BOOJUM!'s Adventures in Foreign Fields

By "Foreign" I mean, of course, Yorkshire
     Not that I particularly begrudge the Tykes being the winners of the War of the Roses, it's just that they do talk funny.
     Today I had permission from Wonder Wife to go and play a wargame with Richard, off in the wilds of Storrs.

Storrs.  Slightly to one side of nowhere

 To get there I normally go via the Snake Pass, then turn off onto a long unmarked B road and carry on for a few miles.
     Not today!  The B road was closed - according to Richard due to a collapsed building - and I had to continue along the main road, wondering when I'd get the chance to turn left and head north.  For miles I wondered, until I hit another road closure - according to Andy, due to a landslip - and got shunted off onto another road.

How Conrad felt

Now, the game itself was fun: quick, bloody and decisive, and best of all I won won won.  Not to gloat about it but I won.

Our 5th Century battlefield: Conrads troops at lower left

On my way to winning, the Saxon allies of both Roman pretenders to the British throne went at each other great guns and practically wiped each other out.

Left of the road, the Saxons (and Goths) have mostly been routed

My troops steadfastly marched on, bumping into the enemy Romans and light horse

Luck and good dice rolls help Paulus Flavius' troops to win; that's my troops next to the forest

After mashing the enemy's swede, what was left?  Only this:

Excuse lens dazzle..  Those are my troops, with an enemy base barely visible in the glare of what appears to be an anachronistic H-bomb

Then it was time to go home.  Could I find the way back along my original diverted route?  Not at all.  There was a single "Diverted Traffic" sign for direction, and after that it was up to telepathy, apparently, which didn't work because it doesn't exist (yet).  So I came home via the motorway, which of course had miles and miles and miles of Average Speed Camera-monitored roadworks.

After The Battle Tittle-Tattle
     One of the pleasures of an afternoon with Richard is that he has his fingers squarely on the pulse of all things wargamey.  This afternoon I learnt that Henry Hyde, far from suffering financial disaster with his magazine "Battlegames", is now editor of Miniature Wargaming*, which magazine is transformed for the better since I gave up buying it years ago.  So - Conrad may be taking out a subscription in the New Year ...

See?  It really exists!

After all that rampant militarism, how about ending with a picture of cuddly ducks?

One of these ducks is an infectious alien shape-shifting Thing.  Good luck find out which!

I shall say ta-ta.

 *Miniature Wargaming, Battlegames, White Dwarf, Wargaming Illustrated - admit it, you never knew there were so many hobby publications, did you?

Conrad - (Who Still Hates Musicals) Broadening His Hates

Drum Solos
     I don't care how bloody technically accomplished they are, nor that the drummer needs a song credit to get residual payments when he's an OAP, I simply DO NOT WANT to hear a drum solo!  Blue Oyster Cult get away with one on "Secret Treaties" because it's only 5 seconds long. 
     Take heed all rock bands.  Conrad has spoken.

Ha!  Take that, drums!

Which leads me on to -
     "The Hunger Games".  Conrad somehow did not care to watch the first in this franchise.  Not only not watch, not read about, not track down on IMDB, not have anything to do with.  Curiously this has not prevented a sequel being made.
     I cannot explain this utter disinterest.  Perhaps the sinister brainwashing advertising campaign does not work on aliens clad in human skin perfectly normal human beings?

Even Conrad's cats were indifferent to The Hung - yawn - to - zzzz

Dracula
     Bear with me on this one.  As I have been driving into work this past week or so, Conrad has noticed posters for a television programme called "Dracula".  No explanatory blurb, and the featured actors seem to be in 1930's clothing.  Not an incisor visible, nor anything sanguinary either.
     Idly - kind of, one has to concentrate a little when driving a murder-mobile-cum-family-car - I wondered what the series might be about.
     Then it dawned - this is about Sid Dracula, a clerk of works in Islington Council's Dog Licencing Office, a chap who lives on bottles of stout, bloater paste sandwiches and steak pie.  He just happens to have an unfortunate surname.

