Smokin'!

 If You Even Mention Jim Carrey -

 - then I shall come down that fibre-optic cable and slap you so hard your great-grandparents will feel it.

No, Art, not that one either.

     For no, we are not talking about that film.  We are, in fact, travelling to a completely different country, just as big if rather less populated, most of which is made up of even less populated climes.  Art?

     See?  Not a trace of Stanley Ipkiss anywhere.  As you can see, most of Russia is made up of Siberia, which the Populous Dictatorship insists was stolen from it in centuries past, but now that they've grown up they're not going to let the bullies push them around.  This is one reason Moscow keeps a whole lot of troops on the Sino-Russian border and always has done, even when the two were "Brothers In Socialism".

     Anyway, what I wanted to post here was an item that will hopefully nuance your understanding of the Ruffians a little, and prove that not everything there is tainted by the dirty digits of Dimya (or the toxic touch of Tsar Putin, if you like).  Just as the South Canadians have been stricken with wildfires in recent weeks, so too have the Ruffians, with the difference that their wildfires are in places so remote that the locals regard the Horseless Steed and Great Metal Birds with considerable suspicion*.  Art?

     This is the view from the aircraft that Steve Rosenberg, BBC's Moscow Correspondent, it taking with his camera and sound man, to cover the wildfires in Siberia.

     Here we Steve and the sound man marching boldly - well, trudging soggily is closer to the truth - across the tundra.  You may observe the strange paramilitary garb they are wearing, which is not some fashion choice; these are anti-mosquito suits with a gauze vizor, essential for visitors to the Siberian hinterland in summer as otherwise you will be drunk dry by clouds of the little wretches that run relays in sucking your vital essence.

     Note, also, the native Siberian, who frankly can't be bothered with the tourist's suits as genetics and hard living have rendered his skin impenetrable to anything short of power tools.

     This necessarily condenses the journey, which took ten days and covered 1,000 miles (whatever that is in poods) because Siberia, not to labour the point, is both BIG and REMOTE.  To get around you need a boat or helicopter more often than a truck.

     Here's what they came to see; a forest fire.  This would rage unchecked but for the Ruffian forest rangers who camp out in the middle of nowhere in order to extinguish the flames. 

     The guide again, showing his disregard for anything like snivelling creature comforts.  He is trying to point out to the sound man where not to step.

     The forest camp, with the BBC stalwarts erecting tents.  Or trying to.  Camping experience at a premium here.  Oh, and the nearest human beings are hundreds of miles away, so it's nice and quiet.

     A final shot of the unspoiled taiga.  That is, unspoiled so far.  Give Dimya a few more years ...

     Some Ruffians insist that the inhabitants of Siberia are an intellectual cut above the average denizen of Moscow or Saint Petersburg, because during the eighteenth and nineteenth century anybody deemed politically dubious got exiled there.  

     We may come back to Siberia, as a topic it has legs.

     Motley!  I am back on the alcohol tonight.  Fetch me a cocktail.  Make it a -

     - White Russian!  Heh.     

Going Great Guns     

I thought so!  Yesterday the subject was raised of why the British** didn't use the 3.7 inch anti-aircraft gun in a ground role against tanks and other armoured excrescences, especially in the North African theatre during the Second Unpleasantness.  Your Humble Scribe knew he'd read about this subject before and had to seek out the relevant volume, which is "Firepower" by Bidwell and Graham, ex-Gunners both - O, and didn't Listy post an article, too? (By 'Listy' I mean David Lister, author and blogger, in a far more serious vein than Conrad).

     Why yes he did.  If I may paraphrase, he recounts the use of these guns in a ground role during the Battle of France in 1940, at Boulogne and Calais.  Art?

Afraid you'll just have to imagine the guns

     Elsewhere, at Tobruk in June 1942, a company of Teuton tanks were inside the perimeter as the port and defences fell, and approached a battery of 3.7 inch AA guns, who promptly threw down their protective sandbag walls and engaged said panzers, turning 6 of the 11 into iron filings.
     There are more examples, and I've not even quoted from Shelly and Gazza yet, which will have to wait for a later date.  There is quite a lot on this subject - be prepared to learn more about the 3.7inch AA gun than you ever knew you wanted to!

     Hopefully this goes some little way towards debunking the canard "O the British, they were so stooopid -".

"Yoo hoo!"

Bendis Recommends - 

 - whilst wallet squeaks in fear.  After all, it is pay-day tomorrow!  And reading the bibliography in the back of "Firepower" made me realise how many, many more books I need to read things.

     Anyway, we are back to some more of the recommendations by Big Brian Bendis, which he hoped would keep people occupied during lockdown.  I mentioned "The Wonder Twins" earlier this week before bowing out, so let's see what Bri was chuntering on about.  Art?

     Conrad has to say he knows nothing about this title.  Allow me to dig around a little ... Aha.  So, they are aliens exiled to Earth, gifted with superpowers and thus taken under the aegis of Superman, and also fated to have to go through South Canadian high school as teenagers, an experience aliens are going to find un-nerving at best.  It looks like a jolly, light-hearted romp, possibly a little too lightweight for Your Humble Scribe -

<wallet doesn't know if Conrad is telling the truth or not>

 - and there's other stuff I'd like to peruse in the meantime.

<wallet gives a provisional sigh of relief>

Disappearing Islands
You recall that we went on about what might be called a 'temporary' island that sprang, volcanically, from beneath the waves south of Sicily in 1831, only to be rapidly eroded away?  Well, Conrad's attention was brought to another island that periodically appears and disappears, in Derwent Water in the Lake District.  Art?

     Nope, it's none of those pictured here.

     <finally!  It's taken me 20 minutes to track down the original page I didn't bother to bookmark>  Art!

     This is the occasional 'floating island', in a picture taken in the Thirties, showing an intrepid Girl Guide who bravely stood on the quaking surface, planted a flag and claimed it for England.

     The 'island' is actually a layer of peat that lies on the bottom of the lake, covered with mud and silt.  When lake temperatures rise, gasses in the peat expand and bring it to the surface and, when it cools again, it sinks into the depths once more.  So, not exactly stable and safe, although local legends do claim that a brass band once played upon it.  I've not found a single other photograph of the phenomenon, but here's an aged and venerable map -

     And I think with that, we are jolly well done!

*  I exaggerate but slightly.

**  Conrad explained the use of this word as a convenience yesteryon.  Go back and read it.