Working Backwards From Yar Led Retsel

Don't Worry, All Will Be Explained

Title not to be confused with 'I'm Walking Backwards For Christmas' by The Goons, who are not to be confused in turn with 'The Goon', Eric Powell's brilliantly drawn comic creation and the only hero/anti-hero you'll see with bad teeth, and this cunning insertion of him into the Intro means I can squeeze in a picture.  Art!

Bad teeth, scarred face and a surly disposition

     None of this has anything to do with the real Intro.  Which you may have guessed.  

     SO if we reverse part of the title, you get 'Lester Del Ray', South Canadian sci-fi author and editor and not to be confused with 'Lana Del Rey' ENOUGH WITH THE CONFUSION <ahem> author and editor, whom wrote 'The Runaway Robot', and if Art will leave that spent fuel rod alone for a moment -

     Conrad is pretty certain he read this when he was aged in single digits; all I can remember is that the robot, Rex, experienced 'dreams' for a fraction of a second when his operating systems were closed down, and that he had a monochrome camera for an eye, his owner promising to purchase a colour one when he could afford it.

     Okay, we've established the trope of a 'runaway robot'.  Art!

     This, gentle reader, is Promobot IR-77, a Ruffian robot designed to interact with the public, and what you see here is it's second attempt to escape hideous machine captivity.  Prom took it's chance when a staff member left a gate open, and you can see that member of the DPS - Dorozhno Patrulnya Sluzhba or Road Patrol Service - wondering what terrifying arsenal of weapons it will deploy if he intercedes.

     What has this to do with 'Judge Dredd'?  O I'm so glad you asked!

     More than you may imagine.  You see, Mordorvia is currently experiencing a chronic shortage of police officers, as we mentioned yesteryon.  Stress, low wages, overwork, corruption and the siren song of a military contract have all reduced the ranks by 170,000 officers.

     SO! Conrad predicts that the Ruffian government will go ahead and authorise the research and development to create their contemporary equivalent of the JD 'Mechanismo' robot judge.  Art!

     This is the South Canadian version hailing from Mega-City One, the Big Meg.  As is pretty eye-pokingly apparent, they are enormous and armed to the teeth.  What could possibly go wrong?  Art!

     Yes, this: robot amok.  Ol' Stony Face warned Justice Department about the risks and they ignored him, The Meddling Fools!

     HOWEVER in Ruffia, whether it be in East Meg Two or real life, the average orc's life counts as much as an ant, so if there's a bit of - er - 'collateral damage' then nobody will bother too much.

     Besides, look at the upside.  An officer who doesn't need to be paid, who doesn't need to eat, drink or sleep, who feels no pain, pity or mercy, who cannot be bribed who can be bribed if you know the programming back-door code, who doesn't get stressed or worries about the inflation rate or prospects for promotion, and whom will carry on indefinitely as long as he's charged up and resupplied with ammunition.  Art!

     Plus, given the state of the world of the future, an officer who can shrug off acid rain, toxic smogs, lab-bred satanic mosquitoes, dysentery, dengue fever and Urals Mountain Hopping Toad Blight is a peach of an appointment.  If they do a Promobot IR-77 once every quarter or so, that sounds like a win-win.

     Now onto more human matters.  In the JD universe, the East Meg cities are policed and ruled by 'Sov Judges' who have their own version of judge uniform and equipment.  Art!

     There seems to have been a sea-change in the Sov Blok after a couple of decades, when they recruit criminals who are given the choice of a thirty-year sentence or service as a judge.

     Hmmmm.  What potential problems might arise from this, gentle reader?  Conrad fears that this policy is a disaster waiting to happen.

    Thus - the Sovs come up with a brand-new program.  Their guiding ethos is that being a Judge is a violent, dangerous occupation and that ordinary citizens ought not to have to join up.  So they carry out a little brain surgery on criminals and - Hay Pesto!  Instant Judge!  Art!

     Here is Judge 'Red' Razors, an ex-gang leader turned Judge thanks to a ton of chemicals and brainwashing.  To be honest, his role as Judge is only marginally less criminal than his gang days, and he racks up a whopping big body count.

