The Sinister SOLE of Cheryl COLE!

If It Keeps The Traffic Up ...
Nobody has yet complained about the excessive use of fish to lure in viewers and increase the blog traffic by underhand means, so Conrad is going to keep on using titles like that until he a) Runs out of celebrities or b) Runs out of fish.  We'll see which happens first, eh?
     Whilst we're still in the Intro, I am rather under the whip tonight.  A late finish at work means not arriving home until 7:20, and I then have to get lunch ready for tomorrow, and then have some tea, and then finish off filling and icing the Almond sponges I baked last night, and do the blog, and all before 9:00 as the Halfway House's new landlord has reintroduced the Pub Quiz.
     Enough wibble.  On with the Motley!

Viz comic's Roger Irrelevant - undisputed King of Wibble

Pomes
I've been threatening to post these for several days now and the time has finally come for your eyes and brains to face the raw terror sheer hilarity of a bit of doggerel verse by Conrad.
     NB I have redacted the ladies surnames so their identities are protected.

A POME FOR SOPHIE

Sophie, Sophie, must you leave!

The lotus-eaters are all aggrieve

When I say “lotus” I mean “Cake”

The maker of such whom us forsakes

Moving to the evil Payroll side

(For our two kingdoms will ne’er elide)

Thus no longer will you see

Exquisitely decorated confectionery

Mo won’t have someone to sweetly hate

We’ll not her and Sophe berate

No more tales of Henry’s tennis prowess;

Apparently  Sophie’s ball-handling is a mess

You may not know that Sophie caters.

Literally (she gives discounts on potaters).

Bar mitzvah, weddings, eighteenths and wakes.

(No rhyme here with “cake” for goodness sakes!)

Of a generation younger than your scribe

Her TV viewing habits are easy to describe

Thus well all know that Ms 

Is a lifelong fan of program “Daktari”

A POME FOR BECCA

This is a goodbye to young Ms  -

Be warned it is not wise to mock her.

For all day long she tipples gin,

A prelude to going out shooting.

This may only be with an air-rifle

But getting shot by one is not a trifle.

This hunting is spurred by “Game of Thrones”

Which she likes as much as dogs love bones.

And speaking of the canine breed

She’s very fond of dogs indeed.

Because she spends her daytimes here

There is no chance of doggie dear.

Instead Bec’s substitutes ferocious shopping –

-when in H & M she takes some stopping.

She’ll be working in Payroll with Povah, James

And when Bec’s gets round to nicknames

Looking at his beard, all tidily furled,

Will think of hirsute Jimmy’s Neat Curled.

Which is as close as you’re going to get

To her favourite band and their “Damage” set

     You may now post gushing Comments of praise*.

The Comic Relief Bake Off
This took place last night but there wasn't time to cram it in yesterday - time is the enemy of BOOJUM! - and so here it is tonight.  The celebrities were Michael Sheen, David Mitchell, Sarah Brown (who?) and Jameela Jamil (A DJ apparently and very pretty**).  Paul and Mary definitely pulled their punches for these folk, which is fair enough as none of them are bakers.
     I reckoned Michael Sheen was the one to watch - intensely competitive and a method actor to boot.

Michael.  Worryingly convincing as a werewolf

Signature Bake: 24 Shortbread biscuits in 90 minutes.
90 minutes?  It only takes 20 minutes to bake!  It's only butter, sugar and flour - how can you go wrong with that? 
David:  Victoria sponge shortbreads, which were awful!
Jameela:  Chocolate and Marshmallow: looked good, tasted - meh.
Michael: Welsh dragons - not enough, they looked messy but (!) tasted brilliant
Sarah:  Red Nose biscuits - Very good and the winner.

Technical: 6 Mini Pork Pies
These had to be cooked with a quail's egg in the middle, and Conrad quailed*** at some of the efforts ... they were using a hot water crust which I've never bothered to make before but now - now I'm curious.
David:  Good tasty pies and the Winner
Jameela: Damned with faint praise and - Last!
Michael: Thick pastry - third
Sarah: Underdone pastry - second

Art!  That's a pork pie HAT!

Showstopper: A 3 Layer Pavlova
Meringue's not too difficult to make, you just spend 10 minutes beating the egg whites into a thick peaking mixture.  Then you cook them on a VERY LOW HEAT until they crisp up.  Watch they don't catch and brown.
David: Rocket Pavolova - grey but not bad
Sarah: Mango, coconut and lime - too much coconut
Jameela:  Did everything wrong, started from scratch and did not appreciate Michael's teasing
Michael:  Made a perfect Lemon Curd and Passionfruit 3 layer Pavlova.

And the winner is - 

SPOILER AHOY!

Michael.  Told you so.

Please, Won't You Think Of The Weasels?

Conrad confesses himself confused about O2 and their peculiar ad campaign featuring a cat reminiscing about being a dog, or perhaps I fell asleep and dreamed the whole thing.

Nope, Conrad, you are wide awake

     Dogs, cats, orang-utangs - please, advertisers, remember that BOOJUM! has put in lots of time promoting the wondrous weasel as a much-misunderstood mammal, and there was even one in the Tufty Club.

"Gusto"

Conrad thought this of himself this morning, guzzling down a litre of cranberry juice in the space of ten minutes^.  "Gusto", I thought, "It means "with enthusiasm".  Where does it come from?"

     You guessed it, Latin.  From "Gustus", meaning "Taste".

     So now you know.

Peter Jackson's first film.
And the title is accurate

"Spit"

I have another confession, I'm only putting this title in to see what irrelevances Art Department comes up with, the idiot.

