Bratricide

NO!  This Is Not About Killing Horrid Children

No matter how many times they kick the back of your seat.  Perhaps it would have been more evident if Conrad had put it down in a mix of Cyrillic and Roman, to wit: братricide. Pronounced 'Bratricide'. The closest I could think of an alternative to 'Fratricide', which you are doubtless thinking of in the wrong way. Art!

He's behind you!

     No doubt you were thinking along the lines of Cain and Abel.

     WRONG!  For Your Humble Scribe in fact refers to the military term, which is also known by the phrase 'Blue-on-blue', where one side mistakenly attacks the same side.  It's well-attested in films.  Take, for example, "Too Late The Hero", an unusual little film featuring Michael Caine and Cliff Robertson.  Art!

Mike and Cliff

     You see, a British patrol carries out an ambush on a Japanese patrol, which would normally be fine, except that Captain Hornsby, the patrol's officer, places his men directly opposite each other.  Thus they slay three of their own men.

     Fratricide, you see?

     On a larger and more sardonic scale, there's always 'Godzilla', the Jean Reno iteration from 1998.  Art!

     Mayor Ebert, aghast, appalled and angry all at the same time, takes the Army under verbal fire: "What the hell's the matter with you people? You caused more damage than that goddamn thing did!"

    Now, now, Mayor; I'd say that's being economical with the truth.  Art!

     ANYWAY back to "Pearl Harbour", our case in point, where Steward Dorie Miller (played by Cuba Gooding Jr.) discovers an anti-aircraft cannon with a dead crew around it, and manfully takes it upon himself to fire upon the attacking Japanese aircraft.  Art!

    This isn't a problem, any rounds that miss are merely going to wander off into the wild blue yonder.  However - Art!

This IS a problem, since the Japanese planes are flying so low Miller has to depress his guns to hit them.  This time, any misses are going to hit the ship opposite and these things are .50 Brownings that will go through armour-plate at that range.  Any puny human being will simply be cut in twain.  And if by some chance he misses the ship, why then said rounds will travel across the harbour and hit dock installations.

     Ooops.

     Of course - obviously! - this has tremendous relevance to what may seem at first to be completely different: those recent drone strikes on Moscow.  Art!

The Fun-Sized Foot Fiddler was strangely silent on this matter

     The question immediately on everyone's lips was "Who did it?".  There's a list of The Usual Suspects:

'Twas Priggy Getting Jiggy; Prigozhin trying to stir things up and make problems for the Ruffian Ministry Of Defence, whom he hates with the passion of an exploding Krell reactor-complex.  Far-fetched yet not impossible.

The FSB; Whom would be perfectly happy to kill hundreds of their fellow Muscovites in a 'false-flag' operation, in order to ramp up  the loyal citizen's thirst for Ukronaziterrorist blood.  You know, "Evillllll Ukronazibiowarfarists must die!"  Except the drones targetted the Rublyovka district, which is home to millionaires, billionaires, various elites and Putin himself.  The response of Moscow citizens was 'Laugh and point', showing that their loyalty is distinctly questionable.  Art!

"Gentlemen, your target for tonight ..."

The Pro-Ukrainian Ruffians; A few <whoops, font's gone funny, sorry about that>

How's that?  Conrad thinks he's mucked up the formatting in the paragraph above.

ANWAY - a few weeks ago this would have been a flight of fantasy.  Now, with two groups of pro-Uke Ruffians rampaging across Bilhorod on the Ruffian side of the border, it's not a laughing matter any more.  Not so likely, yet possible.

The Ukrainians: Ah yes, I knew we'd get around to these chaps eventually.  Okay, let's say they launched 32 drones at Moscow.  It's over 300 miles to the Ruffian capital from Ukraine's borders, surely their air defence network would have spotted and shot these down en route - ESPECIALLY AS THE ATTACK WAS IN DAYLIGHT?

     <crickets>

     Nope.  There weren't even any air-raid sirens going off in Moscow.  Putin's capital, it seems, was taken completely by surprise.  Is there even an air raid siren system?  Who knows.  Shelters for the public?  Highly dubious*.  Art!

     Not only that, none of these drones carried an explosive warhead.  So what caused all the damage?  Ruffian air defence systems, firing cannon and missiles in a built-up metropolitan area, that's what.

     Do you know, all the 'Z' stickers and flags and banners have vanished from the Belgorod oblast. I wonder how long they'll stay up in Moscow?

     Where's Dorie Miller when you need him!

Just As An Aside

As you should surely know by now, Conrad is a bit of a Codeword fiend, I can stop any time I want I just don't want to.  Art!

13 x 13

     So, there are 169 squares in a Codeword like this.  How many possible combinations of letters are there?

     8,415,003,900,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,00,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

     Just FYI, the Universe is only expected to last 15 billion years, so you'd better get moving with your solutions.

Them Wacky Poles

Polish Cold War poster art certainly can't be mistaken for the glossy, bland Hollywood variety.  Heck, even their art for "The Muppet Movie" is frightening.  Take this one, for example - Art!

     You may have guessed this one from the word "Arki" in the title, and it is indeed "Raiders Of The Lost Ark".  Conrad is pretty sure the artist (Jakub Erol) was 1) On drugs and 2) A big Lovecraft fan.

"City In The Sky"

The Doctor is explaining about how humanity and the Wirrn didn't get on, at all, when both met in the Andromeda Galaxy.

‘Yes indeed.  Quick of you to notice – your observational skills are improving.  Very well: the Wirrn.  In the thirtieth century Earth is going to be devastated by solar flares.  A fraction of the human race enters orbital suspended-animation, whilst most go underground to live in subterranean cities.  Another fraction heads out into deep space, which includes Andromeda -’

- and what a struggle that had been when they got there.  Convinced that Earth-bound humanity  was doomed, the Gal Sec human colonists had offered no quarter when they came across the Wirrn, the dominant life-form in Andromeda, and who themselves attacked the unfamiliar alien intruders in unrelenting conflict.  A conflict that took place across almost eighteen per cent of the galaxy, a truly colossal war that lasted for nine hundred years.  By the end of it the Wirrn were wiped out.

‘But one of them, and a Queen at that, must have stowed away on a Gal Sec ship that returned to the Solar System,’ finished the Doctor.  ‘This, the last of the Wirrn, sought revenge, and Space Station Nerva was the perfect environment for it.  Sterile, so no alien pathogens to worry about.  No weather.  Nothing living or conscious to thwart it, and six thousand defenceless humans to assimilate or lay eggs in.’

     This, please be advised, is merely a pre-amble.  You'll get your aliens, all in good time.

Miami Zoo Boo-Boo

How do you provoke the Polite Australians?  Well, you've got to work hard at it, they are a very polite and amiable people, until you really, really rile them (rather like the Canuckistanians).  Then they get angry.  Art!

     That's journalistic hyperbole.  However, the treatment of Paora, a kiwi, did anger 9,000 Kiwis to the extent of their signing a petition at the bird's mistreatment; to wit, being petted in broad daylight.  The kiwi (note lack of capitalisation) is a shy, nocturnal creature that ought not to be handled and certainly not cooed over by zoo visitors.

     To their credit, Zoo Miami fessed up straight away and apologised.

     And that, people, is how you annoy the Polite Australians.

Finally -

Conrad has finished this blog unusually early (12:15), since he got out of bed at what would be an unusually early hour (08:30) as compared to when he was gainfully unemployed (10:30).  One of the benefits of getting into a working routine, I tell myself.  Plus, they pay me.  That helps, too.

     Chin chin!

*  There is actually the Metro tube system, which, like Kyiv's, was designed to resist nuclear attack.