You'd Probably Need A Background In The Classics To Get That
Your Humble Scribe is well aware of what it means as he'd read it in a military memoir of the First Unpleasantness, and looked it up. My Brewer's defines it as: "To add further difficulties to ones that already exist."
The phrase derives from two bothersome giants, Otus and Ephialtes, who, presumably bored and with nothing better to do, decided to attack the gods of ancient Greece. Art!
Not being especially bright, they hied Mount Pelion upon Mount Ossa, in order to try and reach Olympus, an act which probably brought local property values down considerably. Art!
Mount Pelion Mount Ossa
ANYWAY what I intend to cover in this Intro is the less-than-successful business career of one Donald J. Trump, who likes to give the impression that he's such a brilliant businessman that he wallows in billions. Note that we are steering clear of the 'P' word and only addressing financial matters. Art!
That should read "BY Tony Schwartz"
The book above was indeed ghost-written by Tony Schwartz, since DJ Trump has the literacy of a seven-year old*. DJ Trump was born into money, he inherited wealth rather than making it. So, how has he managed (or mis-managed) his businesses? O I thought you'd never ask!
The New Jersey Generals Conrad had never heard of them. They were a South Canadian rugby (they pretend it's called 'Football') team that DJ Trump bought into for $9 million in 1983 as part of the United States Football League. The USFL planned to play South Canadian Rugby in the summer, when the National Football League was in it's off season. Art!
"KILL! KILL! Blood makes the grass grow!"
The NJGs made DJ Trump a loss of $30 million. Oops. At his urging, the NFL was sued for reasons, and the NFL lost. They had to pay a fine of three dollars. The USFL, begun in 1983, was dead by the beginning of 1986.
Trump Casinos DJ Trump managed a quadruple whammy with his casino businesses, which is impressive, because HOW do you lose money with a casino?
Well, you borrow enormous sums of money at very high interest rates. DJ Trump declared Bankruptcy #1 in 1985 with $3 billion of debt. Having then restructured, Bankruptcy #2 was declared in 1989. Bankruptcy #3 came in 2009 and Bankruptcy #4 in 2014. That's a real achievement! Art?
Trump: The Game Another artefact Conrad did not know existed and was none the poorer for. This was launched in 1989 and sold poorly. Conrad unsure how much it cost on release but you can get a second-hand game for £18.52, although one fantasist wants £446. Art!
It's been re-released several times, all to rubbish sales. Typically, although it was claimed that profits would go to charity, they all went to DJ Trump's bank account and there they stayed.
Trump Shuttle Because every successful businessman needs an airline, amiright? DJ Trump took out a quarter-of-a-billion dollar loan to acquire airliners that ran a shuttle service out of New York, re-branding them as 'Trump'. Unfortunately for Darth Marmalade DJ Trump at the instant he took over a recession hit and shuttle passenger numbers fell abruptly. The Gulf War also doubled jet fuel prices. Finally, after three years Trump got rid of the airline at a $10 million loss to his own personal finances. Art!
Ooops. A fitting metaphor.
Are we seeing a pattern here? DJ Trump loves loves loves seeing his name in lights, to the extent that he's willing to let other people go broke about it.
There's so much other stuff I could fill the whole of this afternoon's blog with it, but I shall be merciful and save it for later.
Someone Else Is Having Money Troubles
You can hardly be unaware of the political, military, social and personal costs of the Quivering Table-Wrestler's 'Special Idiotic Operation'. Notice that I don't include 'economic' in that list, deliberately.
For has not Bloaty Gas Tout repeatedly asserted that sanctions aren't having an effect upon Soviet Union 2.0? That, in fact, the West is suffering inflation and freezing to death?
The 'freezing' bit never came about, this winter was one of the five warmest ever, it was the Ruffians who experienced an eye-wateringly cold winter. Art!
"I'm a genius. And a very stable one at that."
However, not more than a few days ago, what did The Pest In A Bulletproof Vest admit?
"The illegitimate restrictions placed on the Russian economy may indeed have a negative impact upon it in the medium term."
He's hedging it, but this is what happens when the Ruffian budget deficit for 2022 was $48 billion and that for 2023 is projected at $275 billion, a near six-fold increase. Not only that, the ruble, which has been propped up only thanks to massive intervention, had gone from ₽70 to the dollar in January 2023, to ₽82 to the dollar as of right now, an increase of near one-sixth.
Ooops. Art!
"I am perfectly healthy <hack spit cough quiver>"
"The Sea Of Sand"
The long downtrodden masses of bio-vores have begun an armed rebellion against their tyrannical overlords (watch out Peter The Average!), inspired by The Doctor, who retains his impish ability to cause havoc.
He stopped thinking and began
speaking.
‘We
must overcome the defenders at the
trans-mat station. Only if we capture
that do we become safe from loyalist reinforcements being sent in by other
aristocrats to our north and south, or from other continents.’
‘You’ll
be lucky!’ replied a Farmer. ‘We’ve
already tried twice.’
‘A
hundred dead,’ complained another.
Before
Imgelissa could speak, Thedoctor interrupted, a strange wrinkling appearing on
the skin above his eyes.
‘How
many injured?’ asked the small alien.
Although it came in the form of a question, Imgelissa felt Thedoctor
knew the answer already. After all, he
was a prophet.
The
bio-vores looked amongst each other.
Injured?
‘Oh! I understand!’ exclaimed a Farmer. ‘Those temporarily alive. Maybe fifty were temporarily alive, until
Eviscerated.’
Thedoctor
didn’t stop his questioning there.
‘Very
well, ignoring those who suffered injury in the recent attacks, what if one of
you were to suffer an accident whilst harvesting algae? What if you contracted a disease?’
Once
again, Imgelissa and the other bio-vores exchanged looks of surprise at the
prophet’s ignorance. It fell to
Nurbonissa, young and daring, to reply.
‘Evisceration,
of course. What else is there!’
Ah, perhaps not the best response ever.
"The Way To The Stars"
Conrad finished watching this DVD last night, and it does not seem to have the PDF script on the disk as the blurb on the back claims. It's a drama set on an RAF bomber base in the Second Unpleasantness, with a sterling cast of British character actors, starring John Mills. Art!
Conrad distinctly remembers this being shown on television whilst he was at secondary school, and one of my mates complained "They show the bombers taking off, and the bombers coming back, but nothing in between!"
Perfectly true, John, and that's the point. Also, you may recall this chap - Art!
Compo, from "Last Of The Summer Wine". Well, here he is in more youthful form. Art!
O! Delicious Schadenfreude!
We already know what a poisonous malicious personality Conrad is - my two best qualities, by the way - and what better to prove it than this picture. Art!
These are several of 38 cars parked illegally or in such a manner as to obstruct traffic, being towed away. Heh. And their owners will have to pay to get them back. Moral of the story: don't block the roads in Snowdonia National Park.
Finally -
Conrad is condemned to eat Ukrainian borsch for the next week. I should have scaled down the recipe ingredients because I made enough to feed ten people and there's still enough left to feed five. First world problems, hmmmm?
* No word of a lie. It has been speculated that he's dyslexic but won't admit it.
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