Algorithm 'N' Blues

Ha!  Do See What I Did There?
Oh you do.  Well, it has a basis in fact.  Yesteryon I was bewailing the fact that Ruffia is kind of sitting in the outer dark of the Family Of Nations, which is tragic news indeed as it means my blog traffic has been down <sad face> thanks to Tsar Putin banning BOOJUM! because we are cruel to him.  Don't forget, this is a man so heinous he passes the port to the left.

Art, you poltroon!

     And yet, and yet ...  The thing about Ruffians is that you can't repress them just for a while and then slacken off; they need to be kept in line permanently or they develop a liking for things like democracy, a free press, non-corrupt politicians and a whole slew of other things*.  Why, they have broken free from internet censorship and - a picture is easier.  Art?

The legend is "RU 79"

     I'm happier now.  Your Humble Scribe also missed a trick there, since today's traffic stats are up to 143, which is unusually high even for a weekend.  This looks to be a genuine total, too, and unlike the ridiculously high traffic totals from a few years back (950 hits a day?  Seriously?) as I've seen it gradually increase over the day.
     Okay, motley, time for borshcht and blinis!  What's that?  After the half-litre of 85% proof vodka your appetite has vanished?  Lightweight!

"The Russians Are Coming!  The Russians Are Coming!" Redux
We mentioned this Cold War comedy yesterday, and put up a poster that was done by the artist who did Mad Comic covers, whoever his name is.  I think today we can put up another illustration.  Art?  <twirls Tazer casually).

Yes, that is Alan Arkin

     There are some interesting, not to say amusing, facts about this film that you might like to know.  Firstly, the South Canadian Navy refused point-blank to have anything to do with this film, so nothing was loaned or leased or provided by them; talk about a Sense Of Humour Failure**!
     Secondly, language.  Both Theodore Bikel and Alan Arkin are fluent in  Russian, which is one reason why they were cast.  Furthermore, the sheriff is played by Brian Keith, who is also fluent in Russian but had to act as if he wasn't.  It would be a bit of a reach for a small town East Coast sheriff to be fluent, without a whole lot of backstory.

Brian, doing "non-plussed"

     Third, this was one of the few Hollywood films that got played in the Sinister Union, and the audiences there loved it - for once the Ruffians are not evil monsters, gun-crazy Red-fearing South Canadians are satirised, gentle fun is poked at the Sinister Navy, and at the climax a Ruffian sailor - 
     But that would be telling.  It's worth a watch.  7.1 rating over at IMDB.

Time Travelling Tesco
From the Sinister Union to rampant capitalism in one easy bound!
     Because I have watched television this weekend, I have also had to endure various changes rung on the theme of "Christmas" in the adverts.  One such being that for Tesco, which for those unfortunates who live in the middle darkness beyond the shores of the Allotment of Eden, is one of the Big Four retailers (the others being Asda, Sainsbury's and Morrisons).  Art?

1940+ to judge from that Brodie Pattern helmet matey has

     The Tesco advert features a time-travelling van delivering 2019 food to different time periods, going back 100 years.
     THIS IS INCREDIBLY DANGEROUS!
     Ray Bradbury's short story "A Sound Of Thunder" illustrates the consequences of careless time travel perfectly; a squashed butterfly in the Cretaceous causes a political aberration in the future.  So, consider the end results of Mr Delivery Driver turning up in 1919.  First, there's the van.  This is obviously nothing like the delivery vans of that era and would at least result in dropped jaws in any onlookers.

1919 iteration

     Then there's the food delivered.  This will inevitably be packaged in coloured card, and it will have things like the healthiness rating on the front, as well as instructions about keeping it refrigerated, and Best Before dates, and an itemised list of ingredients.  None of these would be present on any 1919 packaging, and they certainly won't have transparent plastic as wrapping.  A curious scientist of the time would be able to reverse-logic things to work out that in the future, household refrigeration is commonplace, and begin to wonder how it was done.  They would analyse the plastic and find out it's a polyethylene derivative, and again wonder how it was done -
     You see the consequences of Tesco's extremely ill-advised time travel delivery service?

Er -

     Moving swiftly along -

At Last!  A Genuine Mystery!
They say a stopped clock is right twice a day, except "They" are bafoons, who appear not to know anything about 24 hour clocks.  Anyway, looking at the Beeb's credulous list of drivel, they do actually get one right!  Art?

6. Bella of Wych Elm

In 1943, four boys were poaching in Hagley Woods in Stourbridge, West Midlands. As boys are wont to do, they climbed an old elm tree while playing. They were horrified to discover a woman’s skull hidden in the hollow tree. They reported it to police and further investigation revealed an entire skeleton in the tree. The identity of the woman and how she came to be hidden in the tree were never explained. For many years after, graffiti was seen around Stourbridge asking, ‘Who put Bella in Wych Elm?’

     Can we have a suitably eerie picture of the tree?

Tree and lady

     There was a lot of speculation about the body, which came to entirely nothing.  And, of course, over time a whole load of rubbish was created about the case.  A year and a half ago a facial reconstruction was created by imaginative guesswork, as the real skull had gone missing and has never turned up.  Nobody recognised the face, and we will indeed probably never know who she was nor what happened to her, especially as her death took place around 1941.

     And with that, we are done - Poka Poka!


*  "Non-corrupt politicians" is a big ask across the globe, mind.
**  Note the correct spelling of "Humour"