Apologies For Springing Latin On You At Lunchtime
Hopefully it won't spoil your appetite too much, it's certainly not going to affect mine.
ANYWAY I thought it appropriate to relate an hilarious pun and also drag Latin into the title, because it makes me seem more clever than what I am.
What does it mean? "Mirabile Dictur" means "Wonderful To Relate", and this Intro is only going to read as 'wonderful' as long as you're not Ruffian. Conrad's not going to apologise for constantly whanging on about that nation, since it's a wonderful source of blog content. Art!
Nope. Not a nuclear explosion. Dramatic, though, you have to admit. This is a volcanic explosion on the island of Raikoke, with the plume of ash and smoke rising sufficiently high for this picture to be taken by astronauts on the ISS, wh
ANYWAY I would like to spring another tale of woe and misery upon you that concerns the denizens of Ruffia, as relayed by that Man Mountain, Konstantin on his channel "Inside Russia". Art!
Before the beard
As K. pointed out, in the aftermath of the Special Idiotic Operation last February, Ruffians were gloating at how little sanctions were hitting them. He explained that his 'MIR' credit card, a native variant of Visa or Mastercard, continued to function in Uzbekistan, where he had moved to temporarily. MIR cards for Ruffians abroad continued to work. Art!
Pronounced 'Mir' not 'Mnp'
Nor was that all. You could get supposedly sanctioned goods like a Mercedes or a Nokia by going through Turkish middlement, who imported them into Turkey and out to Ruffia, with a mark-up for their troubles, of course - obviously!
Dubai and Cyprus continued to act as Ruffian piggy-banks and financial havens, allowing the siloviki and oligarchs to hoard their fabulous loot beyond reach of any financial stringencies or regulations. Art!
Smaug would love it here
'Those stupid Americans!' chortled Ruffians to one another. 'Fancy thinking they could out-fox we Ruffians!'
What had transpired was the Western task forces seeking to enforce primary sanctions had focussed solely on that - until they got going on secondary sanctions in September.
Suddenly, K's Mir card stopped working in September, supposedly thanks to 'Technical issues'. It wasn't until December that the Uzbek authorities admitted that they were killing Mir's functionality because otherwise they'd get hit with secondary sanctions. Suddenly Ruffians outside Ruffia were deprived of their debit cards.
Oooops. The South Canadians began to look a lot cannier.
The Turkish middlemen also stopped their grey-market activities. The local Ruffian substitutes for washing machines or laptops turn out to be far higher in cost and of far lower quality than the Western imports. Art!
Inside Ruffia today. Yes, this is today, not the Fifties.
With equal speed, Dubai and Cyprus both closed down olilgarch's accounts. The Cypriots are actively prosecuting any of their own folk who tried to break the financial sanctions. The Swiss had hinted lightly to Dubai that their business was at risk because of all those Ruffian oligarchs flouting the sanctions. Dubai instantly dropped Ruffians as if they were a shovelful of glowing coals and cut all business ties to Ruffia, again for fear of secondary sanctions.
Vanya is probably sighing deeply, mourning the good old days before September 2022, weeping salty tears into his glass of vodka - one of the few things that's shifting in increased quantity since the SMO went down.
So. Secondary sanctions. Not in the spotlight as much as news of gas and oil sales plummeting, yet just as devastating. Art!
Ruffian steaks
And now you know where today's hilarious pun comes from.
Conrad Called It
In yesteryon's tale with a sting in it, I pondered whether E. Jean Carroll would sue Darth Marmalade for the third time, after he repeated aloud in a television broadcast to a national audience, the same slander that he got fined $5 million for a couple of weeks ago.
Yup, she is. Conrad, not skilled in South Canadian legal matters, wonders if the judge will just announce a summary judgement, because The Sepia One simply repeated exactly what he'd been found guilty of.
Don't expect a rapid resolution on this one, it took 6 months for the original suit to come to trial and the verdict is being appealed, because DJ Tango's fragile ego cannot handle losing a court case.
Of course, in 6 months time this case might be the least of his worries ...
More Baroque Portraits Of The Starry Warry Crew
I've skipped a few because they don't bring anything to the party. Art!
Bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and ready for a rapier duel. Art!
"You look at me funny and I WILL Mace you."
Not an argument worth having.
The Haul
Well, someone's been to Port Merion, haven't they? And thus Your Modest Artisan got a reward for dog-sitting Edna, which is not one of the most arduous jobs ever providing you take her walkies and allow her to lie in your lap. Art!
Chutney, beer and cheese.
Port Merion, of course - very obviously! - being the location where they filmed "The Prisoner", which he has seen lots of and is a modest admirer of, which series kind of grew out of "Dangerman", where Patrick MacGoohan had been a rather cerebral secret agent. Art!
Not a bad theme tune to go with the very Sixties title sequence.
Dog Buns! It's so hot and stuffy I've got my little digital fan out. I've no idea where the bigger and better white plastic one's vanished to, must have been set safely aside in the cold weather and is now missing in action.
The Doctor Is Out
Conrad has mercifully decided to give you a break from the many millions of words he threw together before the blog got going and which are now stored over at Fan Fiction, all under 'Doctor Who'. It's uncertain how long this moratorium will last, so make the most of it. Art!
Yup, got one of these, too
Conrad Is ANGRY!
Positively seething, in fact. I've allowed a bit of a backlog of Codewords to build up and now have to vent before my blood pressure causes my carotid artery to erupt like Etna.
"HEXAMETER": 'A verse line consisting of six metrical feet,' according to my Collins Concise, which explains exactly nothing. Six feet? Two yards? Meters? Can they make their mind up if this stupid word is in Imperial or Metric!
Bah!
DON'T TAUNT ME WITH WHAT I CANNOT HAVE!
"BANDEAU": What's this? ANOTHER French word? Who do you think you're compiling these Codewords for, a bunch of commuters on Le Metro? IN ENGLISH, STUPID!
What is it anyway, a belt made out of water?
"A narrow band of silk, velvet, etcetera, worn around the head." Art!
Yes, it's from the French GET OUT OF HERE!A scarf for the head.
Finally -
There's another 'event' on at the Manchester Arena tomorrow, so Your Humble Scribe is having to use his Dinky Manbag, which is fine, because that jar of Marmite carried in the bottom of my Kings Will Dream rucksack somehow leaked. I must not have screwed the cap on tightly enough. So the KWD ruck is hanging on the clothes-line, drying in the breeze.
And with that, we are done! O so done!
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