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!