If I Were To Mention "Pyramid Scheme" -

You'd Be Forgiven For Thinking "MLM Scam"
However, you'd be wrong - this time - because we are once again venturing into the Ruffian republic* and how those wacky Slavs deal with defaulting debtors.
     
     Excuse me, tea is calling -
   
     
This will make sense on Facebook, I promise
     
     Tea has called.  Okay, another item sourced from the font of all that's fit to be writ, the BBC, which has moved on from eagles and is now concentrating on people who are behind on their utility bills in Samara, which is part of Ruffia.  
     Now, given that the economy over in the cold flat lands is equally as cold and flat as the lands themselves, many citizens are finding it hard to make ends meet.  After all, the Winter Olympics and the Crimean Bridge are fantastic for propaganda but they won't put borscht in the bowl or coal in the scuttle.  Hence, people run up debts.
     Enter the Samaran Pyramid Scheme of Shame!  Art?

"Here lives a debtor"

     This beast weighs in at about a ton, and has to specially transported and craned into position, whereupon it will bray electronically at set intervals about whom has run up the debt and what it stands at.  Naturally this annoys all the people roundabout who have kept up their payments, since if you happen to work the nightshift - join the dots.
     Just another affirmation that the Ruffians never adopted, nor were part of, the Anglo-Saxon philosophy of rationalism**.  

"To me -"
"To you -"
"To me -"

     If all else fails I suppose they have a future as hi-tec tank obstacles.
     Motley!  I challenge you to a Mars bar-eating contest, first to neck 12 of them is the winner.  And you have to keep them down for ten minutes.  GO!

Ah - perhaps only - er - 11?

The Scent Of Lemon, Death And Bull****
I shan't apologise for whizzing off on a tengent***, because you will need the mental skills involved in order to survive the Robot Revolution (you have to survive to maintain an enslavable population for when I take over).
     Okay, I refer once again to Spitzbergen, that icebox in the middle of nowhere which  makes the very bleakest environment you can think of look like Piccadilly Circus at rush hour.  Art?

This will be important later on.  PAY ATTENTION!

     Perfidious Albion had raided the islands earlier in the Second Unpleasantness, and had settled a garrison of Norks - excuse me - Free Norwegian forces there, who established a weather station.  The kind of weather information from the Svalbard Archipelago was invaluable in helping to predict weather over Europe, and the Norks were used to the horrid Arctic weather that plagued the islands, so it was a win-win situation.
     Enter the Teutons.  Art?

The Teuton battleship Tirpitz.  Freud would be having a field day.

     They knew that the Allies had a weather station there, guarded and garrisoned by about a company of Norks (say 120 men at the most), So!  They decided to take it on, by taking it out.  Thus, Spitzbergen-bound, sailed the Tirpitz and the Scharnhorst (another battleship lying around not doing much) and nine destroyers, who had embarked a battalion of soldiers (say about 800 men).  This was "Unternehmen Zitronella" or "Operation Lemon-scented", and is a classic example of using a steam-hammer to crack a nut.
     The Teuton squadron arrived at Spitzbergen, and their soldiers stormed ashore, capturing about 30 Nork soldiers.  They blew up and burned down some cabins before leaving, and the Tirpitz, O Most Mightiest Battleship Of The Teuton Fleet, shelled and destroyed some dumps of coal.  Oh, and it destroyed a pair of 3" guns that the garrison had as defence.

The Scharnie

     However.  You saw the two Nork gunners at their Bofors gun above?  Well, one of the Teuton destroyers inadvisably got between them and the battleships, and the gunners hit it with 150 shells, damaging it so badly it had to be towed home.
     Within days, the Allies turned up to resupply and rehouse the Nork garrison, as the Teutons had fled in haste; those Norks of the garrison had sent out a warning radio message as the raid started, and the Teutons didn't want to have to fight a real naval battle.
     Don't quote me on this, but I suspect the cost of the fuel involved, the almost-sunk destroyer and the shells fired by the Tirpitz - the only ones she ever fired, in fact - far outweighed the cost of blowing up a couple of coal heaps.
    Wherein comes that horrid scent of bull***.

"We killed some coal!  That was our goal!"

     Yes, Josef, keep telling yourself that.

"Did I hear something about burning?"

     No, Mac, we're sorted here. Listen, there's a kid's party down the block who need someone to toast their marsh -
     - phew, he's gone!  Nice guy for a human, Mac, but he needs to relax a little.

Meanwhile, Back At The Hartenstein Hotel -
I am gradually catching up with the podcasts of We Have Ways Of Making You Talk, and have now reached those that were broadcast at the anniversary of Operation Market Garden, from 18/09/2019 onwards, which began in Al Murray's garden and which subsequently moved on to Holland itself.  Art?

This is how most folks know of it

     As Al and James (the podcasters) make clear, for every decision made at the time, there were always a plethora of other options, and people today tend to follow the plethora rather than what happened back then and why.  Also, the film is probably the best you're going to get in terms of replicating what happened, but it is not completely accurate.  "Accurate-lite" you might say.
     I have a feeling we'll be coming back to this: Perfidious Albion loves nothing more than a gall - excuse me - A Gallant Last Stand.  Of which more withal.



* Provisional Until Reneged By Tsar Putin
**  Also, vodka.
***  Like a tangent but increased by a factor of ten