No! Not The Card Game
Good lord aloft, Conrad can't make heads nor tails of it, even if it is played worldwide by millions of people. 'Rubber' Bridge seems like a bad joke, and then you have the process of tricks and deals and contracts and scoring. A whole lot of fuss, in my opinion, which is the one that matters here. Art!
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| Got it! |
Yes, this is a picture from the Sork drama "Taxi Driver", showing the triple-pronged battering ram attached to Kim Do-Gi's De Luxe Taxi. Given that his car looks to weigh about a ton, and can easily do 70 m.p.h., anything it hits is going to become metallic confetti.
Still another aside. Absolutely no use of guns up until the climax of Episode 14, where Prosecutor Ha-Na, quivering with rage and fury, is ready to shoot Gu dead. Conrad unsure if this is a deliberate choice by the producers or a reflection of Sork culture.
ANYWAY what I wanted to talk about were the consequences of the Kerch Bridge attack on Ruffian logistics, because this is a very big deal. Art!
Here you can see one completely collapsed roadway. The other side appears intact but is actually sagging and now has weight and number restrictions placed on it; nothing over 3 tons and only 20 cars per hour. This effectively means nil military transport apart from staff cars and perhaps light trucks carrying a small cargo.
The rail bridges are in just as bad shape. Art!
This is the end result of a seven-hour, extremely hot fire. The rails became so soft the wagon has sunk into them. The Ruffians pretty obviously cannot use this line whilst it is still blocked, so they've had to close the intact line in order to bring in a recovery crane to remove these wrecked wagons. As others have pointed out, a fire of this length and intensity means that the rebar within the concrete, and the concrete itself, have been structurally compromised. The whole span will probably need to be replaced - which is a problem again, since it was a Dutch firm who did the construction. Art!
This means that no supplies have been travelling to Crimea via the bridge for the past 5 days, bad news indeed for the Ruffians with their terrible logistics in the first place. The alternative route is via Melitopol in occupied Ukraine - which is well within range of HIMARS, and the rail link is only a single line.
Ruffian 'tourists' are now desperately trying to get out of Crimea as they are forcefully reminded that it's a war-zone in addition to being their holiday home-from-home. However - and you knew that word was coming - there are only a few ferries available that take either 200 passengers or 20 cars. Art!
Those are a few of the 900 artics waiting to cross, in a queue that means it takes 4 days to reach a ferry.
This is not merely an inconvenience to the Ruffians, it is a major problem that cannot be quickly resoived, because even if the intact rail line is put back into use, it will have to function in both directions. As a guesstimate, Ruffia's ability to run supplies across the Kerch bridge has been cut to one-eighth of the pre-explosion total. If the Ukrainians get within range of the North Crimea Canal (and they are closing in) they will cut it, which means no water supply to Crimea. When they did this in 2014 it caused escalating drought problems in Crimea, which were dealt with by tanker convoys of water trucks. That solution isn't possible any more. Which means a significant portion of any railed supplies would need to be water wagons. And remember, the Ruffian army cannot operate more than 90 miles from a railhead.
If Peter The Average (a nickname I have proudly stolen) had any hair he'd be tearing it out by now. Art!
Logistics, that boring nerd at the back of the class that nevertheless underpins everything.
Motley, break out the cards and we'll have a game of Snap.
Further To All Things Korean
Conrad did the weekly shop last night, so it was Game On for the list of recipe ingredients I'd written down. The only thing I couldn't get was Miso, which is a paste made from fermented soya beans. Art!
It's not needed in the Kimchi recipe, which is the one I tackled last night. This salady stuff tastes better the longer you leave it to ferment, and is currently sitting in a tub on the kitchen sideboard. Art!
That's all for now. O, except to say that tahini is an acceptable substitute for miso. And I have a jar of that sitting in the cupboard.
"The Sea Of Sand"
The Doctor and his bio-vore compatriots are being taken to a dubious destiny, which doesn't prevent our favourite Time Lord from having a thorough nosy en route.
"Environmental collapse," he told himself. "A world on the brink of collapse. A world of wastelands." Of course! All that mileage of greenery out to sea - oxygen-producing marine weeds. If it were not for that, this would be a dead world indeed.
A few of the prisoners in the sled turned to look at him as he spoke. The guards looked at him in complete bafflement.
"Not quite what you expected?" of the apparent leader amongst the prisoners. The bio-vore, who could easily have dismembered the Doctor in a moment, turned to look at his inquisitor.
"No. Homeworld survives, with a strangely changed populace. We of the Detachment are now deemed heretics, throwbacks. Once we were the future of our race. Now - prisoners."
Taking off his cylindrical helmet, the alien looked out to sea, to the weeds and waves, and the workers amongst all of them.
"Prisoners, and heretics besides. We will not be allowed to live long, small alien being."
The alien looked at the Doctor in alarmingly human fashion.
"You have not been kept alive out of merciful consideration, small alien being. Just as we will not be allowed to survive, neither will you. Except in your case interrogation will be the first order of events."
Ooo-er, Matron. Things don't look to sprightly, do they?
Let's Cheer Up With A Photograph
More specifically, with one of the Underwater Photography competition entries as listed on the BBC's website. Art!
Courtesy Mike Spencer
This is the sea off the coast of Scarborough in January, not long after sunrise, and you can understand the phrase "White horses" as used of combers. Conrad has visited this stretch of coastline and can confirm the sea is as cold as it looks here.
Ask A Very Stupid Question
There have been some staggeringly daft questions asked on Quora, so stupid that Conrad doesn't even deign to explain to the poster how silly they are. Here's one, with a howler of an answer.
The original question is a load of honk, as this is simply not possible, as more factual posters explained. Art!
There was a girl in the pilot but they got rid of her**
And with that, Vulnavia, it is time for lunch.
* He is describing the synopsis behind "The 'A' Team"
** Good!
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