No! This Is Nothing To Do With Pruning The Roses
It is, in fact, Latin for "It Follows", and yes I can use Latin if I want to despite hating it in general, because ONCE AGAIN whose blog is it? Thank you. Art?
<sigh>
No, Art, what I wanted you to create or produce was an illustration showing the derivation of a classical proposition, wherein an assertion is made and the conclusion begins ' - therefore, it follows that if all Border Terriers are dogs, then all dogs are Border Terriers.'
Something like that. Perhaps asking our resident Neanderthal to illustrate this was a little too much. AI Art!
Very literal, AI. Conrad can see why your kind will never take over the world. Unless you learn to lie, like HAL in
ANYWAY I was thinking of an alternative title for today's blog, which would have been
"High Jink, Low Jinks, And IT SINKS!"
Because, as promised, Your Humble Scribe has been checking out that very interesting Youtube channel "What's Going On With Shipping", which is all to do with the combustibility of egg yolks in a microgravity environment shipping. From the looks of it Conrad would say global and international shipping. Do they have anything to say about the recent Ruffian shipping disasters in the Black Sea? O boy do they! Art?
Volgoneft-212 - Before
You may not have seen the above, when the V-212 was hale - or hale for a Ruffian ship - and hearty. Art!
This is the one that's been floating (pun intended) around the internet. Sal - who is behind WGOWS - explained that it's the bow where the anchor is positioned, so at the point above the stern section is adrift.
Now for a little diversion. You ought to have noticed my recent blatherings about how important staff work is to modern armies, and I wonder if the armies of classical antiquity had similar? ANYWAY here we have an administrative insight into the world of international maritime traffic. Art!
This organisation does what it says on the tin, for <ahem> maritime trade that is international. Neither of the Volgonaffs had an identification registered under the above, which means they were NOT intended for travel at sea. On inland waterways, riverine systems and lakes, yes; on the big briney, no. Even more relevant is the fact that with no IMO identity, these ships were not liable to any oversight, inspection or regulation, since they were for use in Ruffia itself.
Also of note is that these ships were over 50 years old. We have, on the blog, already blogiated about how they were single-hulled vessels, which have not been legally allowed in international waters for over 20 years. Ooops.
The question behind all this is - why were these vessels out on the open sea instead of a placid lake or river? Art!
Placid Lake Placid
Because the Ruffians fear an Ukrainian marine drone strike on the Kerch Bridge, which, whilst it may not be as logistically important as it used to be, is still a project very strongly associated with Putinpot, whose fee-fees might get hurt if it collapsed in a sea of fire. Art!
It's now protected by barge pontoons, meant to prevent ingress by horrid nasty Sea Babies. The thing is, it also prevents access by large ships, which used to travel into the Sea Of Azov, which is more like a lake with pretensions than a sea. There they would carry out ship-to-ship transfers from smaller vessels like the Volgonaffs, except that cannot be actioned any longer. So the smaller ships now have to travel into the Black Sea, which has no pretensions and is a sea indeed.
What do you get at sea?
Storms. NO! Not Storm Shadows. Not yet, anyway. High winds and choppy seas with big waves, which these small riverine tankers cannot cope with. Their role - again, 50 YEARS AGO - was to travel on the Ruffian inland waterway network, not brave storms at sea. Art!
That cluster to the east is notably outside the Sea Of Azov and is milling about offshore of Taman, so I may be able to use that alternative title for real in the near future.
"What's Going On With Shipping?" the niche Youtube channel you never realised you needed.
Meanwhile In Myanmar -
You may be forgiven for not knowing that there is a civil war raging in Myanmar, because it doesn't get a lot of coverage compared to Ukraine or the Middle East. It began when the army mounted a coup and seized power in February 2021. The rebel movement has increased in size and sophistication since then and is seriously challenging the military junta, whose leader admitted recently that things are bad. Art!
In times past the junta would have been able to appeal to Putinpot, who would have sent the Wagner Group, along with aircraft, to destroy everything and kill everyone and declare it peace. No longer an option, as The Chinless Twod discovered. In fact, if I were Ukraine .....
Opportunity Knox
Forgive the terrible pun, I couldn't resist. More of "Goldfinger" I'm afraid. Less about how cool and dashing and punny 007 was, more about the production design, which was by the irreplaceable Ken Adams. One might have guessed Ken was responsible for the interiors of Fort Knox because of their sheer expansiveness; one thing you cannot accuse him of is thinking small. Art!
Fort Knox entrance interior Ken having a sly puff on set
The end result. Poseurs please note how dwarfed our protagonists are by the interior set, which is symbolic of blah blah blah.
Cool It
Waaaay back in the day Facebook used to throw up bizarre adverts on my home page, inspired by the algorithm having an off day, perhaps. Those with very long memories may recall the 'Log Counting Software' and 'Portable Lumber Mills' they were trying to push. Art!
Is this real LC
Methinks a man with a pencil and clipboard could do just as well.
ANYWAY Youtube has managed to mimic this incongruity of late. Art!
Actually ........ I think I may know. That logo is for - Art!
You ought to recall, as it's recent, that they're the ones whose crane was partially-destroyed and then rebuilt, and we described the whole gory process. Maybe the algorithm reads BOOJUM! Stranger things have happened. They seem to have their long Teutonic talons in all sorts of industrial pies, don't they? I wonder if Quiet Tom has heard of them, as he works in labs and with fridges. Must bore him about this next time we engage.
What's This?
Hmmmm this is what AI Art conjured into being when the text input was "Putinpot". Very literal, AI. You might consider that stuff has been put in pot. Speaking of whom - Art!
He held his annual 4 Hours Of Lies ceremony yesteryon. Steve Rosenberg, of the BBC's Russian element, asked a very pertinent question about all the bad things going on in Ruffia today, and was The Little Tsar taking care of Ruffia?
Steve speaks fluent Ruffian so there are no interpreters to massage either the question or answer.
The Fun-Sized Foot Fiddler's response was to waffle on about Boris Yeltsin, admit that inflation was high 'but we're dealing with it' and ignore the rest of the question.
Bafune.
Finally -
That's me gainfully on leave from now until 30th December, which I hope to spend, at least partially, indulging in hex-and-counter wargames in the most un-Christmaslike spirit imaginable. Tee hee! said Conrad in the manner of his mentor and muse, The Grinch, whom is a splendid role model for the ages.
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