Great Squeaking (Vampire) Bats!

If I Had To Endure The Horror, So Can You
Yes, gentle readers, today it was Your Humble Scribe's appointment at the Health Centre in Royton, for one of those things where elderly overweight diabetics have to attend or risk having their jam ration stopped.  Or something.  Art?

DUCK, PEOPLE, THEY'RE FIRING A LASER!

     Okay, the thing that Conrad liked least of all was the TAKING OF THE BLOOD.  SO MUCH BLOOD!  AT LEAST A PINT!  
     Alright, half a pint.  
     Four ounces?  Alright, alright: two ounces.  Far too much, regardless.  Conrad, being a big fat coward when it comes to being poked with sharp things, spent the session closely regarding the ceiling tiles.
     Forewarned, I had a shower before beginning work in the morning, because one of the ticklish tasks the practice nurse has to undertake is poking your naked feet with a metal probe, just to establish who's the nurse and who's the hapless victim the extent of nerve function.  It does so tickle.  Art?

My scars concealed

     Here is the evidence of my blood-letting, and if you think I'm going to pull off a plaster when it sits on my unshaven hairy - very hairy - arm, then you underestimate how much of a big fat coward I am.

     Allow me to diverge at a tangent here, since I clicked on Spotify's 'Discover New Music' and what do you know, the first song is one about vulcanology - Art!

By that well-known vulcanologist Johnny Cash, apparently

     My morning adventure wasn't quite complete.  I spotted a bus at the bus stop after relieving the Co-Op of some remaindered food products, and clambered aboard after a hasty plod.

     Oooops.

     It was the 408, which goes east to Shaw, not the 409 that goes north to Rochdale, so I had to get off when it turned at the Puckersley Inn.  My step count had been 4,000 when I got on the bus, as I made a point of examining it; by the time I reached The Mansion it had reached 5,500.

      O well.  I have been quoting Nietzsche this week so it can apply to me, too: "That which does not kill us, makes us stronger.*"

Freddy: Man Mounting Monster Moustache

Meanwhile, Back At Boggy Creek -

For Lo! we are about to poke more fun at lazy horror film directors and scriptwriters, who, frankly, need a rocket up the bum about all the cliches they cram into their films.  Then again, if they weren't so lazy and unimaginative the blog would have less material.  Let the scourging satire commence!

<We are in the Deep South, at a roadside convenience store as a sleek black pickup pulls in and a couple of handy-looking guys get out>

CAMO-SUITED GUY:  'The Boggy Crick Local", eh?  You go in and get some snacks and soda.  It's been a long drive.

SUNGLASSES GUY: Sure thing.  <addresses a cluster of local rednecks>  Hi, guys.

CLETUS <spits out a wad of tobacco>: Yankees.

AMBROSE:  Damn Yankees.

MARVIN:  Yeah, damn Yankee Yankees!

CLETUS:  I s'pose you come a-hunting the Boggy Creek Monster?

CAMO-SUITED GUY:  Yup.

AMBROSE: <sneering>:  Hope you made yer will.

MARVIN: Yeah, yer damn Yankee will!

CAMO-SUITED GUY: We're not that worried.

SUNGLASSES GUY <returns laden with cans and packets>: I think we ought to do a final field test, before heading into the swamp.  Like you say, it's been a long trip.

CLETUS: Ain't none of yew monstah-huntahs evah come back from hunting the Boggy Creek Monster.

AMBROSE: <snickering> 'Cept in bits.

MARVIN:  Yeah, in -

CAMO-SUITED GUY <interrupting>: In Yankee bits, right?

<Marvin shuts his mouth and looks sulky>

SUNGLASSES GUY: Guys, you may want to cover your ears.  And your eyes.

CLETUS:  Ha! As if anything you pantywaists HOLY MOTHER OF GOD!

<A Dillon minigun on a pedestal has risen smoothly from the back of the pickup, opening fire on the swamp opposite and laying flat an acre of undergrowth in seconds>

AMBROSE: My ears - 

MARVIN:  What?

SUNGLASSES GUY:  I'm going to test-fire the Barrett.

<putting on ear-protectors, he produces an enormous rifle from the pickup, aims at a tree half a mile away and fire.  The tree explodes>

"Ha!  Take that, tree!"

CLETUS <in a rather wavery tone>: What - where - who -

AMBROSE: What?

MARVIN: My ears -

CAMO-SUITED GUY:  I'm bringing the drone in to check systems.

<a huge unmanned aircraft bristling with bombs and rockets shrieks overhead>

SUNGLASSES GUY:  I think we'll leave the flamethrowers until after we're out of here.  Bit too close to property <looks at the quivering rednecks> and people.

CLETUS: Flamethrowers!

<Ambrose and Marvin are fleeing>

CAMO-SUITED GUY: Be seeing you.

<The pickup drives off.  Cletus, looking shifty, sneaks round the back of the store, uncovers a rubber monster suit from a hidey-hole and chucks it into the store's dumpster>

The terrifying truth

Happy The Bloke With Artichoke

Conrad has been banging on about artichokes for the past few weeks, as it tickles his sense of humour to reference a vegetable replacement for his old pash about the mangosteen.  Besides, there is a reasonable chance of obtaining artichokes in the UK; practically none for the noble mangosteen <weeps silently in bucket of gin>.  Art!

