Albert Was Right

No!  We Are Not Talking About Prince Albert

He was the Teuton hubby of Queen Victoria, and although he was restricted as a foreign citizen to being the Royal Consort, and never the King*, he proved to be a quite exceptional chap, especially when it came to the abolition of slavery.  In fact he proved to be very much the support behind the throne for Queenie.  As a Teuton he was seen as Practically One Of Us by the nation, since the First and Second Unpleasantnesses were waaaay off in the future.  Art!

No, Art, no.

     Although since this is in fact the Albert I wanted to talk about, I will refrain from Tazering the idiot into a twitching wreck.  This time.

     You see, Ol' Al had a saying: "Two things are infinite, the Universe and human stupidity.  And I'm not sure about the Universe."  

     Allow me to present two instances that prove Ol' Al was indubitably correct, which he probably wouldn't be too happy about.  Art!

<muted buzzing sound in the background>

     You remember I had an item that showed Tourons** putting themselves AND THEIR CHILD at risk when faced with a bull bison at close range?  Well, you might think such levels of stupidity couldn't be equalled, let alone surpassed.

     Touron: Hold my beer!

     I have the closing clip from Karma Crow's educational video about idiots abroad in the South Canadian National Parks, which are full of wild animals.  And, it would seem, Tourons.  Art!

     There are signs like this all over the National Parks, which seem to be treated by some people as interesting pieces of abstract art.  Bear in mind that wild animals are inherently unpredictable - that's the 'wild' part coming out - and ones with infant offspring are likely to be violently unpredictable.  Art!

     Custer State Park, Wyoming.  This is one of the potential travails of driving in a NP; bison road-blocks.  The sensible thing to do is to wait until they move on, especially if your transport is a motorbike, which an angry bull bison will ram into the middle of next week.  Art!

This - this is not sensible

     You can see the Touron here approaching a female bison WITH A CALF.

     This is not going to end well.  Art!

     The person with camera managed to miss the moment of impact, but here you  see the Touron being dragged across the road by Mama Bison, then thrown around like a stunt dummy, until - luckily for her - her jeans come off.  Art!

"I will wear the skin of my enemy"

     Yes, that blue streak is the Touron's jeans hanging from the cow's horn.  You'll be glad to know that the jeans were recovered, a little the worse for wear, so the lady may have been able to cover her modesty if not her misdeeds.  Art!

"A little stitching, they'll be good as new."

     Try as I might, I can only find that she was a 54-year old passenger from Iowa, who got airlifted to hospital but proved to be mostly okay.  Apart, that is, from the many thousands of dollars the airlift will have cost her.  Another commenter alleged that she'd also been charged, unclear if it was a felony or misdemeanour.

     There's no photograph for the second Touron, for reasons that will become clear.  Art!

     This is the Norris Geyser Basin, an area of Yellowstone with many hot pools and springs, where Touron Colin Scott and his sister had gotten to by leaving the boardwalks and ignoring warning signs.  They were looking for a hot pool to have a dawdle in, said his sister.  Col, not the sharpest tool in the shed, was testing water temperature by sticking his hand in, which can result in a par-boiled hand as pools can hit 90ºC.

     Ooops.  He slipped and fell in.  Unable to rescue him, his sister ran to the nearest Park Ranger lodge.  This was seven years ago, before everyone had a cellphone.  By the time they got to the pool, Col's well-done carcass could be seen on the surface and he was presumed dead.  Recovery was halted by a big storm that rolled in.  Art!

     This is all they found the next day: his wallet and trainer, because the extremely acidic and boiling hot water had dissolved the rest of him overnight.

     Now you understand today's title.

Being Somewhat Tasteless ...

If you want to see another entity undergoing an ordeal by complete immersion in very, very warm water, please look no further than Ruffia.  A couple of weeks ago you had Maxim Oreshkin (Ruffian state economist) denouncing the Ruffian Central Bank for it's "Soft monetary policies" that were causing the ruble to get stiffed (stop me if the technical terms get too involved).  Art!

Elvira, Elvira, she's rather an aspirer

     That's Ms. Nabuillina, Head of the Ruffian Central Bank, who had been doing a thankless job trying to keep the Ruffian economy's head above (very, very warm) water, a job akin to keeping plates spinning atop poles whilst blindfolded on a unicycle.  The RCB's 'explanation' was that there was no current account surplus, which was down 85% year-on-year, which due to interruptions in the pistachio harvest in Novi Pazar.  Or something.

     Eeeeevil Western economic analysts disagree with both of them.  The ruble tanking is due to the Special Idiotic Operation and 4 factors:  1)  A huge drop in the amount of energy receipts; 2) The oil price-cap;  3)  A massive hike in the cost of imports; 4) The flight of capital from Ruffia.  Art!

" Even now, there's an Ukrainian drone watching me.  All the time, watching me."

     For all the financial wriggling and fiddling, the ruble continues to depreciate in value and is now ₽96 to the dollar, down from ₽93 when interest rates were hiked.

     O dear.

Conrad Is ANGRY!

I should qualify that: angrier than usual.  Why so?  Because the Tribble-Topped Beer-Barrel-In-A-Suit - Citizen Trump, do keep up! - was allowed to quote his own height and weight when arrested in Georgia.  Yes, he repeated the 6'3" and 215 pounds lie, which means he's lost over two stone since the last time he got arrested, when he was 244 pounds.  Art!

     He also claimed to be an 'athlete' in a post about how he was so good at golf he made his score into minus figures.  Well, Donald, if speed-eating Big Macs against the clock ever becomes an Olympic sport ...

"City In The Sky"

The Doctor and Ace have both been given the bad news about how the Arc's population needs to get back to Planet Earth within five years, or they will slowly die out.

     ‘I wonder, could I have a look at your archived logs of scanner records from when the Great Northern War broke out?’ he asked.  The urbane Armenian looked taken aback for an instant, before recovering.

     ‘I suppose so, if you really want to.  It’s not easy watching, Doctor Smith, seeing a billion people being killed.’

     ‘My reasons are sound,’ stated the Doctor, in a tone that didn’t invite debate.  ‘Even if they must remain obscure.’  He turned to Ace.  ‘Care to come?’

     She didn’t, not really.  From what she gathered from her mentor’s request, he intended to scan hours of video logs of the war’s outbreak, looking for something he wasn’t telling anyone about, certainly not her, and he’d avoid answering if she asked –

     ‘Er - ’ she began, before he interrupted. 

     ‘Or you could inspect the last remaining glider, which would save me time.  Would that be possible?’

     The Armenian made a moue and shrugged.

     ‘I could have one of the engineering staff show her around.  Are you EVA-qualified and experienced?’ he asked Ace.

     ‘Time-served on the Ares, the Quintos, the Deucalion and three ali – er, humanoid types,’declared Ace proudly, glad that the Doctor had chivvied her into practicing on those versions held deep in a forgotten corner of the TARDIS.

    Ace gets into - watch this - space.

Oho

Conrad has noticed that Indy 5 is due to be released on streaming services in This Sceptred Isle and South Canada on August 29th, which means they must have given up on squeezing any more money out of the box office.  Let us check out Box Office Mojo.

     Note that the number of cinema's it's being shown in had dropped to 245 from 4,600 and after 2 months it still hasn't reached more than half-way to making it's money back.  Conrad calculates they'll have to make another £379 million from streaming just to break even.

     O dear.

Finally -

Better go sort the laundry.  Typically, the sun has vanished when I could be hanging stuff outside to dry.  I shall take a gamble.  O my rock and roll lifestyle, hmmm?

* Why that almost sounds like a song.

**  Park staff slang for 'Tourist Morons'