The Mathematics Of Misery

Yo Ho Horribilus!

Once again I am minded of that narrative device of Ol' Tolky's, wherein he says that pleasant things and good times are quickly described and soon done, with little retention in the mind of an audience, whereas bad things and torrid times take plenty of description and are far more involving.

     Well, you'll not find Conrad arguing against that.  95% of all the books I own are on military history, which is pretty much the go-to phrase for 'Bad Things And Torrid Times".  Art!

     Take these hex-and-counter wargames as an example.  I have no idea why I have two boxes of "Squad Leader" before you ask.  That bottom one is "Arctic Storm", about the war of 1939 to 1940 between the Sinister Union and Finland, with Roger McGowan doing an artistic interpretation of a famous Finnish picture.  Art!

     Allow me to bring up the map for AS, because this might meaningfully illustrate the new NATO border that Charlie Chipmunk Cheeks now has to deal with.  Art!

     Erk.  Just look at all those charts.  A little off-putting.  Conrad has to confess he's never actually played this game, and isn't even sure if the countermix is complete.  Not only that, it came with a collection of printed notes from the original owner, and the relevant copy of that part-work "World War II" that I gave away years ago to Colin.  Art!

     So, lots of Bad Things And Torrid Times.  Let us now change tack and concentrate on a new topic, which might have been in the title as "The Mechanics Of Misery In Modern-day Mordor", for Lo! we are going to point and laugh at the orcs as their lives get yet more miserable.  Art!

     This cove is the splendidly-named Yevgeny Grabchak, whom is the Deputy Minister of Energy in Ruffia.  Note that his boss, the Minister, is not making this statement, as it's not going to be popular.  What is it?  O I thought you'd never ask!

Deputy Minister of Energy Yevgeny Grabchak announced a possible increase in tariffs by 2-3 times to recoup investments. "We will have to choose: pay more or reduce consumption," - he noted

     "We" meaning "You the serfs", and he's referring to the price of domestic electricity.  Just imagine the impact of this policy on Ruffian pensioners, most of whom have been solidly behind Bloaty Gas Tout, and who will now be faced with the interesting choice of paying their electrical bills or eating.  Sitting in the dark will only reduce bills by a certain amount, after all.  Working Ruffians may be able to extort more money out of their employers, at the cost of increasing the inflationary spiral still further.  A Twitter user provided a bit of comparative finance, again helpfully including Finland.

Quickly checking 2024 stats; an average russian could buy ~15500 kWh/mo of electricity with his/her salary, an average Finn 21000 kWh, after this the russian could buy with the same salary 5200-7750 kWh/month.

     A bit unfortunate if you need 20,000kWh to heat your Moscow apartment.  Art!

Thanks to "MacFellaver" for the data

     That's not all.  Art!

     When they say 'Vodka drinkers in Ruffia" they mean "Everyone", especially as Ruffians don't think beer is really alcoholic*.  Sales of vodka, unlike other domestic products bought in the weekly shop, have markedly increased since the start of the Special Idiotic Operation, as the orc population tries to drown their sorrows, or at least water-log them a bit.  Messing with the only substance that makes life look bearable is a dangerous precedent and Putinpot is probably going to blame the Ukrainians for blowing up three alcohol distilleries late last year.  Art!

     

     These are the Ruffian firework celebrations on New Year's Eve.

     You may be ahead of me here - no, there are no fireworks.  They were cancelled by Bunker Grandad, who didn't want any loud explosions near the Kremlin whilst he was in it, as someone might sneak in a real explosive.  Nobody thought to mention this to the orcs, who turned up, weren't allowed into Red Square and whom then went home, disappointed, to their rationed vodka and shortly-to-be rationed heating.  Poor dears.  Fireworks, you see, cost money, and using explosive to make munitions is far more important than diverting the serfs.

     I think that's enough misery for one Intro.

"I object!"

I Take The Cake

Apologies for the late delivery of this picture.  Art!

     This is another Barm Brack, this time made with Earl Grey teabags from my Christmas present (tins of teabags!) and gluten-free self-raising flour because it was conveniently to hand in the cupboard.

