Watch Out Men, It's Stanislav Lem!

No I Didn't Make His Name Up!
He was a Polish science fiction writer, thank you very much, who is possibly the most successful sci-fi author ever; this is partly because his stuff was published behind the Iron Curtain where your choice of literature was either The Collected Works Of Karl Marx, the Strugatsky Brothers, or Lem.

The almost deserted space-station

     You might know of him via the novel "Solaris", which has been filmed twice, and also the seminal sci-fi fillum "Ikarie XB1", or perhaps the unpronouncable* "Przekladaniec".  There are also his tales of Pirx the Pilot, and satires like the "Cyberiad".
     Lem didn't like American science fiction, believing it to be more interested in $$$ than Art, with the exception of Philip K Dick.
     PKD, for his part - don tinfoil hat now - believed Lem to be a committee that created fiction in order to seduce the young and impressionable.  I rest my case.

"Hey!  It could be true.  Pass the bong, please."

Appreciate What May Be Great -
 - and which is indisputably late.  Conrad being on a late shift, doesn't get in until 7:20, then he has to eat and make lunch for the next day, meaning it's after 8:00 before the blog gets started.
     With this in mind, I ensure that I get into work early, and work up some notes beforehand or this wouldn't get posted until nearly midnight.

Blog on the left, Pome on the right

     I also had to come up with a Pome for Sue, whose 65th birthday was today.  Allow me:

Our Sue has hit a landmark date,

The hard-living, hard-drinking reprobate.

Don’t ask what’s in those fags she smokes –

They’ve been known to flatten bigger blokes.

And to me it’s always been rather a puzzle

At the sheer amount that small Sue can guzzle.

Don’t let your hand stray near her plate,

Since getting impaled by fork can irritate.

Now, Sue is on her pins quite nifty

For someone born in Nineteen Fifty.

This birth-date means she swung like mad,

In the Sixties swinging was quite the fad.

I’ll bet she swung in the Seventies, too –

You can see it in her eyes, can’t you?

Well now, Sue has reached a defining age –

She’s learnt – I hope – that sin has a wage,

In future she’ll be a paragon of good –

So superb “wonderful” will redefine as “Callwood”

     I call these "Pomes" as they certainly don't aspire to be poetry**, and are barely above the level of doggerel.

"Handling The Undead" By John Lindqvist
Finished this on the bus into work today, and "finish" is the right term as it doesn't really end, just finishes.  I shan't reveal what animates the recently-deceased, just to point out that the phenomenon is limited to Sweden, and then only in Stockholm.  Could there be a sequel planned?  Probably not.

 " - should be done with extreme caution"

     As I mentioned last week, the Z-word isn't mentioned until a third of the book has gone, and John works something novel into the mix: telepathy triggered by the presence of the "Reliving".  The revenants remain static and neutral until live humans come close, in which case the mental mindset of said humans influences the Reliving.
     For your information, "Reliving" in Swedish is "Relevande", unless you were re-living your Reliving experience, in which case it would be "Nyck".

Oh, as I didn't have to rush into work, the Bus Wait Rate concept was again underlined as being an elegant and truthful syllogism: no buses passed on the other side of the road.

The Bus From Hell - And Then Some
"MIRV".  Conrad just bets you don't know what that means.  No, not American slang.
     "Multiple Independent Re-entry Vehicles", a delightful American euphemism for a missile carrying many warheads, not simply one, and which can target different sites.
     Yes, your Education About The Big Bang Bombs continues.

The Cones on the Bus.

     As an example, take the British Vanguard class Fleet Ballistic Missile Submarines.  One of these big metal tubes carries 16 Trident II missiles, and thanks to arms reduction talks they only carry 3 warheads.  Potentially, however, they can carry up to 14 warheads each, meaning 224 in total.  If they use the W88 warhead then that's over 100 Megatonnes of yield, enough to make those dastardly Bolsheviks give pause.  Of course the Russians are our friends now, but we keep our MIRVs.  Just in case.
     And that's just one submarine.
     Where does the bus come in?  That's the name given to the carrying platform that separates out after the missile boost phase.  This particular bus is not one you ever want to catch, as it it responsible for directing the warheads onto target, one after the other.

