Ananas Comosus - Dog Buns!

Latin For Pineapple
     I just thought I'd let you know how much Conrad hates pineapple.  The smell, the taste and the texture are all utterly repellent.  Hideous, horrible Hawaiian things.  They are the reason Conrad is extremely wary of fruit salads, and why he has to fork through the contents of a sweet-and-sour sauce, for downing a chunk of pineapple would turn the entire meal into a dish of ashes.
     So.  Conrad - likes pineapples as much as he likes musicals.  0%

Prince Harry Is In Estonia
     Go on, did you have to look it up in an atlas?  The most northern of the three Baltic states, capital city is Tallinn, population - Conrad guesses about 3 million, language is similar to Finnish - so during the Cold War years Estonians could entertain themselves by watching Finnish television*.
     Why bang on about Estonia?  Because it recalled to Conrad one of the better films to come out of the liberated republics of the Soviet Union: "Darkness In Tallinn".
     Darkness In Tallinn (1993)
     After the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the independence of the Baltic states, the historical gold reserves of Estonia were returned to that nation - to the value of £1 billion.  Russian gangsters intend to steal this gold, and plunge the entire city into darkness in order to do so; their plans rest on the electrician Toivo, whose pregnant wife is about to give birth ...

No, I don't know why an Estonian film has a Chinese poster

     I won't give the end away, but at one point the film makes a brilliant (literally and metaphorically) transition that will have you going "Wow!"

The Hounds Of Tindalos
     After visiting the recycling-centre these critters popped into my head (brain-antennae probably picking up stray radio waves again), although I couldn't recall the author at first.  First name "Frank" was all I could remember.
     Aha!  Frank Belnap Long, one of a circle of writers who orbited H. P. Lovecraft.  The Hounds were an unpleasant invention of his, able to materialise from any sharply-edged surface and with a penchant for attacking time-travellers.
     They haven't cropped up in Doctor Who yet but give Stephen Moffat a chance ...

"Free to a good home: Tindy.  Housetrained, chipped, but does tend to eat postmen"

Why Did Conrad Take A Trip To The Tip?
     Because, gentle reader, the bin-men thought he needed some exercise and so didn't bother emptying the wheely-bin on Friday.  Given the sheer volume of rubbish produced by the Mansion*, it wasn't feasible to wait another two weeks until it got emptied again.
     So.  Conrad had to bag up the rubbish in the bin - stinking to high heaven thanks to the heat, and writhing with maggots, too, just for good measure - and cart it off to the tip in the murder-mobile.  Windows down, thank you very much.
     There was a limit as to how deep into the wheely-bin Conrad could reach, so there is a residuum** taking up about a third of the volume.  And of course you won't believe unless there's a photo, right?

I leave the smell to your imagination, gentle reader

Polish Mayo
     No! Not the Irish county being buffed to a gloss finish - Mayonnaise from Poland.  Conrad saw this on the shelves doing the shopping and whimsically decided to buy it.  He buys Polish lager, Polish pickled gherkins and Polish pickled mushrooms, why not Polish mayonnaise?

     The mischievous thing to do would be to swap labels with one of the jars of Hellmans in the cupboard, made all the more tempting by that Hellmans description ...

Real?  Not if it's actually MAJONEZ!

Anna's Run
     You've seen coverage of today's Manchester Run, I take it?
     Looks gruelling, hmm?
     Well, it's only 10 kilometres, or 6 miles.  
     Anna and sister Georgina will be doing that and an additional 20 miles! in the rarefied atmosphere of Edinburgh, which sits 2.5 miles above sea level and where the air is thinner than any other region on Earth, apart from Mount Everest***.

http://www.justgiving.com/edinburghmarathon2014

     Conrad is watching you.

So - Tanks?
     Regard this, dear audience.  A British Mark I Wireless Tank.  A tank equipped with what passed for a compact radio in the days when Marconi's invention was only a few years old:

Also excellent for drying clothes

     One suspects this beast would have stooged around well behind the front lines, as a profile that large on the Western Front was the same as wearing a sign saying "Please shoot at me".

* Finnish Television; worthy of a blog to itself
**  Probably the first time you've read this word in a blog, hmm?
***  Some of this post may be slightly exaggerated for reasons of artistic licence