Ripped from their bloody carcasses ...**

     Pricey item, too: £2.60 for a smallish tin, and of the 400 g (sorry for the hideous metric measurement) only 240 g are actually artichoke and the rest brine.

     Now I have to find a recipe that uses the edible thistle.

TANK You

I think you've escaped having a bit of TANK for way too long.  Let us combine TANK with that subculture you never knew existed before BOOJUM! paraded it in front of your eyes: Victorian Brass Faucet Grommets Lego.  Art?

     The builder here claimed that the Sinister tanks on the starboard side of the table here were all prototype or experimental vehicles.

    NO!  WRONG! WRONG I SAY!

     Check out that monstrous assemblage just starboard of bottom centre.  It may strike a chord or two, because we've seen it put forward as a real tank before, when it was never anything more than a Photoshopped chimera.  You won't find it present in any work on TANK in the Sinister Union.  Let's dig up a fake picture of it.  Art!

This was probably what started it

     There's a lot more to the story, which - you'll have to wait for as it's getting on for my bedtime and if anyone needs their beauty sleep, it's Your Humble Scribe.

A Tea For Me
Kind of almost.  If you know anything about Conrad by now WHICH IS THE ONLY THING THAT WILL SAVE YOU WHEN MY STARSHIP INVASION FLEET GETS HERE then you should be aware he is a tea-belly of the first water, as well as a tea-snob who looks down upon the hoi polloi whom make their tea with <shudders> tea bags.
     Thus it was with some interest that I beheld an advert on Facebook.  Art?

     You can imagine the marketing chaps sitting and brainstorming about this one, can't you?
     "How can we make it unarguably British?"
     My response would have been A Bicycling Bowler-hatted Badger Biting A Brown Barm Bacon Butty, but perhaps that's just me.  The response "Spitfires!" is not really one you'd expect from a company promoting tea, though the elliptically-winged beauty is without doubt very, very British, and such a good design that it looks speedy whilst sitting still on the tarmac.  
     So, one supposes that they have got an image that projects This Sceptred Isle in no uncertain manner.  Mind you, they've probably lost the Teuton market ...***

O Noes!  Badger bicycle thief!

Finally -
O I am so happy happy happy!
     You are right to be alarmed, as Conrad clapping his hands with glee generally means some hapless individual has fallen into the sausage mincer, or down a manhole, or has provided dinner for a cruising Carcharias  Carcharodon. 
     Today's schadenfreudfest is down to the ballfoot game recommencing across This Sceptred Isle.  Not that Your Humble Scribe is interested in the game itself, which he regards the watching of as something akin to Cruel And Unusual Punishment.  No - Conrad is rubbing his hands at the BBC's sports website opening up the Comments pages and allowing thousands of bumbletucks with months of pent-up rage and venom to hold forth.
     Why look at this - an article on The City Of Manchester versus the Kidneypool Liverlake Liverpool - got it right in the end! - with over 1,200 comments.  

Conrad is HAPPY!

*  There are a lot of holes in an aphorism like this, although in the interests of good taste I will avoid going into my Amputation Surgery Analogy
**  This is SFW, thanks, as it refers to gallons of gore and is not a swear
***  Though they probably drink coffee anyway.  Continentals.

A Time Versus Ideas Problem

It's A Nice Problem To Have, Mind You
What I mean is that there's only so much time I can dedicate to hammering away on the keyboard, creating words of wit, wisdom and wonder <delete two of your choice where applicable*> that we - hang on, is that traitor Mister Hand and it again? 

<hideous crunching, hammering noise reminiscent of a cabbage being murdered>

     There, tht'll fix him for a whle even if it means typingg left handed only for a while.
     Ah, Motley%  come overr here and type for m

Mister Hand, the Treacherous Appendage

     As I was saying: when time is limited the ideas seem to positively crowd in from all sides, jockeying for attention.  They are in competition with the crosswords and codewords I have to do - really, there's no choice - to keep my wits sharp, and the Book Mountain, which shows no sign of ever decreasing, and my annotation work, and the weekly shop, and organising and playing a wargame, and watching "Wynona Earp".     
     Not only that, Wonder Wifey has recommended a television series called "The Luminaries", which would occupy even more time.  Art?
                                     

     I see "The Sun" has a tagline about "Viewers rage about the plot", which probably means their Entertainment correspondent didn't understand the long words.
     There are those out there, of course, who lack any creative spark at all, and whom relentlessly and ruthlessly plagiarise others in order to turn a fast spondulick.  I refer, of course, to those Mimic Mill "authors" Sutherland and Canwell, whom we mentioned last night.
     It appears their business model, which is approved implicitly by the publishers who commission work from them, Pen & Sword, is to crank out a new 'work' every 3 weeks, by copying wholesale from other authors.  To the extent that 75 - 80% of each book is content merely copied over from several other authors.  Art?

