Newcastle United

Oh But Yes!
Although firstly we have to come up with some diversionary photographs to ensure that the sinister world-spanning network of hamsters doesn't muck about with things and spoil the surprise on Facebook.
     

What's this?  O I thought you'd never ask!

      This is my works diary, with blog traffic numbers on the left-hand pages in red, plus any shopping I need to get done, what time my lunch is, my start and finish times*, and on the right hand side telephone traffic stats.  Because Conrad is a number-crunching crank like that, since you ask.
  Okay, I think that's enough to divert the hamsters, we can proceed with more relevant and exciting stuff**.

Doctor Who Calendar - My Fears Partially Assuaged***
As you doubtless remember, yesterday Conrad was ranting and tanting about getting a red Dalek.  Well, today Door Number 6 revealed - a Silurian.  Viz:

On the scene in Green

     She is a bit out of scale, though - she towers over the other characters, and the Cyberman is supposed to be 8 feet tall.  A ten foot humanoid lizard would have trouble blending in with human society, eh what?
     <hangs head in shame> I've also managed to look into a few of the other inserts behind a few other doors, and do you know they do repeat a bit - another Cyberman and another Dalek.

Old School Silurian

     The Silurians were one of the more tragic races to appear on Doctor Who. They were literally anachronistic^, being the survivors of a race gone into hibernation, only to awake to a world where they were distinctly in the minority.  They weren't simply monsters, either - at several points the possibility of a rapprochement^^ with Hom Sap existed, and they had factions supporting or opposing this.  Their unsuccessful attempt to kill off you humans with biological warfare didn't get very far, merely giving Hom Sap a reason to display it's military prowess.
     I say, we've gotten a bit reflective, haven't we!  Enough sense, let's have a bit of motley -

Date-Expired Food - A Challenge, Not A Warning!
As you should be aware, Conrad never turns his nose up at anything past it's sell-by date.  Last night doing the shopping I may have gone a bit further than usual.

Eleven of them

     There is more to come, but in a separate post.
     Yes, yes, we'll get around to Newcastle United, don't fret so!

Against The Day
O Noes!  I'd not paid attention and now discover that it's 1084 pages long, and there's me only up to Page 971.
     Conrad hasn't read a critical synopsis of the novel since starting it months ago, so he can't remember any clever analyses^^^, but as you surely recall, I did wonder if it wouldn't end with the beginning of the First World War.
     This is a distinct possibility.  Old Tom has now advanced the year to 1912, although he doesn't actually give any dates.  I know, I know, I can tell what you're thinking - but the Diet of Worms was a religious convocation not a slimming book - Oh!  Sorry, you were wondering how I knew the date?

No weightwatchers here!

     Because of the outbreak of the First Balkan War.  All the Balkan states essentially ganged up on the Turkish empire in Europe and attacked simultaneously in 1912.
     Thomas also shows he knows his light machine guns, mentioning the Madsen at length.
     This was a high-quality Danish light machine gun, one of the first of it's type, which came into use before the Great War.  It soldiered on in Denmark into the Sixties and is seen in scads in the pretty dire Danish horror film "Reptilicus", and I have even seen a favela gangster in Brazil flaunting one in the 1980's.

Old School Firearm

More Of Food
In this case, breaded mushrooms.

I could only fit this many in - there wasn't <waitforitwaitforit> much room!

     I turned several slices of gluten-free fibre bread into breadcrumbs, dried them under the grill, stalked and peeled the mushrooms, brushed with beaten egg and then hurled breadcrumbs at them.
     And they weren't bad!

Finally Found Them
After reading Niall Barr's epic account of the El Alamein campaign, Conrad recalled that he had a hex-and-counter wargame of "Operation Supercharge".
     "Why not," I asked myself, "re-read the book, but have the counters laid out and move them around according to how the book retells the battle?"
    "Because," I explained back to myself - as everyone does - "We don't know where it is."
     There thus ensued a long and fruitless search until I stumbled upon a box marked "Hills" and there were the games I'd wondered about.
     These include "The Cossacks Are Coming", which Conrad remembers reading about in a magazine review back in 1984, and "Gazala"; in the design notes of which the game-creator roundly lambasts South Africa.  This isn't mere invective, South Africa provided two divisions during the Desert War, and when the game was published the country languished under an apartheid regime.  And the Victory Games designer was a card-carrying Communist, IIRC.

