Wildfireberries

Forgive Me For Being Tasteless

Genuinely, Conrad's palette is almost non-existent thanks to his broken nose and lack of a sense of smell, which is definitely Too Much Information, even if it helps explain his insanely loud snoring.  

     Where were we?  O yes, 'The Andromeda Strain' in it's Seventies iteration, where 'Wildfire' is the codename for a Bottom Secret facility constructed deep underground, with the task of combatting deadly pathogens.  Art!

     It's an excellent sci-fi thriller, and the Casting Director deserves kudos as well, because the scientific team assembled to combat 'Andromeda' actually LOOK like scientists, rather than clothing models.

     Of course - obviously! - that has nothing to do with what this Intro is really about, which is a second helping of 'Preston Stewart's economic analysis of Ruffian trends and indicators.  Look away if you're an FSB officer scanning these pages for background information, it's not going to end well, dude.  Art!

     Aptly enough for Mordorvia, here we see a Wildberries warehouse complex doing an impression of Mount Doom and erupting in an inverted mountain of smoke and fire.  Ol' Prez adds in the detail that burning down Ozon and Wildberries has inflicted $12 billion worth of damage.  The Battle Damage Assessment comes from a Ruffian company, Data Insights, not a South Canadian or Ukrainian source.  So - they may be downplaying it?  Ooo-err Matron!

     Prez echoes a comment that 'Jake Broe' also made, as to whether such targets are legitimate, or whether others ought to be sought.  At the end of the day, that's still $12 billion of damage inflicted, and as per Jake himself, around 180,000 orcs are now unemployed, whom are not paying taxes into the economy.  Prez adds in an excellent proviso, about second and third order effects, which is to say things nobody can see or predict unless they have a TARDIS.  Art!

     That's 'Flavour Trip' broadcasting from their Catering Caravan Cum Dance Studio, which is a whole lot more appealing than a load of burned Ruffian plastic plates.

     ANYWAY back with Prez and his economic data.  Art!

     Wonder Wifey will like this one.  It shows how the Ruffian export of wheat has been absolutely hammered in August, down to a fraction of what it used to be pre-war.  The lowest levels in 15 years, which also means the lowest revenue in that time, too; from 5 million tons to 2.2 million, rather ironically mirroring their oil revenue decline.  Lest ye be unaware, this is not good.  Not good at all.  Art!

     I just wanted to juxtapose Prez's happy smiling face with one of the most potentially destabilising Kozaky measures versus Mordorvia so far.  The graph illustrates closures of Ruffian airports across time, with Prez casting doubt on the '993' for August 2026, suspecting it to be more likely for the whole of 2026 - this is a man who treats sources with scepticism, as we all ought to.  Noble Prez!  Worthy Prez!

     ANYWAY AGAIN allow me to bring in 'Caolan Robertson', the journo who now lives in Ukraine, and who posted a very, very relevant vlog.  Art!

     Prez Zed - that is, the small hirsute dude with the most enormous shoulders in history - warned international airlines and the administrative organisations behind them that venturing into Ruffian airspace was, from this day onward, a verrrry bad idea.  As Caolan - Art!

     He's already taken, ladies! (and bats for the opposition anyway).  Besides which, look at the background.  This is a Ukrainian airport, which has been closed down for over 4 years, the reason Caolan is making his report from that very spot.  Putinpot revealed how verrrry seriously he takes Prez Zed's threat by coming back with a response in a couple of hours, and this from a man who will happily wait weeks if not months to respond to an irksome topic.

     Why is this a problem?  O I thought you'd never ask - Art!

     If you remember this, then you remember that Putinpot grovelled publicly to the Prez of Azerbaijan in apology about the mass murder, and the Azeris are not fond of Ruffians to this day.  If outside airlines keep flying into Ruffia, whilst there are drone attacks underway from Ukraine, there will be more shootdowns such as above.  Guaranteed; the orcs would rather shoot down 10 civilian airliners than risk a single Kozaky drone gets through. If the Ruffian SAM system 'gates' are widened to include objects as small as drones, then everything else bigger than a football will trigger alerts; flocks of birds, swarms of insects, leaves, mist, smoke, fog, ground clutter, floating rubbish.  Good luck with a system that has a 90% false identification status.

     Then you have the cost of shutting down an airport.  Barad-Duh has 3.  From what I remember, closing a single airport for a single day costs $12 million, so that's $36 million for a single day in Moscow.  Extrapolate that to the whole of Ruffia for, say five days, and - you're talking $billions.  No wonder the Puffy-Phaced Petrol Pimp looks stressed!  Art?

