Bear With Me Here -
Here an aside YES ALREADY because we all know nothing irks Conrad more than abuse of language, or that dreadful abbreviated argot that young people use even when not tap-tap-tapping away on their mobile phones as they blindly walk into traffic (although this is a self-correcting problem.) Art!
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| THIS is a bear. Well, barely. |
I have encountered the spelling "Bare with me" several times of late and IT WILL NOT DO. Because it is incorrect. Today's title is an appeal to reason, temperance and forebearing, whereas the incorrect version is an invitation to get naked. Do you see how this would annoy an hair-splitting pedant?
No, you unspeakable perverts, you do not get a picture of unclad people. Or - hang on, allow me to tweak my moustache-ends with malicious glee. Art!
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| Psych |
ANYWAY let's get back to that part about "Ill". Conrad was reading a story on Quora prompted by the question that crops up continually:
Point and laugh? Actually "L4uyim" very sensibly suggested that the boss be told you are now a private contractor who will only work for $100 per hour and $50 per phone call, with a signed contract in issue.
What I found interesting and alarming was their revelation that the employer who fired them, after fighting to not pay them unemployment benefit - for such is the burden in South Canadian labour law - reached national news status, for the wrong reason: a woman had caught a 'flesh-eating virus' in one of their swimming pools. Conrad strongly suspects that this means an elaborate, sunken, tiled structure built to contain several tons of water, not a temporarily-erected plastic version.
Oooops. Art!
That's not the worst that can happen to you. O noes. You see, there is this parasitic amoeba that lives in wild water, and it's one aim in life is to Do The Zombie - that is, to eat your brain. Art!
Behold Naegleria Fowleri. This thing is not common, which is a good thing, as the fatality rate is about 97% amongst those who contract Primary Amoebic Meningoencephalitis. There's no known cure, the symptoms are often mistaken for far less dangerous diseases, and it may clean your clock within 48 hours. Frightening, hmmmm? To avoid contracting it, wear a nose-clip if venturing underwater, don't stir up the sediment and don't live in Florida.
Nightmare fuel, don't you agree?
Let's not stop just yet! Conrad has been encountering a few mentions on Twitter of a novel from 1905 by a journalist who helped establish the term 'Muckraking': "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair. Art!
We all know how terrible Conrad is as a person, because this caption made me laugh out loud.
Ol' Uppy had written the novel as an exposé of the vile working conditions that employees in the Chicago meat-packing industry endured. Rather than causing an uproar about despotic bosses, the novel caused a nationwide revulsion at the disgustingly unhygienic work practices in Chicago. A couple of examples given were the routine shovelling up of all dropped meat, it being replaced back in the packing process, even if said shovelfuls included a dead rat; and, over in the fertiliser plant, of unfortunate workers falling into the machinery and being rendered into the end product itself. Art!
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| "Guaranteed less than 4% rat!" |
Ol' Uppy had a saying that the meat plants "Used every part of the hog but the squeal", which is quite pithy.
There is more to this subject but that veers into Politics and I'm only trying to turn your stomach, not your mind, so we will move on.
Lest you think exotic water-borne threats only exist in distant steamy parts of South Canada, let me disabuse of that notion. Art!
Yes, from Devon, not Tallahassee*. Being British, it's a more modest outbreak that doesn't digest your grey matter or your face. Cryptosporidium turns your insides out and will make your life miserable, not terminal. Small mercies and all that.
Talking Of Hair-Splitting Pedants
For Lo! We are back on "Chernobyl Diaries", the film that was filmed in Serbia (not completely) and which lacks any diary or journal elements bar the first few film clips.
ANYWAY let us return to the film at about the 49 minute mark. Art!
After tracking down Uri's Geiger counter and gun, then returning to the van, Paul gives Chris and Natalie the gun VERY BAD IDEA. After all, they can lock themselves inside the van, unlike the travellers. So this foursome plods off again, this time with Zoe, and once again - NO WEAPONS. Bar Michael's trusty tyre iron. Not only that, they all chatter away to each other at Full American Volume, yes, even the Nork and the Ocker. Art!
