The Lyons King

I Should Probably Explain
I don't always, and don't get the idea that this is going to happen every time.  You might get intellectually lazy.  Besides that, here's a spaceship drawn by Moebius.  art?

For there are some of you out there who do not reside in the Pond Of Eden, as I do*.   Lyons is a brand of tea, which Art will now prove, if he can put down his plate of coal.

See tea

     They were also responsible for running sex dens of depravity that were known as "tea rooms" - as if that fooled anyone!
     None of this has anything to do with the Euromillions Lottery, which folks at work were discussing yesterday.  Conrad is not familiar with lotteries, although waiting for First Bus to arrive or not is, I believe, a similar process.  Generally I do not gamble, because if I spend money, I want something to show for it.
     The prize total for this (month's?  Week's?  Day's?) lottery is apparently £168 million.  It might be in Euros not pounds sterling but at a total that large it doesn't really matter which it is, and anyway BOOJUM! proudly refuses to use metric measurements if it can possibly use British Imperial ones.  Alex and Nicola had both bought tickets for this event, and Conrad got to wondering what the odds are against winning.

Europe.  Where the history comes from.

     Pretty high! it turns out.  The population of Europe totals some 734 million, and if we calculate only one in every ten plays, that's still 73 million folks competing with you.  We shall ignore the complication of multiple tickets per person.
     Of course Conrad cannot win this lottery, but if I did ...

If I Won The Lottery -
Rather than "If I Ruled The World", because that's a "When" not an "If". 
     I would need a warehouse to hold the book collection that would rapidly be amassed.  This is because I would have a standing order with Naval & Military Press and Waterstones, for any new military history books to be delivered monthly to me.

This would be but the beginning!

     The job would have to go, of course.  Your humble scribe simply cannot comprehend those folks who look forward to retirement with dread, as he could easily fill twenty-five hours of the day with entirely non-work things.
     I would need a chef; can't waste valuable reading time by having to cook.  A housekeeper would also be essential, as cleaning and laundering are tiresome yet essential chores, and she could clean up after chef.  A chauffeur would also be vital; if I have to travel anywhere I want to be able to do the crossword, make notes or read, preferably without killing other road-users.  
     I would also hire a research chemist to come up with a new drug that reduces or eliminates or reduces the need to sleep, as I really object to having to spend a third of the day in bed, sleeping.
     The Comsat Angels would also get an anonymous donation of £1,000,000 because they deserve it.  

Very much so

A good start.

On the other hand, I would hire a team of crack hackers and internet saboteurs to make miserable the lives of <checks list of People I Dislike> - I think I'd start with Russell Brand.       There would also be a house purchased on the South Canadian's Californian coast, where they have summers that are actually summers, rather than ten months of slutch.  This would also allow me to acquire an arsenal of those weapons I have read about exhaustively yet never so much as held.  Lee-Enfield .303, Lewis Gun, C96 Mauser pistol, etcetera, etcetera ...
     Wow, this thought experiment has been fun!

Hello Hello, You Must Be The Coincidence Hyrda
That, or his very close cousin.  I have had trouble sitting down of late, thanks to one of the creatures having it's teeth in my posterior.  On Pub Quiz night - we won twice, thanks for asking - what did Janet ask?  (she's the landlady, not some stranger brought in at random).
     "What is Oolong?"
     O Rly?  A quick check of the blog titles for the past month shows that we've used this very substance as a title = "The Oolongest Day".
     There must be an explanation for all these things happening to me.  Phil?

"It's the aliens, Conrad.  The other aliens."

     Gee, thanks for the reassurance, Phil.  Piker.  I'm glad he got abducted.



*  We feel your pain

To Live And Die In LAtte

I Did Prep Some Of These Earlier
Raw talented inspiration will only get you so far, after all.  I have at least four more before I need to think up some tortured puns for my amusement.  It may amuse you, or not - I really don't care because the important person around here is me*.
     Okay, let us crack on with NON-DESTRUCTIVE STEEL BOLT TESTING!
     Only joking.  Although with Destructive testing, I believe that some bolts are manufactured to be hollow, and filled with a substance that resembles blood - sorry, that ought to be BLOOD! - so that, when they break under stress, you can see where the failure starts and how it progresses.

