To Coin A Phrase
If you're a big fan of the Kremlin or Harry Hamster Head, you might want to 1) Go bile yer heed, and 2) Find a different blog, because this Intro is going to be knocking some coffin nails into Chipmunk Cheek's dominion. You ought to be aware of the ongoing egg shortage in Ruffia -
Yes, it's fake. But this is how revolutions start.
There are reports that for the first 6 months of 2024, none of the 1.2 billion eggs imported into Ruffia will be taxed.
Wait, what? Conrad's admittedly dodgy maths skills indicate that this means eight and a third of a million eggs for every Ruffian. 8,333,333 to be precise. Or, egg-loving Ruffians will be able to gob 45,787 eggs each. Every single day. The price of ova skyrocketed by 40% in November last year, thanks to price hikes in the cost of antibiotics and chicken feed, which had previously been imported from the eeeeeevil West. Sanctions don't work, hmmmm? Well, the cost of a dozen eggs has increased from ₽70 to ₽140, or from £0.60 to £1.20, which is about 50% of your average Ruffian's annual wage*. Art!
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| The Jeff! |
This is Jeffrey Sonnenfeld of the YSOM, one of the most prestigious business institutions in South Canada. They published a rebuttal of the "Wall Street Journal"'s claim that Peter The Average was a winner in 2023, and coming from The Jeff, who has advised the White House, the South Canadian Treasury and their State Department, it bears noticing. Art!
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| What's wrong with this picture? |
They didn't have time to add this in, but Ruffian supermarkets are now running out of chicken; drumsticks, thighs and fillets are all absent in some regions.
ANYWAY let us now list more economic ills for the Fun-Sized Foot Fiddler.
COMMODITY PRICES: Here sanctions have had major impacts. Ruffian oil was at $90 per barrel on 23/02/2022 and is now at $61 p.b. The volume of oil sold has also shrunk. Natural gas sales to the EU were also affected: from €98 per megawatt hour to €35 pmwh. Nor is the EU a large market any longer, so the volume exported has declines dramatically. Wheat has also declines in value, from $840 per ton to $620, with the amount sold also decreasing. Art!
TALENT DRAIN: Over a million Ruffians have permanently fled the country as it turned into Sinister Union 2.0. These were skilled, educated people that Ruffia cannot lose without serious damage to their economy, as they are verrrry difficult to replace.
CAPITAL LOSS: Between February 2022 and June of 2023, $235 billion exited Ruffia, or 13% of their total Gross Domestic Product. The National Wealth Fund, which might otherwise be used as a source of capital, is being expended paying off the monthly deficit and propping up the ruble - so no capital investment from them. Oooops. Art!
Blackout in Moscow. A capital's loss.
TECHNOLOGY LOSS: Big Western or G7 countries have pulled all their staff from Ruffia, so their technical expertise has been permanently lost. Rosneft, the Ruffian energy business, has had to subsidise their oil and gas industry to the tune of $10 billion, which is the equivalent of adding $10 to every barrel of oil. Art!
Gone!
NIL FOREIGN INVESTMENT: This will become critical in a decade's time, because enormous amounts of money are needed for research and development to sustain the economy, which is simply not happening. O yes, Ruffia's 'friends', India and China? They're not investing any capital in Ruffia, either. Nobody else is foolish enough to want to invest in Ruffia because the chances of your investment assets suddenly being 'acquired' by a crony of Chipmunk Cheeks is far too high.
THE RUBLE: The value of this currency dropped until it hit ₽100 to the dollar, which frightened the Kremlin Gremlin so much he demanded the Ministry of Finance and Ruffian Central Bank intervene. Nobody, anywhere, wants to trade in rubles. China and India - 'friends' in quotation marks - won't pay for anything in rubles. It's something of a dead currency. Art!
Worth more and with greater use than rubles
Putin On The Fritz thinks he can dig his (elevator) heels in and outlast the West and Ukraine. He may be able to, his country's economy can't. In another couple of weeks we'll get the Ruffian Ministry Of Finance's final figures for December and the whole of 2023, which will be interesting, if bleak, reading.
Allow Me To Finish Off Ol' Rob
I do apologise for taking my time to finish this item, I've just been so insanely creative with my other input. Last we saw, Ol' Rob had dismissed a lot of inept and inapt hearsay and anecdote about - Art!
His Conclusion was that 'colour' as regards histories of the Second Unpleasantness was derived from infantry accounts, not the artillery, which Ol' Rob sees as a battle-winning arm. He gave an example of Canuckistanian gunners on 7th June, who, directing regiments of 25 pounders, 5.5" guns, 7.2" guns and additional fire from cruisers offshore, unloaded 1,200 TONS of shells over a period of 48 hours. The 12th SS Panzer division's attack against Juno Beach is halted dead in it's tracks, and these were some of the most fanatically motivated soldiers in the SS. Allied artillery firepower was, indeed, a thing to dread if you were going to be on the receiving end. Art!
Frank Wootton's famous painting of Falaise
Ol' Rob also points out that the 500 Teuton armoured fighting vehicles destroyed at Falaise were knocked out, overwhelmingly, by British, Canadian and Polish guns, NOT the Typhoons you see above, swanning over the battlefield. 85% of what you see there was KO'd by artillery.
There are accounts out there by Allied gunners; probably the most famous are the memoirs of Spike Milligan, whom was a Bombardier in a 7.2" howitzer battery. Old Spike the slayer of Nazis; probably not how you saw him.
Now, believe me I could carry on with my annotations of Professor John Buckley's "British Armour In The Normandy Campaign" but I shall mercifully leave that for a later date.
Cheap As Cheese
The Ruffians are probably also pining for aged mature blue-veined cheeses, so allow me to post a bit of fromage-porn for you. Art!
I apologise for casting a giant shadow o'er the picture. Yes, this half-wheel of cheese cost all of £0.30. It's not the sort of thing you scoff by the plate-load, so I shall enjoy it abstemiously.
Art!
<Tazers sound in the background>
"City In The Sky"
A couple of things have become clear, one being that the Lithoi (the alien 'squatters') chose the Australian outback for a very good reason.
‘Yes, but as Don here probably knows and won’t tell, the Lithoi hate and
detest free-standing water. They’ve
evolved to do without it and in fact it will render them extremely ill if they
encounter liquid water in any amount.’
Mike snapped his fingers.
‘Oh, I see! They’ll keep away
from the sea? Ah, and this is why they
live in the desert!’
The Doctor nodded. After looking
at his reference files, the use of a “Transport” to carry Lithoi into human
society undetected performed two functions at once: allowing infiltration, and
keeping the lizard hiding within safely dry and free from moisture.
He stood up and caused his chair to topple backwards.
‘Come on, Mike! Time’s a-wasting. If my trusty assistant Upstairs gets her wits
working we may only have a few hours grace.’
Upstairs, the trusty assistant would have been flattered and worried at
being so described. Flattered, since the
Prof rarely came out and expressed any overt emotions that concerned their
relationship, and worried, because the bizarre message made no sense to
her.
“I need you to intercept one of those horses we first encountered when
we arrived and give it a good punt, a right mouthful, put it at the back of the
onion-bag, in the middle of the lowest
Of course we all know what it means, don't we?
Don't we?
Finally -
Must be about time to inspect the contents of the fridge, and see what needs retiring thanks to old age and mouldiness. Which latter can always be scraped off to make food edible again, without any health consequences at all.
* This may be inaccurate. Or simply a lie.
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