Moneyless Misery

How It's Going

Your Humble Scribe is interested in how DJ Tango's 'Trump Media & Technology Group' share value is going, because towards the end of last week it was recovering <loud boohs!>.  Trouble is, the South Canadian stock markets are at least 5 hours behind us here in the Allotment Of Eden, and as I'm typing this at noon, they won't be open for another two hours.  So no up to date info yet.  Art!

     

Disney's business model

     No matter, we can still fall back on that most reliable of business entities, Disney, whom I am beginning to suspect are in fact a money-laundering operation.  Recall that Conrad went through 'Box Office Mojo' earlier this year and worked out they had lost AT LEAST a billion dollars this year.

     Well, thanks to a positively gloating Ryan Kinel, of "Ryan Kinel Outpost', we now have yet more evidence of the Throw-Wheelbarrows-Of-Cash-Into-The-Volcano business model.  You see, the United Kingdom tax information about "The Little Mermaid" was released last week, and -

     It's bad.  Art!

     You see, in order to get tax breaks, any studio filming in the UK has to release detailed info about their budget, which makes the suits grit their teeth in frustration, as they like to keep any bad financials hidden as much as possible for as long as possible.  In order to qualify for $60 million in rebates, Disney put up the cold hard numbers about TLM's box office.

     Overall Box Office Take Globally = $570 million.  Great!  Hooray!  A winner!

     Except no.

     The rule-of-thumb for these figures is that the studios get back 1/2 of the BO total, so $285 million.  Still a lot of money, right?  

     Wellllllll yes, but the true cost of the film's production as visible in the UK tax forms, was $355 million.  This is a jaw-dropping amount of money, because even with the $60 million rebate, that's still $295 million in expenses.  Conrad just dug up his old notebook, where in November the provisional budget for TLM was estimated at between $250 and $300 million, far short of the mark.  Art!

Ryan.  Not gloating at all.

     Soooooo - it actually lost $10 million?  Those cheers are a bit muted now.

     No, because as Ryan points out, the tax information omits the Marketing & Publicity budget, which adds another $140 million onto the expenses.  Thus, more like $150 million in the red.  Ooopsie.

     This unpleasant revelation comes on top of last week's exposé about how much "The Acolyte" cost to produce, at $230 million, once again thanks to the UK's bothersome - in the eyes of Hollywood - open-source tax data.

     Nor is that all.  Remember 'Concord' the FPS computer game?  Art!

Spacesuit for preggoes?

     Info from insiders has it that Firewalker, the studio developing 'Concord', burned through $200 million in getting it to 'alpha version', at which point Sony stepped in and threw in $200 million, seeing it as a potential franchise as big as 'Starry Wartz'.  Plus, as Ryan points out, expending $? to acquire Firewalker.

     $400 million for a game that died on it's bottom in a week.  I wonder how many Sony executives will be 'moving on to spend more time with their family'?

     Birdsweat!  I got an update on the Farting Felon's stock prices.  Art?

     It has recovered in value, curses.  Mind you, it was retailing at $75 per share when floated, so it's down to 20% of the original value, and people are now able to sell off tranches of shares should they wish to.  The risk in holding on in hopes that the price increases is that it plummets instead.

     O and who's this at the back of the parade, looking rather battered?  Why none other than our old friend the ruble, looking very shabby indeed.  Art!

     As Conrad rather snarkily put it on Twitter, the ruble is now in danger of reaching the Toilet-Paper Tipping Point, where the currency has less value than a sheet of toilet paper.  Single-ply toilet paper.  It seems the Ruffian Central Bank no longer has the liquid funds to swoop in and buy up rubles, in order to avoid the dreaded TPTP.  What a shame.

     Conrad wonders if the Ruffians still use the kopek, which must have been rendered extinct by inflation and devaluation.  Art!

A Bolshevik kopek featuring the Imperial Tsarist eagle.
No, it doesn't make sense to me, either.

What's In A Word?

As you ought to recall, Darling Daughter (and Quiet Tom)  were up visiting last week, which gave Conrad a chance to touch base about horror novels she had read, as this is one of her favourite genres.  I taught her well.

     ANYWAY because Conrad is getting on, and has the ghosts of a thousand gin snifters echoing through his mind, there were a couple of problems in transcribing what DD recommended.  Art!

