Good Morning, Elong!

We Haven't Slandered Or Defamed Kaptain Ketamine In A While

Conrad has only skimmed the news headlines this morning, which are more notable for the death of Val Kilmer (excellent in "Heat" by the way) than anything positive about Muskie, much to the latter's pained regret.  Art!

     This is the moment when Val's character, full of bonhomie at having pulled off a massive bank robbery, instantly changes demeanour.  It precipitates a shoot-out that is deservedly legendary for it's attention to realism.

     ANYWAY to make a tenuous link, in the scene above there is so much lead flying around that OSHA would wince in anguish.  Who or what is OSHA?  O I thought you'd never ask!

     The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, is what. Art!

     This is the South Canadian federal agency entrusted with monitoring and regulating health and safety in the workplace.  It's an essential agency in protecting workers - so expect Elong Tusk to try and get rid of it - because most South Canadian employers deeply mourn the banishment of slavery.

     On to our story, narrated by the victim's offspring.  Glass-Cutting Dad, hereafter GCD, had worked in a glass-processing plant for decades, and was a master at his craft.  He'd even got a plaque from NASA for his work on the solar panels for Hubble, and an award from a church for his 15,000 hand-cut pieces of glass for a stained-glass window.  Art!

     Those panels have to work right first time, you can't recall and recut.

     ANYWAY the original owner died from old age, and his Bottomhole Offspring took over, as they often do, and proceeded to cut every corner imaginable to reduce costs.  They didn't charge for air only because they'd never seen "Total Recall".

     The literal crunch came when GCD was overseeing work on the shop floor and fell onto that very same (hard concrete) floor, injuring his back.  This is when the corner-cutting nature of the BOs came into play, as well as their servile minions.  Art!

For illustrative purposes only

    As per union and OHSA RULES AND REGULATIONS NOT AIRY-FAIRY NONSENSE WRITTEN IN COBWEBS ON POST-IT NOTES LEFT UNDER THE FRIDGE, after an accident like this the plant should be shut down, OHSA informed and an investigation conducted, with the plant not returning to operations until after the conclusion of said investo.

     But that would cost money, wouldn't it?

     There then followed a series of staggeringly stupid decisions.

     1) The Plant Manager refused to shut down the line.  The Union President, who GCD classed as 'a bottom-licker of epic proportions', and whom should have insisted the line be closed, merely nodded and did nothing.  Probably  tugging his forelock as he did so.

     2) They refused to call an ambulance because that would mean shutting down the line.

     3) GCD was shunted onto a bit of cardboard and dragged off to a side entrance.

     4)  Rather than an ambulance, they loaded him into a company panel truck, drove to the nearest hospital and dumped him there.  Art!

     

CAUTION! Not an emergency vehicle.  Not under any circumstances.

    The long medical story short is that this was the end of GCD's days in the factory, thanks to spinal damage.  GCD was happy to get a small settlement and  worker's compensation until he could hit retirement age and collect his pension.

     What could possibly go wrong?

     Hmmm, just everything from that point onwards.  You see, when the company lawyer turned up, as per instructions from the BOs, he offered only worker's compensation, no settlement and GCD needed to sign a waiver that stated he was to blame for the accident.

     It transpired that the accident had not only not been investigated, it hadn't even been reported, although everyone from PM to BOs lied and said it had.  After all, what could possibly go wrong?  Well, imagine you're Val Kilmer's character walking out of the bank with a jaunty strut - and then you see the entirety of the LAPD waiting for you.  That's how wrong it could get.  Art!

     GCD retained a personal injury attorney, with instructions to go scorched and salted earth on the company, which they did.

     What could possibly go wrong?  Well, the Plant Manager, HR and Union President were all fired, and only GCD's residual kindness prevented criminal charges being lodged against them.  The UP was also fined $25,000 and banned from his own union.