The Royal Gun Salute
As you know, Conrad doesn't really care for public celebrities and is pretty ignorant about most of them - there's a singer called Beyonk who's been around for 20 years and Conrad is proud to remain completely clueless about her, as with someone called "Jayes".
     So!  What possible interest can he have in the above event?

BANG!

     I am curious about the artillery piece being fired here.  Given that the men firing are wearing what appear to be Hussar uniforms - which means they are cavalry - and are also from the King's Troop - another cavalry term - I suspect these are 13 Pounders ex of the Royal Horse Artillery.
     Oh and there was a baby in the background somewhere.

Edna Versus The Evil Blue Cushion
I've posted a few shots before of Edna attempting to rid the world of the evil - excuse me - The Evil Blue Cushion.  Last night she really went to town on it:

Gladiatorial combat begins

     The first sign that she was winning came at this point:

Edna 1 Zip 0

     And then not long after she peeled off the fabric cover and killed it stone dead:

The mutilated carcass

     RIP Evil Blue Cushion

The final resting place

     Good job I don't use it any longer.

Oops!  I see we're up to 1,000+ words.  Time to publish.




* By Westerners
** Which I hate anyway

Sounds From The Other City - A Report

Okay, I Can Hear You Asking -
 - "Where does your lap go when you stand up?"
     Well, 670 North and 260 East puts you square in the Lapps, so there you are.  If you -
     - Oh!  You want to know what SFTOC is? A music festival held in Salford, on the Spring Bank Holiday.  Conrad missed it last year as he did not bother to write it down, and unless it is down in black Quink written with an osmium-tipped Parker fountain pen, it does not exist.
     So!  There are multiple venues across Salford, mostly based around the Chapel Street area.  Allow me to indicate the sheer volume of events and sites:

Look - a map, at bottom right

     Each line on the programme is an event, and there are a lot of venues where the events happen.
     One of the things that helped make this year's event pretty special was the weather - Conrad hied himself out of bed at 7:30 a.m. to visit the bathroom, and heard 1) Gale Force Winds 2)  Torrential rain and 3) The percussion track of Doooooom*.  However, by  2 p.m. things were completely turned around and we had blue skies and fluffy white clouds.

New Bailey Arch
A new experience for Conrad.

     No!  Not the music, the Portaloo.  After an 28 year hiatus, I used a portaloo, in what seemed to be 90% darkness.  Because this blog is SFW, I do not include photographs, but have a soundtrack transcription:
     "Why is it so dark?"
     "Where is the toilet?"
     "What's this lever for?"
     "The handwash water is where?'
Anyway the venue for "Ba Duncle":

     Here we had "Danny Saul vs. Sam Weaver", thank you Art:

This makes it look more Light And Airy than it was

     I have my critical comment down as "Son of Forbidden Planet Soundtrack", which is interesting as there were no theremins in sight.
     Then we had a rather puzzling combo - "David Birchall/Sam Andreae/Andrew Cheetham Trio, which by any arithmetic comes to five people, yet check out what we see on stage here:

A sax and three people, right?

     What is my citric comment here?  "Like Hawkwind minus the guitar and bass and drums and lyrics".  I think that's a thumbs-up.  There were about 50 people in the audience, so it must have appealed to some one.
     At this point Conrad moved on, literally, leaving you with the comment "It's music, Jim, but not as we know it."

Bexley Square
There was a tent there, without anyone actually playing music, so Conrad took a pause to check out another venue and sink a pint of beer.

Before

     It was "DOC", a rather nice pale ale, and for only £3, which is more expensive than the local pubs here in Royton but not by much and -
      - oh the music!  Well, Nagia Bagi was performing, Young Lady With Electric Rhythm Guitar. Far, far too lightweight for Conrad, I have to say, but a nice venue thanks to the sunshine.

