No! Not The Book Of Almost The Same Name
Nor is this Intro anything to do with "Masters Of The Air", because Conrad isn't especially interested in air warfare, though having mentioned it means we can, indeed, put up a picture to entrap the unwary entice the wondering. Just allow me to rouse Art into a semblance of sentience with this drop-forged steel chisel -
Men In Brown
This does, however - my favourite word again! - permit me to mention the Battle of Britain, and the real thing, not the film. You see, the Luftwaffe were under explicit orders from Herr Schickelgruber NOT to bomb London, unless he gave permission. Which he was not about to do, since he probably suspected (rightly so) that London, Churchill and Bomber Command would have something to say and to about it afterwards. Art!
"Wilbur"? Has to be South Canadian
As you may have guessed, war being chaotic, disorganised and messy, the Luftwaffe did accidentally bomb London, which provoked Ol' Churchie to let loose Bomber Command, who promptly went and bombed Berlin. This in turn embarrassed and humiliated Herr Schickelgruber, who pointed the Luftwaffe at London to do the city in, deliberately this time. Art!
That beast above is the Handley Page Hampden, the kind of bomber in use by the RAF as of August 1940. When Berlin was bombed - do keep up! The British, being clever, innovative and, above all, vengeful, built bigger and better bombers to take war to the Teutons, such as the below. Art!
Avro Lancaster with puny humans for scale
The Lancaster could carry seven tons of explosive frightfulness, as compared to the Hampden's less-than-two, showing the results of technological progress and moving from a two-engined bomber to a four-engined one.
Which brings us to the meat of the matter, the Ukrainian drone attacks on Ruffia's oil infrastructure. Thanks to vlogger "Joe Blogs" for pulling all this together, even though things on the ground mean his info is already out of date after his second, updated vlog.
Okay, the Ukrainians had demonstrated their ability to hit Moscow with drones last year, with Russian anti-aircraft systems doing more damage than the drones themselves. As of January this year they have ramped up long-range drone attacks, to wit: 18th January; 19th January; 21st January; 25th January; 29th January; 31st January; 3rd February; 9th February; 15th February; 5th March; 6th March; 10th March; 12th March. Joe's original count stopped there, but he included another three attacks on his 14th March update, and there have been another three attacks since then. Art!
This is the Lukoil refinery in Nizhny Novgorod burning merrily away. Note the tall structures that the drones aimed for; these are the distillation and 'cracking' towers that are crucial to the refining process, and if they get destroyed the whole refining process comes to a crashing halt.
Nizhny Novgorod is 250 miles east of Moscow, and a total of 712 miles from the Ukrainian border. Ust-Luga, the oil terminal near Saint Petersburg that was hit, is 850 miles from the Ukrainian border. Clearly, the Ukrainians have developed very long-range drones that pack an explosive payload of about 100 pounds. Art!
Samara bonfira
Things are so bad that this news is actually being broadcast on Ruffian state media, a wonderful Electoral Fraud Weekend prezzy for Putinpot, who is probably chewing carpets with rage. Why is this so bad? Because at least four refineries have closed down refining operations due to the damage inflicted, and Ruffia makes more money from exporting refined products than crude (not any longer!). If the refineries shut down, then the oil wells have to stop pumping, and that means the oil already in Siberian pipes 'jellifies', swells, bursts the pipes and breaks the pumps. Ruffian oil production had already been cut by 1 million barrels per day - when they need every ruble they can squeeze out of the industry - and has now been cut by another million B.P.D.
It gets worse! All that destroyed equipment has to be replaced, except it's all sanctioned. The people who would have installed, serviced and maintained it all left Ruffia in 2022. And there's nothing to stop the Ukrainians from hitting a newly-repaired refinery again.
This strategy reveals a real pair of Achilles heels for the Ruffians. These plants are enormous, static, ranged to the inch, currently defenceless and, most tellingly, FULL OF DANGEROUS HIGHLY FLAMMABLE SUBSTANCES. Art!
Game of tiddlywinks, Vlad?
You Know I Like Lists
Only recently I came across a Youtube channel called "Mike's Book Reviews" and had a look at his list of the "10 Best Sci-Fi Books Of All Time". Of course - obviously! - we're not going to look at that list as of today, because that would be boring. No, instead I'm going to go through his list of the "10 Best Dystopian or Post-Apocalyptic Novels" because some I've read and some were new to me, such as this one. Art!
Aha. A quick, non-spoilery Google reveals an idyllic world without conflict (it already sounds boring), hunger, disease or poverty. So there are officially-sanctioned killers who cull the population to keep it from growing too large. Hmmmm. Will check the shelves at the library next time I'm in.
"The War Illustrated"
Yes, back to that trust content-creator, which has been absent these pages a while. Art!
Plans are afoot, involving preserved meats. The youthful yet shrewd Billy Barakan is thinking aloud.
‘Do you play chess?’ asked Billy.
His old man had carved the playing pieces for half a dozen sets of the
game by hand, from coral, from soapstone, from driftwood; and he’d insisted it
was an excellent preparation for life with all it’s allegories and analogies.
‘Why yes! Two-dimensional, three
dimensional and four-dimensional. Are
you an afficionado?’
Billy raised an eyebrow at the unfamiliar word.
‘An affunkshondo, no. But my dad
explained about the game, and how you play it, and how the good players are
able to think ten or twenty moves ahead.’
Doctor Smith didn’t say anything, merely rocking back and forth on his
heels, a sly twinkle in his eyes.
‘I reckon you could think a couple of hundred moves ahead of anyone
else, Doctor Smith, with ten games on the go at once. You got an end-game for us yet?’
The Doctor faced Billy Barakan and felt a touch of hubris. A touch of hubris, and another feeling. Righteous justification, perhaps. Homo Sapiens – a redoubtable species! No wonder he felt so fond of them.
‘Billy, you must think me cold-blooded – whoops, no, bad analogy with our current opponents! You
must think I’m a calculating rascal.’
With rare candour, the Doctor cleared his throat, drove the tip ofhis
umbrella into the soggy ground of New Eucla and confessed.
Motivation forthcoming!
The Exciting Life Of Icelanders
Conrad strongly maintains that Iceland is made up of all the unused bits of Planet Earth that were left over, and for a country named after frozen water, they certainly have an awful lot of volcanoes. Art!
The small town of Grindavik, which was incautious enough to be founded close to the volcanic vents, has already been evacuated.
"I can't go to school because volcano" is not an excuse often heard.
Finally -
Edna is doing her Despondent Dog impression and I need to take a constitutional stroll into Lesser Sodom to see if there's any remaindered drumsticks.
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