Red Onion Chutney!

Both As Metaphor And Concrete Condiment
Perhaps "Sauce" is closer, or even "Relish", rather than "Condiment".  I know this appears to be a minor point but I do pride myself on obsessively accurate descriptions.
     "What is the poisonous old sot on about - oh, no, hang on, he's going sober this month, isn't he?  The Red Cross Appeal for his Hepatic Health or something.  Okay, he's not drunk, just an idiot.  Apparently," I hear you comment in the most hurtful way, or it would hurt if I cared about the opinion of a load of gutter-gliding ordure otters*.

Oooh.  Darth Vader feels jealous

     If you have been paying attention - if you have it will save your life later on - then you will be aware that Conrad is off on leave, which means binge-watching Archer and Game of Thrones, reading, annotating, walking Edna, drinking copious amounts of tea and making idiosyncratic notes for BOOJUM!  However, there's no time pressure or constraints as there normally would be during the working week, where I have to be efficient.  So, I keep thinking "What's the recipe for Red Onion Chutney?" without actually looking it up.  On the internet, at least, since I have scried amongst my cookery books to no avail.

Forlorn and forgotten

     Yes yes yes, I am getting to the point!  My point - which will be sharpened to a needle point and impressed into your gluteus maximus if you keep interrupting - is that were it a working day I'd be making a note to self on the bus journey into The Electric Goldfish Bowl, or at lunchtime, or when travelling home, and would then look it up.
     At present I just think 'Oh yes must look it up on teh interwebz - hang on, who composed the soundtrack for "Moon"?  Was it Clint Mansell?  I'll just check.  Oh!  Correct.  Now, about that clock mentioned by Montague Egg in "In the Teeth of the Evidence", just what kind was that?  Aha!  I remember where I heard that before -' and so on.
     Sometimes having a non-stop party going on in your head can have disadvantages.

Hard to hear this over the noises in my mind

"The Girl With All The Gifts"
Okay, it's been out for a while, but be warned that what follows is a bit SPOILERY.  So, if you don't want to know too much about it, skip to the next post.  I shall be oblique and tangential**, rather than bleating about the detailed plot points.

Okay?  Sure you want to carry on?

     Right.  I did warn you.  Everybody dies!  
     Ha!  Only joking.  Or am I ... Well, no, not really.  Anyway, at first I thought that the ending was incredibly bleak, then it redeemed itself.  Then I went away and thought about it, and reconsidered.  You may conceive of Mel and her matches to be an ultimately tragic ending, yet - NO!

Our protagonists

     The human race is on the way out and we've seen the evidence presented to us.  Hotel Echo, the airbase, is in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by ten foot fencing, full of soldiers armed to the teeth.  Yet it is overwhelmed and destroyed by hungries.  When Sergeant Parks contacts Beacon, it, too, is falling apart.
     Hom. Sap. (you lot) is clearly doomed.  On the way out, so Mel is only really speeding up the process.  As Caldwell says, all it takes is a flood or a flashfire and - End Of Humanity.  It could already have happened elsewhere across the globe, only the wind currents haven't brought their payload over here yet.
     Even if Caldwell had come up with a vaccine, could it be mass-produced?  Distributed? And it wouldn't solve the major problem of tens of millions of hungries still up and running around.  Nor boost the surviving population.
     Like I said, on the way out.  The literal new dawn that TGWATG ends with is for Mel and her ilk, not for Hom. Sap.

And the - er - not-so-meek shall inherit the earth

Ken Adam's Sets
This, again, is a bit tangential, but we will get to the meat of the matter, honest.  Remember yesterday, when we mentioned British actors playing the villain?  A Hollywood trope, I said, so it's perhaps cheating a little bit to shoehorn James Bond in there, as this franchise is home-grown.  It has, possibly, made the bad guys a tad less anxious to attack the UK for fears of MI6 agents swarming out of the woodwork wielding laser-watches and rocket pens.
     Sorry, that's me being even more tangential.  Let us look at "Doctor No", where the titular villain is Joseph Wiseman, a British actor, playing someone Chinese IIRC.  
     Sorry again, that was a tangent to the original tangent.
     Ken Adam's sets for Doctor No!  let us see some!