     The company really took a hit.  Remember OHSA? well, they seem to have decided to make an example of the BOs, for in the words of GCD's offspring, they descended on the plant 'like a plague of locusts'.  Thus business was hit with $6 million in fines - how much would they have lost to just shutting the line down for a couple of hours?  The whole plant was forced to close for 60 days, which also lost them $2 million in lost contracts.  They were banned from tendering for any government contracts for three years - goodbye working for NASA again! - which totalled losses of $4 million.

     $12 million down the dustpipe, which forced the BOs to sell off their company at a fraction of it's original value, to an acquisitions business from Sweden.  Art!

     The PM, HR and UP all blew through their retirement funds in no time.  UP now works in a shop, and the AI Art Generator thinks that above shows a 'spill in aisle three'.

     GCD retired early with a million dollars.  That's revengeance.  OHSAy can  you see, by the dawn's early light -

More Blasting From The Past

Is this a tailored advert?  If so, the algorithm has learned a thing or two since it began recommending 'Log Counting Software'.  I mean, a log's a pretty substantial thing, it would be hard to either miss or miscount a bundle of them.

     ANYWAY Art!

     I ask about targeting because these headliners were all big in the Eighties, so are they trying to appeal to music fans of Conrad's age?

     Conrad further noticed that "The Stranglers" are performing and so is their former frontman, Hugh Cornwell.  One would like to be a fly on the wall backstage when they encounter each other.  Conrad further further noticed that there's no prices given.  How very remiss.

On The Home Stretch

Your Humble Scribe has reached page 650 of "11.22.1963", which always seems odd when typed out.  As predicted, Ol' Steve is having his hero and heroine go down to the wire in terms of dealing with Lee Harvey Oswald.  I mean, where would the word count be if Jake merely walked up to Lee in the dark and plugged him dead?  Efficient and timely, yes, and the editor wouldn't have to try and cut down the 1,200 pages to something a tad more manageable, but it would kind of lack suspense.  Art!

Conrad Takes The Biscuit

And also the cake.  The Tunis Cake, that is.  Art!

     No, I don't know why the date is a year out.  ANYWAY here's the cake in all it's ganached glory.  It has to be a decade since I last made ganache and I think the double cream in this case was rather past it's sell-by-date, hence the trace of separated oils on the top.

Grumpy Gefreiter Gets Grumpier

Hopefully our little missives from the tetchy Teuton NCO are adding a little nuance to accounts of the fighting in Belgium, because as we have seen the German army had a lot of dross in their ranks.

11 September 1944

A patrol of 3 Company went to the other side of the canal in the night.  An enemy patrol was on our side at the same time.  Callenberg has been a deserter since 6 September.  Rumour of Von Kluge's suicide.  Model (55) his successor.  The Regimental Commander very dissatisfied with 3 Company's sector.

The 'Priest' is NOT A TANK!

Conrad's Commentary: The Teutons didn't like operating at night, whereas the British loved it and have practiced it ever since.  'Callenberg', whomever he is or was, doesn't seem to be infused with the dedication and discipline that Nazi Germany expected, quite.

     Von Kluge did indeed commit suicide, taking poison rather than return to Germany, where the Gestapo were waiting to have a little chat with him, as he was up to his Prussian ears in the plotting to assassinate Herr Schickelgruber.  Another one short on dedication and discipline!  Art!

     That's Model, the replacement, pronounced 'Moh-dell'.  He got around Herr Schickelgruber's constant and consistent interference by ringing Der Fuhrer's headquarters up every five minutes to ask permission to put butter on his crumpets, or to use a chinagraph pencil on his map sheets.  After a morning of non-stop pestering Ol' Schicky would lose the plot and leave him to carry on, uninterrupted.

Finally -

I've been so busy working and blogging that I've not had a chance to read about Elong Tusk's morning misery.  Allow me whilst I'm on my afternoon break, consuming both schadenfreude and cake.

Whisky No More!

We Do Seem To Be Dealing With This Spirit A Lot Of Late

Once again, whisper who dares, Conrad is not fond of the stuff.  It's okay as a flavouring for baking - Honey and Whisky Cake is a firm favourite - but not as a tipple of choice.  Art!

