Bust Luga

Vatniks Beware!

Also Krembots, tankies and pro-Putinpot trolls, because this Intro is not for you.  Here I will be narrating about the Ukrainian strikes into the Ruffian deep rear, which sounds NSFW but is eminently SFW, if a bit apocalyptic.

     To sum up, Ukraine is now conducting drone warfare on a scale that Ruffia simply could not have appreciated two years ago.  Heck, even one year ago.  Rather than go the expensive and restricted airframe asset route, the 'Crests' - the non-PC Ruffian nickname for them - have instead gone for an enormous number of cheap drones.  Art!

     This map shows Ukrainian strikes, blue for cruise missiles, red for drones.  Having scaled-up production in 2025, they are now attacking with hundreds of drones on a nightly basis, swamping Ruffian air defences - if any still exist - and allowing the cruise missiles an easy pass.  I am going to concentrate on the Ruffian Baltic region, which is 1,000 kilometres from Ukraine and may have thought that this distance meant they were immune from attack.

     O Noes.  O Noes indeed.  Art!

Map courtesy Dr. Smart

     The Ruffian oil export port of Primorsk has been hit and devastated, although fire crews have extinguished the fires there.  Here's what it looked like four days ago.  Art!

     Ooops.  

     As to the 'Vyborg' image that Doctor Smart put up, that's a Ruffian port very close to the Finnish border, and - you may be ahead of me here - Ukrainian drones or missiles came to say hello.'  Art!

     As you can see, the 'Purga' is now capsized and has caused damage to the - ahem - 'research vessel' next to it, which is now also listing.  The last time this happened, the orcs just abandoned the vessel.

     Back to Kirishi, the refinery hub.  This was the 5th largest Ruffian refinery, sorting through 350,000 barrels per day, which has now been reduced to nil.  It gets worse: Kirishi was the dedicated refinery producing  jet fuel for the Ruffian air force and naval units in the Baltic and north, meaning that they now don't have this applied luxury any more.  Oooops.  Art!

     We now come to Ust Luga, the fourth location that the 'tufties' have hit.  This facility has been hit so hard the fires and smoke can be seen from inside Estonia - 50 kilometres away.  Art!

Possible future tourist attraction

     This port used to be  - very definitely past tense - one of Ruffia's largest export ports, and Ukraine had hit it intermittently.  Now, however - O that word again! - they have hit it four times over the past three days, giving it an absolute MALLETING, to use a precise technical term.  Ust Luga exported up to 370,000 tons of goods per day, but is now down to 0%.  Adding to the total of a 40% reduction in oil exports from Mordorvia.  Art!

     Three shadow fleet tankers were also hit, and a condensate processing plant was destroyed - allow me to input a technical description -

"complex for fractionation and transshipment of stable gas condensate"

     It's all ash and clinker now.  From Liquid Natural Gas to Lots Not Going.

     From the perspective of a foreign observer, it's been hard to keep up with the strikes on Bust Luga, as they happen so frequently, and the Ruffians seem to have given up on interception or prevention, just allowing the port to burn down with a fatalistic shrug of the shoulders.  Art!

     This was the port before the latest Ukrainian strikes, and you can see that there is still stuff left to burn.  The 'khokhols' are now hitting Ruffia with hundreds of drones per night, and this attack is calculated at using 400 drones, for a combined cost of $20 million, causing a loss of at least $12 million for each day when unloading does not take place.  After 4 days we're already talking $48 million in losses.

     There is a counterpart to this.  The Ruffian murder campaign using drones and missiles to kill Ukrainian civilians, which they have been waging since 2022.  If in doubt, Death.  If in doubt, Death.  If in doubt, Death.  If in doubt, Death. If in doubt, Death -

     Because what they have tried DOES NOT WORK, and hasn't for the past 5 years now.  Whilst Mordorvia takes an Ice Age to realise what does not work and corrects it, Ukraine has had to adapt to circumstances quick smart.  Art!

     393 drones, 18 X-101 missiles, 12 Iskanders and 2 X-59s launched.    

