O To Be Inspired By A Blue Öyster Cult Song Title
Ha! Do you see how I worked in the correct capitalised Umlaut? That's painstaking attention to detail for you, when I can be bothered. art!
So what am I waffling on about today? Nothing less than
One of the more formal terms used to describe a railway is 'the permanent way', which sounds a bit like a prog track from King Crimson. The trouble with a way that's permanent is that there are circumstances where one party wishes it were a lot less permanent and much more transient. Art!
Teuton hooligans behaving badly in Russland
The idea behind this infernal engine is that it completely destroys railway sleepers, meaning the permanent way isn't and has to be totally rebuilt, which takes ages and slows down vengeful Slav pursuers. Also - Art!
That's 'Aerobot' from the Japanese mecha film 'Gunhed', which I've seen at least five times and still can barely understand, and whose production designers appear to be big fans of the Schwellenpflug.
ANYWAY of late the Ruffian railway system has been suffering under very deliberately targeted attack by Ukraine, namely going after their fuel trains. Conrad is unsure why they've taken this long to catch on to what turns out to be a very exposed Achilles heel; perhaps drones with sufficient range? or real-time intelligence about what trains composed of what cars are going to be travelling where and when. Art!
This is a train in Zaporizhzhia, where individual fuel tankers have been set alight by drones, and all it needs is a single small FPV drone to cause inflammable mayhem since the tanks aren't armoured and are, after all, full of liquid simply itching to get out and explode. Art!
That's the locomotive, whose driver has sensibly decoupled from the gigantic petrol-bomb-on-wheels he's been towing. Note that there seems to be exactly nil electronic warfare capability on this train. Well, they'll learn. Perhaps. What makes this worse for Mordorvia is that this is a single-track railway, meaning nothing can now travel on it. Art!
Another merry bonfire, this time at Salsk station, where the train was already stopped. The damage here is worse than it appears. As Twitter user 'Trent Telenko' puts it:
The waterproof coatings of the cables and insulators will be burned out while the metal of the overhead structure plus cables will be annealed from the heat and require replacement.
Ooops.
It gets worse. Whilst there was a single fireman trying to douse the fire at Salsk, standing far too close to the burning cars - Art!
For the fire at Tokmak, the Zap location, there are no handy fire hydrants nor easy access for the fire brigade, which means the orcs will probably just let the fires burn out. The Ruffian (permanent) way, you might say. However - ah that word again! - those fuels burn exceedingly hot and if left for hours - Art!
That's the damage inflicted on the Kerch Bridge back in 2023 by burning fuel tanks left unextinguished for hours. It took them 6 months to repair it, despite it being an absolute propaganda priority, lest Bunker Midget look bad, and the bridge still hasn't returned to pre-attack tonnage or frequency. Art!
Ozzy's 'Crazy Train' may run here, but nowt else
Nor is that all. O noes! You see, if this were peacetime, then at Salsk and Tokmak the orcs would be bringing their rail-repair trains, to get rid of the damaged rails and sleepers and get the lines back in commission as quickly as possible, lest Bunker Grandad look bad. Art!
This is a Ruffian rail maintenance train. Notice the BRIGHT YELLOW SKIN, which is designed to make it as visible as possible, to avoid idiot orcs getting run over and damaging the wheels. Also the worst possible colouring for an active warzone, where discretion and camouflage is all. These trains are rare, expensive and require highly-trained, skilled crew, so Mordorvia is avoiding sending them into any area where they might be targeted by drones. So the logistics chaos gets even worse. Igor!
Art!
The horror the horror express?
Potato Fuhrer Is - Potatoless
In case you didn't get the memo, Lukashenko, once described as 'Europe's Last Dictator' (before the days of Orban The Weretoad), is often disparagingly called the 'Potato Fuhrer' of Belarus. His regime has been propped-up by Putinpot, yet only to a certain extent. Art!
The potatoes have come home to sprout, if you will. The 2025 Belarusian potato harvest has been awful, with only small, or rotten potatoes being on sale, at greatly increased prices. This is bad enough. What triggered Conrad's commercialist indignation was a report that '40% of the harvest spoiled in storage'.
WHAT!
As an ex-employee of the Co-Op and Sainsbury's, the CEO in both would have been out for blood if wastage reached that kind of level. Allegedly cronyism, patronage and chronic inefficiency are the reasons.
Belarus - where it costs 2 potatoes to buy 1 potato.
After Looking Eastwards
Let us cast our gaze within the boundaries of the Allotment Of Eden, which had a four seasons in one day kind of day today. Art!
And losing. Art!
O lord aloft! The BBC opened up a 'Have Your Say' on this ballfoot game. I am going to Bookmark it and come back to it later to enjoy the creative venom there. Yes, I am a terrible person.
Let Me Translate -
If I can. Conrad Snipped a headline that utterly baffled him. Art!
I am assuming that Paige 'exploding' is a metaphor, as one does not usually celebrate death by TNT. We can also exclude the band Wings here since there is 'Sports' in the sub-heading. Let us work backwards.
'Wings Win': A quick Google doesn't really clarify much.
Dallas Wings (WNBA) and the Philadelphia Wings (NLL)
How about Paige? whoever he or she might be. Art!
Tall women good
Aha! So she is a basketball player, hence that must be the 'Women's National Basketball Association'.
Apologies for the unheard-of feat of having two - TWO! - sporting articles in BOOJUM! it was very bad of me and I promise not to do it again*.
Back To Donald Judas Trump
That ever-reliable generator of content, the Ultimate Oaf, has just been slapped with an hilarious headline that I have to share with you.
First LOL of the day, especially since I am typing this at 00:09.
Blimey, I could fit my weekly shop in the bags under his eyes. He's 79 and doesn't look a day over 89. 'Jake Broe', Youtube vlogger and sworn enemy of the Mysterons of DJT reckons DJ Tango's health has got visibly much worse since he got in as Prez, as it's such a highly stressful job. One pundit suggested that a year in the White House equated to seven in normal human existence.
One wonders if Pumpkinhead will keel over dead live on television due to a myocardial infarction as J D Vance looks on with glee, having encouraged him to jog up the WH steps. It may happen.
Finally -
I have now finished my 'UFO Anthology', so time to start on 'Johnny Red', whoopee!
Thank you and goodnight.
* Perhaps
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