Yes Indeed, Though Not In The Way You Were Expecting
In yesteryon's blog I made a reference to the 'South Sea Bubble' and didn't explain what it was, merely by context that it was a fearful financial catastrophe. Given that it took place over three centuries ago you're not going to get film or still shots of the participants. Art!
A bubble, as you should surely know, is an ephemeral and fragile object, that when blown tends to expand until it bursts. Thus the South Sea Company, which was formed in 1711 and granted monopoly trading rights with South America, and later the South Seas - more correctly the South Pacific. In return they were to try and write down some of the British national debt, accrued during wars on the Continent. Art!
The company's shield. Looks a bit fishy to me.
'Fishy' is absolutely spot-on. TSSC indulged in riotously inaccurate and exaggerated publicity, bribed politicians for favours and promotions, lured investors with soft credit and got other joint-stock companies banned. Shares ballooned in value, from £100 to £1,000, until in 1720 cold hard reality set in when it became verrrry apparent that there were no riches in the offing. Share values collapsed, akin to a bubble. Art!
Yes, that Sir Isaac Newton.
ANYWAY that was pretty depressing, wasn't it? because the same impulsive greed still assails Hom. Sap. Art!
Meet Patricia Harmsworth, Lady Rothermere, far better known by her soubriquet 'Bubbles' as she had more than a passing fondness for sparkling champagne. Champers is wasted on Conrad's peasant palate, it tastes like upmarket cider to me ANYWAY AGAIN during the time of the South Sea Bubble they would have been toasting each other in still champagne, as the sparkling variety didn't become popular until much later that century. I like to keep you informed.
Let us now get back to the even more gloomy and sombre subject of 'Dictatoritis', a phenomenon we examined in the world of antiquity, which we will now bring into the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Art!
Kaiser Wilhelm II, and his writing desk complete with saddle seat. Arguably the man most responsible for starting the First Unpleasantness, 'Little Willy', as he was insultingly described by the tommies, Kaiser Bill became a figurehead with little real power, which lay with the Teuton General Staff. His days consisted of a command sinecure in the heart of Germany, where his courtiers vied to tell him amusing or inspirational 'trench stories' which were frequently completely fictional. This insulated him from the grim realities of front-line trench warfare. Art!
On his very infrequent visits to the front, it was always to a quiet sector and well back from anywhere he might be at risk. He was cocooned to such an extent that the civilian riots of late 1918 in Germany came as an utter surprise to him. Art!
Josef Stalin, colloquially known as 'The Little Sod With The Moustache', an Oriental despot who was Emperor in all but name, and whom existed in another bubble caused by his own rampant paranoia, ego and sadism. He was another classic example of 'Shoot the messenger then exile his family to Siberia', which made it dangerous to tell him the truth if it was remotely unpalatable. Thus intelligence information got filleted before being sent up the chain, amended or deleted altogether, so that it chimed with his perceptions.
The Teuton preparations for Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Sinister Union in June 1941, were so enormous they couldn't be completely hidden. Stalin, cosy in his bubble, dismissed every piece of information that indicated this and even scrawled crude comments about 'This is just a <swear>ing provocation' on reports. Hot tip: it wasn't. Stalin learned a very hard lesson in not divorcing himself from reality. Art!
I don't feel like flattering Peter The Average with a formal photo, he can suffer a caricature. That'll teach him!
It has been long known that Putinpot lives in an information bubble which he has partially crafted himself, and his lickspittle toadies do the rest. When he does one of his cosplay visits to a military HQ, the maps on the walls do not correspond to reality, with front lines being shifted many kilometres westward from where they really are. Art!
He famously does not use the internet, perhaps because he might accidentally see uncensored news and suffer sympathetic blindness as a result. His generals lie, flatter and pander to him, lest they fall out of a window whilst drinking a pot of polonium tea. The speech he gave recently about Ruffia advancing on all fronts, and the Kozaky not having any drones, nor means to counter drones, is pure drivel and a consequence of that bubbly life.
HOWEVER things are even worse and have been for 15 years.
"Russian President Vladimir Putin has been receiving separate news broadcasts since 2011, which are not aired on television and are intended only for him. This was revealed in an interview with "I Gryunyu Grame" by Dmitry Skorobutov, the former chief editor of the "Vesti" program on "Russia-1". "
STAY AWAY FROM WINDOWS!
The isolation ramped up from April 2022, when the Kozaky sank the 'Moskva', which the Puffy-Phaced Petrol Pimp wasn't told of for a week.
Comical Ali come back, all is forgiven.
Thank You, 'Ministry Of Ungentlemanly Warfare'
MOUW posts a lot on Twitter, and is the very opposite of a vatnik, which is why we Follow each other. He recently put up a Tweet displaying the barrel-scrapings that the orcs are resorting to. Art!
Suspension on bottom starboard looks goosed
Ah yes, the camouflage netting makes all the difference, but what they really need are TYRES TYRES TYRES! as they used to place on the upper surfaces of aircraft to - to - er, not entirely sure.
Well, the pictures above tickled my memory. Art!
From the BBC's premier dramamentary, 'Doctor Who' and here are the sinister security forces guarding The Master in 'The Sea Devils'. Conrad always thought them more like parrot-pigs than anything demonic.
Conrad Being A Bit Spiteful*
As regular readers ought to know, Conrad has a browser Favourite dedicated to the artwork of Terence Cuneo, who depicted scenes from military history as well as steam trains and new builds in city centres. Art!
18th June 1855
Lance Sergeant Phillip Smith winning the Leicestershire Regiment's first Victoria Cross during the Crimean War, by bringing in wounded soldiers at the Great Redan, Sevastopol. Almost a hundred and seventy years old.
Yes, that Sevastopol. The Ruffians have never forgiven or forgotten that they lost that war.
Orbanned
O this is a good one. You may recall that the Were-toad lost the recent general election in Hungary, and lost it so badly that the victorious Tisza party are able to make changes in the constitution. Art!
Well, their first constitutional change was to amend the length a president can serve to eight years, or two terms. Loser Orban has served something like four terms, so he can never run for President again, which was his reason for staying in parliament and not fleeing the country. He may yet turn up in an apartment in Moscow living next to Assad, if he can charter an especially wide-bodied jet to carry him there.
Tee hee!
Thanks to the Magyar 'Splendid Pete' for bringing this matter to my attention on Twitter.
Don't Crack Open The Prosecco Just Yet
Donold Judas Trump is in France at the G7 summit, which he doesn't enjoy as he's not the cynosure of all eyes, and it's a long way for an 80-year old in bad health to have to travel to. Art!
He's still alive, just having a senior moment by dozing off, miserable that all the attention is focussed on Macron, who had to suddenly ask him a question to ensure he either woke up or was no longer of this world.
Finally -
Another QI Banter quote.
"First the doctor told me the good news: I was going to have a disease named after me." Steve Martin.
* Nothing new there.
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