Goes down well with the zombie drinker, apparently

Okay, now I have to go search for the bag of fine gravel lurking somewhere in the Upstair Lair.

Tally ho!

Make Haste!

And also make bread
     I've got another batch of gluten-free on the go, and have to be off to the pub quiz in forty minutes.  O the tension!  Will I get my loaf done in time?
     Hopefully, yes.  Off to give it a second proving now -

- did you miss me?  The dough is strange stuff, it flows like a semi-fluid, so it's fortunate I don't need to knead it.  I need to pop off again in a few minutes to put it in the oven.

How Quaint the Queen
     Yes, HRH popped into 1 Angel Square today to officially open it.  The phones in our office shut down  for the duration and the floor emptied.  I and perhaps ten other people were left in a scene that repeated the eerie silence of Monday's eleven o'clock ceremony, with Conrad wondering "Do they really love Queenie - or is this a chance to go and skive for half an hour?".  Surprisingly the first option seems most likely.  I couldn't really attend as that would be rank hypocrisy.

"Hypocrisy"
     Derived from the Greek for "under" and "to decide".  How come we never see Hypercrisy, where people are overly judgemental?  Or just Crisy?  "I can't choose bedroom curtains today, I've got a crisy crisis."  Ah, etymology ...

No, Venusia, "Etymology"
     The study of words and their evolution and adaptation over history.  "Watching horrid creepy crawlies", as you so aptly put it, is "Entomology".

Is that so?
     Wonder what JRR Tolkein would have called the study of Ents?

Right!  Got to go put the human skin on and convince pub-goers that Conrad is indeed a member of Hom. Sap.

Conrad Not Such An Idiot.

Well, marginally
     If you were here yesterday you will have noticed me complaining about how I'd based my English Civil War miniatures, meaning that the simple ruleset and the complex ruleset were now both inapplicable.
     All the time I kept wondering why the word "Polemos" kept cropping up.
     O wise subconscious!  It happens that I have a third ECW ruleset called Polemos and all those little white metal chaps were based according to Polemos.  O frabjous day!

BOOJUM!  Happy as a Prozacked dog

The Creations of Azazel
     Azazel - one of the minor demons, an imp rather than Old Nick himself.
     Yes, whilst driving to work this morning, what did Conrad's eye espy?  No, not bloody wolves again! No, he witnessed a man operating a leaf-blower outside his home and across the pavement.
     'Hang on,' thought I (obviously as if it was someone else then that would imply telepathy which does not exist.  Yet) 'He's not sweeping the leaves up, he's not sucking them into a bag on his back - he's selfishly blowing his leaves into everyone elses property.'
     Thus Azazel.

Of course, if your leaves are Gunneraceae you need a jet engine to shift 'em

 Bless Grooveshark!  Bless It's Pointy Little Teeth!
     Two Cd's bought in the recent past refuse to be recognised by I-tunes for no visible reason, and one of them was "Hawkwind", by The Amazing Power Muffins.  No, I'm lying, it was by Hawkwind.  Thanks to the very wonderful (and free!) Grooveshark, Conrad can now listen to at least some of the tracks whilst typing the immoral lines that greet your sight.

Gluten-free but rather heavy
     The loaf I experimented with last night is considerably less palatable when cold, and hard, and cold and hard.  It barely passes muster as toast.  I must experiment further!  A shorter baking time would mean moisture being retained.  More yeast - half as much again.  I feel the need to have a go again.  It's too late tonight, tomorrow I'm on a late shift and have the pub quiz, Friday I'll be doing the weekly shop, Saturday - ah yes Saturday ...