There you go

     I did mention date-expired food, didn't I?  Upper right is a tub of olives from maybe Wednesday or Thursday - they'll be fine, it's really cold in the Upstairs Lair and that will preserve it - and on the mapsheet is a Terry's Chocolate with a best by date of October 2014 - I presume this is an item I bought for last Christmas that got left behind.
     Won't stop Conrad.

Stop Your Pathetic Whining!  Now Comes Newcastle United
Of course, "new" is all relative.  Firstly we have an old castle:

Rochester Castle, 1089

Now we have Krak De Chevaliers:

The KDC, 1140

     It has an inner keep and an outer wall, thus being united.
     What's that?  There's a football team with the same name?  Quick!  Art Department, we need a distraction -

     Tally ho!


* Yes this is all terribly mundane but you can't live life at fever pitch all the time. So.
** "Relevant" and "Exciting" being very elastic terms here.
*** Mister Hand translates from pseudery: "put to rest".  Probably has Latin roots.
^ Out of time.
^^ Getting along with.
^^^ Yes it is spelt this way - the plural.

Doctor Who Surprise

I Have A Bad Feeling About This*...
As you patient, gentle and dear readers already know by now, Conrad has been expressing all the glee of a small child being fed on a diet of chocolate, thanks to his Doctor Who Advent Calendar.
     Imagine my bewilderment and concern when I opened Door Number 5 and my optical units espied this:

Ruddy Dalek

      I already HAVE a Dalek, a blue one.
     Horrors!  What can it mean?  There are only four monsters done in different colours?
     NOOOOO!
     And I have to wait until tomorrow to find out what's behind Door Number 6.
     Damn it.  Some days it's hard to be an alien spy wearing a human camouflage.

George Orwell On Holiday With Young Dog
Okay, Conrad - as mercurial as the weather - has changed his mind and now decides that the mystery acronym "GOOHWYD" now means the above.
     Hello, Art Department, can you -

- They can

     Conrad has read many of George's books, and recalls "Down And Out In Paris And London" with especial interest.  The half set in Paris is frequently hilarious; the part set in London is unremittingly grim.
     Pretentious credentials established, let us move on ...

Asteroids
No!  Not the primitive monochrome wireframe computer game of the early Eighties**.  I mean one of those rocks in orbit between Mars and Jupiter, that occasionally get a hankering to move to an orbit closer to the Sun.  Which, equally occasionally, happens to intersect with the orbit of Earth.
     That's the planet we are both standing on.  Sitting, in my case - never found it easy to type standing up - but the point remains the same.
     An asteroid paying you a visit is a verrrry bad thing.  That is why Brian May, guitarist and astrophysicist, has joined forces with lots of scientificky people to warn about the dangers of Asteroids.  

Brian May.  Who looks the spit of Isaac Newton ...

     Worryingly, the criteria for damage-by-impact have been lowered by several orders of magnitude.  An asteroid with dimensions of only 164 feet is now deemed to be dangerous to a city or region.
     Bashing the maths around a bit, "164 feet" equates to a mass that delivers an impact of about 150,000 tons.  Which, by wild coincidence, is the warhead yield on a lot of NATO's nuclear missiles.
     Don't panic***, though.  Thanks to NEAR and the Rosetta mission, Hom Sap has a very genuine ability to land a spacecraft on such an impactor and blow the living crup out of it with a gigantic nuclear payload, throwing it way off course.
     With one proviso -
     - that we locate this Asteroid several years in advance ...

Asteroids.  Dangerous - because it's so damn addictive.

From That To This
As any fule kno, Conrad is pretty sound when it comes to baking.  This, that and quite a few others are on his list of Things He Can Do Pretty Well.  
     However!  One thing he cannot manage to save his evil alien hide is decorating what he's made.  Throwing a glaze made of icing sugar and water over a bun does not count as decorating.  Mister Hand is there with a bamboo skewer if I try to make that claim.
     Sophie^, on the other hand, is a dab hand with the palette knife and the glitter spray.  I give you her Christmas-themed "Snowflake" and "Christmas Tree":

On my notebook for greater contrast

     They tasted every bit as good as they looked.

