Or, Perhaps, A Road Tri₽
Now, I can tell what you're thinking at this point, because you're predictable and I'm devious, underhanded and quite surprisingly perceptive on a good day. No, this is not about either "Easy Rider" or "Duel" nor yet "Mad Max", but mentioning them allows me to put up a clickbaity photograph. All I have to do is set this Green Mamba loose on Art to encourage a little alertness -
O stop whining, Art, you sound as bad as the Motley used to. You can go to the hospital for the anti-venin later.
Yes, that above is indeed "Easy Rider", which Your Humble Scribe has never seen. It has to do with - er - motorbikes? Art!
I have seen this one, a taut little thriller about a sinister fuel tanker threatening a workaday saloon driver, for absolutely no reason.
ANYWAY this Intro is to do with roads in an entirely different milieu, to wit, that of Modern-day Mordor. Yes, I thought that might get your attention.
Thanks here to the dedicated and courageous Quoran Misha Firer, who posts there under the handle "Brutalsky", and whom has been responsible for a long series of posts, usually with pictures attached, that deal with life in Ruffia. He frequently exposes the incredible depth and breadth of corruption in his native land, so much so that one fears for his life and recommends he never ascends above ground level. Art!
He is surprisingly hale and hearty, possibly because he only drinks coffee, or, more probably, because he posts in English and the FSB doesn't care enough about the few Ruffians with access to Quora who speak English.
As an example of the prolonged and systemic corruption that is a feature of Putinpot's realm, Misha mentioned the M-1 highway, a strategic road link that stretches from Moscow to Brest. It is probably the most important highway in the whole of Modern-day Mordor. Art!
Here it is. I know, I know, it looks more like an English "A" road rather than a nationally important motorway. Misha posted a telling photograph from his own road trip. Art?
This is the high-spec part, because it has a lane-divider separating the opposing traffic streams. According to the design, this humble road should have three lanes in either direction, lamp-posts, guardrails and hard shoulders. You know, like a proper motorway. Let us be unkind and prod Art a bit more.
This is what an English motorway looks like*. Four lanes in either direction. Note the central reservation with dual guardrails, not merely bits of surplus metal fencing. Hard shoulders. Lamp-posts. Note that bridge in the middle distance.
Misha explains that in Ruffia, most of the budget to have all theses extra bells and whistles was embezzled before a spade of soil was turned over, leaving contractors with the problem of how to build a motorway with very little funding. So, they hired the very cheapest construction companies, who were instructed to cut corners everywhere and rip off anything they could. Art!
Yes, traffic lights on a motorway. The motorway proper, not a slip road. You don't see these on English motorways*. These pedestrian crossings are present because there was no money left to build underpasses or bridges, so the traffic flow is constantly being interrupted. Art!
To compound matters, the two existing lanes are quite narrow, which makes driving in anything less than ideal conditions exponentially dangerous, especially as Misha admits that Ruffians are terrible drivers who care not whether they live or die, and who have even less concern for other motorists. Nor is that all. Instead of being routed around towns and villages via bypasses - first constructed in England in 1957, mate* - the M1 runs directly through these settlements, again constricting traffic flow and risking the lives of pedestrians.
Tellingly, when the M1 reaches Belarus, which Misha describes as far poorer than Ruffia yet which does not tolerate corruption in such appalling fashion, the road immediately resembles what a motorway ought to look like. Art!
A big improvement but still not as good as an English motorway*
One rather suspects that, if "Easy Rider" had taken place in Ruffia, it would have lasted seventeen minutes and ended with everybody dead in a massive pile-up.
Keep away from windows, Misha.
Dog Buns Phone Camera!
Despite fiddling around with Storage and Cache and Restarting, the furshlugginer phone camera will not store pictures.
Why is this bad? Because I cannot add any new pictures of "The War Illustrated Edition 201 March 2nd 1945" nor can I put up a picture of the Yoghurt & Orange Cake I baked tonight.
Bah!
"The War Illustrated Edition 201 March 2nd 1945"
Well, make me a liar. There I was, poking around in the Apps and Settings, and I got rid of a load of surplus files and Youtube, which I have never watched on the old Samsung and have no intention of ever doing so.
Surprise! Suddenly it was working again. Art!
 |
| ART! |
Excuse me whilst we wheel out the Elephant Tazer -
<sounds of sizzling and shrieking can be heard in the background>
Try again, matey.
Here you see the stalwarts of the British National Fire Service, undergoing a training exercise in Blighty, with a crew hauling a 13 cwt High-capacity Trailer Pump** across a disused gravel pit. Below them the stalwart female motorbike riders of the NFS discover how uncomfortable a motorbike going over rough ground feels. It's not clear if these gels would be sent to the European Theatre of Operations alongside the First Overseas Column, because it would be caddish to put young ladies at risk.
NOW The Cake
Yes, Conrad used his new Food Processor to make a cake batter for the first time and it did the job very well. The next to last one I had was too powerful and would hurl the butter and sugar up against the sides of the mixing bowl, from which it had to be repeatedly scraped down. Art! O stop whining and put a bit of Sudocrem on them.
Quite a simple recipe. The only problem is that the recipe called for an 8" cake tin, and we only have a 10" one, so the batter was spread out further than called for, which meant keeping an eye on it so it didn't burn. I may have to keep an eye out for an 8" tin.
Haven't tasted it yet, to come tomorrow!
Ooops, just realised I forgot to clean the tin. Another thing to come tomorrow. Honest.
Behold The Bandage
I tried to take photos of my be-swathed big toe last week, only for the Dog Buns! phone camera to refuse to co-operate. Well, now you can glory in the sight of it. Art!
In all it's splendour. This is a couple of hours after having had a shower, which necessitated wrapping and taping a plastic bag around my foot, taping another bag over that one and taping up the gap around my hairy shin. Crude but effective, and next time I'd better inspect the plastic bags for holes, for the outer one leaked.
Finally -
Tomorrow is the day when British Gas turn off the gas supply to a row of houses, including The Mansion, so we shall be without hot water or heating. They propose to spend a couple of days replacing gas pipes, which kind of sucks bottom. It could have been worse, it might have been during that cold snap. This is the reason I have foresworn my usual Wednesday morning shower. You never know, I might inspire hilarity amongst Alex's team on Teams by showing them my dressing. Hey - if the camera's phone is co-operating tomorrow, I shall try to get pictures of the holes BG have been busy excavating.
Laterz!
* God save the King! Rule Britannia! Brown bread bacon barm butties!
** I have no idea what it's proper name is so I just made that up.
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