     Like any valuable commodity, whisky attracts criminals.  You might not dub those who 'rescued' or 'salvaged' the 7,000 cases of whisky from the wreck of the 'SS Politician' as criminals but the law did, and so did HM Customs and Excise.  

     Nowadays the criminals are a lot more white collar and wield laptops rather than oars, yet their end purpose is much the same: stealing your money.  Art!

     The problem has grown so pernicious that Your Humble Scribe was able to find this website with minimal searching, and I shall run through their Ten Tips just in case you feel the siren call of whisky cask investing.  

1)  "Hurry up and sign immediately NOW!"

This is a classic and signature mark of scams in general.  Conrad remembers the warnings that went out about pension scams a decade ago, where the scammers would send a motorbike courier to your door poste-haste so you could sign over all your money.  Art!

                               

     As WID cannily point out, whisky in a cask takes years, up to 15, to age to maturity.  Why does the investment company think a few hours are going to make a difference?

2)  The Moon on a stick

Or, in less flowery terms, promising 'Guaranteed Returns!', possibly without the exclamation mark.  NOTHING in the money markets is guaranteed, there is always risk involved and an unpredictable Black Swan Event may be just around the corner.  This problem is why the Financial Services Compensation Scheme exists.  Art!

3)  High Pester Factor

One way scammers draw in victims is to have a dearth of information about their business, their board, their premises, their stock and so on.  To find out what a reputable company would normally be upfront about, people have to provide their contact details.  This then leads to a flood of scam spam, which it is hoped will erode your will to live and common sense.

4)  Flee By Night

Rather than take any smooth-tongued charmer's word for it, or a flashy glossy brochure, or a website that sings and dances, WID recommend that you, the investor, merely check out the investors details at the Company House website, which is free.  This will show how long the company has been around, and in the case of scammers, this will not be long.  In fact you may well discover that the business investing in whisky is only one of a looooong string of dodgy failed companies.  Ooops.

5)  Look Look Gobbledygook

Surprise!  A business claiming to be licenced by the Royal and Ancient Order of Capybaras does not, in fact, have any more legitimacy than the next business.  What they MUST have is certification from HM Customs & Excise - remember them? they go to any and all lengths to ensure the government gets it's money - and their WOWGR permission.  If the 'investment business' has a list of certificates longer than a roll of Andrex but no WOWGR, then they're a scam.  Art!

What the AI Art Generator thinks "WOWGR" is

6)  Nix Nix

To quote that immortal bard, Elvis PQ Presley.  Compare what the investment business has present on any website they have, or whatever pamphlets they provide, and cross-reference with Company House's details.  They ought, at the very least, to match up and if they don't, caveat emptor.  WID also recommends checking out business sites such as Linkdin, whatever that is.  Essentially, a reputable business will have a large 'signature' for potential investors to check.  I'm not going to risk the AI with 'nix nix'.

7)  DYODD

No, it's not Welsh.  Bafune!  This is the acronym for "Do Your Own Due Diligence" and is a longer way of saying caveat emptor, which is Latin <hack spit> for be careful and don't purchase pigs in pokes.  WID, doing a bit of trumpet-blowing, did a quick search for 'whisky investors' and quickly found 16, of whom only 1 (!) bothered to list their stock prices.  WID then cut loose with a list of reasons why not listing stock is a very bad thing.  I shall add in a bit of their blurb:

WhiskyInvestDirect posts full details online of all its stock, with prices and costs clearly shown, ready for you to review as and when it suits you. This lets you compare our prices and costs against other offers and importantly see the live price you will receive when you sell.

     Not listing prices means risking investment in grossly-overpriced casks, which is one of the prime rip-offs these scammers inflict.  WID's language is quite prim but underneath the calm text you can tell they want to flay these scoundrels alive.

