Fussball

No, Conrad Is Not Mocking The World Cup
     It's German for "Football".  Mind you, it is ironically fitting ...
     For example, Conrad has noticed that an enterprising soul has added football matches to the side-bar on Twitter.  He is now aware of what fixtures are taking place, if his gazes wanders at all, and if his mind isn't wandering off in the Trifid Nebula.
     Another example - the graphics on Google have begun to take on a suspiciously footbally look.  Conrad is not entirely sure what they are, but there's a football in there so it must be to do with the World Cup. Right?

Speaking Of, And In, German - Mangelwurzel!
     That's right, in German "Mangel" means "chard", a super-healthy vegetable Conrad has never encountered in the UK; "Wurzel" means "root".
     Yes.  That word "Wurzel", which you all along thought to be as English as West Country cider drunk in a dimpled glass in the snug of a Tudor pub, hails from the Teutons.
     So.  Mangelwurzel.

Mangled wurzels
(Come on, you knew I'd say that at some point!)

     A root vegetable, which if cultivated with care can be eaten by Hom. Sap., otherwise it's for the birds - sorry, it's for the cattle and sheep and other undiscriminating livestock.

Whizzer And Chips
     No!  This is not sinister drug slang.  It was a comic back in the Seventies, as Conrad remembers, split between the Whizzer section and the Chips section, and readers were encouraged to try and spot the Whizzer character who had sneaked into Chips, and vice-versa <Mister Hand intervenes and asks can we get to the meat of the matter?>
     Yes, well, Conrad remembers one particular strip - done not in black and white but blue and white, which the strips did on occasion - which featured a farmer straight out of the pages of Cornish Caricature, wearing a smock, a hat and chewing an ear of corn.  The hilarious concept behind this strip was that the farmer talked in an unintelligible variety of "Ooh-aar" language, which featured Mangelwurzels at length.

Can't find any comic strip evidence (I tried really hard) so here's a giant volcanic eruption instead.

     You could get away with this stuff in the Seventies, dear audience.
     Anyway, if Conrad's choleric grey matter recalls correctly, the strip didn't last long, which is not surprising as the target audience were small boys who wanted to see things being blown up.

The Wurzels
     Ah yes.  The Wurzels.  Conrad is willing to risk his impeccable street cool <Mister Hand intervenes to point out that Conrad's "impeccable street cool" lasted for all of 30 minutes back in 1987> Yes thank you Mister Hand, go shake somewhere else!
     As I was saying, The Wurzels are a West Country band who it's really impossible to dislike, and who spoofed contemporary pop songs with a cider-drinking, muck-spreading, cheese-eating slant from the Seventies onward.  They got to Number One, so - ha! Neil Sedaka.
     Also, they do have charms to soothe the savage breast, because I heard Rick Wakeman recounting how he'd seen them at a gig with the best stage prop possible - a great big haystack.

Travelling Mangle salesman tries to persuade the Wurzels

Fred Bassett
     AHA!  Caught you out!  If you know who or what "Fred Bassett" is, then shame on you!
     It's a cartoon strip about a beagle that appears in the Daily Mail.  One feels that the artist didn't really put a lot of thought into the name.
     "Why is this relevant, Conrad?" I hear you plead.  "Why?  Why!"
     Okay, I'll -
     "Why, Conrad!  Tell us!  Tell us now!"
     If you let me manage t -
     "We need to know NOW Conrad!"
     Can you -
     "Conrad, educate us!"
     BE QUIET!
     Okay.  Let me explain that in Germany, rather than retaining the title of "Fred Bassett" for the cartoon strip, they re-named it "Wurzel".  Pretty freaky, eh?

Why "Wurzel"?  Answers on a postcard, please

Worzel Gummidge
     I know, I know, I'm straying from the proper spelling, but remember that old Worzel did have a mangelwurzel for a head.
     He has two iterations, and Conrad is here focussing on the television one, where our living scarecrow was played by Jon Pertwee, who put up with a six-hour daily make-up routine, and who played opposite Una Stubbs as the wicked Aunt Sally.
     Ah, wonderful Jon, who played Wurzel in manner that meant you could laugh at or cry with him.  Your son Sean has an automatic "Get Out Of Mind-Controlled Slavery" card when my invasion fleet arrives.
     Also, when filming a winter scene in summer, the production used titanium dioxide to represent snow, and - oh dear English weather! - it got blown all over the village being filmed in.

Worzel and Aunt Sally - no, wait a minute -

So - Tanks?
     Yes indeed.  We shall look today at a strange, secret armoured fighting vehicle known as the "Canal Defence Light".  The name is a deliberate misnomer, as it was in fact designed and intended to dazzle enemy troops on the battlefield.

Look at it, oozing Canal defensiveness

     It was so secret, however, that it never got used as intended.  Instead it was used as an armoured searchlight in defence of the west bank Rhine bridges, ending up as a kind of River Defence Light.