Wow!

I Know What You're Thinking

"There'll be a clickbait picture and a stupid comment along the lines of "Photo Five Will Shock You!!!" " and yes, they do use triple exclamation marks.  

     Not so here.  You know you can trust BOOJUM! at least in daylight.  What I refer to is the total of visits yesteryon, a single-post Saturday when Your Humble Scribe was working all day long, or at least as long as management eyes were upon us.  Art!

     96 visitors?  What could have caused this?  The Intro was a long and involved story about students and revenge in South Canada, with a lead picture of hallway lockers, hardly the stuff of legends.  Art!

<Yawns hugely>

     Conrad would have to think hard to come up with a less appealing game than one about racing cars.  "But the lead character is female!" makes no difference either.  "But she's from Middlesborough!" fails to entice either.  "And she's a millionaire Tory owning a pack of slaves?" not working pal.  "And a zombie to boot?"  AH! now you're talking!  If you can add a few atom bombs and a tank or two then we're in business.  Conrad: easily pleased.

Hmmmm.  A thing, apparently.  No idea about gender or -isms

     Where were we?

     O yes, "Stranger Things".  Conrad is currently watching the first series again, all the way back from 2016.  It seems peculiar to see our contemporary heroes and heroines looking ever so young as they were back then, time and tide not waiting for anyone I suppose.  Art!

     The Duffer Brothers do a mean soundtrack, too - all British post-punk classics from what I remember.  If only they had included a track from The Comsat Angels I could die happy.  Still, there is Season Five to come.  I hope they kill off Robin quick smart, she's definitely excess baggage.  Yeah, yeah, they could vapourise her at the end of S5E1, and then play "Eye Of The Lens" by the Comsats.  Soz, Robyn, it was a noble sacrifice.

The Haul

Don't mock this old dinosaur, only yesteryon did I discover that you can select a whole line of text by clicking on it three times.

     This has nothing to do with anything else, I just like to keep you informed.  Art!

     The latest batch from N & M Press, at a quarter what they should have cost.  At upper port you have "German Strategy In The Great War" which instantly dates it to post-First Unpleasantness and pre-Second Unpleasantness, because only then was the First Unpleasantness known as the "Great War".  Next to it is "The St. Mihiel Offensive" which only South Canadian anoraks would recognise, as it was one of their first major solo offensives on the Western Front.  Pretty successful, too, but of course the French and British had done all the heavy lifting in th

     "Harrogate Terriers" is nothing to do with dogs, rather a Territorial battalion of the West Yorkshire regiment.  Territorial = Terrier.  Obvs.  And "21 Days In Normandy" concerns the 4th Canadian Armoured* Division.  Yes, Vulnavia, there were British Americans fighting in Normandy!  Nobody gives them much recognition, not even native Canuckistanians, because they're too polite to be boastful (British Imperial genes doncha know).  Art!

Prepping a hot hello for the Teutons

Another Leading Question

I had to dig a bit to get this webpage up, so you are most definitely going to experience the benefits of Conrad's labour, like it or not.  Art!

     Not if Quora is any metric, matey.  There are some staggeringly daft questions being asked on there, and yes, it has taken over from Youtube as Conrad's Guilty Pleasure.  "Does the British army have a destroyer"? asked in all seriousness.  No.  No they do not.  The ROYAL NAVY has several, though.  "How do you not get shot by British police at a traffic stop"?  That's easy, British police are not armed, you are not going to get shot by them at a traffic stop, although they may deploy killer levels of sarcasm or even irony, which latter South Canadians may struggle with.  "Does the British army have helicopters?" to which some wag replied "No, instead we have one man in each platoon trained to go 'dugga-dugga-dugga' so the enemy look to the skies expecting helicopters, and then we surprise them at ground level."

Bring On The Dancing Hearses

What?  We've run out?  Okay we'll have to make do with "The Sea Of Sand".  Bring on the fan-fiction!

For a moment the only sound was that of the storm outside as the officer sipped on a glass of green liqueur.

‘Not for long.  Every so often one of the labourers would vanish.  We finally ended up with only the overseer.  Never a trace of the missing men, no food gone, no water, no artefacts.  Nothing.’

Llewellyn’s face twisted in a rictus when he pronounced the word “artefacts”, a connection not lost on the Doctor.

‘Surely you must have found something?’ he prompted, reading between the lines.

