Suffering Bunyip - Conrad's Under The Whip!

No Word Of A Lie, By All That's Holie
I know, I know, stretching for it a bit there.  However, it's entirely true.  I've only got in at 7:20, then have to get changed, have tea, make lunch for tomorrow, start the blog and then decamp downstairs for Bake Off (the final!) at 8:00, thus not getting back at BOOJUM! until 9:00 and probably not posting until 9:30 at the earliest.  
     You see?  You see the lengths I go to in order to educate and entertain you?  Anyway, with a brief and hurried Intro behind us, let the motley begin!

Say What Of Eden Underwood
Yes, my little fiction about the charming and sinister village of The 'Wood is proceeding apace.  Our protagonist, Niall Bloom, city boy gone astray, has now made the acquaintance of the peculiar loner Mister Hinkley, who lives opposite him on Malmesbury Butts.
     Which has nothing to do with the next part - my intent to have standalone chapters dealing with the village at three different dates in the past:  1567, 1767 and 1967.  Why?  Principally because I can, and also because these chapters will illustrate the destruction of the henge on Blackmoor Heath, the barring-up of the cave halfway up The Crag, and the doomed Cambridge archaeology expedition of the later Sixties.
     Not knowing anything about the Sixteenth Century, I made notes:

     There is a Gluten-Free Chocolate Mud Pie Cake recipe on there as well, which I've got the ingredients ready for - but thanks to Bake Off tonight there's no possibility of baking it tonight.

Rugby Union
I can tell what you're thinking - "Where is the real Conrad and who is this imposter?"
     No!  It really is me - look, look - that trademark scar, and the mole on my leg, and -
     What I wanted to relate to you was what Phil (Pub Quiz partner and all-round sporty bloke) told me about Rugby Union.  Conrad is vaguely aware that there are two types of rugby, and apparently there's a World Cup relating to one of them being conducted at this very moment.
     Phil explained in detail and because Conrad supped only on delicious limeade, he recalled everything: that there are only 13 men in a RU team, as opposed to 15 on a RL team.  That RU is no longer amateur, and is played by a surprisingly large number of countries around the world, including Ireland (the whole country not the top bit or the bottom bit separately, who are hot stuff, apparently.

There is just 1 Rule:
"Kill the man with the ball"

     England having been knocked out of the competition being held in their own country seems just about par for the course*.
     One thing I remember Martin, late of my last job, mentioning was that RU is very family friendly, despite being a violent and dangerous contact sport.  When a spectator in front of him commenced swearing at the players, another spectator as big as the brawling beasts on the field gave him a slap around the chops.
     "There's children watching!" was the caution.
     A violent, dangerous contact sport that is SFW - Conrad approves!

"Game Of The Foxes" By Ladislas Farago
This work covers the espionage battle between Britain and Germany before and during the Second Unpleasantness, and obviously - obviously! - Conrad turned to the Index to check out what mention had been made of Ultra and Enigma.

Group Captain Winterbotham.
Scourge of the Swastika.  Honestly.

     Being as you are, on balance of probability, younger than I, Conrad needs to caution you that the release of information about Ultra and Enigma did not take place in the UK until 1975.  GotF was written and published in 1971 in the USA.  It gets mentioned twice in the index, and I have found another mention in the text.  All these mentions are played down, sufficiently so that Conrad wonders if the author and/or the publishers weren't given a gentle and tactful hint from MI6 that "you can talk about it - in passing.  Subtly.  Three times."
     Pure speculation, of course, but - one wonders, one wonders ...

Polyglycerol 3-Diisostearate
Gah!  And also Agh**!  Yes, the Fear Of Chemicals With Long Names resurfaces!  What does this hellish concoction do the hapless fragile human bodies?  Explodes on contact with eyeball?  Turns flesh inside out?  Turns body fat into hydrochloric acid?  Reduces IQ to Beiberesque levels?
     Actually none of the above.  It's an emollient used in cosmetics and make up.

Thus

     BOO! BORING!  It should have been -

"Exposed to Poylglycerol 3-Diisostearate, his face fell off"

Blimey.  At the word limit already and there's so much I could have bored antagonised frightened told you about.  Well, more scrivel from Conrad tomorrow, providing that mud cake gets made before Pub Quiz.

Chin chin!

* Yes, I know, mixing sporting metaphors.  Whose blog is it?
** But not "Hag" as that would be silly.