Thinking BIG

Maybe.  Maybe Not.
Observing that yesterday's posts about making tzatziki and lemonade were not particularly well received, possibly even considered dull and uninteresting, Conrad - as ever utterly without scruples if it means higher traffic - has decided instead to tackle BLOWING UP THE PLANET!
     You can't get more apocalyptically interesting than that, can you*?
     Now, I'm not sure if I can pull this off under the rules of the Charm Offensive, so if instead of calling them "nuclear weapons" I call them "Foofoodillies" instead, that ought to work, right?

Chocolate?  Foo!  Get it out of here!

     That being so, meet SIOP.  I know it sounds like the offspring of a druid and a vegetable sweetener, in reality it's the acronym for "Single Integrated Operational Plan".  Again, not too threatening, sounding more like a spreadsheet from one of the more boring offshoots of HMRC.  In reality it's the American plan for BLOWING UP THE PLANET!  In a controlled manner.  We like these things to be properly managed, after all.

Conrad, plotting to BLOW UP THE PLANET!
Or what to have for lunch tomorrow

     Okay, the common misconception about the (so far theoretical) Third Unpleasantness is that the President of one side would press a button and Whammo-Blammo we're BUTP.
     Not so.  The Prez has a ton of options under SIOP.
     "Single Integrated Operational Plan" because when you have 7000 nuclear - er foofoodillies, and 50,000 targets, you need to know what to hit and what to hit it with.
     Take Plesetsk, if you will, and imagine yourself (wibbly-wobbly camera effect) back in the bad old days of the Cold War.  Plesetsk was a Soviet rocketry and missile complex for their space programme, so it wasn't actually a threat.  Not directly, anyway, but then again those crafty Bolsheviks might mate up a missile body with a nuc - foofoodilly, and it has all that support technology, not to mention bulging with boffins bursting to bludgeon our bourgeois bodies into a bloody batter with big-bang bombs.

Sinister Soviet scientists handling plutonium with high-level safeguards in place

     So, under SIOP you might want to hit it with a Minuteman foofoodilly.  The site's not hardened, so your foofoodilly doesn't need to be too large.  However, you also need to accommodate the fact that the bus carrying up to 15 other foofoodillies needs to have targets nearby within their ballistic footprint, and you might want to make really really sure that you turn Plesetsk into gravel so you cross-target it with a second warhead, which means a delay of at least thirty minutes so the initial debris settles, plus you also have to factor in that some inbound MIEV's may be intercepted -
     BLOWING UP THE PLANET - not as easy as advertised**.

Well having probably grounded you all in hideous nuclear paranoia, I think we need an article on matters more light and fluffy.

TRIBUTYL TIN IS KILLING THE OCEANS**!

Sorry.  Charm Offensive roots have yet to take properly.  Quick, nurse, the screams!

Sorry.  "Screens".  Charm Offensive - oh let's get on with it.

Film Reviews BOOJUM! Style
I shall refresh your knowledge of how Conrad reviews films.
     1)  Without doing any kind of research and certainly not, God forbid, actually watching them!
     2)  Generalising and speculating wildly based on the title alone.
     The Danish Girl: No doubt this will go down well in Denmark, the Faeroes and Greenland, appealing to 50% of the population.  The rest of the world - Not So Much.

Danish tart.
Art!  Don't be hateful!

Humanoid - okay, close enough

     The Revenant: Since this appears to be about zombies, Charm Offensive rules forbid a review.  Here's a blue lobster instead.

It's a lobster and it's blue.
What ya gonna do?

     Hateful Eight: Going for the anti-hero market and then some.  8 is over-doing it.  2 or 3, fine.  4 to 5, you're pushing it.  6 or 7 is too far.  Don't exagger8!
     Dirty Grandpa:  No.  Just - no.  Who on earth gave the greenlight for this, asked your humble scribe, visions of Father Jack dancing in his head.

"What would I say to a cup of tea?  F-"

Oh Boy Oh Boy!
In fact Oh Boy Oh Girl Oh Man, Woman And All The Beasts Of The Field.  
     Allow me a second or two to lower my heartbeat and mop the dew from my brow.

Conrad, frothing with excitement

     Gollancz, that major British publishing house, are having an open admission policy for science-fiction, fantasy and horror novels in January, from today until the 22nd.  They have to be over 80,000 words long and cannot have been previously rejected.  No agents needed - in fact that would disqualify the entrant.
     If you are unfamiliar with the world of publishing, this kind of allowance is about as rare as the sarsens at Stonehenge getting up and doing the Black Bottom^.

