The Theme Tonight Is "U"

NO! Not The Hideous Textspeak Lazy Idle "U" For "You"
I mean the 21st letter of the alphabet.  <ahem>  Deep breaths, Conrad, calm yourself.  Crimes against grammar will indeed merit capital punishment when you take over the planet, but for now you must be strong.  Be strong and resolute.
     Well now, we have made it to U in our occasional backwards ramble from the letter Z, for no particular reason, except it amuses your humble scribe.  You may even learn something*.

Unterseeboot
German for "Under sea boat", which in the Queen of Languages, we call a "Submarine".  As it is one of those portmanteau words in German that do not trip off the tongue with the litheness of an acrobat or the deportment of a dancer, it is generally abbreviated to "U-Boat".

Thus, not a load of old cobblers

Ulysses
The Latin for "Odysseus", this chap features in Homer's "Iliad" and, more pertinently, the "Odyssey".  After the end of the Trojan War, it took Ulysses 10 years to get back home to Ithaca, and he ended up the sole survivor of his ship.
     Now, how many of you have actually read the "Odyssey"?  Hmmm?

Our hero about to kick bottom after stringing his bow

     I thought so.  Well, it may interest you that about a third of the poem is about his return home and how he plots and schemes to get rid of aspirants to his throne, in a decidedly Machiavellian frame of mind, if I may borrow a phrase from 2,000 years into the future.
     I should also point out that old Ulysses' return home was slightly delayed for 8 years as he was <ahem> detained as the lover of Circe and Calypso respectively.  What a trial and a tribulation for the poor feller.

Ungoliant
Arachnophobes look away now!  If you recall the giant spider Shelob from Lord of the Rings, either film or book, then you're looking at the miserably small offspring of Ungoliant, a giant spider amongst giant spiders, and one of the chief villains of "The Silmarillion".

With trees to give scale

  I know what you're going to say.  "But Conrad," you'll say, "Physics and the structural load-bearing of insectile exo-skeletons proves that a spider cannot grow to this size -' - which is why you don't get invited to parties and I do.  Giant spider - be told!

Ungainly
Your humble scribe is this.  Conrad, if he were the girly weeping kind, would weep with gratitude if he had even two left feet. As it is he has feet that appear to operate in different dimensions, not just different time-zones.  Furthermore, at 6' 1" and 18 stone**, if he treads on your toes or runs into you, then your day will suddenly acquire a visit to hospital.  So I apologise in advance.  This is why I always peer round corners at work, since hospitalising your work colleagues is a bad thing - it would mean one less person available to answer the phones.
     Not sure how to illustrate "ungainly".

That'll do - like looking in a mirror!

Urquelomplangia
It wouldn't be a post without me blowing a whole chorus of trumpets, French horns and euphonium's** in praise of my fictional 17th Century kingdom.  It sits in the hinterlands of Europe, a crossroads between the Slavic east and the Teutonic west, religously tolerant (up to a point), untroubled by war, fertile, well-watered and sole practitioner of the esoteric art of wizardry.  
     I have now reached the point where the English diplomat Sir Ector de Vaillance has been quartered upon Markus, the kingdom's sole surviving wizard.  Sir Ector is curious about wizardry and magic, whereas Markus is more interested in getting a hot pottage for breakfast.  There's also a green-skinned demon(ess), red rooks that aren't, a sinister duelling German and a hairy Prince.

The SFW version, obviously

Ugli Fruit
Well named, this is a hybrid fruit created by crossing a grapefruit, an orange and a tangerine.

More "Disgusting" than "Ugli", I'd say

     The inside is a lot nicer than the outside, kind of like Conrad-in-reverse.  Art?

Also sweeter than your humble scribe

Ur
NO!  Not the sound that bad public speakers make all too often.  The Sumerian city of Mesopotamia, thank you very much.  One of the centres of ancient civilisation, it rose to importance from 3000 BC.  However, lest you show any interest, let me quote: "This was the most centralized bureaucratic state the world had yet known" - so in other words it was run by civil servants.  That kills my interest stone dead.

Nothing is more certain than death, taxes and self-perpetuating civil services

"U - U"
What's that old saying?  "The past is another country".  Indeed it is, and so is Conrad's mind, if the above is anything to go by.  It's the last entry in my list of things that begin with U, and, unlike the rest of the list, I have NO idea what it means.

<short pause as your modest artisan ponders anon>

     Nope, still nothing.

Okay, off to type up more of "The Annals Of Urquelomplangia"

* Apart from how to press my Rage button.
** Euphonii?