The Choker's Wild

No!  I Am Not Traducing The Game Show

"Joker's Wild", mostly because I had o idea it existed before this very moment, although I had heard the phrase and imagined that it referred to a film.  Not a bit of it, JW was a game show that had a long lifespan and a couple of reboots.  Art!

One of these is not a light-hearted game show

     The concept being that the joker in a pack is normally treated as a WILD card.  Not to foreshadow too much.

     Now, what does that have to do with the South Canadian Air Force during the middle years of the Second Unpleasantness?  O I thought you'd never ask!  No, I shan't apologise for jumping around like that, it's splendid mental exercise.  Do keep up.  Art!

     The USAF (to be formal about them for once) had decided that the Teuton ball-bearing industry was a critical industrial choke point, since ball bearings (hmmm just tried that without the hyphen and no error underlining) were used in lots of end products such as planes, u-boats and tanks.  Destroying the ball bearing production plants would thus cripple industrial production, deliverables would be way down, the Third Reich would become hideously vulnerable, almost The End.  Art!

For want of a horseshoe nail and all that

     Exhibiting a fair amount of hubris, the USAF went after ball bearing plants in Germany in late 1943, sending fleets of B-17 bombers as pictured above.  In daylight.  Without a fighter escort.  They lost 60 out of 240 bombers in their last raid and realised swanning about unprotected in daylight was a losing strategy.  Nor did they affect ball bearing production very much, as the Teutons rapidly diversified production, imported more from Switzerland and Sweden, and had massive stockpiles anyway.  Ooops.  An example of cold hard reality impacting the pen-pushers back at HQ.

     So!  Rather than treating a physical product as the choke point, the USAF changed targets and went after the Teuton rail network and fuel supplies, what they called the 'Transportation Plan' and what do you know, it worked.  Art!

     Rather than a small number of heavily-defended targets, the USAF and RAF went tally-ho on innumerable undefended targets such as the above, wreaking havoc and completely messing up the Teuton plans to defend occupied Europe.

     Well now, going off at a tangent that I never intended, it's currently difficult for Mordorvia to get high-quality ball bearings since the Swedish firm SKF that - you may be ahead of me here - made ball bearings, departed Ruffia in 2022.  They  now have to source replacements from China, Kazakhstan, India and Turkey, as well as importing 'grey market' ball bearings that have sometimes been counterfeit rubbish.  Oooops.  Art!

Grounded

     Having introduced the Special Idiotic Operation and it's consequences, Conrad is going to continue with that theme, because things have been hotting-up as of late in Mordorvia.  Art!

     As of about May 2026, the situation above had arrived, whereby the Kozaky were able to hit anything of value on this motorway and the major roads off it.  You might compare this to the Allied 'Transportation Plan', whereby the target zone (northern France) was completely isolated from the rest of the occupied territories.  Here Krim has been isolated in similar manner, without Ukraine having to endure huge losses in preparation, or at least not human ones.  Art!

     Then the Ukrainians changed targets, as we have seen the USAF do, although in this case it was to further extend the range of mischief being caused rather than as a result of losses incurred.  What you see above is a marine traffic map of the Sea Of Azov, which has now become hideously dangerous for Ruffian ships to transit.  Art!

     Another shift in target lists, as the Kozaky are now hitting Ruffian ships in the Black Sea, meaning they either risk being badly damaged or sunk, or they move even further away towards Sochi or Turkey, meaning they cannot haul freight or fuel.  Another Oooops.

     These recent enlarging of the target list are hurting the Ruffian economy BUT they remain out of sight for most of the orcs; only those living in the occupied territories or Ruffia's Black Sea shore get to see the mobile marine bonfires.

     So! Prez Zed decided to get jiggy, kiggy and liggy with it, and expanded the target list to include Wildberries, the orc rip-off of Amazon.  Art!

     Ruffia never looked more like Mordorvia, sporting twin Mount Dooms in the vicinity of Barad Duh.  Various orcs have commented on seeing these gigantic pillars of smoke and fire, which are clearly visible to their naked eyes, yet the news makes absolutely no mention of them.  Gosh what a surprise, Mordorvia lying by omission.  Conrad is shocked, shocked, I tell you!  Art?

