Horrors - I Think I Forgot The Baking Powder

The Perils Of Being A Forgetful Old* Man
I know I got it out of the cupboard, and I know I put it back in the cupboard, but did I actually put a teaspoonful into the sieved dry ingredients of the cake I'm baking?  I've just been and checked the teaspoon I'd used for the coffee and it does have a dusting of powder, so perhaps all is not lost.

     I must apologise in advance to Russell, who requested a "Coffee and Almond Loaf", except I didn't have a recipe for this to hand, the internet was running slower than a senile snail on sedatives and I didn't have enough chocolate.  Next week, Russell, next week!

"Gravity's Rainbow" By Thomas Pynchon
Yes, you are quite right, I am on a year-long binge of reading old TP, this will be the seventh novel.  I first read it 30 years ago, and it took an effort as I was simply rocked back on my heels by Tom's style.  I'm more used to it now and it bears the marks of his other novels - daft puns, silly surnames, imagined songs, going off on a tangent.  I have realised that the beginning of the novel involves an evacuation by railway, not a flock of evacuees on foot.

He didn't invent this, I'm sure

     Causality I Spit At Thee: once again coincidence comes crowding in.  I swear there is an unholy connection between Tom and the space-time continuum as it applied to Conrad.  Looking for a book to pack in my bag I picked up "S.O.E.", a history of the British wartime spying and sabotage organisation "Special Operations Executive", by MRD Foot, but didn't take it, as it's rather hefty.   Four pages into "GR", what gets mentioned but - the Special Operations Executive.  Bear in mind this is a British organisation some forty years gone by the time Tom wrote GR, and - well, you begin to wonder.
     But wait!  There's more!  Last night's post involved reference to the Sanjak of Novi Pazar, a tiny (and now extinct) principality in what used to be Yugoslavia.  Very obscure, long-forgotten and Conrad is one of the few people who's ever heard of it.
     Except Tom.  There on page 14 and for several pages after, we hear of the Sanjak of Novi Pazar.
     Lexicographically Expanding: as ever, Tom throws in words that Conrad has to check up, as the possibility that he's slipping a fictional one past is very real.  So:  "Musaceous" - refers to a banana.  Well.  Never knew that before.  "Ruminous" - ha!  That seems to be made up.  "TDY" - Army contraction of "Temporary Duty".
     And Definitely An Anglophile: "Mason and Dixon" was all about two Englishmen, "V" has big chunks set in the British Empire, "The Crying of Lot 49" features Gallipoli, and this refers effortlessly to British and English culture.  I am very impressed with Tom's mention of Preston North End and Blackpool, two football clubs in the North West who have a tradition of deadly rivalry.  Today this is probably all over the internet; back in the days when Tom was writing I doubt one American in ten thousand had ever heard of PNE.

We'll not bother with Blackpool.
(Conrad grew up in Preston)

How The SAS Should Operate
If they take Conrad's advice, they'd hide in plain sight.  This isn't Current Affairs, it goes back to when they deployed in Albania**, and the BBC journalists present were instantly suspicious and alert when they spotted English soldiers who weren't wearing regimental badges, or indeed any kind of identifying marks at all.

The originals, and shockingly scruffy they were too

     The SAS! instantly assumed the press.  You can imagine how it goes:

Journalist:  Hey, who are you guys?***
Anonymous Soldier: Can't possibly say, sir.
Journalist: No badges?  Special Forces.  HEY YOU MUST BE THE SAS!
Anon. Soldier: Can you keep it down?
Journo: HEY EVERYONE COME AND MEET THE SAS!
Anon. Soldier (facepalms): With friends like these ...

What our noble lads of the winged dagger ought to do is adopt the badges of old, amalgamated regiments, as this would instantly throw journalists of the trail, especially the South Canadian ones unfamiliar with the long and peculiar history of British army regiments.  KOYLI, anyone?  KRRC?  RIDG?  DOCLI?^

The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
Unusually, Conrad has done a little research on this film.  Surprise!  This cost £10 million.  Whilst this might seem a lot for a car, it is pretty cheap by Hollywood standards for a film, and Surprise!  It cost no more than the first film.  No mean feat considering inflation, and one suspects slackly-drawn up contracts with insufficiently robust terms for the cast over a bigger salary for sequels.

