O Do Keep Up!
No, I do not mean Ol' Tolky's invented land 'Where the shadows lie', I am talking about the moral equivalent, which being Ruffia, 'Where the people lie', and they even have a word, "Vranyo", which summarises their behaviour. It means that they're lying, they know you know they're lying, yet they lie anyway. "It's all going according to plan" is one of the more frequent ones you hear. "General Gerasimov is on holiday" is another, as is "All the drones were successfully shot down but falling debris caused minor damage". You get to read between the lines after a while. Art!
Hilarious. And horribly accurate at the same time.
In today's Intro I'm going to go over the Ruffian economy, which will make you glad that you live in Equatorial Guinea or the Samoan Islands, rather than what one person unkindly described as "Nigeria with snow". It's a truism I've mentioned before that Ol' Tolky explained that dark and disturbing events make for terrific entertainment, whilst one rapidly bores of bunnies, lambs and rainbows. You may want to get a wheely-bin of popcorn ready. Art!
Thanks to Joe Blogs for his excellent Youtube vlogs on the Ruffian economy. Every time Joe gleefully announces "Hello!" and proceeds to rubbish Charlie Chipmunk Cheeks' personal piggy bank, he gets trolls in the Comments who bloviate and boast that the ruble is doing tremendously well, that sanctions have had no effect and in fact it's doing better than ever. Art!
Guess what one of the top three performing currencies was in 2023?
THE BRITISH* POUND. Yes, there is an element of gloating there. O sorry, did you imagine it was the ruble?
Sadly not. The ruble, after the Turkish lira, was the second-worst performing major currency globally, losing 17.5% of it's value over 2023. When metrics like this are analysed the plus or minus value is usually a few percentage points. To drop by this much is catastrophic, not least because it comes in addition to the fall during 2022.
"It's not looking good" was last week's catchphrase of Konstantin on his own "Inside Russia". You're not wrong, Big K.
WORKING FOR THE YANKEE DOLLAR: Much to the chagrin of Harry Hamster Head, the South Canadian dollar is a stable and globally-established currency, very widely traded, especially in oil and gas industries.
Before the Special Idiotic Operation, the ruble had fallen to 75 to the dollar, yet by July 2022 it had recovered to ₽50 to the $, at which many a vatnik fell to their knees and pronounced it a miracle. Their howls of anguish when it reached ₽100 per $ in October last year were sweet to hear, and Peter The Average ordered the Central Bank to do something to bring the rate down. The ₽ is now hovering between 88 and 92 to the $, and would have hit ₽120 by now if not for the financial straitjackets being imposed.
BUT BUT BUT chorused the Vatnik Choir - less appealing or qualified than -
- that's the eeeeeevil capitalist currency. It's quite another story with other internationally-traded currencies. Isn't it?
Hmmmm how can I put this?
NO. Art!
 |
| Ruble-dollar |
 |
| Ruble-Yuan |
 |
| Ruble-Rupee |
FRENEMIES: A weak ruble ought, technically (a word with considerable weight attached), to benefit Ruffian exports by making purchases cheaper for other countries. You may not be surprised to see the word "however" crop up here, because Ruffia's two biggest trading partners, India and China, refuse to pay in ₽. Not only that, both insist on major discounts to buy Ruffian exports in the first place.
IMPORTANCE OF BEING BIRDS-NEST: Because they're in the soup! <ahem>. Yes. You see, Ruffia is not self-sufficient - certainly not in eggs - and needs to import loads of things, which are now much more expensive thanks to the feeble ruble. The fruble? ANYWAY inflation has increased and I believe has reached 40% in foodstuffs, which is great news for Ruffian pensioners - starve in your apartment or eat kibble whilst living under a bridge. Art!
SUMMERY: Hmmmm no, it's still winter, you can tell in Moscow by looking to see how many apartment blocks are decorated with flood-icicles. ANYWAY Joe made the very valid observation that economic data is closely guarded in Ruffia, because if it were freely available people would realise they are the frog in the kettle just before it boils, thus the ruble and how it ails and fails is a valuable resource to see just how Bloaty Gas Tout has <insert very rude swear here>ed his country. The ruble has declined in status to being so very little traded that it borders on a dead currency. Cue Conrad searching for Money/Zombie puns.
I was going to add even more about Mordor's Money Misery from Big K, but we're already nearly 75% towards Count, so maybe tomorrow.
A Collision Of Cultures
Conrad's unsure if he's mentioned Ryan McBeth before. Ryan is the doughty South Canadian ex-warrior who specialised in anti-tank missiles, got computer-qualified and has his own YouTube channel. He specialises in dissecting propaganda, so it was a little odd to see this. Art!
This, ladies, gentlemen and those unsure, is an Australian foodstuff. Conrad considers it an inferior cousin of Marmite, because whilst one can spread it on bread, you CANNOT make a hot drink out of it. It won't dissolve and merely sits at the bottom of your cup in pieces.
No, Ryan, it is not remotely like peanut butter. Although you could probably use it to flavour birds-nest soup.
"City In The Sky"
The 'Pangolin' is being put through it's paces after years of neglect. Caution is the watchword here.
‘Captain Barclay – I can’t
use the radio,’ said Mona. ‘That jamming
is across all frequencies and blocks everything.’ She rubbed an ear in the aftermath of the
high-pitched squealing sent into her headphones.
‘Oh great! So we’re completely cut off from Arc One?’
She smiled ruefully.
‘Not quite. I can still use the signaling laser to send
Morse back. However, only the astronomy
people will be able to detect it, and then only for five minutes out of every
ten when the sphere’s rotation brings them back into direct view.’
The chief pilot wiped his
brow with the back of a suit gauntlet, frowning. Problems with manouvering, and
instrumentation, and now they couldn’t rely on being in touch with Arc One for
additional support. Thankfully the
computers that calculated trajectory, acceleration, orientation and endurance
were still fully operational but he would have liked to have the option of a
back-up contact from the astronomers back on the sphere. His piloting was old and rusty; Kurt would be
a very welcome aide in working out the mathematics and practicalities of
deceleration.
‘Okay. Broadcast back to the sphere, let them know
we’re on our way, ETA six hours.’
Mona hunched over her
console, screwing her face up to make out a message in Morse code. She then had to call on Ace to deftly work
the tracking ball that directed Pangolin’s low-powered laser towards Arc One –
another skill aqcuired thanks to years of compter arcade games.
What can possibly go wrong?
More Of Food
And of NAFO, whom you ought to remember from yesteryon. A band of merry rascals, or messy rarrcals, and here is an entry on Twitter from one of them. Art!
These are home-made holubsti, a staple Ukrainian food. Conrad has made them as of about a year ago, when working at Footasylum. They are stuffed cabbage rolls, filled with seasoned mince and veg and rice, cooked in a tomato sauce. Let me add in the commentary by lady NAFO member:
Dog Buns, that's made me hungry now.
Build A Bigger Block
What construction in Lego do we have today? No idea. Allow me to use these curare-tipped lawn darts to enliven Art.
Finally -
Better go sort out a bit of tea for me. Those Holubtsi have gotten me peckish.
* Britain. Living rent-free in every Ruffian politician's head
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