I Know What You're Thinking
Only because I'm so perceptive and I keep telling you I RETURNED THE D.A.R.P.A.TELEPATHY HELMET and it was only a 'long-term borrow' which is totally not stealing or theft.
Normally this Intro, if it had a title like that, would be all about the faltering economy of Modern-day Mordor, which we may come back to because reading about other people's misery is always hilariously entertaining. Unless it's just me?
ANYWAY Art!
Yes, The Associates again, this time thanks to their big hit "Club Country"
which is apt because part of this Intro concerns country clubs, thanks to an unbelievable Reddit Youtube tale of - hmmm not sure how to classify this one. Evil Entitled Greedy Criminal Parents? hereafter EEGCRIMPS.
So, the Somewhat Naive Narrator, hereafter SONN, accompanied by his much sharper wife, attended his parent's Sunday meal, where his mother gossiped, boasted and attempted to inveigle his wife into joining her country club. See? Told you it was relevant.
For dessert, Father EEGCRIMP broached the subject of getting a payment from SONN because he and Mother EEGCRIMP had 'made a bad investment' and were $5,000 short thanks to being scammed. MSW asked a few pertinent questions, which Mother EEGCRIMP dodged and parried, before SONN blithely agreed to give them the money. Art!
Dunno what the extra head signifies
Next day Father EEGCRIMP appears at their son's house to gratefully accept a cheque - you can tell this is the benighted backwards country of South Canada, dealing with cheques in this day and age! - except he 'cannot remember' the exact amount. He thus tells SONN to leave the amount blank FORESHADOWING FOOL! and he'll just add the correct amount in later.
Red Flag Number One.
Then, Father EEGCRIMP produces a sheet of typed info, which he tells SONN to sign for 'legal and taxation purposes' and is quite pushy about it, until SONN snaps back that he'll sign it later.
Red Flag Number Two. Art!
Poetic licence
SONN gets pestered to sign and return the papers a couple of days later, RED FLAG NUMBER 3 and would have done so sight unseen if it were not for MSW, who insised on actually reading the supposed legal document. He quibbles that it's his parents, surely he can trust them? to flat refusal to capitulate from MSW.
It's as well she was there, because the total on the papers was $52,000, not $5,200. GIGANTIC FLASHING RED FLAG NUMBER FOUR. She asked if it was an error, an accidental extra zero added on until SONN, with a sinking sensation in his stomach, confessed he'd given father EEGCRIMP a blank cheque.
The definition of an Ooops! moment.
SONN's habitual use of a Friday date for cheques saved his bottom this time, as they discovered the fraud on a Wednesday evening, thus he was able to freeze his account before the money went out. Art!
SONN belatedly realised that the $52,000 was not an error, it was deliberate, yet couldn't understand why his parents would try to rip him off, because they were, if not exactly wealthy, very well-off. They came from a family that had been diamond merchants only a couple of generations previously, whom had passed down very considerable inheritances.
Or so he thought. Much Sharper Wife, on the other hand and the other other hand, too, had noticed a pattern of his parents always avoiding paying the bill when they went out for meals. So much for very well-off. Not only that, Father and Mother EEGCRIMP never bought birthday or Christmas presents but expected to get given same. Red Flags Number Five and Six. O and Mother EEGCRIMP used to boast about giving big expensive prezzies to her bezzies at the country club. Art!
$3,550 membership fee per annum
These were murky waters indeed. SONN, exhibiting common sense for once, rang his brother to vent about his near-disaster, only to hear hollow laughter echoing down the line. Father EEGCRIMP had tried something similar with the Much Tougher Brother, who simply passed over a cheque for $5,000, no nonsense about legal or tax being borne and whom refused to sign any paperwork. Mother and Father EEGCRIMP were pretty short and snappy with MTB after that, obviously only getting 10% of what they'd expected to scam.
What in Dog Buns! is going on! wondered SONN, and MTB and MSW. Their parents had never pulled a stunt like this before. Money had never been an issue nor in short supply. Both brothers had gone to private schools, they had their college funded by the parents, they lived in a big house with all the mod cons, father drove a big expensive car. Art!
Your Humble Scribe is going to draw a curtain down over events for now, as there's a lot more quite boggling stuff to get through. Laterz!
I May Not Know Why The Caged Bird Sings
(With apologies to Maya Angelou) but I do know other interesting things. For example, do you know why Captain Cholesterol is desperately keen to bully Ukraine into accepting total surrender to Ruffia? Art!
So, for January 2025, the Ruffian figure for inflation stands at 9.9%, officially. Unofficially it stands at more like 30%, despite their interest rate being a swingeing 21%, which Charlie Chipmunk Cheeks has forbidden to be raised any more, as it makes him look bad. For comparison, only Turkey and Argentina in the G20 have higher inflation and theirs is now decreasing. Art!
That's the interest rates being charged in part of the G20. For your information, we here in the UK are suffering under interest rates as high as 4.5%, the horror the horror.
The figures for food inflation in Modern-day Mordor are even higher than run-of-the-mill inflation, being at 11.1%, meaning that a potato now costs two potatoes, as one Twitter wit has it. Art!
This chart shows the stats for 'Real Wage Growth', to which one must add the (headline) inflation rate. What's interesting about this chart is that Ruffia no longer publishes real wage growth data as of the beginning of December 2024, because it would make Putinpot look bad. Art!
One of the more eye-popping statistics that is floating around at present is the Ruffian budget deficit for January 2025, which comes in at ₽1.7 trillion
Howitz Going
Ha! Sometimes I amuse even myself. Not today though. This title is a horrid pun on 'How it's going' as reference the mighty Matilda tanks used by the Ockers in the Pacific campaign. Conrad knew they had been used, just not in the quantity or with such efficacy. Art!
Thanks to Dennis Burns for info and pictures
Normally, the Matilda sported a 2-pounder high-velocity gun that fired solid armour-piercing shot, backed up by a co-axial machine gun. A more effective weapon was required as back-up to deal with things like dug-in infantry or pillboxes, and you see the solution above - a Matilda mounting a 3" howitzer. This fired high-explosive low-velocity shells, which you can see being loaded.
Yes yes yes, there was a high-explosive round for the 2-pounder, which massed all of 3 ounces of HE, and which was pretty useless, which wargamers argue about with all the intensity of clerics whanging on about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Hence howitz going.
Conrad Points And Laughs
We make no secret here of cordially disliking Elong Tusk, whom we also dub "The Musk Rat" in fond memory of 'Muskie' from the barely-animated series 'Deputy Dawg', who was a lot nicer and more human. Art!
You can compare the two. Art!
Ooops. Did I accidentally include very bad news about his electric vehicle business? how very remiss of me, bad Conrad, naughty Conrad, pass Go and collect only £150. Yet another tee hee moment. Blimey, I'm going to need to go shopping for more popcorn at this rate.
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