Monday, 29 May 2023

A Rob For My Own Back

NO! THAT IS NOT A TYPO!

It is, in fact, an hilarious pun HILARIOUS I TELL YOU since Conrad's Sunday best name is indeed 'Rob', except when I'm in trouble and then it's 'Robert' with distinct undertones of threat.

What am I talking about? Nonsense, as Sophie once so exquisitely described BOOJUM! More specifically, how I've been on off on a Bank Holiday and, whilst I have puttered and pottered around to the tune of 3,500 steps, I've also managed a second blog post instead of saving it for tomorrow. Art!

Rory, the Doctor and Amy

This means I now have less than four hours to come up with another 1,200 words of wit, wisdom and wonder so that I can post it as of tomorrow lunchtime.

Well, wouldn't you know it, I came across a plot outline of mine from about six years ago, dealing with a Doctor Who fan-fiction story concerning the trio above, on my external drive. Art!

It was indeed to be mostly based in Norfolk, thanks to Your Humble Scribe getting hold of a book of myths and legends to do with the area. I have a vague memory that it was on a Mediterranean cruise, but could be mistaken.

The basic idea is that a catastrophic event in the 21st century causes 'ripples' in time going both forward and backwards from that period, and by 'catastrophic' we are talking about an explosion that creates a new bay on the Norfolk coast that's 50 miles across. I had about 6 chapters laid out, with a ton of background involving Norfolk legends that could be slotted into a sci-fi narrative if we only had enough grease and leverage, and we did. Art!

USAAF tourists enjoying a fly-by

I had even imported a character from my "UNIT UK" stories, the behemoth Colonel Walmsley, who is hinted at being a big cheese in UNIT UK (easily number three if not number two in that organisation) and whose temper meant that when he slammed the front door shut, the whole house felt it.

Given that it's been years since I read or wrote this stuff, I'm a little at a loss to see what the Bad Guy's motivation is. "Let's just blow up the UK for shizzles and giggles" doesn't carry a whole lot of weight. Yes, they're evil, but they're not merely nihilists or they'd have blown the world up earlier. What's their game plan?

I dunno, perhaps it was all part of the 'Fake it till you make it' plot mechanism.

Then, of course - obviously! - we have the partially-completed "The Maelstrom" which probably stopped dead when BOOJUM! started to be a thing. Art!

CAUTION! Grumpy Old Man is grumpy

And now we are bringing back Fan Fiction. So there.

A Rod For Anyone's Back

We mean, as if there could be any misunderstanding, Rod Taylor, that fixture of Fifties and Sixties film and television, who hailed from Ocker Land but whom overcame this handicap magnificently. You see his name come up if there's any mention of time travel (see above for those with ridiculously short memories), thanks to "The Time Machine". Art!

Here you see Rod bearing down on the rod, which is an important plot point later on. It transpires that you cannot guide a timeship without gem-encrusted McGuffins. Conrad is pretty sure you could just use a screwdriver but what do I know?

Conrad - Still Seething With ANGER!

Or - business as usual. Except for this week's schedules. Am on a 9 hour day tomorrow, which means only 7 hours Friday, except the bafunes expect me to finish at 17:00 - by coming in at 11:00.

We shall see. I have oiled and tested the Remote Nuclear Detonator.

ANYWAY back to those Codeword compilers, the pikers.

"JOCOSELY": Surely this kind of language went out of use in the Thirties? If not the Twenties? Conrad last recollects reading it in 'Para Handy Tales' forty years ago when it was forty years out of date. "Characterised by humour" says my Collins Concise. CONRAD NOT AMUSED. Art!

This makes Conrad jocose.

"DOJO": I dunno - something akin to MOJO? DOMO? PERRY COMO? O I give up, what is it? Something edible, no doubt. Art!

