"When That Fat Old Sun In The Sky Is Falling"

  Yes, another musical reference^.
    
Lazing and Gazing
     Been sitting out in the back yard, enjoying the sun.  In an ambient kind of way, because with the passing of summer our backyard no longer enjoys direct sunlight after six in the afternoon.  Also, had to stand sentry to stop Beej sneaking back inside to eat Jenny's cat food - he'd come back for his, she hasn't so far.  Despite his timourous bearing, Beej is quite capable of finishing off her bowl completely, the greedy little goblin.


Gasssss!
     United Utilities^^ have dug a vast trench directly below our office windows, which is the sonic assault part of their plan to make us miserable.  Today is was the toxic vapours element: they installed giant eight-foot tall valves into their trench and our floor was promptly overwhelmed with leaked gas.  Staff fled from their desks around me to other more distant parts considered gas-free.  Me?  No sense of smell and apparently not bothered by inhaling gas, either, so I stayed put.
     This, of course, means that the windows have to stay shut, resulting in temperatures hitting over 40 degrees^^^ and yours truly wilting with heatstroke, dehydration, flannel-tongue and other such inflictions.  Tomorrow will probably bring arc-welding and lasers.

I Can See My House From Here -
     Almost!  Yesterday I got a vantage across North Manchester to the Pennines from a 24th floor office suite.  Remarkable view, and I knew approximately where my house was, but the mass of greenery in the way prevented seeing it exactly.  Picturesque, that greenery and it makes the city a more pleasant place, but it's the result of all the gruesome wet weather of earlier 2013.

^ Fat Old Sun by Pink Floyd
^^ Rascals who dig up roads to deliberately inconvenience people.  And they have something to do with gas.
^^^ Okay, an exaggeration.  Thirty Degrees!

Curiosity Drilled the MaT

"MaT" being an acronym for Martian Terrain.  Sorry, stretching a bit, but I couldn't resist.

Yes, Veronica, I Do Mean Mars


     The Beeb - unashameadly one of BOOJUM!'s media touchstones and inspirations - has a sidebar article about the Martian rover Curiosity, which celebrates a year of operations.  We may have, perhaps, become a bit blasé about Martian robotic exploration, so here's a comparison shot:

That child's toy at the front is Sojourner; the dining-table-on-wheels at left is Opportunity, and the frackin' huge thing at stage right is Curiosity

 

From Tonka toy to Landrover in 15 years.  Also, remember that the Curiosity rover is tootling along on a planet one-third of a billion miles from home.  Light, the fastest thing around, takes a maximum of 24 minutes to get from Earth to Mars.

     No sign of Deja Thoris* yet, but my fingers are crossed ...

 

Cake Day

     As I will be 52 on August 17th, a Saturday, it had been decreed that the following day, Sunday 18th, will be declared "Cake Day".  No, you don't bring a birthday cake; au contraire, I bake the cakes, you come and consume them. Having it on a Sunday allows me time on the Saturday to get some serious baking in.  There will also be ice-cream; I'm not sure what flavours yet.  Peach?  Pecan & Pistachio?  Vanilla and toffee ripple?

     Time, and the cupboard contents, will tell.

 

The simultaneously fearsome and impressive Hummingbird Bakery Carrot Cake



* There are pictures but they are far too saucy - there might be vicars or young people reading this blog!

 

 

 

 



Shades of Hawkwind, and Moebius, and A.I.

BOOJUM!, never scared of tackling the big issues, looks at breaking news about - Kirobo.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-23565121

There's a sinister line in there, pregnant with meaning:

"It is part of a study to see how machines can lend emotional support to people isolated over long periods."

Hah!  Busted!  Next thing we know there'll be robot women looking like - er I was Googling for an image but they are all far too disturbing (and numerous).  Anyway, remember Hawkwind's song "Spirit of the Age"? about an android replica kept as a (finger quotes) "companion" for an astronaut?  And that Moebius strip* about the malfunctioning "companion" for an astronaut?  Yes, exactly!  And don't forget the robotic trollops of "A.I." either.  Painted hussies. 

Sorry, where was I?  Oh yes, Kirobo.  Thin end of the wedge, don't you know.  This is why "Ghost In The Shell" is a thinly-veiled documentary.

*  Moebius - a.k.a. Jean Jacques Giraud, the French comic artist.  Moebius strip?  Comic?

I know, I know.  Shocking!  In real life the gun muzzle would be pointed downwards  .....


 



Car Booting. A Very British Institution. As is Doctor Who

I'm not sure if the phenomenon of a "car boot" occurs elsewhere in my loyal readership's domains, so I shall explain.