Conrad threw Art in the septic sump after this

     Total gross for both films is £85 million - and there are more income streams for the sequel, so £90 million is a real possibility.  Sadly, given this, so is another sequel.  Still, these have proved to be very nice earners.  Where, wonders Conrad, did they find such an audience?

I wonder.  Also, I'll get back to you on that.

A Short Photo-essay On Getting To Work
We need to go picture heavy on this, it's been very wordy.

Ha!

     To re-interate:  HA!  Suntan lotion.  Today.

"Amuse me, puny human!"

     Since I was a little early, I sat on the kitchen chair and was promptly assaulted by Jenny in full Effusive Feline Intervention mode.  Purring madly, slinking all over me, fighting with plastic clothes-pegs, trying to chew the pens in my pocket - I got up and ran for it!

One of these things is not like the other ...

     On the right, we see the effects of a bus pass sitting in Conrad's back pocket for six days - given the high-quality of First Bus products - no, sorry, I mean the appallingly shoddy cut-price Brummagen ware of First Bus products - the chirpily disbelieving first driver let me on, with a caution that other drivers might not.
     So, I weakened and the result is the nice legible pass on the left.  Which pass is not going to be next to my ass.


* You can leap in and challenge these base assertions, anytime.  Anytime at all.
** Which is not far from - Novi Pazar!
*** You may assume that this particular journalist is, indeed, a South Canadian
^ I shall explain: The King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry; The King's Royal Rifle Corps; the Royal Iniskilling Dragoon Guards; the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry.

It's Outrageous!

Not Referring To Anything In Particular
 - although the 24 bus not turning up, and the 181 being a single-decker mobile sauna does come pretty close.  What are First Bus's qualifications for running a service again? because Conrad considers them to be as evil as they are incompetent.

First Bus's transport fleet was in need of refurbishment

     Anyway, that's rather tangential to the title of tonight's blog.  If we are most horrified and offended by someone or some event or the single-word "celebrities" that the Fish & Chip Wrapper blatantly takes bribes for, we dub them "outrageous".
     Why, then, do we fail to bestow faint praise upon an item or person who is merely a little bit evil, or a tiny bit bad, with the word "inrageous"?
     I'll get back to you on that.


"Bleeding Edge" By Thomas Pynchon
Finally finished it on the bus this morning, although I shouldn't boast, it's less than 500 pages long and mercifully short compared to that brick of a book "Against the Day".  Thus, no spooky coincidences generated today!

The Mansion.
Nothing spooky here, oh no!

     It did throw up a phrase that needed explaining - "a Roth IRA".  By context it sounded financial rather than a hooded (Jewish?) Fenian carrying a gun, and so it proved.  It's an "Individual Retirement Arrangement" where you don't pay taxes - zzzzzzzzzz.  Yeah.  As exciting as that.

Cherry Ghost
I was standing in line at the off-licence clutching my bottle of Old Golden Hen when a song by the above band came over the PA.
     "It's Cherry Ghost!" I explained to the two male shop staff, both young enough to be my sons.  "But I don't recognise the song."
     Two looks of utter incomprehension were returned.
     Gah!  The youth of today!
     It turns out the album came out last year - how did I miss that?

Cherries most.  Close enough

Dear Metro
You are going to get into big trouble.  See this?

Think of the children!

     If Anna sees this, you will go down on her list of People To Get Back At.

