Hit With The Coincidence Hammer - Again

Crikey, Dick Van Dikey*
     Yes, today at the Unidentified Filanthropic* Organisation whom I work for, we had a briefing concerning some strategic-level changes about teams moving from one manager's provenance to another -
     - don't run away, this is interesting!  There's zombies and flying saucers in this tale!
     Right.  Conrad's team experienced no change, but two other teams will move into the sphere of Jane P**.
     Phew, mused Conrad.  No bad news today, at least.
     Back in the office on Floor The Seventh, Conrad is pounding his keyboard like an evil camouflaged alien spy would, only for a large, friendly lady with freckles interrupt him.  She apologised profusely and politely for interrupting him, being a stranger here, and she was looking for MI and Governance.
     "I'm Jane P.," she declared.
     !
     (I lied about the flying saucers and zombies - )

- but here's both together!  Hooray for BOOJUM!

Oxymorons
     No, not a term of abuse about hyperventilating idiots.  "Oxymoron" is a condensed way to say "a contradiction in terms".  Here are a few Conrad has analysed under his eagle eye (which he keeps in the same freezer as Phil***, and only substitutes for his own when it's really necessary)

"Good Honest Food"
     Yes, I thought I'd start with this one.  This phrase is used by a select few food vendors to promote their wares.  WoE^!  The food, gentlemen, that you are attempting to sell me had better be "good" at the very least!  Nor do I completely understand the "honest" element, unless you mean it has no artificial additives, is not pumped full of water, nor covered with two layers of ice, comes in a huge bag when it's a tiny portion, contains 90% horsemeat rather than beef, or is made from panda meat by underaged orphan slaves chained to meat-processing plant 25 hours a day.
     Then again, some food is deliberately bad.  Take any cheese with blue veins.  That's mould, that is.  MOULD!  You'd scrape it off bread, yet not the Stilton that you put on the bread - ah, colour me confused.  What about partridges?  They have to hang and rot to become edible.  Then there's mam nuoc, a Vietnamese condiment made from decaying fish-heads ...

Radioactive isotope or mam nuoc?  Only you can decide!

"Nice Cup Of Tea"
     How many times have people offered to make you one of these?  Conversely, how many times have you been offered a "Horrid cup of tea"?  Never, I bet.  So why make the distinction^^?

A cup of very, very nasty tea.

"As Sure As Eggs Is Eggs"
     Whoever invented this folk saying ought to be beaten most thoroughly.  Yes, I know I'm being vituperative, but really!
     For a start, their grammar is terrible.  It should read "As sure as eggs are eggs" because we are dealing with multiple objects here, eggs plural, it isn't rocket science so GET IT RIGHT!
     Ahem <pauses to adjust collar, takes deep breath, continues> Secondly, in the formal expression of Ockham's Razor, "entities should not be multiplied un-necessarily".  Why on earth are we dealing with multiple eggs?  Is there a glut of eggs?  Has there been a bottleneck in the Retail Distribution^^^ chain, creating an egg-mountain?  Did the creator of this phrase obsessively collect eggs?
     Thirdly - why are we dealing with eggs, exactly?  Don't forget that eggs come in different varieties - white, brown, hen, goose, ostrich, ant, pickled, fried, etcetera, etcetera.  What you should be comparing is something like the charge of an electron, because that comes in One Kind Only.

"As sure as 1.60217657 × 10^-19 coulombs is 1.60217657 × 10^-19 coulombs"

    
  Er - far more accurate, if it trips off the tongue slightly less easily.

An Aside About Films

"Catching Fire"
     There are occasional films that, by their mere existence, act as 100% effective repulsion aids when it comes down to Conrad.  Musicals in all their hideous cacophonous evil, anything with Madonna and that prat Beiber.  Put one of these on your video device in the sitting room and you will instantly exorcise all trace of Conrad - that grey blur down the road moving at speed is him being repulsed.
     Anyway, "Catching Fire" is one of those films.  Along with it's parent, "The Hunger Games".  Conrad no like!

"Catching Fire" catching fire.  How terribly ironic!

"Vampires"
     Another of those terrifying documentaries that John Carpenter risked his life - and those of his crew - to film.  There is considerable controversy about his splicing in "factional" scenes that he was unable to actually witness himself, but give the man credit for what he achieved.  Rumour has it that certain religions which are big in the Western World conducted a whispering campaign in the press and media before general release, trying to promote "Vampires" as being completely made-up from the first frame.  As if!

Woods and Baldwin: Serving, Protecting and STAKING THE S**T OUT OF VAMPIRES! for your protection

     

     An Aside About Eastern European Cooking

     I ask you, how likely is it that vampires are repelled by anything as mundane as garlic?

     You may refer back to how your girlfriend was utterly repulsed by you one morning, 

     after you went dining out on fried garlic doughballs the night before - sorry, anecdotal

     evidence is not good enough.  What I mean is, the culinary arts of Eastern Europe feature garlic in nearly everything.  If you really were a vampire in Eastern Europe, you'd waste away in nothing flat.  No wonder Dracula left there for Scar~borough.

