English Breakfast Tea At Tiffay's

Tea Hee!

Ha!  I don’t know how long I can keep up with the tea-based puns.  Probably forever.  Don’t cry!  They are funny!  They ARE!  Well they amuse me, and because I rule this particular reality you’ll just have to put up with it <looks over shoulder to see if Citizen Z is lurking again, in Polish> and back to our scheduled broadcast.   Yes yes yes, I know it’s written not spoken and it goes out over broadband, not as a radio transmission – Dog Buns, do you people have to be so literal?

Contents: delightful

     Okay, you may have noticed that the Header for BOOJUM! has changed, for the first time since our inception; instead of a lowering old man with a spare tyre for a waist, you now have a rather nice painting of New York in space, docking with a giant space vessel.  From the “Cities in Flight” collection.  James Blish, don’t you know.  I would have changed it sooner – Conrad is no oil painting himself – except I’d forgotten how.  Now I do know, expect the changes to get rung regularly.

I’d Be Lion If I Said –

If you were paying attention yesterday, AND YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN*, then you will have seen Conrad’s purchases at the car boot sale.  The “Lion” annual is a very interesting snapshot of what British comic culture was like in 1969.  The cover has nothing whatsoever to do with the actual contents, but it was still probably present in the collective psyche thanks to James Bond and “Thunderball”.

     Yes, for some reason British comic annuals were always dated a year ahead.  What can I say?  We are a peculiar island race**.  “Lion”,  for your information, was a comic around until 1974.  What is interesting to your humble scribe is what’s not present.

1)    No female characters.  None.  This is most definitely a comic for BOYS, dammit!  There is a woman drawn as “Panicky Extra #5” and that’s it.  Girls, you see, had their own comics.

Panicky extra top left

2)    The only person of colour is a servant.  And, as the comic relief, he can only speak pidgin English.  If you published this nowadays, someone would sue you.

     Then there’s the stories.  Boxing!  Football!  Er – steam trains, anyone?  And the strips.  Typically of British comics, none of the writers or artists are credited, and that would remain true until 2000 AD arrived in 1977.  One double-page spread is, however, instantly identifiable as by the late, great Leo Baxendale.

We will now have a minute's silence

     Then you have this story, and the writer is probably glad there are no credits, because – what the hell was he smoking?  Or drinking? 

Giant robot locusts middle right.  

     Obviously, if you intend to Take Over The World, then you blackmail New York and Moscow with nuclear weapons.  Or not.  Maybe that’s too easy, because this supervillain intends to take over the world with his GIANT ROBOT LOCUSTS! In fact, !!  D'you think the Sulky Fat Lad's bluster about nuclear weapons is just a cunning cover for his even-now being assembled army of GIANT ROBOT LOBSTERS?  (because locusts would be too easy).

     Peculiar island race indeed.

“Churl”

As in “Thou knavish churl”.  Which is probably in Shakespeare, although no way am I going to trawl through Windbag Willy’s collected works to confirm or deny it.

     A churl, as any fule kno, is an unpleasant person.  It’s probably what people call your modest artisan when they feel safely distant from him, and which he proved in the paragraph above.  It used to mean a peasant, perhaps even a pleasant peasant, and derived from the Old English “ceorl” meaning “fellow”.

This is not a peasant.  Nor is it very pleasant, either

     So there you are. 

     BOOJUM! educating you one fact at a time.  Tomorrow – antidisestablishmentarianism.

That Game Of Thrones –

Ah, did you fall for Cirsei’s blather?  The Iron Fleet really did beggar off and leave her in the lurch, and she’s got no way to transport the suspiciously Deus Ex Machina “Golden Company” from anywhere to anywhere.  Nor did she reluctantly allow Jamie Lannister to go sauntering off.  She knows full well he’ll run straight to Jon Snow and blab everything.

     She’s also a bit slow on this “Gigantic Zombie Horde” thing.  If the Night King is allowed to stroll southwards, he’ll have all the population of the North at his beck.  Remember that warning from the horrifying Romero documentary “Dawn of the Dead” – everyone they kill, gets up and kills!