8) Provenance

This similar to the chain of ownership in forensic cases, establishing that the whisky is in fact whisky - there are rules about earning that title, believe me, lots of rules - and that it has the pedigree behind it that the investors claim it has.  Art!

9)  What's In It For Me And How?

Or, what profits will I be getting?  These are the questions to be asked about the end of the investment process, which scammers will typically gloss over, if they cover them at all.  In the wise words of WID:

• Who will buy my whisky?
• Is there an active market for my specific whisky?
• When was the last time whisky like mine sold?
• What was the last price paid for whisky like mine?
• What are the costs involved in finding a buyer and selling my whisky?

     The investors ought to be able to provide information on these subjects.  IF they are legit.

10)  If In Doubt, Stay Out!

Whisky has been around for thousands of years and is going to be here long after North Sea Oil has run dry, so there is no reason to be panicked into buying a cask of it because an investor is screaming down the phone at you to "BUY BUY BUY NOW NOW NOW!!"  There will be legitimate investment opportunities tomorrow and next week and the year after tomorrow.

     There you go, BOOJUM! making your world a saner safer place.

The Love Of Crunching Numbers

I'm going to pervert a superhero saying, because I'm horrid that way.

"In brightest day, in blackest night,

No profit for Disney's "Snow White" '

     Tee hee!  Art?

     Thanks to 'Box Office Mojo' for this data, which is for "Snow White".  I don't think we've put up a chart like this since "The Marvels", which was another Disney financial flop back in 2023.  Art!

    So, for the three days when SW ought to be making mint, they actually pulled less than the first Saturday.  This failure to maintain a healthy profit means another nail in the coffin, because hoping that this turkey of a film had legs was about the last gasp of Disney's execs.  Their other hope, that international audiences would suddenly develop a taste for Meleagris, also proved false.  Art!

     A 6% increase over Domestic isn't going to earn any executives early retirement with a golden handshake.  That $142 million at the box office translates into $71 million in profits, for a film that cost at least $270 million (before reshoots).

     Ooops.  And also tee hee!

One Conrad Can Get Behind

Since we're already over Count, I need a couple of picture items to fill out the rest of today's blog.  Art!

     Naughty naughty, not putting the title up so that people just have to click and find out.  Well, it's "Children Of Men" in case you were wondering, and it is indeed a masterpiece, especially the urban combat at the end, which is grimly realistic.  It does end on a hopeful note, so dystopian-with-a-shred-of-utopia.

Oh Look Who's Joining In The Fun

Conrad is no fan of "The Daily Mail", which sees itself as the unofficial voice of the Conservative Party.  However - a word unused today until now - they are also giving SW a good shoeing whilst it's down.  Art!

   "It exists", mayhap?

Finally -

Just to caution you that we're not done with Whisky Cask Investment Scams, not by a long way!

The Sirens Of Saskatchewan

No!  You Are Not Going To Get Pictures

Of Canuckistanian ladies in swimsuits, sunning themselves on rocks.  Although it might not be a bad image to entice traffic with.  Art!

CAUTION! Cooks Tours do not recommend this behaviour

     Having done that, now I have to explicate about the sirens of mythology, don't I?  The name is, of course - obviously! - from the Greek, 'Seira', meaning 'Rope', because (and the translators are, frankly, reaching here) of their ensnaring characteristics.  Which came about thanks to them being half-woman, half-bird, thus giving them unparalleled singing ability.  Imagine Annie Lennox with an Hellenic accent not a Scottish one.  We aren't told which half was the birdy part; top, bottom, left or right, and the illustrators of mythology simply used them as an excuse to paint cheesecake.  See above for proof.  Art!

Flying lessons courtesy Plummet Airlines

     There is some debate as to how deadly the Sirens were.  In a few versions they merely charmed their listeners so much that they neglected to eat or drink and thus wasted away, which kind of leaves one wondering how the Sirens did for food and water.  Did they all stop singing to have lunch, or were they on a rota? and if the latter, who got the short end of finishing the singing on Friday afternoon?  Art!