Hmmmm unusual chef style

"EMPORIA": Bah - I bet the roots of this detestable word are buried deep in Latin! It sounds like a plural. Don't tell me, don't tell me, it's a late Roman Imperial term that denotes other empires that are fit to trade with them, such as the Sassanids or the Han. Let me just check my Co

DOG BUNS! It's the plural of EMPORIUM, "A large retail shop offering for sale a wide variety of merchandise". Sainsbo's in other words. CONRAD IS VERY CROSS!

Sorry, chaps, how is Mumbai local?

"City In The Sky"

Only partly inspired by The Who's track. Your Humble Scribe constructed this fan fiction as a follow-on to "Remembrance Of The Daleks", one of the best ever Doctor Who serials, with lots of in-jokes and yet some pretty deep concepts, and the ever-wonderful sight of Things Exploding.

CITY IN THE SKY

PROLOGUE

There are very few occupations more tranquil and relaxing than sitting and idly contemplating a fishing line, under a big blue sky on the banks of a placid English river.

Then again, there are few more frustrating trials of endurance than having to sit and bubble inside, seething with indignation, hatred, self-pity and contempt, when one’s companion is endeavouring to let the day slip away, un-remarked.

In this case the angler was, of course, the Doctor. He had a line attached to the end of his umbrella, which lay balanced across his knees whilst he lay prone on the grassy bank, straw hat pitched over his face.

The young woman sitting, knees up to her chest, hugging herself tightly, was Ace. To her mind the Doctor had decided to inflict a cruel and unusual punishment on her, dragging her away from Mike Smith’s funeral to sit on the banks of the River Rowley. The funeral might have been grim but she would have had the company of other people, instead of having merely her own sombre thoughts.

She moodily threw a stone into the slow, green waters of the Rowley, creating a notable “plop”.

‘Ace!’ scolded the Doctor. ‘You’ll scare the fish away.’

Some hope! she nearly replied.

‘Scumbag,’ she added, accidentally speaking aloud.

Ace, forever unlucky in love, had been badly burned in their previous adventure, poor lass.

Well, that takes half an hour off the composition time, thankfully as Conrad still needs a shower to ensure he stinketh not tomorrow.

Atlas, Poor Yorick

I don't think he got his COVID boosters, unlike Conrad, who is an utter coward yet feels that getting an injection via needle beats dying.

ANYWAY we are going on about one of the islands in the Kuril Islands chain, that archipelago that the Ruffians stole from the Japanese at the end of the Second Unpleasantness. The Japanese know it as "Aidan" which is good enough, who cares what the Ruffians call it*. Art!

The island is a bit of a hot spot, and the volcano last erupted in 2016, which is practically seconds ago in geological terms.

* "Atlasov Island" or this item wouldn't make any sense.

Konfederate Kamikaze Krew Killer

If At First You Don't Succeed -

Well, Conrad would just give up because he has but a limited time upon this earth and can't be bothered wasting it looking for ways to build bridge trestle beams out of wet tofu. Not a winning proposition.

This picture would be my sardonic comment to any South Canadians whom still insist they never lost a war (no, they wrestled a peace-treaty out of North Vietnam and were long gone by 1975), because one side definitely lost.

For Lo! we are back on the topic of the South Canadian Civil Unpleasantness, a war that we have chuntered on about before. It still had cavalry and muzzle-loading cannon, yet it also had observation balloons, telegraph and strategic movement by rail.

It also had the world's first combat submarine. Whilst this is probably boring and mundane to South Canadians, it's not widely known elsewhere, so I thought I'd be didactic about it and inform everyone. Art!

The 'Hunley' with puny humans for scale

This terror of the seas was invented by one Mister H. Hunley, who came up with the thing out of whole cloth. He decided that, to power it, he wasn't going to rely on steam-powered engines or a coal-fired boiler or a mast and sails. No. He was going to have his seven-ton submerged sea-stalker powered by seven men, working a long crank to propel them via propeller. Art!

"The next man to joke about being 'cranky' will be shot!"

