You May Be Wondering What On Earth Is Going On
First the blog discovers Romanian as a suitably freaky caption language for BOOJUM! and then abruptly switches to what appears to be verbiage from Scandinavia.
Well, duh. Let me translate for you: "An anniversary for the ages". I can swing this as military history, rather than Politics or Current Affairs. What am I referring to? Art!
Sweden, you see, has dropped generations of neutrality and formally joined NATO.
Here an aside. Yes, already! NATO, not NAFO. The former is the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, the latter is the North Atlantic Fella Organisation. NATO prevents Mordor from crossing it's borders, whilst NAFO pokes merciless fun at the orcs. The Ruffian state lacks any collective sense of humour so it finds both organisations equally reprehensible. Crimea river, Putinpot. He was probably counting on the Orbanazi (Hungary's proto-dictator) to halt Sweden's accession, except that repellent were-toad has been served notice by the rest of Europe and turned into a milksop. Art!
This was the most satirical map I could find. It's not wrong, mind, because the Baltic is indeed now a NATO lake with the only non-NATO shoreline that of Ruffia's tiny exclave of Konigsberg - another five years in the gulag for not using the Ruffian name!
During the Cold War years the Swedes had a large conscript army, which they mostly got rid of when Sinister Union 1.0 went away. Despite being a neutral country, their armed forces had only the best kit that money could buy, and a major defence industry in Bofors, whose products graced both camps in the Second Unpleasantness. Art!
Bofors 40 mm anti-aircraft gun
(Since they're Australian they probably stole it)
One of their most iconic Cold War - or "Kalla Kriget" in Swedish - vehicles was, of course - obviously! - the "S"-tank, which famously had no turret. No! not like Ruffian tanks - the S-tank was designed that way. To Conrad that makes it more akin to a tank-destroyer or assault-gun, but what do I know. Art!
Behold the Stridvagn 103, with puny human driver for scale. You can see how low the profile is, and yes, they could aim the gun by manoeuvring the whole tank because of excellent Swedish engineering skills. Why they would name it after one of the most lethal stretches of water in This Sceptred Isle is completely obvious. Art!
One area the Swedes did not neglect after the Cold War ended was aircraft design. This is the Swedish 'Gripen', a steal at $85 million per unit, and an aircraft Ukraine is casting desirous eyes over. It's a lot cheaper than an F-22 or f-35 and costs about 5% as them to be maintained over the years, and smarter people than I (there are some) have opined that it would be an excellent aircraft for the Ukes to acquire.
Then there are the Swedish submarines. Art!
That's a Gotland class in the lower picture. These puppies are quite small, unlike the ballistic missile bruisers that Perfidious Albion or South Canada have in service, which means they are perfectly suited for the shallow waters of the Baltic. What is more, or what is less, according to your standpoint, is that they are practically silent when operating. In a major fleet exercise with the South Canadian Navy, these sneaky-peeky submersible hid underneath their Red Force opponents undetected. Then sank them. Only pretend! which will not be the case were the Ruffian Baltic Fleet ever to mount a hostile sortie.
What was that drivel about Putinpot being a 4D chess master? That bafune couldn't even manage a game of draughts against a five-year old.
Talking Of Water
And a means to travel through it, I thought I'd bring up another abandoned island, this one being within the environs of South Canada. Art!
This is Fort Carroll, a naval fort in the middle of the Patapsco River in Maryland, which was constructed to keep the seaways protected as of 1847. It did such a good job that it was obsolete by 1921 and the South Canadian Army abandoned it. You may have heard of the designer: Robert E. Lee.
It was bought out by a private individual in 1958, with big plans for it, none of which ever materialised, and it remains as seen above, derelict and slowly eroding away. Art!
To See Ourselves As Others See Us
Conrad came across an interesting map on Twitter - none of that "X" nonsense here - that had been promoted with the incorrect assertion that it was written for Poles in the British armed forces during the Second Unpleasantness. Art!
It is, so the debunker stated, a map from the Cold War, to enable Poles to pronounce our palimpsestic placenames with confidence. Don't you just love how they mangle the proper spellings? "HEISTYNZ" is so obviously "Hastings" I shouldn't really need to point it out. Less clear is "TANBRYDZ-LELZ" which I'm guessing is "Tunbridge Wells"? We can all agree that "ISTBON" is the ancient and noble burgh of "Eastborne". I will leave you to disport yourself for at least two or three minutes wrestling with Polish and placenames.
"City In The Sky"
We appear to be down to only two survivors in the battle between the denizens of New Eucla and the Lithoi's lethal hunting drones.
‘We’re fighting a rather one-sided battle. I’m afraid I possibly miscalculated,’ stated
Doctor Smith. ‘Also, a third party seems
to have intervened. If I didn’t know
better I’d say the dingoes were here driving bulldozers – Ace? Can you hear me? Hello?’
Billy would have shaken his head if the constricted space and
miscellaneous sharp edges hadn’t made any such gesture risky. Doctor Smith might be right about alien
invaders, but there was no denying he was mad as a box of frogs!
To the Doctor, mystery thunder without any accompanying lightning meant one thing: explosive force administered to Planet Earth. Initially he’d been inclined to dismiss it as another Lithoi plot, but after the flying eye kept right on destroying property he’d become less sure. Why carry out two types of attack when only one was needed?
For one thing, the thunder had a suspiciously regular rhythm. BOOM boom boom BOOM, repeated with
pauses. His flippant remark about dingoes
with bulldozers had only been partly a joke, since anything able to impact the
ground and create such a resonance would be immense, easily several tons at the
very least.
‘Doctor Smith,’ whispered Billy.
‘Doctor – Doctor! Come and see!’
From his hiding place inside the giant pile of rubbish, Billy saw a
massive grey-green pillar of flesh descend onto the marshy roadway of New
Eucla, stamp it’s stubby taloned toes into the ground and move onward. He had a strange suspicion about what was
making the noise and the movement.
Where is Mick Dundee when you need him?
JUSTICE PREVAILS!
Small earthquake in Chile kinda style, nothing earth-shattering. Welcome nonetheless.
You may remember last year that the Crooked House pub was burnt down in an arson attack, and the owners demolished it two days later. Blatantly crooked behaviour, either to get the insurance money or clear the land for selling it or putting up a sportswear warehouse. Art!
Before, when it was intact. This will be the pub within the next three years as South Staffordshire council have ordered the owners to rebuild it to it's previous condition. This is schadenfreude served with lemon and a sprinkling of sugar, as the crims will doubtless be out of pocket and will try to wriggle out of this, loudly whining about how unfair it all is. Suck it and see. Perhaps they'll be forced to rebuild it at another location in South Staffordshire - Four Ashes?
Finally -
What unbelievably disgustrous weather! February seems determined to go out in a sulky pout. Well, it can be as grey and wet as it wants, that doesn't stop tomorrow from being PAYDAY! No, wallet, don't look so sad. I've already bought all the books I intended.
Although -
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