Richard's Saturday Afternoon Wargame
     My friend Richard lives out in the countryside, making the middle of nowhere look like a bustling metropolis.  Although only five minutes drive from the centre of Sheffield, it really is isolated.
     Anyway, forgoing poetic allusion, he runs a wargame on the third Saturday in the month.  This allows his wife and daughter enough time to plan an escape from the house whilst crusty old men argue about arcane points of tactics or weapons in the kitchen.  Noble Richard - as Conrad pretty much defines a dilettante wargamer,  Richard's participation games represent a bit of practice.  This month's game is set after the Roman withdrawal from England and the following Saxon incursions.

Gridlock during rush-hour at Storrs

Right.  Time to go plot world domination (yes, again - hey it's a big project!)

It's about time -

In two senses of the word
     I have been banging on about playing an English Civil War game, but that I needed to swot up on the straightforward ruleset.  Then I realised my little chaps were based in such a way that the straightforward rules couldn't be used.  I then looked at the more complex set of rules, and - the unit bases are far too large.  I'm not sure why they got based in this fashion.  Conrad was an idiot at the time?

Dangerous - if trodden on in your bare feet

Do not wish the year away!
     Given Conrad's advanced age, he likes to cling to each day like a lifebelt in the tides of time.  Given this propensity, he is known for shouting at people who start bleating "It's nearly Christmas!" in June.  You may mention Christmas in November, but no more than once per week.  In December you may mention it daily - once.
     Both my spies and assassins are on the lookout, so be careful, Victoria, be very careful.

Could have been scripted for BOOJUM!

Gloat over a glut of Gluten-free Loaf
     In the spirit of optimistic enquiry, Conrad has just put a gluten-free loaf into the loaf tin.  He seemed to recall the ratio of 6 parts rice flour, 2 parts potato flour and 1 par tapioca.  No tapioca so he used ground arrowroot instead.  There is little kneading of this stuff as kneading is to get the gluten good and angry. 
     I really have no idea what this will turn out like.  Give me a minute to pop down the spiral staircases and into the Non-Dangerous Kitchen -

Behold the beast!

I shall have to go and babysit this article whilst it bakes, so here is an end to tonight's blog as I toddle off.

Toodle pip!

Harvester of Eyes

Yes, another song title, and no I won't say who it's by
     Television, that's what it means.  Conrad was asked earlier today if he watched "Strictly Come Dancing".  After recoiling in horror and wielding a silver crucifix, I confirmed that I had never seen the programme, doubted that it really existed and considered it to be a giant joke on Conrad specifically.
     I was assured it really, truly existed.  Damn.  Real world I hate you.  Why view it?  "Because it's watchable rubbish," replied Alex.
     That about sums it up.  Hmm - no. Sums it down.

Now that's what I call watchable rubbish!  Boom boom.

Eeriness actualised
     On the third floor of my still-coyly secret employer, given that there are about a hundred and fifty staff, all busy talking to each other, answering phones, making phone calls, brewing-up in the kitchen, walking around, bashing the table (okay that was me), sorting out the stationery room, opening and closing lockers and doors and cupboards - it's a noisy babbling earstormer of a place.
     Until 11:00 today.  The bell rang and utter silence descended.  No noise, no movement.  Peeking out of the window, I could see even the workmen on the building site opposite were standing still and silent.
     Conrad has a cold hard flinty heart, but it did get it's strings tugged a little today.
     If you will permit, and as best as I recall, a stanza in remembrance:

     "They shall not grow old,
      As we who are left grow old.
      Age shall not weary them,
      Nor the years condemn.
      But at the setting of the sun,
      And in the morning,
      We shall remember them."

Harvester, you can have their eyes!
     Alex, the self-same source of that great quote above, asked what Conrad did if he didn't watch television?  Well, besides reporting back to my invasion fleet (currently having a rest-stop around Alpha Centauri), I read, write, play wargames, compose my blog, wibble on Facebook and bake.  That seemed to satisfy her curiosity, for the meantime.  I left out the stuff about land-travelling sharks, giant moles and denizens of the mansion's dungeons - she might not believe me.