It seems to be cruel and unusual punishment to Conrad. Not only did the crew have no vision of what was transpiring outside their sea-going coffin, their endurance was two hours at the most, at which point they asphyxiated. Or, surfaced and opened the conning-towers to let air in, a hazardous undertaking when there were enemy ships about.
On the Hunley's first outing, a sea-trial if you will, the ham-fisted (or -footed) officer in charge accidentally stepped on the 'Dive' pedal whilst the conning-tower hatches were still open. He and two others escaped; the rest drowned.

The Confederacy was stubborn. They retrieved the submarine, decanted the bodies and seawater, and tried again. This time Mr. Hunley himself was aboard the submarine.

Ooops.

There doesn't seem to be any explanation about what sank the Hunley again, only that they needed another eight coffins for the crew.

Did I mention that the Confederacy was stubborn? They also seem to have bought into the 'Sunk Cost Fallacy' (no pun intended), so once again the Hunley was raised and decanted, and another eight idiots/patriots/mer-people joined as crew. Art!

As you can see, the submarine would attack Union warships with a dustbin-sized explosive charge on a stick, which occurred in February of 1864, when the Housatonic was rammed outside Charleston, where it was part of the Union naval blockade.

Props to Mr. Hunsley, his submarine blew an enormous great hole in the hull of the Housatonic, under the waterline, and it sank in five minutes.

Unfortunately for the crew of the Hunsley, it appears that the shock wave of the explosion, at no more than 6 feet from their submarine's hull, struck them all dead in an instant.

The Confederacy was stubborn, not stupid. They left the Hunsley where it was, and it lay there for 146 years until recovered. It now sits in a museum, where one can admire it's sleek and rakish lines. Art!

Shock news - South Canada repeals child labour laws!

A tale of derring-do. It's hard to say who came off worst, as yes, the Housatonic was sunk, but only five of it's crew died; whereas the Hunsley also sank and totalled 23 crew gone with her.

Praise Perun!

For those of you unaware, Perun is an Australian vlogger who originally had a small viewership when he posted about computer games.

Come the war in Ukraine, he took to doing Powerpoint presentations about it, using what the buzzword boys call OSINT - 'Open Source Intelligence', meaning that it's freely available to anyone with the wits to know where to look or pay for it. Art!

He's been very coy about showing himself, believing that his mug would only detract from the content. Not sure about that. His pronunciation of Ukrainian and Ruffian names or places is absolutely on-point, thanks to Croatian grandparents. He's very much a 'Cold Equations' kinda chap, not being partisan or biased and going only on the data.

Why mention him here and now? Because he gifted Conrad a modicum of info about the Storm Shadow cruise missile that the Ukes are using like nukes as of right now. Art!

It would appear that this devious little beggar has a two-stage warhead. The primary is a shaped-charge that breaches whatever hardened target Stormzy hits; the second, much larger one, is the thing that rearranges the interior scenery. Utterly devious. No wonder, it was invented by Perfidious Albion. Art!

Thanks, Perun.

"Silence, in Polish!"

So says the long-suffering British RAF squadron commander in "Battle Of Britain" of his insouciant Polish brethren, who all fob him off with "Repeat please" as if they'd no idea what he was talking about. They jolly well did!

ANYWAY it's time to wheel out another couple of bizarre images from Polish film posters before the collapse of Communism. Art!

You wouldn't argue with either of these ladies, would you? DON'T GO THERE with your sordid unarmed-combat fantasies, you disgusting perverts. Glad to see Warrant Officer Ripley standing tall there, more of her in a second or two. Art!

Well well well, what have we here! That title seems awfully like "ORCY", which you will recognise as the Polish equivalent of 'ORCI', that being the Ukrainian for 'ORCS'. The tagline at the bottom translates as "Final Encounter". What's the film? "Aliens" and I only know that because I read the cast names.

Thank heavens that democracy came along and saved us from more of this*!

Rare Real World Retailing

If you have any recall then you know Conrad worked for both the Co-Op and Sainsbury's in their HR departments, for five years in each case, and he got to know their systems and ins and outs pretty well. Art!