From Square To Mill
Another walk eastwards to arrive at Islington Mill, which is an old mill repurposed - this is where I'd got my wristband earlier in the afternoon -

The queue at 14:14

     Just in case any of you are intending to go visit a band at a gig in the near future, allow me to walk you through the process.  First you purchase a ticket:

     - which allows you to trade it for a wristband:

 - which allows you into different venues across Salford:

E.g. Vimto Gardens

Fliss Horrocks
I wasn't entirely sure which gig I was in, so this was either Jupiter-C or Fliss Horrocks -

On the left, Fliss; on the right, Horrocks

     And after some intruigingly-strung guitar songs, Fliss began to do sound-checking on her keyboa - O!  No, that's not sound-checking, it's the incredibly discordant sounds of hideous torment -

Groves
I have to say, Conrad the Rock Fan was desperately grateful for this five-piece, after a lot of - er - shall we say - "avant garde" music stuff beforehand?  Guitar, bass, drums, keyboard and all kinds of other stuff in the background.

Sadly I could not stay as other musical charms led me elsewhere.

Ex-Easter Island Head Plus BBC Philharmonic
They might have a hit even with a title as long as that - remember the "Wing and a Prayer Fife and Drum Corps"? Or the "Bachman Turner Overdrive"? Or "Uncorrected Deviate Septum"?**
     EEIH are musicians who make guitar-playing not sound like guitars; rather than play their guitars with the traditional finger and plectrum, they use drumsticks.  I'm sure this is not good for the guitars in question, but there you go.
     Here we have the gig site before playing:

Breezeblock-a-go-go

     This was a great gig, 30 minutes long that felt like 5 - a sure indication that it was compelling, at the very least. Let me show you the mid-gig flow:

BBC on left, EEIH on right

     It had a definite feel of Philip Glass about it, minimalist and melodic.  See the EEIH chap towards the middle?  Ian*** and I had a quick word with him post-gig and he was refreshingly human and non-precious, appreciateive - he liked the Philip Glass comparison - and since his mum and dad were about to enter the venue - Conrad not the oldest person in the room!

At this point I made my Long Slow Way Home, as it takes forever to get anywhere on First Bus on a Sunday.  Had I stayed then there would have been musical mayhem until 4 a.m. on the 4th of May; but your humble scribe is far, far too old to sustain activity until then.

SO! Sounds From The Other City 2015 - more music than you can shake several sticks at, and a reason why Islington Mill is to be given a Free Get Out Of Enslavement Camp card when my invasion fleet arrives.


* I wasn't properly awake so this might be a bit kind of - er - lies.
** One of these is fake.  But - I'm not telling which!
***Breen.  Well-connected muso chap, he pointed your humble scribe at this band.

It's That Charmer, Philp Jose Farmer

Fooled You Again!
Well, perhaps, perhaps not.  I will assume that I have, snigger and move on.
     Who was PJF?  Why, an American science fiction author, of course, one who instantly arrived on the map because his science fiction included sex.
     Today you can hardly avoid sex in your science fiction, but Phil was writing back in early Fifties, when this sort of thing simply Was Not Done.  Except he did.  
     He was fond of writing under pseudonyms, including that of "Kilgore Trout", which created a bit of friction with Kurt Vonnegut, whose works included the character Kilgore Trout.  Confused?  So were the fans.

Killed Gored Trout.  Close enough.

     PJF's best known works were those of the "World of Tiers" series, set on - you're ahead of me here aren't you? - a world made up of tiers; and also the "Riverworld" series, where human beings are reborn on the banks of an endless river on an alien world.  There were two abortive attempts to start a television series of "Riverworld" but nobody appears eager to try the earlier ground-breaking sex fiction; where is David Cronenberg when you need him?

Breakfast!
If you follow Conrad's deluded ramblings for any length of time, then you know he has a weakness for ice cream at breakfast, so Hay Pesto!

