Today's Impressively Weighty Theme - Mercury!

Yes, Unlike Yesterday's Aborted Theme  -
     - this one is interesting.  Promise!  

Mike Mercury of "Supercar".  You were expecting Freddy, weren't you?  Ha!

Plus, Conrad has been working at it.  This is due to not knowing what shift he was on first thing Monday.  Gambling at an 8:45 start, he didn't have to begin a fingery pas-de-deux (sp?) on the keyboard until 9:15, and actually arrived at 8:30.
     'O Noes what can I do?'
     First order of business - breakfast.  That is, stale bread and Marmite, the breakfast of champions.
     Next, get working on the blog article.
     Here we are - let's get started.

Cinnabar
     Not to be confused with the "cinnamon bear", which is described in "Right Ho Jeeves" and is a species of American brown bear.

     "CINNABAR"

      I know what you're thinking - it's a variety of breakfast cereal, one of those kinds that are basically a collection of sweets and biscuits* that are extremely unhealthy but which you can pretend is sensible, because it says so on the packet.

"Add extra fibre to your diet!" (Also salt, sugar, E245, saturated fats, MSG, colouring, flavouring and CF3) 

     Well, I doubt that Cinnabar would soften in your poured puddle of semi-skimmed, and it would definitely break your teeth if you managed to hack a bit off and eat is.
     Cinnabar, you see, is the ore that mercury is extracted from.

Tooth-shattering Cinnabar ore

Mercury, Chemical Symbol "Hg"
     I know, I know, "Hg" has nothing to do with "M".  Trust me on this, it's all Greek.
     Vermillion - no, not a large number in German.  It's a bright red colour, derived from Mercuric Sulphide, so it's veggie-safe because it's not made from crushed beetles.  But also toxic, so it tends not to get used on children's toys any longer.  Bah!  What's a childhood without a bit of risk!

Not to be confused with Vermillion Green

     Mercury is the only element that is liquid at room temperature, although boron runs it pretty close.  It is extremely toxic.  If it were a person you'd keep it locked up in a windowless dungeon and only let it out in a strait-jacket and muzzle.  Nowadays you couldn't get away with what I remember our physics teacher doing at school - holding a tube of mercury upside down, thumb over the open end to prevent any spillages.
     Sticking with science, it used to be used widely in measuring instruments, a whole family of -meters - thermometers, barometers and sphygmometers**.  That was back in the day, when men were men and women used mascara with mercury in it - oh, and still do, as a matter of fact.  Nowadays we use substitutes like alcohol instead of mercury because alcohol is completely harmless.

Comparatively harmless.  Imagine this scene with the subjects DRINKING MERCURY!

     Perhaps I should qualify that: "completely harmless when used inside scientific measuring instruments not people."
     That expression "mad as a hatter" became widely used because hatters used mercury to separate fur from animal pelts, and in the course of their treatments they probably bathed in the stuff, and gargled with it too, bloody show-offs.  That came back and bit them on the neurological system, see if it didn't!

Look out!  It's going to turn into Robert Patrick and hunt down John Connor!

Mercury The Planet
     Allow me to nick a picture of Mercury from the Twitter "Fun & Facts":

If you look really hard you can see "Daedelus 2"

     Beautiful picture, oh-so-different from those murky black and white ones of decades ago.  Still, whilst it might be nice to look at, you wouldn't want to live there.  Mercury makes Death Valley seem like the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

Mercury, Messenger Of The Gods
     The Roman gods, that is.  The Romans pretty much lifted Mercury from the Greek god Hermes***, even down to copying his shoes and hat.  Probably said it was an "homage" to avoid being sued.
     For the cultured, the winged shoes are known as "Taleria" and the winged hat as "Petasos".

"Hello, Air Traffic Control?  This is Sabena Three Six Heavy.  You're not going to believe what we've just seen ..."

     Mercury's job description required him to travel between the gods and us you mere humans, and to act as a psychopomp.  Shall I?  Oh go on.  A "psychopomp" is a being who leads the newly-dead into the underworld.  Interestingly, Ovid stated that Mercury also carried dreams from Somnus to sleeping humans - this probably explains some of the peculiar dream visited upon me by Dee^.

Mercury Rev
     I can't pontificate too much on Mercury Rev, as I only have one of their albums - "Deserters Songs".  This, though, is their breakthrough record from 1998, where they moved from dark and experimental to concise and melodic, going from cult to commercial.  I like it, and am positive that on at least a few songs they have a musician playing a saw^^.

Probably not on the playlist at any US Army Base!

Mercury Records
    This is a long tale (of acquisitions and buyouts), quite dull, really.  It's still around.  A bit like Bath Olivers.