Second scariest documentary ever
("The Thing" being number one)

     Also, that creepy Maister of hers was far too interested in the slavering undead for my liking.  He’s already half-way there with that animated corpse in armour-plate; conceivably he’s going to think up a way to re-kill the reanimated.  With a magic potion.  Not because he got asked to, merely because he can.  Or perhaps he'll just reanimate an army of his own dead and have them battle the Night King. 

     Speaking of last week's epic dragon versus zombie encounter, No!  The dragons could not have strafed the White Walkers, for the same reason Gandalf could not whistle up a giant eagle and drop the Ring in Mount Doom.

Bix Biederbecke, jazz trumpeter.
No, it's not a dragon or the Night King.  I shall have words with Art.

And there we are at count.  And then some.  

*  For only this will save your descendants

**  But you knew that already.  Right?

Redundantea

Yes!  Still Able To Make Puns -
 - about tea.  This title actually has a point to make, concerning that stock British phrase "Would you like a nice cup of tea?"; we shall gloss over what other, less fortunate or civilised places that don't by default drink tea ask each other.
     If you think about it, why would you offer to make a "nice" cup of tea?  You wouldn't offer to make "a barely-acceptable" cup of tea, or even "a quite nasty" cup  of tea, would you?  By definition the drink you are making is going to be potable, hence nice.  Or do you have one of those faces that just naturally looks sinister and you need to reassure folks that they can drink anything you make without fear of poisoning?

Case in point

     So, essentially asking about whether someone wants a nice cup of tea is a verbal tic, as it doesn't really mean anything and is, thus - redundant.  Hence the title.

All The Haul
Today, unusually, your humble scribe attended the massive car boot sale at Bowlee, which meant abandoning Edna at The Mansion for the duration.  I think she's forgiven us by now, but it was a pretty close thing.
     Anyway, here's the haul.  Art?

There you are

     "Have Spacesuit Will Travel" is a Heinlein juvenile that I've not read for decades and I got it out of a sense of nostalgia.  Whether it will stand up to a re-read is quite the question.  And there is always room in your life for more Wodehouse.  Quite what the Post Impressionists are is unclear, as I couldn't name an Impressionist for love or money.

Anyway, enough of me wibbling on about my purchases.  I can't go on about the motley, yet here it is.

"Silhouette"
As usual, Conrad's mind throws up odd things here and there, and on this occasion it was whilst walking Edna in the twilight that I noticed the shadows in silhouette on the pavement.
     "Interesting word.  Where does it come from? it sounds French."
     It is French, though it comes from the name of a person, rather than any Greek or Latin root.  Etienne de Silhouette, a finance minister of the late 18th Century, who had to impose all sorts of strictures on the French economy, thanks to the Seven Years War*.  His name came to be associated with doing things on the cheap, like portraits done as a solid shape instead of in oils.

     Et voila, you might say.  Unless you were German, in which case you might say "So!"
Michael Bentine
This is going back some.  I think what brought me onto this person was a Facebook thread on The Flop House where people were posting about comedians delivering good straight dramatic roles.  Michael, you see, was one of the creators of "The Goons".

No, Art, No!

     I speak of Spike Milligan, Harry Secombe and Peter Sellers.  Those Goons. Get it right this time, Art.

Michael with the mad hair.  Madder hair.  With glasses!

     He was only in the show for the first couple of years before moving on, to do "Potty Time" amongst others.  I didn't realise, but he went to Eton, one of the UK's premier public schools, which is to say it isn't public at all, and is shockingly expensive to get into.  He got accidentally injected with live typhoid when in the RAF, which put him in a coma for six weeks and ruined his eyesight.

Michael, looking as serious as he got

     He then worked with RAF Intelligence, and I wonder if he ever came across that other RAF Intelligence officer, Christopher Lee?  I recall Michael on "Parkinson" relating a grim little tale of liberating Belsen concentration camp, and of seeing rows and rows of bird boxes attached to fence poles in very orderly style; all uninhabited - birds wouldn't go near the place.
     One other thing that Michael was, apart from silly, was a pistol marksman of outstanding ability.  So much so that in 1969 he got invited to Bredbury Lines, the home of a certain organisation with the initials SSA, though not necessarily in that order.  He was the first non-regimental person to ever get into the "Killing House", where - I don't need to go into that, do I?  He also put it to the SSA that they ought to be training for counter-terrorism operations, which he saw as becoming a necessity in a few years**.

