No! I Do Not Mean A Mountain Of Empty Beer Cans
That old stereotype of Ockers being as cultureless as modern-day Vandals should have died out by the Eighties, what with the expression of art, literature and especially the 'Mad Max' films where Max and his cohorts sweep across the outback like - like - er, well, like modern-day Vandals. Art!
Guitarist from The Flaming Groovies?
These films were wildly popular in Modern-day Mordor, where they still try to evoke the ethos of the motorised highwaymen. Art!
Allow me to utilise the AI Art Generator to get back on track, all the more since I generated the image and if I do that, you are most certainly going to get the benefit. Art!
Someone's going to have a headache tomorrow morning*.
Before we go any further, Conrad needs to define just what a 'Pyramid' is, because that way I'll up the Word Count and educate us all at the same time, aren't I wonderful?
"Pyramid: A huge masonry construction that has a square base, and, as in the case of the ancient Egyptian royal tombs, four sloping triangular sides."
Art!
I know what you're thinking. 'The Aborigines in Oz never created megastructures like this', and you're absolutely correct.
Before we continue, though, I would like to make a brief detour. Don't whine, I did wait! Art?
This is the 'Stockport Pyramid', which was an office building where the developers went into administration before it even opened, meaning it got taken over by the Co-Op Bank, who had funded it's construction.
It was of more than academic interest to Conrad when he worked at Sainsbo's, because under our Business Recovery Plan in Arndale House, Manchester, if things went pear-shaped and we could not operate, we'd have to travel to the Stockport Pyramid. Things did go pear-shaped - which is another story for another Intro. Art!
Conrad is saddened that these went out of production in the Nineties due to lack of demand. So, that's why I've never seen them on the shelves of a supermarket <sad face>.
ANYWAY back to Australia, and Ball's. NO! Nothing to do with rugby or cricket or Australian Rules Football, which seems to be a sport absent any rules at all. Art!
Royal Navy Lieutenant Henry Lidgbird Ball
You may be able to guess that Ol' Birdy was a Lieutenant in the Royal Navy, not an eighteenth century cosplayer. He was responsible for discovering Lord Howe Island and, more particularly, Ball's Pyramid in 1788. Which is not a terrestrial masonry structure at all, but rather the surviving element from a volcano that dates back about six million years. Art!
With puny human boat for scale
This 'sea stack', as mountaineers like to call them, is the tallest in the world, at 590 yards, or a third of a mile (half a kilometre in <hack spit> metric). It's pretty remote, and unlike a lot of Pacific islands, it doesn't have an atoll around it to moderate wave action, so it is unceasingly slammed by the sea. Thanks to erosion, the rock faces are friable, overhanging and thoroughly treacherous. Art!
There are no beaches, so no way to land a boat, the waters are consistently rough and - cherry on the top! - the surrounding waters are home to sharks.
To you and I, this would be enough reason to stay very far away. To mountaineers, this only adds to the challenge. An idea of how tricky simply getting onto the stack is conveyed by the duration between discovery and a person landing there and having a nosy: 74 years. This is not a fun holiday destination. Art!
The Pyramint with Lord Howe Island in the distance.
A remote, dangerous, sheer, shark-surrounded islet is, of course - obviously! - a magnet for moutaineers, who seem to thrive on these kind of problematic perpendicular Pacific peaks, so in 1965, a large team of them set out to conquer Ball's Pyramid. Art!
They couldn't moor alongside the sheer cliffs, so had to all swim ashore and then haul all their supplies ashore, and there were a lot of supplies for seven men for two weeks. These wisely included a large radio transmitter, powered by two car batteries, which must have been tremendous fun to haul onto the rocks by hand. Then they established camp further up the Pyramid, in what shelter they could find. Art!
Then the hard part began, actually ascending the stack to it's summit, which had defeated an earlier expedition the previous year, thanks to running out of supplies after 5 days. Art!
Ringed in red is the area they reached on the first day, in what proved to be a long, slow ascent. This was due to the fragile and crumbling state of much exposed rock, meaning it took 8 hours to make the final ascent to the summit.
But they made it. Art!
Here they are enjoying a bottle of champagne astutely brought along.
Access to the Pyramint was forbidden after 1982, due to environmental concerns, but was relaxed after the Nineties. After all, you're not going to get tourists out here, are you?
Holidays In Hades
No, we're not talking about people making an excursion to the Pyramint. Rather, we are looking to Modern-day Mordor, where Ruffians are going on their summer holidays. Or trying to. Art!
This is merely one of dozens of clips that were up on Telegram in Mordorvia, showing the utter chaos at Ruffian airports. They have been closed for three days thanks to Ruffian airspace being shut down due to Ukrainian drones, with no flights able to take off or land.
Putinpot's response? Fire the Transport Minister, because one needs a combined lightning-rod and scapegoat, and -
Shut down the internet, so these images can no longer be promulgated, because they make the assertion 'It's all going according to plan, it's all going according to plan!' look pretty sick. Art!
This isn't just about Misha and Grisha not getting to Turkey on time any more, it's having a serious economic knock-on effect. Rosaviatsia, the Mordorvian aviation industry body, has warned that this closure of air travel and transport has cost $250 million so far. This is bad enough in summer; in winter transport by air is all that many Ruffian cities above the Arctic Circle have to sustain them, with no functional road or rail links.
O dearie me.
Next up: Rosaviatsia spokesperson leaps from window after consuming pot of polonium tea.
A Cautionary Tale
I have read of an occurrence like this before, as mentioned by Devin Stone on 'Legal Eagle', where a junior attorney at a law firm made the same mistake as here. Art!
This maroon is Mike Lindell, an ex-junkie who went on to found 'My Pillow' and then destroy it by backing every conspiranoid loonwaffle extant with an axe to grind about Joe Biden, the 2020 election and the Earth not being flat. Art!
Not surprising, Ol' Mike's funds are running out and he cannot afford to hire decent or reputable lawyers, or ones that won't try to shortcut en route to their payday. Which will be diminished to the tune of $3,000 for each of them. I don't intend to go into his false claims or we'd be here with a Word Count of 5,000 plus. He is living proof of an example of throwing all the money, not just the good stuff, after bad.
"The War Illustrated Edition 210 22nd July 1945"
Let us see what quality this particular illo is, shall we? Art!
Not too shabby, we'll go with these ones. As you may be able to tell from the title, with the cessation of hostilities and the complete occupation of Germany, the Allies became a garrison force. In the first photograph, the Guards Armoured Division are saying a farewell to armours, since they are transitioning back to an infantry division. Note that all the Shermans in the front rank seem to be Fireflies.
The illo of young men and ladies propelling each other across the floor is an ex-casino being used as a NAAFI venue for entertainment. To starboard are <ahem> de-Nazified Alsatian dogs being used in British service.
Below that is a landing-craft full of Highland soldiers on their way to the pictures, being delivered by a Teuton crew, whose thoughts can only be guessed at.
At bottom, meet the lady gunners of 137th Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment, whose presence is bound to lift male spirits.
Finally -
I was going to add more but we're waaaay over Count already, so time to cut our losses and say goodnight.
* Not I! Day Seven of being Dry In July
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