‘No, we never did.  No artefacts at all.  The Professor was convinced our missing labourers went absent with hidden finds, stolen so they could sell them.’

‘But you didn’t?’ asked Sarah, feeling bold in putting the question.

‘I didn’t,’ agreed Roger, slowly.  ‘Because we simply didn’t find any artefacts anywhere on the whole dig.  Barring the buildings, there wasn’t any trace of human presence anywhere.’  He fixed Sarah with a look that dared her to object.  ‘D’you know how impossible that is?’

‘Yes,’ replied the Doctor, now feeling more convinced than ever that he’d come across the reason they had been switched here, intead of being allowed to get to Mars in the early twenty-third century.  ‘The storm is passing,’ he added.

The officer stopped to listen, cocking his head to one side.  His expression brightened.

‘I think you’re right, old chap.  That’s better.  Now, did Corporal Mickleborough say you’d been to see Captain Dobie already?’

‘Oh yes, we’ve already seen the Captain.  He wasn’t exactly happy to see us,’ said Sarah.

     And so are we.  Passing, that is.

O I Say

Egad it's hot!  I know, I know, there's no satisfying Conrad.  It's either too cold or too hot or too dry or too wet or all four at once (what a day that was!).    Art!

Edna on bedna

     She doesn't often jump up to sit on my Sektir Layr's bed because it stands at the limit of how high she can jump.  Fortunately for both of us the jigsaw had been moved out of the way.  How did I get her attention?  A simple hiss, which is obviously Dog for "Treats!"

Finally -

We only need a short item here to hit the Adjusted Compositional Ton.  What to yark about?  Welllllll we have a new dishwasher after the old one died last week, after eight years loyal service.  The new one, rather creepily, opens up when the wash cycle has run, so all the hot steamy moist air escapes and things can dry better without extra heat being needed.  I don't have a photo for you yet, maybe later if I can be bothered or motivated.  Reminds me of my recliner chair; five minutes after one leaves it, the leather begins to settle, making a sound exactly like someone (or something) sitting down on it.  Rather un-nerving.

     And I shall leave you on that cheerful note.

*  Note how we spell it correctly, South Canadians

Revenge: A Dish Best Served With A Side Of Gloating

Conrad Recently Came Across An Epic Reddit Revenge Story On Youtube

Typically, I quit out of it before realising I should have bookmarked it, and could I find it afterwards?  No I could not.  However, we shall poke around with a stick in the recesses of my mind and see what comes to light.  The stick has a cross-guard, nothing can slither up it in case you were worried.

     To set the scene: this story takes place in a South Canadian high school in 2004, where the students all had personal lockers with unique combinations.  Art!

     For months student's lockers had been robbed, with the school principal refusing to take any action, claiming it was the students fault because they were sharing their locker combinations with friends.  Enter Original Poster, who definitely didn't share his locker combination, because his friends were untrustworthy jackasses who would have pranked him endlessly.   Then his high-end calculator ends up being stolen, and he (like all the other students) had to pay £100 to get a locksmith out to change the lock.  Art!

    Whilst at home, he happens to complain about the injustice of all this in front of his dad and uncle Buddy.  UB just so happens to be a police detective, and his police antennae start to perk up.  He comes back a couple of days later with a £650 laptop, hands it to OP and tells him to incautiously brag about it in school.  OP, a bit mystified, does so and by lunchtime his laptop has been stolen.

     Later that afternoon who turns up at school but UB, who promptly hauls a lad called Dave out of his class, as well as Dave's mum who works for the school admin.  The police ask for corridor surveillance tapes for the time the laptop was stolen, to which the principal says "No".

Yeah, it was definitely this principal

     Hey what say what?  In fact the principal fights this in court, and loses.  The tapes are rendered up and reveal Dave stealing the laptop.  When his mum's house is searched, they find 44 items stolen from lockers, including 9 valued at over £650, which is significant. Why so?  Because if the theft is of an article worth over £650 it becomes a felony, a far, far more serious offence than a misdemeanour.  The mum, it seems, dealt with locker security admin and allowed Dave to look up locker combinations, so he could rifle lockers at random and steal shizzle.  Including a £650 laptop with a tracking unit built into it.  Art!

     They both refused to accept a plea deal and the case went in front of a judge, who was extraordinarily angry about the abuse of trust as much as the theft.  Dave got 6 years in juvenile prison, and his mum got 18!

