Swingeing, Cringing And Whinging

No!  We Are Not On About Conrad At The Police Station

They dropped the charges, so there, and I had at least a dozen alibis.  No, today's Intro is another look back at history, and an area you may not have been familiar with in terms of time and space.  Cast your mind back - no, no, further back than that - a bit more - Yes!  The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, one of the most miserable events of the twentieth century.  Art!

"Conrad, why are you so cruel?"

     This revolution pretty much gutted the Tsarist army, allowing the Bolshies to take over and parade around in boastful triumph, at which point the Teuton army on the Eastern Front mounted a devastating attack on 'Sovdepia', as satirists christened the new Red state.  The Bolshies found that telling the Teuton soldiery to form Workers Councils and disobey their officers, whilst being totally ineffectual on the battlefield, meant a great big Teuton advance into Sovdepia.  Or Ruffia, if you like.  Realising that unless they capitulated quick-smart there'd be no Sovdepia left, the Bolshies negotiated a peace treaty at Brest-Litovsk in March 1918, which is the swingeing part.  Art!

"All your base are belong to us," crowed the Teutons

     The Reds had to surrender up most of The Ukraine, the Baltic Republics, parts of the Caucasus and Poland.  They had to pay a 'fine' of  6 million marks and export coal, oil, grain and ores to the Teutons.  This only scratches the surface.

     HOWEVER the Reds might have not resisted militarily - the cringing bit of today's title - but the Teutons were well aware how much they were hated to the heavens and, at a time when they needed every warm-body on the Western Front, they had to leave 150,000 to make sure the Bolshies didn't try any Covert Insertion Of Knife In Back.

Brest-Litovsk NO SMUTTY JOKES!

     This state of affairs lasted until the Armistice, when the Teuton army on the Western Front was in a state of collapse, only surviving because it ran away faster than the Allies could pursue, after being given repeated major shoeings.  Come said Armistice the Teutons evacuated Ruffia, and the Bolshies promptly occupied the vacuum, also beginning their Civil 'Special' Military Operation.  That was an end to reparations and sending free stuff to the Teutons.

     Did they say thank you?  Did they what!  Despite being freed from the Teuton Wilhemine yoke, the Bolshies would rather have drunk poison than admit they were helped by the Allies.  Instead they complained that nobody was allowing them to take over the world, that the Allies had only been saved by Mighty Sovdepia, that Lenin was the architect of victory - et Dog Buns cetera.  This, gentle reader, is the whinging bit.  Art!

     

Proof I am not raving.

     In reality the Teutons, who thought the Ukraine's endless wheatfields would negate the Royal Navy's blockade and bring bread back to Berlin breakfast tables, mis-managed things dreadfully and it was all consumed by those 150,000 hungry stubble-hoppers.

     Motley, crack open a bottle of that wheat beer, and then pour it down the drain, for it is ghastly stuff.

Conrad, Patron Of The Arts

That'll show those who call me patronising.  You may recall that we have mentioned Shelli within these pages, she of the cello and Matt Hartless And The Maverick Seven.  Well, she also does daubs on canvas, and Your Humble Scribe espied one on her FB page that rather took his fancy.

     Money changed hands, and on Thursday Conrad took delivery of same.  Art!

     I like the cybernetic conceit at work here.  Of course, my own pumping-unit is considerably more sophisticated, being powered by the forces of nuclear fusion, rather than clockwork.  Well done Shelli!

You What?

Whilst looking up pictures of destroyed, shattered, demolished, burned, bashed, disintegrated, smashed <yes yes we get the idea - intervention courtesy Mister Hand> First Buses, Your Humble Scribe came across this, which gave him pause.  Art!

     A model of a burnt-out bus?

     Well, yes.  Because if you're depicting urban combat in wargaming dioramas from the Fifties onwards, you can bet there'll be a burnt-out bus in there somewhere, possibly simply destroyed in combat, or hijacked and used as a flaming barricade.  Still, it did make me stop and think.  First Bus take note.

Let's Have A Lighter Subject

It wouldn't be hard.  Bring on another example from the Sony World Photography exhibition as featured on the BBC.  Art!

     This rather trippy-looking picture is of an umbrella workshop in Myanmar.  You know, where they had that military coup, and which is now in a state of Civil 'Special' Military Operation, by all accounts 

     ANYWAY back to trying for the lighter touch <ahem> one wonders what the demand for umbrellas is like in Myanmar - do they need them to cope with torrential monsoon downpours, or to keep the sun's baleful rays at bay?  Art!

Precipitation in Myanmar

     Monsoons it is.

Okay, Back To Dark And Depressing

For Lo! doncha know, time for "Tormentor" once more.  You recall that Luma had suffered the indignity of a police search earlier in the narrative, and here we see the consequences of same.  

Superintendent Crompton eyed Sergeant Oswald with a not-very-accomodating look. 

               ‘What were you actually looking for?  Did the magistrate believe the ******** you spouted about toxic drugs that unbalance the mind?’

               The sergeant squirmed uncomfortably under the unforgiving gaze of his superior.

               ‘What did you find!’ asked the Superintendent again.

               ‘Nothing evidential,’ replied the sergeant, shiftily.

               ‘Nothing! in other words.’  The senior officer flipped through a report on his desk.  ‘ “Neighbours say he talks to himself a lot”  “A Holy Bible in every room, including the bathroom” “Conversations written in the third person on loose-leaf paper”.  That’s the best you can come up with?’ 

               ‘Sir, I thought he’d used a drug or chemical on Miller, one that sent the victim insane.’

               Crompton looked hard at the sergeant.

               ‘And you were tailing him during a visit to the jewellers, which prompted you to get a search warrant because - ?’

               ‘I thought he was making silver bullets.’  Oswald realised how feeble the reason seemed the instant he uttered it.

               ‘Silver ******** bullets!’ exclaimed the Superintendent, genuinely alarmed.  ‘Do you want early retirement on medical grounds?  No?  Well that surprises me, because this is the best way to go about it.  Silver bullets!’

               He read the report again.

               ‘No evidence of guns, bullets or any firearms at all.  Right.  Enough of police time wasted on this.  My orders are that Louis McMahon is to be left strictly alone.’

               The sergeant glowered and settled lower in his chair.

               ‘Sir, I know he was involved - ’

               ‘Enough!  If the local press get wind of this they’d love it – “Tragic Widower Harassed By Police”.  No evidence, no proof, no case, forget it.  Don’t let me hear about you so much as squinting at this bloke again.’

               With bad grace the sergeant departed, feeling a metaphorical set of teeth fastened in his metaphorical arse.

     Hmmm not sure about "arse", but we'll treat it as a vulgarism not a swear.

Finally -

Again, we cover the on-going tussle in Ukraine here, so if you've had entirely too much mayhem you may want to move on.  I shall, of course, know instantly should you do so, and there will be consequences.

     Well, of course - obviously! - I cannot find the Youtube clip, so you'll just have to take this on trust.  A bunch of military experts were being interviewed on Ruffian television, and the first one was extremely gloomy about what had happened and was going to happen.  Of course the host got on her high horse about this and chastised him, only just failing to use the word 'traitor'.  Her next two guests were even gloomier, foreseeing a Ruffian occupation force needing to occupy the whole Ukraine FOR FORTY YEARS in order to successfully carry out Tsar Poutine's orders.

     Once again we salute JONESY for dreaming up this 'Special' Military Operation plan!  Take a bow that man!

"Oi!  Stop being cheeky!"