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!
Yes, it's Romanian. No, I'm not certain what it says. Allow me to exploit Google Translate.
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment