Bear With Me, This Will Take A Bit Of Explaining
I worked that title out whilst taking Edna for a trot, proof that 'Thinking Time' really does work.
Okay, what is the Teuton for 'Pastor'? Which person is, according to my 'Collins Concise Dictionary' "A clergyman or priest in charge of a congregation".
I shall put you out of your aching suspense: 'Pfarrer'. Art!
Sheen and Biehn onscreen
Yes, I have seen it, on VHS because it was that long ago. Very entertaining, full of action, and completely nonsensical. Who is half-responsible for the script? O I thought you'd never ask! None other than Chuck Pfarrer. Art!
Chuck in the Eighties, when he had joined the South Canadian Navy SEALS. Their hilarious name implies that they are as at home in the water, and under it, as are the genuine Phocidae. In reality it's an acronym of 'SEa, Air, Land', the three environments they work in. The training to become one is legendarily brutal, culminating in 'Hell Week' where they have to perform group tasks over 60 to 70 hours, with almost no sleep.
Lest you think Chuck is as bereft of brains as the characters of 'Navy Seals', be advised that he was already a BSc with a degree in Clinical Psychology (partly done at Bath University here in the Allotment of Eden) before he enlisted. He spent 5 years as a Naval Special Warfare Officer in the SEALs, serving in Central America and Lebanon, and conducting training in Europe and the Mediterranean. In other words, he knows his service shizzle. Less usually, he has parlayed his writing skills into a quite successful career in film scriptwriting and production, comics, novels and non-fiction works. He is good at communicating. Art!
Yes, I've also seen this and it's rather good. Ol' Darkie is not your average hero or superhero, and he does not hesitate to kill the bad guys, which I doubt either Batty or Supes would approve of.
ANYWAY you may recall - I hope you do, it took ages to make the notes - my recent blog post 'Arc', where I detailed the fictional career trajectory of Admiral Horatio Hornblower, a man with a sound moral compass, courage, integrity, devotion to duty and a bent for mathematics. Art!
Very well regarded
Here we change tracks again, bringing in the redoubtable scholar Jason Jay Smart, who works for the 'Kyiv Post' and who can proudly claim to have been banned from Mordorvia since 2010 thanks to his anti-Putin views. He was interviewing Chuck about how abysmally poor Ruffia's military performance has been over the past three and a half years. Art!
'Mriya' is Ukrainian for 'Dream'
Chuck sees this as a total failure in Ruffian military culture. First, he gave the career progression of a NATO officer - South Canadian, as that is his area of specialism:
1) Graduate as a Lieutenant.
2) Attend Staff College
3) Promotion to Colonel
4) Attend Naval War College
5) Promotion to General
6) Attend the Kennedy Centre and achieve Doctorate.
7) Appointed to Joint Chiefs of Staff
In the South Canadian military 60% of their generals have a Ph.D. These people are scholars in their field. Remember, Chuck as a junior lieutenant already had a degree.
Then he looked at the Ruffian army, and he may be exaggerating or making things up from whole cloth, because he is no fan of Putinpot or he wouldn't be getting an interview from the 'Kyiv Post'. I shall let you judge.
1) Graduate as a Lieutenant, start stealing and embezzling.
2) Promotion to Major, begin selling off big ticket items.
3) Always be kicking upstairs; the more you pay your superiors, the quicker you will rise. Greed is good, corruption is better, kleptocracy over all. Art!
So, according to Chuck, for the past 20 years there have been no competent Ruffian military leaders, with 0% interest in studying their craft. Art!
This is the ex-general Ivan Popov, who was arrested last year for criticising Ruffian military leadership, and who was sentenced to five years in prison as of April this year. He was one of their more competent commanders, and look where it got him. Art!
This is General Sergei Surovikin, who was responsible for planning and co-ordinating the Ruffian retreat from Kherson to south of the Dnipro. Breaking off contact and retreating across a water barrier is one of the more difficult military operations to conduct, and he did it quite successfully. He's lucky to still be alive and at liberty, because he got very chatty with Priggy when he went jiggy in 2023 in his march on Moscow. Now, he's working abroad as a type of liaison, last seen in Algeria. Once again, loyalty is more important than competence.
Conrad would also like to point out it took Mordorvia TEN MONTHS to appoint an overall commander for their 'Special Idiotic Operation', when it ought to have been done months before it began.
Chuck sees no way out of this cultural failure beyond a complete root-and-branch reform of the Ruffian military, which would take probably 20 years to achieve. Art!
Arc!
Life Imitating Art
If you remember "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." then you'll recall that it featured Ilya Kuriakin, a Ruffian working alongside Napoleon Solo, a South Canadian. This, at the height of the Cold War. Doubtless other blogs would go off on a load of political blather. Not BOOJUM! because I want to showcase the really cool gun they used. Art!
To starboard is the base pistol. To port is the Rolls-Royce version, with a butt-stock, lengthened magazine, telescopic sights, barrel extension and silencer. It looks cool as a cucumber in cryogenesis, but in practice it would have merely made a rather poor submachine gun. Art!
Conrad hasn't watched Ian on the video, but my attention was grabbed by what we see here, which looks as if a real-world gunsmith had been inspired by a television series from his misbegotten, mis-spent youth. I will report back once I have more information.
You Couldn't Make It Up
Well, you could, it's just that people wouldn't believe you. Art!
Souper
Your Modest Artisan has been making recipes from his Ukrainian recipe book, and may revisit the 'Hutsul Palianitsya' bread recipe, this time using yeast that's not two years past it's sell-by date. More recently - Art!
This is 'Verkhvyna bean soup' and the beans are the boiling bit; it took 3 hours for them to cook in a separate pan. Art!
It's quite tasty and definitely filling. Only problem is that the recipe makes enough for about 8 people and there's just me to consume it. O what a chore.
"The War Illustrated Edition 209 22nd June 1945"
We are now into the very worst part of the Second Unpleasantness for the Allies (which the Sinister Union had now joined), the first half of 1942. More of the middle-page montage!
Tobruk had withstood a siege of nine months earlier in the war, and people expected it to do the same in June 1942, which was completely unreasonable. The defences had been neglected or stripped, the garrison was unprepared and had no idea what to do nor how to do it. Not only did the Axis capture the port, they acquired enormous amounts of equipment, too, as well as a whole South African infantry division. Whose command staff performed as badly as Modern-day Mordor. This was Rommel's high-water mark and according to plans already laid, he was to halt at Tobruk and help prepare for an amphibious invasion of Malta. Ever the chancer, he did no such thing. Ooops.
Finally -
I needed to include this to reach 1,300 words. C Ya!
No comments:
Post a Comment