A Car Boot Sale
    Firstly, a car boot is the back end of a car, where you find the spare tyre, a smelly old plaid blanket and an ancient packet of chewing gum.
     A car boot sale is a level area covered with cars, their boots open and all sorts of wares previously carried in that boot now ordered on a paste table*.
     Being English, we don't really barter for goods on sale in conventional market venues, but this reserve breaks down at a car boot.  "How much is it?  Fifty pence?  I've got thirty.  Forty pence?  Hang on I found another five pence.  Done!" in a million different variations.  I only intend to buy books at car boots - anyone familiar with earlier posts will know that book-buying is my very special sin - and have always been pleasantly surprised at getting bargains.  Today it was "Great Military Battles", edited by Cyril Falls**, which cost £1.  No idea what the price would be on e-bay or Amazon or in a shop, but I'm betting £20 upwards.  I can size up each stall on approach; most of the books going are what I scornfully and snobbishly dismiss as Airport Potboilers - read once whilst waiting for a flight and discarded like used tissues immediately afterwards.  There were an awful lot of "Fifty Shades of Grey" going, and also large numbers of Peter Kay's autobiographies.

Unsurprisingly, I recognised most of the authors who wrote the articles.  This is actually awesomely cool and not nerdy in any way whatsoever.



 

So!  Peter Capaldi, eh?

     One reason for posting this blog so late when I had all day to post is because of a very well-managed BBC event about who was going to be the next Doctor Who.

     I'm rather pleased they went with the older actor this time, given the previous trend we might have seen a Doctor wearing shorts and not yet able to shave.

     Anyway, since they have chosen a Scottish actor, could they please have him speak with his native accent!

     Thank you.

 

Cuisine Matters

     Does it ever!  The Pistachio and Pecan ice cream made last night is, without boasting, verrrry nice indeed.  I find the Papaya ice-cream has an unpleasant aftertaste, won't be making that one again, unless I can find an antidote.

     Also made a Sausage and Bean casserole to use up some aging sausages.  Other family members eat at their own peril!  The sausages were going cheap on Friday as being past their sell-by-date***, so consume with caution.

     I have also made Cornbread, an American foodstuff I've not come across before.  A kind of unleavened sponge with it's own taste, excellent for mopping-up whilst eating anything with gravy or sauce or a casserole.

Actually pretty damn close to my own creation.  Which is downstairs under a tea-towel and thus not easily photographed.

 

*A paste-table is a flimsy horizontal contrivance used to paste wallpaper, or to allow war-games to be played across it's surface - I have four of them

** Professor Cyril Falls, who had been at the sharp end in World War One as a junior officer and who knew what the real thing is like

*** Sell-by-date I see as a challenge, not a warning.  Yesterday I had a whole pack of bacon three weeks past it's sell-by-date.  Result?  Absolutely nothing!

 

 



 

My Other Hobby - a.k.a. "What Shall We Do Tonight, Brain?"

"The same thing we do every night, Pinky.  TRY TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD!"

War-gaming
Well, only on a small scale.  I've doubtless bored scores of people away with my musings on creating a hex-and-counter war-game, but I do have quite a collection of war-gaming miniatures: English Civil War, World War One Western Front 1916 - 1918, and North Africa June 1940 to December 1942.  All in 6mm, also known as 1/300th scale.  The benefits of gaming in a small scale like this are that an individual tank or gun or strip of infantry costs about 40p.  Because they're so small you don't need to paint them in great detail, and you can fit a decent sized battle in a small space.

This is all preparation for the battle below, re-basing figures

This is a late 1917 scenario I created and ran two years ago - The Battle of Pilckem Ridge, using "Square Bashing " rules.  The end result was similar to the real thing - an attritional slog with heavy losses to both sides.  Note tin of Chocolate Brownies in lower left corner ...

And here is some of my kit, arranged in the inserts from Really Useful Boxes, which you can drive a car over with no ill-effects.

Each insert has 15 cells, and each cell can hold four based units, and I have 7 boxes - plus another 7 boxes of varying kinds.  Not to mention things like roads, bridges, hedges, fencing, houses, hills, trees, etc etc.

He started it!
     You are reading the above because of an article on the BBC website about H G Wells and his book on war-gaming - excuse me, hobby war-gaming - and here is the link:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22777029

Please notice the emphasis here on "hobby" because the real players of war-games in 1913 and for a good deal before then, were the German General Staff.  Their war-games were called "Kriegspeil" and the rules came in two gigantic binders.  As one of these generals stated after playing a game "This isn't a game - it's training for war!".  Quite.  There was also the unlikely named Fletcher Pratt and his very early 20th Century naval war-games rules - but that is another story altogether, Valentina.

The Inevitable Doctor Who Inclusion
     The old Doctor Who, thank you.  There is a 10-parter called "The War Games", which was so protracted, I believe, because Patrick Troughton was trying to re-negotiate his contract during filming.  In the script there is some blurb about not abducting soldiers from after 1917 because they had too much technical knowledge; I rather suspect the real reason is that all the pre-1917 stuff was lying around and not being used by Wardrobe.

"Conrad!  Don't shatter people's illusions!"

Doctor - Who?

No it's not a Tonka toy, it's a VERY LARGE Dalek.

As In Who Will Play The Next Doctor?
     Apologies for the terrible pun.  I sometimes still pinch myself to be sure that Doctor Who has returned to the small screen.  After such a long wait between the last of Sylvester McCoy and blue-eyed Chris Eccleston, too.
     I have to say I prefer the old Doctor Who.  I won't say "classic" since some series were <ahem> quite rubbish, frankly.  But I did like the utter bleakness of some storylines, it has to be said.  And the set-dressers could make the same quarry look so different between storylines.
     The newer version was, I thought, too touchy-feely in parts, trying too hard to be modern and PC.  When it worked, however, it WORKED.  "Blink" is a terrifying story on many levels, for one example.
     Thus we come to the next regeneration of The Doctor.  And who do we see mentioned on the BBC website as potential replacements for Matt Smith?  Well, Chetiwel Ejiofor and Idris Elba for starters - both black actors.  Chetiwel has a lively, active presence and Idris is brooding and physical - and this is where the new Doctor Who scores over the older, because also mentioned is Helen Mirren*, who - I point this out as you may not have noticed - is a woman.  This isn't being PC, this is opening up the role to opportunity that the 1970's never dreamt of!
     The only problem is that we have to wait until Sunday for the revelation. Aw bum.

Vive La France!
     Our transatlantic cousins sometimes forget how helpful France was as regards the American Revolution, resulting in some inaccurate and unpleasant insults about French martial ardour.  I plan to revisit this theme in some detail in a later blog, so I will only mention here Rudyard Kipling's quote: "Their business is war, and they do their business". 

 On to more timely and relevant matters. Remember, the French invented flight.  The Montgolfier Brothers sent aloft a balloon containing a sheep, a duck and a cockerel in 1783.  230 years later we get this:


 That's 400 balloons attempting a record take-off.  Bonne chance Jacques and Joseph!

Getting Trollied
     Taking all my inspiration from the BBC today, and maintaining a Gallic theme, I see that French official descriptions of "binge drinking" are now to be described as "beuverie express".  "Binge Drinking", however, is an official term that no UK participant will ever, ever mention or use.  Hence the heading about "Getting Trollied".  Were I - and I hasten to assure the readers of BOOJUM! that this is purely hypothetical - to go off into Manchester** and down eighty tequila shots in the space of an hour, I would not state to my fellow imbibers "Gosh, I have been Binge Drinking for the space of sixty minutes."  Reason one, downing that amount of tequila that quickly would probably render my tongue inoperable.  Reason two, I'd probably use some slang term instead - "trollied; blitzed; blammoe'd; Tizered; hammered; wellied; zonked; bladdered; munted - <cont. Page 96>"
     I will, however, adopt the phrase "Beuverie Express!" for getting the round in from now on.
     Whilst attending the Oldham Beer Festival a couple of months ago, the Trollied, Blitzed and Wellied were notable by their absence.  There were a lot of people there, enjoying drinking beer, without trying the sports of Gutter Diving, Park Bench Sleeping or Vomit-as-Blanket.

The poster children for "drinking responsibly".

* Helen, quite the attractive older lady.  There is a tasteless acronym out there but BOOJUM! will not be drawn!
** Manchester.  Wasteland of morals, ethics and microbreweries.

Noise! Heat! Flies!

Aural Assault    
 "We're here for a few days" lies the sign United Utilities put up.  They've been digging up the road outside our offices for weeks, and this is only an "inspection" dig prior to the next tram-line being established.  The excavator with a drilling attachment is the worst sonic offender; it sounds like a heavy-machine gun letting off a hundred-round burst.  Even people on the other end of the phone are startled by it.  I can let it pass by pretending it's the latest sample from The Chemical Brothers, but others on our floor are beginning to suffer from frayed nerves, the poor dears.
     And we're up on the 3rd floor.  Those on the 2nd are even closer ...

132 Degrees in the shade
     Liquids consumed so far: morning cuppa of Marmite (great with stale bread); cup of coffee; 1 litre bottle of Lucozade; another cup of coffee (two spoons of coffee powder, three spoons of honey); half the Lucozade bottle filled with water; cup of water; another cup of water; mouthful of water from bottle that's been in the car all day, yuck, like drinking from the hot tap; half pint of water; 1.5 litre bottle of 7Up (it was going cheap).  Going forward I expect to have another 3 pints in the pub and maybe another before bedtime.
     Perhaps this post ought to be re-titled "Bladdercise" because that particular organ is getting a real Olympic workout at present.

Calliphoria Vomitoria*
     One of the perils that hot sunny weather brings with it is - flies.  I cordially detest the miserable buzzing rascals and can be seen in a variation of St Vitus' Dance, attempting to hit them with a flyswatter** up and down the kitchen.  I know it's not dignified for a middle-aged man to demonstrate what astoundingly bad hand-eye co-ordination he has, but you can't let the evil little things get away with puking all over your food.  I don't like spraying any nasty chemical cocktail into the air whilst the cats are in, either.  So main force it is.

It being Thursday evening, I need to go trawl some tabloid tat websites to scout news headlines before heading off to - Pub Quiz! 

Whoops - sorry, forgot -

* - Latin for the Bluebottle fly
** This flyswatter comes from the Comedysportz convention in Oregon a couple of years ago.  Well-travelled, well-used.