Close enough.
Both a collection of fossils

     Conrad can't really submit "The Albatross".  It's 250k words long and is Captain Scarlet with the index numbers filed off.  If the incredible happened and it got published, expect a lot of lawyers rubbing their hands gleefully.
     "Revelations", the zombie apocalypse MSS, fits the bill but I have to work up a single-page synopsis for it.
     "27", the ESP thriller also fits the bill, but again it needs a synopsis - and I can't open Chapter 3!  I seem to think I've got a hard copy lying around, except where in the chaotic wasteland of the Upstairs Lair can it be?

Conrad, in a mad panic about the MSS's location

     You can tell I take my responsibilities to you, the public, seriously because I've written the blog before getting that synopsis worked up.  The instant I post this, however ...

The Herald's Wand
I mentioned this in my impressions of Thucydides and his history of the Peloponnesian War, speculating that it must have performed a function similar to the modern-day flag of truce.
     Imagine my surprise when I went and Googled, because this came up:

The Caduceus

     Two serpents twined around a staff.  Wow, that must be a sexy staff!
     You obviously - obviously! - recognise the staff as being carried by Hermes, and also as being adopted by the medical profession.
     Doubtless in the time of Thuck, a herald would venture forth, holding the caduceus up high and in front, waving it madly to avoid getting punctured by arrows or javelins.

Blimey, hitting over 1,100 words.  Time to bow out disgracefully -

* Blowing up the Sun would trump it but is, you must admit, a little unlikely.
** Fortunately.
*** Not used any more, but, gosh, is there a lot of it in the food chain or what.
^  A dance

I Made Lemonade!

Unfortunately - For Some - You Can't Taste A Blog
Nor can you smell it, although that makes no difference to Conrad who has no sense of smell anyway*.
     Anyway, last week, to use up a batch of old lemons, I made lemonade.  Yes, there is that saying.  The lemonade went down very well with Wonder Wifey, as with your humble scribe, as it's all gone.  It only consists of water, sugar and lemons.
     "What is the recipe for this delicious drink, Conrad?" I hear you call, which is unusually flattering for you lot and makes me suspicious.
     "Who us, Mighty Conrad? The merely curious?" I hear, which once again makes me suspicious about 
     <Mister Hand intervenes to move the process along or this would take till 2017>
     Okay, take 3 lemons, 140 grams sugar, and 1 litre of water.  Dissolve the sugar in 1/2 litre water.  Chop up the lemons, taking care to take out the pips, stick in a blender with the rest of the water.  Then sieve the resultant slurry into a bowl and funnel into a bottle.
     Voila!  One of your five a day.
     "Proof!  Proof, Conrad, you duplicitous rascal," I hear you say.
     O I hoped you'd never ask.

Dull stuff - dissolving the sugar

Dull stuff again - prepping the pips

Less dull.  Blending the lemons

Bottling.

     There you have it.  Oh, if you want to make your lemonade pink, chuck in a few raspberries.

How very domestic!  Let us look far beyond the four walls of the kitchen.  Far, far beyond, all the way to the other side of the Atlantic, in fact, over in South Canada and -

NCIS
Yes yes yes, my guilty secret, except I've been yarking on about it so often for so long that it's a secret as salt.
     It's about the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, who investigate - the clue is in the title - crimes involving the Navy or Marine Corps.  I'm watching from Episode One, meaning I'm catching the end of stuff I only saw the beginning of on television, or where I catch the beginning after seeing the end.
     One of Conrad's big questions is Help Provided.  Just how much does the Department of Defence or the Navy provide in terms of facilities, personnel, equipment and ships?  I wonder, as there are no cringing platitudes in the end credits about "grovelling thanks to the DoD and the USN for letting us use their tanks like Tonka toys".

For this you'd have to grovel Big Time

     Take the episode "Sub Rosa" - terrible pun concerning the USS Pegasus - which features an aircraft carrier, a frigate, a motorboat and a nuclear submarine, as well as a passenger aircraft and a helicopter.  Some of this will be stock footage, but not all of it, surely?  The submarine interiors are definitely going to be mock-ups as I doubt the Navy would merrily allow it's facilities to be displayed for every snooping hound to see.  
     And then again, since the Villain of the Piece is usually a member of the Navy or Marine Corps, which does not paint these services in a light of roseate hue, which would definitely disincline official approval and help, perhaps is it all smoke and mirrors.

Getting Freaky With Tzatziki
Yes, another excruciating pun.  This is BOOJUM! - I'd be neglecting things if I merely put up the title "Conrad Made A Greek Dip", unless I referred to the Hellenic Republic's Consul in Manchester.
     Hay Pesto!

Not a consul in sight

     Well, there was a cucumber that needed using up, and a load of yoghurt the same, and I used to make it all the time when I was younger.  One of your five a day and goes great with pitta bread, that above cost about the same to make as the piddly little cartons you get that are too watery anyway.  So HAH!

