A Diet Of Flies

Not, I Have To Say, A Cuisine Conrad Could Go For

Your Humble Scribe is not sure where, exactly, this idea came from.  I was thinking of our Ruffian readers (yes we still have some!) who are fed a diet of lies - no, no, don't worry, I shan't stress you about Dimya's 'Special' Military Operation until 'Finally -' - from their media.  "NATO Atom Bombs Nunnery Full Of Orphans", "JFK Murdered Judge Crater", "Porridge Oats Are A Scotsish* Chemical Weapon" and the like.  Art!

     That's 'Krokodil', a Sinister-era satirical magazine which, predictably, took potshots at the West.  They could also satirise the Sinister state, getting quite close to the bone in a way that would see them getting a Novichok cocktail in today's Ruffia 

     ANYWAY we seem to have strayed a little from the beaten path.  Don't worry, it's a big path, it can handle it.

     Flies!  Yes.  Conrad is aware that some cultures have perfectly ghastly dining choices of their own.  Take the M8s, for example, with their binging on what they claim are 'escargot' but which are in real life DISGUSTING SNAILS.  I say blimey they're so slimy!  One of the most disturbing scenes in "Delicatessen" (a film I recommend unreservedly) featured DISGUSTING SNAILS, which in the future will be a valuable food resource according to the Michelin Guide's 2047 edition.  Art!

     Imagine getting home from a long day working at the Deuxieme Bureau, only to be told by your wife that 'Dinner's in the garden!'.

     Then there is that Phillipines delicacy so vile I'm not going to describe it.  It's so horrid it's making Edna feel ill.  And who is it who eats grilled tarantula?  O the Cambodians.  Yeah.  Not going to fight them for that delicacy.  Art!

<gags>

     ANYWAY enough of Conrad's dining discrimination.  A diet of flies, you say?  You would have to roast the disgusting things first, as eating raw flies is likely to turn your bowels inside out.  

     Let us abruptly skip to the desert wastes of North Africa during the Second World 'Special' Military Operation, because flies were a very real health hazard when raw and uncooked.  The Arabs had a saying: "When Allah made the desert it was not bad enough.  So he added flies."  These legions of loathsomeness found that human waste, rubbish, dead bodies and weaselnanas made for prolific breeding, and they came in swarms, liable to infect any open wound or unwary eater.  Art!

General Montgomery.  No flies on him.

     Conrad also has vague memories of a character in "The Sands Of Valour" mentioning an attempt by British army engineers to kill flies en masse with electrified wiring, which worked all too well, slaying them by the million, creating a disgusting stink and smoky reek that led to it being banned.  I cannot find any images of this on teh Interwebz and doubt it's the sort of detail that credible military histories will include.

     BUT!  You could make a fricassee with all those now-cooked flies.  I imagine they'd be all lovely and crunchy - air-fried, you might say.  A dash of salt, a modicum of pepper and Hay Pesto - dinner!

     Now, what was that about a Diet Of Wurms**?

INFor It

NO that is not a typo!  It is an hilarious pun, just you wait and see.

     Okay, Conrad was reading another set of Comments on a Reddit Youtube about Malicious Compliance and came across this one.  Original Poster was a crewman on a ship travelling between Cuba and Haiti, an act that irked the South Canadian Coast Guard.  Ooooh did it irk them!  Art?

     That sets the scene.  The Coast Guard tooled up and stopped the ship, getting all in the face (I have this argot down pat don't I!) of the crew and REFUSING TO LET THEM MAKE A CUPPA.  Whilst swaggering around with guns and helmets and flak jackets.  The British crew, not amused, decide to mock the Coast Guard, whose leader loudly declares that if he wants to search their ship for drugs, he Dog Buns! will do, and nothing they - what's that?  Check the bills of lading?

     These papers state that the ship is an 'I.N.F. carrier'.  I.N.F. as in "Irradiated Nuclear Fuel", also known as waste from a nuclear power station.  Collapse of stout party, Coast Guard depart at speed, incident over.  Art!

An INF carrier

     No "Tormentor" today, people, since we got to the end of it yesteryon.  Thus Your Humble Scribe only needs to hit 1,000 words, not 1.200, for those who were wondering.  And that Kreplach! BBC link is still dead.  I am officially very cross.  Very cross indeed  No, no, crosser than that.  Keep going.  Bit more.  Yes!  That cross.

HOLY DOG BUNS!

As you should surely recall, Conrad recently got a Thunderbirds alarm clock to replace his very, very battered old one, because I kept knocking it off the bedside cabinet.  Art!

     GREAT SQUEAKING BATS! is it loud.  There's no way anyone could sleep through this when it goes off.  Which is a good thing, right?

Finally -

As ever, we touch upon the real world here, and Tsar Poutine's SMO, so if you've had entirely too much of it already, feel free to KEEP READING.  Seriously.  Any skipping and there will be Consequences.

     I think the Ruffians lost another general today, or over the weekend.  To be honest, it's hard to keep track as they are dropping like <ahem> flies.  How do the Ukrainians know where they live so effectively? is a frequent question on Youtube forums, and whilst the Ukes are quite capable themselves, there are some very heavy hitters backing them up.  Art!

A.K.A. 'The Puzzle Palace'

     You may not have heard of this very shady organisation, which they're perfectly fine with, as they didn't officially exist for 25 years.  Their brief is to monitor, collect, process and analyse information for internal and external intelligence and counter-intelligence.  They specialise in the abbreviation SIGINT, meaning 'Signals Intelligence' or what they can pick up from radio intercepts, e-mails, text, phone calls, anything that's not human-derived (which is HUMINT or 'Human Intelligence).  You can bet your bright blue Wellington boots that they are eavesdropping on everything that the Ruffians are up to in Ukraine, and passing information on to the Ukes, who pass it on to artillery batteries or sniper teams.  Art!

Wowsers.  These South Canadians mean business!

     Tomorrow: GCHQ.

*  One feels their familiarity with Caledonia is lacking.

**  A real, serious thing you know.  Honestly.