Chris O'Dowd
Here is a young man going places.  You may be familiar with Chris as the lanky Irish incompetent on "The I.T. Crowd", which also featured Richard Adeyoade, who is now a respected director, oh and also Noel Fielding, one half of The Mighty Boosh.
     Anyway, back to Chris, who stars in a film called "Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel", which is both amusing and involving - Conrad recommends viewing it as it's not well known and you can then score Obscure Film Points with your friends.
     Back to the present day and - Hay Pesto! - a coincidence is struck!  Yesterday we were blathering on about Bill Murray and his latest film and guess who else is in it?
     Chris O'Dowd!
     Oh the ways of chance and coincidence, eh?

Bah!  Thy shrtened th ttle!

* Yes, from Star Wars, but still applicable.
** As you might have suspected, Conrad is very familiar with this rascal.
*** Yes, another steal, from The Hitch-hikers Guide To The Galaxy, still applicable.
^ The glamourous understudy.  Do keep up!

Painting By Numbers

Oh Aye Indeed!
But first, let me bore you with the minutiae of my daily battle with Hermes.  No problems on the way into work this morning, the trouble started on the way home.  The 24 bus didn't bother to put in an appearance, so the 182 was absolutely rammed.
     What's that?  Wait for the next 24 because the 182 goes a roundabout way and is slow?
     <Conrad sticks a finger in his eye to stop his hysterical laughter>
     Fools!  You make the classical mistake of expecting the next First bus to actually arrive! And be on time.
     A touch of the Dunkirk spirit prevailed and people commiserated with each other and condemned First* Bus.
     Anyway, here you are:

I knew I'd find a use for that calculator keypad

     A painting, next to some numbers.  Thanks to Carol for the inspiration

Get Out Of Here WIth Your Deinosuchus**!
Since the source of this acronym is lost in the mists of time, and also Conrad's erratic memory, I have decided to provide a definitive version.

What Is A Deniosuchus, And Do You Drink, Smoke It Or Play It?
Conrad warns against approaching a deinosuchus, although the probability of you ever meeting one is pretty much zero, as they are an extinct species of prehistoric alligator.  They were - what's the word?  oh yes - ENORMOUS!

Dinner has arrived

     That's Deino about to dine off a T Rex, to give you a bit of scale.
     Oh, and the name means "Terrible Crocodile".

Doctor Who Monsters Part 4
No, sorry, not the Lesser-Known Not-Crap Monster article I came up with a short while ago.  No, this is about that single bright shining moment of my day - No!  Not when I cast off my human disguise!  When I open up my Doctor Who Advent Calendar.
     Who (or what) did we get today?

Today, a bandy little orange chap

     This is a Zygon, or, as Wonder Wifey christened them, "Pizza Monsters" as they do indeed resemble the world's worst case of acne ever.  Since the one above is rather small and the detail doesn't stand out, can the Art Department -

 - Ah, thanks

     There is a classic line in the original serial "Terror of the Zygons" when Brontar sees the Doctor apparently lying dead:

"He underestimated the powers of organic crystallography"

     Not often a scriptwriter gets to use the words "organic" and "crystallography" in the same sentence.

Orion.  No, Not That Project Orion***
This concerns the test shot of the Orion spacecraft, in order to - well, test it.  To see if it flies and, if so, how well.  It is expected to get people to Mars - I volunteer every single--named celebrity that features in The Metro as long as they stay there.
     Anyway, the flight has been postponed.  Fingers crossed it doesn't go the way of the last Space-X mission, which had to self-destruct.

O Right-on Orion

Fort Dologorodoc
This post is simply because I like the name, and is probably the only word in the world that has 5 "O"s in it.  It was a fortified^ position in the highlands of Italian East Africa, scene of a protracted and bloody battle during late 1941.

Hard Rock Fort Dologorodoc

That's all for tonight.  Pub Quiz in half an hour.  Also, thanks to Glamourous Understudy Sophie^^ who volunteered to bring in gingerbread so that Conrad has a night off from baking.

Wait - what's that sound? OH NO! The Zygons are attacking!  Save yourselves -

Easily confused.

 - whoops, sorry, no, it's just Dominoes delivering.

* Do you see the hilarious irony present in this name and concept?
** Come on, the acronym "GOOHWYD".  Do keep up!
*** Work in-joke.  No, I shan't explain it.
^ But of course.  There is a clue in the name.
^^ No, not that Sophie, this Sophie.