     "Was it 'Barrier Gates' or 'Barrier Gaze'?" I enquired, about Mister Tingle's latest opus.

     "Bury Your Gaze", enlightened DD.

     What she meant was "Bury Your Gays", which I think is a reference to how modern horror, in film or written form, has moved on from killing off the sole black character as Victim Number One, and instead now preys on anyone with the merest tinge of pink about them.  Conrad is not that well-versed in contemporary horror tropes to attack or defend this position.  Interesting idea, mind.

"The Road To Tunis" By Alan Moorehead

This is a note I made of a Tweet published by 'African Stalingrad', whom is an ex-British Army officer who specialises in the military history of Tunisia in the Second Unpleasantness.  Art!

     Hmmmmm there is no such book.  There is, however - our first time meeting this word today - a South Canadian publication of his epic "Desert Trilogy" which is called "The March To Tunis", which Ol' Army may have confabulated.

     Moorehead died forty-one years and one day ago.  He was merely a good journalist, but when he became a war correspondent he absolutely nailed it to the nailed it.  He had a sharp eye, a nose for a story, excellent descriptive skills and was very shrewd to boot.  He put himself in harm's way both deliberately and accidentally, such conduct being necessary for a war correspondent at the time.  Art!

What A Disgustrous Day

Eleven and a half hours ago, when Conrad peered from behind the Sekrit Layr's curtains to see what kind of a day it was going to be, it was going to be wet.  Very wet.  The rains have not ceased since that glimpse into a raddled grey landscape, so much so that I drove to Lesser Sodom instead of walking - which would have been more akin to swimming.  Art!

"New Musik" are the band

     Ah yes, New Musik.  I wonder what happened to them, because we're talking obscure bands from the Eighties here.  Conrad remembers as he was there at the time.

Finally -

I had better seize the day, since there's not much of it left to get a grip on.  I need to try and make a bit of shortcrust pastry for the shell for a Tomato Pie, except the recipe calls for a 9" tin and I've only got a 7" one.  Nor did the Co-Op stock any foil 9" pie plates, and we don't have any china plates that could stand in, either.  I guess muddle-through is the order of the day.

     Chin chin!

Conrad's Concatenation Of Congruences

Every Word True

Well, mostly true.  You see, for this Intro we have a tale of MalCom, our patented trademark portmanteau version of 'Malicious Compliance', in a tale told on Youtube via Reddit.

     Before then, however, Conrad would like to take you back several decades, when he worked as an Archaeological Assistant at Greater Manchester Archaeological Unit, which probably sounds a lot more impressive than it actually was.  Art!

     I believe this is the Deansgate dig site, not the Castlefield one, which seems to be absent in GMAU's archives.  Still, it gives you a good idea of what happens on an archaeological dig site, with people carefully taking down the overburden, painstakingly excavating any finds and documenting everything with cameras.

     When I worked there, there were pre-fabs that housed the Finds workers, who assessed what had been sent over from the dig site, usually pottery, which might be plain earthenware or the far more refined Samian ware.  Art!

     There was also a pre-fab that housed the Drafting Team, who made scale drawings of the dig and monitored progress to date.

     One of the occupational hazards was -

     Oyster shells.  Yes, seriously.  You see, this section of Manchester had a history going back millennia, including the Victorian era, and those Victorians loved them oysters, which they consumed in the same way we now consume fish and chips.  Art!

     There was a layer of discarded oyster shells a good six inches thick across the entire site.  That picture above is from Preston, not Gomorrah-on-the-Irwell but gives you an idea of what had to be dealt with.  Greg, our team leader, said that technically we ought to process every individual shell - which never happened.

     As I said above, most of the finds were pottery, with occasional metal artefacts such as a 'Steelyard weight'.  Art!

     That's a steelyard with rod and weight.

     Glynn, one of the project managers, was present when a passer-by began asking questions about the site, what we'd found and what was being looked for.  It turns out they were a metal-detectorist, a rara avis at the time (mid-Eighties) and the very last person you want digging up your excavation looking for non-existent 'treasure'.  So, off went Glynn to a hardware shop, to purchase a couple of pounds of steel nails, which he spend the weekend knocking into the whole site.  Just in case.

