Wayne Rooney

Iconic
Yes, I'm talking about two stars of the silver screen who are no longer with us, John Wayne and Mickey Rooney.
     Originally Marion Mitchell Morrison, John wisely changed his name.  For one thing, it was too long, and also, it's a girl's name.
     You can't see Rooster Cogburn being played by a man with a girl's name, can you?  Of course not!

The Duke.
For a republic, our South Canadian brethren like aristocrats  ...

     If John was a man's man, Mickey was more of a permanent fixture in Hollywood, working for 90 years, which must be some kind of record.  Not just Hollywood, also theatre, television and radio.  Busy feller.

Mickey Rooney

     Oh - hang on - you didn't think I meant that footballer chap, did you?

Wayne Rooney

Against The Day Page 860
Only 168 pages left to go!  And once again we jump around the Balkans circa 1909, with plotters from Greece, Bulgaria, Turkey, Austria and England, before vanishing off to Venice in a miniature submarine piloted by Italian anarchists, having moved the narrative back to Reef Webb*.
     As ever, Mr Pynchon brings new words into play.  In this case, "Flaneur".
     No!  Nothing to do with cooking or baking.  Apparently the Flaneur is another twentieth century icon, one of the defining set-dressings on the streets of Paris.  It means "Idler", and conveys a meaning of those with time and money to spend on loafing about.

Flan near.  Close enough

Parisienne
Whilst on the subject, Conrad the Spelling Boor has noticed at his local and work-location Co-Op that they have some trouble with the pre-printed noteboards advertising a large bread baton.
     "Parisien" and "Parissien" are the two variants.  Wrong!  I think what they're going for is "Parisienne" - which is a lady from Paris.
     "Parisian" is the correct version.
     Now, should I make myself unpopular again by pointing this out, or should I suffer in silence?

Loaves are dull.  Here's Hellboy with a really BIG gun.

 Bread Rolls
Sticking with the bread theme, you can call these BOOJUM! Buns.

The well-risen and light interior

      - because I made them myself.  They turned out pretty well, considering I've not made bread rolls for years.
     What you don't get from these is a sense of scale - those are big buns.  I should have made six, not four.

I Forgot -
 - to mention or display these yesterday.  Probably still thrown by that Chinese lady.  Anyway, here you have Conrad's purchases at Travelling Man:

Powers: Bureau at last!

     Neither of these are SFW, gentle reader.  They both have a healthy heaping of sex and violence and rude words**.  
     I guess the "Powers" television series will have to tone all three of those down a bit***.

The Battle For My Lap - The Campaign Continues: A Photo-Essay
As any fule kno, a cat always wants to sit where it's not supposed to.  If this happens to be my lap, then Edna will insist on climbing aboard, too.  I'm a hefty chap but I'm simply not big enough to cope with both.
     The day started quietly, as it tends to on a Sunday:

The first of four cups of tea.
Note the air of tranquility

     The Cyborg Sentry Cat was sitting, powered-down and on a "Standby" setting:

 - but ready to leap into action to repel fluffy piranhas at any moment

     Along came Edna, who simply had to get up on the table to see if the cat was, indeed, switched off or the closest thing to it:

"Look!  Look at me touching your comfy plastic bed!  No reaction.  Yep, it's turned off."

     Realising that she had no competition for Conrad's lap, she claimed pole position:

RESULT!

     However, without having to fight for possession of the lap, Edna found it too dull:

"This pup is UP!"

     And off she went, to kill a wrapper in the Hallway Killing Ground.

Finally
Ready as always to exploit the defenceless in pursuit of more traffic, BOOJUM! presents a baby anteater:

Awwww! - unless you're an ant.

*After concentrating on the character of Cyprian.  Do keep up!
** But these are all essential to tell the story!
*** <makes sad face>

The Weather

A Perennial British Topic
Apologies to those of you who live in countries with boring, predictable weather - always hot, always cold, always wet, always dry - because here in the UK we have a delightfully mixed meteorological system where you really can have four seasons in one day, or one season ("Slutch") that lasts for eleven months of the year.  Today has been one of those unseasonable summer days happening in autumn - November, no less.
     <cue reminiscent string music and a Quantel fade>  why I remember last November.  Conrad was able to walk from the Mansion into Royton town centre in sandals*.  Not that I'm an old hippy or anything, it's just that the weather was as it was today - a brief interval of summer.

"Pusheen"
Conrad has been introduced to this cartoon cat by Sophie** at work.  He did notice her describe the shrunken TARDIS of recent Doctor Who history as "Pusheen-sized".  
     "Illuminate us, Conrad!" I hear your plaintive cries.  "Put a picture of Pusheen before us!"
     Your wish is taken into consideration:

Enitrely accurate in every way

Confusing English: Arminian and Armenian
Conrad came across the first word in his light reading for the day - "The English Civil War", by Lucy Purkiss.  The shooting has now begun, after 140 prefatory pages, including several references to "Arminians".  Who or what are these, pondered Conrad?
     A religious sect, it seems, who believed that one could redeem oneself by doing good deeds during your spell on this mortal coil.  This did not sit well with the prevailing religious sentiment of the day, which held that predestination was the way to go***.  
     Armenians, however, come from the Trans-Caucasus over beyond the Middle East, and have a unique alphabet.  

Armenian alphabet.

They are Christians, historically, and may even believe that good deeds on earth get you into heaven,  in which case they'd be Arminian Armenians.