     Which Ukraine countered with a 92% interception rate, shooting down 23 missile and 365 drones, costing the orcs $110 million, yah booh sucks, blowing this much in a single night for a country that cannot afford indoor plumbing for 20% of it's population.  With Ust Luga now being Bust Luga that arithmetic is not going to get better.  

Egad!  Fifty Years Gone!

Conrad can remember when a Radio One DJ played an extract from Pink Floyd's 'Wish You Were Here' on daytime radio, which track reached out of the speakers and smacked me across the chops, because it was utterly unlike anything I'd heard on daytime radio up to that point.  Art!

     The DJ responsible, Paul Burnett, who also got on famously with John Peel, as they had both been in the military (not by choice).

     I have now seen images of the 'Wish You Were Here' tour, being quite psychedelic.  Art!

     I am surprised and horrified to realise that this tour was over 50 years ago, when I was reading 'The Towers Of Toron' for the first time.  Sick transit glory Monday or something.

Begging The Question

Let us now pay attention to Smeggy Heggy, the Secretary Of Special Combat Operations Who Dare Not Speak It's Name, a bit of a wuss if you ask me.  Art!

     Let me scotch any litigious nicknames you may be creating as of now, the one he has been dubbed with is a lot more intellectual than either you or him.

     "Dumb McNamara"

     This one also goes back 50 years, to the Vietnam Unpleasantness, where Robert McNamara was an extremely influential Secretary of Defence during that war - sorry, 'Special combat operation'.  He possessed more intellect in the toenail of his left foot than Smeggy has in his entire body, hence the insulting nickname for Heggy today.  What will happen to Extremely Dumb McNamara?  We shall have to wait and see.  The auspices are not good.

Can I?

There was talk at The Mansion recently of 'Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die' as recommended by Darling Daughter and Quiet Tom, which Your Humble Scribe has heard of yet not seen.  Art!

     Hmmmm looks a bit Terry Gilliam to me.  When asked to validate against another cinematic entry, the judgement was for 'Everything Everywhere All At Once' which I Dog Buns! loved but couldn't get a DVD of at the time.  Now, years later, just not 50 years later, can I possibly get a DVD of EEAAO, and then watch GLHFDD?  Battle of the acronyms ensues.

The Biter Bit

One can only wonder at the thought processes going on within the giant tangerine carcass that results in this.  Art!

     In case you are unaware, RFKocaine-snorting-off-toilet-seat has been telling ludicrous tales of BOOH mapping out the Middle East with a Sharpie, then annotating the results with troop totals in each of the adjoining countries, as if he was intelligent or something.  This is so bizarre and problematic that King Piggy, who loves having himself lauded to the echo, is now bothered about it.  

Atenție Cumpărătorilor!

Which Is, Of Course, Romanian

For 'Attention Shoppers!' for no other reason than it popped into my head.  Which, as I like to confirm, is akin to a skip three miles to each side, full to the brim.  Art!

     That's the overspill skip in case you were wondering.  Also, the Italian for 'Attention Shoppers' is 'Attenzione, clienti' in case you were wondering and even if you weren't.

     So!  Time to lay out the links for today's blog.

2025

BOOJUM!: A Twist In The Tail

2024

BOOJUM!: Bivacco Gervasutti? Hold My Beer!

2023

BOOJUM!: STOP PRESS! Putin Annexes Narnia!

2022

BOOJUM!: In The Name Of The Rose

2021

BOOJUM!: Totally Rocking It

2020

BOOJUM!: Dam Ruffians!

2019

BOOJUM!: Farewell For A Few

2018

BOOJUM!: Chinese Democracy

2017

BOOJUM!: A Study In Radioactive Cobalt Blue

2016

BOOJUM!: B.E.R.L.I.N.

2015

BOOJUM!: Meanwhile, In Tcherbevan ...

2014

BOOJUM!: You Can't Make A Souffle Rise Twice

Revenge Is A Dish Best Served At Minus 275 Degrees

That's Absolute Zero

Or Nil Degrees Kelvin, which, unlike the Centigrade scale, begins at absolute zero.  Which is my laboured way of saying 'Very cold indeed.'

     For Lo!  We are here to recount the Revenge portion of 'The Liar, The WITCH And The Fraud Code', which is less Pro Revenge and more Nuclear Revenge.  Art!