     Okay, having set out some background, I will now enter onto the tale of Malicious Compliance, which also involved a group of Archaeological Assistants.  They were contracted by construction companies to do archaeological surveys on prospective sites, doing what I mentioned above.  AA confirmed that most finds were pot, with rare metal finds, all of which were cleaned, weighed, photographed and reviewed by experts.  Art!

Found finds trays

     Matters took an abrupt turn for the worst when the original head of Finds went on Maternity Leave, which is a luxury we here in This Sceptred Isle are entitled to by law, yah booh sucks South Canada.  'Alice', fresh from university with a brand new degree, took over.

     This is where the "I Am A New Manager So I Will Manage Anew" syndrome kicked in, since Alice wanted to make a name for herself.  She toured all the dig sites and introduced herself, explaining that she wanted finds trays used on-site rather than bagging stuff and taking it to be processed.  Finds trays, as you can see above, are lightweight plastic things suited for an office environment, not out on a dig.

     Alice also went into a frenzy about the AAs on site discarding modern material, loudly declaring that they weren't experts, they weren't able to make decisions on what to discard, they were stealing, etcetera, etcetera, she'd have their tripes, they'd never work in this town again, thunder and lightning, cats and dogs, and so on.  Art!

     You may see where this is going.  When excavating a dig, the topsoil or overburden contains lots of modern rubbish - empty Coke cans, discarded MacDonald's wrappers, chewing gum, broken lighters, cigarette butts, that sort of stuff.  Instead of being discarded, it was all bagged for processing.  The number of bin bags required to transport it soared, and it all ended up in the head office for Finds.

     Understandably, Alice's manager was not happy at this novel practice, mostly because 90% of what was being processed was literally rubbish.  He called up the site manager in a state of high dudgeon, wanting to know what was going on.

     "Alice" was the succinct explanation.

     Alice was instructed to keep her nose out of interfering with AAs who had over 30 years of experience between them, and the previous sensible methods were brought back.

     When the previous manager came back from maternity leave, she was showered with love and affection.  Alice was demoted and moved to an office job  where she couldn't do any further damage and left after a while, not being missed by anyone.  Art!

Swanky middle-class Castlefield today

Hide The Ouija Board!  Hide The Ouija Board!

 Conrad is now up to page 570 of "Heinrich Himmler" by Robert Longerich, and the bloodletting has really begun.  Once actual war breaks out, the Nazi's behaviour trawls the depths with mass murder ever present.

     So, it's hard to find any levity in this broth of bloodbaths, but it's there as of May 1941.  Art!

     This is Rudolf Hess, who was Deputy Fuhrer as of 1933, but by the outbreak of war his star had visibly waned, because all the other senior Nazi functionaries were always jostling for power and influence.

     To redeem himself, he decided in May of 1941 to -

     Fly to Scotland to negotiate a peace between the British and Nazi Germany.

     To say that this is a bampot idea is to be excessively kind to it.  The senior Nazis and Wehrmacht generals were all terrified that Hess would give away the details for Operation Barbarossa, the June invasion of the Sinister Union.  Fortunately for them, he did not.

     However - my favourite word again! - the Gestapo immediately began a crackdown on spiritualists, clairvoyants, astrologers and dowsers, in fact all sorts of occult specialists, because Hess had been heavily into them.

     Whom else do we know who was also into this gobbledygook?  Yes, Ol' Heinie himself, who now had to keep his occult interests even more off the books.  Art!

Heinie and Hess, who is totally rocking the jodhpur look

     The poor dear.

Meanwhile, Back In The Shire -

Yes, if I can get away with calling Ruffia 'Modern-day Mordor' then I can equally call This Sceptred Isle 'The Shire', because Ol' Tolky conceived it that way.  Art!

"The" World War One?  Tut tut sub-editor!

     Yes, here is Damian Lewis herding sheep across the Thames, in a ceremony that goes back to 1180 AD, where tradesmen - none of that modern PC rubbish back in Medieval times - could transport goods or chattels across the Thames, free from tolls.  As an event has ballooned in the past decade and Damian was herding only a small portion of the 1,000-plus sheep.

O Joy Unabated!

We are now into the ballfoot season, a game that Conrad cordially detests, but - BUT! - it does spark off hilarious Comments on the BBC News website's Sport pages, where the invective is ladled out copiously yet without swearing, for the Beeb's pages have to be SFW.  Art!