     THEN! horrors, the brainwashing breaks down and he runs amok.

     Don't panic - the Sovs have a back-up plan, namely Spike, another gang leader turned into a tooled-up cyborg.  Art!

     You think this is far-fetched?  Don't forget that Mordorvia has already been using criminals in uniform to wage war, so how big a step would it be to have them in uniform upholding the law?  Sorry, 'upholding Putin'?

     For Your Information, in an hilariously ironic touch of serendipity, there is a 'Retsel Meat Grinder' which I have only just found out about.  Who knew.  Art!

The Retsel Pro-2511, which is where we came in

     We haven't even covered contemporary equivalents of the Big Meg's heavier metal yet.  Perhaps tomorrow.  I bet you can hardly wait.

Rabbit Holes Beyond Rabbit Holes

One of the websites that I poached a tank transporter photograph from is 'The Crusader Project', a website I have perused before, yet never linked to as a Bookmark.  There are only so many hours in a day, after all.  Art!

     

     The site's mission brief is to give a complete overview of the British & Commonwealth and Axis forces in North Africa in the winter campaign of late 1941 and early 1942, which is quite ambitious.  Allow me to put up part of their text on the titled page shown above.

The supply problems were gigantic. Gathering for battle were 118,000 men—almost the entire population of Wellington city—and 17,600 vehicles. Soldiers would eat each day 200 tons of food. Every day the vehicles carrying them would use 1,500 tons of petrol and oil; guns and rifles would need 480 tons of ammunition a day, and 350 tons (79,400 gallons) of water would be wanted. Altogether the Army would need 2,972 tons of supplies every day.

Source: NZETC New Zealand Official History No. 4 and 6 RES M.T.

     See that link in red?  I followed that and made my way to - Art!

    

     All online and free.  Dog Buns, I need twenty-five hours in a day with nine minutes of sleep per night.  First world problems, hmmmm?

Here's One I Can Get Behind

I have one of Richard Osman's TTMC murder mystery volumes in hardback sitting on my Book Mountain, and am deciding whom is going to receive it, whether they like it or not.  Darling Daughter beware.  Don't worry, she never reads BOOJUM! and won't have a clue about being the recipient.  Art!

     I can tell you that Helen Mirren is going to play Elizabeth, the ex-MI6 officer with a whole lot of illegal, immoral and verrrry useful skills after her days in the trade.  Shades of 'R.E.D.' mayhap.

I Am Going To Mirror My Work 'Inclusion'

One of the diversions I've been asked to come up with for posting on Team Chats is a list of 'On This Day' events, comprising: Births, Deaths, History, Sport, Music, TV and Film, Quote of the Day and a Joke.  It takes a surprisingly long time to come up with 3 events for the first 6, especially as I've no idea about anything to do with Sport.  Thank the lord aloft for teh Interwebz!

     Here's one for you:  On July 31st 1917 the British began their Third Ypres, or Passchendaele, campaign, which became a touchstone of horror, outstandingly bad even for the First Unpleasantness.  Art!

     Horribly similar to landscapes in a certain ongoing SIO.

Finally -

The Avocado and Coconut ice cream is edible enough, not too sweet and with a definite coconutty edge to it.  Tally ho!

The State Of Police

Bear With Me On This, We're Going Off-Mental Map Today

Thanks to 'Paul Warburg', 'Mediazona', the BBC and '2000AD' for background information, and once again I'm not sure how long this Intro will be, especially as it's intended to skirt between reality and fiction and the narrow demarcator where they overlap.  Art!

     This, as you should surely know, is Judge Dredd, 22nd Century lawman of the future, where they don't bother with an enormously bloated, extremely laggardly  and hideously expensive legal system.  Ol' Stony Face is judge, jury and quite  frequently executioner as well.  Thus 22nd century television programming is not infested with legal dramas, which is a definite bonus.

     Here a slight aside.  Conrad is still waiting for the promised 'Mega-City One' television program that was promised to arrive in 2021.  Still stuck in development hell, one presumes.  Art!