Bath.  Oliver.  Sorry, couldn't resist!

     And there we will stop for tonight.  There is a lot more I could do on "Mercury", and may do in future, but for the moment - well, I've not had my tea, there's tomorrows lunch to make and shirts to iron.
     What a rock and roll rebel lifestyle, eh?  Speak up, sonny, while I go get my ear trumpet ...

*  The only proper breakfast cereal is porridge.  WITH SALT!
**  I'm sure they made this one up. What the hell can it measure - "syphgs"?
***  Me and Hermes have a bit of a history.  It's a long story.  See earlier blogs.
^  Dee.  My subconsicous.  A tricky fellah, which is why we call him Dee, a.k.a Devious.
^^  This is really possible, and it has a very distinctive sound. Remember The Saw Doctors?

From Theme To Anathema

Perhaps Not Quite That Extreme
     As I'm sure Conrad does not have to remind you, gentle reader, "anathema^^" is an entity to which one takes a wild, prejudiced, violent dislike -

Like Conrad and this mindless meat-bag

    Why is this relevant?
    Well because I had half an idea about making another themed blog, dealing with items of clothing, to wit: Frock, Smock and Cassock.  After that it got a bit harder: a Hassock is something you sit on, a mattock is a variety of small pick-axe, and a pinnock is a small hill in Gaelic.
     Then it struck me.  Rubbing my head and donning my Brodie helmet, I avoided being hit by It again, when I suddenly realised - "A blog about clothes is dull.  Extremely dull!  Lose your audience dull!"
     So.  No clothes*.

Yeah!  Clothes are boring!  Here's a Brodie-pattern helmet instead.

A Little Critical Analysis
     Once more Conrad attempts to get the background to an aspect of life we all take for granted: the giant's rhyme in "Jack and the Beanstalk".  In case you have lived in a cave on Rockall all your life with only the gulls and seals for company**, here it is:

Fee Fi Fo Fum

I smell the blood of an Englishman

Be he alive, or be he dead

I'll grind his bones to make my bread

Let us proceed.  

"Fee Fi Fo Fum" has no logical interpretation, obviously the giant is merely spouting gibberish.  That, or Cornish.  Personally I favour the Cornish explanation.  Don't mock me unless you speak Cornish.  Do you speak Cornish?  Of course not - so don't mock.

"I smell the blood of an Englishman":  a much more interesting line.  Apparently giants have such a keen sense of smell they can individuate people by their nationality.  I wonder what differentiates, say, a Welshman from an Englishman by sense of smell?  Diet, at a guess - Welshmen eat sheep, Englishmen eat beef (the Scots drink whisky***).  There you have it - except the giant is at pains to mention that this is an Englishman, which is why I favour the Cornish option, the Cornish of that time being particular about choosing who they belonged to.

"Be he alive or be he dead":  this is rather puzzling.  The giant is able to determine that Jack is English, but not whether he's alive or dead?  Surely a dead body smells different from a live one?  Unless this is an unsettling psychological gambit from the giant, foreshadowing what Jack's fate will be, in order to render him inactive with fear.  Yes.  That's it.  Unless - how could a dead person have climbed up the beanstalk to the top - AHA!  Got it!  The giant is worried that he's being stalked by a zombie - it all makes sense now!

"I'll grind his bones to make my bread":  this gives us proof of two things: firstly, the giant is no baker; ground-up bones would seriously impede the proving process when making a dough, besides taking an age to scrape clean, dry and grind.  Secondly, he is obviously - obviously! - calcium deficient.  He'd be better-off taking a supplement.

"You wot?  I'm in this year's Great British Bake-Off, you smug git!"

Ratzilla!
     No, not the name of an over-tattooed, invidious, under-talented rapper^.  This is the press name for a giant rat that turned up in a Swedish apartment, coming in at 16" long and weighing over two pounds.  The family cat - sensible chap! - kept well clear until it was dead.  Here the link:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26764929

The killa of Ratzilla

The most interesting bit in the article is a claim that rats may evolve into creatures the size of sheep.  Eventually.  By which time we'll be using rat-pelt as a substitute for wool.  In which case, Jack's giant will have to learn a whole new set of smell-skills for detecting the Welsh.

"Skin me!  Go on - I dare ya!"

      Conrad has no fear of rats - except maybe that thing in the photo above - and has only seen one in the wild.  They are intelligent and affectionate pets, in fact.
     I also dimly remember reading a comic strip back in the early 1970's in a comic like "Victor" or "Hotspur" that featured three giant rats on the loose in England.  When I say "Giant" I mean about the size of a Labrador, and they had been enlarged by some sinister Orientals with a food of arcane description that they smuggled into the country by sticking  in their ears -

I cannot find any comic strips that feature giant rats.  Have this - er - substitute instead.