Out of shot: crumpets in toaster

     This stuff is my home-made Raspberry Yoghurt, and it must be nice because as soon as I turned my back, Jenny* was over trying to lick it.  A bellow of "JENNY!" caused her to completely ignore me and I had to swat her off the worktop.
     Raspberry Yoghurt ice cream - like catnip, apparently.

Bowlee Car Boot And Books
Given that it's a Bank Holiday, the weather ought to be disgusting, yet it's been pretty wonderful.  Thus the Mansion household betook themselves to Bowlee in Bury.  Art?

Beautiful blue skies at Bowlee

     This is the car park, not the car boot sale itself.
     Conrad's normal style at a car boot is to ignore any stall that doesn't have books, and to judge stalls with books on display in a matter of seconds.  Most of them are paperback potboilers probably bought at the airport, usually detective fiction.  Then there are the biographies of people I don't know and don't want to know, usually hardback.  Throw in books on gardening and cooking and that's the majority of books.
     However, there are exceptions:

The overall haul.  Weighty tomes indeed

     Now please pay attention to the volume lower left:

"Up To Date Confectionery"

     The title is completely inaccurate as this is most definitely not up to date, although the date of publication is entirely missing from the inside.  Conrad, being a nosey kind of character**, checked the book out on Abebook, the ultimate repository of second hand books -

It's a bit hard to make out, but that's £50 to buy and £4.50 to post

     The volume I have is an undated First Edition; the second edition came out in 1947.
     And - this is the good part - I paid 25p for it.

The Index To The History Of The 51st Highland Division
How am I doing with this?  Why I thought you'd never ask!  I'm up to page 301 out of 400, which has run to 6 pages of A4 -

Conrad's patent spiderscrawl

     This is just the units involved, I shall have to go back and list the officers, and then the battles, and at least the VC winners.  I could be quite a while with this.
     However, I have caught the author out on two occasions, when he mentioned the "8th Gordon Highlanders".  Having been reading about every battalion that ever served in the 51st I was pretty sure this was incorrect - the 8th Gordons weren't part of the 51st.  A reference to the "Order of Battle of British Divisions 1914 - 1918" was needed:

I won't enlarge it, not exactly riveting material

     The 51st OB doesn't list the 8th Gordons.  A check in the Listings book, however, pointed to another unit:

There you go!

     The relevant entry is left of centre - "8/Gord.H."
     So they served with the 9th Division.  Their inclusion in the 51st must be a misreading, possibly of the "6th Gordon Highlanders".
     A nice little bit of detective work there by Conrad.

What's In A Name?
Readers in the UK have probably heard of "Wellyphant", who is a mascot for something.  Waterproof clothing?  Chester Zoo?  Frangible biscuit baking?  I can't be bothered to look it up.
     Well, Conrad has an idea - behold the awesome marketing tool that is

FROCKODILE!

Yeah, baby, yeah!

     A killer concept, eh?  Just think, this little chap can do for the textile, fashion and clothing industry what Wellyphant did for Adjustable Wrench Brokers.
     Now, you may be wondering why we have a baby crocodile in a skirt, rather than the adult version, and there are seventy-two very good reasons for this:

You can stay and count: I'm getting out of here -

* A cat.  Not a person.  Just so we're clear.
** But we knew that already.

Hot Snood Party At The Rectory Tonight!

Aaaaand Once Again I'm Lying And There Isn't*
Aren't I such a terrible person?  And I bet you're unsure what a "snood" is.  Do you eat it with a fork, put it on leather to soften it, or have it as a substitute for mulch in the garden?  Well, guess what - I'm not going to tell you!  Live in frustration, look it up on Google or wait until tomorrow when I reveal what it is.
     It does, I rather think (a touch of wistfulness here), look like something Bertie Wooster might have mentioned to Jeeves, before a request to lay out the electric-green tie to go with the raspberry twill suit.**

The Aardvark Mine Clearing Vehicle.
Jeeves would approve.

