Misery Loves Company

 bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb

Ooops!  My Copy Of "Brewer's" Was Resting On The Keyboard

I was looking to see if there was an entry for this afternoon's title, and there's nothing for 'Misery'.  Let me just check 'Company'.

     Nhope, nothing there either.  Although it does explain why the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) is nicknamed "The Company", because the Spanish abbreviation 'cia' comes from the Spanish word for 'Company', that being 'Compania'.  Art!

     I've put the Brewer's away, if I didn't half an hour would magically vanish.

     Ah!  A little further digging reveals that the title comes from a play - refreshingly enough, not Shakespeare <hack spit> rather Christopher Marlowe, his effort "The Tragical History Of Doctor Faustus".

     Sorry, where were we?

     O yes.  Misery.  No!  Nothing to do with the Stephen King novel or film.  I refer to the Furtive Foot Fiddler, of whom it was recently and officially advised that he doesn't have any body doubles, which of course - obviously! - instantly confirms it.  Art!

     The reason I bring this topic up is that Professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld was recently interviewed on the Youtube 'DW' channel about the Ruffian economy, and his speeches are always a delight to listen to, because he leavens them with humour and personability.  Art!

The Prof, in serious mode

     His interview was guaranteed to make the Brogue Rogue want company, because it was all bad.  BAD.  BAD.

     One interesting metric is that 1,200 Western companies have pulled out of Ruffia, either completely or in the process of completing, which is six times more than left apartheid South Africa.  

     Then there's Ruffia's oil and gas exports.  This time last year 50% of EU gas was supplied by Ruffia; now it's down to 5%.  In this time Germany has built 6 huge Liquid Natural Gas terminals at breakneck speed, meaning it can now cut Ruffia off entirely.  No energy blackmail potential there.  The price cap placed on Ruffian oil means that they are now LOSING money, $1 or $2 dollars per barrel, which is not going to improve as their extraction technology and processing is less efficient than that of Venezuela, which is saying something.  Art!

A Teuton terminal

     Apart from oil, gas, coal and timber, practically nothing else is being exported from Ruffia; no finished goods.  Inevitably the Chinese have moved into this economic vacuum, because they see a weakness in their 'ally' that they can exploit.  In fact the major Chinese financial and energy companies left Ruffia at the start of the Special Idiotic Operation, which is how little the Populous Dictatorship supports their neighbour.  Art!

     Chinese car sales in Ruffia for January 2023 are at 40%, up from 10% for January 2022.

     There is a long background of Sinister and now Russian suspicion and mistrust of China, which began when they got into a political spat in 1961 and went their separate ways.  For one thing, the Chinese economy in 2022 was ten times larger than the Ruffian one, and is probably twelve times larger now.  The Prof quoted Evan Gershkovich (now a hostage-prisoner in Ruffia): "Moscow is becoming ever more reliant on China, threatening to realise long-simmering fears in Moscow of becoming an economic colony of it's dominant southern neighbour."  Art!

Evan The Man

     The bitter truth for Putin On The Fritz is that Ruffia is a long way down the list of trading partners with the Populous Dictatorship, and it would be horrendously unwise for Xi Jinping to imperil this list of nations doing business with him to help prop up the Gremlin In The Kremlin.  Here is the list in descending order of trade volume:  

South Canada

Hong Kong

Japan

The Sorks

Vietnam

India

Netherlands

The Teutons

<half-way there!>

Malaysia

Taiwan

This Sceptred Isle

Singapore

Australia

Thailand

Mexico ($78 billion or 2.2% of total trade)

<DRUM ROLL AND TRUMPETS*>

Ruffia ($76 billion or 2.17% of total trade)

No way is China going to risk the other 98.73% in order to help Bloaty Gas Tout, their sixteenth most important trading partner.

     I bet Dimya's having a pity party in his bunker right now.  Art!

"I SAID, 'WHERE'S THE CAKE?'!"

     Motley, I'll generously let you have the first slice of this coal-and-turnip cake.  Tuck in!

'On The Edge'

Back to less cerebral matters and the BBC's photographic competition, of which far too many were of birds perching on a ledge, which is neither impressive nor dramatic, so yah booh sucks to them.  Art!

Courtesy Magdalene Ong

     Dog Buns, that looks terrifying!  Most definitely on the edge.  This is 'El Capitan' in Yosemite National Park.  Let me see if I can find a full-on picture of it.  Art!

     That's the head-on view but there's nothing to scale it against, so -

<sounds of Conrad hyperventilating in fear>

        Well, you can judge scale here from the height of the trees at El Capitan's base.

"The Passage" By J. Cronin

Finally finished this.  I measured and it's an inch-and-a-half thick, coming in at 1,000 pages.  However, it's only one of a trilogy.  

     I won't be buying or reading any more, however.  If you can't wrap it up in 1,000 pages then goodbye mister author.  There are about 330 pages devoted to 'Colony One' which could have been cut by 300 pages.  Characters of minor importance get whole chapters to themselves.  The protagonist 'virals' are stupidly over-powered, except where the plot calls for them not to be.

     A tome greatly in need of an editor.  Art!

     O and apparently there was a television series a few years ago, which got cancelled after one season.  Good!

"The Sea Of Sand"

Sarah and the Professor have - er - 'borrowed' a truck and are heading off to see what mischief the Doctor has gotten himself into.

‘It must be that molten glass Lieutenant Llewellyn mentioned,’ worried Sarah.  Their truck would sink in that stuff!  And no way could they possibly cross on foot.

‘If it was molten, then that blown sand would sink into it,’ said Templeman, revealing his ability to apply logic.  ‘Also, we would be feeling the heat from here.’

Gunning it’s now-protesting engine, the Chevrolet darted across the smooth surface entirely unharmed.

‘Brilliant!’ beamed Sarah, before remembering that they were shortly due to enter the lion’s den.

 

           ‘They’ve gone!’ snarled Lieutenant Llewellyn.  ‘Don’t ask me how but those two – those two – those – ’

          ‘ “Civilians”?’ suggested Dominione.  He couldn’t follow the English officer’s speech, so the guess was based on the absence of that most charming and attractive young lady Miss Smith, and the altogether less pleasant Professore Templeman.

          The tenente whistled to Doretti, who doubled over, his sub-machine gun over one shoulder.

          ‘I fear we need to recover our civilian counterparts, Caporale,’ ordered Dominione.  ‘Also,’ he added, not looking at Lieutenant Llewellyn, ‘We need to see if we can get beyond radio-jamming range in order to communicate with the Regio Esercito.’

          ‘Sir!’ saluted Doretti, able to maintain a poker-face.

          ‘Cacciatore – we – ah – we – we – hunt,’ tried the tenente in speech to Roger, mimicking tracking a person down.   They took the command Sahariana, heading out over the desert towards Makin Al-Jinni.

     Wheels within wheels, hmmmm?

Finally -

Who would ever have guessed that a bunch of elderly men in uniform, who have daytime jobs, and who frequently make a mess of things, would gather a regular viewing audience on This Sceptred Isle's television network of 18 million people, or about a third of the population at the time.  The BBC, that's who, because I am talking about "Dad's Army", which ran for nine seasons.  Your Humble Scribe has the whole Fifth season on DVD and watched "Asleep In The Deep" last night, accompanied by a glass of Old Speckled Hen.

     I have only one question - would a Brodie-pattern helmet really float on water?  Art!

*  Thanks for being patient