Your Gas Jets, That Is
We are going to lead today with a story about a mixture of Entitlement and Revenge, which, whilst unacknowledged in the original Quora story, is either in one of South Canada's northern states, or in British America, because their winters are especially severe. Art!
Yes, this is a real thing
I mention the low temperature because, in both nations, these can get low enough to be a hazard to life, whereas in This Sceptered Isle you only experience this kind of killer kold* in the Highlands during winter.
Original Poster regaled Quora with a tale of 30 years ago, when they were renting an apartment in an apartment block, what we in Perfidious Albion call 'flats' because of course - obviously! - they are the opposite of flat and
ANYWAY the apartment owner was the female equivalent of Scrooge; she was responsible for providing hot water, heating and gas for cooking. She would avoid any kind of outlay on repairs if at all possible, in order to maximise her profits. Since she had paid off the mortgage on the property 45 years ago, her profits came to a pretty penny. Art!
Canuckistanian apartment complex
When their apartment boiler gave up the ghost, Execrable Landlady Owner (hereafter 'ELO') tried to fob OP off with an equally faulty one that she got cheap from the ad pages.
This is in November. It was extremely cold in OP's apartment; Conrad can sympathise, I've lived in flats where there was ice on the inside of the windows in winter.
By 23rd November it was still only just above freezing in the apartment. ELO claimed poverty when challenged about the lack of heat and told OP to go buy their own heaters, or just jog around the apartment to get warm. No, actually they didn't advise that last, it just sounded right.
SO! OP didn't explicitly say 'Game On!' but conducted themselves accordingly. They went to Town Hall and lodged a complaint. This is where you get local bureaucracy on your side, always a guarantee of a bad time for the other side, because local officials love nothing more than to flex their muscles. Art!
No, this is a Canadian Town Hall. Jolly nice architecture it is, too.
The relevant official called up ELO and warned her she was out of line legally, that she had to get the heat back on, and if she didn't that she would be fined $1,000 per day per apartment, and there were 48 apartments. ELO swears a lot, asserts that he can't do this and rings off, unaware that the 'town hall lawyer**' had heard everything.
Consequently she got a notarised letter the next day informing her that she now owed the city $48,000 and this amount would be added to every single day that heat was out for the complex. Art!
To rub both salt and lemon juice into the wound, it was almost Thanksgiving - no jumping to conclusions, please, as the Canuckistanians also celebrate this holiday - and thus she had to pay double for an engineer to come out and fix the system during holiday time, thus being probably $50,000 out of pocket in total.
The cherry on the revenge trifle was that the town lawyer stated that if ELO went after OP for reporting her, then the town would go after her, and would also pay all of OP's legal bills to boot.
If I were OP, I'd have had a record cued up on the turntable for when ELO made a visit. Art!
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| Altogether now: "It's a -" |
If you take nothing else away from this tale, you now know that the Canuckistanians duplicate a South Canadian holiday. And you're welcome.
Just Touching Base
I thought I'd give you a preçis of Joe Blogs and his most recent vlogs about the continuing dire state of the Ruffian economy. If you recall, the ruble hit 100 to the dollar a couple of weeks ago, which looked bad in global news headlines, so the Puffy Petrol Pimp felt impelled to take action. Ruffian interest rates were abruptly hiked to 12%, which did indeed have an effect on the exchange rate: it became ₽93 to the dollar.
This is very definitely a short-term fix, as it will drive up inflation; although the Ruffians are already lying about what the rate of inflation is, and we can probably expect them to say that inflation is in negative figures and people are being paid to buy food or some such nonsense. Art!
Peter the Average demonstrates his alpha-male table-wrestling skills
The inflation info isn't just me being trite; that lady above is Elvira Nabuillina, Governor of the Ruffian Central Bank, who has warned of the inflation risk. She hasn't been fired yet because she will make a splendid scapegoat next year.
O and the exchange rate is already back up to ₽95 to the dollar. Nobody, you see, wants to invest in Ruffia or trade in rubles. Remember when Bloaty Gas Tout took over Ruffia? Then you got ₽10 to the dollar. Ah, happy days!
You can see why Conrad and other economic pundits scoff mockingly about claims that Putin On The Fritz can bankroll this war until 2025***.
Don't worry, we will come back to this.
"The War Illustrated"
Let me remind you that the images seen here are from earlier in March, as it took about a fortnight for photographs to get back to the UK, and there would always be a delay in publishing them - what we now know as the buzz-word OPSEC or 'Operational Security'. Art!
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| The consistent mistake |
The everyday and mundane existence of troops not in action; the very definition of journalistic 'human interest' content. At upper port we see the Regimental Cobbler, ably assisted - or hindered - by a turncoat Teuton police dog, at Anzio. This was a legendarily horrid place to fight, so the photographer and captioner endeavour to lend a little light-heartedness to it. To upper starboard we see Private Sneath putting his peace-time skills to use in keeping a radio team spick and span; remember, the shorter the hair, the easier it is to keep clean. There was probably a hygiene poster stating "No Nazi Nits! - be aware of your hair."
The direction boards might seem a tad whimsical at first glance. However, look closer; they have been done with official templates. If the Teutons were to overhear radio chatter about the Fifth Bluffshires moving to 'Bond Street' it won't convey anything to them.
And, despite this being 1944, the soldier here sewing up tents is using a machine more akin to 1844. Because it operates by treadle, is why, and needs neither petrol, gas or electricity to run. Art!
Isaac Singer
One of the giants of the sewing machine industry. I think he'd approve of our stitching soldier, being Jewish and all.
"City In The Sky"
Conrad, in a subtle info-dump, is bringing the Doctor and Ace up to date on how things are going in the medium future. Not well, it can be summarised.
This last phrase fell with all the force
of a hammer, creating a sudden silence.
‘You know this because?’ asked the Doctor. Davros peered at him, trying to determine if
the question was genuine.
‘Because we followed their track all the way down, given what happened
to the first shuttle. As I said, blown
up in mid-air. So suddenly they didn’t
have time to send a Mayday. I’m not a
military expert, nor do we have any such thing aboard Arc One, but that frightened
me. Killer technology and no qualms about using it.’
Ace darted a look at her travelling companion, who sucked the inside of
his cheek and nodded ambiguously .
Davy hesitated before continuing.
‘Another odd thing. Inexplicable,
really, given physics and radiation and what we know of it. The background radiation count in the
‘That’s a good thing, surely!’ interjected Ace. Davy looked at her and shrugged.
‘Is it? Why isn’t the world
behaving the way it should?’
For a long pause, the Doctor looked at the floor.
An hypothesis is being formed, I tell you!
Colour Conrad Confused
There's a sidebar item on the BBC's News website about the $2.1 'business empire' "OnlyFans", which seems rather peculiar to Conrad. Art!
You wouldn't do good business in South Korea with one of these; urban legend and superstition amongst the Sorks has it that these fans, if used at night, will slowly KILL YOU.
Or - could it be a retailer of customised, bespoke versions of this? Art!
These cost as much as £40 each!
Well done for a sustainable business model, because the market for these is surely seasonal and demand must dry up in autumn and winter.
Finally -
Normally on a Sunday afternoon Your Humble Scribe takes a constitutional stroll into Lesser Sodom, the better to boost his step-count, and to pick up remaindered food going cheap at the Co-Op. Well, I've already walked Edna, so that's the steps accounted for. I have remaindered meat already, and a cabbage and cauliflower and chorizo, so there doesn't seem much point in the constitutional.
* Forgive me
** This should properly be 'town hall attorney' which is why I suspect a British American context.
*** When they pray Donald Buck will become Prez.
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