     It doesn't end there, because the school was sued in a class-action lawsuit by the parents of all the students who'd forked out £100 to get locks changed.  The school had to pay them almost £10,000 and then fired the principal, who was either in on the thefts or getting kickbacks from the locksmith.  One supposes he'll never work in education again.

     A very satisfying tale!

RIP James Caan

A lot has been mentioned about Jim's career in films, with nods to films like "Rollerball" and "The Godfather" but what stuck in Conrad's mind is a film I've not seen for forty years, "Thief".  In it Jim played a professional diamond thief, who is looking to make one final big score and end his illegal life.  Art!

     He gives the convincing impression that he knows how to use a gun, that he does not tolerate fools, and is quite willing to kill to get out of trouble IF HE HAS TO, because he avoids trouble if he can.  It was Michael Mann's directorial debut and is well worth a watch.

Today I Was Carousing

We officially finished work at 12:30 for lunch, as the phone lines were turned off - probably much to store's ire - and had a presentation about the history of our colleagues who are being made redundant as of next week.  With prosecco.

     Then at 15:00 we high-tailed it to the Cosy Club, a watering hole I'd never been to before, in the Corn Exchange and right next to Banyan, our venue of last month.  Art!

I sat here

     More prosecco!  And beer!  And a bar tab which went within minutes.  Also plates of nibbles appeared later on.  Let me show you how much people were enjoying themselves.  Art!

     The Asian lady there is the very sweet AK, here from India six months ago, who is enjoying her time in Manchester.  She told tales of her homeland (south India) where the daytime temperature can reach 45º and it is actively dangerous to venture out between 14:00 and 18:00.  People have died doing so.  Blimey.  British weather might be disgustrous but at least it won't kill you.

Talking Of Dangerously Hot -

Let's trot out more of "The Sea Of Sand" because it's my blog and I feel like it.  Your input is entirely irrelevant.

Sarah silently gave up on trying to keep track of this war.  All she knew of the campaign in North Africa was what her uncles had told her – El Alamein, Rommel and General Bernard Law Montgomery.  For a second her eye caught the Doctor’s, expressive of intense interest, and she became aware that he didn’t feel remotely dismissive of Lieutenant Llewellyn’s story.

‘Oh, I say, I am sorry,’ apologised the young officer.  ‘Tempers get a bit stretched in the khamseen, you know.  Plus we’re short-handed.  Very short-handed, if the truth be told.’  He poked around in the fusty gloom underneath his camp bed, appearing with a bottle of whisky, which he discarded.

‘Not suitable for ladies,’ he muttered.  ‘Where’s it gone?  Damn it, I did have a bottle of crème de menthe somewhere. Gone the way of the labourers, I dare say – aha!’ and he brandished a bottle of green liquid aloft with an air of triumph.

Given his delight at finding the bottle, Sarah suffered herself to be poured a glass of the cloying mint liqueur.  Personally she detested the stuff, fit only for maiden aunts and hoi-polloi dinner parties, but if it kept their contemporary chrono-contact sweet  …

‘What was that about the labourers?’ asked the Doctor, looking at the cover of another magazine intently.  

‘Eh?  Oh, sorry, would you like a glass?  No?  The labourers.  What was I saying – oh, yes.  It’s just that we couldn’t hire any locals for work at the dig back in 1940.  The Bedu and Tuareg wouldn’t go near the site, claimed it was haunted or cursed or both.  We did get a couple of workers from Benghazi, a right couple of neer-do-wells, doubtless in trouble with the Italian administration.  The University of Ravenna chaps were delighted that the Professor and I brought along half a dozen sturdy Egyptian fellows and their overseer.’

     Edna has just been barking in her sleep, so loudly she woke herself up.

Finally -

My mid-afternoon snacking has worn off and now I need a bellyful of comestibles, and there's stuff in the fridge that deffo needs using up, given sell-by-dates and impending mouldiness, not to mention rottenness.  Conrad finds it best to eat sliced ham before it goes all slimy and you have to wash each slice.  Sorry for creating an image you can never un-see.

Not Sure Where This Will End Up

It Goes Back To Yesterday's Title

"Cheeky Cheaty Conrad's Sneaky" which, once I had typed it out, immediately reminded me of that phrase "Softly, softly catchee monkey".  Why you would need to resort to cod-Chinese in order to apprehend a simian is quite beyond me, unless they did it for the rhyme, in which case force majeure and all bets are off.  Art!