Possibly the world's most artistic prison cell

Mad Scientist's Lab: Model 37

Mad Scientist's Groovy Pad: pre-Austin Powers

Finally
Are we over count?  Oh.  Well over.  I shall then only add a few photos of Edna, as proof that I am discharging my Stewardly duties appropriately.  Art?

Edna pursuing treat on path (a.m.)

Barefoot, and collarless, in the park

Edna, rendered helpless by Tickle-fu!

* I know I've used this before but I like it, so it bears repetition.
** So, business as usual

I LiVE In Your Skin

Don't Panic!
Your humble scribe has not turned into an hideous alien shape-shifting assimilating life-form akin to something out of John Carpenter's worst fever dreams.  Nor a cannibal seeking to consume your insides and wear your integument as a trophy.

About the only "cannibal" picture that was SFW and not too revolting

     Stick with me here, this takes a bit of explaining, and resort to metaphor.
     Because I don't like to take the pitcher to the well too often I thought it a bit ill-advised to try and bait traffic here with more snickering titles about "Organs", after having done it three times.  Not in a row, you understand, so there may be more baiting in the near future.  Not that you're not going to get more stuff about Autumn Shades - a LOT more stuff - because if I noted it then it will get written.  O yes.
     Ladies, Gentlemen and Those Undecided, allow me to introduce the Johannus LiVE:

It LiVEs in the showroom.

     "Why yes, Conrad," I hear you question.  "A high-tec church organ.  So?"
     Those banks of projecting knobs on left and right are the stops, which on a normal Johannus are switches, rather than physical objects.  Which is a bit bye-the-bye*.
     The really impressive thing about this organ is that it comes with 5 different pre-set sample ranges, taken from organs sampled by the Johannus technicians from organs across the world.  Not only that, you can choose where in the church you want the sound to come from - from right up to the pipes themselves to the very far end of the church, and Prof. Ian Tracey demonstrated this, to good effect.  The difference is notable.  And, when you change from one organ to another, all those little screens above the organ stops amend and update, and various stops blank out because they aren't relevant.
     Now, does that title make sense now?

"Okay Conrad - STOP right there!"

25 Things
I really can't be bothered to type out the rest of " - That The UK Does More Awesomely Than The US" because - BAH! - okay, okay, enough laughter at the modest artisan.  Here is one of the top 10:

     Brits as the bad guys.  Mike cannily pointed out that, if the bad guy isn't a Russian, he's  a Brit.  Sometimes a Brit playing a Russian.  It's a well-known Hollywood trope.  "The Last Action Hero"'s villain?  Charles Dance.  "Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade" = Julian Glover; "The Anderson Tapes" = Sean Connery; "Cliffhanger" = John Lithgow - yes, he's American PRETENDING TO BE BRITISH!; "Executive Decision" = David Suchet;

Dave, looking the business

 "Doctor No" = Donald Pleasance; "It" = Tim Curry; "Legend" = oh here he is again, Tim Curry; "The Lion King" = Jeremy Irons; "The Time Machine" = (the remake) = Jes again; "Die Hard 3" = oh it's Jes yet again.

Remember, he's a Brit playing a German

     Really, you'd think there was something in our British background that - I don't know, somehow echoed down the centuries as a reason to cast us as the baddies ...

Something - something really horrid?

The Steward Of Gondor
That's how I feel, entrusted to watch o'er that little four-footed scamp Edna, who even now is poking her nose into my thigh as I type this out.  She's not getting the attention she thinks she deserves, rather than what any human on the premises might think.  Here's a little photo-essay about her.

Despondent doggeh

     This is her pose when she wants to inform your humble scribe that he's a Neglectful Human.  Sorry, a Wicked Neglectful Human.  Apologies, Edna, my muse is calling.

Attendant doggeh

     She's not forgiven me, it's just that I have a packet of crisps.  She had been sulking in the kitchen, about her Wicked Neglect, until I rustled the packet open and then she was like the shop-keeper in "Mister Benn".

Despondent again

     Conrad knows how to break down the walls of this funk - "Edna, do you want to go WALKIES?"

Answer: yes

     Here we are on our morning walk, where I made the mistake of putting on a coat, as it was hot and sunny. 
     But wait!  There's more.  Edna gets an afternoon walk, too.  

Edna not returning the ball

     Here she proved that she can return the ball - if she feels like it.  Mostly she did not feel like it, and one has to suspect she was getting her own back for all that Wicked Neglect.

