A Little Bit
I think that was a song lyric, which is code for "I can't be bothered to look it up and make sure". To what am I referring? O I thought you'd never ask! You see, I was reminded of our sad contemporary times when watching "Foyle's War" because it brought up the subject of the Sudetenland. This name is probably unknown to 99% of my audience, so of course - obviously! - Conrad has to lay out a little exposition. Art!
Yes yes yes, this is relevant. It's a nine-part Youtube epic about Original Poster, and how her close family, not-so-close family and relatives so distant they might as well live on Mars all came to be aware that she (and Hubby) had money, and lots of it.
No, she didn't win the lottery. She and Hubs, via hard work, sacrifices and investing wisely, came to have lots of $$$. Knowing that money always sends people off the deep end, she had kept this quiet, until 'Blabbermouth', her sister in law, began stoking up other relatives because OP hadn't paid $35,000 for a holiday for SIL. This led to a prolonged bout of her relatives wanting money, lots of it, because they were family, and they deserved it, and how dare she not share her wealth with everyone else?
This is called Being Generous With Other People's Money. Art!
"Look - no rabbit!"
This represents one of the most shameful episodes in the political history of This Sceptred Isle. Here you see Neville Chamberlain selling Czechoslovakia down the river, in the hopes of preventing war with Nazi Germany. Well, he got his war, wanted or not, and it destroyed him politically, which is small solace for the Czechs. Art!
The Teuton dictator Adolf Hitler, you see, declared that the eeeeevil wicked disreputable Czechs were carrying out pogroms against the German-speaking population in the Sudetenland, and that merciful and benevolent Germany needed - not wanted, needed - to come to their aid. Thus Ol' Nev was quite happy to grant them occupation rights to the Sudetenland, because that meant no war, and everyone went home happy, right?
Well, no. For one thing, as your beady eyes have no doubt discerned, the Sudetenland was Czechoslovakia's border with Germany, and it was heavily defended. Teuton generals, having a look at these fortifications post-occupation, heaved a sigh of relief at not having had to attack them, as it would have been a bloody business indeed. Art!
Ol' Nev must have felt a right prat when the Teutons occupied the whole of Czechoslovakia in 1939. Not only did Herr Schickelgruber lay hold of the entire country without it costing him dearly, he also laid hands upon the Czech military industrial sector, which helped to underpin the Wehrmacht. For Your Information, one-quarter of the tanks that the Teutons invaded France with in 1940 were Czech models, the T-38 of which was the equal of any Teuton tank and better than most of them. Art!
It was such a sound design that the chassis was kept in production until 1945. Yes, Nev, the Law Of Unintended Consequences has very sharp teeth, hasn't it?
It wasn't all negative. The Czechs at their Brno arsenal co-designed with the British Enfield arsenal one of the best light machine guns of all time, the BrEn. Art!
Hmmmmm who could possibly have been claiming that he needs to 'rescue' the people of a foreign country that speak his own language? And which other nations are Being Generous With Other People's
As Santayana said, those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Our normally venal government here in the UK seems to be aware that Ol' Nev and Munich cast a long shadow.
Guess Where?
Here's another example of disintegrating infrastructure, where the ground around a burst pipe has been excavated in order to facilitate - ah - 'repairs'. Art!
Once buried under a few tons of soil, this bodge-up will indeed hold. Until the breach continues to expand, or the wooden caulks rot away, or another crack occurs and widens. Gosh, it's almost as if funding for infrastructure is being siphoned off for another purpose! Art?
This is a Dutch motorway underpass being put into position over a single weekend. And it will still be standing a century from now. I am minded about a Soviet-era joke, where an earthquake hit one of the Central Asian republics. All the shoddy Soviet buildings collapsed; the Tsarist-era ones survived.
"City In The Sky"
We hasten back to New Eucla, where battle is being planned for and expected.
Several hundred miles away to the north,
buried deep beneath the
Hours before, emergency warning lights and sirens had sounded,
indicating that an undercover Transport amongst the humans had been compromised
and would need emergency back-up.
In fact it had been more complicated than that: Mirkan 93 sent a radio
message stating that he needed to abandon his Transport in order to implicate a
human investigating the destruction of Forrest hamlet. This human had single-handedly sniffed out
their existence and was threatening to breach their institutional secrecy.
Regardless of whether he succeeded in eliminating this human interloper,
Mirkan 93 needed collection from a safe point well beyond the township, away
from possible eyesight, eavesdropping or interception. A random spot miles into the desert was
chosen, partly out of spite on the part of his seniors, who were not impressed
that he had destroyed his cover, his Transport and their secrecy.
The co-ordinates had been sent and received, when another crisis landed
squarely upon them: a radio message was being sent from New Eucla to one of the
satellite communities in orbit!
When it goes pear-shaped, it's a whole orchard, isn't it?
Bring On The Bricks!
Or, the next in SpitBrix list of the 20 Greatest Lego Builds Of All time. Art!
This is the largest cruise ship made out of Lego. It was designed and supervised by a Lego-certified professional builder - there's only about a dozen across the globe - and contains over two million bricks. It took the team and a thousand volunteers two months to create, being 28' long and 5' high. Art!
One wonders if it has internal details, like O I don't know, a playroom, where Lego Minifigs can make things out of Lego?
Well Hello Maunsell Forts Again!
Conrad was idly scrolling through the feeds and came across this, which you ought to recognise. Art!
Typical DE hyperbole, they're not 'deep in the ocean' as they are placed firmly in the Thames estuary, which is nowhere near any ocean, being close to the North Sea. I mean, come on editor and sub-editor, Conrad is doing your job for you! Their placement was to plug a gap in the anti-aircraft defences of This Sceptred Isle during the early years of the Second Unpleasantness, so that any Teuton bomber thinking it could travel up the Thames estuary to bomb London would have an unpleasant and lethal surprise.
You can see how decrepit these structures are, having been abandoned for decades and decades, eroded away by wind, weather and the briny ocean waves. "Doctor Who" filmed part of a serial here in the late Sixties, and The Mystery Jets shot a music video here a few years ago, but they are inherently Extremely Unsafe. Do not trespass, as becoming dead is not good for you. Art!
In their heyday, a-bristle with guns and radar
Finally -
Better go box up the Sunday Stew. I've added a large dose of barley after finding a packet at the back of a cupboard, behind a big tin of sesame seeds. Hopefully it's been stewing long enough for them to now be cooked, instead of being treacherous miniature bullets. I guess I'll find out tomorrow.
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