They spot a pack of feral dogs ahead. They loudly discuss this event and move off the road, not making the slightest effort at either silence or concealment. Boy, it sure would be handy to have a gun right now, wouldn't it Paul? Art!
Hooray! They find a starter motor in a vehicle graveyard and head back to the van, because obviously - of course! - they all know how to rewire a Ruffian van engine with a new starter motor.
This is when time goes awry. Art!
Here we are, 58 minutes in, or 9 minutes after the shot of them walking away from the van as a foursome. Obviously film condenses time - but HOW IS IT SUDDENLY NIGHT? Are they going to be able to replace that starter in the dark? With no tools? And Malicious Somethings With Teeth hanging around?
Well, isn't there a nasty surprise awaiting them. Art!
The van has been turned upside down and inside out - you can just make out the wheels at upper starboard. It's full of blood but no Chris or Natalie. Looks like that gun didn't help after all, Paul, does it? The next question is why the van only got delicately sabotaged in the first place - and whoever or whatever did it took pains to close the engine cover and doors - instead of being ripped apart?
The reason can be explained, I believe, thus: Forget About Logic Or Common Sense It's A Horror Film.
Bah!
O The Indignity
Conrad rose to one challenge of late, when his trusty old plaid slippers were consigned to the bin, thanks to having been worn out. This leaves either my Skechers, which are equally punctured and bereft, or the joke Christmas present slippers. So be it. Art!
Especially green and Grinchy, hmmmm? They are NOT too small as other interested parties who cast covetous eyes upon them insist; they are merely snug. They aren't waterproof, either, as I've found out to my cost and socks.
I don't think it's very becoming that an Apprentice World Dictator goes around in novelty slippers so shall have to look for a sterner pair.
"City In The Sky"
The Lithoi aren't doing too well. This is what happens when you indulge in a battle of wits with a Timelord, and an especially devious Timelord at that.
Having introduced strangeness into their conversation, the Doctor then
proceeded to drag Terry across Arc One’s hydroponic soils, towards the TARDIS.
‘Come on, come on!’ he burbled.
‘First one to get there is a rotten egg.
We need to go visit a young person who goes by the name of Alex.’
Insupportable, really: with all this going on Upstairs he’d forgotten
that there was at least one person Downstairs with a history.
Orskan 94 had chased his lesser workers at a relentless rate that would
have made Arkan 22 nod in approval, bullying them into completing one of the
flying eyes within twelve hours of the external missile base being
destroyed. To human eyes the slaving
low-caste Lithoi would have been slower than hungover incompetents slackers on
a Friday afternoon, which was genetics for you.
Now that their missile strike couldn’t happen, Orskan 94 presumed that
the flying eyes would be sent out to the coastal towns to eradicate the human
colonies there whilst the biologists worked on a particularly dreadful disease
to eradicate most humans present elsewhere across the globe.
Good! Frankly, the sooner that
happened, the sooner they got off this dreadful damp midden. After all, ten per cent of the crew had been
killed – their Travellers amongst the human populations, the missile platform
construction crew, and all those who had been tracked and ripped apart by the
hunting canines. None of the returning
Travellers had made it past the dingo packs, in what Orskan imagined was a
variety of payback for the baseship’s burning into ash of several dingo
generations.
He caught himself. Thinking
thoughts like that amounted to treason and betrayal, for which the penalty was
Disassembly.
Creeping defeatism!
Finally -
The boiler is being replaced today, which means a real upheaval in the kitchen and the electricity being turned off even as I type, and of course - obviously! - Edna is barking madly at the artisan's trespass into her domain.
* That's in Florida, am I right? If not, try Boca Raton or <thinks> Miami! That's definitely Floridian.
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