What, Facebook, Have You Been Drinking?
The madness that is the "Suggested Post" continues on Facebook.  Yesterday the "Log-Counting Software" might actually have had a practical application, only coming a good six months after the original suggestion.
     Yesterday we had the following:

"iCracked: become a certified mobile phone technician!

     Excuse me?  When have I ever posted or implied that I had any interest in repairing mobile phones?  Especially since I loathe the Dog Bun things and would gladly put mine in a jute sack and throw it under the next passing Challenger tank, to ensure it gets properly busted.  The world would be a better place without the mobile phone, so I look upon poor sickly ones getting repaired with a great deal of rancour.
     Not only that, Conrad has hands like shovels and fingers like jumbo sausages, to wit:

i-pod for scale purposes

     I, for one, cannot see me fiddling delicately with tweezers and probes to fix a mobile phone.  A wooden mallet and a blowtorch, yes.  Delicate instruments, no.

The Nautical Mile
There I am, listening to "The Other Side" by PBS***, and the commentary comes up with "We are at a height of 460 nautical miles above the Moon".
     This is a commentary about a spaceship about to go into orbit around the Moon^, a quarter of a million kilometres from Earth, in cis-lunar space with ENTIRELY NO WATER AT ALL IN SIGHT.  So why a nautical mile?

A naughty smile.  Close enough.

     Apparently this is because nautical miles correspond to a minute of latitude on maps using the Mercator scale, popular in the marine and aeronautical world, and since Apollo was only a hop skip and jump from aeronautical, why it just stuck.
     For your information a nautical mile is 2025 yards, whereas the mile you and I are familiar with is only 1760.


Google Analytics
Although the website help page insisted that traffic and data would become visible within hours, I had to wait for several days before things started to show up.  I guess this is because BOOJUM!s traffic is relatively low^^.  Have a gander:

Impressive, isn't it!  I've no idea what any of it means, though

     I'm sure this will or would tell me all sorts of interesting things about visitors to the site, and having produced a month's worth of data Conrad really should go and look at it.
     After all, how am I going to know if the readers residing in Novi Pazar are up on their Inter Continental Ballistic Missile data?

Dog In A Cot
Not a manger, no.  We have recently acquired a dog cot for Edna Wunderhund, which enables her to watch the world go by whilst being transported in the Murdermobile.

     She is a far better traveller now, able to see things - she is a nosey little rascal - and move about to a limited extent.  She whimpers a little now and then, just to let you know that she Cannot Be Taken For Granted, but on the whole she is a very good traveller.  Plus you don't have to stick her in a box like Jenny.^^^

Proof Of Being In Salford
It being nearly 9 by now, I'm not going to post about "Sounds From The Other City", except to say that I had a whale of a time, and proudly maintained my long-standing status of Oldest Person Present.
     Here is a little shot of the River Irwell, the Lowry Hotel in the background:

View From A Bridge~

     I post this because I'd had to get up at 7 a.m. to visit the bathroom and the weather was vile.  Gale force winds and torrential rain.  However, by the time I got to Islington Mill in Salford I was regretting wearing a rainproof jacket and shoes since it was so warm!

Finally
It's a long long time since I posted a shot of home-made ice cream.  If you've been reading the blog for over a year, then you recall that our freezer at the Mansion was constantly full of different types of home made ice cream.  Then, suddenly, I stopped.
     Now, suddenly, I've started.

     This is Raspberry Yoghurt Ice Cream, where the sharpness of the berries is offset by the smoothness of the yoghurt.  Jolly nice stuff. The only drawback is that it's positively hotching with calories.  Well, a little of what you fancy ...


* Given the number of rectories up and down the country, and that there must be rectories that have parties, and that a snood is a real thing - this may be borderline reality, you know.
** Jeeves, naturally, would imply how tasteless this was with a single lift of the eyebrow.
*** Public Service Broadcasting.  That band I like.
^ That big thing up in the sky.
^^ A dagger through my heart to admit it ...
^^^ The cat.  Not a person. Just so we're clear.
~ With apologies to The Chameleons