Wowing The Women Of Warsaw

 - And The Guys In Gdansk
Yes, gentle reader, for if the population of Poland still holds that BOOJUM! is the finest possible on-line reading experience in the English language, what can your humble scribe do but pander to their tastes?
     "Show some integrity", I hear you cry.  Sorry, got none.
     Let me regale you with a bit of Polish-leaning anecdote.  One of the streets close to my place of gainful employment is named "Dantzic Street", an alternative name for what used to be called the city of "Danzig".  You find that a lot in Eastern Europe - they used to move borders around a lot, following on from where the armies went.  Lemberg, Lviv, Lwow - being a postman in those days must have been difficult.

Dantzic/Danzig/Gdansk - take your pick

     Anyway, Danzig.  When Poland had been put together from various bits of Russia and Germany after the First Unpleasantness, it was decided to give it a coastline by allocating what was called the "Danzig Corridor".  This allowed Poland to have a coastline, which was all fine and dandy for Poland.  Less so for Germany, as the Corridor cut East Prussia off from the rest of Germany.
     Predictably, the Germans were not happy.  Since they were the losers in the First Unpleasantness, nobody bothered about this, which rather came back to bite all on their collective behind when a certain Austrian came to power in 1933 -
     Nowadays we know Danzig as "Gdansk".  There's another story associated with this port - which I might detail another day.

Test-driving My Darth Maul Mug
Note the conical appearance.  Notice also the frankly frightening face of Darth, grinning hideously out at the world.  Better not take it into work lest accusations of devil worship be cast at me -

Also, it might frighten the babies

     The problem with an all-over dark mug like this - obviously apart from the burden of being dubbed a Satanist - is that you can't see the colour of the liquor inside.  You can in this shot because of the camera flash.

The Saga Of Jenny And The Giant Crumpet
Not so much a "saga" as a bit of prose padding around a few photographs.
     A recent baking innovation that Conrad enjoys is the Giant Crumpet.  These are so large they barely fit in the toaster.  Conrad uses them as a small trencher to load savoury stuff upon, as in this case, where their cargo is scrambled egg.
     Jenny, any comments on Conrad's breakfast?

"Nah"

     Of course not, because it's not meat.  Even when sat at the table, crumpet on plate, Conrad failed to get any response from her.

"Still nah"

     Come on, Jenny, it's nearly all gone.  Still no comment?

"Zzzzzzzzzzz"

There you go, cats, officially not interested in either Giant Crumpets or scrambled egg.  Ham, yes, except there wasn't any.

Doctor Who: The Husbands Of River Song
This year's Christmas special.  Featuring River Song, whom Conrad is not over-fond of, as she seems to have an extremely high opinion of herself, which appears to be based on having an extremely high opinion of herself.  She and the Doctor have a bit of a history, which may be where the EHOOH comes from.

The Doctor.  Even his smile is sinister

     Anyway, here we are at Christmas time, on a distant planet in the year 5354, and unfortunately for everyone, Nardol (Matt Lucas) mistakenly thinks the Doctor is a surgeon.

Nardol.  Local colour and idiot in one package

  This leads to complications when Song instructs him to operate on Lord Hydroflax, who can be summed up as half-man, half-lobster.  He has a fantastically valuable diamond embedded in his brain - I couldn't follow why - and the conniving Song wants it, at the expense of her husband's head.
     Don't feel any sympathy for Hydroflacks, my notes describe him as "a thoroughgoing rascal".  Song and the Doctor steal his head, causing his cyborg body to pursue them relentlessly, only stopping to lop off heads along the way.
     Hydrauflax, now a head in a bag, gets treated as a comic prop.  This kind of treatment is terribly humiliating for world-dictators, even more so than for me and you.

The head of Hydreauflax
(Pre-disintegration)

     Did I mention Song didn't recognise the Doctor?  She fondly believes that he only has 12 regenerations, and she has a picture of each, so of course he can't be the Doctor.  This allows him to ham it up dreadfully when they enter the TARDIS in his "Bigger on the inside than the outside" speech.  If the TARDIS had carpets, he'd have been chewing them.

The Doctor with his body head bag.

     The cyborg body then disintegrates Hiedroflax's head, Song gets the diamond and - suddenly they're on a spaceship full of genocidal maniacs so she can sell the diamond.  Conrad is not sure about this as a sustainable business model, but then he didn't write the script.  The spaceship crashes, Song and Doctor survive, long epilogue about this being their last night together, boo hoo.
     I liked the cyborg body.  It had character.  All bad, but still character.

It does, doesn't it?

Proof That Your Gifted Author's Mind Never Rests
This, frankly, is a bit of a problem.  Conrad can never simply sit down to vegetate in front of a television, he has to have a book and/or a notebook, and is always ready with the camera on his phone.  Even sleep, it would appear, is no refuge.
     I say this as, having dozed off this morning because I can, the line "The Lair of Naira's Owl" popped into my head.  What? I pondered, promptly waking up.  Who is Naira?  Is it a who?  What about the owl? Owls don't have lairs, do they?
     Any passing psychiatrists are welcome to send in a diagnosis.

I Googled "Naira's Owl" and this came up.
It's a Burrowing Owl - so technically it does have a  lair.