She Was Only An Admiral's Daughter

But She Got Preferential Treatment When On A Cruise Liner

First of all, WASH OUR YOUR FILTHY MINDS! you slobbering perverts.  She was given an external cabin with a balcony and a 'bottomless' drinks package, if you want to know.

     Right, we are going to return to that fraught topic, the Ruffian -

     No, that's not all.  She didn't have to pay the mandatory tip that the cruise companies tack on to the overall bill.

     ANYWAY the Ruffian economy.  Thanks to vlogger Joe Bloggs for putting up an analysis of the Ruffian Ministry Of Finance's published data.

     What?  Why?  Because her dad was best friends with a lot of the cruise company's captains and senior executives.  Are you done asking stupid questions?  Art!

     As you should surely know by now, the MOF published economic data for January that were the worst figures in 25 years. There was speculation that this might be an outlier, or a one-off, and that the Ruffian economy would rebound, or at least recover.

     Nope.  The figures for February were every bit as bad as January.  In fact they were worse, because the ruble has now dropped in value and is worth 75 to the $, whereas previously it was 70 and this trend looks set to continue.  Art!

Bloaty Gas Tout is angry

TOTAL INCOME: This has shrunk by 25%, down to ₽3,163 trillion from ₽4,206 from this time last year, which would only include a few days of the Special Idiotic Operation.  Interestingly, the symbol for the ruble, ₽, is number 44 out of 53 symbols on Blogger, which is quite fitting as nobody is trading in it.

EXPENDITURE:  As income has fallen drastically, so has expenditure increased thanks to the cost of war in Ukraine.  For this period last year the total was ₽3,790 trillion.  The same period this year sees this figure grow to ₽5744 trillion, an increase of 51%.  Art!

Latest model Ruffian tank rolls off the assembly lines

DEFICIT: For January and February 2023 combined, this now stands at a whopping ₽2.6 trillion, or $34 billion in a currency that matters.  This is 90% of the projected ANNUAL deficit for 2023 of 2.9 trillion.  For the same period last year the deficit was ₽415 billion, one-sixth of this year's total.

NON-OIL & GAS REVENUE:  Phew, sighed the Tiny Toxic Terror Toad, this has only decreased to ₽2.21 trillion from ₽2.44 trillion, or a drop of 9%.  Compared to the other figures that's almost as good as no decrease at all!

OIL & GAS REVENUE: Remember that 60% of the Ruffian GDP was accounted for by these revenues.  This year they are down to ₽947 billion, which sounds like a lot until it's compared to last years total of ₽1.76 trillion.  Down by 46%.  Not only that, because Putin scorns to join the Price Cap scheme and be able to sell oil at $60 per barrel, he's having to accept the market price, which is $53 p.b. for Urals crude, in a prime example of Cutting One's Throat To Spite One's Windpipe.  For comparison, Brent crude, a market indicator, sells for $75 p.b. which is close to the price the MOF uses to calculate revenues.  Oops.  Art!

"The refinery's entire workforce arrived at dawn"

     This bad news about oil means that 50 Ruffian refineries are now at risk of either cutting back production or closing altogether and these things are not easy to resurrect.  Not only does un-pumped oil coagulate and clog the systems, the technical maintenance cannot be carried out thanks to all the parts required being Western.

     Things are so bad for the Ruffians that the head of the IMF, which took it's economic data straight from Putin, has retracted their prediction of 0.3% growth for 2023 and believes the contraction might be as much as 7%. Ouch.

     But cheer up, Ruffians! According to the Puffy Petrol Pimp, everything is going both swimmingly and according to plan.  Art!

     After all, what could possibly go wrong?

The Punchline Is -

Art!

     This little gem comes from Quora, where the question asked was about the biggest waste of electricity anyone had seen.

     Original Poster had been called into the Managing Director's office for a bit of a chewing-out, as he was presented with an electricity bill four times higher than the previous quarter.  OP immediately goes on a cost-cutting drive, monitoring usage and improving efficiency.

     No dice.  Next quarter's bill is just as high, as is the MD's temper.  Art!

     OP suspects a possible electrical failure and calls in electrical engineers, who don't find any faults, but do find a mysterious cable connected to the main switch-box.  They track this cable across the whole factory, to find it terminating in a home-made electric mouse-trap. The shrivelled remains of several mice surrounded it.

     By OP's count, it had cost over £1,000 to kill each mouse.

     I bet you didn't see that one coming.

"Tora!  Tora!  Tora!"

Your Humble Scribe saw this film only the once, probably about 40 years ago, and never since.  So, as it's in the box of DVD's I dragged out of the cupboard, I decided to watch it.  I will definitely add pictures once I get some.

     ANYWAY for those of you unaware, it's about the build up to and attack on Pearl Harbour (note the correct spelling), seeking to be scrupulously accurate, which is why the first half is an utter snoozefest.  Art!

     There's a very interesting scene 16 minutes in, when both the South Canadians and Japanese acknowledge the British torpedo-bomber attack on the Italian fleet at Taranto, that crippled three Italian battleships and shifted the strategic balance in the Med.  The characters also ponder exactly how the British did it, because an air-dropped torpedo will plunge to a depth of 75 feet before it resumes running depth, and the harbour at Pearl is only 45 feet deep.

     IIRC, the RAF fitted wooden boxes around the torpedo's propellers that prevented them from descending to any depth.  Art!

     

     Hmmmmm very martial, let's have a picture of a fluffy bunnies as compensation.  Art!

     Not sure what to say about that.  Next!

"The Sea Of Sand"

The bio-vores have been beaten off, but at a cost.

Tam was dying, hit in the back and the head by the big glass splinters.  He hadn’t been able to duck as fast as the private, who looked utterly distraught.

‘I’m sorry, sir,’ mumbled Tam, blind.  ‘And miss – I’ll not get to know how this ends.’

‘You daft plonker!’ croaked Sarah, her throat constricting to the diameter of a drinking straw.  ‘You win!’

She didn’t know if Tam ever heard her, but she hoped so, she hoped so.  When she could speak again, Roger was tending to Davey.  The officer broke off the longer end of the glass splinter and pulled the remnant out from the other side, in a gout of blood.  Sarah stood by and helped with a bandage, then cleaned out a ragged gash in the back of Davey’s head, laid open by more shrapnel.  The private slurred his words and alternated between grogginess and aggression, symptoms of concussion.  Once he was bandaged Roger escorted him over to the mud hut Sarah had been sleeping in, forcing him to drink water and sit in the sultry heat of the primitive structure.

‘Needs proper medical care,’ commented the officer, rooting in a tin medical box.  ‘Here we go, sulfa powder.  Morphine, morphine, morphine – got it.’  He straightened up.  ‘Your chappie the Doctor couldn’t help, could he?’

Sarah shrugged, her emotive response dulled by sorrow.

‘I don’t think he’s that skilled at medicine.  Science is more his thing.’

     Bit of a downer, what?

Finally -

I was yarking on about making Bigos yesteryon.  Well, not only did I not get any sauerkraut, I've lost the recipe I wrote down by hand, so I need to copy it out again.  A senior moment, one feels.