Oiligarchs

No!  That Is Not A Typo

It is, in fact, an hilarious pun, hilarious I tell you.  Yes yes yes, it's a play on 'Oligarch' -

     Hang on, hang on, we've not analysed that word yet.  Allow me to resort to my trusty Collins Concise - no household should be denied one.  "A small body of individuals ruling a state", derived from the Greek 'Oligo' meaning 'small' and 'Archy'.  Art!

     Worth considerably less today, I can tell you.  In fact, there is mounting anger and dismay amongst the siloviki of Barad-Duh, thanks to their small fortunes getting ever smaller, thanks to the colossal mismanagement of the economy in the wake of the Special Idiotic Operation.

     For Lo! we are back on the subject of the Ruffian economy, which is simultaneously in the toilet and circling the drain, a tricky metaphorical feat.  Art!

A Ruffian oil refinery in it's new natural state: on fire

     Overall, Ruffian oil exports are down, which is verrrry bad news for the Ruffian economy as oil is one of two vital export earners, alongside gas.

     Here an aside.  Yes, already!  One old staple of Ruffia used to be the export of weaponry, which tended to be cheaper than Western kit.  Not any more.  Various militaries across the globe are now suffering from buyer's remorse; Turkey is trying to see if it can flog it's S-400 SAM systems in order to buy F--35s.  Art!

     Ooopsie.  How's that Brotherhood of BRICS coming along?

     ANYWAY, sanctions and the falling price of oil have both impacted Ruffia heavily.  When it comes to sanctions, primary sanctions have had a limited effect, but as of November last year South Canada's State Department really ramped up secondary sanctions.  These have been increased in scope and scrutiny and intensity.  Art!

     This is one the Ruffian's 'shadow fleet', a motley collection of manky old tankers held together only by rust, which avoid sanctions to carry Ruffian oil products abroad.  They are now being hit by secondary sanctions, which is a bit of a wheeze, as it apparently cost the Kremlin Gremlin $8 billion to purchase and outfit them.  The business entities and senior personnel behind the shadow fleet are also being targeted, the poor dears.  Art!

     The second problem for the Ruffian fuel market is that the price of oil globally has been driven down, partly due to OPEC+ increasing production, and partly due to the South Canadians having mad oil production surges.  Art!

     The price per barrel for Urals crude is now down to $60, which is coincidentally the same as the price cap, down a good $15 per barrel from the higher values earlier this year.  Not only has the price dropped, the volume shipped has also decreased in Q3, down by over 20%.

     Historically, Ruffia was pumping 11.1 million barrels per day before the SMO, a figure that has now dropped to 9.1 million - if one can trust Ruffian figures.  This was supposedly in accordance with OPEC+ limits; the suspicion now is that the decline before anything even gets to a tanker terminal is due to material wear and tear on the oil industry's infrastructure.  Parts are unavailable for replacement after two and a half years of sanctions, which may be the reason for that refinery fire in Omsk.  Art!

Just stop oil

Still Deconstructing

Yes, Your Humble Scribe is still working away at the hex-and-counter boardgame "The Great War In Europe", removing all the Blu-Tak'd counters off the map, and also putting them in numerical sequence, which is an act of madness as it increases the time taken enormously.  Art!

     Scads of the little swine!  I've started to outlay the French army counters, which must approach twice the number of British, and IIRC, the German counters occupied two whole sheets of A4.

Conrad Considers Comics Critically

It is faintly horrifying to realise that those copies of "Judge Dredd The Megazine" that I've been re-reading are over thirty years old, and that not a few of the writers and artists are no longer with us - Carlos Ezquerra, the always-popular artist associated with Ol' Stony Face, waltzed off this mortal coil years ago.

     ANYWAY enough of sic transit gloria mundi, I wanted to take a jaundiced look at the Megazine, because when it went fortnightly it needed to come up with twice as much material as when it was monthly.

     Hmmmmm.  Art!

     This is the target for today.  It was the last issue to boast about being "Only 99p!" because the next issue came out at a cover price of £1.25.  Art!

     This, gentle reader, is "The Soul Sisters", with art done by Shaky Kane, attempting, one feels, to draw in a faux Jack Kirby style.  Conrad not a fan.  In fact it's so rubbish I feel they should have been paying me to read it.  Was it done ages previously and then left on a shelf, to be dusted off when deadlines loomed?

     Another three pages of piffle about SS, what is known in the trade as 'Filler', because you don't have enough artwork to fill the issue.  Next

     A gatefold advert.  Advertising what?  Why, the Megazine, of course, in what seems a strangely self-referential case of Filler.

     A whole lot of text.  Just what you don't want in a comic that ought to be full of art.  Do you really need two pages of blather?

     - annnnnnnd another advert for the Megazine.  Does the budget for this come out of a separate pot or is it all swilling around the general finances?

     Whoah.  Just seen one of these editions going for £80.  Better not spill tea and porridge on mine, then!

Welcome To My Mind

As you should surely know by now, Conrad is an inveterate note-taker, who fills notepad after notepad with scrawled ideas and jottings, all the better to blog at a later date or hour.  Essentially, if it's not written down, it doesn't exist for me.

     Even when written down - my thought processes can be a bit murky.  Art!

     I know exactly what this refers to - the sci-fi novelist Roger Zelazny and his fantasy novel "The Guns Of Avalon".  It was the first of his novels that Conrad read, intrigued at how the title riffed on "The Guns Of Navarone".  The film came out a good five years before the novel, so Ol' Zelly may well have been inspired by it.  Art!

     What reason did I have for making a note of it?  I don't have a copy, nor do I especially want one.  Did it strike a parallel with another novel, or film, or comic?  

     I don't know.  If I ponder enough about it then the answer may come, or I may just go quietly mad.  Yes yes yes, I know I know - how would you tell the difference?  Bah!

When You Really Have Billions

You may recall when a horrified Elong Tusk was forced to honour a vastly over-inflated bid to buy Twitter - which we are not going to stop calling Twitter - to the tune of $44 billion.

     Having gotten his hot sweaty hands on the social media platform, he then proceeded to run it not only into the ground, but beneath it and into the sewers underlying.  I noticed a Tweet this morning that alleges the company has lost 84% of it's value since purchase.  Ooopsie.  Art!

     I've no idea who this chap is.  Wonder if he'll get whiplash from Elong's instant handshake of acceptance?

Finally -

Time for tea!  Both liquid and solid.  Toodle pip!