Artwork by the incomparable Rob Smith

     Here are some statistics about the Big Meg - which is always always always seen as the first established Mega-City with the first Judge System in place.  Total population: 800 million, at least before the Sovs do a lot of urban planning with nukes.  Number of Judges: 65,000.  Thus, one Judge for every 12,000 citizens.  No wonder they wanted to try introducing the Mechanismo version.  Art!

A robot Judge.  What can possibly go wrong?

     The rationale for the Judge system is that the Mega-cities are enormously overcrowded, incredibly stressful and dangerously lawless environments, where only a new kind of policing would work.  The Big Meg leads the way in being primus inter pares*, you might say.

     Please note that today's title is not so much about a police state, which Mega-city One arguably is, but more about the nature of law enforcement, and our focus in this Intro is upon - 

     Mordorvia!  Yes, I bet that surprised you.

     You see, one of the underlying buttresses of Putinpot's dictatorship is the police force, which can be relied upon to uphold the Rule Of Putin, not the rule of law.  Notionally, it is 900,000 strong, making their police to perp citizen ratio 1:160.  Art!

'Politsiya'

     HOWEVER - finally that word! - Conrad tracked down an item from the BBC back in October 2023, which he remembered as quite an eye-opener.  The Beeb's correspondent spoke to current and ex-policemen, all rendered anonymous lest they were bestowed a sentence of ten years in the prison colony.  Police were leaving the service in drives, which is even worse than droves.  What were the reasons?  Art!

     One police major complained that wages hadn't increased, but inflation had, and he had trouble simply making ends meet.  Others were leaving or had left for jobs as taxi drivers or couriers, which paid far better and were far less stressful.  Technically they might then be liable for conscription, as police were exempt, but if you're raking it in as a cabby then you have bribe money and to spare.  

     This exodus from the ranks means additional work for those remaining, such as having to work 16 hour shifts and the lack of back-room support staff means police officers having to do lots and lots of paperwork.  Judge Dredd would sympathise.  Not only that, a lot of the policing involves people denouncing each other to settle scores and disputes, such as 'she has curtains like the Ukrainian flag'.  Art!

This will be all the rage in 50 years

     This disenchantment with the police is not new in Modern-day Mordor, and - gasp! - it precedes the Special Idiotic Operation.  Back in 2021 there was a shortfall of 90,000 police, which increased to 152,000 by 2024, and is now at 170,000 as of mid-2025.  

     Obviously - of course!- the SIO has made things worse, as young men who like uniforms and guns are siphoned off into the army.  The official statistics are that 25% of police positions are vacant, BUT this refers to towns and cities and the vacancy rate in rural areas is as high as 75%.  After all, why bother slogging it out as an underpaid Politsiya when you can get a year's salary signing as a contract soldier?  Art!

Er - well, yes, there is Death and all his friends

     So what happens if there is a dangerous shortfall in police numbers?  Why, as in Central and South America, you get the rise of vigilante organisations to fill the gap.  In Mordorvia this is embodied in "Ruffian Community", who now have the distinction of having murdered an Armenian, which they have gotten away with scot-free during breaking and entering their flat.  No police prosecution, because they help the police carry out anti-immigrant sweeps, thanks to said police shortages.  Normally these vigilante organisations go through a honeymoon period of being relatively law-abiding, but RC seems to have made a short-cut to outright criminality here.  Art!

There are no Nazis in Ruffia.  No sir.  None whatsoever.  Nil.  Nought.  Honest.

    Well well I've only got about half the Intro done that I wanted to, and am going to have to finish here for today or we'll have an Intro 1,500 words long, which I'd be quite happy with but you the audience probably not so much.  We will be getting back to Ol' Stony Face, too. 

     
Penny Wise, Pound The Counter

 - and see what you get.  This is either Malicious Compliance or Petty Revenge, you can decide.  The tale was related by City Hall Urban Grunt - and they did really describe themselves as a 'grunt' in that they were the very lowest of employees on the federal payroll - hereafter CHUG.  They were in charge of taking payments for property taxes back in the days of King Paper, where citizens would need to pay piffling property charges to remain in legal possession of their 18 square feet of allotment or similar.  Art!

