Or South Canadian Hijackers
Both of which are associated with the term 'Hold up', in the sense that a travelling person has been waylaid and deprived of their valuables and possibly their life. Allow me to boost the Word Count and bring in a touch of verisimilitude.
‘The Persons undernamed are charged upon Oath for committing several Robberies in Essex, Middlesex, Surry, and Kent, and are not yet taken, for each of whom a Reward of Fifty Pounds is advertised in the Gazettes of the 4th and 7th of January last past, and of the 8th and 11th of this Instant February.’
Lest you be unaware, £50 in 1723 is probably about £5,000 nowadays. Art!
Yes, that is renowned light comedy actor Richard O'Sullivan in a serious dramatic role.
ANYWAY I am here to bring in another Latin word <hack spit>, 'Sustinere', which means 'To bash Alan Carr over the head with a rubber mallet until he swears to never appear on television again' OOOPS NO SORRY hang on, 'To hold up', terribly sorry, do apologise, just not a fan. Art!
Almost on topic
From 'Sustinere' we get 'Sustain', which my 'Collins Concise Dictionary' defines as: "To hold up under, withstand, to undergo". It is also the "S" part of "ASDR" in electronic music, but I digress.
We now shift track dramatically, to analyse a recent vlog posted by (Doctor) Jason Jay Smart on Youtube, where he typically posts about the Special Idiotic Operation in Ukraine, him having a background in Ruffian history and politics. Art!
That's Jay Jay looking a bit more hirsute than he does nowadays. Neither he nor I are remotely impartial about the Special Idiotic Operation, so if you want balanced non-partisan reportage THE EXIT DOOR IS THAT WAY.
A little background first. Art!
Courtesy 'Joe Blogs'. The target rate for Ruffian inflation is 4%, which is a pious hope as of now, with Mordorvian economists claiming that their rate is 10%. Surprise! JJS quotes a Professor Steven Handley of John Hopkins, who calculates that the real Ruffian inflation rate is close to 27%, which aligns with what we here at BOOJUM! have been stating for months. Their key interest rate was dropped a percentage point last week, from 21% to 20%, which was done thanks to political pressure being placed on Putinpot by his oligarch friends, who are finding business impossible to manage.
These are not metrics of an economy that is 'Holding up'; rather they are the metrics of a nation barely 'Holding on'. Art!
'Kommersant', the most important economic paper in Mordorvia, frankly stated that the Ruffian economy is becoming 'Structurally unsustainable', written by a correspondent who loves skydiving and toxic teas.
Why 'Unsustainable'? O I thought you'd never ask!
Because the Ukrainians are fighting clever, not hard. They have long realised that they cannot match Modern-day Mordor in an attritional war as they lack the manpower, for one thing. Putin's strategy is the same as with the Sinister Union and the Tsars before then: throw millions of cannon fodder at the enemy in what we pundits used to call 'Human Wave Attacks' and are now known as 'Meat Waves', until they either crack or Ruffia does. Art!
One of two Ruffian bridges that were destroyed by Ukraine recently. The problem this creates for the Ruffians is that their logistics network, based massively on railways, is thus completely stuffed - stop me if I get too technical - until these bridges get replaced.
What sustains Putinpot's war effort? Fuel sales. Reuters, not JJS himself, reported that Mordorvia's oil and gas revenue is down in May 2025 by 50%. Not only that, China and India, Ruffia's main customers, demand (and get!) a 25% discount on their fuel purchases. Sovcomflot, which runs their fleet of 'shadow tankers', announced a $400 million loss. Art!
"Profits come a distant last" stated State Cut Funding
The first two months of 2025 have seen the Ruffian budget deficit hit $30 billion, which is already twice their annual budget deficit predictions.
Sustainability! That's what's missing here, as Ukraine targets their opponents' logistics and revenue streams, NOT retaining territory on the battlefield, where they are trading space for time. Another metric worth quoting is the Ruffian penchant for conquering territory, as they now hold a whole 19% of Ukraine after three years and a half years, and they already held 7% before the SIO started. At this rate it will take twenty-five years to complete the occupation of Ukraine, when Ruffia cannot sustain an effort for twenty-five months. In the meantime, Ukraine is bombing the living daylights out of gunpowder and electronics manufacturing plants, which cannot be easily or quickly replaced. Sustainability!
Sustainabusfactor One
Yes, we are back to the torrid tales of traumatic torment that transpire if Bus Factor = 1. Believe me, your sustainability will shrink to nil if that arithmetic applies. Art!
Bustainasus. Or something.
In this instance, we are told that an engineering genius with transferrable skills was responsible for:
1) Successfully promoting his side of the business.
2) Increasing efficiency and cutting costs, two sides of the same coin.
3) Pursuing relevant qualifications and awards in his own time with his money.
For five years his employers stiffed him over pay, until he accepted an offer from a competitor with a 60% pay rise. His employers responded, as South Canadian employers are wont to do, with a counter offer. Art!
Was Matey rendered full of loving acceptance and the milk of human kindness?
NO! No, he was not. Instead he was made aware that his employers could have upped his pay at any point but chose NOT to, until they didn't have a choice. Not only did he spurn their counter-offer, once at the new employer he began to aggressively poach customers from his old employer.
The old employer is still around, except a shallow remnant of what they used to be. You might classify this tale as Bus Factor Minus One, because Matey wouldn't train up a replacement or leave detailed work manuals. Talk about short-sighted!
"Biggles Hunts Big Game" By Captain W. E. Johns
The title is a misnomer, as Biggles does nothing of the sort. Ginger and Bertie try their hand at big game hunting, and score half a buffalo, and Biggles pots a fellow human. Art!
That's the edition I have. It was going to get sent back to the charity shop, except I think I've changed my mind now. Mine was all of £1.99.
One thing I noticed was Ginger and Bertie pretending to be officers from the Indian Army, which, by the time this novel was published, didn't exist as Partition had come into being the year previously, in 1947. Well, as an author you can only anticipate Black Swan events up to a point.
Blimey!
As you ought to be aware, Conrad regularly posts scrivel on Twitter, and yesteryon I posted one of my less sensible Tweets, advising a Ukrainian Tweeter that their nation really needs to adopt the Roman alphabet.
Well well what the heck, it got responses from people all over Eastern Europe, going into the history of Cyrillic, the Balkans, Roman Catholicism, the Orthodox Church, why the Roman alphabet wasn't suitable, and - replies are still coming in.
Yeah, yeah, you say that now. Just wait until your grandkids are grown up.
Finally -
Right, we're done.
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