Go on, call them potty, I dare you.

     And he was partly Peruvian, too.  You know, where Paddington Bear comes from.  The one in those documentary films.


*  Involving, you guessed it, Perfidious Albion.
**  He was right.

Dantea's Peak

Yet Again With The Tea Puns!
I suppose whether it's funny or not depends on your pronunciation.  Here in Europe, where the history comes from, people would say "Dahn-tay"; hopefully in South Canada, where the entertainment comes from, they would say "Dan-tee".  Because that makes it amusing.
     I've chosen the film merely because it resides close to me as I type these words of wonder, and I didn't think of a title before starting typing.

The Peak - pops.

     Here an aside.  It was an expensive film to make, coming in at $116 million, and if you watch all the "Making of" vignettes you can see why - a lot of practical effects done in the days before you could wave a CGI wand at the screen.  Worldwide it made $178 million, which, even if you deduct promotion and distribution, is still a tidy profit, if not a massive one.  It did a lot better than "Volcano", which had an essentially silly premise and came out at the same time.  Volcano films, eh?  Nothing for years and then two at once.  Them studios must take management advice from First Bus and Stagecoach.
     Anyway, that's enough Intro, let the motley commence it's headlong lurching!

Linda looking fairly winsome
(here because she's in the film)

Today's Haul
As you may be aware, Conrad has of late been playing Death Cab For Cutie's epic  "Transatlanticism" several times each day, so, on a whim, I decided this afternoon, at 14:16, to catch the 14:21 bus into Babylon-lite.
     The idea was to get the eponymous album, so I could upload it to i-tunes and play it REALLY LOUDLY.  However, reality had other ideas.  Art?

     Every DCFC album but the one I wanted.  O well, into each life a little rain and all that.  I did, however, lay hands on "Wanted on Voyage" which is George Ezra's debut.  I wouldn't normally mention this, as he's a bit lightweight for Conrad's normal tastes, which run to the dark and mordant, but what the heck it's a sunny day.
     Ah yes, "The Accountant" - I've seen a <cough cough> torrent and enjoyed it, so by my rules I have to buy the real thing.

Shakespoke
Written whilst on the bus into Babylon-lite,for the first two stanzas, anyway, and the third one is the fruit of walking Edna this afternoon.  Shall we begin?  Why yes we shall!

"If you prick us, do we not bleed?"

Since you're human, I hope so, indeed.

Were you punctured yet shed no gore,

Bill had created an exsanguinated extempore.

     Ah, them big words again!  "Exsanguinated", which this program's wretched South Canadian dictionary does not appear to understand, means having had all the blood removed from.  So, if a vampire you dated, you'd be - exsanguinated.  
     Hang on, let me just check if Ben Folds is still alive - Phew!  yes he is, it was the yacht behind his that ran onto a mine, exploded and sank - 

"If you prick us, do we not bleed?"

Yes! and the blood should exit at speed.

If it just oozes sullenly out of your bod,

Then, as the Norks* say, you'd be Dod. 

     I had to come up with that last line right now - whilst I was writing the bus pulled into Oldham Babylon-lite Bus Station.  So that's a bit of improvisation for you.

"If you prick us, do we not bleed?"

Here, common sense should intecede.

It's not on, assaulting people with pins, 

Leaving them with holes in their skins.

     You might have been able to get away with this in 1623, Billy Boy, but the Health & Safety Executive would be onto you today in an instant.  Or - get this! - in a pinstant.

Remember!  Keep your PIN safe!

Still Here!
The planet in general, I mean.  Do you recall, back in the day, there were a host of swivel-eyed loonwaffles predicting that the Large Hadron Collider would variously destroy Earth, or destroy the Solar System, or the Universe, or add 5% to the cost of a television licence?

This is merely "Large"?  An understatement of British proportions!

     Maybe it was 6%.  Anyway, the thing is still running and we're still here.
     Well, except we might all be dead and only think we're alive because we're in a computer program that's designed to fool us - hey, Hollywood, if you want I can do a treatment of this for %77,000?



*  Said with a cheery smile, so these Norks are the Norwegians.  And "Dod" is Norwegian for "Dead".  BOOJUM! - entertaining you whilst we also educate.