CHUG is busy beavering away inside

    Late payment of these taxes incurred a penalty payment, which might be cleared by sending in a cheque - remember those? - or paying cash in person.  Enter Ticked Off Strident Homeowner, hereafter TOSH, who walked up  to CHUG, slammed a small medicine bottle on the counter and loudly declaimed "I hope whoever sent this <insert swear> bill has to count these <swear> pennies!"

     Fate smiled upon him, for it was CHUG who had processed the due payment, as they saw their own signature on his receipt.

     MALICIOUS COMPLIANCE ACTIVATED

     CHUG informed him that she needed to check on whom processed the bill, and gaily skipped off to their archive, where she spent at least 10 minutes confirming what she already knew.  Art!

Looks like money-laundering to me

 
     She then waltzed gaily back to TOSH, happily informed it was her and took another 10 minutes to count, re-count and re-re-count his -

     39 pennies.

     20 minutes after slamming his coins down on the counter, TOSH shuffled out of city hall, purple-faced with rage and embarrassment and avoiding eye contact with anyone, especially CHUG as CHUG was spitefully pleasant and smiley the whole time.

"The War Illustrated Edition 20th July 1945"

There's well over half the volume to go, with the Second Unpleasantness only having less than three weeks left to run, so one wonders, with a certain degree of curiosity, what else they will cover?  Art!

     This is a Mosquito undergoing extempore repairs in Burma, near Arakan, before it goes out again to make life miserable for the Japanese, whom probably preferred the malarial version to one mounting four 20 mm cannon.

You What?

There are a few things that make one stop and stare, and this is one.

     Conrad thinks this might be biting off a tad more than can be masticated.

     It did put me in mind of a sci-fi novel I read decades ago, "The Last Day Of Creation" which involved time-travel to before the Mediterranean filled up with water.  Art!

     No, I have no idea what that cover is about either.

And with that, I am done.  DONE!

* Sorry for using the zombie language.  "First among equals"

Transporter, The

Yes Yes Yes, I KNOW What You're Thinking

It doesn't take a Sherlock Holmes, or a Sexton Blake, to ponder on that vehicle* for The Stath, to with: "The Transporter", and if Art will put down that anthracite on toast - 

     That single pose pretty much sums up the entire film: Jason Statham being as tender and forgiving as a granite enema, rushing around, blowing things up and slaying the nameless extras.

     Actually, I might classify it as a horror film, rather than a simple actioner, as it is TWENTY-THREE YEARS OLD.  All Your Unpaid Film Critic remembers is that his last cargo turns out to be -

     But that would be telling.  Perhaps I should dig it out from the DVD depths and rewatch it.

     ANYWAY please notice that today's title is written in a particular format, a cod version of how quartermasters list their equipment, along these lines: 'Cat o' nine tails, flogging, for the use of, issue one' and the like.  You see - Art!

      Your Humble Scribe was struck by this extract from the MP's traffic chart of their control point in Le Kef, Tunisia, during the fag-end of the campaign there.  In case your eyes are too old and weak, or you cannot understand the typist's contractions, it means "8th Army Tank Transporters" and that there were 230 of them, taking over 4 hours to pass through the town.

     Well now, I thought to myself, because that's what we do, is there enough there to sustain a whole Intro?  Let's see!  Art!

     

     This is a Scammell tank transporter, and - you may be ahead of me here - it is transporting a tank, as nature intended it to.  In this case an A9 cruiser (you can tell by the track wheels and bogies, and the small machine gun turret on the hull front) which tips the scales at 12 tons.

     Okay, why the need for an extra vehicle to carry a lazy armoured vehicle around instead of using it's own motive power?  O I thought you'd never ask!

     First of all, especially in the desert, wear and tear made machines considerably less reliable than they ought to be, meaning that a tank would be fine for making a short trip, but on any long distance journey they risked breaking down.  Art!

     My guess is that this illo is pre-war, as the transporter looks pretty weedy, as do the roadside verges, which counts out the desert, and in France 1940 they wouldn't need a transporter thanks to a good road network and short distances.