     That in the background is $1.2 billion in destruction.  Consequently there are more orcs who were enterpreneurs now whining about all their Wildberries stock being destroyed.  Since WB recently quietly changed it's terms of service, said whiners are not going to get compensated.  Ooops.  Art!

     Here is Brit 'Churchill MG' gloating a bit - okay a lot - about the employees from the big Moscow Wildberries being escorted away by H & S marshals now that they no longer have a warehouse to work in.  Don't worry, Ruffia is missing over  million workers, they can find another job pretty easily.  Art!

     Well well well, so there was a film.  

     

Art From Angus

McKie, that is, which I've mis-spelled 'MacKie' due to being lazy.  Sue me, it's not as if you have to pay to read this scrivel.  Art!

     Very much designed to Go Extremely Fast Indeed And Nothing Else, and with a miserable pilot/driver to boot, the most interesting thing about this artwork is the background.  Not so much the enormous tower blocks, but the even more enormous tunnel that they appear to be operating within.  Conrad is unsure how safe it is to fly a balloon in a restricted interior space with blue bombers wazzing about at silly speeds.  Maybe the Health & Safety Executive has been abolished in the future?

Either A Confession Or A Boast

Conrad is not sure quite what to make of this item on my news feed.  Art!

     If we assume that they worked 5 days per week and got two weeks annual leave, and that they were never off sick - quite an assumption in this case - that means 3,750 days of being plonkoed at work.  Also, given the length of time they were swilling the wine/Special Brew/white cider, they'd have acquired a tolerance for it and would need to up the swilling quotient.

     Of course - obviously! - that's without actually reading the item, which would be the quick and dirty way of finding out the truth.

"Cibola Burn" By James A. Corey

A.k.a. Number 4 in 'The Expanse' nonology, which I am about to start reading.  Out of curiosity, since the previous 3 titles proved to have a connection to the plot, I checked up on what, exactly, 'Cibola' was.  'Burn' is the Corey character's argot for either travelling in space or the fusion expenditure to do so.  Art!

     'Cibola' refers to Early Modern Spanish myths about a second set of El Dorados, cities of gold, that they tried to find and conquer.  Probably without realising how much the value of gold would tank if there were tens of thousands of tons of it lying around ready to be made marketable.

     Why is this relevant?  Because, at the end of Volume #3, the Protomolecule Engineers 'ring station' opened up 1,700 spatial gates that gave access to that many solar systems across the galaxy.  Hom. Sap. got it's hands on potentially 1,700 Cibolas.  Art!

This, but 130 times bigger

Getting Prissy

Just to clarify matters about Pris from 'Blade Runner', whom 'Brewer's' had mis-identified as a cyborg, or a combination of machine and human.  No she's not!  None of the Nexus 6 replicants exhibit anything but human blood and bone when they get schwhacked by Deckard - yes yes yes they may be bio-engineered to be faster, stronger and smarter than Hom. Sap. but they still bleed if shot.  Art!

Yes it's a spoiler.  For a film 50 years old.

     'Short-span supers' might be a better description.

Finally - 

That treacherous sun is threatening to make it's presence known.  Time to draw the lead-and-boron curtains!

Taking Great Paines

NO! That's Not A Spelling Mistake

You ought to realise by now that the English language does what Conrad commands it to do, with the grammar and punctuation laid out all proper.  So, referring back to the phrase 'Taking great pains', which is not in my 'Brewer's' and so which I need to define myself; this means taking a great deal of care and paying close attention to a set of circumstances in order to achieve an outcome. Art!

No, I'm not sure what it is, either, except it's not a mournful man in glasses sitting on a rock, which seemed to be the default 'Taking great pains'.  Should I go into the definition of 'Pain'?  No, I can't be bothered.

     Ambling in a tangential manner toward our destination, I can see you  frothing with righteous indignation about whanging on about a certain Paine, because there is a a famous person of this name.  Art!

Paining 

     Ah yes Ol' Tom, who  was writing before females got the vote and messed everything up, about the rights of us men, beggar the ladies.

     ANYWAY Paine was birthed here in the glorious Sceptred Isle, but threw his treacherous lot in with the South Canadian rebellious ingrates, writing lots of scurrilous political screeds that upset the natives, such as the above, and others justifying the French Revolution.  What a shame he gavotted off this mortal coil in 1809, before he could witness the White House being burned down and creating a song.  

