Or, In Arabic, Ghayr Qabil Lilghyir
Okay, a bit of a mental stretch here, not that ought to be difficult for you, gentle reader, as it's pretty typical of how we operate round here. You see, it was the aim of alchemists to transmute lead and other base metals into gold, via - you may be ahead of me here - alchemy.
Here we are dealing with the Golden Child becoming the Leaden Child, which would be the opposite of a transmutation. The closest I could get to this is 'Immutable', which is what that Arabic phrase means. Art!
CAUTION! For illustrative purposes only
"Golden child" in this context means a child that is the spoiled favourite in a family, their parents bowing down and worshipping the very couch that they sit upon, whom can do no wrong, is always right and usually insufferable to boot. Now that we've got the metallurgy mumbo-jumbo out of the way, we can proceed with this sad and sorry tale of a Bottomhole Boy who gets his comeuppance, and his venomous grandmother, too. Art!
CAUTION! For representative purposes only
Put Upon Narrator Child, hereafter PUNC (27), was having a wedding in April, hip hoorah and all that guff. His parents ambushed him at a meeting with his Golden Older Brother (30), hereafter GOB, where they said GOB wanted to propose to his girlfriend at PUNC's wedding.
You may not be aware of wedding etiquette, dear reader, but this is absolutely NOT the done thing. PUNC blew up at all three and threatened to cut off his parents from the financial support he was providing; $500 per month. Parents, you see, had TAKEN OUT A SECOND MORTGAGE to pay for GOB's college.
Next day GOB shows up at his brother's door, angrily yelling that the parents were threatening to evict him if he tried to pro -
SKKRRRRRRRCHH
Whoah, hang on, this 30-year old is still living at home? What gives!
GOB then went crying to Grandma, telling a tale of woe and lies. Mostly lies. When she rang up to shout at PUNC he told her the truth, that GOB felt his girlfriend was going to break up with him if he didn't pre-empt and propose, which ran off her like water off a duck's back.
We then get more details about GOB. That second mortgage his parents took out? Mostly wasted, as he dropped out of college. He still lives with them and pays $300 in rent, no contributions to utilities or groceries or internet or anything else really. Art!
PUNC's parents finally ran out of patience with GOB, and stated that they were going to make out a formal lease for his residing with them, including payments for utilities and food. This went down verrrry badly with GOB, who stormed out of the house, stormed back and announced he was going to live with grandma, the malicious maternal one we've already met. Seems like a win-win all round to Conrad.
She, inevitably, tried to stick her oar in, again taking GOB's side, to be told that he wasn't being allowed to propose at the wedding, deal with it or don't bother coming. At this point neither GOB nor MAMAG - MAlicious MAternal Grandma - were talking to anyone else in the family out of pique and spite. Art!
Of course it got worse. GOB's girlfriend read about the drama on Reddit, rang PUNC to confirm and instantly dumped GOB. Not before breathing fire, brimstone and chlorine trifluoride down the phone at him.
Since GOB had left home, his parents cleared his room out, repainted it and let it to a proper tenant in order to recoup part of the giant pile of money they'd bonfired for him. No way home, you might say.
Here MAGAG stuck her oar in again, angering PUNC so much he banned her from his wedding on the grounds of her ridiculous favouritism, GOB had already threatened to avoid coming, which he seemed to think was a threat, rather than the win-win it so surely was. Art!
Art!
MAGAG, it also transpired, had been telling wicked lies to PUNC's fiancée about him. She'd tried to browbeat the parents into backing GOB, only to be shot down as they'd finally gotten fed-up of being walking wallets for GOB with nothing in return. All this because she hated that PUNC was getting married before his brother. She was definitively un-invited from the wedding.
Could it get worse? O yes! You see, MAGAG and GOB had nobody left they could mooch off, bully or exploit, and were reduced to each others company. This went so well the cops were called and MAGAG arrested when she tried to attack an officer. She was also turned away from PUNC's wedding after driving 200 miles and trying to gatecrash. Ooopsie.
GOB wanted to move back in with his parents, who loudly chorused NO. They now had two delightful young ladies renting rooms with no drama.
It's a nice development to see parents realise what a mess they've made of raising a golden child and making amends. Doesn't often happen.
Diddling The Dupes
You already know how suspicious Conrad is of anything to do with stocks and shares. Ex-colleague Mani, who was an economics graduate, casually informed me that the London Stock Exchange was the world's biggest casino. Art!
That's the Moscow Stock Exchange, where the Muscovites try to con and fiddle each other out of millions of rubles, which is the value of as many as three or even four potatoes.
There was a 'Bull' market in 2023, which seems to have encouraged investors to throw money into stocks and shares. The fools. What happened? but that the market slumped, and investors got fleeced. Back in May 2024 the market stood at 3,500 which has now plummeted to 2,600 as of September, a 25% loss that means investors a.k.a. 'Dupes' burned ₽2,000,000,000,000, an amount equivalent to 37 sacks of potatoes. Art!
Hmmmm. What's that Paul Simon song? O yes, "Slip Sliding Away".
A Tornado In A Thimble
Conrad spotted this sidebar item on the BBC News website, and thought it odd enough to dig a little deeper. Art!
Reading on, Rebeckah Vardy and Collleen Roony - I can't identify which is which nor do I care enough to try - took part in a trial where one of them lost and had to render up £2 million, and this amount is being appealed. Who are they? What was it all about? Who cares! Proof, if it were needed, that some people have not only too much time on their hands, but too much money, too, compounded by a lack of grey matter.
Back In Black
Your Humble Scribe came across a compilation video on Youtube, dedicated to the villain of the piece in "Captain Scarlet", namely Captain Black. Art!
They then showed how he killed people with guns, grenades and a hydraulic car lift, because their deaths allowed the Mysterons, safely back on Mars, to 'retrometabolise' the bodies and create an identical duplicate, which was under their control.
But not Captain Black himself. He wasn't killed, although he definitely looks pretty peaky. No, he was taken over by the Martian AIs and reduced to a <ahem> puppet who carried out their will. So, if the Mysterons get scragged at a point in the future, would he regain his humanity, or go completely hat-stand? I reckon a few years in therapy loom. Art!
The Mysterons - arch-enemies of the Health & Safety Executive
Finally -
Urgh, just finished the 9-hour Monday shift of the Stupid Schedule, which I'm being inflicted with this week. No, starting at 10:00 on Friday does not compensate for an 07:45 start today. It was still night-time outside, for the love of President Bierce!
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