     I shall recap.  We have WITCH, Woman Into Thorough & Complete Hammering, the owner of a business who has mole DNA in her genes, so thorough is her ability at digging things up.  She doesn't go scorched earth as much as salting, scorching and mining it.  Then there's DEAN, Duplicitious, Execrable And Nasty, who by this point in the tale is mis-managing his business services company, that had been retained by WITCH.  Also, CREEP, Charlie, REprehensible Exaggerating Plonker, who lied to all about his extensive business background experience, which actually consisted of a long list of crimes.  He and DEAN became inseparable, perpetually chasing get-rich-quick schemes.  Art!

     The supporting cast includes the shady business owner Frances, who wanted to retain DEAN's business for content creation, paying $2,000 per week for 6 months, and The Restaurant, the location where DEAN and CREEP always hung out to plot, plan and get legless.  

     When we left off, DEAN had just fired WITCH's niece, Emma, because WITCH had cancelled all services she was retaining them for, not least because her business had been saddled with $8,000 worth of fraudulent, inoperative software (supplied by Frances via CREEP).  DEAN had other clients, but WITCH's account must have been a real cash cow for him to retaliate in true bottomhole fashion.  Art!

     WITCH and her hubbo proceeded to put the Pro into Revenge, by hiring a  lawyer for Emma and suing DEAN for sexual harassment, amongst other things.  Emma won her suit and DEAN was forced to pay her $15,000 in salary compensation and damages, as well as other fines.  Nor was that all.  WITCH - living up to the 'Thorough' - got in touch with other fired female dx-employees of DEAN and encouraged them to sue as well.  One of them did so, and won their suit as well; we're not told about the dollar amount in settlement but can assume another $15,000 in combined salary and damages.  

     The legal assault against DEAN continued.  Art!

     In a separate suit, WITCH took him to court over the illegal and ineffective software, winning it and getting a refund, which makes him at least $40,000 in the red, not counting fines.  

     Plus he was fined for data protection breaches, since CREEP was not a business partner, nor did he have any official standing, and should NOT have been allowed anywhere near sensitive client information.  'It was all CREEP's fault' did not work in his defence as WITCH's lawyer pointed out, since her contract was with DEAN and him alone.  Guessing at $60,000 in the red at this point?

      

     O boy did it ever.  Remember that bit about 'Complete Hammering'?  Well, WITCH contacted DEAN's other business clients, informing them that she could no longer recommend him and citing her own lawsuit as evidence.  Many stopped using his services and some take legal action to boot; we're not told the outcome of these so they may not have succeeded, but DEAN would still be out of pocket for his attorney's fees.  $65,000 in the red?

     The courts, sniffing both blood and malfeasance, open another case against DEAN for fraud and theft, getting his business closed permanently and a forfeiture notice issued.  This latter means that all his assets were seized, with NO compensation, because he'd been operating illegally.  His wife divorces him.  He is sentenced to probation, meaning as a first-time offender he stays out of prison.  On certain conditions.  Art!

     WITCH knows DEAN's car is going to be repossessed, which he avoids by not parking it at home any longer, so she thoughtfully informs the repo firm of when and where he can be found - at The Restaurant.  His car is towed.  

     On a side note, Frances is arrested by the FBI, independently of WITCH.  CREEP vanished.  With no income, the bank forecloses on DEAN's house after he cannot pay the mortgage any longer.  He then boasts on Facebook of landing a gig as a college professor.  WITCH, ever cognisant of propriety, informs the college that DEAN is not a professor and never even finished college himself.  The gig vanishes overnight.

     DEAN ended up illegally occupying an empty office building next to his old business premises, so WITCH - you know, propriety again - notified a local Facebook group protesting any increase in business properties, who held a demonstration, which in turn attracted the police.  They arrested DEAN for trespass and theft.  Getting arrested breached the terms of his probation and he went  to jail.  Art!

     CREEP stayed silent for several years, possibly hoping that WITCH would forget all about him.  

     She did not.  Although his own Facebook posts did not reveal his location, WITCH found his aunt's pages a font of information.