D

Comment by Dai Quietly at 18:31

Dai Quietly

18:31

I must say I'm looking forward to seeing the redesigned Old Trafford. It will be a fantastic feat of engineering to convert a 70,000 seater stadium into a 5,000 seater for the second half of matches...

     Cruel yet amusing.  And it's all free. O delicious schadenfreude, thou of no calories yet so satisfying.  Tee hee!

Finally -

It's lashing it down outside, I'm so glad I used the tumble-drier and didn't peg stuff out on the line.

Uită-te Inapoi Inăuntru Ongar

Which, Of Course - Obviously!- Is Romanian

For 'Look back in Ongar', because why not?  Art!

     The bustling modern metropolis that it Ongar today.  That's what it says here, anyway.  Motte-and-bailey castles are all the rage in English provincial towns, doncha know.

     Moving swiftly along, it's time to post a list of links to the things what I thinks.

2023

BOOJUM!: Barbied Wire (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2022

BOOJUM!: The DARTs Of Death! (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2021

BOOJUM!: One Step Closer To Robert Heinlein (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2020

BOOJUM!: Do You Feel Lucky, Atompunk? (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2019

BOOJUM!: A Bit Of A Bang (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2018

BOOJUM!: Here's One I Didn't Prepare Earlier (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2017

BOOJUM!: Salem's Latte (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2016

BOOJUM!: Hitting A Half Century (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2015

BOOJUM!: Yes, I Know, Late Tonight (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2014

BOOJUM!: Tanks For The Memory (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2013

BOOJUM!: Sunday's Routine Slightly Amended (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

Lordy The Fraudy!

Or, Rather, The Lack Of It

I can't go with the title that popped into my mind "Bawdy Fraudy", because there's nothing bawdy or licentious about the content herein this Intro.  Nor is there any fraud, which is half the problem.  Let us now, as we are wont to do, define exactly what 'Fraud' is, thank you "Collins Concise Dictionary" take it away!

     "Fraud: deliberate deception, trickery, or cheating intended to gain an advantage.  From Old French via Latin <hack spit> 'Fraus' meaning deception."

     Art!

When they ran out of makeup and had to use gravy browning instead

     And, how poetic, right underneath 'Fraud' in my CCD, it has 'Fraudster', which it simply defines as "A swindler".  For Lo! we are back on the subject of Fatty Bumpkin again, the wonderful content creator whom will be sadly missed when he strokes out in his prison cell next year.

     So, what is this Intro about?  O I thought you'd never ask.  Art?

     There you go, nothing.

     It may have escaped your attention that Donold Judas Trump lost the 2020 election, which he has never stopped prating about since then.  His invective propelled a riotous mob into assaulting the Capitol and people died, which he tried to portray as 'tourists' having a wander.  Hundreds of these people have been sentenced to long prison terms, which is but one step short of winning a Darwin Award.  Art!

CAUTION!  Do NOT try this at home.  Just to be clear.

     All in the service of 'Stopping The Steal'.  Recently, however, we have had sworn testimony that DJ Tango knew he'd lost, viz:

“I don't want people to know that we lost, Mark. This is embarrassing. Figure it out. We need to figure it out. I don't want people to know that we lost."

—Donald Trump to his Chief of staff on December 12th, 2020

     As you might expect, this has gone down like nerve gas in a perfume retailer with the convicts and those who rose up at Trump's words on January 6th, many of whom are incensed that they were lied to.  Gosh!  Donold Trump lying, what a shocker!  Art?

     He also lies by omission.  See the logos of those two organisations above?  The Flabby Felon hired both of them to look for evidence of voter fraud, which he claimed - with 0% evidence - to have taken place on a massive scale.  In fact he blew £1 million on their services, and must have paid them in advance because they found NO evidence of voter fraud.  I say 'in advance' because Pumpkinhead is the kind of bottomhole to refuse to pay since they didn't find anything wrong.  Here's the salient 'lying by omission' part: both these companies reported their lack of evidence two years ago, and the Farting Fraudster was sufficiently dismayed that he kept it a secret.  BRG handed in a 29-page report that systematically destroyed every alleged instance of fraud.  Art!

     That's Ken Block, the owner of Simpatico Systems, and he's been publicising a book he wrote about their fraud investigation for Trump and how it came out a nothingburger.  Let me quote Ken himself: “The Trump Campaign asked me to look at claims of fraud... my team looked at approximately 15 or so claims, every one of which we were able to prove was false….. they misinterpreted data, came up with a wild finding that was bizarre and couldn't possibly be right."