Superheroes With Their Pants Down
I recall that Cyclops got his dressing-down without a preliminary interview, so let us redress that omission:

Prof X: So, Mister Somers, what can you bring to the table?
Scott:  I can blow things up with my eyes!
Prof X: What!  You pop them out like ping-pong balls?
Scott:  No, no, I've got this totally awesome Blammo-vision thing going on.
Prof X: "Blammo-vision".
Scott (excitedly):  Yeah, yeah - planes, tanks, buildings, I can blow them all up!  Totally!
Prof X (coldly): This, Mister Somers, is an educational establishment.  Not a demolitions firm.
Scott:  Oh.
Prof X: We seek to resolve matters without causing mayhem and destruction.
Scott: Oh.  I see.  Well, let me give you my card.  That way, if something does need blamming to bits -
Prof X:  Do you have any other useful skill sets?
Scott (thinks hard): I can do a killer barbecue in one second flat.
Prof X (warmly): Scott, you're in!

The Scott Somers Appreciation Society

Ranting And Tanting
Once again I have to castigate the Twits and their especially witless suggestions about what your aged scribe might be interested in.

"Transform my poker"?

     I would add the phrase "Are you ******* kidding?
     "Are you sick of going card dead at the vital stage in tournaments?
     NO I AM NOT!  BECAUSE I DO NOT ATTEND TOURNAMENTS!
     "Discover the weird science to building big stacks"
     I thought they were banging on about gambling, not construction?  
     Anyway, there is a major flaw in this suggested Tweet.
     I DO NOT PLAY POKER.
     Let me elaborate.

     I NOT ONLY DO NOT PLAY POKER I AM NOT INTERESTED IN IT AT ALL.

     Trying not to understate it there.  D'you think I got my point across?

Retrospective
In a cheap and nasty way of boosting the word count, I am going to post my blog of two years ago this very day, although it does seem rather longer than the earlier ones from June, so I may have to curtail this activity.  Anyway, here goes:

Filthy Lucre

Literally.  I found 50 pence in change in my dirty coffee cup at work.  Why did I put it there?  Early onset Stupidity. 

More Filthy Lucre

I'm not sure if this is an exclusively British term.  "Dirty Money" is your translation, dear reader in Novi Pazar*.  Looking at the BBC website with sidebars and comments from the public, what statistics do we see?

Egyptian Protests = 115 comments

BBC's £25 million severance payments = 741 comments

MP's Pay Rise = 1166 1200 comments.  The winner!

Not only that, in a snapshot of comments, two people who put across a rational argument supporting an increase in MP's pay were massively negged** by other commenters!  It seems we the - excuse me - We The People jib a bit at having to make sacrifices at the behest of our chosen representatives who then get a 16% pay rise.

Continuing with the edgy, gritty, satirical tone - yes it is so, edgy and gritty! <stamps foot> we have -

Now Then Snowden!

That young scamp Eddy Snowden is apparently applying for political asylum in Russia.  I'm sure this is a headache that Mr Putin could well have done without, and he gently suggested to Eddy that he should "cease his work aimed at damaging our American partners."  Eddy, Eddy, Eddy.  Mr Putin also said Russia "never hands over anybody anywhere and has no intention of doing so," which would sound more convincing if that song "Step Into My Parlour Said The Spider To The Fly" wasn't echoing around my mind.  This time next year the folio-sized "Where's Eddy?" picture-puzzle book will be the only visible sign that Eddy ever existed ...

Human Rights Crisis in Turkmenistan!

Actually I've nothing very deep to say on the very real problems in what seems to be a pocket Soviet Union post-1991 (not informed enough to judge yet).  It just amused me that one of the shortest names possible, J-Lo, performed for one of the longer - Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov.

* Originally The Sanjak Of Novi Pazar, one of Europe's smallest 19th century nations.

** "Negged" is short for "Was voted down in a negative manner" and I apologise for using a word suspiciously close to <shudders in horror> texttalk.

Right.  That Passchendaele wargame won't design itself.  Toodle-ooh!

Well well well.  See what we have here?  Current affairs and politics, which is a measure of how far BOOJUM! has moved on - no need for me to rely on the BBC website to generate articles.  Notice also that I was working on those wargame rules even then, and had been for years.  Slow worker, me.