Excellent when barbecued but you need a big grill (as it weighs over a ton)

Oh dear.  Once again the day has worn on and I've not even begun my plans for world domination - there was some fresh fruit to peel and chop and I needed to test the Wobbly Apricot Tart and make lunch for tomorrow.

Fact.  All aspiring world dictators begin like this.

It isn't easy to see unless you look realllllly closely, but those are English Civil War figures.  What I plan to do is start in the 17th century and work forward (I work slowly) so that by the time that invasion fleet arrives, I'll be up to the present day - and you'll all be doomed*!

Righto, off to give those wretched Cavaliers a thrashing that they richly deserve!



* Readers of BOOJUM! will, of course, be exempt from any alien overlordship (though we may riffle through your CD and DVD collections) so tell all your friends.

Busy Busy BOOJUM!

In two senses of the word
     Yesterday I had 37 visitors, an unusually high figure, so thank you for dropping by, excepting the people from MI5, who were after my recipe for home-made californium*.  Then today I have baked a loaf, made a Wobbly Apricot Tart and am shortly going to be off downstairs to decant Summer Fruits Ice-Cream from the ice-cream maker.

<you may imagine a small pause here, reader>

Well that's the ice-cream done and dusted.  How's it done I hear you chorus - behold:

That's whipped cream in the mixer, fruit puree and icing sugar in the bowl and a custard mix cooling in a tub in a tin

All being blended in the ice-cream maker

It's rather messy, home-made ice-cream making, and it uses a ton of kit, but the end result is worth it.

The Bread
     Allow me:

This stuff I like is the staff of life.

The secret here is a 2 1/2 pound loaf tin, which is large enough to prevent the dough from spilling over the sides, yet small enough to allow the dough to rise properly.  I also turn the tin every five minutes during the first 15 minutes, which means it rises evenly, and cover it with foil after 20 minutes, so it doesn't burn.

Wobbly Apricot Tart
     A Mary Berry recipe, done during the "Masterclass" boasting follow-up sessions following TGBBO.  Mine was not as picture perfect as Mary's, but I just know that the Beeb would bin any footage of a duff Mary bake and allow her endless new efforts.
     Here is mine:

A tad over-browned on one side and the trimming could have been neater.

Enough of baking!
     I hear you cry.
     Okay.  In order to fool S.H.I.E.L.D. and persuade that not-very-nice Nick Fury that Conrad and BOOJUM! are entirely human, we maintain two cats here in the mansion.  Beej is the one who always looks sombre, and unamused, and it is a rarity to hear him purr.
     Being busy downstairs meant I caught him trying to nudge a box out of our storage shelving in the Non-Dangerous Kitchen.
     'Beej!  Ochi!' I shouted (all cats understand Greek).  He stopped, but only until I was busy rolling out pastry and couldn't interfere.  I heard a scraping noise, a thump and then silence.

Box, Green, One Of, Non-Dangerous Kitchen

The box pictured above had gone, pushed completely off the shelving.  When I looked behind the shelves, the box had fallen down, Beej had prised the lid off and was sitting in a nest of towels.
     The Grumpy Old Men maintain that cats only tolerate humans because, lacking opposable thumbs, they can't open tins of cat food.  I put it to you, gentle reader, that we ought to start getting on better terms with our soon-to-be feline overlords.

So - Tanks?
     Good lord aloft, man!  The threat of a feline takeover is more sinister than either The Zombie Apocalypse or The Rise of Skynet.  Get a grip, we can't waste time posting pictures of tanks.
     On the other hand, we do have:

"5h1t!  Get into third gear quick smart!"

This is the Top Gear episode where the team try to avoid being targeted and hence disintegrated by a Challenger tank.  Jeremy is still with us so either they dodged or the ammo was pretend.

*Californium.  Yes it exists.  Yes it was named after the state.  Yes a californium bullet will stop a tank.