APPLY TARGET HERE

     I think we can pause there as Putinpot's houses of ware burn down around him*.

Bring On The Brucie

As in the artist Bruce Pennington, not Anthea Redfern's husband you pfloob!  Tut tut what people think of you.  Art!

    Hurrah nothing to do with Nostrildamus!  In fact this one gives me H P Lovecraft or one of his contemporaries <code for 'I cannot remember their name  Mister Hand reveals the hideous truth> vibes.  David Someone.  Let me see if I can dig out anything further.  

     GOTCHA!  Art?

     Well, I got the triple-lobed name right, and Ol' Lovvy gives them a big fat quote in the bottom, and it's a good forty years since I read this stuff, so I shall take that as a win.  Given all the detail to port on the original, I can only hope they printed it on the back of the paperback.  As I observed a good fifty years ago, whether a purchaser picks up a sci-fi novel or not depends in large part on the cover illo.

Hurrying Up The Hype

Moving on only slightly from cover pictures, we have the latest on that list of '20 Alleged Classics That Are Still Unnecessarily Bothering Modern Audiences' and are now into the following.  Art!

     I think the original is 'A La Temps Purdue' or some such, which translates as 'Stolen Time', or 'In search of time that has been stolen', which is to do with cakes called 'madeleines' and O look - Art!

     I remember Janice making these in the office and they were delicious.  Her background is Cameroonian and Dutch so not sure what we're taking away from that.

Ah Yes One Of My Favourites

Conrad  has a suite of tanks from the Second Unpleasantness that he likes despite reality, memory and what comes between, especially if they're from This Sceptred Isle.  Art!

 

     The  Cromwell, named after the High Executioner himself.

     0 and it came into service a good 12 months after it ought to have been on the battlefield.  

* It's a metaphor but if it really happened nobody would cry

I Am Struck

Not Literally, As Many Have Hoped

By the parallels between two dictators and a wannabe, which is to say, Herr Schickelgruber (or Hitler if we're being formal), Putinpot and Donold Judas Trump.  I would specify a little further and focus on Schickelgruber during his 'Berlin Bunker' phase, Putinpot at present and Donnie Dorko since the dementia really began biting.  Art!

     Looks more like Himmler but we shall let it pass.  I also said 'Putin', not 'Andropov'.  Conrad not convinced AI is the threat some see it as

     ANYWAY what I meant is that all three were or are being lied to by their inner circle, and are or were making decisions based on false evidence or none at all.  I can imagine Herr Schickelgruber moving imaginary armies around on a map in his bunker, completely divorced from reality, and flying into a spittle-projecting rage when things come crashing down.  Although you'd think Soviet artillery fire might have broken the delusions a bit earlier.  Art!

Mister Hitler suffering hissy fit

     Then you have Donnie Dorko, whom has surrounded himself with incompetent toadying yes-men, whose prime accomplishment is being able to lick his boots to a high shine, and who act as an echo chamber for him.  Thus his very worst ideas are hailed as strokes of genius, instead of just strokes.  How else can one explain the bizarre trade war with Canada but no sanctions against Mordorvia?  Plus, one suspects that these same minions are creating the fake polls that King Piggy keeps quoting.  To keep him placated, as with small children.  Art!

     This is Howard Lutnick, whom 'David Pakman' has christened 'Nutlick', blathering on about economics - by reciting completely imaginary figures, which are being used to 'prove' to The Nodfather that the South Canadian economy is fine.  Hot tip: it's not.

     The worst that can happen to one of Fat Caligula's minions is that they can be fired, raise your hand Tulsi Gabbard, and have BOOH slander them afterwards.  If you work for Putinpot, delivering bad news can be hazardous to your health - Dictatoritis in action, as we've yarked at length about already.  Thus anything negative gets either filleted, massaged or simply never reported up the chain of command.   

     However - ah that word again! - Charlie Chipmunk Cheeks is probably aware that everyone is lying to him, except he's unsure quite how much they're lying, and chooses to believe that his toadies are only lying a bit.

     WRONG!

     I am going to feature some economic data from 'Preston Stewart', another South Canadian ex-military who loathes Trump and everything to do with him, but whom is quieter about it than 'Jake Broe'.  Art!

     Preston at work.  His wife designed and outfitted this room, which Prez is reluctant to call a 'studio', be

     ANYWAY he put up a graph from the 'Wall Street Journal' that illustrates how much of a pounding - stop me if I get too technical - the Ruffian economy is taking from Ukrainian drones.  Art!