     A Quoran posted that there have been 1,513 proven cases of electoral fraud - over the past twenty years.  If we assume a total of 300,000,000 voters taking part in the elections, that's one fraud for approximately 200,000 voters, or 0.00002%.  This is miniscule, a factor so small it can be dismissed as having no effect on election results, especially as potentially half the votes will have been for the Ice Cream Bandits, not the Lizard Wizard Gizzards.

     I guess we'll find out what's what in another 6 weeks.  Expect Pimpinhead to trot out the 'It was stollen*!" lies before voting even finishes.  Art!

Stollen.  Apparently he ignores his spellchecker as well as his advisors.

The Haul

Unlike some of my former compatriots, Your Humble Scribe continues to use Sainsbo's on a regular basis, because it's the only place you can get loose-leaf Darjeeling at a reasonable price.  Yes, I still have plenty of my Prospect Plantation loose-leaf left, because at £24 per pack it's not a tea you drink every breakfast.  Art!

     It's also a convenient source of great big bags of paprika powder, which I use plentifully in my Sunday Stews.  Plus! remaindered pizza, which always tastes better than full price pizza.

More Military Madness

You will be delighted to know that I've now Blu-Takd all the counters I'd been using for the 1918 scenario of "The Great War In Europe" to sheets of A4 paper, and in numerical order, too.

     I have now decided to run the Italian Front scenarios, as it's a much smaller map - Art!

     The counter-mix for the Italian and Austro-Hungarian armies is also a lot smaller than the enormous numbers of Allied and Teuton counters for that 1918 scenario.  I've only had a quick flick through the scenarios and wonder if they'll include the 3 British and 3 French divisions sent there in 1917? and also Teuton Stosstruppen for the Caporetto battle?  Art!

     All sorted into numerical order but not Blu-Takd yet so DO NOT BUMP THE TABLE! as murder often offends.

"The War Illustrated Edition 195 8th December 1944"

Yes, another item about matters military.  Sue me if you want, it's not as if you pay to read this scrivel, is it?  Not that many would, I presume, bec

     ANYWAY let us crack on.  Art!

     They're really bigging-up the Allied assault on Walcheren Island.  Here you see a landing craft that foundered, probably due to enemy fire, with another standing-to in order to rescue the swimming soldiery.  At bottom you can see another landing craft stuffed with Royal Marines and vehicles, ready to do what Royal Marines specialise in - amphibious landings.  None are visible but Conrad rather suspects that there will be a BARV on that beach.  Art!

     There you go, a Beach Armoured Recovery Vehicle, waterproofed, able to 'wade' in water nine feet deep thanks to a conning tower, and with a great big baulk of timber on the front for gently pushing landing craft out into deeper water where they can float off.  There's not often an opportunity for the BARV to be mentioned in BOOUM! so I am taking this opportunity to show it some love.

Finally -

Right!  The sun has now hidden itself away behind a louring set of disgustingly grey clouds, yet it's not raining - so far.  Conrad needs to take a constitutional stroll into Lesser Sodom very shortly, as I've got a shopping list to satisfy as well as a step count to boost.

     And with that, and this, we are now at Count.  Tattybye!

*  You  want proof?  "they have stollen two years of my (our) Presidency (Collusion Delusion) that we will never be able to get back.”  There you go, a genuine Trump Truth, which is to say, of course - obviously! - a lie.

Half-Baked Alaska

I Need To Explain What "Half-Baked" Means

Briefly, this means 'Foolish or stupid', and is represented by dough that has not been properly risen or baked, so that it is inedible.  Believe me, half-baked dough is NOT edible, and will render you stricken with severe stomach pains were you to try it out of either curiosity or greed.  Conrad once tried to bake a Genoa sponge, took it out of the oven, removed the baking tin, and the uncooked interior broke through the baked crust and proved the phrase.  A minor tragedy.  Art!

Baked Alaska

     I thought I'd better put up a picture of the dessert or the Facebook twod mods will be peering over my shoulder and snorting with derision, and perhaps sinus trouble.

