Forgive Me For Rhyming
It just comes naturally to me. Why, last week I even came up with a tasteless little doggerel about the Ruffian Black Sea Fleet, which I didn't write down and which is now lost to history. Probably only temporarily, I think it had "Sea Baby" and "Navy" in there somewhere.
ANYWAY whilst on that particular theme, I have only recently been watching a long and verrrry interesting video on Youtube from "Inside Russia", which is the brainchild of Konstantin Samoilov. We've mentioned his channel and dealt with a few of the catastrophic analyses he generates. Art!
Konstantin's new pad. Not literally; he moved to Tashkent in Uzbekistan or he'd have either been conscripted or imprisoned back home in Soviet Union 2.0.
What he's been looking at in his latest livestream are 4 or 5 potential 'bottlenecks' that appear to indicate just how parlous the Ruffian economy, industry and infrastructure are. As you'd expect, oil and aircraft are on the list, as are a couple of other items that don't get much attention in the headlines, so Conrad thought he'd lead with them. After all, a jet airliner is a lot sexier than a humble train. Art!
As Big K pointed out, Ruffia has a very large rail network, established in the bad old days of the Sinister Union. A train ticket used to be the first resort if it wasn't possible to fly anywhere, as Ruffians preferred flying due to the slowness of trains and the speed of planes. Art!
However, when it comes to air travel - and that word 'however' ought to be in flashing neon letters six feet tall today - the 'khokhols' have caused southern airports in russia to be closed, such as Simferopol and Krasnodar. Drones and Patriots, doncha know, and the Ruffians don't have enough tyres.
So! Ruffian trains are now overbooked and much more expensive than they used to be. There are also a lot less of them than there used to be.
"O why is this, snowy-haired scribe?" I hear you query. O I thought you'd never ask!
Because, gentle reader, Ruffian trains don't use Ruffian engines. No. They, instead, use engines from the Teuton engineering company Siemens.
You can probably see where this is going, because the Teutons may baulk at giving Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine, but they've been shot-hot at imposing and adhering to sanctions. They ended 170 years of involvement with Ruffia when the Special Idiotic Operation took place. Art!
Definitely Siemens and maybe even a train engine
The Ruffians loved loved loved Siemens because they built quality engines, embodying that Teuton stereotype of thoroughness. When they left, so did all the servicing, maintenance, repairs and spare parts. The end, as Big K pointed out, of over 170 years of involvement in Ruffian engineering. Now, after two years of neglect, locomotives are breaking down. Whilst the Teutons may not be giving Ukraine Taurus cruise missiles, they are shot-hot on imposing and adhering to sanctions, hence these train troubles. The Ruffians, as they did with airplanes, are now cannibalising - NO! they are not eating themselves. Not yet, anyway. What I meant is that they are now stripping one set of trains of parts, so they can keep the rest rolling. This, mind you, is a short-term fix that can't go on, as you can only eat so many trains. Art!
You may be thinking, O what about Ruffia's very bestest pal in all the world, China? Surely they'll be leaping to the rescue with scads of -
NO! There are no Chinese prime movers travelling west.
You may also be thinking, what about Ruffia building it's own trains?
They tried that. See that broken-down train above? That's the 'Finist', a wholly-home made Ruffian train, which broke down only SIX DAYS into service.
Last year BOOJUM! covered the troubles Ruffia was having with rolling stock - which is all the stuff that's not locomotives - and how a significant percentage was breaking down, thanks to ball-bearing shortages, as the sole plant that made them was Swedish and had left Ruffia. Now it's the prime movers themselves that are rolling over and dying. Art!
Big K also identified another bottleneck that I don't really have time to do justice to here - I've just had to re-type out about 200 words that vanished for no reason - so I'll just mention that seed imports is another bottleneck-cum-Achilles heel for Ruffia. More on that later. Art!
That's Konstantin with his cup of English Breakfast Tea. He needed it, poor chap, he had a constant cough during the livestream.
Going "Commando"
NO! This is nothing about underwear, you fearful perverts. Your minds need a full cycle on high temperature.
What I refer to is that British staple, the "Commando" comic, if that's quite what it is. Art!