     For one thing, CREEP no longer had any legs, thanks to so many decades of getting metaphorically legless, leading to their amputation.  He had also sired a child, then skipped out on the mother to avoid having to pay child support.  WITCH - all that propriety! - passed on his exact address details to the mother and CPS.  She also notified the courts of his location, because the arrest warrant on CREEP from 8 years previously was still valid.  He got arrested, and she was in court to see him sentenced to 36 years in prison, by a judge who was utterly fed up with the criminal in front of him.

     CREEP was 4 years into his sentence when he died, perhaps from the sheer hopelessness of his position, where he was going to die in prison anyway with a sentence that long.

     There you go, nearly a thousand words on a single Intro, meaning about 1,600 total, which is why this tale came in two parts.  Now for more pictures and less text.

King Piggy Gone Biggie

Yes, another unflattering, in fact frankly hideous, photograph of the Saggy Senile Sepia Sackbut for you.  Art!

     Harvested from Twitter, and I generously thanked the poster for putting up a new and awful picture of Donold.  Don't forget, this is him after a good two hours in make up and hair wrangling.  Art!

     That's what Melania has to put up with.  Sorry if you can't unsee it.

SHOOT THAT SUB-EDITOR!

Sometimes I take a break from being a grammar Nazi and become a facts Nazi, as in this case.  Art!

     One presumes that the tank to port is defending the Baltics, which would be difficult since it's a Ruffian T-34/85, which models have been obsolete since the Fifties.  The tanks to starboard, presumably Ruffian, look to be a Leopard 1, a West German model long obsolete that the Ruffians don't have, and two Jagdtigers, Teuton tank destroyers of Second Unpleasantness vintage that never made it beyond 1945, unless in museums.

     Bah!

Ouch

I've not made much comment on the ongoing 'Special Combat Operation' in Iran, only observing that King Piggy has created one hell of a mess and is now looking to throw Smeggy Heggy under the bus and blame him and Joe Biden for everything.  I wonder what kompromat Mossad has on him?

     ANYWAY the Ruffians have been supplying Iran with intel, which Fat Caligula is trying to ignore at all costs due to the kompromat the FSB has on him.  Talking of 'costs' - Art!

E-3G 'Sentry' not doing a very good job

     That's a $500 million aircraft destroyed, either by a ballistic missile costing 1% of that total, or a drone costing 1/1000th of the total, or 0.001%.  The airframe is no longer in production and the replacement is years away, so very much an Ooops moment.  Watch Smeggy pretend that this is all according to plan.

Finally -

A apt Biercism to end with.

"Flag,n: A coloured rag borne above troops and hoisted on forts and ships.  It appears to serve the same purpose as certain signs that one sees on vacant lots in London 'Rubbish may be shot here'"

The Liar, The WITCH And The Fraud Code

How Do You Like That One?

I dreamed it up whilst taking Dena on her trotties, so thank you Thinking Time.

     So, this tale, under 'Pro-Revenge' from the 'DarkFluff' Youtube channel, takes up most of two sides of A4 in my scribbled notation.  Your Humble Scribe has the feeling that, if 'twere to be published entire, it would be the whole of the blog, so I may deliver it in two parts.  We'll see.  Art!

     That's a rock-eating monster eating rocks, as two pages of A4 is desperately dull stuff.

     So!  Let me introduce the narrator, Woman Into Thorough & Complete Hammering, hereafter WITCH.  Let me caution you never to get on her bad side.  At the start of her tale she introduced Emma, her young and frightfully attractive niece, and Dean, an ex-colleague whom I shall dub Duplicitious, Execrable And Nasty, hereafter DEAN.  WITCH contracted with DEAN's company to provide business systems support, such as payroll and accounting.  Since they were hiring, Emma got a job with them.  For a year, all went well, with the services being delivered very professionally.  Art!

     Then enters Charlie, REprehensible Exaggerating Plonker, hereafter CREEP, who is said to be a 'consultant' for DEAN, and whom they first meet at The Restaurant.  I capitalise this catering establishment as it is a major player later on.  DEAN then becomes a bottomhole thanks to listening exclusively to CREEP, CREEP becomes a fixture at the business and meetings, the services provided lose quality and the number of meetings declines.  Art!