     ANYWAY the point stands - hefting a tank about saved petrol, because tanks are the least efficient things ever invented for mileage.  It saved wear and tear on the tracks, which had a finite lifetime, and back in Blighty it prevented the roads being torn up by 30 vehicles trundling down it at 5 m.p.h. all weighing over 10 tons.  In France - well, it was France.  Art!

     This is, again, from the pages of "The War Illustrated" and shows a Teuton encampment with their own tank transporter offloading a tank in the desert.  There is no question that the Teuton recovery organisation was streets ahead of the British at this point, with their tank transporter crews going into action alongside their panzers, thus being able to remove anything broken down or knocked out and salvage it.  The British might form a laager at night, claiming that the Hun had lost 25 tanks, only for dawn to break and there be only 5 panzers left derelict on the field of battle.  Art!

     This picture claims to be a tank being loaded onto a transporter, which Conrad jibs at, rather.  It it's a tank transporter, where are the loading ramps?  Plus, that A-frame seems to imply it's a trailer which was towed.  And - trying to manhandle a steel beam into position to offload a tank?  An accident waiting to happen.  Art!

     A splendid rear shot of a tank transporter, showing the LOADING RAMPS and a Sherman tank being ferried about.  This is the way.

     Here is a Crusader tank being ferried, with the crew still aboard, so possibly off to have minor repairs done; if it were anything major they'd be given a new tank whilst their dud was fixed.  Also note that this TT appears to be the M19 model, purchased from the South Canadians to a British design, in order to cope with newer, much heavier tank models.  Art!

     There you go, nowhere near the desert.  Here's an M-19 carrying a Churchill tank, which masses 45 tons, and which would have broken the old Scammell were it loaded upon it.  Art!

     Sorry, that's a terrible photo.  Art!

     This is a REME (Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers) team about to winch a Lee tank aboard their TT, as the tank has no motive power of it's own and will be sped off for repair.  Art!

     This one looks desperately dangerous, BUT if Conrad recalls correctly, it's actually staged, though finding out for certain would take too long, so you'll just have to trust me.  Art!

     A slightly better rendition of the TWI original.

     Hmmm, we've definitely done enough for an Intro and then some.  By the way, tank transporters are still very much a thing, because metal monsters like the Chally are guaranteed to churn up the roads if they go trundling along them.  Art!

Oshkosh TT and Chally, with puny civilian car for scale

Whilst On The Theme

As you should surely know, Conrad is interested in the North African theatre during the Second Unpleasantness, and has consequently acquired, in paperback form, the whole "History of the Second World War: The Mediterranean and Middle East".  I intend to replace these with the original editions from the Fifties and Sixties, because the maps are a quantum level or ten beyond those in the paperbacks.  So far I have Volume II, and have just ordered Volume IV.  Not from these sellers - Art!

     Were the sole determinant the selling price, this would be a bargain indeed - until one checks out the P & P.  £85 for a medium-sized hardback, where I've paid no more than £10 in the past?  Two-and-a-half times the actual price of the book itself?  Dream on, ironically named 'Thrift Books'.  More like 'Theft Books'.
     Guess who will regret such gouging when I take over?


Further To Transport Issues

I remarked yesteryon about how Aeroflot had been hacked by ambitious Ukrainian and Belarusian hackers, who appear to have waltzed around their databases with hobnail boots weighing as much as an A9 cruiser.  The end results are far worse than Aeroflot stated - imagine that, Ruffian business enterprises lying - and are listed by 'Igor Sushko' on Twitter.

"Aeroflot's databases and information systems CREW, Sabre, Sharepoint, Exchange, KASUD, Sirax, Sofi, CRM, ERP, 1C, security systems, and other elements of corporate network structure were destroyed."

     Not just damaged - destroyed.  Art!

     Crews are being sent home once they turn up at airports, as nobody knows what is going on, or whom to send where or when.

     The cost estimates for this range between $10 to $50 million, and that it will take AF up to 6 months to recover IF they have back-ups to work from.  If not, and given that this is cost-cutting embezzling short-sighted Mordorvia we're talking about, then more like 12 months.  You will be able to tell how bad this event is, because if it's bad enough it will be forbidden to be talked about on state media and may get a 1" column on Page 7 of 'Kommersant'.

