I went off-road with some research recently and it led me to the “Guglmänner” – a secret society of monarchist Bavarian separatists who are obsessed with the 1886 death of King Ludwig II and dress like Spanish penitents. And it’s a *trip*. Won’t you join me in my rabbit hole?

Ludwig II was the last king of independent Bavaria; you remember – built Neuschwanstein, bankrolled Wagner, gay, inspired a bunch of French poets and, yes, died in mysterious circumstances (drowning in waist-deep water in Starnberger See, a lake south of Munich) 134 years ago.

The Guglmänner take inspiration from the formal hooded mourners who once appeared at the funerals of Bavarian monarchs. Ludwig’s lakeside death site is their own grassy knoll and having scoured eyewitness testimonies they have concluded that Ludwig was murdered by the Prussians.

The Guglmänner website has a “search service” (disappointingly not called Gugl) in which they call on anyone who was “a witness to the proceedings around the death of King Ludwig II” – again, this occurred 134 years ago – to aid them in their inquiries.

They constructed this sophisticated device to photograph the underside of Ludwig’s tomb in search of irregularities.

Now, you may think the death of a Bavarian monarch well over a century ago is not an entirely pressing matter in 2020. Because that’s what *they* want you to think. Anyway, there’s also the important work of memorialising said king and defending his honour.

The Guglmänner subject any films, books or plays about Ludwig to a purity test, and they *really* don’t want you to mention butt stuff.

They have big plans for commemorating King Ludwig, including a special Bavarian euro coin ...

... a chair in “Ludwigology” at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich ...

... a head carved Rushmore-style into the side of a Bavarian mountain ...

... or his face etched into fields adjacent to Munich airport.

Here they are surveying the site. Around about here you might say, “surely, James, this is some elaborate KLF/Laibach-style conceptual prank?”. But if it is – and I genuinely don’t know – they’ve been at it for 20 years. And *that* is commitment to a bit.