     ANYWAY AGAIN back to more Paine.  Art!

     Sarah Paine, that is, whom we have mentioned in the past, often in connection with her analyses of Mordorvia, where she studied as a student, the poor dear.  Her description of how to make borshcht in order to avoid starving in Moscow is a model of catering survivability.

     ANYWAY ANYWAY on this lecture she focuses not on Asia or Ruffia but Perfidious Albion, and how we have learned, over the centuries, on how to always come out on top in any internecine tussle.  

     How is it done?  O I thought you'd never ask!

     Firstly, Great*Britain had to coin the term and concept of 'Grand Strategy', which came into being during the Napoleonic Unpleasantness.  Art!

     The red border indicates France and her vassals, and as you can see this includes most of Continental Europe, bar Portugal and Turkey.  Ruffia didn't know whether to be hostile to Nappy or not, until he invaded them.  No nonsense about 'Special Military Operations' back in 1812, it was straight-out war.  

     ANYWAY AGAIN AGAIN how did This Sceptred Isle deal with a whole continent  arrayed against them?  Sarah filleted out their response:  Art!

     Nappy being the elephant.  Keeping the grocers** as a going concern means you can continue to fund your own military forces and those of your allies.  art!

     'Don't let the elephant forage' was Sarah's elegant way of explaining it.  By long tradition, the Royal Navy applies a blockade of enemy marine trade and chokes it off, forcing the Continental powers to look to their neighbours or allies for trade.  However - ah that word again! - doing this is a tad tricky when the trade is in oil or rubber, which are not abundant in Europe.  Art!

     As per Sarah's focus, Great Britain would identify a Continental power that hated, loathed and despised the elephant, and then pay them to become an ally and take the fight to the pachyderm.  It used to be called 'Breaking windows with guineas'.  Art!

     Because, especially in the age of sail, it was cheaper, quicker and much more efficient for Great Britain to use marine resources to strike in a location distant from the enemy's home, than it was for the furrin footsloggers to tramp 3,000 miles to get there. Art!

     That's the British fighting the French in Portugal, but I could equally as well have put Libya in 1941.  Art!

     Perfidious Albion broke this rule in the First Unpleasantness and suffered a colossal butcher's bill for it.  This is because the main military power of a Continental nation is it's army, which tends to be huge, as compared to that of Great Britain, which is both her navy and her ability to generate wealth.  During the Second Unpleasantness the British army faced the majority of the Wehrmacht only up until the fall of France in 1940, and then only years later as part of an alliance.  Art!

     Because by late war the Continental power will be at least partly exhausted, as with the fighting in Europe post D-Day.  Art!

     I shall call a pause here, as Sarah is going to work on second-order effects and I want to keep a little in reserve.  

More Drubbing Of The 'Daily Sluggard'

Or the 'Daily Express' if we're being formal.  Once again they are trying the clickbait approach to increase traffic, the utter bounders. I bet they pass the port to the right, cads that they are.  Art!

     What's wrong with this picture?  Well, for one thing, they haven't bothered to give the title of the 'Masterpiece' series.  Normally Your Humble Scribe would pay close attention to the thumbnail and identify what the series is, except the Daily Sluggard has really goosed it this time, and put up a thumbnail from  -

     Band of Brothers.

     Bah!

More Of Mister Mackie

Angus the Arty, that is, the sci-fi artist whom we have already covered a few times.  Art!

     Another cityscape, this time at night.  Conrad has had a quick peruse and cannot find any hidden buildings from present-day London, or any other contemporary city for that matter.  I had a more thorough scan and can't find any kind of hidden Easter eggs, only a speculation as to what Ol' Ang used as artistic inspiration: an old-fashioned cash-register, a pelican, a space-heater, a toaster, a battle-axe and a spare tyre.  Brownie points if you can spot what I'm talking about.  

     Conrad unsure if this was ever a magazine or book cover.  I'm sure my skip-like memory would trip if they had ever been so presented.

Time For Your Daily Dose Of Don!

Let's hear it for the man most in need of a rocket-powered espresso enema than any other person on the planet.  Art!

