Almost Faster Than The Eye Can Follow ...

But Still A Clumsy Old Prat
     Last night I got all the ingredients ready for the baking of today's Sultana Cake, including 5 eggs cracked into a sealable beaker.  The minute I got off the bus it was whizzoomadcapdash around the kitchen, getting things ready -
 - until I knocked the unsealed beaker off the worktop onto the floor, creating an hideous mess and rendering the careful cracking of last night entirely useless.
     "Dog Buns!" exclaimed Conrad, and also "Birdsweat!", since this is a family-friendly blog.  Crack more eggs, add to batter, wipe up vile slimey mess on floor, especially since Edna will lick up any egg she finds.  Which makes her fart like a champion.

Aftonbladet
     Conrad is pretty sure you won't have come across this before.  What is it? I hear you plead, with a note of quivering inquisitiveness - Tell us, Conrad, tell us!

I can translate for you.  "Extra" means "extra".  You're welcome

     Well here you are.  It's a Swedish tabloid, published in Sweden, in Swedish, for the Swedes.
     Why is it here?
     Why, because Conrad feels obligated to broaden your horizons, gentle reader, and it's beginning was amusing: when first published in 1830 it was critical of the king.  He banned it.  It came out as "The Second Aftonbladet", and got banned again.  By the time it got to "The Twenty-Sixth Aftonbladet" the king had gotten fed up of the process and left it alone.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire
     This relic went toes-up in 1918 and gifted the Balkans with lots of bits-and-pieces countries, some of which are still with us.  Sadly not the Sanjak of Novi Pazar.
     Now, I can well imagine what you are thinking*: why on earth is Conrad bringing up a long-vanished empire out of thin air? 
     Principally because I am reading "Backs To The Wall", a history of 1918 by David Stevenson, which includes coverage of the Hapsburg's empire.  He covers the purely military aspects of 1918, and also intelligence, manpower, logistics, morale, coal and oil and horses.

See below -

Austro-Hungary - where men were men and moustaches were monsters!

     Looking at a map of the Hapsburg lands, a word popped into Conrad's head: "Polyglot".
     No!  It's not a kind of tile grout.  It means "To speak multiple languages", which is what officers in the Austro-Hungarian army had to do - German (Austrian German but still German**), Hungarian, Czech, Polish, Slovakian, Italian, Romanian, Serbian, Ukranian and Croatian.  Those Slav languages might be similar but they're not identical and they use different alphabets.
     Here endeth your 1914 - 1918 fact of the day.

This Is Why BOOJUM! Avoids Current Affairs
     The picture below loomed large on the cover of today's "Metro"

Conrad's world is no poorer for not knowing who this is

     "Michelle" - no surname given.  Apparently she is so famous she only has one name, like Bono or Banksy or Arnold, except Conrad has no idea who she is or what she does.  From the small print above she was on that vile stew of septic scrofula "Coronation Street" (which Conrad hasn't seen but still loathes like pineapple).
     Away with you, Michelle Whosit!  Go far away and never darken the electronic pages of BOOJUM! again!

To cheer me up, here's a picture of comic genius Buster Keaton

"Unrequited"
     Yes, good folk, another venture into language.  No, Conrad is not going to make a fool of himself this time because he knows what this word means: to love another with no chance of that love being returned.
     Yes yes yes, I'm sure whole libraries have been written about the subject - there's probably a play or two by that Shakespeare chap out there dealing with it - but that's not my point.
     If the poets and playwrights go banging on about miserable unrequited love, what about all the other ones where the two get together and the love is requited?  How often do we see films or books or plays about "requited" love?
     None!  This is lexical discrimination, is what it is. 
     I shall write a letter to The Times***.

More Blue Stuff Arrives
     Yes indeed, the workmen were up there today on the metal framework, busily connecting up more blue stuff with the metal joists and struts.

 

You can tell your grandchildren about it.
And mightily bored they'll be.

Very Small Chocolate Bar
     This is one of the spoils of Wonder Wifey's trip to "Sweet Deals" in Royton - Dark Chocolate and Ginger, both of which appeal to Conrad:

Surrounding objects left in for scale

*  DARPA are testing that mind-reading machine as I type.  Watch what you think ...
** And they probably wrote in that horrid scratchy-on-the-eyeballs "Fraktur", too
***  That's "The Times" Times, not the "Radio Times"