The Load Of Balls

Think Carefully Before You Comment

For this is BOOJUM! where we are always SFW, if perhaps a little light on sanity and logic.  And yes, I did mean 'the', as you will see.

     First of all, let us look at the Ruffian railway system.  Art!

ART!

     That is pretty obviously not a map of the Ruffian rail network.  Just permit me to get this toasting fork red hot and we'll motivate Art to try again.

     As you can see, a fairly dense rail net in European Ruffia, with considerably less rail on the other side of the Urals, and none at all in vast swathes of Siberia.  One presumes this area used to get serviced by airplanes, back when the Ruffians still had functioning ones.  Railways are important to the Ruffians because they live in such an unfeasibly huge country; 50% of all freight is sent by rail across 52,000 miles of track, whatever that is in versts or poods.  You are talking about a billion tons of freight being moved per year.

     However.  You knew that word was coming, didn't you?  Art!

     Let us now abruptly change track - do you se O you do - and look at the fascinating world of BALL BEARINGS! from whence we derive today's title.  Art! and stop whinging, run it under a cold tap

     

     The idea is to counter friction in machinery where an axle rotates, by supporting it with the balls in the bearing, which take up the load.  In the example above the outer casing remains static whilst the inner circle would be the axle in motion.

     Now, what do you suppose uses ball bearings?  That's right, railway rolling stock.  Ball bearings don't last forever, either, they have a limited service life and have to be replaced or they'll break and damage the wagon.  Guess what, where is SKF, the ball-bearing manufacturer for Ruffia, located?

     Sweden.  They promptly left Ruffia when sanctions were announced.  Ooops.

     There were 10,000 railway wagons standing around waiting for their ball bearings to be replaced at the start of August, a number that had increased to 20,000 by the end of August.  The Ruffians can't make the high-quality steel components themselves and nobody else will supply them for fear of secondary sanctions.  At this rate they'll run out of wagons completely by the end of next year.

     Plus, the lack of wagons and carrying capacity is having a knock-on effect on other industries as they fail to get what they need in the required quantities on time.  There's an old Scottish curse "may you live in interesting times" and the Ruffians are certainly experiencing just that - their airlines are failing and now their railways, too.  Conrad wonders about their road haulage industry and where they get their tyres from ...

Maliciously Complying, Maliciously

Read an excellent one from Australia, concerning a young lady who worked in a video store back when they were a thing.  Like Blockbusters if you're old enough to remember them.  Her Team Leader was a lazy, offensive bottomwipe called Amanda, who hated everyone, talked down to everyone and did as little work as possible, whilst hogging the office phone for her personal calls - pretty obviously this was before the mobile phone.  Art!

The Devil's Digital Devices

     She thought she was untouchable due to being the owner's daughter in law, and he, knowing what she was like, tried to keep her and OP on different shifts.

     Amanda had to wait once to hog the phone because OP was using it, after which she loudly (and swearily) told OP that she was NEVER to use that phone again.  Amanda had to serve a customer instead of hiding in the back office, because OP had taken a bathroom break.  OP was told loudly (and swearily) that she was NEVER to leave the front desk.

     One feature of this store is that you could take an old fashioned lift up to the first floor; one day the lift broke and an engineer came out to service it.  He didn't have the right parts so said he'd be back later on.  Art!

Possibly like this

     OP was at the front desk when Amanda went to have lunch, and being a lazy bottomwipe she used the lift, which OP didn't realise even had power.  You can see where this is going, can't you?

     Yup, the lift got stuck between floors, just enough that Amanda couldn't get out.  She loudly called OP for help.

     'Sorry, can't leave the front desk.  LIKE YOU ORDERED.'

     Cue ranting and raving from Amanda.  Since it was only the two of them she demanded OP call another staff member to come help her.

     'Sorry, can't use the phone.  LIKE YOU ORDERED.'

     Cue more ranting and raving from Amanda.  OP continued to ignore her until the end of her shift, put up the Closed sign and locked the building.

     She was stuck in the lift for five hours until the late shift worker arrived, as did the engineer.  OP went and told the owner what happened and Amanda was fired the next day.  Art!

Back To "The Sea Of Sand"

When last we left, our view had changed to that of the un-named alien planet, with a couple of the locals swapping stories.

"Not much point in staying.  The Overseers and Warriors had fallen to about half their population level, algae production was down and strange mineral salts had poisoned some of our stock."

     Definitely not paradise, then.  Imgelissa informed his youthful charge of the facts about life in the beach community.  Long, hard hours of work.  The chance of being caught out by some newly introduced rule that your life energies got Eviscerated by a Warrior.  Constant, incessant bullying by the Overseers.  Chores like this one - delivering supplies to the Research Site.

     "Long hard chores", Imgelissa might have added.  They got to the NLRS after half a day's march, only to be almost ignored.  The Overseers and Technicians there were running around with excitement, more gleeful than Imgelissa had ever seen them.  The humble Farmer managed to gain access to one of the scientific monitor stations, all flashing display panels and glowing lights, before being chased away.  

     "This is very unusual," he told Nurbonissa on the way back to barracks.  "I've never seen them so agitated and anxious before."

     It's almost as if a distant base had come alive on another planet ....

Back To Mundane Reality

More obscure verbiage from the pages of "Lord Peter Wimsey The Collected Short Stories" by the pretty wonderful Dot Sayers.  I can call her that as we're such terrific pals*.  Okay, here's another clerical one: "AUMBRY".  What's one of these when it's at home?  Art!

     There you go.  A species of holy wardrobe, meant for the storage of sacred vestments and objects, usually positioned opposite the piscina.

Finally -

It's just me in The Mansion today, keeping Edders company.  Being the good dog-sitter that I am we've already had a walk this morning, before it might have started raining; the clouds have a lowering aspect to them today.

     Once I've posted this I think it might be time for her afternoon walk, up to the shops to get a crate of beer newspaper and then round the back of The Summit.  At least - I'm going to jinx myself, aren't I? - with a day so gray there won't be many people out walking their dogs.  Art!

A notable waypoint

*  This may not be entirely true.