They were exclusively set in the First or Second Unpleasantness, in all modes and on all fronts. The cover you see above is unusual, as they normally focussed firmly on Allied soldiers. If Conrad remembers correctly, it's poached from a photograph of Teuton soldiers fighting from the cover of a crater. Art!
Not the right one. Soz.
Of course - obviously! - I cannot find the photo. It might be in one of my reference volumes, which I cannot be bothered to dig out.
ANYWAY I was minded of one particular story, which was utterly bonkers. Conrad can clearly recall the artwork, but not the artist's name. The story was set during the Battle Of Britain, when a particularly inept pilot was last seen ascending heavenwards in his shot-to-bits Spit. Art!
 |
| Like this, but full of holes |
Later on he returns to the airfield in perfect nick, as is his Spitfire. From then on he becomes a veritable demon in the air, the complete opposite of what he used to be, in addition to talking 'like a maiden aunt' as I remember the speech bubble comment. The story ends when, after a mighty battle in the air, his shot-to-bits Spit is found, without him. Except all his harness and flying kit is still in the cockpit, as if he just vanished into thin air, naked. Art!
The explanation OF COURSE - obviously! - as worked out by his mate is that, on his last doomed flight, he encountered a UFO. The alien crew decided to help the RAF without being directly involved - the Prime Directive, doncha know - and so reanimated the dying pilot with one of their own. Aliens. It's the only explanation that makes sense.
I should point out that "Commando" has been going for 53 years, so it's doing something right.
"Definitely aliens, Conrad"
Blimey, nearly at count already!
There Were These Four Poles And A Ton Of Lego
No, it's not a joke. Especially if you tread on any of them in bare feet <winces>. To what am I referring? The team who created the 1/7th scale Air Force One in Lego, that's whom. Art!
That above was accompanied by a breathless Polish voice-over that I couldn't understand a word of. Not being Polish. Art!
Conrad is guessing that the caption above is Polish for "ONE MILLION PIECES!". Art!
Yes, those are the culprits responsible.
NO THEY ARE NOT RUSSIAN! Sheesh. The Poles are a polite people but asking this question is not going to win friends in Krakow.
@sir_paniccakettv1263
" - you dolt" hangs in the air unsaid.
"City In The Sky"
The Doctor's airstrike from Heaven has just arrived in the skies above the Great Australian Bight.
‘It’s going to hit the beach,’ stuttered Denny, stumbling backwards.
‘Citizens of New Eucla, meet my flyswatter,’ announced the Doctor with a
combination of pride and vengeance, resting his fingertips against each
other. ‘Don’t worry, it’s going to hit
well out in the Bight. You can’t judge
distances very well by just looking, Denny.’
He added a stage-whispered coda.
‘Thank you Starmen.’
The flaming missile took forever to fall to a point where the trees and
hillocks along the beach hid it from sight, which made Mike realise that the
thing really was far off, fifty kilometres at least. Ages later a giant muddy grey mushroom cloud
humped up into the sky, towering up and up and up until weather patterns began
to tear and shred it apart. Seconds
later they heard and felt a shockwave that vibrated in the very earth itself,
making buildings rattle, chimney’s fall down and window panes unseat. Amidst the tinkle of breaking glass the
townsfolk looked in wonder and awe at each other.
‘What – Doctor, what was that!’ gasped Mike. ‘A meteor?’
‘One of the Trojan asteroids, dislodged from orbit by the Starmen. I gave them the approximate co-ordinates to
hit so the tsunami generated won’t destroy your townships along the coast.
Expect big waves very soon.’
For a small bloke he does make big waves, don't he?
Just To Kick It While It's Down
As you may be dimly aware, as we haven't rubbished it for a while, BOOJUM! looks on crypto-currency with a narrowed and jaundiced eye (the other one is steeping in a cup of antinomy hydroxyl). Art!
I'M SHOCKED! SHOCKED I TELL YOU! How - how can this be? The words "Crypto-currency" and "scam" in the same sentence together?
Crypto-currency: the scamble of choice for money-launderers!
Finally -
The weather has picked up and is considerably brighter than yesterday's troglodytic day, where it was darker than the inside of a coalsack at noon. Very cold, mind, which is great. Stops me falling asleep over my works laptop.