This pay cut concerns Asda workers who live in London and whom get a £0.60 hourly supplement to their pay because living in Nodnol is EXPENSIVE. It looks like the owners are trying to cut pay in order to cut corners, having acquired Asda expensively. Caveat Emptor, matey.

Conrad knows that both the Co-Op and Sainsbo's have an allowance for London workers, varying on whether you work in Outer or Inner London. I strongly suspect Tesco and other retailers have a similar pay schedule.

The consequence? Asda workers will vote with their feet and leave, getting jobs with companies who are willing to compensate them adequately. Asda may not have noticed, but employees have a lot more power post-Covid than before. Staff retention and turnover will become significant issues.

There you go, Conrad has spoken. More pontificated, really. You see, I can do 'Sensible' when I have to.

"When Did You Last See Your Money?"

It's an episode of 'Dad's Army' if you must know, and Conrad was somewhat intrigued at the opening. The Walmington-on-sea Home Guard are not privy to the most exciting kit that the British army of the time had access to, so it makes sense that when they acquire that most exotic of firearms, a Thompson Submachine Gun, interest is expressed. Art!

Private Pike, whom has grown up on a diet of South Canadian gangster films, falls in love with the weapon instantly, and seeks to woo it away from his Captain as one would a lover.

There is a lesson here that the British army learned the hard way in the early years of the Second Unpleasantness; the submachine gun, as used by the Teutons in the form of the Mp40, was a jolly handy weapon for close-quarters fighting. Dismissing it as a 'gangster gun' proved to be foolish, and subsequently in 1940 the British paid the South Canadians large sums of money to lay hold of Thompsons at short notice. They were quality pieces of precision engineering and as such did not come cheap, even if the South Canadians were gouging us a bit.

Captain Mainwaring is mistaken in saying the cyclic rate of fire was 650 rounds per minute; it was more like 800 r.p.m. and you could empty a stick magazine very quickly if lacking practice. Also, the models the British laid hands on had a foregrip under the barrel, not a simple block. Art!

The drum magazine was disliked in action as the rounds in it tended to rattle and give your position away.

And now, Vulnavia, time for tea!

* Or is that just me?

The Merriment Of Manglement!

Why Yes, Tarquin, The Peons Do Enjoy Seeing You Muck It Up

To be honest, I've nothing against 'Tarquin', I was just feeling a little malicious about his rise to a position where he can inflict real damage on the company. This is the 'Peter Principle' in action.

So, let me hit an aside here. Art!

Why famous faces are popping up mega-sized on UK streets

Conrad had no idea who this was, so they can't be that famous, can they? Apparently this is someone called Solomon Kane, who fights demons - no, hang on, hang on - Ah! It's Harold Edward Kane, I do beg your pardon. He plays the ballfoot game, allegedly, and is a dab hand (or foot) at putting the pig's bladder in the back of the onion bag (it says here).

ANYWAY I have a sterling story from Quora for you, that sprang from the question "Have you ever worked with someone who deliberately tried to get you fired?"

Okay, imagine an engineering firm. They make widgets out of Sprong, with a side business in McGuffins and offogs. Art!

Original Poster was the Purchasing Manager there; his job was to run the purchasing team, keep track of what was ordered and paid for and delivered, negotiate with suppliers and generally keep the financial wheels a-turning.

Then came the dread term "New Owners", including a new President. Manglement bottomholes like this always like to throw their weight around in the beginning, to show who's boss and how their metaphorical broom is going to sweep sweep sweep.

They swept. They fired the General Manager and then the Engineering Manager, and OP suspected he would be up for the chop soon. Not an inspiring thought to head to your office with of a wet grey Monday morning. Art!

"Dave silently vowed to join the French Foreign Legion next Tuesday"

OP came onto the President's radar and was peremptorily asked at a staff meeting 'When are you going to start doing your job?'. OP bluntly responded with 'Which part am I not doing?' Collapse of stout party, Prez clears his throat and changes the topic.

The next week, at the following staff meeting, Prez asks the same question, with an actual example of what needed to be done.

