Lo! For Today We Are Going To Start With -
- 'A Little Musical Critique'. For those of you with nil memory, this is where BOOJUM! takes a ridiculously strict and strait view of song lyrics, being utterly literal wherever possible. Since it amuses me, is why. We have, of late, gone through three songs from 'The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway' including the liner notes, which hint that Peter Gabriel was off his box on 24-can packs of Special Brew whilst writing the lyrics. Art!
127 empty cans just out of shot
ANYWAY today we need to look up the origin of an avian name that features in a pop hit from the Sixties: Flamingo. The name is derived from the Portuguese 'Flamengo', ultimately derived from the Latin 'Flamma' meaning 'Flame'. So now you know. Art!
NO! We're talking about red flames here. Where's that Tazer?
ANYWAY Manfred Mann had a big hit in the Sixties with 'Pretty Flamingo', hitting the Number 1 spot here in This Sceptred Isle, which is pretty good going for a South African singing about Portuguese birds. Rather to people's surprise, Manfred was the retiring keyboard player, not the lead singer. Art!
Manny to port
Let's begin the critique.
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| "Usher!" |
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| Calm yourself, men |
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| CAUTION! This woman sets off fire alarms |
Oh every guy would make her his if he just could
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| (Sounds of Tazer being applied) |
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| Pretty miserable-looking for dwellers in Paradise. Probably due to lack of flamingoes |
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| Erm - just who is wearing the crimson dress here? |
There is, of course - obviously! - another Flamingo that we have been hearing of since late 2025, and it's nothing to do with pop songs, although there is a certain element of bang about it. Art!
A touching shade of feminine pink, I'm sure you'll agree. We are told not to ask a lady's weight but in this case it's 6,000 kilograms, and she certainly lights up the neighbourhood, especially when making an appearance at night. Thanks to updates to onboard guidance, Flamingo is less prone to 'could' arrive and a whole lot more likely to 'would' arrive. She has being going down a bomb in Mordorvia.
Okay, after breaking the Good Taste Barrier, we shall now move on.
More Of Those Books Redolent Of 'Greybeard'
This is one I have also read, and remember it being a bit of a variation on the Global Nuclear Apocalypse. Art!
It's set on a trimaran that sets sail to avoid the nuclear immolation of South Canada, which I remember from a good forty years ago, yay my memory. This was back in the days when the Sinister Union was perceived as a global threat, rather than a clay-footed colossus operating on borrowed time. I can remember the travails of the crew along their adventure, yet not how it ends, booh memory you sucker. From the blurbs on Goodreads I don't think it was very hopeful. O well.
One I May Have Read Earlier
Still on the theme of literature, here is another entry in the list of '20 Essential classics that continue to inspire readers'. Art!
Shakespeare inspires only loathing in Conrad. If academics ever dug up his shopping list they would rain praise about it's themes and metre and imagery, the pikers. I've seen an old Sinister film of it and SPOILER ALERT both of them die at the end. There you go, saved you an hour or so of your life that you would never have gotten back. Art!
On the other hand, as mentioned a couple of days ago, here's one I haven't yet read but intend to, a work that has been described as the first modern novel. Were I to introduce it as 'The delusional Don' you might misinterpret exactly whom I was talking about, especially since the Don attempts to tackle windmills. You know, mills using wind-power.
Back To Brucie
- and his portfolio from the 'Sci-Fi Art' Youtube channel. His style is very distinctive, definitely set apart from the Chris Foss/Angus Mackie school of hyper-detailed technical art. Art!
Pennington on the plains
This one's very evocative, with a ruined, neglected highway leading to stark, forbidding and barren hills in the background, lorded over by a Fifties-style flying saucer. Note the large 'Title Gap' at top, which is kind of wasted as there is no follow-up showing the book in question. Permit me to dig a little -
There you go, 'New Maps Of Hell' by Kingsley Amis. No, it's nothing to do with either cartography or Hades, rather it's a quite famous look at the sci-fi genre from a Proper Author. Instead of focussing on ray-guns or rockets, Amis looked at how (good) sci-fi satirises or critiques society by creating believable future dystopias. Such as Norilsk.
We've Covered This Already
BUT I need a short article to hit the Word Count, so I shall continue. Art!
As the US president insults a journalist again, the BBC looks at the questions he does not like to answer.
Hard questions, questions that refer back to his own negative actions, and above all, questions from women. The Delusional Don - hmmmm sounds vaguely familiar - will resort to insults, instead of answering the question, and because the South Canadian journos are all sheep, nobody tells him to answer the question or asks it again. Art!
Finally -
Finishing off with a Biercism again -
"Imagination, n: A warehouse of facts, with a liar and poet in joint ownership."
Ooo-err Matron, Conrad is in trouble!
