Our Goal -

Is Pole
Or, to be rather more specific, Polish cooking.  I have the recipe for Bigos written out, and the ingredients are sitting in the fridge, whilst today it was the turn of what Polish students like, because it's cheap and filling - Zapiekanka.  Art?

I hanker - for Zapiekanka

     With the possible deal-breaking substitution of sweet chilli sauce in place of <hacks> ketchup, because who needs tomato-flavoured sugar on their food?
     Your Modest Artisan has to say this was pretty tasty, and yes, filling as well.  Of course Conrad finished it all off, because he hates any plate that isn't empty.
     Here an aside.  Of course, Conrad being Conrad, he simply couldn't resist messing about with that name "Zapiekanka" and - Hey Pesto! - he was struck how it rhymed with that Canuckistanian warbler Paul Anka.  "Is he still alive?" I asked myself, to a shrug from me.  "Wiki is your friend," I explained to myself, thanking me for my advice.  Art!

Your typically clean-cut Canuckistanian

     Now, that brings me onto the next aside of an aside.  You see the second song title there?  Yes, Mister Anka wrote the music and lyrics to "The Longest Day", which was quite a departure for a crooning young songster.  He even has a cameo in the film, which I remembered without realising who he was.  Art?

You remember now?

     He's the squirrely little chap at the Point Du Hoc.  Unlike some teen idols, whom Sir John Peel once lamented looked unable to hold a guitar without looking as if they were going to injure themselves with it, our Paul was quite musically gifted.  He had one of the biggest hit records in Canuckistanian history, and also composed the theme music to "The Johnny Carson Show", which must have been a sweet financial gig seeing as how often it was on.

ART!  I do the puns round here!

     Motley, I need you to go hold this thermometer as close as possible to that erupting volcano.  Yes, yes, yes - here's an umbrella.  Which I want back in good nick.

From Pole To Pole
Actually Paul's parents were Lebanese Christians, who emigrated to Canuckistan back when The Lebanon was still part of Syria.
     Which has nothing to do with General Wladyslaw Sikorski.  Art?

Boy, he does not look a laff-riot, does he?

     Unless you are Polish the chances are you've never heard of him, especially since he died in 1943.  He was one of the Polish exiles in the West, who commanded the Polish forces who'd managed to make their way out of occupied Poland.  He was probably the most powerful, influential and respected Polish politician-cum-soldier they had, until his aircraft crashed shortly after takeoff from Gibraltar and he died, along with all but the pilot.  Art?

The wreck

     Of course the conspiracy loonwaffles started right up, about how Perfidious Albion, or the Sinisters, or the Poles themselves, had all gotten rid of Dimya.  When Dimya's remains were disinterred and forensically examined in Poland, he was found to have died of injuries consistent with an air crash; he had not been strangled or shot or stabbed before the crash.
     Any lack of evidence that this was an engineered event is, of course, taken as cast-iron proof that it was an engineered event by the loonwaffles.  Guess what?  The Wiki article dealing with this hasn't been updated since 2012; so nothing has turned up after 8 years in the way of proof.
     Conrad also recalls that Polish war novel "Valedictory" has a section in it where Perfidious Albion is roundly condemned as the guilty party and no mistake.

"Silence - in Polish!"

     Air crashes do seem to foster conspiranoid nonsense, don't they?  Though, given the state of forensics in the present day, these ought to be shot down - no pun intended - verrrrry quickly, shouldn't they?  
     Alas no - but that is another music from a different kitchen.

     Oh, that Skeleton answer was "Bunions".  Not knowing the word length makes it all the more challenging, as "Cow's sound" could have been "MOO" or "LOWING" or "MOOING"*.

A Real Blast From The Past
Last night Your Humble Scribe re-watched that obscure Sixties sci-fi show "Starry Trek" episode "Arena", which - oops, no sorry - "Star Trek", apologies, it's been a while and nobody would know to correct me otherwise - which we riffed on a short while ago. 

ARRR, JIM LAD!  THERE BE SPOILERS AHEAD!

     True to type, the sole red shirted member of the Enterprise's party that beams down gets vapourised first of all, and there's an interesting if ghoulish detail about his demise that I wish to show you.  Art?  
            
       Thus passes Lieutenant Herlihy, who, despite being a member of the Enterprise's "Tactical Team", hasn't the sense to stay under cover, or even crouch.  And, whatever the Gorn hit him with, it hurts! - look at that grimace before his molecules migrate at a million miles per minute.  It makes sense to get rid of Herlihy, as he's carrying a proper phaser, not one of those woefully inaccurate key-fob ones.
     There!  We may come back to this, Conrad quite enjoyed re-watching it.

I say, Jim kept his shirt on!

Finally -
O dearie me.  As one door closes, another opens.  Or, if you want a less pleasant metaphor, you salvage one pile of rotting protoplasm from the septic sump of your mind, only to find that another, equally vile jetsam, takes it's place.

Conrad's mind: a metaphor

     For Lo!  I am talking comic strip recollections, going back to possibly 1970.  As I've discovered what one long-standing comic strip identity puzzle was, another two have popped up.  Both concerned Arctic settings.  One, of which I only recall the end, was a statement from the lone survivor of an expedition, possibly military, as he recounted his sole surviving companion died from an apparently minor injury.

Terminated by Teranodons with Toxic Teeth!

     Thus there was nobody else left to corroborate his fantastic story.
     In the second, a British military expedition had ventured into the Arctic to set up a weather station and send meteorological data back to Perfidious Albion.  I distinctly recall a radio message they received, saying that their data was literally priceless and to keep on sending it.
     Their problem was hostile natives they dubbed "Tuskimoes", being a brand of Eskimo with - you're probably way ahead of me here - tusks.  I think there was poison involved as well, in addition to hidden crevasses and giant snowballs.

They may well have been in this particular publication

*  It was MOO.  Don't want to keep you in suspense.