When Inflate Is Not Great

Stand By For Fraction!

Here's a rip-roaring rollercoaster ride of sheer adrenaline, as we drive our light-ship into the gaping maw of a super-massive black hole -

     Well, actually not.  None of the above is true, although it does sound desperate and exciting, doesn't it?  In reality we're going to be trawling figures and percentages, which doesn't sound thrilling enough to incite anyone to read any further.  Also - Art!

Cherry flies!

     I did warn you we weren't finished with "Planet Terror".  This is one of the more unbelievable scenes - yes yes yes I know we're talking about a film featuring homicidal virus-zombies that disintegrate into pus-filled sacks, as if that were believable - work with me, people, work with me!  Art?

     This is Cherry's method of propulsion, which in real life would have cut her in two from the hips down when the high-explosive shell detonated.  Note that she's using an under-barrel grenade launcher, which accommodates a single shell.  Art!

     She manages to fire a second shell, without bothering to reload, and at no time as she soars over the intervening walls do we see her reload; most certainly not, she's too busy windmilling her arms about to - stay upright?

     There you go, I think we're now done with PT.  Never can tell, though.

     Okay!  Time to lambast Modern-day Mordor and it's many, many economic woes.  Data taken from "Inside Russia", "Joe Blogs" and "Prune60", mixed into an unholy melange by Yours Truly.  Art!

     No.  This is a slum in Costa Rica - the Ruffians wouldn't be able to afford metal.  Why do I have this picture up?  

GLOBAL STANDING: Because Konstantin of IR, whom I will dub 'Big K' from now on, drew a comparison with Ruffia's economy and a tsunami, in that the Special Idiotic Operation resulted in devastating long-term consequences that are now, after a 20 month delay, really hitting home.  For all of 2022 and most of 2023 the official Ruffian line was that things were not only good, they were getting better.  Putinpot claimed that the Ruffian economy was #4 in the world, which makes me wonder what he was smoking and is it legal?  The World Bank and the IMF lapped this up, as they just take on trust whatever figures they are given.

     In the cold cruel real world that the rest of us live in, Ruffia stands at #73, alongside Costa Rica.  That's how their economy compares globally in Per Capita terms.  In terms of national interest rates, at 16% they are similar to those global titans Haiti and Mozambique.  Art!

     A slum in Mozambique.  At least they have sunshine and blue skies.  Ruffians have Putin and -

     I'll get back to you on that.

INFLATION: This would make a couple of blogs all on it's own.  In April 2023 the Ruffians just arbitrarily deducted 9% from their national rate of inflation, because it annoyed the Little Tsar and he threw his toys out of the pram.  Or similar.  Well, the rate of inflation still kept on growing in 2023, until it hit 7.5%.  Art!

     Guess what?  NO! they haven't found Lord Lucan.  The inflation rate jumped from 8.3% in May to 8.46% in June and to 9.25% in the first week of July, which data is too soon to be reflected on the chart above.  This is despite the interest rate being likely to increase by 100 base points at least, to 17% or even 18% later in July.  There is speculation that a jump to 20% is possible, and with this not being instantly rubbished, it's not out of the question.  

     Conrad, as a rule of thumb, usually adds 10% onto the official Ruffian figures as they seem to be a fantasy anyway.  Art!

LABOUR: NOTE CORRECT SPELLING.  Thank you.  Before Covid, Ruffian unemployment statistics stood at 4.5%.  After the War That Cannot Be Called A War began, this began to drop, and now stands at 2.6%.  Art!

It may be too small to resolve, but that legend lower port reads "Federal State Statistics Service" meaning these are the official Ruffian data.  This  problem has been highlighted by Elvira Nabiullina, head of the Ruffian Central Bank, as being one of the reasons the Ruffian economy cannot grow any further.  Art!

"Then I grabbed his lapels and told him -"

     I did not realise, but Elly resigned her position in protest at the economic consequences of the SMO.  The Little Tsar had other plans: he forced her to retract the resignation because otherwise it was window or tea.  She has worked prodigies in propping up the Ruffian economy but even she cannot make bricks from straw alone.

     ANYWAY Big K. delivered concise details on labour shortages in specific areas of employment, because as an accountant detailed data are what he lives and breathes (apart from food, water and air).  Art!