     ANYWAY I have hinted about this blog over the past few days, because Conrad is one of those people who goes all-out on the slightest proposition, in a demonstration of what obsession and pedantry are all about.  Please bear in mind that this blog will be a single long entry, without any other items, and it will be O so serious.  So very serious.  Though we will still take the mickey out of Putinpot and his orc hordes.  Art!

     Are the South Canadians really worried about this prospect?

     No.

     Further, Hell No.

     Why is this so?  O I thought you'd never ask!  Art!

     Take a good look at the Bering Sea, because that's what Ruffians would have to cross to get to Alaska.  Ignore the Bering Strait.  Yes, it's only 40 kilometres wide, but THERE IS NO WAY TO GET THERE.  No roads nor railways nor airbases.  The only major road from European Ruffia to their Far East Military District ends at Magadan, a full thousand kilometres from the coastline.  There are railways that reach the ports of Komsomolsk-na-Amure and Vladivostok, on the Kamchatka peninsula, which requires a rail journey of 5,000 kilometres.  Thus Ruffia's logistics infrastructure in the region is sparse and under-developed, and would have severe problems trying to sustain any invasion effort.  Art!

     Okay, let's look at what poseurs call 'aviation assets' in this region.  Their headquarters is at Komsomolsk-na-Amure, with airbases at: Khurba; Dzyomgi; Uglovoye; Chernigovka; Domna; Step; Vozdvishenko; Khabarovsk-Tsentralny; Chita.  Bear in mind that the distance from these airbases to the Alaskan mainland is 2,600 miles or 4,164 kilometres.

     The thing is, these bases are equipped with lots of Air Defence Regiments with SAMs, and fighter aircraft.  Take Uglovoye as an example; it is equipped with Su-35 fighter jets, that have a range of - 

Fast!  Deadly!  Short-ranged!

     2,200 miles (3,500 kilometres) maximum OR a combat range (fully-loaded with ordnance) of 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometres).  Don't forget, they can only travel half that distance from base or they'll crash after they run out of fuel on the trip home.  Art!

     This is the Su-25, which has an even shorter combat range: 500 miles (800 kilometres).

     The Ruffian set-up in their Far Eastern Military district is overwhelmingly DEFENSIVE.  The only way they could 'project' air power within range of mainland Alaska is by using an aircraft carrier, and they just sent the crew of their sole (port-locked immobile damaged obsolete) AC to fight as ground troops in Ukraine.

     What about making an airborne assault, á la Hostomel (except successfully)?

     Nope.  Their Mil-8 helicopters have a range of only 300 miles, or 500 kilometres.  Art!

     They do have the Il-76, which has a heavy-lift capability and can carry 400 paratroopers.  Once again range is the problem.  It has a range of 2,700 miles, or 4,300 kilometres, so they might be able to make a one-way journey if the wind isn't against them, and they'd have to do it unescorted by fighter aircraft to protect them.  A single F-16 would wreak absolute havok once they got picked up on radar, and if they did manage to survive that, are they going to try and land at Alaskan airports to disgorge their troops?  Very, very problematic.

     Numbers might be another problem.  At least 6 of these aircraft, from a potential total of 120, have been destroyed by the Ukrainians.  Another 5 have been taken out of service due to fake ball-bearings being used in their undercarriage.  Also, Conrad is unsure whether they can operate from airfield runways designed for far smaller, nimbler fighter jets.  Art!

     Then there is the quality of the Ruffian paratroopers themselves.  All the experienced ones are long since sunflower-fodder.  The current crop might have high morale, but they also lack experience and training, which guarantees high losses in combat.  Nor can Putin just remove them from the Special Idiotic Operation in Ukraine, since they're used to plug holes in the front lines, and to rob Ruffian shops in Kursk.

     Now, you might be thinking to yourselves, "Ah, but, Conrad, have you and your splendid moustache taken into account the Ruffian's proud naval tradition and how they could mount an enormous amphibious invasion?"

     Pausing only to preen said hirsute appendage, I shall explicate.  Art!

     Again, distance plays it's part, because from the above-named naval base and Vladivostok, it's 2,258 miles, or 3,600 kilometres to mainland Alaska.  Check out that first map above.

     So, what does Ruffia have in it's naval locker in the far-flung Pacific?

     That's the question.  The answer?  Not a lot.