Dalek.  Close enough.

I Bet You Say That To All The Girls~~
     I shall leave your dirty, dirty minds to conjure up endless smutty remarks, whilst the pure and noble-minded of us enjoy the depiction of gigantic heavy-duty industrial plant.  I witnessed this crane en route to our first morning meeting, minus camera, but I got the blighter second time around.

A Very Big Crane

So -

No more! It's late and I've got to re-set the minefield pass permissions or yet another postie will end up in hospital.

*  Yes, I know I mis-spelt it - but the joke doesn't work otherwise.
**  Carefully anonymised in case anyone Official From My Workplace ever reads this
***  That's Philip K Dick to you.
^  WoE = "What On Earth".  Much more polite than that "WTF" vulgarism
^^  Please note I avoided the "distinktion" joke
^^^ An in-joke for anyone at work reading
~  Get it?  Blood-sucking vampire, Scarborough, Sc - oh you did.
~~ And guys.  Let nobody say BOOJUM! is - er- sexualisticiphobic (?)




     

Hmmm. Something's Gone Right Here ...

41 Visitors At The Blog Yesterday!
     Not complaining, merely observing (the average is 15 per day).  What I ought to do is figure out what brought all those extra visitors - but that would take time, when tonight!  time is tight.  Did overtime, then got told ordered commanded requested to make Sherba* on arriving at the Mansion, before making lunch for tomorrow and  gosh! - I might even find time to squeeze in a bit of fodder for Conrad himself tonight.

Corking instrumental, by the way

The Theme Is "Yes"
     Except in reality it's not.  After yesterday's theme of "No" I wondered if it would be possible to do a similar concept with "yes"?
     No.
     That is, no yes, if you see what I mean.
     Not really because - there's the band Yes - who could more appositely be called "No!" nowadays because they all look like frail pensioners barely able to hold an ear-trumpet to their ears as they dodder about their retirement home** - and the Beatle's song "Yesterday" and perhaps "Yeshiva" except I'm not entirely sure about that one - something Jewish, if Conrad recalls.
     As you can only admit, a bit thin.  Give me time - I may revisit this.

Would you believe it!  A band called "No".Yes they are.

There, Cooking Done
     The Sherba has been cooked and is cooling on the side, tomorrow's lunch is in the radio lunchbox and Conrad is gnawing on the jawbone of an ass***.
     No picture, I just thought you'd like to know how I was getting on.

Frognum Gruelis!
     Or, in the language of Tharg (from Betelgeuse and the editor of 2000AD), April Fool!
     My contribution to this annual event was to send an e-mail to staff at work claiming that Robert Peston (Economics Editor at the BBC) had received a leak from The Company I Work For, which leak claimed the Bank Of China was considering a £15 billion buy-out.
     I did post a link to the BBC, of course that led to a page that had nothing to do with The Company I Work For nor the Bank Of China, but several people were persuaded up until then.
     The hilarious irony is that tomorrow Conrad will be attending a briefing from one of the Higher-Ups at The Company I Work For.  Given the level of coincidence that has plagued me for these many weeks, it is entirely possible that we will be told to start swotting up on logograms.

Logarithms.  Close enough

Architecture In Helsinki
     Whilst having lunch today with Anna and Katie (one of the bright - sorry!  Bright Young Things on our floor), Katie mentioned that she wanted to go on holiday, yet was unsure what her destination ought to be.
     "Santorini," she husked, looking not at handsome Conrad and beautiful Anna but a distant faery landscape off in her imagination -

Before

     'Is there anything left of it?' enquired Conrad, squashing the ethereal beauty of the moment beneath his Size 11 boots.  

After

     Santorini, you see, is the remains of a larger island destroyed by volcanic explosion in ancient times.  Greece - wine, olives and VOLCANOES!  How awesome is that?
     Oh, yes, the point.  There is one, if a little blunt.
     Conrad suggested the Norwegian fjords as a holiday destination.  Katie demurred on the grounds of expense.  Norway, unless you're a Norwegian, is very expensive.  Full of tall, good-looking people^ and wonderful submarine landscapes in the fjords, but pricey.
     Next Conrad suggested Helsinki.  Also a bit pricey, but! It is capital of the land that produced Aki Kaurismaki^^.  Also stuffed with wonderful architecture.
     "Architecture In Helsinki?" mused Katie.  Actually she might have been pondering, she does the Look Of Deep Thought so very convincingly.  Ruminating!  That's what she was doing, ruminating.  "Isn't there a band called that?"

Yes.  No, not "Yes" yes, just yes. Yes?  Yes!

So - Tanks?
     No!  It's late and I need to get working on at least four books, plus "Prometheus" and a bag of Meerkats. 

Tomorrow - Audubon's Book Of North American Curds

*  A type of Morrocan stew made with lamb and chickpeas.
** I know, I know, I'm going to Prog Rock Hell for saying this
***    that looks suspiciously like a scrambled-egg-on-toast-sandwich
^  Conad.  One -sixteenth Norwegian.  Just so you know
^^  Director of the funniest comedy ever - "Leningrad Cowboys Go America"