Mythic Malleting Mayhem

We're Going To Look Backwards Before We Look Forwards

CAUTION!  SINGLE TOPIC BLOG.  YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

To the days of the Second Unpleasantness, in fact, and even when we return to the present, there will still be a bit of a sternward gaze involved.  Okay, Art!

The Handley Page 'Hampden', with a fuselage only 3 feet wide

     The Brylkreem Bomber Boys of the RAF began the war with only 280 aircraft and 15,000 personnel.  By the time hostilities ceased in 1945 they had over 1,500 aircraft, of immeasurably greater quality, and 250,000 personnel. Art!

Lannies being giant flying mallets

     Conrad himself remembers seeing the first orc film of a single Kozaky drone on it's way to hit a Ruffian refinery, when it was treated with amused contempt at the idea of such a novel concept, waaaaaaaaaaaay back in 2023.

     Now that we've introduced the concept of technological progress over time, I'm going to move on and review a few vlogs that I've been annotating since the end of May as they concern the Ukrainian drone campaign against Mordorvia.  Most of these are from 'Professor Gerdes Explains', him being a Professor at Charleston Southern University with a full time job alongside his several vlogs per day in support of Ukraine.  Art!

Yes he likes books as much as I do

     Okay, in his vlog 'Ruffian Officials Are Starting To Say The Quiet Part Out Loud', published 25/05/2026, he notes that Urals crude is retailing at $87 per barrel, or about twice what it was selling for before Trump's war with Iran, yet about a third down from peak price.  I checked and it's now down to around $55 per barrel, meaning it's heading for the $40 early 026 total, where the orcs lost money on every barrel they sold.  $87 per barrel seems like a fever dream now.  The city of Tver is now rationing petrol - big news at the time - whilst Duma Chairman Valery Gartung warned of the current ₽11 trillion deficit and that inflation was likely to rise to ruinous levels.  Art!

BENZIN NYET

     Overall, Ruffian refineries fuel production was down by 10%, allegedly, and the orcs were importing petrol from Belarus.

     Critically, the price of vodka had increased by 15% at this date.  Some smart alecs are suggesting that the Kozaky target Ruffian distilleries to deprive orcs of their favourite liquid, which would indeed bring the government down overnight if managed strategically.

     In the next vlog of 01/06/2026, "Daily Ruffian Casualties Remain High", the Prof remarks about Pantsir AA systems being helicoptered onto rooftops near the Kremlin.  Art!

     Furthermore, Ruffian industry is now obliged to arm itself for defence against drones, meaning that the Kremlin is unable and unwilling to do so and, in classic Putinpot style, is passing the buck.  Ruffian ships in the occupied port of Berdiansk were attacked again.  Art!

     The other target was a tugboat.  Not very sexy but essential for port operations.

     Prof G also mentioned the big Ruffian drone and missile strikes on Ukraine, 265 drones being launched, 228 being downed.  If we assume those are Geran drones, then they use at least 40 gallons of petrol each, meaning the orcs expended over 10,000 gallons in a single night.  How howlingly ironic that seems six weeks later!

     Also, another metric to bear in mind, if the orcs lose more than 1,120 casualties per day, then they cannot replace them, as this total exceeds their daily recruitment tally.  No mention of mobilisation in early June at this juncture.  

     The Logistics Lockdown has begun - in the space of 2 days the orcs lost over 1,000 trucks and tankers.  Art!

     The Prof's vlog on 03/06/2026 is one we've already covered, as it was the one dealing with the Ukrainian attacks on Saint Petersbug just as attendees were arriving for the Saint Petersbug International Economic Forum.  The title is pretty apt - "Putin Humiliated".  The attacks were so obvious and blatant that even he had to admit that the Kozaky had hit something - 'a pile of coal' according to him.  Air travel was suspended, meaning SPIEF members had to travel from airports outside Barad Duh to the meeting.  O the poor dears!  

     Conrad noted that there was one element missing from the Ukrainian strikes - air raid sirens.  Despite the attacks occurring serially, not simultaneously, no alarms were raised because - the SPIEF attendees cannot be given the wrong impression, can they?  437 trucks and tankers destroyed in one day.  Art!

     What you see burning and exploding here is the Ruffian navy arsenal at Bolshaya Izhora, as mentioned in the Prof's 06/06/2026 vlog 'Putin's Problems Are Multiplying Fast'.  That's an alleged 5,000 tons of munitions going up in smoke, including cruise missiles for the Baltic Fleet at $4 million apiece.  Ooops.  The Prof, somewhat gloatingly, mentions Prez Zed informing the world that the Ukrainian strike drones flew more than 1,000 kilometres to strike Ruffia's second city, which seemed like an awfully long distance at the time.  Which is all of a month ago.