 - and then there's Extremely Destructive Testing

     Okay, on with LITHIUM BATTER - ah - no, sorry, enthusiasm being trumped by memory.  On with Cryptic Crossword solutions.  "Literally, it has a very large population (11)".
     Conrad's mind naturally ran along lines of populous cities, of which I think the most populous is Mexico City, although this is liable to downward revision in the case of major earthquakes.  This didn't really fit.  Next to last letter - "A", so it might be one of the Ruffian cities that end in "-grad".
     Except, Conrad's mind being as sneaky and deceitful as a barrel full of Borgias, he pondered "Gulliver's Travels". 
     You are probably aware of Ol' Gullies outing in Lilliputia, where he was a giant amongst midgets.  Less well known is his visit to Brobdingnag, where he was a midget amongst giants.  At first he was mistaken for a "splacnuc", which is a species of performing animal.
     "So!" I crowed - and was grateful to get the clue, as the time was approaching midnight and I had a 6 ante meridian start - the answer is BROBDINGNAG."
     And it was.

RUN!  SAVE YOURSELVES!  IT'S CLARISSA THE CANNIBAL COMBAT CHICKEN!

     Here an aside.  GT is actually a work of political satire, with further visits to the land of the Hwynyms, who are a variety of intelligent horse with morals embarrassingly in advance of what I was delighted to term "ambulatory bags of vice" - that is, you humans.   Ol' Gullie also visits the flying city of New York, New York - no, wait a minute, that was "Earthman, Come Home" by sci-fi wizard James Blish, wasn't it?  Laputa!  That's it.  Laputa.  

Laputa.  Or New York.  Take your pick.

Being remembered as a book for children is unwise, as there is some material with a Tut factor present.
     Well!  There you go.  Not a bad Intro for 11 letters.  Let us now praise famous men, and throw the motley out of the window**.

"Nation Shall Speak Peace Unto Nation"
Possibly not in the case of North and South Korea - although the Beeb, whom that quote belongs to, are actually beaming radio broadcasts to the benighted Norks.  Dunno what they consist of, although a cooking programme would probably cause mass rioting from the starving Northern hordes.
     Only slightly tangential, as it involves food, is Neptun Szprot. 
     No!  I said food, not an astronomical research probe sent to the outer limits of the Solar System - and in a faint nibble of the Coincidence Hydra, "Neptune" was an answer at the Pub Quiz last night - so perhaps an effort from our in-house coal-eating sloven is in order.  Art?

It means "Szprot"

Devil in the details

     My point here - and there is one! - is that the spelling and grammar could do with a mild dose of Applied Pedantry, and I am that Pedant.  I intend to write to them and have them correct the language.

Ah Now
I see on Twitter that the documentarian John Carpenter is going on tour in South Canada, and is enquiring if fans are going to come see him.
     Well, John, it's a bit of a commute, so I'm going to wait and see if you venture across the big water to the Allotment of Eden (it being dry today).

John at play
(a lot safer than making his films)

      I did go to see him last year, at the rather spartan Victoria Warehouse, which has the design ethos of a fall-out bunker.  I was canny enough to be near the head of the queue and then waited patiently at the front of the stage, so I got to see and hear everything, unlike the idle pikers who turned up late or who sloped off to the bar, and who filled the pages of the MEN for days afterwards with complaints.
     Tee hee!



*  You better remember that.
**  Don't worry, we're on the ground floor.

The Tea Musketears

Double-Hit This Time
Also, that wretched Coincidence Hydra has it's teeth in my nethers again, for what do I do in creating an hilarious tea-based pun on Dumas' novel, and then what crops up in the General Knowledge MEN crossword?  "One of the Three Musketeers", which turned out to be "Athos".  You remember, Athos, Porthos and Aramis.  They also had a Comedy-Relief servant, who was a glutton, and whose name escapes me.  No!  They only became the Four Musketeers after D'Artagnan, the hot-headed Gason, joined them.

A truly execrable version

     Which has nothing to do with PEDIGREE PIG-BREEDING!
     Which, of course, we're not going into.  Dog Buns, do you really think the blog would descend to something so utterly trivial and banal?
     No, instead we're going to tackle the KERRISON FIRE-CONTROL PREDICTOR!  Much better. 
     The Kerrison was a mechanical analogue computer, one of that peculiar breed of machines that were around before the mighty vacuum valve ushered in electrical computers.  You may recall the Dreyer Table, used by the Royal Navy to work out ballistic plotting for gunnery.  Art?

