A Lighter Moment

There Is A Phrase

"Grace under pressure", which doesn't have an entry in my "Brewer's", and please don't bring the album by Rush into the discussion as I wasn't aware it existed until two minutes ago.  No, you don't get a picture of it.

     ANYWAY if you want an example, here's one.  Art!

     This chap is grimly determined that NOBODY is going to go without milk for their breakfast cuppa.

     There's another nation currently getting missiled by an unpleasant neighbour, namely Ukraine.  Most of the news coming out of there ranges from unpleasant to downright dispiriting - but there are exceptions. 

     A little background first.  The Ukrainians frequently have to dig trench positions in order to be protected from enemy fire, and these trenches are often in locations unfrequented by man, meaning that the wildlife was there first, and insists on it's property rights.  Take the Ukrainian Trench Beaver, for example.  Art!

"Hey!  I was here first!"

     Matey dragged the beaver by main force out of the trench and dropped it a good ten yards away.  Was UTB discouraged?  Not a bit of it!  Art?

"Mine again, puny humans!"

     UTB scuttled back into the trench and I think the Ukes gave up and let him lord it over them*.

     Well well, what do you know, over on Twitter Special Kherson Cat put up a video along the same lines.

     A bit more background on SKC.  They live in Kherson and have studiously avoided giving away their identity, which is a good thing since they were constantly posting videos of the Antonivka Bridge getting pasted by HIMARS, when the city was occupied by the Ruffians.  That's probably a shot-on-the-spot offence right there.

     ANYWAY -

Puny human weapon

     Good question!  This, apparently, is a Marbled Polecat.  It has fallen into the foxhole and cannot get out, and lets the puny humans know this by a series of ferocious hisses whilst baring it's impressively sharp teeth.  Art!

     If Doctor Doolittle were here he'd be blushing at the polecat's language.  The two soldiers decide to drop a mat into the foxhole, hoping that Ol' Poley will take the hint, and the access, and leave.  Art!

"*****ing human scum!  *** off!"

     Nothing doing.  In fact it only seems to make the polecat even angrier, throwing himself at the side of the foxhole in an apparent attempt to rend both soldiers limb from limb, with an intense shrieking.  Then one of our heroes has a lightbulb moment.  Art!

     He judges the throw just right as the polecat hides under the mat, which is fortunate for Volodymyr's fingers.  Then -

     Up and away!  Art?

     These last few scenes punctuated by one of the chaps repeatedly saying "Davai!" which is Ukrainian for "Quick!" and indeed Ol' Poley* moves at speed out of the Sinister Human Polecat Prison, and the chap doing the filming laughs heartily.  I wonder what would have happened if their sergeant had caught them out of cover?  "Sorry, boss - our position has been infiltrated and occupied by an enemy - see?"

'On The Edge'

It would be hard to outdo yesteryon's picture of El Capitan and a climbing team using a Portaledge upon it.  Let's see - Art!

Courtesy Gianlorenzo Masini

     This one's pretty clever, and indeed ominous, which the photographer alluded to by describing it as "Who's afraid of shadows?"

Nope.  Just NOPE

Conrad was impressed with just how insanely dangerous free climbing is, and that some people do it for enjoyment.  One nutter, Alex Honnold, was the first to free climb El Capitan and you saw his ascent on yesteryon's blog.  Here's another picture of him defying both gravity and death.  Art!

     What if there's nothing to get hold of?  And how do you get down once you get to the summit?

     There are several classification systems for calculating how difficult a rock climb is; here's one that the South Canadians use, the National Climbing Classification System:

NCCS grades are often called the ​“Com­mit­ment Grade”; they pri­mar­i­ly indi­cate the time invest­ment in a route for an ​“aver­age” climb­ing team.

Grade I: Less than half a day for the tech­ni­cal por­tion.

Grade II: Half a day for the tech­ni­cal por­tion.

Grade III: Most of a day for the tech­ni­cal por­tion.

Grade IV: A full day of tech­ni­cal climb­ing, gen­er­al­ly at least 5.7.

Grade V: Typ­i­cal­ly requires an overnight on the route.

Grade VI: Two or more days of hard tech­ni­cal climb­ing.

Grade VII: Remote big walls climbed in alpine style.

     There's another one called the "Yosemite System" which we might go into tomorrow, as I can add pictures of examples.  Art!

NOPE

"The Sea Of Sand"

The revolution on Wastelandworld, as the Doctor has dubbed it, is now unstoppable.

The shivering bio-vore, barely able to concentrate, looked at the small alien with wonder.

          ‘You do not seek to kill me or drain my life-energy?’

          The Doctor pursed his lips and made a rude sound.

          ‘Certainly not!  In return, you need to look around you and witness what has happened here.  Pass the message on.’

          Senior Kosad (the prisoner) looked around, seeing the temporarily-alive bio-vores who had been defending the trans-mat complex – seeing them – and here he needed to make sure his eyes were functioning properly - seeing them helped into thermal recovery, sent to triage stations, divested of weapons and equipment.  No Eviscerations.  None.  None at all.  Plus, he was alive.  By all normal criteria, he should be long dead.

          ‘What is this!’ he whispered in complete and utter confusion, darting a glance back at Thedoctor.

          ‘Equality!’ snapped the Doctor.  ‘Tolerance.  Compassion.  The respect of one sapient life-form for another.’

          Kosad spent what might have been five seconds or five hours watching the rescue and recovery operation going on.  “Rescue” and “recovery” were concepts he had to invent before actually confronting the words themselves.

          Finally, he was brought to face the small alien.

          ‘Goodbye, Kosad.  I doubt we will ever meet again.  Think of what you have seen here, however!’

          The Senior drew himself up to full height, towering far above the small alien.

          ‘I shall.  Your name cannot be Thedoctor.  I salute you, Doctor.’

     Group of pigeons, meet cat

Holy Smoke

You should surely recall  that we posted yesteryon about the Ukes turning a Ruffian oil storage depot in Crimea into the world's biggest bonfire.  I posted a comment on Suchomimus' Youtube vlog about how long until we saw a traffic jam of cars heading south to the Kerch Bridge.  Well, Conrad The Canny got it right, because all day yesteryon - Art!

     This isn't the bridge itself, it's the road leading to it.  One driver fatalistically stated that it would take all day to cross, not least because everything that gets onto the bridge has to be searched, and searched thoroughly, before it gets passed on.

     Quora had several impressive photographs of the plume from the fires.  Art!

     It looks more like a volcanic explosion than a fuel fire, which is what you get when 40,000 tons of fuel goes up in flames.  Conrad suspects that the FSB and Army officers who bought holiday homes in Krim a few years back are going to have trouble selling them now.

Finally -

Conrad is unsure if he'll be doing the constitutional stroll into Lesser Sodom this afternoon, as it's lashing it down.  Well, we all knew the rains weren't going to stay away <sad face>.  Time to break out the canoes!

*  The Ruffians would have turned him into stew.