    Ulysses. that archetypal Greek trickster, got around the temptation to stop eating, jump overboard or become a Siren-snack by having himself bound to a mast, whilst his crew all stopped their ears with wax.  Talking of wax - Art!

     An inversion of the trope, you might say.

     Having thus established the credentials of these temptresses of antiquity, let us now abruptly change tack and jump to the French scientist Charles Cagniard de la Tour, for 'twas he whom came up  with the name 'siren', applying it to an instrument used to measure tone and oscillations.  Art!

     That's his 'siren', which would trouble an illustrator to render at all saucy.  More Wall-E than feathered temptress.  Don't ask me the principles upon which it operates, Conrad doesn't know technical stuff (Kyle Reese I feel your pain).

     From this invention it was a mere hop skip and jump to dub the warning horn sounded at factories a siren, too, this one sounding to inform that work had started or finished for the day.  Presumably because one needed a piercingly loud noise to be heard above industrial machinery.

     You may be wondering about those Saskatchewan sonic screechers and we still need to make a detour before arriving at our Canuckistanian destination.  Art!

     The peoples of This Sceptred Isle got to know the sound of sirens O-so-well during the early years of the Second Unpleasantness, when the Luftwaffe would turn up uninvited and drop big explodey things everywhere.  The sound of sirens warned people to seek shelter before the Teuton's unpleasant packages arrived, and indicated that the peripatetic pifflers had moved on afterwards.

     More pertinently, sirens lived on in the Cold War, as warning that there would be a few buckets of 'instant sunshine' heading your way, and even today Conrad gets a cold shiver if he hears one of them.  Art!

    This is where we meet up with the Canuckistanians again, for the lady above works for the Canadian Broadcasting Company, and yes, that is a siren she's indicating there.  These things are scattered all over rural Canada, which means a lot of sirens because most of British America is rural.  Art!

     A handful of examples.  Just to prove that they are mentally different from their cousins south of the border or west of The Pond, these rural communities use their sirens to indicate noon, and frequently six post meridian and a late night call at nine or ten p.m.  The locals are all perfectly happy with this, which in Perfidious Albion would trigger a plethora of heart attacks, and riots with gunfire and bloodshed in South Canada.  Art!

     By virtue of the blessed lord above, none of these sirens were ever used for their primary purpose during the Cold War, an example of which you see above.  So, rather than junk them, communities in Saskatchewan and elsewhere across the prairies used them as time signals.  Art!

     The irony of 'Warburg', hmmmm?

     Fortunately for anyone as cowardly and craven as Conrad - my two best qualities! - these things are coming to the end of their serviceable lives, meaning that rust and ants are seeing them off and by the end of this decade they will have decayed.  One hopes.

Cynical Corporal Cavils Constantly

Yes, we are back with the grumpy German gefrieter, who is distinctly unimpressed with the martial qualities of his officers, other companies and the entire Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine.  

10 September 1944

Martin makes a report on the cowardice of Zeisler at Merxem.  Shubert takes my pistol away with a very flimsy excuse.  I ignore the cattle dealer and all the sods around him.  The old Company pets are now with the transport.  Art!

     Conrad's Commentary: Cowardice and theft in the Ubermensch?  Who would have believed it!  The 'cattle dealer' is GGG's insolent nickname for his company commander, whom does not command the fullest respect, I think it's fair to deduce.  The 'pets' are the officer's favourites, who seem to have been sent out of harm's way, only 'seems' and not 'have' because the Allied 'Jabos' (Teuton slang for fighter-bombers) were always always always stooging around for things to strafe.  Unless your vehicle resembled a bush it would attract lethal attention.

Conrad: Points And Laughs

Your Humble Scribe is always claiming to avoid anything to do with Politics, Religion or Current Affairs, and equally breaches this policy if he thinks it will garner more views.  Shallow, that's me.

     ANYWAY here's a headline that follows our brief of not covering politics.  Art!

     Ho ho, whaddayaknow.  She's also been given a prison sentence and a £100,000 fine, tee hee!