     To wit: one cruiser, the 'Varyag', which was launched in 1989 and is probably in no better nick than the 'Moskva', which is to say, barely afloat; four destroyers and five corvettes.  Ten warships total.  I should point out that corvettes are the smallest warship that it's possible to be, and the Ruffians simply do not have the dockyard capability to build anything larger than a destroyer at present.

     Guess where all their big ticket naval vessels were built, and if you said 'Ukraine' then you win fifty brownie points.  Art!

     Say what?  No!  Art, this is the one from 1899!

Cruiser 'Varyag'

     They have another 19 Anti-Submarine Warfare corvettes, which are extra-small warships only able to defend their littoral, so short is their range.

     Again, their Pacific Fleet's posture is overwhelmingly DEFENSIVE.

     If they were to go in for an amphibious task force, they have all of four - FOUR - landing ships.  Three of the 'Ropucha' class and one 'Alligator' class which is over 50 years old.  They can carry as many as 10 tanks and 200 troops.  Art!

     40 tanks and 800 troops are not going to get very far in conquering an area that constitutes 1/4 of Continental South Canada.  This is quite beside those cold equations of time and space again, because a Ropucha's top speed is 18 knots, which is 21 m.p.h. in sensible measurements.  It would thus take them 156 hours, or 6.5 days, to cross the Bering Sea and make landfall on the Alaskan coastline, as long as there weren't any storms, icebergs or mechanical problems.  Art!

"Moskvaya Pekhota"

     Why your regimental symbol would be a tiger impaled by an anchor-shaft escapes me, except Ruffia.  This is the regimental patch of the Ruffian 155th Marine Infantry Brigade, whom you would expect to take part in any amphibious invasion attempt.  Er - yes - well - the thing is, the 155th has been used to plug gaps in the lines in Ukraine so many times that it's been destroyed and rebuilt at least three times.  As with the paratroopers of the VDV, they may have high morale - or more probably they do not - yet they lack experience and training.  Art!

     

     There you go, a succinct TLDR from Vinnie: NO!

Bombe Surprise

I Shall Need To Put Up A Photo Of An Ice Cream Dessert, Shan't I?

Otherwise the Facebook twod mods will be poking around looking for things to be insulted about, just like those interfering busybodies from UNIT.  Really, the impositions I have to put up with!  Art?

     This particular dessert is French, as you might expect, and Conrad is in danger of collapsing in a diabetic coma just looking at it.  I can tell you that 'Baked Alaska' FORESHADOWING is another variety of bombe.  The name comes from it's apparent resemblance to a cannon-ball.  Which, to be fair, is true of the 18th century cannons in use when the recipe came about.

     ANYWAY my alternate title for this blog was going to be "Rocket To Russia", and I could have put up a picture of The Ramones record - Art!

     Horrifyingly, this record is 47 years old in about a fortnight.  Erk.

     "What is the fatuous gimboid on about now?" I hear you query, and pausing only to congratulate you on your grasp of Arnold Judas Rimmer's slang, I shall explicate.

     We are, as I reiterate every six months or so, living in the future.  What follows would have been only within the province of the CIA or NSA a couple of decades ago and yet is now within the reach of any citizen with a few hundred pounds.

     As you have no doubt guessed by now, I am talking about the recent enormous BANGS taking place on the territory of Modern-day Mordor, which have been picked up by various orbital satellite imaging platforms.  I'd like to give a shout out to "Jake Broe" and his vlog for collecting these in one place.

     I did think another potential title might be "No Fork In Way" except that sounds rather coarse.  We'll come to that shortly.  Art!

Courtesy Maxar Technologies

     This is one of the Ruffian ammunition depots.  Note the train offloading ammunition, which has been dumped IN THE OPEN next to the protected bunker.  This may be due to the bunker being full, or, equally, it may be due to the orcs being lazy beasts.  O, remember when I said we are living in the future?  Well, not the orcs.  They have no pallet system for logistics and the forklift truck has yet to be invented there.  Art!

AK-74 ammo box

     That's a sample Ruffian ammunition crate.  These will have been offloaded by sweating relays of orcs, then dumped alongside the railway, because Ruffian logistics is still firmly stuck in the Fifties.

     I did say 'Bombe' and 'Rocket' when the truth is the damage was done by Ukrainian drones, possibly including their new "Palyanitsya*" turbo-jet model.  Which model is a tad academic since a sparkler dropped amidst all those lovely flammable wooden crates would have the same effect.  Art!

