Yes, Gentle Reader
Your Humble Scribe is referring to the Mandrake root, about which a whole load of nonsense has been written by people who either ought to know better or who had consumed one too many sherries. Art!
Mandrake Root: the terrifying fiction 
Mandrake Root: the rather dull reality
It was supposed to release a fatal shriek when plucked from the ground, meaning instant death to mandrake pickers. Unless they were deaf or had ear-plugs in. How did our quivering ancestors discover what was a safe distance? for the mandrake picker might have ear-plugs in, yet the locals in nearby villages wouldn't have. Was the fatal shriek related to speed-of-egress? Could you avoid the killing keening by pulling it out verrrrrrrrrrrrry slowly? Why not just dig it out concealed in a giant clod of earth and leave it in the middle of a field five miles away, meaning the soil will gradually erode and the root will howl to the heavens, unavailingly, until it loses it's voice.
Of course, I might be overthinking this ...
ANYWAY none of it has anything to do with Mandrake The Magician, whom Your Humble Scribe stumbled across a couple of weeks ago. He is arguably the first comic superhero, having arrived in print form a good 4 years before Superman. Art!
Despite having a day job as a stage magician, Mandrake is actually a secret crime-fighter, who uses his phenomenal abilities in hypnosis, teleportation, shapeshifting and reading coffee grounds to combat villains of all stripes. He is aided in his hobby by Lothar, an enormous African prince who is probably the embodiment of all the KKK fears. Art!
His party trick is lifting an elephant with one hand. Conrad is unsure how many parties have ready access to pachyderms but we will let this one pass. There is an elaborate and long-running series dealing with Mandrake, his assistants and the various villains he is victorious via.
Conrad has only just now realised what a "Harold Hedd" cartoon of the Eighties referred to when the opening frame had Mandrake doing his hypnotic gestures, with the hulking Lothar behind him. Mandrake's quote ended "- or Lothar here will kick your ass!" and do you know I don't think he meant mules or donkeys. Back then, as now, we here in This Sceptred Isle had absolutely no idea who Mandrake was, and still less about Lothar. Art!
This would probably only get sold today with a great big sticker about ADULT CONTENT because it really isn't for minors, given the drug consumption, violence and swearing.
I see we have travelled rather far from our start point diametrically rather than as a geodesic. O well.
A man drake
Before you ask, the motley is below, cleaning out The Mansion's Lower Dungeon, re-hanging chains and grinding those left-behind bones to make fertiliser. We anticipate more denizens soon. Soon!
Serendipity
As you should surely know by now, Conrad likes to collect the Official Histories of Perfidious Albion in the First Unpleasantness, which is a long, slow process if you're not willing to shell out £1,800 for the Military Operations volumes. There are a couple of works that were never made available to the public, mostly because their print run was ridiculously small. Art!
That's the one I have, originally published in late 1944 in 100 copies. Only subsequently published in 1987 thanks to the Civil Service's Thirty Year Rule.
ANYWAY I discovered the companion volume "Military Operations Persia" on Amazon last night, for less than a tenner, and immediately bought it. Woohoo!
Except what's this? Thanks to my purchase I also get free access to Amazon Prime streaming services for 30 days. YES PLEASE! because this means I get to watch Season Five of "The Expanse" for free. Art!
Random screen-snip
Yes yes yes, of course I've read the novels the television series is based upon. However, the television series is sufficiently different that you cannot predict anything with certainty. The last novel in the series is due out in November, probably coming out as a paperback edition six months later.
Whilst Still Regarding The Heavens
Let us move to tie up the shortlisted entrants for Astronomy Photographer Of The Year, with an entry from Kush Chandaria of This Sceptred Isle, in a composition entitled - Art!
"The Soul of Space" by Kuch Chandaria
More formally, this is the Soul Nebula, and you can see lots of detail because Kush left the picture to run for 14 hours. This means it's now picked up a lot of extra details that only exist because of the delicate interplay between the gas clouds, shock waves and passing stars. At seven and a half thousand light years distance, Kush has done a fair job of capturing granular details.
Okay, I am now going to pour out a Kopparberg that Sal didn't drink or take home with her, and I note that it's got several dint's in the body proper. This might mean if froths forward like champagne with a suicide streak. We'll see. If there is a long pause here it means I've gone to wipe my hands.
Nope!
"Fallingbostel"
You may be forgiven for looking perplexed or bemused at this word, because Conrad was himself when it popped up in his brains. Since I was at the checkout in Morrisons at the time there was little opportunity to make note, forcing me to scribble on a packet of remaindered ham-off-the-bone. Art!
Surprise surprise, it's a town in northern Germany, where for many decades the British Army Of The Rhine had a presence, before the Sinisters fell apart and away and the border was suddenly the other side of Poland. Art!
There doesn't seem to be anything particularly special about the town, only that it was the birthplace of Erich Von Manstein, Tueton military strategist par excellence, if we can mix language not metaphors. Art!
At which point I think we've had enough of Fallingbostel.
Falling bone, military drone
Finally -
Just a heads-up that I am working tomorrow - but at least not on the phones nor in Gomorrah-on-the-Irwell - and so this is very likely all that you'll get in terms of new content. I may post a set of links, or I may not, I'm unpredictably horrid that way. Chin chin!
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