     In other breaking news, the Swedes detain a Ruffian grain ship.  Big news at the time.  

     I shall now shift my annotations to 'Jake Broe' as he had returned from his Sorkland sojourn.  Art!

"30 Minutes Of Ruffia Getting It's A$$ Kicked By Ukrainian Drones"

     As of 13/06/2026, it's now the stated aim of Ukraine to deprive Krim of any fuel, by destroying fuel tankers, road and rail bridges.  By this date they now have the M-4 highway under fire control, and have their mid-range drones patrolling to the shores of the Black Sea.  25 regions in Mordorvia now have problems with fuel supply, out of 83 total.  Not good, but in three weeks that's going to look positively balmy.  The total of crude being refined falls for the sixth successive month, which is an economic disaster in the making, because the refined fuels Ruffia was selling bring in at least twice what crude does.  Art!

"Massive Oil Depot North Of Moscow Obliterated By Ukrainian Drones" is Jake's vlog from 18/06/026.  Before we get to that, the above picture shows the two Ruffian ferro-concrete bridges at Chongar, which are now out of commission thanks to at least 5 Kozaky drone strikes upon them, thus cutting off supplies into Krim from the north-east.  The orcs have put a pontoon bridge into place, which is only one lane wide and which creates a bottleneck.  The Ukrainians decided to be the corkscrew.  Art!

     Jake's pointer is over a hole created by a previous drone.  The pontoon at Chongar is now out of service.  Art!

     That was the macro-economic scale.  Here we see the micro-economic in action.  The orcs had not been forbidden to use individual cans or containers to prevent them from greedily appropriating all the fuel.  Don't forget, this is 18/06/2026; if you tried this as brazenly today you'd be shot, stabbed or strangled by your fuel-less compatriots.  Art!

     That pointer is at the location of the Rybinsk fuel storage depot, which, if Art will put down his bowl of coal -

     Ukrainian drones striking this depot need to travel at least 700 kilometres and probably over 800, since they need to avoid all the SAM systems ringing Moscow.  They managed it at least three times.  Art!

     A brace of tanks already on fire with a third drone ready to join in the flammable fun.  As a rule of thumb, each of those fires is destroying $5 million of fuel and $1 million in infrastructure.  Art!

     A strike 2,500 kilometres into Mordorvia by drones that now have a 3,400 kilometre range.  This means nothing is beyond range.  So much for the nervous clucking orcs who wanted to shift everything beyond the Urals.  Art!

     That's almost one every hour.  That single grain ship seized by the Swedes looks a bit feeble now, doesn't it?

     There you have it, an exponential expansion in the Kozaky's abilities to interdict and mallet the orcs on their doorstep, their neighbour's doorstep and the doorstep of those people three cities over.  We haven't even covered how the Ukrainians used AI to help their drones to mimic the flight patterns of a flock of birds, thus allowing them to get into terminal diving distance from juicy orc targets.  On the other hand, THIS IS HOW YOU GET SKYNET!

The Sign Of Fore

No! That Is Not A Typo

I know what you're erroneously criticising about, because you leap to assumptions and extrapolate, when you should be analysing assertions and interpolating.  Also, it is a capital mistake to theorise without data, as a certain deerstalker-hat wearer used to ruefully admit.

     Conrad is using 'Fore' in the sense of an event preceding later events, which is because I'm typing this Intro up on Tuesday evening for Friday's blog, an example of forward planning if ever there was.  Art!

     This is what you were thinking of, weren't you?  Tish!  Although it does have a bearing upon the rest of this Intro, because once again we are back on the subject of FOUR.

     Now, we are going to be making an aside here.  YES ALREADY!  Normally Conrad and the blog ladle opprobium and invective upon Mordorvia BUT one thing they did well during the Sinister Union era was -

     Sherlock Holmes.  Yes, really.  Art!

"Tscherloka Kholmsa I Doktora Vatsona"

     ANYWAY now that I have forewarned you - do you see O you do - let us crack on with all matters 'Four' as derived from my 'Brewer's* Dictionary Of Phrase And Fable' and my 'Collins Concise English Dictionary', as well as my fervent flotsam-flooded mind.  Nor will this be a simple recapitulation as some of their entries are the very definition of dull.