     (I think they have to use quotes otherwise his lawyers come leaping out of the woodwork).

     You can see why New Yorkers loathe and despise him.  'The City That Never Sleeps' isn't big on idle dozy sluggards.  Besides which, Rael may come and cover him with graffiti.

"The Great War" Annotating Continues

Yes indeedy.  Conrad has gone over the first two episodes, scribbling notes in his inimitable and unreadable longhand, taking occasional photos and wondering how long it would take to do the whole collection of 6 disks.  Art!

     Featuring the Sour-puss Soldier again!  He gets around.

     Well, the first 14 disks contain 2 episodes, and it's taken me about 3 hours to do that first DVD, so annotating the whole lot would take me 68 hours working and gallons of coffee and tonic water.  To what end?  Why, to be better informed, Vulnavia, to be better informed.  There is the not infinitesmal risk that you may all get the benefit of my annotating in the near future.  I bet you can hardly wait.

Finally -

Going out with a Biercism.

 "Idiot, n: A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant and controlling.  The Idiot's activity is not confined to any special field of thought or action, but 'pervades and regulates the whole'.  He has the last word in everything; his decision is unappealable.  He sets the fashions of opinion and taste, dictates the limitations of speech and circumscribes conduct with a deadline."

     Nowadays The Idiot comes in both genders.

*  Take that, Lavrov!

**  Take that, Nappy!

Join The DOTs

Okay, I Shall Freewheel For A Tad Here

Whilst also needing to pop down to the kitchen to take that pork joint out of the oven, since that Sunday Stew isn't going to cook itself.  Yes, I am writing Tuesday's blog on Sunday as I'm trying to keep 48 hours ahead of time, which is the closest you're going to find to Conrad approaching a work ethic.  

     OKAY Your Humble Scribe is basing this Intro on an entry from another Youtube Reddit compilation, one from 'Reddit Jar' going by the title 'What Made You Quit A Job On The Spot?'  I'm only one-third of the way through and there have been some horrendous tales of - you may be ahead of me here - South Canadian employers.  Whom frequently seem unable to distinguish between 'worker' and 'paid slave'.  Art!

     What's colloquially known as an 18-wheeler, although this elongated version seems more like a 36-wheeler.  The point still stands, though, because these steel beasts haul cargoes of at least 20 tons, and can hit 60 PROUD IMPERIAL miles per hour on highways, meaning - 

     You want to ensure the driver isn't suffering from a serious medical condition that might induce blackouts, coma, heart attacks or a reallllly bad tickly cough.

     Stick a pin in this intro to the Intro, we'll be coming back to it.  Art!

     Meet an autoclave, which is a verrrry basic piece of medical kit that is used to sterilise used instruments such as scalpels.  It generates high-pressure steam at up to 135º Centigrade, which kills off all the micro-organisms that might be lurking on the used kit.  Again, we'll refer to this later.

     So!  The narrator of this tale is Honest IncorruPtible Physician Assistant, hereafter HIPPA- O I say what a coincidence! - whom took a position in an urgent care facility, which is one step up from a GP and one step below the Intensive Care Unit, or Emergency Room in South Canadian parlance.  Art!

     HIPPA began to notice things agley, as Rabbie Burns used to say.  Supplies oftenran short and much of their drug supply was out of date, which she put down to the office manager not being on the ball.  So, as an honest person would do, she took the issue up with the doctor who owned the facility, whom I shall dub Doctor Dudley Do-wrong, or DDD for short..  He told her he would personally sort it out.

     Enter Enabling Medical Assistant, hereafter EMA.  She told HIPPA that these problems had been going on forever, that nothing would change and that they had been told NEVER to throw drugs away when their date expired.  So, EMA knew all about the problems but lacked the courage or morals to do anything about them?  Sounds like Urgent Careless to me.  Art!

What they were lacking

     EMA also informed HIPPA that the autoclave was broken and didn't work properly, so they reported it to the State Medical Board.  No, only joking, they washed used medical kit in soap and water and then put it in the autoclave whilst wishing really really hard that it worked.

     'Twas at this point that HIPPA decided that she wasn't going to be in UC the next day.  That night she informed the State Medical Board of the general lack of compliance with basic medical health standards.