     

     WITCH then pays DEAN's business $10,000 to deliver a new business software platform for her business.  There is one tiny flaw - it doesn't work.  DEAN refunds only $2,000 of the total and says the rest will be paid back in instalments.  Meanwhile, CREEP is now effectively running the business and harassing Emma as his true nature emerges.  He makes big claims about being a former: college professor, business owner and marketing director, despite, as WITH found out, not having a car, nor having a home or being capable in anything at all.  When she challenges them in person about the balance of the repayment, CREEP goes off the deep end, shouting at her, whilst DEAN imitated a cabbage and did nothing.  Art!

What DEAN lacks

     WITCH then cancelled some of the poor quality services DEAN had supplied, and began investigating CREEP.  Whom, it turns out, had an extensive criminal history involving wire fraud, bank fraud, securities fraud, gender violence and an arrest warrant from 8 years prior.  A very naughty boy!  She sent all this information to DEAN, who -

     Did nothing.  No spine, hmmmm?

     DEAN, to resolve the software issue, then sets up a meeting with Frances, who is too peripheral to merit an acronym, where WITCH isn't sure what's being pitched nor why, as Frances doesn't mention software.  Being diligent, she checks Frances' background, which would be good for people who burn easily in the sun, as it was very shady.  With links to CREEP.  Art!

     WITCH hires an IT engineer to see if he can resolve the software problems.  and his answer is a loud NO.  The system cannot be made to work, as it's an illegal copy of one that was long out of date.   After further digging - this lady has mole DNA! - WITCH discovers that DEAN took $2,000 of the initial payment, then handed the rest to CREEP, who got the dud system from Frances.

     Does WITCH forgive DEAN and make up?  NO SHE DOES NOT!

     She informs him that she's cancelling all her business services he supplied, so in retaliation he fires Emma, supposedly because she failed to give CREEP a lift after he got sozzled at another business meeting in The Restaurant.  He later claims that she was 'maliciously manipulative', perhaps meaning that she took steps never to be alone with CREEP.

     I can feel you seething quietly from here, wanting to know where and when the revenge comes in.  It begins now, BUT we're already nearly 700 words in, meaning if I continue that's all this blog will be about, and I'd like to include a few other items for the sake of variety.  So - you're going to have to be patient, as Part 2 won't arrive until Monday*.  Tee hee!

You What?

Conrad had to get a copy of an item that cropped up on his news feed, because once again I cannot fathom how the algorithm comes up with suggestions like this.  Art!

     Firstly, why recommend a method of simplifying 'SSH Management' when I have no idea what it is?  What is 'Key Rotation' and what are 'SSO Integrations'?

     Let me dig a little.  

     Hmmm, apparently 'SSH Management' is about 'Secure Shell', which makes as little sense as the abbreviation.  Something to do with remote logging on?  'Key Rotation' is the process of changing credentials to allow user access, and 'SSO Integrations' are 'Single Sign Ons', which I fervently wish were applicable to the IT systems I use for work.

Demolitions Gone Wrong

As threatened, I got rid of the 'FailArmy' video compilation, because it failed - do you see wh O you do - to give any kind of detail about any of the clips, and am now going with 'Be Amazed' and their clips of demolitions going wrong.  Art!

     The intent of a demo like this is to collapse the structure into it's own footprint, vertically, so that there is no damage to other structures.  Or hopefully not, as debris can be flung quite a distance when you're using explosives.  Art!

     Only a few seconds in, the silo begins to lean alarmingly in a manner it was not expected to.  The angle of tilt increases and the whole structure remains intact until impact.  Art!

     No, that white office building did not have a narrow escape, because the silo comes apart when it hits the ground, creating a field of flying debris.  Art!

     Fortunately the building was empty, possibly evacuated as a precaution, and nobody was even injured.  This, gentle reader, is why demolition companies pay a lot in insurance fees.  Art!

 - and this still is one of the 'Please pay out nice insurance company' photographs that they'll be using.  They did the cutting-away as per normal procedure and yet nobody in the subsequent investigation found out why it fell the wrong way.

This Struck A Chord With Me

You know Conrad, a mind like a skip**, except less organised.  Art!