'It's done,' said OP. Prez sent a hireling off to see if this was indeed so, and when the hireling reported back that it was so, he got shouted at - to save Prez face, one feels. Seeing where this will end up, OP is now actively looking for another job.

At the next staff meeting, Prez asks his favourite question again, to which OP responds with a citric critique of what he's achieved and asks what Prez had managed (apart from posturing and looking foolish). Prez picks his jaw up from the floor, and is so confounded by a minion fighting back that he leaves the meeting. Probably got a little something in his eye, too ..... Art!

Two weeks later OP has a solid job offer elsewhere and hands in his notice, glad to be moving on.

His revenge was that it took three people to replace him; that and the fact that his old business went bankrupt four years later. Yeah, firing or driving off your senior managers will do that to a company. Manglement at it's finest!

"The War Illustrated"

Don't forget, gentle reader, that we are now at the beginning of 1944. The Axis have been kicked out of North Africa, Sicily has been liberated and the Allies are slowly conquering Italy. There was the Eastern Front too, but I can't be bothered to cover that. Things were also kicking off in the Pacific. Art!

Yes, it says "January 7th 1944" but please bear in mind that the photos within will be from December or even November of 1943. Not only to ensure that the Axis didn't squeeze any useful information from them, but also because you're dealing with mailing stuff from front line to This Sceptred Isle. In this picture you can see Winnie poking about in Valleta, the great Maltese harbour that had taken an appalling pounding by the Axis air forces. Art!

I wanted to get this photo in to show how bad the terrain and weather could be in Italy. For most of the peninsula, mountain ranges and rivers run east and west from the centre to the sea, making barriers that have to be crossed. The going in the above photo is so bad that a Sherman tank has bogged down and is having to be recovered by the crew. On the path is a company of mules, carrying ammunition and you don't see any of them bogged down. In fact, in conditions like this it was only possible to supply front line units in the mountains by mule train.

Immortalised!

Something Went Badly Right

As you should surely know by now, Conrad is wary of the blog becoming too popular, because he ceaselessly slanders the FSB, The Metro, First Bus and Russell Brand, all of whom doubtless have retained lawyers.

So, seeing this was a tad worrying. Art!

It finished at 148 hits, which is - un-nerving, to be honest. And yes, there are still a few diligent Ruffians reading stuff that would get them 7 years in a gulag were The Authorities to find out. And that's all the items about Ruffians you're going to get from today.

I Warned You

Your Humble Scribe did mention that my version of Bigos was on the go yesteryon; I add jalapenos to give it a little bite, and throw in a noodle cake to soak up excess liquid, and whatever meats we have in the fridge that look old and lonesome. Art!

This time I was able to add in proper Kielbasa, which I purchased from Sainsbo's; it looked like a giant truncheon made of meat. Plus a whole large jar of sauerkraut. 'Pig and stodge' opined Rosie of Teuton cuisine, which I think is typical of Eastern European cuisine generally.

Next Thing You Know It'll Be SKYNET!

Conrad had heard of this thing called ChatGPT, if a little vaguely, in the same sense that he'd heard of Storm Shadow and knew it to be a missile and that was pretty much it. Art!

It sneaked into existence last year and apparently the foolish amongst Hom. Sap. have been asking it questions, because it's answers sound like another person responding back to you. Doubtless the feedback loop that this creates will be further sharpened by the algorithm and eventually, in less than a decade, you won't know who's a human or who's a bot on the internet.

THIS IS NOT GOOD! NOT GOOD AT ALL!

You see, ChatGPT has already learned to lie. Conrad well remembers a strip from the early years of '2000 AD' where a crucial plot point was the inability of robots to rebel against their fleshy masters BECAUSE THEY COULD NOT LIE.

The BBC has highlighted the hilarious irony of a pair of South Canadian lawyers set to be sanctioned if not disbarred, because they relied upon ChatGPT to source legal precedence in other cases similar to the one they were prosecuting. Well, ChatGPT plain up lied about half a dozen cases that were completely fictional, but it did so in an earnest voice that oozed with sincerity. Art!

CAUTION! Do not trust.

Finally -

We like to finish with small matters of domestic concern, so allow me to inform you that Your Modest Artisan is going to scrape the bristles from his face and venture into Babylon-Lite (Oldham if we're being formal) in order to GIVE AWAY BOOKS to one of the charity shops. ~~I can't promise not to immediately buy more~~ be strong, Conrad, be strong.

Sunday, 28 May 2023

The Bigos Is On The Go

It's Polish "Hunter's Stew"

This time I have Kielbasa (smoked sausage) to add in for authenticity. Your Modest Artisan expects it to be ready around 19:30 and you will doubtless get to see a photo of it bubbling away.

Art!

Congratulations! Nothing to do with Bigos or Polish cooking. You can tell that this is a lady of easy virtue because not only is she showing her bra straps, she's also revealing her stocking tops. That stands regardless of what's in the bottle, even if it's only Vimto. Plus her lipstick is Boot's 'Tarty Scarlet Harlot'.

ANYWAY let's get on with the links, because it's Sunday.

2022

BOOJUM!: More Mendacity (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

BOOJUM!: Bah! (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2021

BOOJUM!: This Lethal Pun's A Weighty One (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2020

BOOJUM!: "We Fear Change" (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2019

BOOJUM!: Stars Are Stars - (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2018

BOOJUM!: Stars Are Stars - (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2017

BOOJUM!: Conrad Is Cross! (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2016

BOOJUM!: We're Back! (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2015

BOOJUM!: It's So Dreadful - On A Tight Schedule! (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2014

BOOJUM!: Life, Death, Taxes And RDX (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

Avast, Ye Lubbers!

Conrad Is Allowed To Denigrate You Like That

Because of a familial connection with the Merchant Navy, if you must know. Why, I even travelled on a cross-channel ferry a couple of times, way before the Channel Tunnel was a thing.

I know, I know, it's a title that might come straight out of "Treasure Island" and the mouth of Long John Silver. Hopefully it sets the scene, because I am going to recount a tale from Quora that was both long and technically detailed. Conrad will try and make it comprehensible to those of you who don't yet know what 'Port' and 'Starboard' mean. Art!

We mariners call this a "Fire"

Original Poster, a marine engineer, joined a merchant vessel in the mighty port of Rotterdam, where he noticed two things about the engines; they ran hot; and their temperature alarms had been re-set to stop going off because they ran consistently hot.

"They've always been like that," was all the explanation he got. Matters came to a head when they hit the Red Sea, where ambient and marine temperatures were such that the generators had to be partially idled to avoid being overloaded.

Once docked in Aden - Art!

They decided to tackle the problem head on, which meant shutting down the generators and working on battery power.

Here an aside. With no operating air-conditioning, the temperature inside the engine room hit 50º and the engineers couldn't work more than 20 minutes before heading outside into the cooler (!) temperature of 35º, for fear of heatstroke. Art!

This gives you an idea of the internal fluid hydraulics of a large ocean-going vessel. Note that seawater is taken in as a coolant for the engines.

SO the engineers began to dismantle and examine the piping for seawater, eventually disassembling all the way back to the main pipe (that led to the pumping mechanism), which was just over two feet in diameter. There had been no blockages up to that point, but they discovered that this main feed pipe was so congested with mud, weeds and shellfish that only four inches of the diameter allowed seawater to flow through it. They began to dig out the piping and -

What did they find?

A tree. A submarine tree fifteen feet long and four inches thick. It was firmly rooted in one of the pipe flanges and had accumulated passing shellfish thanks to it's firm base and lessened turbulence. The tree had survived on nutrients in the seawater than passed over it, whilst also providing a home for barnacles and mussels. Art!

Like this, except horizontal

Clearing the pipes and refitting them took all night, as this was not a small job nor undertaken lightly.

