Conrad Is Taking A Calculated Risk Here
Because that title is a quote from a Monty Python sketch, the one about sheep masquerading under the delusion that they can fly, hence roosting in trees. When asked the £49,230 question (adjusted for inflation), 'How do they fly?' the answer is, of course - obviously! - "They don't so much fly as plummet." Which is perfectly understandable, sheep are not known for being aerodynamically designed and lack wings, which is a bit of a prerequisite for flight. Art!
Here we have one of the Seventies proponents of 'Pub Rock', a musical movement that eschewed the typically expensively-produced recordings of the time (Yes and Pink Floyd we are looking at you), in favour of a much leaner, less polished and more immediate sound. It had a short heyday, pub rock, but it's never entirely gone away, either, because there are always up-and-coming bands who will be looking to make a bre
ANYWAY that's not what we're here about. True to form, Conrad is here to celebrate the misfortunes of the Real Life Plummet Airlines, namely those that provide air travel services in Modern-day Mordor. Art!
Remember this one from 2023? One of Ural Despairlines fleet, which crash-landed in a field in Siberia and is there to this day, as it would have been much too difficult to retrieve it. Art!
That's one of S7's fleet of carriers in Mordor, not to be confused with S Club 7, as a club is more airworthy at present that most Ruffian passenger jets. You see, when the Special Idiotic Operation began, Ruffia instantly decided to keep all their leased jets without paying the lessors, thumbing their collective noses at the Global West, whom had leased 66% of their jets, carrying 90% of their passengers.
If the Not-Allowed-To-Call-It-A-War had only lasted the expected few weeks, this breach of contract wouldn't have been an especially big issue, and the airlines would have gotten back to flying orcs around their Kermit Kingdom*.
HOWEVER - that word again - three years of sanctions have cut the supply of spare and replacement parts to Ruffia to a fraction of the amount required for safe operation. Hence the advised use of 'Plummet' in today's title. In order to keep a minimum number of planes in the air, Ruffian airlines are cannibalising others for spare parts, and paying up to 1,000% mark-ups on what spares they can get, with absolutely no guarantee that they're getting genuine parts. Art!
For 'substandard' read 'faked' or 'counterfeit', because that's what they were. The results must have been realllllly bad for the Ruffians to deem Health & Safety was being violated and pull aircraft from the flight line, because their usual attitude is 'Shrug and carry on' and indulge in a circle of blame if things go pear-shaped. Art!
What's this scene of carnage and destruction? It's what's left of a Ruffian Sukhoi Superjet 100, which crashed whilst undergoing flight testing after what the Ruffians laughably call 'repairs', in the summer of 2024. The S-100 was supposed to be the orcs answer to Boeing and Airbus, being a completely Ruffian airframe that would teach the evilllll decadent West <Cont. Page 94>. In cold hard reality, not the fantasy world that Charlie Chipmunk Cheeks inhabits, the S-100 engines were mostly Italian-made and have thus sparked endless problems in 'Import Substitution'. Art!
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| Charlie, featuring his sweaty shiny forehead thanks to male pattern baldness |
One wonders if this is what Donold Judas Trump would look like without the rug woven into his hair roots, and if this helps to keep his brainworm warm, be
ANYWAY the Kremlin, trying to puff itself up like a bullfrog and look Big And Important, proclaimed back in 2022 that Ruffia would build ONE THOUSAND NEW JET PASSENGER AIRLINERS by 2030. Wowsers! How ambitious!
Except, once again, cold hard reality has a way of undercutting Dimya's dizzying pronouncements. Art!
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| Let me guess - what he'd do if within thrusting distance of a certain Bunker Grandad? |
This is Kyrylo 'Kruel' Shevchenko, an Ukrainian economist and former head of the Ukrainian Central Bank, and he gleefully pointed out that the Ruffians have built a grand total of FIVE NEW JET PASSENGER AIRLINERS in that three-year timespan. Thus, by extension, it's going to take until 2625 to hit that eight-year target. This is accurate, I confirmed it whilst walking Edna this afternoon.
Oooops.
Nor is that all the bad news for Putinpot. S7, the largest Ruffian private airline we mentioned earlier, have just cancelled their planned £65 million gas turbine engine plant in Saint Petersburg (₽70 billion in silly money). This is partly thanks to the ridiculously high interest rates in Modern-day Mordor, which would have seen them paying back ₽200 billion on loans they took out.
Oooops again!
Last Call For Mister Mann
NOT to be confused with the Mister Men, that hideously successful franchise which snuck in under the radar. This is Mister Michael Mann, and our last of his list of tips to guide you in appreciating film direction, scripting, composition and - Art!
Editing a film together is both a technical and artistic skill, which most directors leave the details of to their professional editorial staff, for a reason. There are exceptions, such as Kurosawa or Lynch, and you can go Google all about them. What Ol' Mike is saying here is that the editing process is the last point at which the director can exert any kind of creative influence on the film, should they want to. Usually this is in collaboration with a film editor, and after this stage it's out into the big wide world for that final cut.
More Of Our Grumbling German Gefreiter
We are still on the dates of 3 and 4 September 1944, where our citric and cynical corporal is still complaining.
Luftwaffe and Marine! Thousands of officers are trying to save their lives. March to Antwerp.
Conrad's Commentary: he and his compatriots were far too late, thanks to having to de-train and march on foot to the front lines, because the British liberated Antwerp on 4th September. Art!
Complete disorder. We have to protect the retreat of these cowardly dastards. 719 Division stops the enemy advance for the time being. Many casualties in 12 Company.
Conrad's Commentary: matey is flattering himself. Antwerp was liberated by the British 11th Armoured Division, which had been fighting since the 13th of June and was at the end of a long and tenuous supply chain, so exhaustion and lack of supplies were as effective as the Teuton defence, not to mention the riverine and canal systems in Belgium.
Hmmmmmm
Conrad is currently perusing "The English Civil Wars 1650 - 1660" by Blair Worden, which you cannot expect a lot from, as it's only 160 pages long on a subject that has only gotten more complex over time as more and more research gets conducted into it. Art!
Whilst it may be a whistle-stop tour, he seems determined to go into the background of the background and the background of that and who the King's uncle was and what he did during his summer holidays, and the actual military conflict occupies about 10 pages in Part 2. Then it's "Regicide" and "Republic" and "Restoration". A more accurate title would be "The English Political, Economic And Above All Religious Background Where The Horrid Nasty Fighting Takes Distant Seventeenth Place". I know, I know, it's not going to remain on my bookshelves once completed.
It did give a recommendation for another work on the topic. Art!
I Give You - Snowy White!
You want music? I'll give you music. Art!
This is Terence 'Snowy' White, ace self-taught guitarist with a long pedigree of session and gig work. He was part of Pink Floyd's live line-up for the Animals tour, which impressed watching Thin Lizzy guitarist Scott Gorham enough to invite him to join their band. So he did.
No horrengous CGI dwarves or magical bandit creatures were harmed in the composition of this item. Ambrose Gwinnet Bierce is 183.
Finally -
Better go eat that pizza before it becomes dangerously unstable and explodes.
* I'll come up with an hilarious reason for this nickname, any time soon.
** Shut up, wallet, it's only £5 total!
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