Snakes, Cakes, Tanks and Cranks

Yes, All Human Life Is Here
Bear with me, we'll cover all those title items eventually.
     Firstly, however, Conrad has to refer back to the sinister and underhand way that the USA - supposedly a bastion of republicanism and revolt against the Divine Right of Kings - actually fosters a subtle inclination towards the monarchy.  Conrad realises this verges on tinfoil-hat wearing conspiranoid nonsense, but look at the evidence!

     BurgerKING

     Nat KING Cole

     DUKE Ellington

     The New York Borough of QUEENS

     The Fresh PRINCE of Bel Air

     The Thomas CROWN Affair

     Elvis "THE KING" Presley

     
     Clearly there is something going on.  Inquiring minds want to know!

Molybdenum
Again I apologise for the randomness of this entry.  Getting up in the middle of the night, this was the word that came flooding into Conrad's brain.  No idea why.
     Okay!  Molybdynum is a metal normally found as an oxide, Atomic Weight 42.  When refined it is a very hard grey metal, originally confused with lead, hence the name.
     What is it good for?  War!
     Yes, the British tanks of the Great War* abandoned the use of manganese steel and instead adopted molybdenum steel, which is an alloy considerably harder than steel alone.
     Also, it's used as cauliflower fertiliser.

Molly Be Denim.  Close enough.

"The Tank War"
A work by Mark Urban, this has enough incidental detail to be worth buying, even if Conrad knows more about tanks than Mark**.  His conclusions, with statistics to back them up, are an interesting corrective to the "Teutonic Superman" approach of hacks like Max Hastings***.

All about 5th Royal Tank Regiment

     What bothered me were the quotes in the body of the text - they weren't numbered, so Conrad grumpily condemned the boy Urban to the desert wastes as there was no way to know whom was quoting about what or whey.
     Except there was.  Flipping through the back of the book, what do I see but a list of sources against the page the quote was on <makes cross face>.  I shall now have to read it again if I want to match up the quotes.
     Dog Buns!

"Aesculapius"
Ah, yes, another word that drifted into Conrad's collective consciousness this morning whilst waiting for the bus.  It then drifted away, only to come back again, like a zombie to a butcher's shop.
     Greek?  I pondered.  Medicine?
     Correct!  He is the Greek god of medicine, with daughters that include Hygea and Panacea, whom you might recognise.  His symbol was a staff with a snake coiled around it, which has been mistakenly associated with the staff of Hermes - the Greek god of travel who has a grudge with me - who has a staff with two snakes coiled around it^.

He was fond of bringing the dead back to life.
ZOMBIEMAKER!!!

Cake!
Conrad, weary though he was, set about making cake last night as he has the Pub Quiz tonight, and not really enough time to bake a cake if the recipe is out at all and it takes ages to bake properly.
     So -

One of your 5 a day

     Lemon and coconut cake, full of lemon zest and dessicated coconut, fluffy and moist.  It turned out quite well thanks to the infinite care and attention that Conrad bestows upon it.
     Will the ganterpies at work bother about all that sweat?  No!  A gulp and a mumble and the plate's empty.

Rosicrucians
On another trip back from bathroom in the small hours, this word popped up and wouldn't go away.  Don't blame me, I can't help my subconscious.

More like Bonkers Psychedelic Cross

     They are, apparently, a secret philosophical society allegedly founded by Christian Rosenkreuz back before Early Modern began, and they profess all sorts of things, including a dislike for dogma, and influenced that chap Martin Luther and the Freemasons -
     - pretty dull, eh?  Also bordering on religion, which brings us to -

BOOJUM!'s Policy Of Avoiding Religion, Politics And Current Affairs
This week has seen a spectacularly horrid example of why BOOJUM! stays as light and frothy as Lemon and Coconut cake^^.
     It also brought to mind "Le Canard Enchaine", a French satirical paper published weekly, which the lazy journalist - Metro your ears are burning - would characterise as the Gallic version of "Private Eye".
     The title means "The Chained Duck", for no very obvious reason.  It is, coincidentally, one hundred years old this year, which for the French political establishment is ninety-nine too many.  Unlike most of the French press, LCE is very happy to investigate the seedier side of French politics and politicians, and to tell the world all about it.

It's a duck.  With a chain.

     
* As described by those not waging it.
** For example, he says the British two-pounder had a calibre of 37 m.m.!  Mark, what a faux pas!
*** There should be Less Hastings.
^ Snake envy?
^^ See?  Everything is connected to everything else.