So - Tanks?
     Not quite.  I'm not sure if I've posted this article before, but it bears repeating.  This is  a photo of an LVTP4 coming out of the water.  Colloquially known as the "Buffalo", this is an amphibian that can carry men, machines or cargo, into the water and out of it, and on dry land as well.  "LVTP" is the uncatchy acronym for "Landing Vehicle, Tracked, Personnel".  They featured on a large scale in the Pacific in WW2, as you'd expect with all those islands, and also in North West Europe after D Day, because there were lots of large rivers to cross against enemy opposition.

Sadly not able to give milk

*  Wash your mind out you dirty rascals!
** In which case how come you're able to read this?
*** Yes, so do the Irish but they also have Guiness
^  Conrad no like rap.  You do? Tough.  This is my blog.
^^ "Anna Thema" not to be confused with "Anna Pavlou", who gets entirely tooo many mentions here.

No Cake For Conrad

Oh Well, Sophie Can Be My Proxy
     Yes, it's the "Cake and Bake" event in GMEX today, which I forgot about this morning and didn't remember until this afternoon, when I was hobbled by dog-sitting duties, although sister-in-law and neice are there and met Frances from The Great British Bake-Off, with pictures, too*.

Ah, now, that's just showing off!

On Friday at work we got free biscuits, which can't adjust a bad year's financial returns, but with a cup of tea it makes the future look a little rosier.  Compared to the blatant bakery-boasting above they are a little plain:

Hmmm.  I dunno.  Branding your biscuit "Hit" lends itself to those with dirty imaginations.

 On the plus side, I am now 100 pages into Al Murray's "Watching War Films With My Dad", have finished off "Black Watch (see below)" and am going through "The Kraken Wakes**" as instructed by "Screenwriting For Dummies", making a note of the characters.  I've also managed to sink 4 pints of tea thanks to this character -

Makes at least 2 pints per brew

Ah, Yes, Coincidence Again
     "Black Watch" is a memoir by Tom Renouf of his times with the 51st Highland division in Europe during WW2, as part of the Black Watch a.k.a. The Royal Highlanders.  Because their regimental tartan has a very dark weave, before you ask.
     Which Dutch town does Renouf mention many times in 1944?  Why, s'Hertegenbosch.
     Which Dutch town did Conrad work in, at the pickle factory?  Why, s'Hertegenbosch.
     Fun times they were.  Conrad remembers running atop a dyke in a thunderstorm, trying to get back to the factory.  "Oh no!" said Cecile later.  "The dyke is the highest point for miles around - when there's lightning it's the most dangerous place to be!"

What might have been: flash-fried Conrad

Enough Of Creepy Coincidences!
     Yes indeed.  Instead let's look at a couple of films.  Next!

"Soylent Green"
     This was adapted very freely from Harry Harrison's 1966 novel "Make Room! Make Room!" and the only reason it crops up here on BOOJUM! is that part of the title forms part of one of my passwords***.
     It features Charlton Heston and Edgar Robinson - the latter a terminally-ill man who died mere days after filming finished - in a dystopian future where pollution, over-population (world total 7 billion), global warming and giant dustbowls have utterly ravaged the earth.  A jar of jam is an unaffordable luxury item, at $150 per jar.  The oceans are dead.  People can elect to end it all in government-sanctioned Suicide Booths.  Chuck is investigating a murder; don't worry, he's a policeman, he's allowed to.
     There is a major plot twist at the end of the film (which simply didn't occur in the book) that I won't give away.
     All pretty bleak, eh?

Less bleak, more cheerful, eh?

     What rather takes the sting out of the tale^ is that "Make Room! Make Room!" and presumably the film too, are set in the year 1999.  So - Hom. Sap. can congratulate himself on managing to screw things up much more slowly than Harry envisioned.  That, if you like, is progress.  Of sorts!

Yes, all those MP's getting flooded is a disaster.  Yes it is!  It IS!
Oh alright it's not.

"Where Eagles Dare"
     Al Murray Tweeted that this most Boy's Own of all films is on, then added a "Pub Landlord Drinking Game For Where Eagles Dare^^" , which I've copied and may - only may! - follow, because one instruction is to take a drink whenever Clint Eastwood kills a German.  Given that Clint takes out most of the German Army, this is likely to end up badly in the small hours of the morning.

^^ I originally mis-typed "Where Eagles Date".  Can't have that sort of stuff on BOOJUM!  Hoy, you two - get a room!

