The Proof Is In The Pancake -

 - Rather Than The Pudding
     Although you can regard these particular pancakes as pudding because they are quite sweet -

Oh!  Where Are My Manners!
     I quite forgot to introduce us properly.  As is my wont (a pseudy way of saying "I am -") I am posting twice today, since I have some material accumulated since mid-afternoon and a few photos to share as well.  So this one might have been titled "Of Dogs And Digestion" or "Canines, Catering And Correspondents", or even "Enough Hot Air To Loft A Balloon"*.  Anyway, back to the regular scheduled broadcast -

- as they are constituted of a banana and two eggs beaten together, beaten into a froth, and ensure that the batter is pretty frothy if you make these.
     Note that they are Gluten Free - none of that wicked wheaty flour in there to gum up a person's insides.

With blueberries - not a success!

Optimal sized

       The trick here is to keep them small, so that your spatula will get underneath the whole pancake when it comes time to turn it over, and not to overcook - about 2 minutes before turning.
     Some of the gluten-free pancake recipes Conrad has tried in the past have been rather grim, but he'd be quite happy to eat a plateful of these.
     Three thumbs up!

Stir-Fry
     This photo is for no other reason than that I had the phone present whilst cooking.  Voila!

Good enough to eat.  Obviously.

     Sally soliplistically snubbed the scran, sniffily, stating she might scoff some - "later." 
     Not if Conrad eats it all before then, young lady.
     Oh, and I had a glass of home-made lemonade with it, which went down very well.  Hopefully everyone else will deem it bitter and bitumenous**, and avoid it.

"Three Against Rommel"
     By Alexander Clifford, this book was published during wartime, 1943 to be exact, and my copy has an inscription in the rear in blue fountain pen that is too scrawly to be read, but is dated "1944".
     is this relevant?  Why yes, because one of Conrad's favourite books about the Desert War is the "African Trilogy" by Alan Moorehead.  Reading up to page 60 of 3AR, some parts had an eerie familiarity to them - until I realised that Clifford and Moorehead had been part of the same small group of war correspondents, covering the same battles and events and each writing about them.  At this time (January 1941) there were only 8 accredited journalists in the Middle East, so inevitably there is overlap.
     It will be interesting to see how later years in the Desert War will be covered.
     Perhaps that should be rephrased - "interesting to Conrad"

A grommet flange.  Fascinating - if you're Conrad

Proof Positive Of Dog-Sitting Diligence
     Conrad, normally the second-string dog-director, is the chief mutt-minder today.  Edna has been somewhat enervated by the heat today, taking to lying around like a discarded fur boot:

Edna the Enervated Dog.  Less dramatic appeal than Edna the Inebriated Woman.

     As a mindful second dad, I take Edna for a walk in the morning and evening.  Sally missed the first walk as she was still conked out in bed (student lifestyle ahoy!) and the second because she was in pyjamas.

Edna frolicking

Edna, her doggy dignity cast to the winds

     The first walk obviously didn't exert her enough, since she had an attack of "zoomies" when she got back in, dashing up and down the stairs, bowling along with various toys clutched in her mouth.  It was tiring just watching her.

Invincible
     No!  Not the battlecruiser sunk at Jutland, nor the through-deck cruiser, I mean the comic-book.  
     Conrad feels sure he's posted about this earlier in the month, but he also feels sure that nobody will remember what specious drivel he posted and so feels safe to carry on here.

Issues 17, 18 and 19

     I turns out I already had Issue 17 and 18, but didn't remember anything about them (memory - The Backstabber In The Boudoir), so I spent an hour sitting in the sun this afternoon re-reading them.
     <Mister Hand posts a Boredom Alert here, so you may want to go and put the kettle on>
     What I like about "Invincible" is the consistency.  You see, in comics  <Danger! warns Mister Hand.  Go brew a cup of really strong coffee> the artwork has to be delivered to a schedule, and that schedule is iron-clad, non-negotiable and absolutely has to be hit.  Thus you might find a second artist gets brought in to draw the strip and ensure deadlines get hit - which is why Conrad stopped buying "Scalped".  Not with "Invincible" - the artist who draws remains Ryan Ottley, although he gets help from a separate inker and colourist.
     There you go - instructed about - hang on, you're not asleep are you?  Are you!

