Real Life Intervenes

Conrad Apologises - A Little - For Saturday's Slipped Schedule

I am actually typing these lines as of early Saturday evening, but there is no way I'm planning to post them later tonight, as the blog won't be ready until nearly 22:00 if my creative ability runs true to course.

     So what happened?  Art!

ATOMIC DEATH ZOMBIES!

     You may question the veracity of this claim, and you'd be right, I just wanted a dramatic picture to hook the audience in.  Reality, as in real life, is considerably more mundane, and here's a more applicable picture.  Art!

     Far less exciting.  

     You see, I had an appointment with Darling Daughter and Quiet Tom in Warrington, to belatedly celebrate Father's Day, generally chinwag and catch up on things.  So, the first step was the 409 into Babylon Lite (Oldham if we're being formal) and dismount at King Street, in order to catch that amazing modern pantechnicon, the Metro tram, into Gomorrah-on-the-Irwell.  Art!

     The seedy grey skies o'er Metro's King Street stop.  I didn't have to wait too long and there were plenty of seats, which makes a nice change from a year ago heading into work where it was dive through the opened doors the instant there was space in order to leap into an empty seat.

     Here an aside.  Yes, already!  I was reading "The Big Sleep" on the tram and had my trusty notebook with me, in case I encountered any 1939 pop culture references that needed interpreting.  There were several.  

     " - took it into chancery' as describing a fight between Marlowe and Carol Lundgren, one of the seedy characters involved in a murder (one of three so far).  Art!

     It happens to be a boxing term, meaning to get the opponent in a headlock, so one can either pound them with the other free fist, or simply choke them.  I did guess it was along these lines, though it's nice to be vindicated.

    "Torcher" as a female's previous occupation.  Hmmmm, no, one suspects this does not mean a professional arsonist.  There's lots of definitions; the one I think most appropriate is 'Torch Singer'.  Art!

A sleazy singing strumpet, then.

     "Bartop Radio" Your Humble Scribe suspects this of being a semi-portable radio, unlike the great big enormous ones used domestically.  Art!

Summat like

     Then it was off to 'Fopp', where they didn't have either "The Invaders" nor "For All Mankind".  They seem to be pushing Blu-Rays and 4K HD a LOT, which is annoying and will lose this customer if they continue.

     Fortunately "Travelling Man" on the way to Piccadilly Station redeemed the wretched retailers of Gomorrah-in-the-Irwell.  Art!

     I may go into this lot in more detail once I've read them, because we have more of my mission to mention.  Art!

     En route to Warrington, having left Piccadilly Station behind us, this is the only other stop on this journey at Oxford Road.  Thus the journey was pretty speedy, getting into Warrington Central just before 13:00.  Art!

Platform 2

     Then it was a case of waiting by the station steps for Sal and Tom to turn up.  All 3 of us were over-dressed at this point, because the clouds mostly rolled away and the sun came out, heating up the ambient temperature to at least 32º.  Maybe 31º.

     Then it was off to eat, and I remembered to get a photo of the happy couple as I gave Sal "Feed".  Art!

Aptly named!

     Then it was a quick tour of Warrington's Art Gallery and Musuem.  No photos, I'm afraid, as a lot of the exhibits were in low-light environments and Conrad didn't dare used flash photography.  One chatty sojourn at Starbucks later, I was off home on the train.  This is where I managed to load today's afternoon blog onto Facebook; Twitter, however, completely defeated me.  I could only read Tweets, not post my copy-and-pasted URL.  Art!

"Suddenly, Elong was attacked by thunderbolts!"

     You will know my wrath, Elong Tusk.

     My plan had been to tram it from Piccadilly to Albert Square, and then catch the Rochdale-bound tram from there.  Fate and the Bee Network had other ideas.  Art!

     So it was a loooong walk to Exchange Square.  I have done 11,445 steps today, which is a little compensation.

     There.  Today's events laid out for you, which explains why BOOJUM! has been off the boil, buddy.

Your Retirement Fund Is Going To Take A Hit, Matey

We have mentioned Zeno's outstanding novel about Arnhem a few times already: "The Cauldron".  NO!  Nothing to do with cooking - the Teuton term 'Kessel' has been translated here for a situation where the British paras were cut off and surrounded, without the slightest intention of surrendering.  

     The book has long been out of print, and it goes for silly prices on E-Bay and Amazon.  Art!