They're Drowning Her!  They're Drowning Her!
Or so it seems.  To what do I refer?  Why, a bizarre advert from Nurofen that features them deliberately putting a lady under water.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9WSsxqzCbs

  Call me squeamish if you like but this seems like - what's the word?  It's on the tip of my tongue - oh yes - DANGEROUS!

See?  See?

     Sheesh.  Conrad is glad he has impeccable health**.

Well, just about time to leave you with a thought for the day, or what's left of it:

"Dies by Sue Wilson One Day Special"

     A television programme.  Obviously this "Sue Wilson" is a killer-for-hire out to sort out all her contracts within 24 hours (ergonomics, one presumes), although I can't see why it would crop up on the "Craft" channel.



*  Doesn't make much difference day-to-day
** Widely attributed to "stupid healthy genes"

GROM! By Thunder!

In A Manner Of Speaking
As you already know by now, your humble scribe is ever one for a bit of punnery, but this one - this one will take a bit of explaining and working out.  Still hilarious, though*.
     Okay, we occasionally take a look at the lesser-known special forces of other countries here at BOOJUM! - Conrad just loves the way "Marinenjaegercommando" rolls off the tongue with a Norwegian accent - and those of Poland are informally known as "Grom", which is Polish for "Thunder".

Some chaps from Warsaw - er - on tour

     The reason for the informal name is clear when you look at the formal one, "Jednostka Wojskowa GROM im. Cichociemnych Spadochroniarzy Armii Krajowej", meaning "Military unit GROM Named In Honour Of The Unseen Army", which is still an abbreviation since the "GROM" means "Grupa Reagowania Operacyjno-Manewrowego", meaning "Group Response for Operational Maneuvering Response."  Blimey.  Polish, a language that says exactly what it means no matter how many words it takes.
     Now, why am I blathering on about a bunch of Poles who have been knocking around in support of NATO operations since Kosovo?

Two white vans!

     Because of this.  I have of late been banging on about Poland, and now, in addition to MI5, UNIT, FSB, CIA, GSG and the Duxieme Bureau, we now have GROM eavesdropping on the Mansion.  If any more spooks turn up on the doorstep they'll need a bus and separate catering.

Edna Wunderhund
Of course every dog owner is convinced that their particular canine is The Most Wonderful Dog In The World.  The fools!  Conrad, obviously - obviously! - has an impartial perspective on Edna as she is not "Our" dog, still less "my" dog, because she is entirely the responsibility of Wonder Wifey.  She is disturbingly quick on the uptake with a good memory: ask her to get the octopus out of the toy basket and she won't come back with the elephant.
     Art?  Picture credit, please.

There she is in an unusually tranquil moment, gnawing away at her Christmas chew toy/tuggin bone, which will be destroyed by the end of this month at current erosion rates.
     Her latest game is being taken out of the lounge, then being let back in to find the hidden balls, which she loves to bits, all the more as there's a treat for every ball found.
     As I have had cause to say before, thank the Lord aloft she doesn't have fingers and thumbs or all you humans would be redundant.

The Haul
Off on a trip to B & M and then Aldi this afternoon, as your gifted author needed a new diary today.  His old one expires at midnight, you see, and, being a dinosaur, I need to write things down in black ink on white paper, or else they don't exist.
     Sugar I could get at B & M; for lemons I needed to squeeze through the crush in Aldi, which is appropriate as I shall be making lemonade with them.  
     As I know you are all hard-nosed skeptics who need proof, I shall provide:

     Yes, a bit more than lemons and sugar, I admit.  The dates were only 40p per pack, and you must admit a man** who likes his dried fruit really can't miss out on that, can he?

Now, About That Notebook -
I'm probably lecturing the utterly unfamiliar here, as Young People*** nowadays are all busy tapping away on their mobile phones, which will surely thin the herd out a bit if they continue to do this whilst crossing the road.
     Anyway, to a dinosaur like Conrad, it matters enough about his thoughts to write them down on paper, with a pen.  Art?

NO!  Where's my tazer -

"Conrad took his finger off the trigger -"

     This being so, it matters about the quality of the paper - if it's poor quality the ink bleeds and your writing becomes illegible, so that Pullitzer-Prize standard novel might as well get shredded^ or get used to blot up kitchen spills.  
     The format also matters.  I've been using a huge notepad that is rather awkward to write upon in the confines of a bus, so today I got a more compact one.  Swings and roundabouts, this one has hard covers, so one cannot contort it into shape and carry on when a curious co-passenger sits down next to you.  Art - and get it right this time -

"Dear Diary -"

     Actually it was only 99p so not even that.

Oh dear.  At the word limit and I had to much more to tell tales about.  Maybe later^^.


* Yes it IS!
** "Man" for purposes of brevity rather than accuracy
*** To be pronounced a tad contemptuously
^ Tee hee!
^^ Definitely later!