Scots the hell?

It may have been noted before but there are some things one expects from the Tory side of politics. A blatant disregard of the rules unless it suits them, the everpresent Wahmbulance for two. So it is good to have one's prejudices confirmed by the Scottish Tories. Tory mission statement 101 here.
Wee Murdo says: "What we have to do is get many more people elected from Scottish constituencies to support David Cameron and a future UK Conservative government and the best way to do that is to create a new progressive centre-right with a Scottish identity."
Or as persons of a cruel nature might say: "We have to continue to suck up to the fountain-head, as it were, but we can wear kilts and stuff so that people think we're different.
 He is, of course, right about "the baggage" which is to say "some old history stuff that we should all move on from, but SOME PEOPLE go on and on about, like it was important, or something".
Support from all around the world will be forthcoming:

 "Ye can tek awa' oor pin stripes an' oombrellas, but ye cannae tek awa' oor Union Jack undies"

The Union Jack undies were unavailable for comment.

Scenes from an Atelier

Master Aspertini,* I'm back.

Ah, Owlyglass. Did you fetch the polka-dot paint?

No, sir. I went across town to Vasari's Colour-Shop like you said, and asked, and they just laughed. And laughed. What now, sir?

This isn't the time, Owlyglass. Can't you see I'm busy drawing from life?

Oh hello Mrs Miggins. I didn't see you there. I thought you were an Allegory. Can I finish for the day, then?

Oh no no no. Tell you what, lad, you can fill in the last of the details around the edge of the Adoration of the Shepherds. That should keep you out of trouble until knock-off time.

Can I paint the angel in the top right with the speech-balloon ribbon?

Not after the last time. Shiplap will do that, he's the only apprentice I can trust. No, you do the pagan shrine on the left. Even you can't muck that up.

Pagan, Master Aspertini?

For feck's sake, lad, think fauns. Eagles. That sort of thing. Use your initiative. Run along now. Now where were we, Mrs Miggins?
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* Totally not a gin cocktail made with artificial sweetener.

Tantalising

The Google Arts Project will allow you to get this close to Whistler's Peacock Room in the Freer Art Museum BUT NO CLOSER.
Perhaps the Freer Museum people have security concerns after one of their letters was stolen by Captain Black.

UPDATE: M. Bouffant in comments calls our attention to the missing period in Captain Black's life, between his appearance as the letter-stealing villain in "The Wonderful O"and his equally villainous role in Captain Scarlet. From hating 'O's (due to a childhood trauma involving his mother and a porthole) he becomes enslaved by the green 'O's that the Mysterons project as they wreak their nefarious schemes. It is a classic case of the Return of the Repressed.

Captain Black before (l) and after (r) administration of 150 μg of Mysteron

Alternatively, Stereopair FAIL.

Apparently there was a 2005 re-make of Captain Scarlet. Why was I not previously informed?

Last Supper FAIL

Wrong on more levels than a multilevel FARKeting scam run by Wrongness McFail in association with Ponzo the Clown. Not only did everyone neglect to tell Judas that the theme of the party was "Come as your favourite Gold Coin" so he's the only one out of costume, but as a practical joke they've roasted his little dog Wuffles and served it up as the main course to see if he'll notice. This was not in any of the Gnostic Gospels I've read.

Also Peter is evidently unclear on the concept of "This is my body given for you".

A Dog's tale

What with one thing and another the Riddled Staff picnic was late this year and thus the "Rouge et Jaune" marrows were a little outsized. After we had evicted the hobos from them we could at least use them as a wind break. After being declared the loser at " Erysipilothrix Taxonomy and Wack-a-Mole night", it was my turn to wear the Ostrich feather hat and I was determined to forget that I looked like a  Crinoid colony and was onto my second bottle of Sack when Evangeline van Holsteren's idiot boyfriend brought his marginally more clever dog Custis over. Of course he was wearing his  Papal States cloak and some of the Macedonian Pikemen "military advisors" didn't take that very well. I dunno why we invite them since they are always trouble. I suppose it is for the "Stuffed Owl Surprise" they bring, which is very...owlish.
Still I guess the kids had a good time

B Negative: more of a philosophy than a blood group

Characteristic reactions to milk bottles
associated with blood type A, B, AB and O

When we were apprised of the Japanese and Korean national obsessions with blood types as a guide to personality,* here at Riddled Research Laboratory we were swift to see the implications.

Obviously a temperament typology based on four blood groups is too narrow to accommodate the rich panoply of human variation. By examining departures from the four basic types we can therefore reconstruct the additional blood types and systems that are causing them (much as reverse astrologers predict the orbits of hitherto-unknown planets out in the Kuiper belt by examining biographies that have somehow been perturbed from the destiny laid down by the known planets).