     You can see the ramp up in drone strikes in 2025 and the enormous increase in 2026.  What you're seeing here is the end result of strategic decisions made at the highest political, military and economic level back in 2024, to go in for drone warfare at an industrial scale.  As an aside, that decision is why the Kozaky are able to send 400 long-range drones into Mordorvia every night.  You can bet your bottom kopek that Putinpot won't be given any of the details above.  Art!

     Another graph that Putinpot is destined never to see, since it's so Dog Buns! awful, and if it were being presented to Donnie Demented they'd turn it upside down.  Going from 6 million barrels per day to 3.8 BPD is not good, lest ye be unaware.  The Ruffians may be getting double the price for their crude, but they're exporting far less of it thanks to relentless drone strikes.  Prez also comments that the Ruffians are producing E-2 and E-3 quality fuels, which destroy engines in the mid-term.  Art!

     Here is the price of petrol and diesel that the orcs are paying, with a notable dip from where, I suggested, the strategic reserves were emptied in a once-only manoeuvre.  Again, you can guarantee that Putler won't see these prices.  Art!

russian authorities lowered the price of gas on the signs of the gas stations along a road Putin used to visit to an aviation plant

     Potemkin petro-state!

     Prez has more economic data but I don't want this to become yet another single-item BOOJUM! so we shall most definitely be returning to this.  I bet you can hardly wait.

'20 Essential Classics That Continue To Inspire Readers'

Yes, we are back on that list, and now well into the twentieth century.  As I guessed from the photograph, this one concerns Franz Kafka.  Art!

Dateline 1915

     To be honest, Conrad has not read this particular work, but I am familiar with it.  Gregor Samza wakes up one morning to find that he's been transformed into a giant beetle, a form he retains for the rest of the story.  We shall gloss over the fact that a man-sized beetle would suffocate instantly thanks to breathing th

     ANYWAY his family are not impressed with his transformation and keep him hidden in his bedroom, as a sort of bedroombug, where he pines away and dies.  The end.  Sorry if that was a bit of a downer, you don't read Kafka for happy floppy bunnies or gambolling lambs, you read him to confirm the bleak existential crisis of the human condition.  To boast literary credits, I have read 'The Castle' and 'The Trial'.

Back To Brucie

Pennington, not Springsteen, just to be clear.  The artist chap whom we have been covering via 'Sci-Fi Art' the Youtube channel that covers - er - sci-fi art.  As it says on the tin.  They have a load of pages from 'Eschatus', Brucie's attempt to render Nostrildamus relevant or even correct.  Art!

    I think this one is meant to represent a Dire Warning, which Nostrildamus will have dressed up in esoteric imagery and fine, vague sentences that render it's warning capacity as useful as a sword made out of day-old bread.  Ol' Brucie is really rocking it with the spirit of Nuremberg here.  Leni Reifenstahl eat your heart out.  Notice how Bruce omitted any lettering, so it can apply to any nation (Ruffia we are looking at you).  Art!

     There's a lot to unpack here.  We are witnessing an amphibious assault mounted by what seems to be submarines, backed up by an air assault as well.  We get no information about who's being attacked, eagles being ten-a-penny in European heraldry.  Matey in the pointy helmet looks very excited about something, perhaps his larynx?

Leave Them Wanting More

I give you another hideously unflattering picture of Donold Judas Trump, which is free from the text I had partially covering his festerface in a different photo I collected.  Don't want you to miss a single sweaty pore!  Art!

     Conrad was puzzling about what this fizzog reminded me of, and it took a bit of memory searching to discover the real-life parallel.  Art!

     The kind of happy floppy bunny that Franz Kafka would approve of.  From the Joe Dante section of 'Twilight Zone: The Movie'.

     O and I just noticed that King Piggy has been oinking on Truth Social about the Canadian aircraft company Bombardier.

""NO MORE SELLING BOMBARDIER IN THE UNITED STATES!" Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Monday. "If they want our Market, they must build here, and stop treating America like a 'piggybank'.""

     South Canadian policy executed by social media.

     Bombardier politely and indirectly challenged BOOH by stating that they already operate a factory in Kansas, employing 3,500 South Canadians.  Once again that man proves he can't be trusted with a knife and fork.

That's it!