Unprepossessing lot, aren't they?

     These, ladies, gentlemen and all unsure, are the "Softly, Softly" bunch of police.  Their title comes from the training school for police in Lancashire, whose motto is "Softly, softly, catchee monkey" - all completely fictional, of course.  The phrase itself means to take things slowly and cautiously, rather than indulging in car chases and shoot-outs a la South Canadian television shows about police.  

     At the front is Detective Chief Inspector Barlow (whose nickname was "Bully Barlow") and to his port, Detective Inspector Watt, who led a team of police in the supposedly-Bristolian county of "Wyvern".  Directly behind Barlow's hat is DCI Gwyn Lewis, played by Garfield Morgan.  No, he didn't suffer endless cruel taunts about his name being that of a cat, this is the Sixties we're talking about here.  Do keep up.  He did later play another senior police officer - Art?

     - in "The Sweeney", where he had the unenviable middle-management job of buffering the likes of Regan and Carter from his seniors, who dealt more with budgets, politicians and public image.

     ANYWAY "Softly Softly" (I tried using the abbreviation 'SS' which didn't look great) itself is a spin-off from another police series set in Lancashire, and you may not believe me given the international situation after the Tiny Toxic Terror Toad kicked things off, but hear me out.  Art!

    The fictional police of Newtown use alphabetical call-signs, and since Ulverton up in the north of Lancashire has the call sign prefix "A", by the time we get to Newtown waaaaay down in the south they're onto "Z".  Which, by wild coincidence, also happened to be the first letter of their vehicles - the Zodiac and Zephyr.

     LET ME BE CLEAR.  IT IS PRONOUNCED "ZED"

     "Z Cars" was quite different from previous television shows in that it took place in the unfashionable North-West, rather than London.  It was also quite 'gritty' as we would say nowadays, because good did not always triumph, and justice might be delivered with palsied narcolepsy.  Yes, Vulnavia, within strangling distance of reality.

The last episode

     "Z Cars" had the advantage of a phenomenally recognisable theme tune, which, if we can - 

Tv Theme Z Cars (Full Version) - YouTube

     There you go.  An amazing guest actress on display.  And no horrid contemporary images of Ruffian Z cars on fire or burned out.

ART!

Let Us Remove To A Higher Plane

NO!  Nothing about helicopters or wood-carving.  I refer, of course - obviously! - to the higher plane of human existence, waaaaaay beyond these mortal things, and to the literary heritage of the Commonwealth.

     I should point out that this is the BRITISH Commonwealth, because a certain Bloaty Gas Tout has been putting it about that his ex-satrapies really, really want to return to his clutch.  Ummmmm no.  

     These are important literary works created in the Commonwealth in the years below.

1982-1991

 

Schindler’s Ark - Thomas Keneally (1982, Australia)

Beka Lamb - Zee Edgell (1982, Belize)

The Bone People - Keri Hulme (1984, New Zealand)

The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood (1985, Canada)

Summer Lightning - Olive Senior (1986, Jamaica)

The Whale Rider - Witi Ihimaera (1987, New Zealand)

The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro (1989, England)

Omeros - Derek Walcott (1990, Saint Lucia)

The Adoption Papers - Jackie Kay (1991, Scotland)

Cloudstreet - Tim Winton (1991, Australia)

     Your Humble Scribe has seen the film of 'Schindler's Ark' not the novel, which, given that it was a gigantic buzz-kill, is not an experience to repeat.    I have heard of "The Bone People" yet know nothing of it.  "The Handmaid's Tale" seems to have been made into a television series of stunning dullness and boredom, where nothing happens and it happens verrrrrry slowly.  And isn't "The Remains Of The Day" a film as well?  One of those very very British films where nothing happens, and it happens excruciatingly slowly, and then everyone dies, the end.  Art!

Emma Thompson cradling her pocket nuclear weapon

"To Love And Be Wise" By Josephine Tey

Your Humble Scribe has now started on this murder-mystery (except is it?) from the stylish and creative lady who knocked Agatha into a cocked hat.  Since this one was published in 1950 Conrad anticipates less impenetrable slang than in previous summaries.  We shall see.  There's already been 'Pied-a-tierre"

     Yeah yeah yeah, what do you know, matey?

Moving Swiftly Onwards -

Let us now attach another segment of "The Sea Of Sand", because I want to get this over and done with so I can go back to watch Season One of "Uncle Brian's Victorian Brass Faucet Collection" which you might know better as TSOS.