     For who knows what reason my phone was refusing to load photographs to the Gallery so I re-booted it on Friday afternoon and now it works fine.  
     Preparation is all with Barm Brack.  You need to line the loaf tin with a double layer of greased baking parchment, which takes forever to mark out, cut and grease.  Plus the dried fruit needs to have been soaking from the day before.  If only Darling Daughter read the blog, then she'd know.

Our Journey With Bernie

Madoff, that is, the beneficiary and instigator of the largest Ponzi scheme in history, which ran from at least 1993 until his arrest in 2009.  Sixteen years, which is how long it's taken to repay all the investors who lost money in his gigantic fraud.  Art!

This guy is a legit legend

     I've just watched and annotated a CNBC documentary about Harry, and it's both fascinating and horrifying.  There's so many notes it will have to do as a future Intro.  They do point out, with examples, that Madoff defrauded an awful lot of small investors, not merely businesses and companies.  In fact, his client list before meltdown ran to 163 pages of closely-typed names.

     No, you don't get a picture of Madoff.  

Our Journey With Bernie (Wrightson)

Let me first do a bit of due diligence UNLIKE THE SECURITY AND EXCHANGES COMMISSION and see if the next card is available for us to use.

     Ah yes.  #56 "Ramone and Escamillo".  Art!

     Ewww, thanks for that description, Bernie, which we cannot now un-read.  I notice he doesn't go into the media used, one of which seems to be black felt-tip?  Or should that be black-head felt-tip?

To Resolve A Question

Your Humble Scribe is probably better-acquainted with the geography of the Libyan Desert of 1942 than the counties and shires of This Sceptred Isle.  I am aware of the layout of the counties within Greater Manchester, and that's about it.  Glasgow is Up There, London is Down There and the big wart that is Birmingham is somewhere In The Middle.

     Thus, Northumberland, which county I traduced recently.  Art!

     Abutting Scotland.  Now we know.  

     I should probably enlarge this map and study it more closely, the better to know my own country, except I have Old Speckled Hen to drink, Codewords to do and a few trade paperbacks to peruse, so it can wait.

"Lost" Progress Report

Well, we have encountered The Monster, albeit a bit indirectly.  It's so long since Conrad saw the first season that I cannot remember if there was an explanation for this phenomenon or not, and if there was, exactly what TM was.  All part of the fun, hmmm?

     That's one disk out of seven for the first season alone, and there are five more seasons to run.  Commitment is a challenge!  Art?

*  Eyes last tin of "Old Speckled Hen" with wary respect

I Got You

Yes, That's Ambiguous

What did you expect?  This is BOOJUM! after all, where the shortest distance between two points is a boring story.

     First of all, NO! this is nothing to do with Sonny and Cher, because do you see "Babe" in that title?  Art!

Dinner on the hoof BABE!  I mean Babe.

     Hmmmm I don't want to start Art's 2025 off with a Tazering so we'll let that one stand.  

     No, the song I was thinking of was by Split Enz, who seem to have taken spelling lessons from Slade.  Art!

     Allow me to make my point with a selection from their lyrics.

I don't know why sometimes I get frightened

You can see my eyes, you can tell that I'm not lying

     Then allow me to amend them slightly in order to kick-start this Intro.

I don't know why sometimes I get frightened

You can see my eyes, you can tell that I'm not Lyon

     For Lo! we are into another tale generated by that Youtube Reddit question "What's the fastest way you've seen a CEO ruin a company?"  Art!

Drugs R Bad

     Nope, I'm not going to apologise for going off at a tangent, deal with it, this is how we role around here.  Art!

      

     This is the company that Michael Lyon inherited from his father.  It was already successful in the Sacramento area, and he expanded it even further, making it a significant local player, whilst still being a family-run firm, which is very unusual in real estate.

     Michael seems to have been undergoing a mid-life crisis, which lead to his wife of 24 years, Kim, divorcing him, with a few grace notes present.  Except 'grace' was entirely lacking and the separation got positively toxic.

     'I Got You' and indeed Kim did, because she knew where all the bodies were buried, and O Boy! were there a couple of cemeteries-worth.  Mike was an utter chump in alienating a lady who had all the dirt to dish.  Did she dish?  She sure did!  Art?