     Art!  Get yer head out of the gravy jug and start working!

Spit of land?

Try again!

Roasting spit?

Nope.  Keep going!

Spitting with rain?

One last go -

Spit the Dog?

Correctamundo!
     Now, get back in the coal cellar.



* Or, more likely, not.
** I can say this because it's MY blog.
*** Do you see?  What I did there?
^ Okay, okay, maybe fifteen.

The FIENDISH Flounder Of STING (The Bounder!)

Once  Again!
BOOJUM! lies through it's metaphorical teeth.  Old Sting might well be into various kinds of Tantric shenanigans but being in the possession of trained attack-fish is not one of them.  Still, to make it work I had to have a single-name celebrity, and Conrad is utterly out of touch with the vapid contemporary breed.  Besides, that would be edging dangerously close to Current Affairs.
     Anyway, on with the motley!

Rounders.  Close enough

When The Going Gets Tough -
The tough get a ride in a Spectrum Maximum Security Vehicle, apparently.

Jammy beggars

     Although the question did occur to Conrad - what if the opposition have acquired an MSV and decide to ram the one that you're driving?  No idle speculation this, viz:

Irresistible force meets immovable object!
Artist John Cooper, at a guess

     Other people have entirely too much time on their hands ....

I dunno.  Is this sad, awesome or both at once?

Ah, I Say, Coincidence, Is That My Seat?
If you read my motivational Facebook post this morning, you know it featured camels: the Dromedary and the Bactrian, otherwise known as One Lump or Two.
     Fast forward to an hour later and Conrad is reading "The History of the 42nd East Lancashire Division" in the Great War.  One company of the Lancashire Fusiliers are sent to Egypt, and thence to the Sudan, and are posted to Khartoum, where they are instructed to form -
     - the British Camel Corps.

No!  Art, you idiot -

     That's one coincidence too many that early in the day.
     In fact there was another to come in the body of the text.  The Lancashire Fusiliers drew it's men from Manchester, Salford, Oldham, Rochdale, Wigan and Bury; not much chance of gaining experience with animals other than horses, or cows.   So it was with faint hope that their officer addressed his men, asking if any of them had experience of working with camels.

                                Where's my gun?  I've got a gun somewhere, haven't I?   

 Faint hope? Yes.  But not no hope.  From the ranks one man strode forth; he had working in the menagerie of Bostock in Cheshire, and yes!  he had experience of work with camels.

What?  What!
"A ship fitted with ship camels"

     Ah, I give up.  Who knew there were so many camels?

Art did!

Dark Star: "Benson, Arizona"
As you surely know by now, gentle reader, John Carpenter has made some of the most frightening documentaries in the history of media.  What you may not know is that he began his film career by making a low-budget yet extremely inventive science-fiction satire called "Dark Star", after which major studios began to pay attention.

     The reason Conrad brings all this up is that he's had the Dog Buns! opening song to "Dark Star" going through his head all day today for no very good reason.  That opening song is "Benson, Arizona", and herewith the link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wbzJxXxhIQ

     Never made explicit, the lyrics deal with a spaceship crewman travelling at relatavistic speeds across space.  If you've seen "Interstellar" then you'll get the gist; this un-named crewman ages far more slowly than his love back on Earth.  A year of subjective time for him could well be forty years for her.  Here's a link with the lyrics and some comments from the singer:

http://www.benzedrine.ch/darkstar.html

     Conrad would also like to point out that the music was composed by John, who is a talented musician in his own right*.

Coincidence!  Get Out Of My Seat!
Saw one of these parked up near my terminus this morning:

Celtic name, works with Poles

     Why is this significant?  Well, because Conrad's surname for those who want to know is "Connolly", which he usually has to inform listeners is spelt "as in Billy"*.

Well Now
If Conrad were to describe a television program from the Sixties that was made with puppets, and which featured a spaceship that tootled around the solar system righting wrongs, doubtless you'd immediately respond "Fireball XL5"
     You'd be WRONG!
     WRONG WRONG WRONG!
     WR ***-
     I refer, obviously - obviously! - to the series "Space Patrol".
     This was a black and white television series that came out in 1962, with episodes half an hour long, featuring the crew of "Galasphere 347".  

347 comes in to land

     What Conrad liked about this beast is that it didn't look remotely like anything before it as a spaceship, and it's certainly not spherical^.  Let's see the cast:

One of these is the Martian "Gabblerdictum Bird."  Good luck deciding which!

    Oh, don't let the cast here fool you, this show was rooted firmly in the early Sixties; the women were secretaries and PAs and the hunky chunky men went out to tidy up the spacelanes^^.
     The series has another claim to fame - that it uses the first electronic theme tune ever, at least seven months in advance of Doctor Who, and indeed the theme does sound rather like a monophonic synthesizer.


Ruff Mix
Never let a dog near a vocoder or you end up with this.  You can choose to listen to it or not, back when originally released it was all over the place:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2l6EPIeY81c

     Enter at your own peril!

No poems tonight as it's already rather late.  Sorry!

* This doesn't smack too much of hero-worship, does it?
** As a penalty of transliterating from Celtic to English, there are an apparently infinite number of ways of spelling "Connolly".  Although "Connolly" is the only proper one.
*** Alright, you've made your point <courtesy Mister Hand>
^ Although that spherical force field might be a nod to the "Spindizzy" shield of James Blish's "Okie" science fiction novels.
^^ Conrad merely observes and does not make any judgements <sniggers>