‘How can you be here, now,  then!’ blurted Sarah

‘Likewise Professor Templeman,’ added the Doctor.

Roger gave a peculiar half-smile.

‘Remember those Italians in Egypt?  Well, they got arrested too. After a few months we got exchanged for them in Geneva under the care of the Red Cross, which didn’t go down well with a few of them.’

Predictably, Sarah rose to the conversational bait.

‘Why not!  Don’t say they didn’t want to go home!’

Roger looked at her coolly.

‘Miss Smith, I happen to have known Grigorio Baltasar for many years.  He lived in Cairo.  He stayed there because he hated Mussolini.  He spoke better English than most of my soldiers.  He wore a Military Medal given to him by General Plumer for his conduct in fighting the Germans in the Great War.  He, for one, did not want to go back to Italy!’

This is historically correct.  When the Allies were ashore in Italy, they eventually had 200,000 Italian volunteers all willing to fight against Ill Duck*, known as the 'Co-Belligerent Forces' and they over-turned the 'Italian rifle for sale never fired dropped once' drivel that annoys Conrad so.  If you motivated an Italian conscript he became dangerous.

Finally -

Just a word or two of warning.  Your Humble Scribe is due to pound a keyboard in the Dark Tower tomorrow, rather than at home, since we are going to be involved in a farewell ceremony for our colleagues in Ask HR.  These are the people who deal with issues of policy and process and procedure, instead of the far more restricted A-B-C Into The Database of Conrad's team.  They are also the folks who deal with technical issues as a first step, before said issue gets elevated to their Systems team, who can further escalate to the Systems Systems team, whom can escalate to the 'Off-shore' technical team, who can then petition Isaac Asimov in Heaven to resolve issues - I might be a bit hazy on that last.

     So, you may get a post tomorrow, or you may not.  Art!

We're on the floor below the lights under "ARNDALE CENTRE"

*  I know, I know, that's not how his appellation was spelled.  Sue me.

Cheeky Cheaty Conrad's Sneaky

You Can't Complain Too Much

And if you dare, there's always the Remote Nuclear Detonator.  Yes, I thought that would make you pause and take stock.

     Okay, out of the goodness of my fusion-powered pumping unit, I have decided to give you a second post today, except I'm not willing to spend ninety minutes on it and then have to start tomorrow's BOOJUM! immediately after.  So, you can say hello to a load of links.  First of all we need an artwork that will pull in the credulous.  Art!

     This one seems pretty cheeky - that's the Houses Of Parliament in the background, where This Sceptred Isle's MP's have the choice of seven bars that serve gin as cheap as beer and beer as cheap as water

      ANYWAY the UK is not known for it's resident population of gorillas.  Even if we had a population of same, the gorilla, for all it's size and strength, is a big fat softy.  Remember that small child who fell into a gorilla enclosure at the zoo, and lay stunned with broken limbs until rescued?  What did resident Alpha Gorilla do?  Why, come over and stand guard over the child.  Someone is taking either an artistic licence or the 

     <'Scuse me, gotta go take the kasha off the boil, back in a minim>

2021

BOOJUM!: With Deadly Intnt (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2020

BOOJUM!: Mister Chamberlain, You Are A Bottom (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2019

BOOJUM!: Mister Chamberlain, You Are A Bottom (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2018

BOOJUM!: Hey - Crime Really Does Pay! (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2017

BOOJUM!: Arc, Arc, The Frogs Do Bark (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2016

BOOJUM!: My Country, 'Tis Of Tea (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2015

BOOJUM!: Oh What Gaiety - Here's Some Velleity (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2014

BOOJUM!: Welcome - To A Subculture You Never Knew Of (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2013

BOOJUM!: O Sunny Day! (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

When An Absence Is Bad

You Know The Sort Of Thing

You trot to the fridge, anticipating that steak and ale pie that you bought remaindered a fortnight ago - and it's gone!  Somebody with ridiculously strict food hygiene standards has chucked it in the bin.  Bottom!  So you console yourself with a roll made from ham that was out of sell-by-date last week, or maybe the week before.  Hey if it's not mouldy or rotten it's edible*!

     Or, another instance that has occurred to Your Humble Scribe on the bus into work - you simply cannot get that last Cryptic Crossword clue.  Once in the office you can cheat and Google for it; on the bus you're stuck and you dare not Google via mobile because people will see and know what you're doing.