     First of all, that's a South Canadian G.I. on the cover, not a British (or Polish) paratrooper.  Secondly, note how Rip-Off Ronnie is charging £23.27 P & P for a small paperback book, whilst Relatively-Reasonable Raymond is charging only £4.67.  You'd expect to pay £23 for a very large hardback book, pal.

     O what's this I found?  Art!

     That is the sensible and logical British dating convention, meaning it will be out in print as of the 12th of September 2024, for £11, in Waterstones.  What price Rip-Off Ronnie's £360 total after that?  Art!

     Yes, that Al Murray.  He has a keen interest in military history, perhaps unsurprising as his dad was a Colonel in the Parachute Regiment.  Al has selected TC as one of his choices to read extracts from on the podcast "We Have Ways".  How does 'Zeno' know the incidents are real?

     Simple.  He was there.

THIS WILL NOT DO!

Conrad, as you should surely know by now, is tolerant only up to a point.  After that he spouts fire and brimstone, mashes the Remote Nuclear Detonator until the button breaks and then vilifies everyone on Blogger.  Art!

     This is far too South Canadian!  A giant festive parade?  NO!  We're British, Dog Buns!  We don't exhibit strong emotions.

     When I take over, there will be three gents in pinstripe suits and bowler hats.  One will have a drum, one will blow a trumpet - perhaps a trombone or saxophone if I am feeling generous - and the third will carry a banner.  Nor can the banner be larger than 3 feet by 6 feet.  Their route will have to include the Hungarian Embassy (15 minute stop), the Iranian Embassy (30 minute stop) and terminate at the Ruffian Embassy (until 03:30 next day).

     You may petition me to have a single drag-artist dancer in attendance but don't get your hopes up, because the Grey Empire (I invented that all by myself!) abhors bright colours.

     If you squeak at this, just wait until the ballfoot seasons starts .....

"City In The Sky"

Arcology One is in the terminal stage of it's descent onto the Nullarbor Plain in the Australian outback.  If things go according to the Doctor's plans, then the 'terminal' will only involve their descent, not the Lithoi response.

     Bright sunlight also leaked into the sphere at a dozen points where the metal shielding covering windows had buckled or warped in the atmospheric entry or descent.

     ‘Davy, check the radar return.  How long till landing?’ called Emilia, daring to move about in the open, having discarded her protective wicker cage.  She’d been scurrying about examining the inner ends of the sphere’s cross-bracing, noticing shearing in the protective bedding, and lateral flow in the rubber.  Not surprising, given the stress the makeshift structures had been inflicted with.

     ‘Just over twenty minutes,’ replied Davy.  They were directly over a small brown dot on the Nullarbor Plain: the Lithoi baseship.  Not being up-to-speed on particle beam weapons, Davy had assumed from the Doctor’s hints that being directly above the aliens meant Arc One couldn’t be fired upon by them.

     The Doctor’s last breezy instruction on the loaned Tab had been about water: Arcology One needed to dump it’s water reserves when about ten minutes from landing.  The scions had argued about that: how they had argued!  Voiding five hundred tonnes of water meant relying on what they could get from the environment, and nobody was able to guess or estimate what potable supplies they’d be able to acquire if or when they landed.  It was also a one-time only gesture: blowing the seals keeping  water contained would cause irreparable damage.  Nor did the Doctor explain why they needed to dump water.  Most assumed because doing so lessened the mass of Arcology One and the less mass on final terminal impact, the less damage suffered.

     Well, yes, except our favourite Gallifreyan works in at least two different ways at once.

Here's More People Pondering About Festivities

Glastonbury 2024 is in full swing this weekend, and by all accounts has had the blessing of the weather gods - Aeneas I'm looking at you - with things being chilly and overcast on Friday but nice and sunny for Saturday, at least to begin with.  Art!

     Conrad recognises quite a few of these acts and has records by some of them.  HOWEVER - a word you knew was going to crop up - I would far rather listen to them in the comfort of my Sekrit Layr than a potentially muddy field being rained upon for eight hours at a time.  I remember seeing a broadcast when The Who were playing there, with a shot from inside the tent showing rain coming down like fence-pickets.   No thank you!

Finally -

Hmmmm well, musicals are definitely getting banned under the Grey Empire.  Ballfoot, too.  Music festivals - persuade me otherwise in the Comments.

     Time to start on 'Saga'.