     She went to the FBI, and explained in detail how hubbo had blown $300,000 on drugs, prostitutes and pornography - in the space of two months.  

     The agent's interest was piqued.  Kim, secure in the knowledge that she had their attention, then informed them that hubbo had installed a sophisticated camera system in the house and would video his guests, relatives and the Ladies Of The Night.  All without their consent.

     Upon his arrest in 2010, Mike pleaded guilty to 4 counts of 'Felony Eavesdropping', a 'Felony' being the far more serious charge rather than a 'Misdemeanour'.  He got a four year sentence, and proved he'd learned nothing because in October 2014, being on probation, the police paid him a visit.  Art!

     They found a cocktail of drugs in his apartment, and he went right back to prison.  He'd also been doing his video voyeur act again, and this time he got hit with sixteen counts of 'Felony Eavesdropping'.

     Eight members of his domestic staff sued him for recording them without consent, and Ol' Mikey had to pony up $2.5 million in compensation.

     This sordid saga didn't end there, as in 2021 he appealed against the original Felony Eavesdropping charges, claiming that prostitutes had no expectation of privacy in the - ah - 'execution of their duties' at a client's residence.  This got thrown out of court, too.  Art!

     It probably comes as no surprise to learn that Mike's antics badly damaged the branding and reputation of Lyons Real Estate - "Drugs, hookers and porn" doesn't really sell the image of a respectable family business.  His father had established the company 78 years prior until, also in 2021, it was acquired by Windermere Real Estate and has now vanished.
     Way to go, CEO!

     

A Butter Tomorrow

No!  I am not talking about an early entry of John Woo's, featuring Chow Yun Fat, which I used to have on VHS, but which does allow me to insert a click-baity photograph.  Art!

It's a John Woo film; there have to be guns

     No, what I want to highlight here is a disconsolate Ruffian at the supermarket, who films himself inspecting packs of butter.  Every man ought to have a hobby, even if this one is a bit dull.  Art!

     That rather depends on what one calls 'urgent', doesn't it?  Matey picked out a pack of butter to demonstrate what he was pointing out.  Art!

     To put this in perspective, a week ago it cost just under $2, and now it costs about $3.50.  Food inflation in Modern-day Mordor is a very real thing, especially as the average weekly wage comes in at less than ₽1,000.  Art!

     Note that they're short-changing customers here as a pack of butter here in Perfidious Albion costs £2, and we get 225 grams of it.  So, we get almost half as much again for ₽100 less.  So the orcs are facing a dilemma; they can afford potatoes but no butter to go with them OR they buy butter and then can't afford potatoes.

     It's almost as if there's a huge background event causing food inflation like this, if only he and I knew what it was .....

Hello!

Conrad found this picture on his Word notes page, where I keep text and pictures for later use.  The thing is, age and gin have addled my wits, rather, and I can't remember why I copied it.  Enough prevarication - Art!

     Not a thing of beauty, is it?  What you are looking at, head-on, is a Nimrod Airborne Early Warning aircraft, based on the venerable Nimrod airframe.  As an AEW it's role would be to stooge around at height, picking up enemy air activity, tracking friendlies and informing the latter of the former.  Art!

     Conrad is not an expert on matters aerial, yet is prettttty sure they don't make AEWs like this any more, where the radomes are located at nose and tail.  Nowadays they tend to mount them on a platform above the hull.

     Now we are all better educated than we were five minutes ago.  BOOJUM! educating people.

Czeching Out

I well remember my Pub Quiz partner, Rosie, explaining how well-organised the Czechs in Prague were when it came to the removal of snow.  She and Phil had taken a short break there, possibly tempted by Czech beers, and it had snowed.  Hay Pesto! out came an array of vehicles intended to give snow a good seeing-to and send it packing.  Art!

     Why do I mention this?  Because once again in This Sceptred Isle we have had a light dusting of snow and what is the result?  PANIC PANIC THE END TIMES ARE UPON US WITH EXTRA ADDED COLDNESS!

     Not here in Royton.  The light dusting vanished later in the morning when it began to rain, thank you so much, weather.  Art!