     Annnnnnd another absence.  "Stranger Things".  Art!

     No fear of spoilers - yet.  It's an epic scene to end Series Four with, nicht wahr?  Very brooding and forbidding.  Series Five isn't going to begin with fluffy bunnies and rainbows, you betcha.  Whenever it arrives (absence again, you see).  Conrad may have to go back and watch Series One again, because clearly the Duffer Brothers sat down and said to themselves "How can we make a series custom-tailored for Conrad?"  Art!

     The disgusting plant blight that seems to be spreading from the Upside-Down's intrusion into our world is also worrying - will it stop spreading?  Possibly not whilst Captain Scab remains unaccounted for.  Art!

Ol' Scabby

     I am impressed with the improvement over Series Three.  Conrad was never that convinced about the whole Giant Secret Underground Soviet Base - we'll come back to that.  Art!

     To port of the Spitfire.  Yes, a piece is missing.  No, I can't find it anywhere.  It might well be on the carpet, since Conrad's huge and clumsy feet did manage to overturn the box of pieces twice.  However, the missing piece is a dun-colour that would blend in perfectly with the dun-coloured carpet in my Sekrit Layr.  O well.  You can bet it will turn up the day after I return the jigsaw to a charity shop.

     Here's another absence.  Art!

     Yes, it's that Spanish Civil Unpleasantness zombie picture.  You may not be able to quite make out the text to port; the gist is that it's not available until 11/07/22, just when I was settling down with a can of Old Speckled Hen.  Bottom!

     Now let me introduce Konstantin and his wife Natasha.  Art!

     They look stereotypically Ruffian - Konstantin is a great big hirsute brute, while Natasha is a perky blonde - and they do indeed hail from that region, but Konstantin has been making vlog entries on Youtube about life Inside Russia since the You-Know-What began, in a very thoughtful manner.  He's very obviously no fan of the regime, yet has enough wit and awareness never to be overtly critical, so he's still vlogging and at liberty.  This clip is from he and Nat's visit to a couple of malls in Rostov-on-Don, one a blue-collar variety, the other high end.  Predictably nearly all the Western shops were closed, no surprise there.  The Russian-owned shops were all well-stocked, but everything was a lot more expensive and there were hardly any customers.  Perhaps 20% of what there used to be, he mused.  Art!

Konstantin at Kinema

     He and Nat were the only people in the cinema, a place that used to be packed.  He ended on a very down note, poor bloke, which caused an outpouring of supportive Comments.

     Conrad's not going to draw any conclusions for you.  Instead I am going to visit the fridge to ensure that remaindered pie and the cod steaks are still present and correct.  And the remaindered Brie.  Plus the remaindered quiche.  And the breaded turkey escalopes.  Which will make me absent fr

Asking A Leading Question

     <excuse me, just listening to a corking track from The Music called "Into The Night" thank you Shazam!>

     

     Possibly.

     So what?  Can we change it?  Nope.  And if we did, and suddenly became aware of reality, would it look like this?

     Conrad quite happy to stay dreaming, ta very much.  I may listen to the item later on.  A snifter or ten of gin will help me cope with the hallucination of life quite handily, thanks very much.

Bring On "The War Illustrated"

Let's see what to bring up.  Only a single photograph as practiced recently.  Art!

     As other smarter people have put forth, the Mozzie was possibly the first multi-role combat aircraft, being used as a fighter, night-fighter, bomber, photo-reconnaissance, mail-carrier (to the Sinisters), anti-shipping and pathfinder.  It's not apparent from the photo above, but it was mostly constructed from birch wood in laminate form, which made it very light yet very robust.  There's a photo somewhere of one coming into land with only one wing, and another flew home with a Dutch chimney lodged in the fuselage.  Lightweight with two whacking great engines hanging off it meant it could move like stink, too.

I Shan't Desert You

Ho Ho, hilarious pun time.  Yes, here's the next instalment of "The Sea Of Sand".

A hard glitter steeled the Doctor’s stare.  Unless his intuition and Arabic were wrong, he might have very well discovered why they’d been diverted here in those last three words.

‘We’re not going anywhere, Lieutenant.  And I would like to hear your story.’

‘Go on then,’ said Roger, a little amused and impressed that anyone wanted to hear about his archaeological adventures.  He sat on his camp bed and produced a crumpled packet of cigarettes from a shirt pocket, lighting up.