     From port, you have 'Mister H', a Youtube vlogger whose vlogs I occasionally watch - imagine a less frenetic Ryan Kinel or not-so-sweary The Critical Drinker - and in the middle is William Shatner, the world's most famous Canuckistanian, and no idea whom that is at starboard, except she doesn't look happy.  If I recall correctly, the vlog was about the definite absolute undeniable ineradicable termination of 'Starfleet Academy' after it's second season.  The reason it got a second season is because the director shot it before season one had aired, a canny trick to force studio suits to perhaps not screen it.

     ANYWAY it reminded me of this.  Art!

     'In The Court Of The Crimson King' by - you may be ahead of me here - King Crimson.

I Say I Say, It Seems To Be Catching

Everyone's favourite Antipodean Youtuber, 'Robot Head', has also weighed in on 'Starfleet Academy', which is about - once again you may have intellectually outpaced me here - an academy in the 'Starry Trex' universe, which trains cadets for Starfleet.  I dunno, sounds a dull concept to me.  Where are all the epic space battles and cool starships?  

     ANYWAY AGAIN - Art!

     Conrad has no intention of ever watching it as it sounds like a crashing bore, but I may watch RH's vlog and chortle at his viperish venom.  He suffers so we don't have to.

Finally -

Just to say we are over and done.  DONE!

*  It's worth waiting for.

**  'Dumpster' for our South Canadian readers.

TUCAN Do What One Cannot

 No!  This Is Nothing To Do With Toucans

Get your species right!  This is more of matters in marine mobility, and there is a touch of serendipity about my acronym, which made me happier than it ought to have done.  Yeah, truly I am a very sad man.

      Today's Intro ventures into an area we have not covered before, and which was new to me, so allow me to provide an illo.  Art!

     Two tugs in harbour.  I did try to gimmick them up with atomic power and missiles, but the end result was quite poor, so you have bald reality.

     So!  From 'rSlash' on Youtube allow me to introduce TUgboat CAptaiN, hereafter TUCAN, and surprise surprise, the Tucan is a species of fish, very appropriately.  Art!

Tucans two

     TUCAN ran a tugboat business of two boats and three other crewmen.  His primary work was doing 'Ship assist work', meaning his tugs would shift 'dead' ships around harbours, 'dead' meaning without a crew and not under power, thus being unable to manoeuvre.  Art!

The tug: small but mighty

     For those unfamiliar, a tugboat, usually abbreviated to tug, is a small yet powerful vessel used to manoeuvre much larger ships in confined spaces like ports and harbours, alone or in tandem.  With one tug pushing the stern port of a ship, and the other the port bow, they could turn it clockwise far more easily than one tug alone.  Hence today's title.

     One of TUCAN's more important customers was the LArge Dysfunctional Shipyard, hereafter LADS, a whacking big place that had five drydocks - Art!

     To port is a 'wet' pier, to starboard are two drydocks.  These are basins where a ship can be floated in, the gates secured and all the water pumped out, to allow maintenance or repair to be carried out.

     There were 12 cranes, which TUCAN called 'Whirleys', because they were able to move through 360º.  Art!

     Plus several thousand feet of piers.  TUCAN would get instructions for his boats such as 'Boat 32Y needs to be under Whirley 4 at 07:00' or 'Ship XPV needs to , be in Drydock 1 at 10:45'.  Sounds simple and logical, right?

     O if only 'twere so.  You see, according to TUCAN, the Shipyard Superintendents did not talk to the shop foremen, nor did the shop foremen bother to talk to each other.  Organisation ranged from chaotic to non-existent.  

     Thus TUCAN stepped into the breach, suggesting far more rational marshalling orders that cut down time and costs.  After all, this was not his sole customer and his brace of boats needed to be at other shipyards, not just LADS.  Art!

     This de facto coordinator role oiled the waters for years, until SUDDENLY! what happened but LADS hired an Awful Shipyard Superintendent, hereafter ASS.  Within 3 weeks he focussed on TUCAN, pilloried him and ordered him to stay in his lane: no more coordinating.