The Tale Of The Fox In The Night

Be Grateful That I Avoid Bad Puns

Or even good ones.  I refer, obviously - of course! - to both Conan Doyle and Ol' Tolky.  If you don't get the connection, Sherlock Holmes once remarked on the intriguing behaviour of the dog in the night, to which Watson replied that the dog did nothing, Holmes point entirely; it did nothing because it recognised and knew the villain of the piece.  Art!

     If he'd been a stranger, then Fido would have been all barks and growls.

     As for the fox, early on in 'Lord Of The Rings' our group of hobbits are traversing the countryside, and are encountered by a fox.  Hobbits wandering around the lands at night is clearly unusual, and Mr. Fox recognises something odd is going on - and then he moves on out of the story and is never encountered again.  So he never gets closure or clarification, poor chap.

     ANYWAY I wanted to set the scene about definite oddness in the air, without a concrete explanation, for we are going to venture into what looks, at first sight, as TREE LAW!  Art?

     That, gentle reader, is a pepper tree.  Originally an import from South America, these are hardy trees that can thrive with very little water.  

     So! the narrator of this tale claimed to be an arborist, and defined their trade as being the cultivation, management and study of wigwams.  NO! only joking.  Trees.  The study of trees.  We shall dub them as Suspiciously Apposite Person, hereafter SAP.  They owned a pepper tree, aged 30 years old, that stood on their property and which they called 'Clyde'.  There is no explanation as to where or why this name came from, let's just take it as read and move on.  Art!

     Being a large, healthy tree, Clyde sent roots out across the neighbourhood, including the local pavement.  Which 'he' broke.  Consequently the local city council decreed that Clyde was a menace to society, or at least it's pavements, and needed to be be removed from this world.  Not only that, SAP had to foot the repair bill for the pavement and the execution of Clyde.  Which rankled.  A lot.  Art!

     I am now introducing Mayor Steve Aspel, as he was at the time, being in office from May 2013 to March 2017.  As Mayor of Redondo Beach, SAP focussed on him as being responsible for the Clydcide.  

     There matters rested until, supposedly, SAP came back on social media two years and seven months later to reveal their cunning revenge plan.  Art!

     SAP claimed to have seeded 45 Californian Redwoods and 82 Giant Sequoias on the grounds of public and state properties, including the home address of Steve Aspel.  The reason for waiting so long was to allow these seedlings to take root and grow appreciably.  SAP gloastingly stated that their root systems would be 30 PROUD IMPERIAL FEET across and would take a major effort to remove, costing in the region of $1,500 per sapling.  Or about as much as they had to pay for Clydecide to be executed.

     What a jape!   The opposite of the usual TREE LAW case -

     Except remember that fox, and the dog.  I have to drag them back in, they took up hundreds of words.  So, what is the unsettling bit about this case?

     IT'S COMPLETE FICTION.  Art!

 

Any excuse to invoke the Comsats

     Conrad dug up an investigative report from 'The Daily Breeze' that poked  into the matter and confirmed the truth of things.  The story originated on Reddit, posted by 'GoblinsStoleMyHome', whom is a Biology student living in dorms.

     Art!

Dated 22nd June 2017

     The the pay firewall kicked in and that's all you're getting from the Breeze.  Luckily I took detailed notes, tee hee.  The Director of Public Works in Redondo Beach checked with his employees whom worked outdoors in parks and suchlike, and - no rampant sequoias anywhere.  

     The 'Breeze' did more digging and discovered another absence akin to that dog - nothing on the agenda of the City Council about removing excess trees planted by a vengeful SAP.  Art!

     

     That's Steve again, whom the 'Breeze' contacted for comment.  No, he does not have a Redwood or Sequoia growing in his yard.  No trees at all, in fact, so he would have appreciated a free one.  He also added that nonsense like the SAP saplings saga is one reason he doesn't miss being mayor any longer.
      

     BOOJUM! - being a buzzkill since 2013.  You're welcome.

King Piggy Doesn't Get Jiggy

The item after this one is going to be a longish one, so I intend to put up an item heavier on pictures than text.  Emphasis on 'Heavier'.  You'll see.  Art!

     Yes, we are on about the festering fartfest again, and as a result of the picture above I've updated his nickname to: Swollen Sweaty Senile Sepia Sackbutt.  I swear this chap looks worse every week and doubt he's going to make it to the end of this year, never mind his bloviating about running again in 2028.  A strictly metaphorical 'run' as he can barely manage a palsied waddle.  Art!

     Plus, what on earth is up with his Hair Helmet?  Is it wearing mourning colours ahead of the midterms?  Enquiring minds want to know!