The story, as he had told them, was complicated.  Archaeologists from the University of Ravenna had wanted access to the Valley of the Kings in Egypt.  Since the Fascist Italian withdrawal from the League of Nations, not to mention involvement in the Spanish Civil War, Britain had not seen fit to allow any Italian presence on Egyptian soil.  Dead end.  Until an aerial photograph taken by Count Emiliano Ricardo of a site in the borderlands of the Saharan sand sea came to Professor Templeman’s attention.  The photograph merely showed two small black structures protruding above the desert sands.

Inspired by this, the Professor had contacted the University of Lyons and Ravenna, then pestered the British government, and the Egyptian government and Department of Antiquities.  His incessant nagging got a result: the British government would allow the Egyptian government to allow Italian archaeologists onto it’s territory, to study in the Nile valley.  In return the British and French would be allowed to send reciprocal teams to sites in Italian-occupied Libya.  The majority of the British and French expedition members went to Leptis Magna; under the aegis of Professor Templeman, a smaller contingent went to the mysterious site at Makan Al-Jinni.  Things proceeded slowly, with a lack of hired labour and mysterious disappearances.  Then, out of nowhere, the war in Europe suddenly intruded when Italy declared war on France and Great Britain.  Roger and the Professor were arrested and imprisoned.

Well, they obviously got away from durance vile, didn't they?  Find out more either tonight or even tomorrow.  We'll see.

Finally -

Can't hang around pontificating all day.  There's laundry to do, and I need to make a stew, and take books into Royton, too.  Plus madam needs her walkies, don't you doggie-doo?

     And with that we are done!

*  As we have always maintained at BOOJUM! sell-by-date is a challenge, not a warning

Oh You've Gotta Be ****** Kidding...

 Score Fifty Brownie Points If You Recognise That Quote

It's from "The Thing", John Carpenter's acclaimed classic, and occurs when the copy of Norris is being toasted by McReady with his trusty flamethrower.  The Norris-thing's 'head' detaches wilfully from the body, then lassooes itself across the floor with a yard-long tongue.  Then it sprouts legs and eyestalks and begins to scuttle off like an hideous cross between a spider and a crab.  Art!

     I don't care about being spoilery because you should have seen this film ten times over already.

     What does an incredulous Palmer say when he witnesses the scene above?  Why, none other than "Oh you've got to be ******* kidding!"

     Conrad felt the same way only a few minutes ago, perusing a feed on Quora, which has become my Social Media Of Guilty Pleasure.  I've closed the feed and cannot find the original question, but allow me to elucidate below.

     "Who would win in a wrestling match between Abraham Lincoln and Joe Biden?"

     This takes levels of bat-guano insanity to new heights. Or perhaps depths.  I laughed out loud at this question.  Yet cannot avoid answering it.  Art!

Sleepy Joe and Honest Abe

     Ol' Abe was 6' 4" and came in at 185 pounds; Jumping Joe is 178 pounds and 6', so Abe has a technical advantage in what you might call 'throw weight' when it comes to wrestling.  However, there is also the disadvantage that Ol' Abe is very very Ol' indeed, having pegged it waaaaay back in 1865, being helped along by a bullet.  You don't get many sprightly 157 year olds, especially not when they have a fatal gunshot wound to the head.  So we would have to resuscitate Abe on 13th April 1865, when he was in much better condition.  Art!

     I know, I know, pure nonsense - doesn't prove a thing*.  However, Abe did have a hard childhood, no privileged upbringing for he, so it's entirely possible his wiry native strength would see him through and beat Biden badly.  One confidently bets Joe didn't spend his youth hacking up timber for firewood.  Art!

Joe in pugilistic mood

     On the other hand, Joe is a citizen of the contemporary world, and he is bound to have seen at least a few frames of WWF or Ultimate Fighting Champion, which might give him secret moves to bust a cap in Abe's bottom.

     Then there's the possibility that it might go to a points decision.  We'd need a panel of neutral judges, drawn from a country like Sweden for lack of political bias.  Is wrestling a thing in Scandinavia?  They would need to be an odd number so you couldn't have a hung panel.  They'd need to be sequestered in hotel rooms with no internet to avoid any media or broadcast influence, and guarded to make sure none of them get nobbled.