Before, with Jake not being gloaty at all.

After.  Okay, perhaps a bit gloaty.

     The surrounding woodland has been completely flattened by a gigantic explosion occurring in that central bunker, in devastation akin to that at Tunguska.  Now, Ruffia does not want you to see this image as it proves how utterly destroyed the entire site is.  Problem is, this is 2024 not 1924 and you can't keep prying eyes away from your hinterland any longer, so the Kremlin has forbidden any of these images to ever, ever, ever be shown to the unwashed Ruffian hordes.  Art!

     This is part of the smaller ammunition depot at Octyabrski, where there were no hardened bunkers, just warehouses.  Art!

Gone, baby, gone

     This depot was hit several days after the big one at Toropets, so the Ruffians had time to at least begin remedial measures to disperse the exposed storage on site.  Yes, except this is Ruffia we're dealing with and their eternal mindset of "What could possibly go wrong?" instead of "Houston we have a problem".  Note those blue storage items to lower port in the top photo of this pair.  Art!

     I'll bring up the last two photos for this Intro.  Art!

     Blue storage site to upper starboard in this picture.  You can see a train is still present opposite the blue storage warehouses.  Art!

     Just staggering.  This sloppy conduct may be what the enraged Ruffian milblogger 'FighterBomber' was ranting about when he said all safety standards had gone out the window since the SMO began.  A Ruffian troll on Twitter was trying to pretend nothing had happened to the depot above because there was no video of it.  Dude, anyone close enough to film that would be ash and vapour.

     Human casualties?  The official Ruffian line is 13 injured.  Your Humble Scribe very much doubts that we'll ever find out the true total until the Putin regime collapses and a successor comes in.  Don't laugh, Putinpot will be living in mortal fear of this happening.

     O just picked up another detail - Toropets was 'protected' by an anti-drone electronic warfare system that cost ₽200 million.  Better see if it was still under warranty, hmmmm?

Truth Strange As Fiction

Whilst doing further research on my current bats-in-the-belfry topic, which I insist on calling a 'Thing' not a 'Project', I came across a curious item called the 'Pacific Route'.  Art!

The air bridge flies from 'Ferbanks'

     This was the name for the supply route carrying Lend-Lease supplies from South Canada to the Sinister Union, principally to Vladivostok, in the lower of the two red arrows above.  This was the primary route because the upper arrow denotes freighters traversing the dangerous environs of the Bering Sea, which was only seasonally possible.

     What's missing from this picture?  The Imperial Japanese Navy, that's who.  The incredibly aggressive and attack-oriented IJN allowed Sinister ships to carry cargoes to the Sinister Union, instead of sinking them.  Why so?  Because both nations maintained a very, very strict policy of neutrality which served them both very well.  Art!

     The Sinisters didn't have enough freighters of their own, so the South Canadian transferred lots to their flag, hip hooray.  The IJN, not being entirely naive, mounted regular inspections of these ships to make sure nothing military was being shipped, only things like food and locomotives.

     Rather wild, hmmmm?

I Say

Conrad was rather - pleasantly - surprised to see a promo ad for "The Thursday Murder Club", which is going to be a film.  No 'may' or 'perhaps' about it, because this puppy has producer Steven Spielberg behind it and when he sticks his oar in, the boat moves.  Art!

     I've only seen a brief mention of the cast - but what a cast!  Sir Ben Kingsley, Pierce Brosnan, Celie Imrie and Dame Helen Mirren.  Yes, Your Humble Scribe has read the book, and a jolly entertaining read it is, too.

O Dear The Weather

The weather in This Sceptred Isle is never bad enough to be dangerous, and thus exciting.  No, it only descends to the level of miserable dreariness.  Conrad is not desperate to experience typhoons, hurricanes and monsoons, just that the prospect is more enticing than - Art!

This

     An endless vista of excrement-coloured wasteland.  Ho hum.

Finally -

'The Kids', as Wonder Wifey insists on calling them despite Darling Daughter being dangerously close to <redacted>, are due mid-afternoon Friday, so they will have to get on with the merry banter and quaffing beer without Conrad, who is chained to his works laptop and phone <heavy sigh>.  But - it is payday, which compensates a tad.

Toodle pip!

*  Named after a kind of Ukrainian loaf, and it certainly results in a well-risen orc arsenal.