     For those unaware, this 56-year old bint is following in the repulsive footprints of her father, who was also a neo-Nazi and who died without gaining any significant political office.  By the time she's un-banned she'll be collecting her pension before the next Prez election.

     With that far-right nutjob being barred in Romania, it's a sad day for apprentice dictators.

     Hey, we seem to have steered clear of our new favourite targets for a few days.

Blasting From The Past

When I was working in Gomorrah-on-the-Irwell, for all of a decade if not longer, one of my favourite targets was First Bus, who truly were low-hanging fruit.  So low they brushed the ground, truth be told.  They had a great title that allowed citric mockery.

     What do we have now?  Art!

     These gamboge bodgers.  "Bee Network" to boot.  Less conducive to insults.  Nor can I insult "The Metro" either because I only travel by bus at the weekends when the nation's finest chip-wrapper is not supplied.  

     Well, one supposes that's proof enough that BOOJUM! does adapt over time.  Eventually I guess the sheer brio of insulting the world's richest man, the world's stupidest man and the world's bloodiest-handed man will pall eventually.  One wonders who or what the new targets will be?

A man with a target on his back

Our Journey With Bernie

Continues, with his 'Frankenstein' sub-set of FPG trading cards, and it's good to see that Bern doesn't make the mistake of confusing Viktor Frankenstein with the monster he creates.  I tried searching the title of 'F3' which is "In Search Of Secrets" and got text and picture as different search results.  Art!

"I loved the movie adaptation. The makeup on Karloff was incredible!  It's easy to see how that movie has become an icon of popular culture."

     At a guess, Conrad is going to say Ol' Bern's artwork for this sub-set is all going to be monochromatic, it being the best medium for brooding Gothic subject matter.  No light and frothy pastels here!

Finally -

I'm going to finish off that slice of Tunis Cake.  It would be rude not to, after all.

A Frosty Relationship

In More Than One Sense

We'll get onto the meat of the matter shortly.  What Conrad wants to start with is a phrase that is comprehensively disproven by our relating a tale from Youtube's Reddit channels, to wit: "Good fences make good neighbours".  Not in this torrid testament they don't.  Art!

     This is the South Canadian poet and wordsmith Robert Frost, in his youth and when he had joined the ranks of the Grumpy Old Men.  His poem "Mending Wall" is where the phrase "Good fences make good neighbours" comes from.  So now we are all better informed than we were five minutes ago.

     This story begins when the Perceptive Diligent Poster, hereafter PDP, answered a knock at his door one evening, to discover two owners of the funeral home further down the street.  We shall dub them Devious Pedantic Dodoheads, hereafter DPD.  Yes I did have another name for them that began with "D" but we are staying Safe For Work.  Art!

     They informed him that they had purchased the neighbouring lot and were going to turn it into a car park; could he sign (unread) this three-page document agreeing to it?

     Perhaps understandably, given how litigious South Canadians are, PDP declined, as it was already night.  DPD refused to leave it with him overnight, tried to pressure him into signing and were chased away off PDP's property.  Art!

     Up went an 8' foam core fence, which PDP looked at askance, as they had taken the time and trouble to research city and district ordinances and codes about what was permissible and what wasn't.  The DPD had also left up the old wooden fence, stating that it was on their side of the property line, PDP had better not touch it under pain of sudden death, they would sue him unto the fifth generation, etcetera.

     Cue PDP looking up city code, which forbade having more than one fence on a property line.  The DPD had to hire workmen to dismantle the old fence and PDP wouldn't allow them access to it from his side, so they had to go over the eight foot concrete fence to work.  Art!

     After that, with PDP feeling justifiably cocky, he got in touch with the city commissioners, because a concrete foam-core fence was against city codes, which required a solid masonry fence.  They sided with him and DPD had to tear down their nice new fence, doubtless wishing to see PDP as a client of theirs in the very near future.  Art!