     Blimey, this is turning into a bit of an exercise, isn't it?  I think that the long and short of it is that the herring is a mystery.

     

Them Books Again

Yes, I am being deliberately un-grammatical, Vulnavia, just to annoy people and purists who might be reading this.  Again, we visit another decade of Queenie's reign and ten more Commonwealth authors, whom Your Humble Scribe may know nothing about.

1972-1981

 

The Nowhere Man - Kamala Markandaya (1972, India)

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - John Le Carré (1974, England)

The Thorn Birds - Colleen McCullough (1977, Australia)

The Crow Eaters - Bapsi Sidhwa (1978, Pakistan)

The Sea, The Sea - Iris Murdoch (1978, England)

Who Do You think You Are? - Alice Munro (1978, Canada)

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams (1979, England)

Tsotsi - Athol Fugard (1980, South Africa)

Clear Light of Day - Anita Desai (1980, India)

Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie (1981, England/India)

     Now we're getting somewhere!  I've read three of these and I bet you know which ones already - "Tinker Tailor", "THGTTG" and "Midnight's Children".  I don't remember much about the last, except I think it starts with a German and there are two characters called Hairoil and Eyeslice.

     "The Crow Eaters" doesn't really catch my fancy, even if you claim that it tastes like chicken.  And the others sound terribly worthy and endlessly dull.  No danger of waltzing off to Abebooks for them.

Bring On The Wartime Publication

Yes, time for more "The War Illustrated".  Art!

     This bit of gloasting is the British sub-editor having a go at Il Duce and his 'island fortress' of Pantalleria, which was a fortress without a roof.  You can see the Allied air forces giving it what for.  It sat between Tunisia and Sicily, and the Allies wanted it, since it would give them airfields 50 miles nearer Sicily when they invaded.  Art!

     It was treated to a constant diet of bombs and shells for days on end, and promptly surrendered when landing craft approached.

Conrad Is ANGRY!

O so angry!  About what, exactly?  Musicals, that's what, the modern plague.  It seems that the charlatans whom create musical films have discovered another niche, turning normal films into vile theatrical musicals that elevate my blood pressure in alarming fashion.  Art!

     If it wasn't enough to have the film, where Julia Roberts 'acts' by throwing her hair about and apparently risking her head falling apart when she grins, so huge is her cavernous maw.  No, how we have to endure THIS.  "Time Out" calls it 'aggressively stupid' and it may well be; I shall have to take this on trust because, trust me, I ain't going to see it.

     Bah!

More Of "The Sea Of Sand"

Yes, we're still ensconced in Roger's rather smelly tent, drinking British army tea, which is made with enough condensed milk and sugar to enable a spoon to stand upright in it.

Casting his eyes about the stifling tent interior, the Doctor noticed a newspaper, it’s pulp yellowed by sunshine.  He pounced on it avidly, reading the date aloud.

“March the First, nineteen forty one.’  The main cover photograph showed acres of bombed-out houses, with a caption about “Nazi bombers strike Portsmouth; heavy casualties feared”.  ‘British Expeditionary Force arrives in Greece,’ he read again.  ‘Italians retreating in Eritrea.’  That explained why poor old K9 had been immobilised in the TARDIS – you couldn’t have an advanced artefact like him wandering about in the 1940’s.

Once again, nothing in the headlines or bylines hinting at why they had been diverted.  Gradually the Doctor became aware of Llewellyn chatting to Sarah.

‘ – yes, I travelled into Libya with Bagnold once, down to the sand sea.  Most of my time was with the Professor in Egypt, but I was actually out here in Libya before the war broke out.  Before Italy declared war, I should say.’

‘Italian-occupied Libya?’ asked the Doctor, suddenly interested.  ‘How did you manage that?’

‘Oh, it’s a long story,’ said Roger dismissively.  ‘In fact the dig we were at isn’t far from here.  Makan Al-Jinni.’

I'm not telegraphing too much when I say that those last three words help The Doctor realise what they're there for.

Finally -

Just so you know, Conrad is off this Thursday because he's working Saturday.  I know, I know, that's one thing I won't miss when I'm redundant.  At least there's no phone work, though that doesn't stop some stores from trying it on and ringing; one wonders how long they persist before giving up?  So - Conrad can play his rock music whilst hammering the keyboard.  And there may only be one post.  It depends how motivated I get and how much gin I down.

     Chin Chin!

*  Another "The Thing" quote for you there.