For One Thing, NATO Is Not UNIT
NATO, let us recap, stands for "North Atlantic Treaty Organisation", and was established in 1949 to defend Western Europe from the ravening hordes of the Sinister Union. Or, as they would later be known, the "Warsaw Pact", which is howlingly ironic as few people in this world hate hate hate Russia more than the Poles. Their capital being Warsaw. Art!
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| "Warsaw" in Romanian |
UNIT, on the other hand, is a child of the Cold War itself, being an acronym of "United Nations Intelligence Taskforce", whose Mission Statement might well be summed up in the pithy phrase "Protect The Planet". Word has it that the KGB and GRU were not happy with their personnel seconded to UNIT, as they tended to come back a whole lot less impressed with The West as their mortal enemy.
ANYWAY I have established this background because of a contemporary parody of NATO, which calls itself NAFO - North Atlantic Fella Organisation. These chaps and chapesses form a loose coalition that is determined to both puncture Ruffian propaganda, and to have a jolly good time. Art!
This dog is the official mascot of NAFO, being a Shiba. Conrad finds this a little odd, as the Shiba is a Japanese dog, but whatever it is, it's gone too far to rescind. Shiba = Ukraine. This dog crops up on Twitter a hundred times a day, poking merciless fun at the Ruffians, whom all see it as a <clears throat> "CIA plot". Yeah, right. NAFO, living rent-free in Charlie Chipmunk Cheek's head. The Celestial Intervention Agency are only perhaps slightly aware of NAFO, and most certainly don't fund them. If they did, Conrad would be at the front of the queue with his hand outstretched.
Okay, we've established a background. Yes? O go on, Art.
Yes yes yes, the Ruffians are short of eggs, and it would seem that 20% of the Turkish emergency-egg supplies - not a phrase I thought I'd ever be using here - bought in to keep the peasants appeased are infected with potentially lethal diseases. Fatal Turkish eggs. Deficient North Korean artillery shells. Good heavens, what if they contracted with Israel for Viagra!
Having set the scene, allow me to illustrate today's Intro further. Art!
This is the map as it currently stands, with Poland to port, with the port of Gdansk, and Lithuania to starboard, with capital Kaunas present. In between them you can see the Ruffian exclave of Kaliningrad, which of old was known as Konigsberg, having long been part of Prussia. It's called an 'exclave' because it's completely separate from the rest of Russia, being highly vulnerable to any actions from it's NATO neighbours Poland and Lithuania. To which end -
This is a far-fetched fantasy that yet must cause Charlie Chipmunk Cheeks a lot of sleepless nights, since it would take the Polish army about 30 minutes to storm across the exclave and shake hands with their Lithuanian counterparts. It's also worth noting that the locals in this political polyp are keen on joining either Poland or Lithuania; having experienced the delights of Ruffian culture and civilisation they are not keen for any more of it. What are the odds that by this time in 2025 it will be a completely different map we're looking at here?
Seven Millennia Falcon
Back to the mundanely un-mundane, and Lego constructs paired with world records. This time the build is of a quite modest 7,000+ model, which, if Art will stop rubbing salve into his burns -
That, ladies and gentlemen and those unsure, is quite a hefty count of pieces. What is the record associated with this and these? O I thought you'd never ask! Art?
This quartet of Teuton geeks managed to complete the construction of said model in 2 hours, 51 minutes and 47 seconds, which is 10,307 seconds, or one piece per 1.366 seconds. About the time it takes to count One Two Three F
"City In The Sky"
Bear with me on this, I know the author. If it was going to be an uneventful trip in outer space, would we have all this background set-up?
For several minutes Barclay
put 'Pangolin' into a series of small, delicately adjusted manoeuvres designed to
kill the ship’s forward motion and align it on a trajectory for the Lagrange
point that shepherded the Trojan asteroids.
The absence of some verniers meant having to make adjustments with
others that complicated the task, even with computer-controlled
assistance. He grew in confidence with
each passing minute – confidence that came to have a critical consequence
within minutes.
‘Okay. Get ready for acceleration,’ he warned them,
sighing with relief at having managed the fine attitude corrections.
A dull noise, a subdued
growl, permeated the cabin as the main reaction motor fired up and began to
accelerate them into a different orbit, slowly pressing them all back into
their seats and making Ace feel as if she weighed twenty stone.
Hells bells! she swore to
herself. This must be what happens if
you eat all day long. Now I know what
I’ll feel like on my fortieth birthday.
The diet starts tomorrow!
Cheerful pinging sounds came
as the motor cut out for the present.
The three arcology crew looked and felt unhappy as the microgravity
environment began to affect their sense of balance and poise; Ace revelled as
her invisible body mass vanished, utterly unconcerned with the lack of gravity.
Ah, young Dorothy - worrying about a fifty-per-day bacon butty habit.
"The War Illustrated"
Let us bring up another photograph selection that deals with the aftermath of D-Day, without actually saying that "This was D-Day" because discretion, you know chaps, discretion. Art!
Thank you for pointing out the obvious, Monty. The battle for the beaches was over in the first few hours. What you see here are images from the slightly later advance inland. At top is am M10, a lightly-armoured but heavy-gunned armoured fighting vehicle intended to ambush enemy tanks. Here it is acting as fire-support for infantry. In picture 2 we view a 'Priest' self-propelled gun, one of the various methods used by the Allies to keep artillery up with the tanks.
In picture 3 it's a little difficult to make out, but at port is an Universal Carrier with D-Day landing gear that enabled it to 'wade' through shallow water and onto the beaches. Art!
Finally -
I should have been watching "The Lazarus Project" this past week, but instead have been catching up on "Space 1999", damn me if you do <hangs head in shame> but BUT don't forget that I've not seen these episodes since they were originally broadcast in nineteen s<coughcough>en. Yes yes yes, some of the plots were more cheesy than a wheel of Gorgonzola, yet the special effects were always top-notch. Plus, as an Andersonium production, there were always Things Exploding!
aOoooh, about fifty teratons there, at a guess
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