Introuble.  Close enough

* Like the Montgolfier brother's balloon, which of course you read about in BOOJUM!
** Tarry.  I know it's woefully unlikely to be judged so, but- alliteration!

It's A Beautiful Day!

So Why Is Conrad Indoors, Tapping At A Keyboard?

     Sheesh, you sound like my mum.

     For your information, dear reader, I have already  been to Royton and back, and taken Edna for a walk, and watered the flowers.  Frankly, it's a bit hot out there at the moment for an old man with thinning hair and I'd not like my brain to simmer excessively, since it is currently chilling to Baroque Trumpet Concertos.  Not rock and roll, no, but tuneful and melodic.

That's Quite Enough Of That!

     The "that" in question is the hideous apparition that seems to be the official face of Vimto - "The Vimtoad".

Quick!  Kill it before it breeds*!

     First of all, Conrad is pretty certain that this is a frog, not a toad.  I am also given to understand that certain tropical frogs secrete hallucinogenic chemicals from their skin, and this must be what happened with the advertising agency behind this ghastly little creature - too much South American Vacuous Venom.

     Now, given that BOOJUM! is always trying to promote a better understanding of our unfortunate animal friends whose names begin with "W", may I put it to you that a far better promoter would be Vimtoeaselshark (say it out loud); altogether a proposition with a lot more bite ...

"Vimtoeaselshark!  Drink Vimto!
Or he'll leave a bitemark!"

"The Sun Has Got His Hat On"

     NO!  This must be the most egregiously inaccurate song in existence.

     Why?  A simple look at the lyrics will persuade.

     

     "The sun has got his hat on"

     For a start, the sun is a ball of gasses undergoing nuclear fusion - IT HAS NO GENDER!  The Herzsprung-Russell** diagram does not differentiate stars on whether they are "girls" or "boys".

     "Hip Hip Hip Hooray"

     The songwriter must have been British to be so pathetically grateful about a bit of sun that he writes a song about it.  Alright, go ahead, have fun while you can.  It's later than you think.

                                               "The sun has got his hat on"

     NO!  You would need to disintegrate every planet in the Solar System to make a hat-shaped artefact big enough to fit on the Sun.  NO! again, because the Sun's thermal output would instantly vapourise the hat-shaped artefect as the fleet of spaceships try to position it.

                                               "And he's coming out today"

     Conrad warned about gender - and now we have sexuality?  Away with you, song - go far away and do not return until you have acquired knowledge of astronomy.

What, I Ask, Is A Chafing Dish?

     There is a reason for this question, since Conrad happened to be cleaning up a milk pan at the time, so this time we can all explain why the question arose.

     "Chafing dish" seems to be the sort of thing that crops up in "Three Men In A Boat".  Allow me to illustrate:

Eminently suitable for use on a boat

     I also seem to recall that Tom, of "Tom and Jerry", usually ended up sitting on a lit chafing-dish, which seemed to hurt a lot rather than merely chafe.

Lemonade

     Conrad drinks a whole lot of this stuff, the kind that's bad for you - carbonated water with sweeteners and additives - that hasn't been within sniffing distance of a lemon.

     Until today!  Having found a recipe, here is the process:

Three lemons, 8 ounces of sugar and a litre of water

      Conrad first tried to blend the lemons with the food processor - not a success as the sealing gasket was missing so it leaked - hence recourse to the hand-held blender above.  Cannily, he dissolved the sugar in the water by heating on the stove; no worries about sugar hanging around the final product.

Tested on Darling Daughter

     Sally pronounced it a bit bitter, so it got diluted and poured into an empty Don Simon bottle.  I did consider leaving the label on as a terrific jape, but discretion and a sense of wanting to keep a whole hide won out.  So, the end product:

Now chilling in the fridge

"The Expendables III"
     No!  That's "The Expendables 3", not "The Expendables One Hundred and Eleven".  Although -
     No, no, anyway, back to the bus poster that inspired this post.  Conrad has seen "The Expendables", of course, and a fine thick-eared action flick it is, too.  Then there was the sequel and now we get a threequel.
     Given that Hollywood is run as much by accountants as artists, these films must be making a profit, even after the wage bill for all those names - I mean, Jason "The Stath" Statham doesn't come cheap, does he?

Testosterone!  Knives! Explosions! International animal-charity good-deeeds!

     I hope you don't expect Conrad to go working out the profits of these films and percentage returns, the gross versus the net - look elsewhere for that kind of bean-counting, gentle reader.

I Know What It Is
     - it being very bad taste indeed to ask "Do you know-' - well,  let us move on from  tawdry real-life.  Sally brought an arsenal of paints and brushes into the kitchen and began to sketch out on a canvas, before doing the background painting:

NO!  It's not "A Potato Wearing A Wig"

     Conrad knows what it is, and if you and he are both lucky we might get to see the end product.


*  Only joking!  (Disclaimer added otherwise there might be trouble from Anna)
**  This is a real thing, and you really ought to go find out more about it.

Only 20 Hits To Go

Before BOOJUM! Hits 6000 Hits
     Yes indeed, pilgrims, which means probably around 3,000 hits since the blog went live just over a year ago. I know, I know, it should be higher, but it did take a few months for Conrad to realise he needed to promote* on Facebook and then Twitter.  Doubtless, given the passing of the 5.000 hits mark, this impressive total will be overtaken during the night when Conrad is off-line and plugged into the mains to recharge.

Breakfast for Conrad: 240 volts of flavour

Spiders And Accommodation
     As regular readers are surely aware of by now, Conrad is a fearful fat cowardy-custard.  In fact more of a cowardy-trifle - custard, sponge and jelly all in one convenient package.  Thus, it is faintly peculiar that he does not run in terror - shrieking inchoate terror at that - from the spiders that dangle from the Upstairs Lair's windows.  He would post a photo of them but the eight-legged rascals have gone into hiding.
     I and the spiders have come to an accomodation; they will stay out of sight, and Conrad will not splat them to a smear with a rolled up copy of The Metro**.

Just call it "Mobile multi-limb anti-fly artefact" and you'll feel much better.

"Three Against Rommel"
     One of Conrad's particular obsessions is the Desert War of 1940 - 1942, of which he has many, many books. The above title is one he was aware of for ages but never bought until last week, a tome by Alexander Carrington, a journalist.  From reading it, Mister Carrington never felt that romantic attachment, which some people did, for the desert, and he describes a days-long boring, battering journey from Alexandria out to the Egyptian-Libyan border that de-glamourises many another description.

     The Hurriglad
     One of his mentions is of a Gladiator aircraft, state of the art in 1930. re-fitted with a 
     Hurricane engine. as of 1940.  Quite why this was done is open to speculation ("RAF 
     Fitter First Class V.v. Frankenstein?") and the end result was an airframe with an engine
     so powerful in relation that it could only fly for fifteen minutes - or, allegedly, the 
     aircraft would vibrate itself apart.

A Hurri-bad.  Close enough.

     The Sunderland
     No!  Not the city - this was the Short Sunderland, a flying-boat that was actually a 
     plane, and it was bloody huge, not short at all - Short Brothers were the manufacturers
     - and Mr Clifford blagged his way onto one for a patrol over the central    
     Mediterranean.  He may have regretted this, as it was attacked by Italian fighters and
     himself and the pilot seemed to be the only crew not dead or injured.

Not very short and bristling with guns

     The Italian Navy
     Mr Clifford also writes of the Italian navy, which avoided battle with the Royal Navy
     at all costs, much to the jeers of the Allies (and probably quite a few of the Axis, too).
     As he coldly calculates, it wasn't the job of the Regio Navale to indulge in battle with 
     the Royal Navy, but to remain as a fleet-in-being and thus remain a threat, rather than
     a lot of expensive ships rusting at the bottom of the ocean.

Edna
     No BOOJUM! would be complete without exploiting small animals to boost blog traffic.  Anyway, here is the Watcher At The Wall, our very own Edna Wunderhund:

     A dad and daughter walking another Border Terrier across the road made her go even more potty that usual - Conrad was ready to step out of the kitchen and stop her diving off that rock and over the wall.  Fortunately the moment passed!

Fancy Meeting You Here!
     Conrad refers, of course, to "Against The Day", that massive novel by Thomas Pynchon that he's still reading, although (strum the drums, hosannah the banners) he is now over half-way through at Page 527 -

No! I did not Photoshop it!

