicily out of his cupboard and indicates where the village he comes from is located; up in the north-east, just south of Messina, which Conrad has seen from the deck of a cruise ship as we transited the Straits there.  Art!

     At this point Pep explained that his wife was speaking Italian to a young lady who had come in to get her hair done, who was also Italian, and that Wifey was making a point of speaking Italian; had she used her native Sicilian the young lady would have been utterly mystified.  You get this very strong distinctive regional accent differential across Italy, and he mentioned Naples as being another accent mutually incomprehensible to other Italians.  Art!

My count is 22 of 'em

     Note that it says 'key', implying that there are further, minor dialects or sub-tongues.
      Then we got onto Mount Etna, and the steep hills and gradients present when one visits the centre of Sicily, which involve lots of driving in first and second gear.

     At this moment I feel it's time to wrap things up and post the 'After' picture.   Art!

     Just as hateful, merely tidier.

The Haul

Conrad likes to constantly increase the DVD Hill, alongside the Book Mountain, so let's see what got acquired today.  Art!

For a grand total of £3

     Which is about $4.50 in that peculiar trans-Atlantic currency our South Canadian cousins use.  I believe I've seen all the "Doctor Who" episodes already, if only once per episode, and not since they were originally broadcast, which is almost 20 year ago.  Erk!  "Chernobyl Diaries" is, I believe, a rather forgettable horror film.  Probably scores highly on the Plot Hole meter, and also the Stupid People Dying First indicator.  We shall see.  Doubtless a viewing experience enhanced by a few snifters of gin.

     As for "The Aeneid", all I know is that it's a classic of literature.  You do, very  occasionally, have to balance all those zombie novels.

You Want Non-Lethal?  Then You'll Get Non-Lethal!

Conrad remembers a much earlier "Doctor Who", probably from 50 (ouch!) years ago, namely "The Ark In Space", where the revived crew aboard the Ark tote a handgun that is adjustable in function (when the plot calls for it).  Art!

     Here you see Noah - favouring his right hand, I wonder why? - wielding said weapon.  It gets used at 'Stun' when he shoots the Doctor, but the hapless technician in the background gets the Full Force Fatal Function and drops dead when blasted.  Or - did Noah accidentally fudge the settings?  That's the serious design issue with dual-purpose weapons, you ought to have a better distinction than 'Short trigger pull = stun; long trigger pull = vapourise into a transient plasma'.

Go on, Noah - what's hidden in your right pocket?  

"City In The Sky"

Ace and Kirwin are taking great delight in bearding the dragon in it's lair, and the Lithoi - the metaphorical dragon - are both baffled and anxious.  With good reason.

     ‘These objects are not moving with any degree of autonomy,’ said meteorologist Solskan via speaker to Arkan 22.  ‘They are being moved by wind currents.’

     ‘Wind?’ asked the mission leader.

     ‘Assuredly so.  They must therefore be lighter than air.  I conjecture they are being released - ’

     Arkan 22 cut the connection and stared at Miskan 54.

     ‘A decoy!’ he realised.  All their sensors and effort had been directed at these infuriating encroaching objects –

     ‘PROXIMITY ALERT!’ boomed the speakers across the basehip as computer over-rides cut in.  ‘PROXI-’

     A perceptible and violent tremor ran the length of the baseship, from the uppermost elevated high-caste living quarters to the lowliest subterranean workshop.

     When the dust cloud settled, all that remained of the missile platform, the workers, their transports and the missiles themselves (not yet mated with their warheads) was a yawning crater fifty metres across and twenty deep, rimmed with molten aluminium.  Eighty tonnes of lunarkrete had also boosted the terminal impact of Dart Three to such an extent that the baseship’s camouflage membrane had been blasted to shreds.    

     The real victim of all this, in his own mind at least, was Orskan 94.  Building missiles was put on hold as his artificers and workers were made to work on creating a new camouflage membrane.  Whilst continuing to build flying eyes, of course, which were now to number five instead of the original two.  All to be done with twenty-four workers less than before, since nobody outside had survived the human’s missile attack from space, and yet – here he hissed a litany of curses that would have earned him demotion to a lesser caste at the very least – and yet that insufferable tyrant Arkan 22 wanted work to proceed even faster!

     Seems like the Lithoi are now aware of 'transient plasma' as an obituary.  The life of an eeeevil alien invader is never an easy one, hmmm?

Good Great DOG BUNS!

We have mentioned "The Daily Beast" bloviating and blithering about a supposed upset between 'D-Rake' and "Ken D. Rick', neither of whom mean anything to Your Humble Scribe.  I think we'd established that D-Rake was the one with short hair.

     Now, what do I find on the hallowed pages of the BBC News website?  Art!

     Ah, this is obviously - of course! - a spat between celebrity chefs.  Conrad has already come across Wagyu and Kobe Beefs, so now we have another one to add to the list.  I shall keep an eye open for it at Morrisons on the next weekly shop.

Finally -

I have been looking over the Rule Book, Play Book and the hundreds and hundreds of counters in "The Great War In Europe" hex-and-counter board game that I've had for years yet never played.  Well, today I found a gamer on Youtube who'd played the whole thing from 1914 to the war's end, SOLO.

     So there is hope.

     Ciao!