     As I rather grimly joked, 'Next up - Aeroflot CEO falls out of aircraft window at 17.000 feet'.  Wait for it, it will happen.

And To End Things On A Lo! Note -

Here's a sidebar item that caught my eye, and let me prod Art into action without reading to find out the resolution - 

     If this was in the UK, he's cruising for a legal bruising.  Let me dig a little further.

     Ah, from South Canada.  The employee made a point of eating his large, messy, noisy lunch in the meetings, and after a couple of weeks of this, the (newly appointed Flexing My Muscles) manager stopped scheduling the meetings during lunch.  His initial response to the employee complaining was 'We all have to make sacrifices'.  Guess what retort the employee came back with when the manager complained about all the eating on camera?

Finally -

Break time, so I'm going to see how my Avocado and Coconut ice cream has firmed up in the freezer.  Pics at 11.

*  Do you see wha - O you do.

Conrad Does Detectiving

If That Wasn't A Word It Is Now

Should it appear in the pages of either 'Collins' or 'Websters' then I want royalties.

     I could have used a title about the elasticity of time, because, as anyone whom has ever performed a customer service role knows, bottomhole clients always exaggerate or outright lie about 'How long I have been waiting'.  Art!

     Back at Sainsbos we had several overhead monitor screens that displayed all the phone traffic statistics, and if anyone had been waiting more than 5 minutes, their number turned red, meaning a supervisor would bounce frantically along the floor looking for a free staff member to take the call.  Then the irate caller would claim to have been 'WAITING FOR TWENTY MINUTES!' when it was actually six minutes twenty-three seconds.  No, we were not allowed to retort 'YOU'RE A COMPLETE DOG BUNS LIAR!' even if we thought it.

     <ahem, pauses to let blood pressure settle>

     ANYWAY today's Intro is all about the Law Of Unintended Consequences, or perhaps Don't Escalate On A Theme Park Date, or even If You Can't Hold Your Liquor Don't Be A Hair-Splitter.  Art!

Universal yet very very specifically in Florida

     Here comes the detective part, for what it's worth.  The Pizza Expert Narrator, hereafter PEN, stated that this event took place at a theme park in Florida, coyly avoiding their name.  So it was either Disney or Universal, and I'm going to go with Universal just to be different.  There was a later geographical clue that - doesn't help much.

     ANYWAY AGAIN, our resident PEN goes on at length about how splendid they are at wrangling pizzas and ziti, which Conrad has never found a very appetizing name.  Art!

Ziti

     It's important to note that these pizzas were pricey, because a theme park likes to gouge their captive audience, so the procedure was for a customer to order a pizza, pay for it, get a receipt and pager, then return when their pager went off.  My emphasis.

     PEN also enjoyed working in the pizzeria thanks to the walk-in fridge and air-conditioning, which are both verrrry welcome in the heat and humidity of a Florida summer.

     ANYWAY AGAIN enter Captain Entitled, or rather Captain Drunk Off His Bottom Entitled, who is full of urine and vinegar and abusing the hapless counter assistant.  All they had done was ask to see his receipt.  Art!

I feel the AI Art Generator has captured the essence of CDOHBE perfectly

     Mister Entitled ranted and tanted that he'd been waiting 40 WHOLE MINUTES! for his pizza, and refused to provide a receipt.  He swore, loudly, at all the counter staff, claiming he was going to get them fired, that he'd get their managers fired, that he'd track down the deity in charge of theme parks and fire them -

     Security turned up and he turned his manic attitude up to 11, shouting that they were 'fake cops' and daring them to call the Orange County Police - which clue doesn't narrow down this resort as there are lots in that particular location.  Sorry.  Art!

     Security called the OCP, who promptly arrived, as they want their county's biggest money-earners to go on earning money. which is not best served by being laggardly.

     Suddenly CDOHBE became well-mannered and quiet again, too late to avoid being put in handcuffs.  One of the pizzeria staff had to go roust out his wife and son from the pool, which must have caused a few puzzled stares.

