A Hat Trick

NO!  This Is Nothing To Do With The Ballfoot Game

Kindly remember that Conrad detests the sport whichever gender is playing it - in fact, has the Prime Leaguer finished?  I don't recall seeing fans of various ilks gloating or scowling across the Have Your Say pages on the BBC News website.  Ah.  Apparently it finished months ago.  That shows you how much Your Humble Scribe is interested.  When I take over it will be a grim day indeed for the game.  Art!

     No, what I refer to is the recent visit by Shoigu The **** to the land of Norks, where he was hoping to get weapons and ammunition, because the Ruffians are running low.  Jake Broe did a hilarious commentary on Shoigu, who looked all at sea in the first visit by a Ruffian head of the Defence Ministry to the land of Norks.  Art!

     Conrad was a little disconcerted by the second word in Cyrillic, which is "Puti", thinking that some hapless Nork minion was going to be executed for mis-spelling The Dwarvish Dictator's name.

     Well, no.  Nork Minion can breathe a sigh of relief.  The phrase is actually "Schastlivogo puti, tovarisch Ministir Oboroni Sergei Shoigu", which is Ruffian for "Merry way, comrade Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu".  'Puti' apparently means 'Way' in Ruffian, and this is him being seen off at the airport.  Sorry, that should read 'The Airport' as I'm pretty sure the Norks only have the one, singular.  One might also point out that the Sinister term 'Comrade' died the death over thirty years ago.  Art!

     And here we are ten minutes later, which is how long it took me to get ME restarted after all the menu items stopped responding, which i

     ANYWAY one wonders that Shoigu dared to fly in a Ruffian jet.  I suppose the risk is worth it as it would take weeks to travel to Pyongyang by train or motorcade, and they need that ammo now!  Now, as to that hat trick -

     Do you see what the Norks did there?  THEY HAVE A BIGGER HAT.  This is a bit of a two-fingered salute to Shoigu, and the implied insults didn't end there.  Art!

     Poor old Shoggy, he must feel so emasculated and inadequate.  If he knew that most of those medals are for achievements like "Being Able To Walk And Talk At The Same Time" or "Ate Six Whopper Meals One After Another" or "Has 18 Children*" then he might no feel so glum.  Well, he can go back home proud and confident in the knowledge that the Norks are going to keep on selling the Ruffians 40-year old artillery shells and rockets that frequently blow up or mis-fire and kill their crews.  It's almost as if a mysterious and un-knowable someone were deliberately sabotaging them ...

"I'm afraid I can't possibly comment," said Budanov.

     Just to rub an unpleasant mixture of salt and lemon juice in the wound, the ruble is currently trading at ₽91.44 to the dollar, meaning it's started to slide in value again, and those Nork shells and rockets are going to now cost even more.

     It gets worse for Bloaty Gas Tout - Jiggy Jiggy Priggy has been photographed in public in Saint Petersburg, shaking hands and looking pretty spry for a dead man.  Art!

     

Cryptid Season Is Open

Conrad suspects that it's a slow news day and that the summer silly season is approaching, because this turned up in his feed.  Art!

     The tabloids all ran with the title of "The Thames Anaconda".  Because it looks like a snake.  Well, the Fleet Street hacks, whom Lord Kitchener once described as 'Drunken Reptiles' seem to have found a fellow creature.

     In reality, as others have posted, it's probably a wooden stump with a bottle-cap on top.  It looks nothing like an anaconda - where's the rest of it's body?  Art!

This, ladies and germs, is an anaconda in the water

     Anacondas cannot survive in water below 25º C and the Thames is a bracing 16º C at best.  Coming up next - man bites fog (it's a bit of a nothingburger).

SLAP! Went Conrad's Open Palm

Who are the idiots making these ridiculous claims?  Has quality journalism rolled over and died?  Why are Wagon Wheels smaller than they used to be?  Is Will Smith going into politics?  Art!

     May I remind these morons with a memory problem that Vincent Price starred in the FIRST adaptation of Richard Matheson's novel "I Am Legend", which went by the far less catchy title of "Last Man On Earth".  Art!

     And the less I see of those awful CGI zombie-cum-vampires the happier I will be.

Donnie Boracic O

It sounds better if you run the words all together.  For those of you puzzled by this peculiar language, 'Boracic lint' is rhyming language for 'skint', which in turn means being bereft of funds.

     O and who's this over in the corner, but Citizen Trump.  As you must surely know by now, Agent Orange is facing multiple lawsuits, with even more to come.  Having a stable of lawyers and attorneys to cope with the ever-increasing legal workload does not come cheap.  Art!

In the rough

     Up to November last year this wasn't such a problem, as the Republicans were willing to fund his legal bills - as long as he didn't declare running for Prez again.  Once he did that those money taps were turned off, and so far this year he's had to fork out $40 million in legal costs.  This no doubt galls him bitterly, and he's been threatening to not pay his lawyers, which is a lose-lose strategy because they will undoubtedly sue, win and never go near him again.

     Donnie's trademark legal go-to, trying to delay a case interminably, is not going to succeed in the long term, and every case that he tries to drag out is only going to increase his legal fees.

     There is also the vexed question of where the money is coming from.  It has come from a Political Action Committee, supposedly established to help him campaign for the  White House, and critics are now looking very closely at this fund to see if he's breaking campaign finance rules.  Art!

"City In The Sky"

The Doctor is off gathering an insight into how Earth politics and the Arc-ipelago co-exist, or not, and Ace is busy getting into trouble herself.

     She caught a sudden movement at her elbow, turning to find a pair of gimlet-sharp eyes looking at her, an un-nerving experience, before continuing.

     ‘It’s never made sense.  The general’s junta there have always been critics of the entire Arc-ipelago, for absolutely no reason.’

     ‘They worry about an array of spies-in-the-skies, perhaps?’

     Emilia snorted in contempt.

     ‘As if!  We improved our software and sensors after the Little Crash – it was only common sense to do so.  We aren’t a spy satellite, still.  There are dozens of satellites up in orbit that can see more than us, over a wider area and beyond any stealth measures.  Why pick on us?  It’s madness.’

     A fish jumped in the pond, making a splash and ripples that swam outwards.

     ‘Hmmm,’ said the Doctor, thinking.  Up here one did have a different perspective on the Earth, just as the Earth had a different perspective about the Arc-ipelago.  A paradigm began to form in his fertile imagination.

 

The taut silence between Ace and her escort Warden didn’t last long.  The woman flexed her arms, making her silvered epaulettes ripple, and sighed.

     ‘I shall regret this.  Do you want to go back into Communications?’

     The regret came from her dread of seeing and hearing what Downstairs was suffering.  This nuclear “exchange” had been going on for less than twelve hours and already at least eighty million were dead or injured.

     

*  This is actually feasible; contraceptives are illegal in Norkland and, not to be too vulgar, what else is there to do?