     To what does the post title refer?  Why, coincidence, gentle reader, coincidence.  What was Conrad banging on about last week? - questions of Matt about how to pronounce "Thucydides" - the soft "c" is an acceptable but Latinised version of the Greek, where the "c" would be hard.
     Then, rather more eerily, Conrad comes across a quote from students at Cambridge describing themselves as "sisters of High Albedo".
     What is he listening to at that very moment?  Why the Vangelis album "Albedo 0.39"
     I dunno.  Philip K. Dick would have an explanation for it.

"You're living in The Matrix, Conrad.  It's the only explanation that makes sense."

*  Also known as "pimp"
** Surely the best use ever of this tergiversation of tabloid tat

An Early Start

To Both Day And Blog

     Yes indeed, up at 6:15 in order to get shaved and showered*, have a quick swill of pop and water then off to the 6:50 bus in order to be in work and Available for 8:00 a.m. -

     All of which is a long way of saying Conrad will probably be lying on the bed by 9:35 p.m.**, so he's getting an early crack at BOOJUM!

     This early start will, of necessity, be paused when the car comes back for 18:30 and Conrad does the weekly shop - you may "ahhh!" in sympathy now - and brings it back and puts it away.

More of Cranes

     This picture didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped:

Cranes.  Actually mechanical alien spies.

     If you look hard, with your nose right up on the monitor, you can just see the cable under tension, as if - clutch your sides now to prevent multiple hernias - as if the crane is lifting the tower.

     Ah well.  At least it's proof of the nice weather we're having in Manchester.

     

RejectEdna

     While Wonder Wifey was off in the bathroom powerjetting a potion of potassium permanganate into her hair, Edna was kept outside, and ordered to "stay with Daddy".

     Did she?  Not a bit of it!  No, she moped outside the bathroom door then lay down and pined at the top of the stairs.  Daddy comes a far distant fourth in her affections.

The insular article in question

That's Quite Enough Of That!

     The "that" in question being Facebook's "Suggested Posts".  Normally these are vapid and forgettable things to do with metal-boxes-on-wheels, incontinence prosthetics or nubile young (emphasis on young) women who are desperate to meet older men.

     Today, and Conrad apologises for trespassing into Politics, the hamsters who run Facebook really surpassed themselves - "David Cameron".

A great big rock.  Infinitely more bloggable than that Cameron man.

      Really, Facebook!  I am very cross with you!  Go stand in the corner and stay there until you learn to be sensible and not put custard down your socks (this is a metaphor for doing something stupid, as Conrad doubts that hamsters wear socks or eat custard).

     What next***?  

Under The Whip

     No!  That's a metaphor, not a new management tactic.  

     Actually Anna, now temporarily one of the managing elite, bought us all chocolates and cakes and Jaffa Cakes and biscuits yesterday, since we needed some motivation to get stuff done.  Bribery.  It worked!

Dear managers: this lot will see us through Monday and into Tuesday ...

     Back to the meat of the matter.  Conrad got an e-mail from Laura, saying that Rachel was leaving and could I do a poem for her?

     > - she's a secret fan of yours -" came into the text, and Conrad for a wild brief moment thought those Suggested Posts might be true after all, until he realised it was the doggerel verse Rachel liked.

     > Okay, when does she leave?

     > In fifteen minutes

     Dog Buns! swore Conrad.  But he managed it!  Unfortunately without enough time to type it out.  Can I remember it?  Will I impress/amaze/bore you with it? 

     Perhaps, perhaps.

A sea mail.  Close enough

"Hanky Panky"

     Another of those phrases that get used, without any definition of where it came from or who first said it.

     The definition is easy enough - people getting - ah - I believe the word is "jiggy" - with each other, or behaviour of a suspicious kind.

     Now, where it comes from is harder to define - first seen in print in 1841, so of Victorian verbal vintage, and the suggestion is that it is merely two rhyming words like "heath teeth", although that sounds a bit weird - "parrot carrot"?  No?

Heath teeth?

     

* And dressed.  I think the act is implicit but don't want to leave you in any doubt

**  Mister Hand explains that Conrad is getting on a bit and can't keep up

***  "Gulag Gulag! An hilarious musical comedy set in the hellish slave-camps of Vorkuta!"!