You Might Suspect I'd Consumed Pineapple By Mistake
Yes, pineapple, which is as deadly to Conrad as Kryptonite is to Ol' Supes, or garlic to vampires, which always seemed odd to me because where do they gobble garlic cloves like sweeties? why nowhere other than Easter Europe such as Ro
ANYWAY we are not here to discuss the Cursed Comosus, but rather the images conjured up by that staccato sound. You might expect it to be from - Art!
But of course not, because I have carefully omitted the letter 'K' in today's title, even if they sound the same*.
No, because the initials 'AC' are used as a class-description in South Canadian naval parlance, and no Dougal they do not mean 'Air Conditioning'. Imagine an entire Air Wing and it's ordnance, not to mention a Marine detachment, and the crew, all trying to operate from a two-foot square bolt-on giant enclosed fan. Art!
'Nimitz'-class South Canadian aircraft carrier with puny humans for scale
This is one of ELEVEN 'flat-tops' that the South Canadians operate, all nuclear-powered and capable of global deployment for hard or soft power projection, averaging 80 aircraft each.
But we are not here to celebrate South Canadian naval might in gloasting terms, far from it. No, we are here to castigate, mock and jeer at the Ruffian's naval equivalent, the broken-down garbage scow that is their 'Admiral Kuznetsov'.
We have cruelly mocked this cursed carrier before, and I've recently come across more background information that damns it even further, which is kind of hard to manage. Art!
This is the NITKA trainer at Saki airbase in occupied Crimea, laid out as an aircraft carrier and with gimballed mountings so it can mimic a real AC's movement at sea. It doesn't appear to have been used or updated or repaired in a couple of years, which implies nobody is doing carrier aircraft operations.
Then, too, there is the appearance of a Ruffian jet on their coat-trailing exercises in the air bordering NATO countries: the Su-33. Art!
No, it's not broken, merely adapted to service aboard an AC, with a stronger undercarriage and larger folding wings. That way you can fit more into a confined hangar space.
The thing is - Art!
The Ark of AK
They were intended for use on the AK, which does not have a catapult for launching aircraft and instead relies on a ramp. This means any jets it launched were under-armed and under-fuelled or they'd crash into the sea - which is what happened to one Su-33 off the coast of Syria on the AK's single military mission.
That these aircraft have now been sent to airfields to fly bothering missions over Europe very strongly implies that the AK is now truly seen as the useless wreck it had long been, since the Air Wing no longer even pretends to be based there. Art!
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| An article from 'Popular Mechanics' from 2022 |
Ho ho ho. As of 2025 it's been in harbour for EIGHT YEARS. This is longer than 'Chinese Democracy'. There's also the minor issue of it's crew, who were all sent to Ukraine as infantry long ago and whom are now pushing up the sunflowers. The Su-33s are also a wasting asset, since only 17 of the original 35 are still serviceable, and the old pilots trained in carrier operations are either retired or dead. If Gandalf came in and magicked the AK into service tomorrow, it would become that very interesting thing, an aircraft carrier without aircraft.
I know what you're thinking: why not simply build another? Surely building one from scratch, with brand-new technology, nuclear propulsion, Mig-29K fighters and brash young upstart pilots would only require a couple of trillion rubles? (postulating a theft, embezzlement and skimming quotient of a mere 50%). Art!
This is the Sinister AC 'Ulyanovsk', being constructed in Mykolaiev shipyard as of 1989, a process interrupted by the collapse of the Sinister Union, whereupon the Ulyanovsk also collapsed.
The AK and unfinished sister ship the 'Varyag' were also constructed in Mykolaiev - which is in UKRAINE. So there you have 3 ACs - hence the AC AC AC of today's title, and now you can see how embarrassed the Ruffians are at not capturing that port in early 2022. They had the capability to repair and upgrade existing ships but not build them, and even that capability was lost when their floating dock stopped floating and sank. Major repairs and upgrades now need to be done in Vladivostok, on the Pacific coast of Ruffia and a major transit.
Perhaps this will also give you some perspective on that South Canadian political poltroon Pete 'Braindeath' Hegseth, who blithely stated it would take South Canada seven years to even begin to challenge Ruffian naval supremacy. Art!
" - In The Black Sea And Also Under It"
Please note all this damage has been inflicted on the orcs by a nation without a navy.
Without Naming Names
Conrad, being a horrible person, thought he'd just put this sidebar item up there and leave it for perusal. Art!
As high as 3%! Gosh O gosh, whatever will we do? One thing we in This Sceptred Isle won't do is put our butter into security packs to stop it being stolen, and what do you know, we also have lots of eggs, that you don't need a second mortgage to purchase.
Still no sign of the mighty mangosteen, mind.
Our Journey With Bernie
Has been somewhat interrupted, thanks to problems with late-run cards from FPG's initial 1993 "Master Of The Macabre", where they either don't crop up on a Google search at all, or only the text description from the back of the card is present, with no picture to compare it to. This next one, #78 "Devolution" is a bit serendipitified, since it's made of two separate pictures. Art!
The picture here is from 'Heritage Auctions' and is from a past auction of Ol' Bern's artwork, and they definitely title it as 'Devolution'**. They don't say what it sold for, you need to register for that and Your Humble Scribe cannot be bothered. My hesitancy about the provenance here is that the silhouette on the scripting card is not the same as the supposed cover picture. Art!
This one looks like Hyper-Hyena, not Gill-Man.
Life Imitating Art
It's hard to believe that a jet airliner can invert and crash on a runway, except it's just happened in Toronto, with unbelievably non-fatal results. Art!
It seems that the starboard wing broke off after the landing gear collapsed, which meant less risk of fire, as the wings are where the - extremely flammable - fuel is stored. It also meant the remaining wing was supplying all the lift whilst the jet was still moving, and you can see it turning above.
There are plenty of film clips from the passengers, which is a good thing as it means they survived, so I'm not going to put them up here.
It did put me in mind of a film called 'Flight', where a mechanical failure causes the jet in question to fly inverted. Art!
Background included so you know they didn't just turn the film upside down once shot.
Lest you be unaware, passenger jets are NOT designed to fly inverted, not for any length of time, not even when the pilot's wife has just given birth after he's won the lottery and he feels like doing a barrel-roll.
What do you bet this film is banned BANNED BANNED as in-flight entertainment?
Free!
Not quite, Art. But no Tazer.
Your Humble Scribe has been nominated as an 'Incentive & Wellbeing' rep at work, which sounds great, except we reps have now to come up with ways to motivate and incentivize our compatriots in ways that don't cost anything. Rather a challenge, that one. Conrad wonders if Our Anonymous International Owner has any branded corporate swag items that might be issued as awards or prizes? except then of course - obviously! - since we are all working from home, they have to be delivered, which will cost. Not much yet anything would be excessive.
Now I have to think up ideas about 'International Employee Happiness Day'.
Wish me luck.
Finally -
No Dog Buns! hot water this morning as I stood in the shower, shower-booted up, waiting for the freezing flow to warm up. It didn't so I shall have to de-grease after work today. Bah!
* Not lack of punnery about a certain breakfast cereal.
** This was long before the Calendonians were making noises about being a separate nation
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