BOOJUM!: My Enemy's Enemy Is My Fiend

Read It Properly

I did think about having the title be "Once Again Playing A Long Game". No, this is not about an employee taking a long-delayed and thus even more gratifying revenge, it's about The Populous Dictatorship and Ruffia and their relationship. Once again, for the hard of hearing, China is not Ruffia's friend. They have a common enemy, namely South Canada, which is all that unites them, and then only up to a certain point. Art!

That's a Chinese propaganda photo from 1969, when both nations waged a border war along the Ussuri River. They seem to be taking great delight in poking fun at a holey Sinister helmet, which is apt as the Sinisters got their bottom handed to them. I doubt this event is taught in Ruffian history books, as they seem to have a habit of underestimating Asiatic powers they share borders with <coughcoughRussoJapaneseWarcoughcough>.

ANYWAY China is playing the long game about Siberia, which they consider to be China Irridenta, stolen from them by naked force at a time when Ruffia was an awful lot more powerful than China. Art!

Dateline 2074

This attitude has a direct bearing on Putinpot's recent unsuccessful visit to The Populous Dictatorship, where he was accompanied by swarms of economic advisers and staff. What he was looking for is what Youtuber "William Spaniel" described as "Ruffia needing a win here" because things back home in Modern-Day Mordor aren't looking at all rosy. Art!

That's Ruffia's GDP after the invasion of Crimea. The projection is that it will accumulate a deficit of at least 1.1% in 2024. Thanks to the Special Idiotic Operation and problems of supplying oil and gas. There is, you see, a synergy of troubles about that latter facto: the Nordstream sabotage; the imposition of a price-cap; and the small matter of Ukraine destroying Ruffian oil refineries. Art!

The towering distillation inferno

Not to mention the halting of petrol exports, and Gazprom's $7 billion loss in 2023.

So Putinpot did, reallllly, need a win here.

HOWEVER - O that word again! - China under Xi has been very annoyed at the Special Idiotic Operation, of which they are barely tolerant at best. Note that they have NOT recognised the supposed-Ruffian acquisitions in the Donbas (Kherson oblast et al), and have stolidly refused to supply anything that could be seen as single-use military. Art!

"Banana Splits" anyone?

What the Ruffians do with their golf-buggies is of course up to them. You cannot consider them to be the pinnacle of military engineering, even if they wear a cope cage.

Here we come to the meat of the matter: "Power Of Siberia 2". Art!

I haven't seen hard figures for this project (for which read I can't be bothered to go look) except to say it would cost billions if not tens of billions, and would take years to construct. If so, why did Putinpot still want a deal with Xi about it? Well, because it would validate him and make him look successful, even if any completion was years away. A deal over this would help to prop up the ruble, which is beginning to slide toward ₽90 to the dollar again.

But Xi doesn't need to make a deal, unlike the Fun-Sized Foot Fiddler. Not only is China not interested in bankrolling any capital for POS2, they wanted any gas supplied to be at the Ruffian domestic rate. This seems to be what scuppered any possibility of a deal, because China already gets a discounted rate of $4.4 per million BTU. I cannot find a figure for the Ruffian domestic rate, yet rest assured if it's supplied to China at that price, they won't make any profit. Art!

Bunker Grandad seemed to be exceedingly rattled and angry at his recent press conference, perhaps because there was no good news coming out of his May meeting with Xi for him to gloast about. That 'limitless partnership' has very definite inelastic limits, matey. China might have decided to wait longer, until their bezzie mates are really on the uppers and willing to accept any kind of deal as long as it's a deal. How d'you like them apples, Pooty?

Bring on the buckets of popcorn! Art?

These have superior cross-country capability

Now to leap lightly down the stairs and check that laundry!

"Solomon's Pools"

You may have heard of these, Conrad hadn't. They crop up in "Official History Of Australia In The War Of 1914 - 1918 Volume VII", describing the campaign as it headed towards Bethlehem and Jerusalem. Art!

Okay, so what manner of pools are they? Let's get a photograph of the rascals. Art!

No, those aren't people, they're trees. The three pools are reservoirs, originally for supplying Jerusalem with water, and are fed by aqueducts and natural springs, the former bringing in water from the mountain ranges. Which, according to the Ocker history, are extremely wet in winter. Art!

When emptied

With puny human for scale

Don't forget, these reservoirs would have been dug by people wielding nothing more technical than a pick. They excavated 250,000 cubic metres of rock and probably sweated enough to fill each of them several times over.

"The War Illustrated Edition 189"

I'm not going to flay your eyes with extracts about this and "The Great War In Europe". Art!

Here you see the battle of the Falaise Pocket in progress, and it's not going well for the Teutons, as, according to the blurb at the bottom, we are witnessing the results of 1,600 Allied heavy bombers in action. Conrad thinks they're conflating tactical air attack and artillery, because the lines were too close together for a massed heavy bomber attack.

Von Kluge, incidentally, had been full of beans when he took over 7th Army in July, only to become more and more morose and miserable as the truth of the situation became clear. He was visiting a front-line unit in August when his vehicle column came under air attack and he was cut off from his HQ for hours. Herr Schickelgruber, still smarting and partially deaf after the bombing assassination attempt on his life, instantly assumed Von Kluge was trying to defect. VK, who was complicit in allowing conspirators on his staff to conspire, committed suicide.

"City In The Sky"

The Doctor is recruiting a little help in his quest to commit sabotage.

‘Doctor John Smith,’ said the not-human, introducing itself as if at a formal function.

Or inopportune moments, if you were plotting to destroy a planet’s population.

‘If we help you, we get to escape?’ queried one of the nameless workers.

That, reflected the Doctor, was one of the drawbacks of a rigidly heirarchical society: once you were beyond the boundaries of the system, you had no interest in seeing it prevail.

‘I will personally guarantee to relocate you.’ He paused for a moment and carried on as if he was the only person present. ‘I mentioned deserts, didn’t I? Perhaps the Namib is the best place you could settle. Yes, yes, I think so: Namibia.’

Using a hand-held device that irked both Lithoi’s tympanic membranes, the Doctor resonated their bonds into friable rubbish, allowing them to escape the cell with ease.

Once outside, he cautioned them all against over-confidence. Orskan calmly stole the unconscious guard’s collar, armour and helmet, taking care not to get any dihydrogen monoxide on himself: already the guards lower belly scales were beginning to blister and distort where the deadly blast had hit. For a moment the alien felt himself non-plussed when the Gallifreyan stooped to swat the water away with his protective headgear.

Orskan's bought into the plan. His minions? We'll have to wait and see.

I Keep Telling You This And They Keep Proving Me Right

Conrad boldly asserts that the South Canadians would feel much better if they became subjects of the British Crown again, because we have things so much better in This Sceptred Isle. Plus, they cannot stop goggling and speculating and commenting and judging our monarchy, which is a sure sign they miss it. Art!