     This illo is from the BBC's News website, stating it to be in Northumberland, an ill-defined region in the distant North where only the local squire has the vote and electricity is spurned as being black magic*.

Dear Diary

Your Humble Scribe is going to have to travel into either Ur-on-the-Roch or Babylon Lite in order to get a new 2025 diary, because he is a dinosaur and if it's not written down in physical form on a piece of paper, then it doesn't exist to him.  Travel will be a pain, what with the roadworks outside The Mansion <fed-up face>.

*  Perhaps.

The Hooded Cape

I Know, I Know

It sounds like the arch-villain from the "Perils Of Penelope Pitstop", whom is possibly the only girl you can call 'racy' without impugning her morals or dress code.  Art!

     I'm calling this a breach of the Trade Descriptions Act.  For one thing, he has perfectly normal hands, not claws or talons.  For another, he's wearing a mask and a hat, and a hood is noticeable BY IT'S ABSENCE.  "The Masked And Hatted Hands" is a bit feeble as a name to strike terror into the onlooker.

     ANYWAY of course this has nothing to do with the rest of this Intro, because I want to introduce you to the Late Latin <spit hack> word 'Birrus', which means - you may be ahead of me here - 'Hooded Cape'.  From this we derive the name for a 'Stiff square clerical hat' as worn by official in the Roman Catholic church.  Art!

     This is known as a 'Biretta' and also the alternative spelling 'Beretta', which is where James Bond - or, rather, Sean Connery - comes in.  He narrated a film clip from the Sixties whilst on location for "Goldfinger", about a Mister Geoffrey Boothroyd, Ian Fleming and 007.  Art!

     Which makes sense when you think about it.  As if the South Canadians would allow a film production company - and one hailing from Perfidious Albion at that - anywhere near anywhere near Fort Knox.

     ANYWAY AGAIN Mister Boothroyd was a big fan of guns, and after reading "From Russia With Love" he got in touch with Ian Fleming about 007's personal weapon of choice.  Art!

     This, Dougal, is a 0.25 calibre Beretta, Our James' original weapon of choice.  Mr. Boothroyd explained in some detail about what he felt a secret agent ought to use as a weapon, and it wasn't the dainty little Beretta.  O noes.  Art!

     You could get away with language like that in the Sixties <sighs wistfully>.

     Here an aside.  Conrad courts controversy!  Edward Gibbon, author of "The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire", was convinced that it was Christianity that did in the empire, and contemporary critics are likewise convinced that the decline of Western civilisation can be traced to exactly that point when women got the vote, be

     ANYWAY AGAIN AGAIN Mister Boothroyd managed to convince Ol' Flemmy to have James adopt the Walther PPK - which stand for "Pistole Polizei Kriminal".  Ol' Boothy himself preferred a revolver as an agent's weapon of choice, which is fair enough, as they are more mechanically reliable than a self-loading pistol.  He proposed to test-fire a Beretta, a PPK and a .44 Ruger Magnum, using tins of tomato puree as targets to exemplify the ballistics involved.  Art!

The three degrees

     Ol' Boothy mentions that the Beretta is a very compact weapon, easy to conceal.  The PPK is a compromise of power and portability.  The Ruger is a real man-stopper but it's sheer size works against it as a concealable weapon.  Art!

     Onto the tins of tortured tomato.  Ol' Boothy leads with the Beretta.  Art!

That's the thing.  The Beretta is small and easy to carry and conceal, but the downside is that the ammunition doesn't have a lot of stopping power.  You would need to hit your opponent in the head or heart to encourage their jitterbugging off this mortal coil, and they might delay proceedings in order to shoot back at you.  Art!

     Next up is the PPK, and you can see there is a lot more damage inflicted.  A delay in jitterbugging is looking less likely here.  Art!

     The .44 Magnum round demolishes the can and contents.  Sorry, tin of tormented tomatoes.  Art!

     British understatement at it's finest.

Clearing Out My Bookmarks

Conrad only recently discovered the 'Bookmark' function on Twitter, which is a great way of tabbing an item and coming back to it later on, when the gin and seven-course meal have worn off.  The Intro above is from a Bookmarked item, and here we have another.  Art!