     

 More Of 'How To Not Die'

Continuing with their list of 'Everything Zombie Movies Get Wrong About Survival' and this trope is one that happens in EVERY SINGLE HORROR FILM, never mind the ones about the walking undead.

SPLITTING THE GROUP

Art!

     They quote the line 'We should split up to cover more ground' as the embodiment of a bad idea, quoting statistics WHERE IS THE SOURCE! that groups of three to five people have a 60% better survival rate than individuals.  However - that word again! - splitting up into individuals is verrrrry common in zombie films and apocalypses in general.  HTND gets it right on the money when it lists the failings of splitting up.  Art!

     Being alone means NO protection from the group.  You have only one set of ears and eyes, and you can only look in one direction at a time.  Plus, you need to sleep.  With nobody to do stag, you're extremely vulnerable.  When in a group you can make use of other people's skills, experience and abilities.  If you're solo then do you have the woodcraft skills to survive alone in a forest?  Or know which buildings to stay out of thanks to erosion or damage?  Or how to field strip and maintain an assault rifle?  Don't forget Dave Gilmour's stance on how Pink Floyd created music:"Being in a group, most of the rubbish gets ironed out'.  So with your raggle-taggle survivors.

     Again, WITHOUT QUOTING SOURCES, HTND blithely state that solo scavenging survivors are between 40 - 60% less efficient than groups also scavenging.  Individuals also needlessly duplicate what they salvage.  Who needs seven axes and nine buckets?  Art!

     HTND make another SOURCELESS CLAIM that a scattered band of survivors going out scavenging will take up to 48 hours to reassemble, and if any don't turn up then a rescue may need to be mounted, or they may already be defunct.  

     WHY do films and television serials continue to use this tired tired tired trope?  

     They want to generate drama.  Lazy screenwriters.  Bah!

Back To That List Of 20 Classics

Don't weep so, we're getting near the end, being into the nineteenth century.  Art!

     I have never so much as touched any of Nietzsche's works and have no intention of breaking this duck.  One gets the feeling that reading one of them would be like wading into a swamp made out of custard whilst being beaten about the head with cricket bats wielded by nuclear-powered robots.  The blurb didn't explain what Ol' Friddy wrote about, but I Googled and it sounds fearfully high-minded guff.

     You can't deny he grew a splendid moustache.

     Next up seems to be Franz Kafka.  I bet you can hardly wait.

Finally -

The abandoned van has finally gone.  Wonder Wifey came beetling out of the lounge to tell me, and at first Conrad thought she was going to inform that the BOOH had dropped dead - but no.  O well small mercies and all that.

Doubling Down On Doomsday Difficulties

Ol' Tolky Is Proven Right Again

His assertion that calamities and malfeasances take time to tell, and engage the reader no end, versus pleasant times that frankly bore people, is expounded herewith by BOOJUM!  Which is a long-winded way of saying that I'm back on 'How To Not Die's 'Everything Zombie Movies Get Wrong About Surviving' and I'm going to roll Headings 6 and 7 together, as they are closely linked.  

     Okay, I'm returning to edit this intro to the Intro as there isn't really an Intro, for what you see in front of you is a whole blog.  Art!

     On an associated theme, I just finished watching Season One of 'Paradise', a title of immense irony.  We are told of the approach and execution of the apocalypse in flashbacks, and how the 25,000 survivors live.  I may come back to this.

     ANYWAY on with the headings.

LIVING IN THE WOODS WITH NO SKILLS

As 'How To Not Die' has it, a rag-tag group of survivors, fleeing the urban hellscape overrun by the living dead - they don't make this explicit so I've added that in for context - come across a clearing in the woods and assume they can live off the land.  Cut to a scene where they are happily roasting game over an open fire.  Art!

     HTND boldly states that half the people reading this heading would be dead within a week, were they ever placed in such a situation.  Why so?  Well, according to EXACTLY NO SOURCES WHATSOEVER between 70 - 80% of the plant-life "depending on the region" - a very big proviso - are either toxic or inedible.  Really?  Hmmm.  

     Trust me, I did a bit of digging here.  I don't know where they get their statistics from, as asking Google reveals there is no official tally of toxic or inedible South Canadian plants in percentages; there are up to 700 species that are definitely poisonous and will kill or cripple incautious Hom. Sap. whom dine on them.  Art!

     That still leaves about 40,000 other plant species which may be only slightly toxic or without any nutritional content. Globally, the statistic is that about one-third of all plant life is inimical to human consumption, a very long way short of 70% or 80%.  Naughty HTND!  Egging the pudding, to use a relevant metaphor.