     One suspects that the SMB already had their suspicions about DDD and his dodgy practices, as they raided UC the very next day and immediately shut it down.  Ooops.  Art!

     As HIPPA gleefully informs, the SMB found so many egregious violations that they not only permanently closed the UC, they suspended DDD's licence.  Another Oooops.  Getting a licence back is neither easy, cheap nor quick.

     But hist! for there is more.  "He was also prosecuted on federal charges because he was running a scam for truck driver physical exams".  Meaning that truck drivers who had no business being behind the wheel were able to get a Pass from the Department Of Transport (hence 'DOT') and continue driving.  

     HIPPA gives no clue to where these events took place, nor what DDD's real name was, or even a date, but the federal courts take an extremely dim view of allowing a 30-ton roadborne mallet to get up to 60 mph when the driver might keel over dead at any moment.  Sentences can be up to 5 years in jail and/or a $250,000 fine.  More Ooops on top of Ooops.  One suspects that licence isn't getting reinstated any time in the next decade.

     Altogether now - HIPPA HIPPA HOORAY!

Road safety award?

Things Exploding!

As you should surely know by now, Conrad retains the gleeful enthusiasm of a teenage schoolboy when it comes to Things Exploding, and the bigger the explosion the better.  Therefore I Favourited a film clip from the BBC featuring a Pennsylvania bridge being explosively demolished.  Art!

     Those boxes conceal and protect the explosive cutting charges.  Unlike some demolitions, this one doesn't seem to have an attendant audience nearby and is being filmed remotely.  Note the amount of charges and their placement: this bridge is not being made to drop into it's footprint thanks to gravity, it's going to be blown into very small pieces.  Art!

     Ignition!  Actually the arch supports seem to be going first, if only by a fraction of a second.  Art!

     Everything explodes everywhere all at once.  Art!

     From above.  This is the old Commercial Street Bridge going down in smithereens, and the one you can see alongside it is the replacement one, ready to be slid into position.  You will note the fabric coverage to prevent spall causing damage.

I Dub You The 'Daily Sluggard'

Yes, Conrad is taking aim at the 'Daily Express', which ONCE AGAIN is trying to hook people in with clickbait items, which is very bad behaviour when other people attempt it, since it is entirely fair if Conrad does it.  Because I say so, before you ask.  Art!

     The series is 'Our Friends In The North' and yes I have seen it, many many years ago.  It's set in Tyneside, where they talk funny, although less funny thanks to series like this.  Daniel Craid, yes, also Mark Strong and the delicious Gina McKee er that is the fine actress Gina Mckee.  Art!

     Saved you clicking a bait.

I Am Minded Of 'Thunderbirds'

We've avoided ladling opprobrium over the Boorish Orange Oaf Himself for a couple of days, so Conrad returns to the fray energised and fresh, and here's a title for you.  Art!

Scowly and jowly!

     Hilariously, the article makes certain to inform readers SIX times that the opinions expressed by The Doctor - no, not that Doctor - are his own and not official or backed by a medical examination, so keen are they to avoid being sued by The Nodfather.

     Where does 'Thunderbirds' come in?  O I thought you'd never ask!  One consistent line in the scripts is a variant on 'She's/it/we're not going to make it!' followed by a disaster that only International Rescue can remedy.  Art!

     No jokes about Commercial Street, thank you, this is serious stuff and lives are at stake.
     An item that moves from the ridiculous to the sublime.

Surely Some Mistake?

As they used to say in 'Private Eye', except they used a drunken variant that I cannot remember how to spell as it's years since I read an issue of the libel-baiting rag.  

     ANYWAY here's another What On Earth? moment from Twitter, where the algorithm has been either drinking or smoking illegal substances.  Art!

     Why is it blue?  Why is there a horse?  Who could possibly need one of these in their garden?  Art!

     Clearly, the cultural reach of the Doctor Who serial 'Colony In Space' was long indeed, except this IMC skid steer was also capable of being programmed for murder.  Probably not what you want to retail on Temu, really.  

Finally -

Wonder Wifey, quite by chance, came across an edition of Edgar Allen Poe's short stories, possibly ninety years old, which she got for a pittance.  Art!

     Conrad was allowed to touch and look and then sternly warned off.