Note the hilariously ironic random advert that came up

      I don't know if you can read the text there or not.  It's from Mr. J. Foyne, who details his legal action against the S & C Axis of Awful, who promptly settled out of court to avoid establishing a legal precedent.  Again, their business model seems to be that they are willing and able to risk legal actions, since they are not frequent, and if sued they will immediately settle out of court; if they actually went to trial and lost, then they would be ruined, as all the other plagiarised authors would have gotten to hear about it and come for their pound of flesh.

 

     The blurb above is taken from S & C's 'work' about the Teuton battleship the "Tirpitz".  Here they simply make things up.  According to them their book features photographs from an unpublished photo album which belonged to a member of the Tirpitz' crew, showing the crew - not on the "Tirpitz".  On a sailing ship in the Caribbean, of all things, where the battleship went on a shake-down cruise before the Second Unpleasantness began.
     Trouble is, the "Tirpitz" never went near the Caribbean.  It stuck to the North Sea, the Norwegian coastline and the North Cape, and it didn't put to sea until 1941, long after hostilities had commenced.
     This drivel is still up on the Pen & Sword website, which I will have to take other's words for, as I'm i) not going there and ii) not buying books from them again.  Art!

A proper book by a proper author

Conrad's Football Team Model
I have proposed this before, so you may be familiar with it.  However, it is so strongly reminiscent of S & C's approach to writing books that I am inspired to bring it out again.
     Firstly, and most importantly, Conrad proudly maintains an ignorance of the ballfoot game that takes genuine perseverance to keep unsullied.

A football. 
(Apologies for getting technical)

     Shelli, talking about Pooliver (sp?) on Facebook, admitted she knew nothing about the ballfoot game.  Well, I know even less**.
     Okay!  So, in Conrad's team of Pocklington Sodbury, the goalkeeper will be a 55-stone mountain of blubber who takes up almost the whole of the goal.  In order to cover the bits he doesn't already cover, so to speak, he will also have hands like shovels.
     Of the other 10 men, five will be raving homicidal maniacs recruited from <thinks> those expelled from the Pocklington Sodbury fan club for being too extreme, for abusing illegal drugs, and for resorting to violence as a very first resort.  They will be trained to the peak of physical fitness, and when the match begins their sole aim and intent will be to cripple as many of the opposition as rapidly as possible, before they get sent off.
     The remaining opposition players won't know that Pocklington's last five aren't psychopathic kicking-biting-punching machines, and will consequently cower behind the referee, thus losing the match.

Conrad, ballfoot manager extraordinaire

     What do you think?

     I knew it!  Mere minutes to go until nose-grindstone-interfacing, and there's a scad of readable articles on the BBC's website - Fate conspires again!
     Bah!
     Okay, from the bizarre world of ballfoot, to that of -

Judge Dredd
Anyone who reads BOOJUM! on a more than occasional basis knows that Your Modest Artisan is a big fan of Old Stoney Face (as Dredd is never called to his face), and the gleeful nihilism that animated every frame of the strip back in the old days.  Art?

The icon himself

     The thing is - the Judges of Mega-City One are identified by that whacking great shield effort they wear on their chest - not going there in the case of female judges - with their name proudly embossed upon it.
     What about Judge Smith?
     Or Judge <thinks> Gomez?
     In fact, with a judge force of 65,000 (I believe that's the correct total) how many duplicate surnames are there going to be?  Hundreds!  Do we ever see a badge with "Judge Jones #37" on it?  No we do not!
     This is a gaping plot hole and I want to know how the writers are going to resolve it!
     Of course, I may be overthinking this ...

"Criminal charge Code #584, Conrad: excessive cerebral activity.  YOU'RE UNDER ARREST, CREEP!"

     Just to let you know, I'm letting that porridge settle before starting on my pot of tea.  Porridge is damn filling stuff.

Thank You, Brain
Whilst I was thinking up my hilarious slander of Rupert the Bear on Facebook last night, I also needed to balance it with something else, and the name "Bogdan Khmelnitsky" popped into my brain, as things are wont to do.
     Well well, Margaret Atwell.  It turned out that Ol' Boggy really existed.  Art?

Bogdan and his - er - "hat"

     In fact, whilst the English Civil Unpleasantness was a-raging in This Sceptred Isle, there was a horribly complicated five-way conflict going on in Eastern Europe between the Cossacks (essentially today's Ukraine), the Crimean Tatars, the mostly Polish Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Russia and Sweden, and old Boggy was was right in the middle of this, stirring it up with a stick.  He was the Cossack 'Hetman' or Big Chief Head Guy, which possibly explains the hat.
     His whole life is far too complicated to go into in a few lines, or even a few paragraphs, so we may come back to this.  Unless brain throws up another random historical figure.

Finally -
I shall be off to the Health Centre in the evil metropolis of Royton later on, which means I may be able to venture into the Co-Op and get an MEN with cryptic crossword and codeword!  For only the third time since mid-March.  How they must have missed me.

The Gates Of Paradise
(Open 7 days, no dogs allowed)

*  Anarchic commentary courtesy Mister Hand!
**  Looks smug