Well That Escalated

Another Bookmarked Fave

That has been sitting around for months and months, which is now getting used and binned in my clean-up of the browser.  Give me a silver star and fifty brownie points.

Conrad wearing his happy face

     This tale features the Original Poster and a bit of a bottomhole he called 'Gary'.  Actually strike that, he was a lot of a bottomhole, following in the footsteps of his equally bottomhole mother.  It begins with a shave and ends up in prison, so yes, things did escalate.

     Gary - probably his real name because OP grew to actively loathe him - had quite a track record as a bottomhole before OP got to know him.  He consistently ordered the most expensive item on the menu when dining out in a group, then tried to have the bill split equally, which is really not the done thing.  Just not cricket.  Art!

     As OP later learned, lovable Ol' Gazza had a habit of 'long-term loaning' other peoples DVDs and CDs, which the rest of us know better as 'stealing'.  He had a side-gig, if you can call it that, of being a squatter whom the landlords needed to pay to leave their property. 

     I hope you appreciate the word picture I'm crafting here.

     Things came to a point when a distant relative of Gazza's contracted cancer.  Gazza shaved his hair off to show solidarity or stupidity, possibly both.  He managed to nag a couple of his mates to shave their heads but most of them didn't want anything to do with being bald by choice.

     Then he turned up at OP's apartment, assuming that OP would go under the razor .....

    OP wasn't having anything to do with it.  Words were exchanged, the principal one being 'bottomhole', and lovable Ol' Gazza betook himself away.

     Cut to a party several days later, where OP overdid it and crashed out on a spare bed of the hosts, only to be shaken from his drunken stupor by worried onlookers.

     Gazza, you see, had also turned up at the party, trusty electric razor in hand, found OP and attacked his hair, also removing an eyebrow in the process.
     OP was Not Very Happy, in spades.  He called the cops, to whom lovable Ol' Gazza boasted about the hair-cuttery skullduggery -

     - and got taken away in handcuffs for assault.  Art!

Not a fashion statement

     You might think this had gone far enough.

     WRONG!

     Lovable Ol' Gazza's family rang OP constantly, harassing him about having his bestie charged with assault, which OP's now bald head reminded him about every time he looked in a mirror.  Chief harasser was Gazza's mother, whom, had she but been a stick of rock, would have had "BOTTOMHOLE" all the way through.  She turned up at OP's apartment and physically attacked him, causing neighbours to call the police.

     Both ended up in court.  Lovable Ol' Gazza got probation and community service and once the terms had been served, immediately left town, never to be seen again.  No jail time, because - you may be ahead of me here - he was on permanent medication to mediate his behaviour, except he'd not been taking the tablets.

     Breeder Of Gazza was less fortunate, as further investigation revealed she had taken 'self-defence' classes (quote marks as what she did was about as far from it as possible), which did the opposite of impressing the judge.  She got six months in prison and had to pay all OP's medical bills, lost work hours, and - inevitable in South Canada - emotional trauma which amounted to $10,000 or £7,690 in proper money.  Art!

     

Trouble with locks

Thank You "The Daily Beast"

Here's one of their miscellaneous collections of cheap tat that crop up as an advert bar in between news items.  Art!

One for our Ruffian readers

     There's no great mystery about these items, they're for storing eggs.  You'd have to add a lockable cover in Moscow, mind, and an armed guard.  Art!

     This one has already been identified - it's that peculiar golfing implement.  Conrad cannot be bothered to recall how it's used for which purpose, as golf is a stunningly dull occupation.  Art!

     This is, of course - obviously! - a hand-cranked Veebelfetzer, made by the finest craftsmen in the back alleys of Istanbul - <cheats and clicks on the item> well I wasn't far off, it's a device for sharpening the teeth of chainsaws.

Conrad Drones On

When they perform the autopsy on Putin, the words "Special Idiotic Operation" will be found graven on his shrivelled little heart.  

     You see, he has carried out a hugely expensive and destructive war on Ukrainian territory, when Ruffia has a series of huge, complex, defenceless Achilles' heels, exemplified in this feed.  Art!

     The thing about all these refineries and storage depots - you may be ahead of me here - is that they have vast quantities of flammable product being stored or processed on-site.  A single £400 quadcopter drone with an RPG warhead could cause immense damage, never mind Ukraine's much larger drones that pack an enormous explosive payload.

     What makes this a dilemma for the Ruffians is that their air defence, or what remains of it, cannot possibly cover all these vulnerable, flammable sites.  Especially not with Finland extending the NATO border to be secured by another 800 miles.

     What makes it even worse is that the spare parts to replace damaged or destroyed plant don't exist any more, if they ever did in the first place; two years of sanctions will do that to an industry created, built and run by Western companies.  Art!

It's an ill wind -

     Members of the Ruffian Fire Service must be watching this aerial campaign with a touch of bittersweet about it.  Ukraine is ensuring they cannot be mobilised, true, yet their job is dangerous.  And they only earn about two-thirds of Conrad's salary.

     Frying tonight!  And tomorrow!  And the day after that!

"City In The Sky"

Ace and a couple of the Arcology crew are having an intellectual swipe at a bit of a problem.

     ‘Water.  It seems to be deadly poisonous to them.  See if any local streams or rivers have been dammed or diverted or if weather patterns changed to keep rainclouds away from a particular spot.  Animals.  If wild animals steer clear of humans then I bet they’d run a mile to keep away from weird-smelling alien lizards Ah – food.  If they’ve been living here for decades then they must have to eat.  Any evidence of crops being nicked?’

     Christos smacked Istvan on the back, hard enough to be heard.

     ‘Ace!  If it weren’t a demeaning and misogynistic throwback, I’d kiss your hand!’  He dialled up a number on his Tab without delay.  ‘Solly!  Solly, get over to Communications, right now!  I don’t care if you were asleep or what time it is!  Now!  Nownownow!’

 

     Solly, the lanky and humourless Nigerian biologist that Ace had encountered days before, loomed as large and humourless as before in the Communications shack.  His eyes were bloodshot, he yawned a lot and he looked at her with more interest than he should have.

     ‘Solly, sit yourself down here.  This is Ace.  She’s come up with a killer paradigm to help us track down the aliens.  Yes, the aliens.  Now, what do you know about migratory installative selection?’

     I don't know if that's a real thing or comes from the author's fecund imagination.

Conrad Drones Further

Don't worry, no pictures of a pillar of fire.  Art!

     Your Humble Yet Curmudgeonly Scribe has no idea what this drivel is about, but I bet "The Daily Beast" is covering it.  Really, the South Canadians ought to just beg for admission into the Commonwealth.  Then they could enjoy a real Royal Family, instead of having to make do with parvenus like the Flabby Fraudster or tinfoil-beanie wearing bumbletucks like that Kennedy character.

Finally -

I finally finished watching "For A Few Dollars More" last night, and had forgotten all the plot as it's been decades since my ocular vision units had beheld it.  Terrific soundtrack, mind.  And we never did discover who the anonymous chap shot dead in the distance in the first scene was.