"Come Join Me, Baby, In My Endless Weep"
Today's Intro might be what you can call a 'Multiple Marine Myopic Manglement', and yes, it focuses on 'Red Lobster', the verrrry troubled South Canadian seafood chain whose failings we mentioned briefly in an Intro dealing with bankruptcies a couple of BOOJUM!s ago. Art!
Hmmm. I asked the AI Art Generator to come up with 'Stupid Managers' and I think they hit the jackpot.
Okay, as of May 2024 Red Lobster filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, stating that they had 100,000 creditors (people they owe money to) and between $1 billion and $10 billion in assets, which is suspiciously vague, and up to $10 billion in debt, or perhaps only (!) $1 billion in liabilities. They have used the past 9 months to close over 100 restaurants, looking to ditch sites that are expensive or which don't generate enough revenue, trying to slim down their operation to cut expenditure. Art!
Like a spider wearing body-armour
This horrid-looking specimen is a 'Snow Crab', one of the marine dishes that RL used to dish up to customers. You have to crack the carapace and legs open to dine on the meat inside - excuse me whilst I feel ill - which is a time-consuming process. Some suit at RL HQ decided it would be a FANTASTIC idea to offer these on the menu as an "Endless Crab All You Can Eat" for $22.99. There was no upper limit on how many plates of Snow Crab you could consume, which hogs like Conrad would take as a challenge.
The thing is, this offer was only profitable if a person consumed one or two plates of Snow Crab. By the time they ate Plate 3, the profit margin had gone. You can see where this is going, can't you? People sat for hours cracking open plate after plate after plate of Snow Crab, which incidentally created long queues of waiting customers who couldn't dine on any of RL's more profitable dishes. Art!
The excellently informative webpage on "British Sea Fishing" - like "What's Going On With Shipping", a webpage you never knew you needed - explained that the offer began in late July 2003 and ran for seven weeks into September. This timeframe was critically important because this is when the Snow Crab catch is at it's highest price, and the South Canadian crabbing industry is very highly regulated by the government, meaning you cannot simply apply to increase your quota. Prices were high and were going to stay high.
There is also the problem that these critters are wild, not farmed, so the supply is always liable to unpredictable ups and downs, which again affects prices.
After those 7 weeks, RL had made a loss of $3.3 million, which was sufficiently bad for manglement to feel unhappy. Positively crabby, in fact. The parent company for RL at the time, Darden Restaurants, suffered a collapse in share price when this debacle became known, losing $400 million. Which they couldn't claw back. Art!
Edna Ended
That's Edna Morris, who was - past tense - the Prez of RL. She left shortly after the Endless Crab farrago.
Even today, business management courses point to the RL Endless Crab fiasco as a classic example of how not to run a promotion.
Clearly RL's C-Suite office management never attended these courses, because they proceeded to promote an "Endless Shrimp" offer for $20. This had been done successfully FOR A STRICTLY LIMITED PERIOD. What could possibly go wrong? Art!
Once again the hogs were to the fore, eating as much shrimp as they could physically stuff down their gluttonous gullets, and in far larger herds than had been predicted. One reviewer boasted, in print, that they'd spent 8 hours in Red Lobster eating the Endless Shrimp dishes, which is both gross and impressive at the same time. Instead of pulling the promotional plug, the hapless manglement who had taken over by 2023 allowed this drain to go on for 3 months and lost $11 million. Over the whole year RL lost $20 million
Ooops.
The management company, a Thai business, decided to get out of Red Lobster whilst they still could, and filed for Chapter 11. It remains to be seen if anyone else is going to pick up this poison chalice and how much they have to shell out to acquire it.
Red Lobster's "Endless" offers; an example of lightning striking twice in the same plaice.
Another Thing I Can Get Behind
NO! To pat it on the back, not stab it. Tut! Your attitude smacks of distrust. Art!
Well well Kelvin Gosnell. This, lest ye be unaware, is the television version of "Invincible", which is Robert Kirkman's take on superheroes and space opera, and domestic life, too. Artwork, which this new item does not mention YOU WILL SUFFER WHEN I TAKE OVER is by Cory Walker and Ryan Ottley.
So, it's made it to Season 3? Good. Conrad doubts it can follow the full story arc, as he has the full collection of trade paperbacks that make a stack twenty inches high, combining 144 separate issues.
What you see in that image - If You Know, You Know - is young Mark Greyson wearing his 'Invincible' superhero costume. No, he doesn't make them himself, there's a bespoke couturier who makes them by arrangement. In the background are the 'Re-Animen', a creepy species of cyborgs created by a resident amoral scientist, using the bodies of the recently dead.
This only scratches the scratches of the surface here, there's a lot to work with. Art!
Invincible is ANGRY!
"The War Illustrated Edition 202 March 16th 1945"
Cherish these images, children, as the camera on my phone is once again playing silly lollakad and not loading photographs taken, which is why you'll ne
ANYWAY another of the central pages montage, detailing the British advance into Germany itself. Art!
The caption informs that this is one of the Teuton bunkers captured by British troops, who netted 90 prisoners and a haul of equipment. Please note that the Nazi flag in the background is the wrong way round, so either the photograph has been reversed or an irreverent Tommy thought it looked better that way. Art!
A Teuton light machine gun, model not possible to identify thanks to it being out of focus and partially obscured. No, it would not be a good idea to steal and use it in action, as these things have a very distinctive sound and would inevitably lead to Allied fire being directed upon it. Art!
Matey here is wearing the Teuton 'coal-scuttle' helmet, or 'Stahlhelm' to give it the proper name, again unwise, as the silhouette is notably different from the British Brodie-pattern helmet and in poor light people tend to fire first and worry later. Art!
This is a Teuton 'Steilgranate' or 'Stick grenade', almost universally known to the British as a 'Potato masher', which it does somewhat resemble. It relied on blast rather than shrapnel for effect and one of the tests for aspiring SS troopers was to balance one, with the firing cord pulled, on top of their helmet. As long as they stayed stock still it would remain in place until it exploded, which would leave the stubble-hopper with ringing ears, mild concussion and perhaps an HE tonsure.
Conrad Carefully Considers
As you may or may not be aware, Your Humble Scribe already has 3 volumes of the "Australian Official History Of The War 1914 - 1918" which are very long, detailed and spare no effort to big up the Ockers, especially at the expense of the British. I see 'Turner and Donovan' have more in this series on their website, but their last Catalogue from November 2024 didn't list any. Art!
Ssssad Times
We covered the possible closure of the Snake Pass a few blogs ago, because the road along the valley bottom is always getting undercut by landslips and subsidence, and Derby County Council only have so much money for repairs. The article on the BBC News website explained that the 'snake' comes from the Duke of Devonshire's coat of arms, which included a snake. This sigil was on the pub that became known as the Snake Pass Inn. Sadly no longer with us. Art!
Now Then
Finally -
Disk 7 of the first season of 'Lost' only has one last episode on it, the rest being Behind The Scenes stuff, with no illumination as to how long they run so it's a bit of a bagatelle. A dirty job yet Conrad has to do it, for is not 'Completist' my middle name?
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