Cardinal Sin!

No!  I Am Not Talking About The Phillipino Cleric
Who must, after all this time, have heard every possible pun to do with his name and be thoroughly fed up with them.  Although we will come back to his title, and okay, that title is a bit click-baity.
     So that's partly not what we're talking about today.  What we are talking about is kind of a theme.  I shall explore this and see how much of a word count it generates, since it may get to 750 words total all on it's own, in which case you'll need to wait until tonight to read the exciting news about the drought and -
     - except that would be telling.

     Okay, the theme is "Cardinal", which - you're probably ahead of me here - popped into my head last night.  I then realised that there's a lot of definitions for this single word.  So, pausing only to slap the motley with a cricket bat, let us begin!

Cardinal Sin
This is any one of the Seven Deadly Sins.  No pausing or rehearsing, NAME ALL SEVEN OF THEM RIGHT NOW!
       How did you do?
     Let's see - they are:  Pride (the big one), Greed, Envy, Lust, Gluttony, Wrath and Sloth.  Conrad is practically a bundle of Gluttony, Wrath and Sloth mixed together in an unholy melange, although he isn't the least bit envious.

Pride.  No - wait - hang on a minute -

Cardinal Numbers
One of the basics of mathematics, these are numbers indicating a quantity - for example, eight-hundred and forty-seven (847), rather than being in a sequence - for example, "Conrad is a third-rate hack".*

Third-rate  (on a good day)

Cardinal The Colour
This is a bright red.  Not much else to say about it.  Sorry.

A bright Red

The Northern Cardinal
This is a mid-sized songbird found in the north-eastern states of South Canada, whose male has a distinctive red plumage.  It used to be a common pet, due to the colouration and it's song, but legislation in 1918 made it illegal to own or sell them in South Canada.  Thanks to Hom. Sap. putting out bird feeders, they are a numerous species and probably taste delicious when roasted ** and are unlikely to ever become endangered.

The peacock male
(That's a metaphor)

     They also enjoy considerable success as sports mascots, with teams in many different sports adopting the eye-catching male (the Saint Louis Cardinals basebeall team for one) and is also the Official State Bird of seven South Canadian states.  Doubtless this annoyed the Sinisters!

Yeah, he looks ticked-off

Cardinalis, Lobelia
Here's one I wasn't aware of until today, researching the bird.  There is also a plant called the "Red Cardinal", a species of Lobelia.  It's an herbaceous perennial, with - get this! - red flowers.

Thus

     - and yes, I had to look up the bit about "herbaceous perennial".  What am I, an horticulturalist?

Good Lord!  It's half-past two!  I am going to take a break and have some lunch, and perhaps brew another pot of cardamom tea.

I haven't written as much as I should have done because I've been watching the last episode of "Happy!", which is entertaining and distracting at the same time.  I won't spoil any of it for you, except to say that they leave at least two major plot threads unresolved, so I can confidently predict that there will be a Season Two.
     Now, where were we?

The Cardinals (Band)
These chaps were a Manchester band back in the day, who were around for a few years before putting out two corking singles that I stumbled across on Youtube, and now I can't find the damn video clips any more <sad face>.  Band photo?

Truculent Mancs

     Then they split up.  The Curse of Conrad strikes again!***  And none of the bands that they split into were anything like as good <sadder face>

Catholic Cardinal
This is one of the higher positions in the Catholic Church, and you'll have to forgive me for perusing Wiki, as your humble scribe knows nothing whatsoever about the heirarchy of any church whatsoever.  They are known as "Princes of the Church" and are normally bishops, and they wear BRIGHT RED ROBES! 

A flock (?) of cardinals

Oh, and finally -

Cardinal Sin himself.

*  That would be ordinal.  And insulting.
**  Sorry, that was Gluttony speaking
***  That is, I discover a band and they immediately split up or die, sometimes both together.