Me Three

You Will Be Delighted To Know That The Number Three Intro Continues

Just to give you an insight into the creative process that goes on behind the scenes here at BOOJUM! I was considering doing 'A Little Musical Critique', that po-faced literal interpretation of song lyrics, and targeting 'The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway', the title song of Genesis' epic 1974 concept double-album.  Art!

     There isn't much point in trying to make sense of the lyrics, as you need to be off your box on illegal substances to understand them.  So I deferred.

     THEN! there was the possibility of having Arnie Schickelbaum and his wife Gardenia relating their adventures, incorporating 16 Codeword solutions in the body of the tale, with definitions.  It may yet happen.  Art!

One of the solutions

     Instead, we're going to be continuing with the theme of 'Three', as evinced earlier in the week.  Instead of a long, long description of mythology and theology, let us begin with a bit of pop culture.  Art!

     The title refers to the three female leads tossing three coins into the Trevi Fountain in Rome and making a wish about their romantic destiny.  I note that there are two leading men in the title sequence, not three, so - draw your own conclusions.

     Let us now whistle up 'Brewer's' and begin explicating.

The Three Wise Monkeys: A carving of three monkeys over the Sacred Stable door in Japan circa the 17th century.  Art!

The Toshogu Shrine

     They are displaying the three attributes for a blameless life: hear no evil, speak no evil and see no evil, but surely there ought to be a fourth monkey covering his nose?  Also, they are about four hundred years adrift as they need another monkey abhoring a mobile phone: thou shalt not pass on unverified and unattributed info on social media.  Conrad unsure if we need a fifth member covering their tongue, since nobody has yet informed me if evil has a taste*.

The Three 'F's: No!  Nothing to do with swearing, you dirty-minded lubbers.  It is much more higher-minded than that.  We are talking about the Irish Land League of the 1880s, whom were Fenians attempting to overthrow absentee English landlords.  Art!

"Parnell led with his extremely aggressive beard"

     What they referred to was: Fair rent - nobody wants to pay scads for a hovel with no indoor plumbing or internet; free sale - erm unsure what this means but it sound really progressive and empowering <digs digs digs> aha, it means the tenant farmer can sell their holding to another without landlord retaliation; fixity of tenure - which means not being evicted for little or no reason, as long as the rent was paid.  Three 'F's.

THREE FIELD SYSTEM: O sweet lord aloft, I remember this phrase from secondary school, all of 50 years ago, when it got beaten into us as part of - History? because we definitely didn't have an 'Agriculture' O level.  'Beaten' as in inflicted through repetition, not that they actually thrashed us with bamboo switches.  A deficiency some teachers mourned. 

     ANYWAY Art!

     'Three-field system' meant a crop rotation arrangement, whereby arable fields were used sequentially for wheat, then the year after for barley or oats, and then in the third year they were left fallow, meaning left strictly alone in terms of farming, although cattle were allowed to graze on them, to prevent an irruption of weeds.  Doing this meant that land could recover after intensive farming, and it had the benefit of working for a good five hundred years.

And Then There Were Three: We go back to Genesis, an ironic line if ever there was one, for their 1978 album.  To elucidate a little, Genesis were originally a 5-piece band: Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins, Tony Banks, Steve Hackett and Mike Rutherford.  Peter left in 1975, and then Steve left in 1977.  So, what did they release in 1978?  Art!

     I remember a frustrated and hostile punk fan writing in to the 'NME' when the album was released, complaining 'And then there were three, and then there were two, and then there was one, and then there were none AND THEY WERE STILL MAKING MUSIC!"

     You may or may not like Genesis but you have to admit that's pretty amusing.

     Right, I think we can squeeze out at least another Intro dealing with Three, so we shall put this one to bed.  Please note that we have so far only touched on Nine and Three, and there are at least 8 other cardinal numbers to resort to.

The Wind Of Change

No, we are not talking about The Skorpions era-defining track concerning the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Sinister Union, which remains an incredibly catchy and powerful song ab

     ANYWAY AGAIN we are rather talking about how a wicked wind served to deliver up to King Piggy a rather unflattering photo.   Art!

The Hair Helmet seems to be gaining sentience and will soon be agitating for it's own security code.

Dock Lobster

No!  This is not about the B-52s, the sole South Canadian band as far as I know whom are named after a strategic bomber.  Art!

Band or bomber, which would I choose?

     Known as a 'BUFF' or 'Big Ugly Fat Feller', which sounds like a DJ Tango reference but which isn't, they pa

     ANYWAY AGAIN I am once again referring to 'Be Amazed' and their 'Most Expensive Mistakes In All Of History' Youtube vlog.  This particular tale of woe concerns the South Canadian seafood chain Red Lobster, and I've definitely heard this story before, so am unsure if we've posted about it.  I shall assume not.  Art!

     In 2003 RL offered an 'All The Crab You Can Eat' promotion, where customers for the low, low price of $23, could gorge themselves on as much Alaskan Snow Crab as they wished.  The company's accountants, who had plainly never dined on crab, reckoned that their diners would eat 2 plates of crab total.

     WRONG!  It was more like 4, and diners took their own sweet time eating the fiddly crab legs, which needed cracking and separating before they could be eaten, meaning less diners and more delay.  Not only that, the increased demand for Snow Crab Legs drove up prices and -

     

     

     Here are the losses for a single quarter.  

     It got worse.  Wall Street got wind of this farrago and detailed it in the press, at length, as an example of corporate stupidity, and knocked $400 million off Red Lobster's stock price.  So, even if they'd only lost $12 million across the year, the market rather rebounded against them by 33 times, effectively docking their income, hence today's title.

     Ooooops.

     That's what you get for not thinking things through.

Point And Laugh

Sorry to include a second photo of Fat Caligula, but this is an hilarious trend where one needs a wheelie-bin of popcorn to appreciate it.  Art!

     The World Cup is a football event being held in South Canada, and since Trump is involved, there were doubtless bribes doled out to get it held there.  The bald chap above - that is, the one without a Hair Helmet combover - is Infantino, whom delivered the bizarre FIFA 'Peace Cup' to DJ Tango, doubtless again to flatter him into concessions of some variety.

     One of the metrics to judge how successful an event is going to be is hotel room takeup, which is doing poorly for the WC.  Not surprising, considering that the hoteliers were trying to gouge fans with prices of $3,000 for rooms.  Then there is the requirement to submit your past social media for inspection, going back five years, and the ever-present risk of ICE shooting you dead for wearing a loud shirt.

     Donnie Dorko will, inevitably, declare that this is the bestest bigliest WC ever.  Art!

     Not wrong.

Finally -

One from Ambrose -

"Language,n: The music with which we charm the serpents guarding another's treasure."

*  Doubtless an hideous mixture of pineapple and parsnip.  Or is that just me?