FOUR-O-CLOCK: Also known as 'Marvel of Peru', a tropical nyctaginaceous plant th

Does it talk?  Make a cup of tea?  Dance?  No? then it's not marvellous

     See what I mean?  Deadly dull.  Next!

FOUR-STROKE: No, nothing to do with Donnie Dorko's performance on the greens, although unkinder folks might wonder if it might refer to how many cerebrovascular accidents he's had so far which have ANYWAY it means, and how very ho-hum the definition is, an internal combustion engine where the piston makes four strokes for every single time a combustion takes place.  

     Still dullsville but it does mention combustion, which is better than a bunch of petals.  Art!

Original four-stroker

THE FOUR SONS OF AYMON: This is more like it! and further evidence that France, even before it was France, was extremely provincial and difficult to govern.  In the background, 'Aymon of Dordogne' was one of the provincials who forcibly resisted the reign of Charlemagne, about which there were many romances written.  Imagine Sir Robin Hood with a Gascon accent and a baguette.  Art!

   
     Let's be clear: these were not illiterate serfs whose most deadly weapon was a pointy stick; they were knights on horseback, to wit: Renaud, Alard, Guichard and Richard.  Unusually, their horse Bayard also gets a mention, as it is both magical and huge, always a winning combination in a steed.  Their widespread presence in songs, poetry and other romances is evidence that the French love an underdog, especially one that challenges authority.  Excuse me, Authority.

FOUR LAST THINGS: From times when piety and religion mattered more than Instagram rankings and mortgage rates.  This quadruplet was: Death, Judgement, Heaven and Hell.  Perhaps 'Heaven OR Hell' would be most apt, as this seems to be the Process Outline for End Of Life.  Art!

     In the 22nd century, a resource-scarcity environment, there is also a Fifth Last Thing, where citizens contribute to the continuity of city life by being recycled.  Don't sneer, it will come.

THE FOUR SEAS:  I am delighted to introduce this Britanno-centric item, as we are told it refers to the 4 seas that surround This Sceptred Isle to the north, south, east and west.  Not that I'd call the English Channel a 'sea', technically, as it's only 26 PROUD IMPERIAL miles wide.  Art!

     Not dull at all, as our island nation has defied invasion from Continental ne'erdowells for about a thousand years, thanks to the Four Seas.

FOUR-LETTER MAN: 

     No, Art, no!  Can you not tell the difference between an - O never mind <sounds of Tazer in background>.

     This is a compound of 'FOUR-LETTER WORD' and an extremely unpleasant person - the title is a misnomer, it can be a woman as well (isn't equality wonderful).  The FLW is an euphemism for a swear, usually to do with sex or bodily functions, frequently represented by a series of asterisks, as we manifest here on the blog (as in "Dog Buns s************z f******* ***!" yes yes yes I know those aren't four letters long, sue me).  Thus a FLM is one whom can be described by a FLW, which is where we came in.

     There are lots and lots more subjects dealing with FOUR, and I bet you can hardly wait.

Jolly Folly

SIT BACK DOWN!   I shall only be covering a single folly in this item, and no, it's nothing to do with Painshill Park, which we have thoroughly exhausted as a topic.  Art!

     Say howdyedo to Freston Tower, a red-brick folly constructed in the sixteenth century, so rather early as a folly, which tended to be late sixteenth century onwards into the heyday of the eighteenth century.  Put up in 1568, it has been refurbished and you can now book it as holiday accommodation should you so wish.  View of the River Orwell comes free of charge, and you can see various boats and yachts moored at low tide in the background.  Art!

 
     The oak interior of a bedroom.  Note the vertical guardrail to help climb the verrrry steep staircase.

     Rather less of a folly nowadays than it used to be, which is not a phrase you expect to hear about one of these 'conspicuous expenditure' buildings.

The More Things Change -

Several years ago Conrad took out a subscription to 'The Daily Beast' because they had chapter and verse on a Four-Letter Man called Matt Gaetz, a South Canadian politician who, morally, a bag of excrement.  Matty ended up becoming the subject of a House Ethics Committee investigation, and he was so confident of being exonerated that he immediately quit his Senate seat and completely abandoned politics.  He now hosts a show on the One America Network, which is quite a fall from grace and power.  Art!

     I'd call what follows more schadenfreude than politics, which is my excuse.

     Well well well, whom do we have here but The Nasty Little Man, Nigel Farrago, whom is also in hot water with a Commons Select Committee, who are taking a verrrrry close look at the £5 million pounds he got from a criminally-convicted crypto-trader.  Which he did not declare.  Which he won't clarify about.  Which he gets very, very, very angry about if the press question him on.  So! he has resigned his Parliamentary seat at Clacton and is going to go for a re-election.  Art!