     They put up a temporary chain-link fence, which kept blowing down, risking PDP's chickens getting loose from his yard.  DPD unhelpfully told him to sort out the problem himself, which he did by welding all the fence sections together.  The temporary fence thus became semi-permanent but no longer blew down.  Art!

     To speed up the process of a new, permanent and opaque fence being erected, PDP took to hanging out in his back yard by his fire-pit, clad in nothing more substantial than a 'Borat' style luminous green Speedo.  Anyone arriving at the funeral home's car park probably saw a lot more of PDP than they were comfortable with, because one doubts he was a male model.

     When the new fence was erected, DPD's workers trampled and destroyed PDP's rose bushes and sprinklers.  Again, the city commissioners sided with PDP and ordered DPD to pay for replacements.  I should think so too!

     When the fence finally went up, DPD only stained their side of the fencing, which - you may be ahead of me here - was forbidden by city ordinance, so DPD had to pay to stain PDP's side of the fence, too.

     All in all it took over five years for this fence saga to play out and in the end PDP found that his property value had increased substantially thanks to the stained, presentable, sturdy, code-compliant and very tall fence.

     "Good fences eventually make good neighbours".  There, Mister Frost, fixed it for you.

More Thoughts About "11.22.1963"

Conrad is now past Page 600, and guess what?  What Ol' Steve describes as 'obdurate history' has really come to the fore, because, as our hero Jake has discovered, history doesn't like to be changed, amended, thwarted or otherwise diverted from the normal track.  Art!

     There's James Franco as Jake, blending right into 1963.  Or 1958, which is the fixed date he arrives in.  Your Humble Scribe is deliberately avoiding viewing any of the eight episodes so as not to spoil the ending.

     I was wondering about Al, Jake's acquaintance who discovered the time portal.  He had the original idea to prevent Kennedy's assassination, and ended up with a terminal case of cancer back in 1961, forcing him to abandon his plans.  Is that obdurate history's influence again?  Because it doesn't seem to be taking any prisoners.    

     Tread lightly, Jake.

Conrad Doth Bake A Cake

I've had the recipe for 'Tunis Cake' written down for a few months now, and finally went ahead and baked it yesteryon.  The story goes that the recipe was discovered by a soldier of the 8th Army in Tunisia, whilst that nation was being liberated from the Axis yoke.  Said soldier was a Master Baker NO SNIGGERING AT THE BACK in civilian life, so he tried making it himself and sent the recipe home to Blighty.  It proved to be popular because it didn't require dried fruit, which was hard to get hold of in rationed Britain, and it mixed the flour with ground almond to stretch it further.  Art!

Gluten free!

     There it is in the tin, naked and unadorned.  The recipe calls for a ganache topping, a topping I've not made in possibly a decade; you bring double cream to the boil and add in a load of chocolate and stir the two together.  It solidifies eventually but can be worked when fresh.  I've added the topping as of this afternoon and need another picture to bring you up to speed.

     

Also Brought Up To Speed

Your Humble Scribe has been playing a different iteration of Solo Mahjongg, as mentioned briefly on the blog a couple of days ago.  Art!

     This one has a timer and countdown.  You, the player, have ten minutes to either solve the puzzle or hit a brick wall, and so far Conrad has hit plenty of brick walls.  In fact in all the games I've played I have never won a single game, only ever getting perhaps 90% completion rate.  BUT I WILL NOT BE PUT OFF! just so we're clear.

Our Journey With Bernie

Mister Wrightson, that is, has now detoured to the FPG trading card 'Frankenstein' subset of 1993, which is tricky to illustrate as the internet automatically assumes one is referring to his hardback labour of love.  Art!

     Thus I have not been able to find the first card in the series, only the second: "Wretched Condition", which, if Art will do the honours -

     "I remember coming home from seeing 'Frankenstein' and drawing crude pictures of the monster.  I no longer have the pictures but I remember them a a line-box head with nuts and bolts sticking out all over his head".

     I think that's a pretty close approximation to what Ol' Bern wrote.