I predict a riot

     The Kerrison was built onto the Bofors anti-aircraft gun, and was intended to be used versus aircraft flying at high speed and low level, where acquisition had to be swift.  After all, if your oppo is whizzing through the heavens at 300 m.p.h. you're not going to have oodles of time to take aim and shoot.  There is some nonsense on Wiki about it's weakness being the petrol needed to power it, which is drivel; these things were mounted on a gun that was towed by a tractor vehicle, which would carry simply bags of petrol.  And the assertion that using the Kerrison made the Bofors less accurate is drivel, too.   So there.  Conrad has spoken.  The matter is settled.
     Okay, now onward and upward and the raw adrenaline excitement of LITHIUM BATTERY DESIGN!

Lithium battery design is a real thing.  Who knew.  Wowsers.  Sounds spectacularly dull.  Well, let's chuck the motley down the cellar stairs, lock the door and run away cackling.

"Miracle Mile"
Conrad remembers seeing this on video a long time ago, and enjoying it.  After all, everyone likes an apocalyptic end-of-the-world film, don't they*?  It starts off as a romantic comedy of errors and then metamorphoses into the Third Unpleasantness.  What's not to like!
     And along comes the Coincidence Hydra, to fasten it's teeth in my nethers again, because what features in this month's 'Empire'?  Yes, articles not only about "The Thing" but also "Miracle Mile".  Which, let us face it, is  not a well-known film.

     Dog Buns, Universe, use social media if you want to tell me something!

Nation Shall Speak Unto Nation
Whilst Conrad will talk to his work colleagues, some of whom are a bit wary of him.  It's not everyone who likes to converse about the significant advantages of solid fuel over liquid variants in Submarine Launched Ballistic Missiles, after all.  Nor, surprisingly, are folk eager to converse about the poisons of antiquity, nor about Extremely Dangerous Substances.  Who knew!

An extremely dangerous substance!

     Thus we come to colleague Karolina, who is from Lithuania, and whom possesses sufficient natural politeness that she is quite willing to chat with your humble scribe.  Not eager, exactly, but still - quite willing.
     "Do you know of any Lithuanian rock bands you would recommend?" I asked.  Why yes she did, which is how I came to be listening to Hiperbole last night.  I'm going to go out on a limb here and declare that this is the Lithuanian word for 'hyperbole'.
     The track is called "Pamirsk Mane" and I don't know what that means.  I shall Google before asking further, as it might be in frightfully bad taste**.

POSTIES WITH MACHINE GUNS!
For those unfortunate not to live in The Allotment of Eden***, a "postie" is what we call the postman.  Yes, postman, none of that snivelling PC nonsense here. 
     You may recall - in fact you had better recall - that Conrad had an item earlier this year about the United States Postal Inspection Service, who are essentially armed postmen who investigate things like mail fraud.  Seriously, they can arrive on your doorstep carrying an M4 assault rifle.

Who didn't pay the correct postage, then?

      I mention them again because they feature in an Beeb article about a couple who defrauded Amazon of £1.2 millions.  Well, their vampire chickens came home to roost and how - they are looking at fines of £500,000.
     "Yes, but that leaves a substantial profit," I hear you object.  "Crime.  Paying, and all that."
     Hmmm.  They are also liable for 20 years in prison.
     Postal fraudsters - take note.

Finally -
We've not had an appearance from Clara or Tony, two of the animals that constitute part of the BOOJUM! family stable, for simply ages.  I'd just like you to know that Clara the Cannibal Combat Chicken is still very much hale, hearty and horrible, whilst Tony the Ten Ton Terror Toad is dieting.  I've told him he can only stop once he reaches two tons, for obvious alliterative reasons.


Viszontlátásra! (which is "Goodbye" in Hungarian)

"Forget about me" - which is "Pamirsk Mane" in Lithuanian




*  Or is it just me?
**  Which would only increase it's appeal in my evil eyes.
***  Most of the world, in fact.  Ha!