     This stops the clock on the PSC - until he gets re-elected, then they begin again.  Tick tock, Farrago.

"21 Days In Normandy" By Angelo Caravaggio

Your Humble Scribe is on the last chapter of this work, so will only give a precis of the previous two that dealt with Operations 'Totalise' and 'Tractable', which were the efforts of the Canuckistanian 4th Armoured Division to close the exit route from the Falaise Pocket in mid-August 1944.  Art!

     They're under II Corps.  

     Boy o boy, does Ol' Angelo's description of Totalise and Tractable illustrate two profound factors: lack of room to manoeuvre and the fog of war.

        The lack of room was down to Kitching's superior, Lt. General Simonds, commanding II Canadian Corps, who insisted on an 800 yard frontage for the entire 4th Armoured Division, rather than the 1,600 yards Kitching wanted.  Which, inevitably, caused immense traffic jams and congestion that slowed progress to a crawl.  Art!

This kind of scrum, with added dust and enemy fire

     As for the fog of war, it's the usual mistakes about where units ended up, a lack of or mistaken information being passed up, down or across the chain of command, and senior commanders being injured and taken out of the chain itself, which happened so often it seems like bad luck and lightning striking multiple times in the same place.

More You What?

Conrad thinks that the news channel sees me as a talented amateur mechanic, able to strip and reassemble a Porsche engine blindfold with only a stick of celery and a tin of Brylkreem.  Art!

     I have NO IDEA what these are or what they do and don't feel any the poorer for not knowing.

Finally - 
Going out with another Biercism.

"Rent, n: An outrage, imposed by blood-sucking vampires on virtuous sons of toil'.

*  There's a funny story about that ......

Hock Follies

NO!  This Is Not A Typo To Do With -

 - that somewhat obscure 'Rock Follies' musical-drama from the late Seventies, which Conrad dimly remembers catching from the corner of his eye, as it wasn't really very street-cred in the age of punk.  Art!

 

     Knock yourself out.

     ANYWAY we are back on the subject of architectural follies again, as the title may have led you to believe.  Firstly, because of my sieve-like memory, I need to have a quick scan of where we'd gotten to last time.  Old age and gin, old age and gin, I tell you they have a lot to answer for.  Art

     Behold!  Another folly from Painshill Park - which Conrad has been mis-spelling as 'Painhill' - this one being the 'Vineyard'.  What makes this a folly?  O I thought you'd never ask!  Well, can you imagine people trying to grow a vineyard here in This Sceptred Isle, which is not known for sunshine and viniculture?  I cannot, but then I'm not a cockeyed optimist, unlike Hamilton the estate owner.  He took the precaution of employing a French viniculturist whom performed minor miracles and made wine.  Which may very well have included a hock.  Art!

     Art!

The Chinese bridge

     Back to architectural rather than agricultural follies.  This is the incorrectly-named 'Chinese Bridge', so-called because the side-bracing was thought to be Chinese.  If you've not crossed this bridge already then you might never get the chance, as it was closed to the public in 2023: the bridge supports are seriously weakened thanks to time and British weather.  Art!

     Once you cross the Chinese Bridge, you are on Grotto Island, which is home to a - you may be ahead of me here - a grotto.  This is an artificial cavern that was studded with various mineral crystals, all lit up by light reflecting off the lake.  The Grotto did end up becoming grotty by the Second Unpleasantness, having lost all it's decorations.  These were restored back in the Eighties but unless they've installed a pontoon bridge, you're just going to have to imagine them.

     SCRATCH THAT - Art!

     On the other side of Grotto Island is the 'Woollett Bridge', a copy of a bridge built in Northern Italy by Palladio, whom was almost worshipped by eighteenth century architects.  Looks more like a perfectly sensible back up to the Chinese Bridge if you ask me.  Art!

     There is also a 5-arch bridge, which is so utterly dull compared to the other follies that this is all you get.  Art!

     Meet the Mausoleum, which shares with the 'Ruined Abbey' the distinction of being deliberately constructed as a ruin, and which originally sported sarcophagi and funerary urns, just to maintain a sombre atmosphere, aided by the planting of dark-leaved trees such as yew and cypress.  Why you'd want a buzzkill building like this is known only to enterprising architects such as Hamilton and their pash for Graeco-Roman funeral construction.  Art!

     What does a hermit live in?  Why, a Hermitage, of course.  That's what you're looking at here: essentially a thatched hut that was off the grid even in the eighteenth century, never mind the twenty-first.  There are two rooms: living room and bedroom.  Art!