     They also overstate the risks to 'Unskilled Amateurs', hereafter UA, as being between 25 - 50% risk of suffering toxic poisoning from plants.  That contradicts their own earlier statement about the 70 - 80% inedibility, which implies a 20- 30% chance of poisoning or a waste of time.  Neglectful HTND!  Art?

Lords And Ladies berries

     They describe potential symptoms of plant poisoning, including vomiting, nerve damage and organ failure.  This invokes what Conrad would call 'latency', that is, how long the symptoms take to develop, which they state occur within 30 minutes to 6 hours.  However - my my that word again! - they neglect to mention that multiple toxic plants, such as the LAL above, taste so disgustingly awful that you'd spit out the first mouthful you took.

     ANYWAY they then move on to shelter and temperatures.  The UA face death from exposure in 3 - 5 days, without reference to which season we're talking about, presumably not high summer.  Or even high summer if we switch locale to This Sceptred Isle.  If temperatures get below zero then death from hypothermia can arrive from one to three hours from onset to exposure.  Art!

     As proof that they're generalising wildly, here's a 'Winter Severity' map of South Canada.  Winter in Nebraska would be baaaaad; winter in Florida would be barely noticeable.  So! we shall anticipate that they're talking about the blue areas on the map above.   Once more WHERE ARE THE SOURCES! HTND asserts that the UA would take between four to six hours to construct a shelter, and so might well be dead before it got finished.  A trained shelter-builder - one pauses to ask where they got such training in the middle of Chicago? - can do it in between 45 to 90 minutes.  Art!

     The fetching and canny  'Wildbeare' showing how to construct a single-person basha.  Despite her Youtube moniker she lives in the UK, and thus does not have to worry about <ahem> wild bears, a topic HTND avoids altogether.  Conrad thus states that the UA had better have at least one can of bear spray with them, plus a shotgun or two for defence against packs of wolves, or feral dogs, or for hunting game.  

     For this heading they end with two statistics: death from starvation may take from three weeks to two months.  Death from dehydration will arrive in three to five days; presumably quicker in the hotter regions of South Canada.  So, does this forest clearing have access to sources of water, barring rainfall?

IGNORING BASIC WATER SANITATION

In films, asserts HTND, survivors regularly drink from streams and pools they come across, with absolutely no consequences.  In what we call 'real life' this behaviour can have extremely serious consequences, such as dysentery, cholera or cryptosporidium.  Plus death.  Just thought I'd throw that in there.  Art!

      'Flavour Trip' cooking a meal alongside a stream.  Note that they don't use the river water as anything but a backdrop, as they aren't stupid.  Plus it has a greenish cast to it that would put off any but the most desperate.  Art!

     Rather oddly, the single instance HTND uses is from 1854 and the Broad Street cholera epidemic that killed 127 people in three days.  Evidence that necking nasty water will, indeed, do you in, and in quick order too.  One supposes that they needed to use an outbreak this old because modern sanitation, plumbing and water treatment have rendered cholera almost unheard of in South Canada - 20 cases per year from a population of 330 million.  A drop in the bucket, to use an apt metaphor.  Art!

     Cholera is treated by using Oral Rehydration mixtures, which require - you may be ahead of me here - water.  Potable water, not that green stuff flowing behind Amii and Jimi.

     The solution - do you see wh O you do - to this problem of potability is to boil your stream or pool water before drinking it, for all of 60 seconds, which kills off 99% of any microorganisms lurking in it.  Of course - obviously! - that requires making a fire and have a cooking utensil to put the water into.  Otherwise, HTND recommends 8 drops of bleach per gallon of water, which I checked and is valid, although it might not kill off cryptosporidium.   Art!

     Another item that HTND completely ignore, so Your Humble Scribe has added it in.  You can dose water in the wild and be able to drink it within 30 minutes, which is a lot easier than boiling a bucket over a fire on an improvised tripod, and far lighter than a dozen bottles weighing a stone total.  Art!

     That's a point HTND makes as well.  TWD never shows what they call 'water discipline', despite being set in a region of South Canada that is - hang on let me dig - set in Georgia, where heat, humidity and standing water all breed scads of water-borne diseases.  Boiling a pot of water over a campfire might not be riveting enough for the audience, perhaps?

     Being hydrated also loops back to the first heading we covered, where HTND emphasised the importance of drinking enough water to be able to function effectively physically.