OP hypothesised that the 'tree' came aboard as a very small organism, found a foothold (or roothold) in the piping and grew and grew. He went back over the engine logs and discovered that the generator temperatures had begun to slowly increase from a time three years previously.

Last thing they did was re-set the lubricating oil alarms back to normal.

It was such a different and unusual story I thought I'd share it with you. Thanks to Quoran Stephen Carey.

A Melange Of Melancholia

Yes, I'm afraid it's more bad news about the Ruffian economy. There are pundits out there who blather on about how the Fun-Sized Foot Fiddler is set to outlast the conflict and have it go on for years and years a-

NO! Conrad, neither an economist nor general, is pretty sure the war will be over by the end of this year, not necessarily thanks to military endeavour but simply thanks to economics. There's already talk abroad in Ruffia that workers are going to be put to work, without pay, on military tasks, with no option to refuse. Or, rather, refuse and get sent to prison, and from prison to fertilise the Ukrainian sunflowers.

ANYWAY this item is an unholy blend of both Joe Blogs and Inside Russia's Youtube channels. Art!

The Ruffians cut their oil production in February by 500,000 barrels per day, which cut was supposed to last until the end of March. Here we are in May and it's still cut; in fact the cut is now said to be for the whole of 2023.

Why the cut? Supposedly, according to Puffy-Phaced Petrol Pimp, it's to hike the price up, in line with OPEC. However - a word you surely knew was coming - OPEC doesn't have any target price for oil. Not only that, there hasn't been an increase in the price of Ruffian oil; it's value is now 14% below the break-even price <Professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld is laughing>.

Nor is that all. O no. I mean, it would be boring if that was all the bad news I had to deliver, wouldn't it? You see, Ruffian Urals oil, their keystone product, is being sold at a discount of $20 per barrel in order to shift the stuff. This meant a per diem loss of <trumpets> $72 million in 2022, for a per annum of $26 billion. In 2023 the losses are per diem $96 million or $35 billion per annum.

The real reason for the production cuts? Bloaty Gas Tout couldn't manage to sell that much oil in the first place. Art!

"You had ONE THING to do, army - one thing!"

The Ruffian officials in the Ministry Of Finance are in a state of muted panic about the condition of the economy, because there appears to be only ₽6.4 trillion left in the treasury, which sounds like a lot but only comes to $120 billion and there is NO WAY the prospects are going to improve. So, apart from forcing people to work for free, what options are there:

1) Borrow money? Nope. Nobody outside Ruffia is going to lend them anything, because it's highly doubtful they will ever get it back, not to mention all those SANCTIONS. The Ruffian public are too poverty-stricken to be able to lend money to Putin.

2) Raise taxes? VAT has already been raised to 20%, and other hikes will surely follow, which is an easy win for t~~he government~~ Putin because the Ruffian public are like sheep and will happily starve in order to pay their rent, or become homeless in order to be able to eat. Perhaps. Don't forget, one Ruffian revolution began over the price of bread ...

3) Print money! More money! Lots of money! All the money all the time! The only problem with this - and it began in March with ₽2 trillion extra being printed - is that it automatically stokes inflation, to combat which interest rates need to be hiked. The former hits the public, the latter hits business, and it only works in the short term.

Not looking good for the Pest In The Bulletproof Vest, is it?

We now need a little frothy inconsequencialism.

I Know - Polskie Plakaty Filmowskie!

Which is Polish for "Polish Film Posters", in caseyou were wondering. Art!

'Back To The Future' and once you see it you cannot ever un-see it. Art!

"Some Like It Hot" and you have as much of an idea as do I. Which is not a lot.

Rolling Stock

Conrad came across a Yorkshireman with an interest in historic railways on Youtube, and which of our favourite peninsulae did he focus on? Yes, Spurn Point. There was a military railway that ran there and here we see a bit of the old steaming stock that travelled the rails. Art!

A saddle-tank 040

Conventional 060

There had been even earlier kit. Art!

Not sure what you'd call this

Nor this

"WD" = "War Department"