I Mean "Art" The Muse
Not the blog's pet troglodyte. There I was in the kitchen, putting breakfast together, and wondering how to phrase today's Intro - mighty are my morning struggles - when I had a lightbulb moment and Jim Carrey came to the rescue. Thom Yorke was in the running but he can now take second place. An honourable second place, mind. Art!
This cuts both ways. If you're not familiar with the film, then it stars Jim Carrey as Fletcher Reede, a very successful South Canadian lawyer, whom is fated to tell nothing but the truth for a whole 24 hours. You can see where this is going from the two words "lawyer" and "lying" and his life falls apart over the space of a single day. Art!
The name 'Fletcher' comes from those whose occupation it was to add feathers to arrows. It's more commonly used as a surname. I'm feeling generous so we'll let this trans-Atlantic anomaly ride.
Okay, let us now wheel the business entity "B F Borgers" onto the stage. I doubt you'll have heard of them unless you move in accountancy and audit circles in business, which is not, frankly, the kind of circles that generate excitement. Let me illustrate how they used to advertise themselves:
Do you know, I can't find a marque for them. Yes, "used", bolded because it's past tense. Let me dig a little - Art!
Sorry for all the white space, I should have Snipped not Copied.
ANYWAY BFB as a business were fined $12 million by the Securities & Exchange Commission, who act as the sheriff amongst the South Canadian financial institutions. Benjamin F. Borgers himself was hit with a $2 million dollar fine, and, get this, the firm has been permanently banned from ever doing business as an accountancy firm again.
Why have they been so heavily hammered?
Well, because the SEC investigated 1,500 filings the firm made over the course of two years, and found that they had been a LIAR LIAR trouserware conflagration sufferers in all cases. Some were merely full of incompetency and mistakes, but most were cases where their clients had paid to be given a 'clean' audit without any work being done. O dear. Art!
This, as you may be dimly aware, is very bad news for Borgers, whom I keep mis-typing as 'Bolger', I think because of that character from "The Hobbit" whom I'm not sure I can name because it might be body-shaming. Art!
"Fatty heard the dinner gong and feared he might miss the entrèe"
ANYWAY it's also very bad news for their clients, because said clients now have to re-audit using a proper, reputable chartered accountancy firm, not some fly by night financial fiddler.
Guess who was perfectly happy with the 'sham audit mill' (the SEC's cruel words, not mine). That's right, "Trump Media & Technology Management". Whose sole asset is "Truth Social". Now they've retained "Semple Marshall & Cooper", who have come back with re-audit figures that are truly awful. Not only have they confirmed 2023's losses of $58 million for TS, they listed the Q1 results for 2024 as making $750,000 in revenue. This would mean a profit for 2024 of $3 million. This is actually down from the $4 million of 2023
HOWEVER - in letters six feet tall and flashing day-glo orange - in that same quarter TS lost $320 million. So, it lost 457 times more than it made. Art!
The stock price immediately fell by 6%. Oops, and also Tee Hee!
Nor is that all. That fickle fate fairy whom blitzed Fletcher with The Truth seems to have been wantonly waving her wand o'er the management at TMTG, because Dog Buns! do they have serious confessions to make. Art!
Fail Fail
"There can be no assurances that TMTG will not also fail". !
If the Flabby Farting Felonious Fraudster catches wind of this he'll probably explode. I doubt he's familiar with "Liar Liar" as being so afflicted would probably cause him to explode. Just knowing that his stock fell 6% risks him exploding. There seems to be a theme there, doesn't there?
Further Of Project Icarus
I used the 'Endeavour' model of interstellar robot probe yesteryon to illustrate both an design alternative to the 'Pegasus' model and how designers needed to protect against anything hitting the delicate bits of the craft. The iteration I used was quite sleek, with streamlined fuel tanks, which begs the question as there's no atmosphere to require lessened wind resistance. There is another design I wanted to bring up. Art!
Slightly less risible
Thank You Steve
One of the benefits of having a mind like a dustbin as big as Saint Paul's is that nothing is ever truly lost, and random perturbations in the mind can throw up all sorts of interesting, obscure and frankly bizarre nuggets of information. For example - Art!
This is the first in the series, where a quartet of horrid children drag their dog along on very risky doings that ought to get the RSPCC involved. For all that, Conrad read it decades ago, and remembers that they had to holiday away from their normal resort of Polzeath.
You know your hair-splitting pedantic blogger. Art!
Polzeath. It's real. Not a bad recollection from 55 years ago if you ask me.
I can't remember a single thing about the treasure, though. Old age and gin.
"City In The Sky"
The Doctor, aided by three rogue Lithoi, is prowling around their baseship, anticipating getting up to mischief. And then some.
Orskan looked
at the not-human with surprise, and his two minions passed by before he
gathered his wits. Sabotage? In the Commissary? Surely Physics or the baseship’s drive plant
would be better targets!
The Commissary level was split into two by
the walkway, which was bounded on each side by a low barrier at ankle height,
and the lift-shafts stood halfway down the walkway. On the left side of the walkway an open-plan
dining area sported at least a hundred low tables and forms, most in a
non-descript maze, a few behind another barrier. To the right was the galley and a smaller
number of communal dining tables.
Every Lithoi head from this shift of
diners, perhaps forty aliens across the cavernous floor, swivelled slowly to regard the intruders with
a rearing motion of the spine and head.
‘Surprise!’ beamed the Doctor, as dozens
of laser collars directed towards him.
They didn’t bother him: at this range the beams would go right through
him, hit the baseship hull, reflect internally and destroy the entire
Commissary area. A few of the closer
lasers might even breach the hull itself.
‘I’m the Galloping Gourmet come to inspect your kitchen.’
Slowly, with all the pace of sedated
molluscs, the Lithoi began to contort themselves away from their tables.
Spoiling their digestion. They deserve it, the dastards.
"The War Illustrated Edition 189"
Just remember that this edition is dated September 15th and thanks to censorship and the technology of the time, the events photographed are from much earlier in August. Art!
This is one of the magazine's centre-page spreads, where they collate a montage of photographs. The picture at upper port is enlarged for your viewing convenience. There's not a lot to say about it, save that it's British infantry advancing through the recently liberated French town of Vassy. Once again no kind of dispersion in the infantry column, so they're not remotely fussed about air attack or being shelled, so the front line has probably moved waaay further forward. Art!
There's Vassy, about 40 miles from the D-Day beaches. So a fair bit inland.
Finally -
I am actually engaging in combat during the January/February Operational Turn of "The Great War In Europe", which is a first. All too often I set up all the counters for a strategy game and then - do nothing. Not this time! Art?
As suspected, playing a game teaches how it works. The combat rules aren't too onerous, which is good, as there are so many combats to resolve. It's taken about two hours to work down the front lines to where the British and French armies meet. I thought you'd like to know.
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