     Well well Isembard Brunel, what are the consequences for being arrested at a theme park, and being put into handcuffs?

     When his wife and son arrived, she gave him A Look, then walked off with their son.  It was his 8th birthday and they'd come to celebrate.  Or, mom and son were there to celebrate, CDOHBE  was there to get drunk and aggressive.

     All three were immediately escorted off the grounds, without a refund, and banned for life.  Conrad's detectiving skills reveal they probably blew about $500 for that day alone, more if they were booked into a resort hotel.  Art!

     The elasticity of time: the cops found a crumpled receipt in his pocket.  He'd been waiting all of 10 minutes.  I know, I know, in his head they'd be CDOHBE minutes and therefore worth more than 1,000 minutes of other, inconsequential Hom. Sap.

     I bet the ride home was rather fraught.  However far away it was, Mom would be driving all the way thanks to her dipso dipstick hubbo.

Conrad Is Angry!

As the aphorism goes, if I'm breathing then I'm seething.  Let us peruse the persiflage that the poltroons compiling Codewords have inflicted on the civilised world.  

ELEGIACS: About as intuitive as BALNEOMANIACS, and you can thank Thomas Pynchon for coming up with that one.  "Denoting or written in elegiac couplets. which consist of a dactylic hexameter followed by a dactylic pentameter, or stanzas, which consist of a quatrain in iambic pentameter with alternate lines rhyming."

     SO glad we got that one cleared up.  Art!

MYOPE: NOT the conversational gambit of a ballfoot manager, who declaims that 'My 'ope is to retain the trophy, guvnah'.  It is derived from the Greek 'Muops' meaning 'Short-sighted', and refers to a person such as Your Humble Scribe, who is functionally blind without glasses.  Art!

Argus: imagine his optician's bill if he was a myope

ATONIC: NO! that's not a typo for ATOMIC I'll have you know.  "Carrying no stress, unaccented", from the Greek 'Atonos', meaning 'Lacking tone'.  Art!

I find this to be a tonic

Cunard Announce That The Titanic Will Be Slightly Delayed

Earlier today Conrad read about the Ruffian airline 'Aeroflot' having to cancel various flights, due to what they blandly described as an 'IT failure', affecting their information systems.  Hardly worth bothering or worrying about, right?

     Wrong.  Art!

Aeroflot said it had cancelled more than 40 flights - mostly within Russia but also including routes to Belarus and Armenia.

The airline said an issue with its information system had also led to widespread delays.

     Why did they have an issue with their information systems?  Why, because a constellation of Ukrainian and Belarusian hackers got in there and sabotaged them.  Art!

     Better call it 'Aeroflop'.  Ha!  Incisive cutting-edge satire!

There Is A Precedent, President

Whilst on the subject of flight, in what has to be the most blatant bribe ever offered (and received!) the Qataris offered Donold Judas Trump a 747 just for him, which Mister Zeppelin Ego was delighted to get.  The supposed 'conversion' to an Air Force One alternate will doubtless be hugely expensive and delayed and put off and avoided until DJ Tango is no longer Prez and can keep it for himself.  Art!

     Well, there is an earlier example of a prima donna getting hold of a strategic transport aviation asset, causing controversy and a general narrowing of eyes and sucking of teeth.  Who can I mean?  Art!

     In case you can't read the text, South Canadian General Bedell Smith rashly made a bet that the British 8th Army wouldn't capture Sfax in Tunisia before the 15th of April, with a B-17 bomber as the prize.

     Surprise!  The 8th Army captured Sfax on 10th April.  Monty promptly told the South Canadians that they owed him a bomber, and he'd take it NOW, please.

     The South Canadian high command were seriously embarrassed by 1) making such a stupid bet in the first place and 2) losing it.  They ponied up one B-17 with considerable bad grace, which didn't bother Monty one bit, as he was totally impervious to others criticism.  His prickly, citric sense of humour must have left him delighted.

Finally -

Your Humble Artisan plans to make Avocado and Coconut ice cream later tonight.  You will, inevitably, get to learn how it turns out.  Chin chin!