Enough cute doggeh antics!  Time to post this scrivel!




*  Or is it bi-the-bi?

Organ Swell

First Of All, Wash Out Your Dirty Minds!
Allow me, with this Rivet Gun Of Truth, to drive home the fact that BOOJUM! is actually SFW <BANG BANG BANG> I think that ought to do it.  I could also have added "Choir" "Great" and "Pedal" to the title.  Although that might not have caught people's attention quite so much ...
     "Oh!" I hear you respond, a little shame-facedly.  "You are referring to the church organ, as at the Church Organ World event?"
     Yes I am you gutter-gliding ordure-otters.  Conrad went into the event knowing precious little about the organ, and came out far better informed.  Pedals, manuals, stops and pipes was about the sum total of my knowledge.  Now, I am going to illustrate the title.  Art?

Behold

     Those items on the left and right are the stops, and you can't see the pedals as the bench is in the way.  The keyboards are the "manuals" and this is a 4-manual organ.  The different manuals are entitled: Swell, Choir, Great and Pedal.
     This is the same variety of organ as Makin's showroom model, which has just been sold to a private purchaser.  I know what you're thinking - "Gosh the neighbours will hate him in short order!"  Not necessarily so, not necessarily so.  The Makin engineers who go out to install these organs also "voice" them individually, that is, they conform and profile the organ according to the acoustics of wherever it's being installed.  Church, cathedral or Uncle Vanya's living room, and they can ensure that you, the offended neighbour, do not resort to a Council Noise Abatement Order.
     Well, enough of the Intro, let's crack on!

Alas What I Cannot Have
I may have inferred in passing, not being explicit or anything, that I've given up alcohol for October, just to keep you informed. Not boasting or anything, or at least not yet*. 
     So it was with a sense of irony that I took the following photo on Thursday.  Art?

     This is one of the murals that have appeared along the Ancoats road artery, by whom and to what purpose - unknown.  They do brighten up a blank brick building, tho', don't they?

25 Things
And once again Conrad resorts to Mike and his list of 25 Things The British Do More Awesomely Than The Americans**.  Nobody can dispute the next one:

     Absolutely not.  Despite the recent invasion of coffee shops - which also still find they have to sell tea AS WELL - tea is the most important liquid in the UK, more important than petrol or beer, that's how important it is.
     Mike hilariously describes American teas as "Big, cold and full of diabetes" but since I didn't consume any when I was over there (sticking to Mountain Dew) I can't comment.  I can tell you that at the outset of the Second Unpleasantness the British Government immediately bought up the entire Indian tea harvest for the duration, because if there's no beer you can drink whisky, and if there's no petrol you can use horses, but if there's no tea - !
     I can also tell you I've had about 4 pints of tea today.  Conrad - practicing what he preaches.

I Say I Say What Did I Eat Today?
Quite a bit, actually.  I wondered if my appetite had gone south recently as I've been eating less, meaning that I retain my boyish figure.  Well, my figure.  So I decided to list what I'd had today, and remember the night's not over yet.

1 x Jam doughnut

2 x toasted muffins

2 x packs mini-Jaffas

2 x small packets ready-salted crisps

2 x pickled gherkins

10 x rice crackers

hummus

1 x cornetto

1 x 8" pizza

1 x fistful dark chocolate mint creams

     So you see, barely enough to keep body and soul together.  Now, once I've posted this there are still four tubs of ice-cream going that really need to be used.

One of the four basic food groups, am I right?

I'm Not Entirely Sure About This -
As you should know by now, I no longer bother to mock and humiliate either Facebook or Twitter about their bizarrely inappropriate Suggested Posts - hey, their share value was affected! - so this post isn't a complaint, merely a - a - well, bemused observation, I suppose.  Art?

Yes, quite

     This appears to be promoting an animated Chinese film, from what I can tell.  That's a bit of a guess, as the majority of the text here is Chinese, which I cannot read.  AT ALL.  Thus leading to a sense of wonderment at how, exactly, Facebook decided I liked this.  They did, after all, send Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer and an avowed agnostic at the very least, a Suggested Post about Astrology Tee Shirts.

And on that note I shall bid you farewell!



*  You will be heartily sick of this gloasting by 29th October <the bitter truth courtesy Mister Hand>
**  We will drop the hilarious in-joke of "South Canada" for this one