Barbied Wire

NO!  That Is Not A Typo

It is, in fact, the basis for an hilarious pun.  Yes, another one.  First of all, we need to address the fact of wire with barbs, for it is a truism that fences made from it were one of the factors that ended the Old West.  Art!

Excuse me -

     <sounds of a Tazer being applied>

     Barbed wire was a cheap and effective way of corralling cattle and keeping them off other people's land.  More than that, it proved to be an excellent way of keeping hostile people in the wrong uniform off your land, as evinced in the First Unpleasantness.

     Here an aside.  Don't whine, we've not had one for a while.  Your Humble Scribe put forth an answer on Quora about how barbed wire was used once trench warfare came of age, and Dog Buns! you're going to feel the benefit, too.  

Placing barbed-wire would be done at night so you couldn’t be observed by the enemy, or at least not unless they sent up star-shells, in which case you froze and prayed.

Initially the picket stakes were knocked in with a padded or rubber mallet so as to deaden the noise; later on the metal ‘screw’ picket was adopted, which could be screwed into the ground by hand, silently. The beginning of the job would be the hardest, since two men had to carry a huge reel of barbed wire and unspool it along their route.

Barbed wire and bare legs; not a winning combination!

     And thus we plod our inevitable way to Barbie.  Not just the film but the whole of her oeuvre, and Conrad will also throw Bloaty Gas Tout into the mix for good measure.  Art!

     Meet Steve Rosenberg, the BBC's Man In Moscow, which is surely something of a fraught job at present.  Steve's secret sauce is that he is fluent in Russian, meaning no interpreters trying to 'massage' anything he says or hears.  He has observed of late that Ruffian cinemas are slyly catering to their audience by screening "Barbie", but only after a short Ruffian film plays first.  Art!

     This displeases the Hollywood studios who made it, because these are pirate versions not paying anything to South Canada.  It also displeases the Ruffian authorities, because they hate anything Western, especially if it's frothy and light-hearted, and especially especially if it's popular.  Their own stodgy propaganda films about how they actually won against Ukrainian Nazis who were armed with Satanic bio-engineered mosquitoes are playing to empty houses, which has to smart.

     Here we approach the concept of 'Barbieland', which was coined by Konstantin of "Inside Russia"; not in reference to his homeland (from which he is exiled) but rather to the "Management Of Assets Of The President Of The Ruffian Federation", an administrative branch of the Ruffian state.  Art!

Big K at the back

     As Big K puts it, one reason the Puffy Petroleum Pimp thinks things in Ruffia are rosy is because he is totally shielded from his population's increasingly impacted life, in his own special version of Barbieland, which is GUARANTEED to be guarded by barbed wire.  Can't have the hoi polloi trespassing!

     Big K listed the 'assets' this department of 528 staff manages, and it's quite a list:

1) 1,000+ plots of land, all of which are very large.

2)  3,700 buildings

3)  37 aircraft (possibly down one or two if they were at Chkalovsky)

4)  5,000 + cars, none of which will be beat-up old Ladas

5)  20,000 + maintenance and security staff

     The total for keeping Kremlin Gremlin cossetted in gossamer is ₽117 billion per annum, or about $1.2 billion.

     He missed out Tsar Poutine's private armoured train, which adds on another $70 million per annum.

     As you can see, he's clearly not feeling any pain.  Art!

     There you go, trackside poles with wires.  NOT Poles with wires.  That's one of Peter The Average's nightmares.

"Ania and Marisusz's grandparents begin a family tradition"

Ferry Cross The -

Manchester Ship Canal.  Doesn't quite have the same ring as that song, does it?

     You see, pilgrims, once upon a time in 1885, the Manchester Ship Canal was being constructed, in a bid to turn Gomorrah-on-the-Irwell into a trade nexus of awesome proportions. It worked, too; Salford Quays was one of the premier ports in This Sceptred Isle up until the Fifties.

     A few sacrifices had to be made.  Art!

     This portrait is the only picture I can find of the Hulmes Bridge, a low-lying structure that stood in the way of the MSC.

     Not for long.  Art!

    This is where it was, because our Victorian ancestors demolished it to permit ship access up and down the canal.  However, Parliament saw fit to enact in law a requirement for the Ship Canal Company to provide a ferry service in perpetuity.  An Act Of Parliament like this cannot be ignored or defied, and 138 years later there is still a ferry service at Hulmes.  Art!

It's only a small ferry

A Punchline For The Irish Army

(continuing the marine theme)

There are doubtless jokes about there about stupid Irish soldiers of the Republic who don't know which end the bullets come out of, etctera etcetera.

     As Your Humble Scribe has pointed out, the Irish Army is a smaller version of Perfidious Albion's, composed of long-service professionals with over 60 years of experience across the globe in UN service.  Art!

     What you see here is the MV 'Matthew' under the control of the Gardai and Army, having been boarded by men of the Army Ranger Wing (their sneaky-peeky chaps) who did a fast-rappelling descent by helicopter.  Three men are now under arrest and the vessel is alleged to be crammed with cocaine.

     It all went without a hitch and not a shot fired.  "Don't know which end the bullets come out of" my hairy white hindquarters!

A Little Light Year Reading

For Lo! this is probably the last photograph I'll put up of the BBC's listings of the Astronomy Photographer Of The Year.  Art!

Courtesy Aaron Wilhelm

     This is captioned 'Sh2-132' and it better known as the Lion Nebula.  According to other sources, it's a rather faint deep-sky structure, which is why it took Aaron 70 hours to get this image.  It lies a very long way off, and nobody dares give an exact distance, hedging their bets with 'from 10,000 to 12,000 light years away'.  Nor will anyone give a size in light years, it's all '40 arc minutes' believe me, it's ridiculously difficult to convert that into light years.

     ANYWAY you can see all the stellar activity and how it's affected the gasses in the nebula, with all the solar winds interacting with each other.

"City In The Sky"

The Doctor is filling in Ace on a few minor technicalities that he kind of accidentally forgot to mention to the Arcology inhabitants previously.  Ooops.

     ‘I was a bit over-the-top on how easy it would be to turn things around on the ground.  Presenting the smiling countenance and all that.’

     He looked to one side, making Ace look at him.  Had he been lying?  That wasn’t like the Doctor – he could decieve, obscure and misdirect with mere plain truth like a maestro.  Her look was returned with a rueful smile.

     ‘Those about to – no, that’s courting trouble.  Ace, these supposed aliens, if they exist, have killed  eighty per cent of the human race in pursuit of whatever final endeavour they’ve been planning, for at least fifty years.  They thrive on secrecy.  Us appearing out of nowhere and destroying that anonymity will render us very specific targets.’

     ‘Right.  So you need me to watch your back.’

     An exasperated smile came back in response.

     ‘Dorothy!  We are going back Downstairs for the time being as an item.  You may be returning  Upstairs sooner than you wish.’

     ‘What!’

     He tapped his right nostril in mimickry of her oft-used gesture.

     ‘I need a person up here I can trust.’  The calculating look changed to a more thoughtful one.

    Wheels within wheels - within wheels.

Finally -

We approach Derek's birthday, number eighty-seven if I recall correctly.  Or was that it in dog years or Fahrenheit?

Boffo beans!