Fun With Cotton
No!  Not Fern.  No!  Not Dot, either.  I refer to what is, in German, "Tree wool"^.
     If your memory stretches back to last night, you will remember Conrad posting about the Romanian and Finnish for cotton.  Allow me to illustrate:

Upper right

        Eighth down on the right hand side is the Turkish for cotton - "Pamuk".  Some of you may be aware of this already, having been to visit Pamukkale in Turkey - which means "Cotton Castle".  There you go - Turkish, which uses the Roman alphabet.  
     Second down from the top is Bulgarian, which uses the Cyrillic alphabet:

             памук                            памук

     - and what does this transcribe to in the Roman alphabet?

                         Pamuk

     This is  because Bulgaria was under Turkish rule for centuries and retains a lot of Turkish-derived language - which some Bulgarians want to expunge, and which, since it borders on Current Affairs, is where BOOJUM! moves on ...

Conrad's Experiences In The Modern Nineveh^^
A.k.a. "Manchester".  Yes, today Conrad went shopping.
     Conrad going shopping is not a browsing experience.  
     I have a list.  
     I go to the shop.  
     I buy what I listed.  
     I go home.
     Today was a little different, as I was sitting at the 182 bus-stop and an old Chinese lady struck up a conversation with me, in between scolding her husband.  Technically, I suppose, this counts as being "chatted-up".  Perhaps she wanted to make hubby jealous.  It didn't get to the point of exchanging telephone numbers, but it is reassuring to know that Conrad still has the ability to charm the ladies.

Manchester.  I mean, it's got to be - look at all that water!

The Products of Said Excursion
I know this probably isn't riveting stuff, but I bought them and it's my blog, and I took the photos; you can gloss over this bit if you like.

"Rare Exports" top left, "World War Z" top right,
and the Don at bottom

     I won't bother to describe "WWZ" as you are bound to know about it.  "Rare Exports" is a Norwegian horror-comedy, right up there with "Trollhunter" and "Dead Snow" for bleak Norse humour and gore.
     "Quiet Flows The Don" is nothing to do with the Mafia!  Conrad, wordy film bore that he is, never realised this film existed before today.  It is based on the novel by Mikhail Sholokov, set in the turbulent first decades of the twentieth century in the lands of the Don Cossacks, covering the First World War and the far bloodier Russian Civil War.  Quite what the film is remains to be seen; it will have a hard job evincing the wonderfully evocative prose of Pan Sholokov.

Wait!  There's More -

There must be a pun in there somewhere.

     What I really wanted was "Now Wait For Last Year", a PKD novel that encompasses time-travel, drugs, reality, alternate realities, future war, love, addiction, death and redemption.  Instead I got "Deus Irae", which isn't quite so sensible and straightforward, and which combines two utterly disparate talents.  I have read it, but not for at least thirty years.

Still More!  

Gong: "Angel's Egg"; M83: "Digital Realities"
Caravan: "For Girls Who Grow Plump"
Public Service Broadcasting:"The War Room" & "Educate Entertain Inform"

  Gong was^^^ formed by Daevid Allen, Soft Machine's guitarist, when HM Customs and Excise wouldn't let him back into the UK after a European tour.  M83 are the French equivalent of the Chemical Brothers, Caravan came out of the "Canterbury Scene" in the late Sixties, and PSB don't have any lyrics - the words on their tracks are all taken from public service broadcast films.

Eeyore's Book Of Gloom
A touchstone for our troubled times.  If only - hang on, that's nearly Current Affairs - okay, let us see what Eeyore has to say about <thinks but not very hard> Reality Television Programmes!

Enjoy boredom.

It's all you've got to look forward to.

     What sage advice!  
     I hesitate to work the Coincidence Hammer into a post dealing with treasured childhood literature, but after posting about Winnie The Pooh yesterday, I returned to the BBC News website and guess who was there?

Yes!  The Evil And Sinister Bear

The Battle Of My Lap
No!  Nothing to do with some brutal engagement of the Vietnam War.  No, this was when Conrad sat down in the kitchen at the table, and was promptly assaulted by both Jenny (resident cyborg sentry cat) and Edna (Wunderhund and Watcher of the Wall).  Edna got into position on my lap, and then Jenny came and settled, reducing the available room so that Edna had to stand up, and then fell off, and then couldn't get back up because there wasn't enough room.
     Bah!  So much for sitting and doing a quiet bit of reading.  I got up and made soup.

How Do They Do It?

It's subtle but the left-hand bulb is dead

     These lights are on the fifth floor of The Electric Goldfish Bowl.  They have to be extremely securely fitted, given that if they fell out they could massacre the hapless toilers passing underneath.
     That being so, how does that dead bulb get replaced?  There aren't ladders long enough to reach it, and it's too far down to lean over the side and replace it.  Does some daring minion abseil down from the thirteenth floor a la Tom Cruise?  or do they get lashed-up with safety cables and balance on the bannister?



* Plus the rest of his clothing. Conrad = not a naturist.
** Not that Sophie - that Sophie.  No, turn 180 degrees and over by the window. There!
*** So - if you were damned then you could be as wicked as you wanted; in fact you could be as wicked as you wanted anyway, because if you were damned you were damned, and if you were due to shake hands with Saint Peter, that's what would happen.
^Baumwolle.
^^ A naughty city of the ancient world, kind of Babylon-lite
^^^ Were?