OVERALL:  The Ruffian Academy Of Sciences - not MI6 or the CIA - declared that there is a labour deficit of 4.8 million workers in Modern-day Mordor.  People are still leaving Ruffia and of course still being killed in Ukraine, so this is not going to improve anytime before 2034.

IT SPECIALISTS: 1,000,000 currently missing.  These are the people with transferrable skills who immediately left Soviet Union 2.0 when the Special Idiotic Operation began.  They're never coming back so that figure will not improve.

MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX: 160,000 currently missing.  This is despite 520,000 being transferred-in (doubtless absent agreement because, serfs, right?).  This shortfall is predicted to be 260,000 by 2025, as stated by -

     The Deputy Ruffian Prime Minister.  Once again, not the CIA or MI6.

CAR AND VEHICLE MECHANICS: 500,000 currently missing.  Doubtless a lot are now sunflower-fodder in Ukraine.  Art!

DOCTORS AND PARAMEDICS: 92,000 currently missing.  From personal observation, Big K. said that a lot are now breezing about in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, and once again these are official figures from the Ruffian Ministry Of Health Care.

THE POLIS: Sorry, lapsed into Scottish there, hang on -

POLICE: 152,000 currently missing.  We've covered this already, thanks to a BBC article. The essentials are that police are quitting to do other, far easier jobs, that pay as much or more.  Those that remain are having to deal with an enormously increased workload that primarily features neighbours dobbing each other in for being 'Ukrainian spies'.

     The Sveriges Flagga is frequently a source of conflict.

     I did have at least as much data to present, but - we'll come back to this in a Part Two.  I bet you can hardly wait.

Roy Cross Was The Boss

You may not know the name, and neither did Conrad, to be honest, but his artwork used to grace the boxes of Airfix kits.  Thus, any male resident of the UK between the ages of 70 and 20 ought to be familiar with his craft.  Art!

     This is the box art for a Short Sunderland Mark III flying boat, which was a monstrous aircraft made by Short Brothers in Northern Ireland.  It bristled with guns and was pregnant with bombs and depth charges.  I believe it was so large it had a galley aboard to serve the crew during long operations.  Art!

     

The beast, assembled

     Roy's job was to tempt you, the modeller, to buy this kit, even if your principal interest was 17th century naval warfare, because "It looked so cool!".  

"City In The Sky"

We're coming to an end with mud and blood aplenty.  Who knew that the final resting place of the 'Branson Mansion' would be a swampy bit of Australian outback?

     More broken structural parts began to collapse and fall into the sphere’s interior, accompanied by a profundo shrieking that co-ordinated precisely with the jerking, grating progress of Arc One downwards as the exterior view changed and fell below the horizon.  Once more, the sphere’s occupants suffered casualties.

     Instead of the smashing, bashing, fatal bloodbath expected and dreaded for so long, Arcology One’s end came amidst a shallow lagoon of mud, a gentle liquid cushion that slowed the final landing and ensured that the sphere’s dislocation and distortion resulted in the fewest number of casualties.  In decades to come a small but regular pilgrimage took place to see where their ancestors had landed, on a baked and barren plain scattered with rusting remnants of the twenty-first century, and amid the battered skeleton of a twenty-first century orbital home.  Eventually, thanks to popular pressure,  the Reconstituted Antipodean Government put up a broadcasting plaque that inspired those of the Nerva generation.

     In the here-and-now, feeling genuine Earth gravity meant less than smelling and breathing in Earth air.  Holed, breached, sheared and split in a hundred places, Arcology One allowed it’s crew to inhale what they had never experienced – real, whole, unfiltered air. 

     ‘Ah – we’re down!’ said Davy, so quietly that only he heard. 

     ‘WE’RE DOWN!’ he shouted, splintering apart his wicker cradle, punching it into pieces at the cost of cut knuckles and bleeding palms.  ‘WE’RE DOWN AND ALIVE!’

     Yes, you are.  Courtesy of whom?

Oh Dear.  How Sad.  Never Mind.

I think that was a quote from "It Ain't Half Hot, Mum", which I was never very fond of, for who knows what reasons.  Which has little or nothing to do with our next picture, bar the sentiment.  Art!

     Were the words 'short', 'tiny', 'teeny', 'elevator-shoes' or 'balding' in there?  Because then there's nothing to complain about.

     And besides, who cares.  Not I!