Cum nu vii tu, Ţepeş doamne, ca punând mâna pe ei,

Să-i împarţi în două cete: în smintiţi şi în mişei,

Şi în două temniţi large cu de-a sila să-i aduni,

Să dai foc la puşcărie şi la casa de nebuni.

     Yes, it's Romanian.  No, I'm not certain what it says.  Allow me to exploit Google Translate.

Why don't you come, Tepeş lady, as if laying hands on them,

Divide them into two groups: the crazy and the poor,

And in two large prisons with de a sila to gather them,

Set fire to the prison and the madhouse.

     Right.  Right.

     No, not any clearer.  Art!

     That's Vlad Tepes, original Romanian inspiration for the tale of Dracula.  I knew we'd end up in Transylvania once Romania got mentioned!

     I don't think I can really impose on Daractenus, that Bookmark was from August and here we are 5 months later.  Conrad seems to recall that Ol' Darry mentioned every Romanian schoolchild learns this poem by heart.

A First

I won't go into the background of this in any great detail, only to point out to you that Ukraine has been proving that a force of drones can compensate for not having a navy at all, or a lack of long-range bomber aircraft.  Art!

     You might call this an example of asymmetrical warfare, as a cheap naval drone, the 'Magura' - Art!

Magura with puny human for scale

     - has shot down a Ruffian Mi-8 helicopter, costing millions of $$$, and sent the crew jitterbugging off this mortal coil, too.  It was bound to happen, the Ukrainians have been using heavy machine guns on their drone boats already, damaging Ruffian helicopters and their crews.  Commentators on social media have made much of this as a first, whilst Your Humble Scribe wonders if it will become one of many.  The Ruffians, you see, have always flushed their helicopters to act as gunships to hunt down Ukrainian naval drones.  Now the calculation will have to be: is this a genuine drone attack or are they just trying to bait our choppers?  Suck it and sea.

     Excuse briefly, got to go check out the Barm Brack.  Done with gluten-free self-raising flour, so I need to check how raising it's being.

     Not enough.  Tented.

Our Journey With Bernie

Wrightson, not Madoff.  Just so we're clear.  Wouldn't want the portrayer of ghastly monstrous macabre nightmarish artwork to have to sit shoulder to shoulder with a white-collar criminal, would we?  Art!

     For Your Information, "Gesundheit" is what South Canadians say instead of "Bless You" when a person sneezes.  This chap sneezing would shatter all the windows in the lower floor.  In case you can't make out the notes, Ol' Bern was doing storyboard illustrations for an adaptation of H. P. Lovecraft's "Shadow Over Innsmouth" which never came to fruition.  Stuck in Development Hell.  Or, in this case, Development H. P. Lovecraft.

Interesting!

A couple of years ago the Ruffians put out a propaganda video that was actually quite amusing.  In it, a young European girl gets the Christmas gift of a hamster.  Art!

"Rozhdestvoe" - Ruffian for "Christmas"

     By the next year all the Ruffian gas had been cut off, so Europe was freezing, and the hamster was powering the family's Christmas decorations.  Noble hamster!

     The following year they end up eating hamster soup.

     The thing is, this is all coming true in reverse.  Remember all the street bonfire parties the serfs in Ruffia had to arrange last winter, when their heating and power broke down?  Well, now an entire region is going to undergo similar - Art!

     That purple section is Transnistria, a Ruffian enclave they nicked in 1945 and have never been kicked out of.  It was supplied with cheap Ruffian gas, for which the locals were grateful, up until the beginning of Putinpot's Special Idiotic Operation.  Then they were given three year's notice that Ukraine would NOT be allowing the transit of Ruffian gas across it's territory.

     Transnistria's leaders - if you can grace them with such a term - obviously believed that the war would be over long before their three years were up and that Ruffia Mighty Ruffia would prevail, the gas would continue, et flipping cetera.

     NOPE.

     Ooops.

     Now their gas supply has been completely severed.  No gas.  No hot water.  No heating (in winter!).  Nobody on the streets.  Nothing moving.  What's that song by The Specials? O yes.  Art!

     That horrid sound you can hear in the background is Conrad laughing, because Yes! I am a horrible person.