     'Yes massah,' thought TUCAN, merely tugging his forelock - do you see wh- O you do - and returning to his boat.  As he gloatingly relates, he then spent 8 hours doing 2 hours work.  To quote him "I figured this was going to get real expensive real fast".  This was because his two tugboats hire cost $900 per hour, and that was the total 15 years ago, I'd imagine it's at least $1,000+ by now.  Thus the invoice for that first non-coordinated day's work came in at $7,200 instead of $1,800.  Art!

     Rather to his surprise, there was no pushback from either LADS or ASS.  Conrad feels that ASS had proved a complete bust by the fourth week if he was there to either improve communication or profitability.  TUCAN lists a job his business carried out where the initial task prevented the second from being carried out in a timely manner, adding in a 5-hour delay, billable at $4,500.
     TUCAN's boat crews learned that, once they'd done a particular job, they could relax with a book or a fishing rod until the next job came round hours later, hours they were billing at $900 per.  

     This went on, not for weeks, nor months, but FIFTEEN YEARS.  We are not told if ASS was still in charge of LADS during this time, so we can assume he was, as I'm sure TUCAN would have gleefully related his being 'let go'.  Art!

     Then LADS went bust.  

     Amongst the Commenters were some who wondered how such a wasteful and inefficient yard could manage for more than a few months before shuttering.  Others speculated it might have been a government shipyard, where losses would be written off, up to a point, as making a profit was more a distant hope than a reality.

      rSlash got out their calculator after the tale ended, working out the hourly rate, how many hours worked per day, how many working days there were in a year and came up with a figure that TUCAN's business had made $1,875,000 out of LADS over the duration, or $125,000 per annum.  You could say that TUCAN really soaked the yard*.

     There you go, a fascinating insight into marine operations.  And you're welcome.

Well, I Was Going To Look At More 'Daractenus' Food Satire

You know, our Romanian friend on Twitter who hilariously canned South Canadian food - Art!

Do you see what I did there?

     HOWEVER, we're not going to get any more beyond the canned chicken, additive mash in a packet and artificial blueberries, because the thread has seen an irruption of very, very angry MAGA cult members, who have ballooned the thread to epic proportions.  Art

     The problem is, I cannot search for the food brands, al -

     Aha!  I remembered 'third arm' as a phrase.  Wait one.

     Art!

     The word 'Pure' is doing a lot of heavy lifting here, as Darac points out South Canadian pigs are shot full of Ractopamine, which boosts the growth of muscle and thus meat and thus profits, and also promotes cancer in Hom. Sap. consuming this meaty melange, thus boosting hospital profits, a win-win all round - in South Canada - this stuff is banned in Europe.

Ole King Cole Is In A Hole

Or, more misery in Mordorvia.  Normally the oil and gas industry steals the headlines, so to balance things out here's a bit of bad news for their coal industry.  Art!

     The orcs have the second largest coal reserves on the planet, which isn't doing them much good, as the industry is in an ever-deepening crisis, the worst since the Bad Old Days of the Nineties.  Sanctions, a failing industrial base and clients turning to alternate sources have all had a baleful influence. Currently, it costs $1,000 more to extract a ton of coal than it sells for. There are now 62 coal business in critical condition, 14 of which are now in the process of being wound-up and liquidated, and another 20 of which have suspended operations.

     Figures for Q1 of 2026 are not out yet, but the projected total loss for the year is $7 billion.  Art!

     China used to import a lot of Ruffian coal, indeed to the tune of 102 million tons in 2023.  However - ah that word again! - in 2024 they were down 7 million tons and are looking to cut imports to about 12% of total in 2026.  O dear.

FIRE THAT SUB-EDITOR!

Do they still have sub-editors now?  Let me check.  Yes, apparently they are still a thing, now being fewer in number but with a wider brief than before, although still being relied upon to ensure legal compliance and avoid their medium getting it's bottom sued off.  Art!

     Where does Pumpkinhead feature in a domestic UK issue about increasing charges on homes in the UK, stated in pounds sterling, as published by a British newspaper (albeit a bit of a yellow rag)?

     Nor am I going to click on their link.  First of all, I spurn their clickbaity headline, and secondly, this is from days ago and the item is no longer there.

Finally -

Another quotation.  A short one, as we are well over Count.

"Most editors are failed writers, but so are most writers" - T. S. Eliot.

*  Ouch.