R.I.P.
     As you already know, Conrad finds the clammy heat of his office environment hard to take, and there's not enough room in the fridge for him and his PC.  So!  Imagine my delight when I spotted a fan at B & M for £0.99.  I put it in my bag - and promptly forgot about it as the bag got slung around, bashed, dropped, kicked, squashed and dropped again.

Now as much used in keeping Conrad cool as the knife and fork

     End result when I rescued it from the depths of bag - it won't work.  The blades stutter around for a fraction of a second, then stop.  Conrad unhappy.

Dogsitting Duty
     I know I make it sound like a trauma, but when your miniature dog-to-be is like this, it's really no problemo:

Yes, cute - until the finger-gnawing and ear-licking commences!

* No, no pictures of Dawn herself, nor Ella.  Get your picture-fix of sweetness from the photo!
**  There's probably a good reason why nobody's ever made a film of it yet.
*** Note to IS - see how I am cleverly vague about which part is which and what?
^  Get it?  Get - oh you do.






     




      

A Series Of Unconnected Events

Today, After Having "Themed Blogs", We Have None!
     Yep, can't go spoiling you too often, and besides, it's hard to think of a common thread that can bind the whole typewritten souffle together.

Cool, but not quite what Conrad meant ...

     One possible post, about KLM and their silly toucan-driven advert, fell before the first post.  In fact it dropped dead in the stables - nowhere is there an image online of this bus poster advert.  I made a point of writing down the phrase - yes, I do always carry a pen and notebook around just in case circumstances like this arise - "Keep an eye open for KLM world deals".

REM.  Close enough

Bus Poster Inspiration
     Until a few months ago, bus posters were items that Conrad scarcely knew existed.  Now they help provide instant inspiration for the blog, apart from the one that's mostly in Chinese about a phone service - I think - and no, it doesn't travel around Manchester's Chinatown, it whizzes up and down Rochdale Road, where the only Chinese are to be found in a couple of takeaways.  Hmmm.  I do sometimes wonder about human beings and their sense of logic.

Can't find the advert, so have a trio of narwhals instead.

     "Escape Plan"
     This happened to zoom past Conrad on his walk to the car park.  What caught my swivel-eyed attention was the release date "Out in October".
     "Eh what?" I mused.  "Oh.  Brilliant! This film has gotten free early and is being shown six months early."  Then I reconsidered.  "Oh.  Dreadful!  It's taken them six months to get free."

Early?  Late?  Only you can decide!

     "The Quiet Ones"
     Just so you know this is a horror film, it had text about how it was made by the <insert random film production job here, yea, even down to the man who picks up cigarette butts in the car park with lazy-tong scissors>.

"The Woman In Black"?  A TV fashion show, surely?

     Ah. Yes.  The terrifying quiet ones.  They are so pant-wettingly frightening because they're so - quiet?
     I'm not so sure about this as a title.  If it had been "The quiet ones - watch out for them" then, yes, I could go with that.  Even "The Quiet Ones With Silenced Guns" would work - they're quite because of the silencers, Q.E.D.  "The Silent Stabby Ones" also works, as knives have no moving parts to make a noise.

The Big Palooka
     Not a phrase that one meets every day, is it?  This popped into Conrad's Long-Term Memory Overflow Box.  "The Big Palooka" was a comic-strip from the now long defunct Victor, featuring Jim Ransom, a British detective sergeant on liaison with the New York Police.  He looked rather like Jeeves -

- but behind his back - a machine-gun

     - which tended to give the bad guys the wrong idea, as he was as cunning as a barrel full of monkeys.  In one strip he posed as a market vendor, daring the racketeering bad guys to ram his fruit stall with their car in order to smash him and stall into bits, and ram it they did, hitting it at thirty miles an hour!
     Only to end up in bits themselves.  The "stall", covered with white sheeting to keep the fruit clean, was actually a pair of reinforced concrete blocks weighing in at a ton each.
     Actually that seems like a scenario Jeeves could have dreamed up ...

"Really, sir?  Really?"

     Oh, alright, probably not.



Dan, I Apologise For Doubting
     During this lunchtime I was exchanging witty banter and sage advice with Mike (droll Scouser, newly a dad) and Dan (Team Chatterbox, no competition).  Somehow we got onto the subject of sloths, and then Dan piped up with a statement that sloths and giant anteaters belong to the same phylogenical* family and that a man had recently been clawed to death by a giant anteater.
     Well!  Dan was entirely correct, as this news link proves:

http://thedailyherald.com/index.php?option=com_content&id=46426%3Aman-killed-by-anteater-&Itemid=5

     That'll teach me to wonder and ponder, and also not to mess with giant anteaters.

Awwww! Baby giant anteater riding on the back of it's mum.  Seconds later, it killed the photographer ...

* Before today this may not have been a proper word. It is now.