These may or may not be among the 29 cross-cutting antigen systems additional to ABO that are already known to the Whackyweedia. These seldom show up on the radar because we do not have antibodies to them to complicate the business of blood transfusion.

At left: Jumping-off-cliff behaviour characteristic of ABH non-secreters (Le^a antigen in the Lewis system); hiding-things-in-boxes behaviour characteristic of secreters (Le^b antigen).

At right: Kp antigen in the Kell system associated with architectural hats and misuse of bellows.

Bottom centre: Rhesus factor.

It is worth noting that we also lack antibodies to A, B and AB blood groups. What we have are antibodies to molecules on the walls of gut bacteria, which are a close enough match to oligosaccharides on blood cells to respond to them too, unless of course we have that flavour of blood cell and so do not develop the antibody.

If this is 'Intelligent Design' then Harumph. I have used Micro$oft products that were designed more intelligently.

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* Depending on whom you listen to, this is a harmless entertainment on a par with horoscopes, or a pernicious pseudoscience that has inspired dating agencies to match couples by transfusion compatibility, kindergartens to segregate children by blood type, and employers to demand blood samples from job applicants for fear of hiring someone of Type B (any fule kno that Bs are impulsive and unreliable). Silly Japanese people, using blood type as an excuse to discriminate against an arbitrary sector of the population! Why not define the outgroup by clothing or accent or skin colour,** like we do in sensible countries?***

** Not to mention birth order.
The Management would like to state that Riddled is an open-minded equal-opportunity employer with a strong commitment to diversity. We have moved on from the sorry stage in New Zealand history when birth-order prejudice was rife, and first-borns and last-borns kept to themselves in gated communities and bohemian ghettos. We will now hire first-borns (who are NOT ALL complacent sense-0f-entitlement conservatives) and last-borns (who are NOT ALL disruptive anti-status-quo anarchists and contrarians), and we do not begrudge the expense of separate tea-rooms.

*** Don't start me on Myers-Briggs personality testing.

Because "nematode parasite" was #4 search term for last week: Parasitology blogging (Angel Bottom-streamer edition)

Keith Laumer calls our attention to the Womboid Menace:*

This Womboid sounds like some form of nematode, though Dracunculus medinensis is not normally so lively. Another Kiwi reckons it could be some member of the Nematomorpha phylum but it behooves me** to point out that Gordian worms are only known to parasitise anthropod hosts.

Whatever the nature of the infestation, Jennifer observes that it can also affect angels:***
Though of course these could be rebel angels, in which case there might be some other reason why streamers are emerging from their bottoms, as was documented by Robertson Davies in his reconstruction of the death of Professor Urky McVarish:

“Ah, the Pink Ribbon Murder,” said Ludlow, the law don. “What did you make of that, Judge?”

“I didn’t make much of it,” said Mr. Justice Northmore. “I read everything that appeared in all three papers, and the accounts were so muddled and contradictory that I couldn’t be sure of anything except that a professor had been murdered under somewhat imaginative circumstances. I wish it had come to trial, so we could have got to the bottom of it—”

Roberta Burns snorted. The Warden raised his eyebrows.

“So that we could have found out the truth about the ten feet of pink ribbon that were concealed in the rectum of the body. Now why would anybody want to do that?”

The moral lesson I took home from Rebel Angels is that if one's preferred pathway to orgasm consists of a ritualised cos-play culminating when the partner removes a simulated tapeworm from one's anus, remunerate the partner properly.

Coming back to nematode infestations:
Your friends are all "No, elephantiasis has lost its social stigma, nothing to be ashamed of, people are cool. You'll be welcome at the Hallowe'en party, just dress your grotesquely enlarged scrotum as Groucho Marx." But if they're not embarrassed to be seen with you, WHY ARE THEY ALL WEARING RACCOON MASKS?

* A reviewer points out that if the plot of a science-fiction novel involves expeditions to Antarctica discovering the city of a long-vanished technologically-advanced civilisation, the erstwhile occupants should AT LEAST AS COOL as flying echinoderm Elder Things. It is anti-climactic if they turn out to be merely a vanished race of humans who didn't have the sense to think "Oh, the climate is changing and our homeland is becoming uninhabitable, best we use our advanced technology and do something about it". Even if their demise allowed the escape of the worm-like brain-jacking aliens from under the city.

** Me A friend, behooved.

*** You know who else liked painting delapidated brickwork and night skies?

Outsourcing the Positive Thinking to Dr Frankenstein

If life gives you merms...

UPDATE: In comments, tigris refuses to drink any mermaid-based fluids -- presumably finding them too fishy -- proving yet again that one man's mead is another man's poisson.

The Interducts are now complete

You can all go home now.