     The hermit would need to be happy living without either electricity or running water, so no internet or poached eggs.  Legend has it that Hamilton hired a hermit to live there, who only lasted three weeks before getting cabin fever and sneaking off to the local pub.  Art!

     Much better-appointed!  The Gothic Tower, from atop which Hamilton could probably see his hired hermit sneaking out of the park.  He originally used it as a verrrry large display case, exhibiting his sculpture collection.  After restoration in the Eighties, the GT is now home to a Park Ranger during working hours.  He must encounter the Hermitage whilst patrolling, and thank the lord that his County Council employers aren't penny-pinching misers content to stick him in a hut.  Art!

     Like several other follies, this is a modern recreation of the original Temple Of Bacchus, erected in 2018 after the original had been plundered of all it's component parts, which were either sold off or re-used in different parts of the estate.  The original also collapsed in 1949.  Art!

     Last one, promise!  You might be fooled into thinking that this 'tent' is a fabric structure: not a bit of it.  It's a brick, wood, canvas and papier-mache replica of the original one, so possibly not the most resilient refuge in a rainstorm.

     So! that's a whistle-stop tour of the follies present at Painshill Park.  I've just saved you oodles of cash and time with my precis, and you're welcome.  

More Ungentle Shoeing

From a professional, no less!  Dr. John Ahrent, whom we have already mentioned in conjunction with a devastating assessment of how Mopey Dick The Orange Land Whale was experiencing dementia.  He very aptly pointed out that Donnie Dorko is never seen walking to or into the Oval Office, the cameras only start rolling when he's already sitting down.  Art!

     Being able to sit down means Don Snoreleone can drift off when speeches get boring, which means whenever Pumpkinhead isn't talking about himself.  Art!

      Macron comes to the rescue of an elderly man who doesn't know where he is or where he's supposed to go.  There was no team of bootlicking sycophants to crowd around DJ Tango and shepherd him in the right direction, so of course he simply heads off at random.

     In other late-breaking news, his cheating and applying political pressure on the venal head of FIFA had no effect, the South Canadian ballfoot team were malletted by the Belgians.  Ooops.  Donold exercising his Sadim touch again.

     

A Life On The Ocean Grave

Unless you are the modern equivalent of Simeon Stylites and have been living atop a pillar for the past 36 months, you can hardly fail to have noticed - especially if you read the blog - that Krim is enduring a desperate fuel drought, thanks to the Ukrainians destroying road and rail bridges and creating transport bottlenecks, and also attacking anything hauling fuel.  Art!

     The orcs are desperate enough to try sending 8 small fuel tankers across the Sea Of Azov to resupply Krim with fuel.  Alas, Babylon, the Kozaky were one step ahead of them and hit all of them with drones - the one above is a Firepoint as they are the models that use green targeting data.  A kind of underlining that the Ruffian merchant navy only operates at the whim and discretion of Kyiv.  It's a good job that Aksyonov, the puppet governor of Krim, is already going bald, or he'd be tearing his thatch out by the roots.  Art!

     Also, one of the Tweeters on 'Chuck Pfarrer's Twitter thread hit the nail on the head.

pitchford@aol.com

@anneepitchford

I am laughing my Azov.

1:48 PM · Jul 7, 2026

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Another What On Earth? Moment

This one came up in the primary news feed, not as an Item along the sidebars amongst other nonsensical articles, meaning that the system thinks it's positively mainstream.  Right?  Art!

     Wow!  I never knew my life was suffering from an absence of 3-pole circuit breakers, and most especially ones from Schneider!  How could I have been so blind!

     No, that's irony.  Conrad can live perfectly well without Schneider 3-Pole circuit breakers.  Just to be clear.

Treating Them Gingerly

Conrad has recently, in a fit of frothiness, decided to make a quart of ginger beer, for the first time ever.  The recipe required a couple of pints of water, brown sugar, lemon juice and six ounces of grated ginger, which makes the basic ginger drink; then one adds one-eighth of a teaspoon of yeast to ferment the sugar and leave fr a couple of days to develop.  Art!

     I have found that, once you crack the cap seal to let excess gas out, all the CO₂ in solution suddenly froths up, making for a brief experience unless you want a bath in ginger beer.  Conrad needs to taste and see what it's like BUT only a shot glass, for it now has alcohol content and I've no idea how strong or weak it may be.

Finally - 

Going out with a Biercism

"Battle,n: A method of untying with the teeth a political knot that would not yield to the tongue."