I Lied

You Can't Always Believe What You Read

Especially not here, you need to take everything on BOOJUM! with a positive pillar of sodium chloride, except when we're being truthful, which is mostly some of the time, apart from when we're not.

     'Has the old fool been at the cooking sherry already?' I hear you quibble, and pausing only to point out that sherry is the Devil's very own sinus-drainings, I shall explicate.  Art!

     Yeah, I once made a milkshake and flavoured it with sherry; it was ghast

     ANYWAY I used the image above as an - er - enticer for the late-night blog linkage traditional on a Sunday, and then claimed to know nothing about it.

     Welllllllllll that's not entirely true.  In fact it's a downright lie.

     Okay, we can tell that this is South Canadian in origin, because of the driver's position in the car - that is, they are sitting on the wrong side*.  Then, too, we can also assume that the lady in red was expecting an evening at the night club, because you don't wear a slinky scarlet figure-hugging dress like that if intending to go hopping it through a cornfield.  Note, also, the ear-rings and bracelets.  No purse, which might be where she kept her .45 - hey a girl might have to get serious with Mister Handsy - because that's one accoutrement you wouldn't get past the bouncers on the door.  Art!

     I did a reverse-image search, you see, and it transpires that the artist for the above is one Robert Maguire, it being one of his better-known opus.  Opii?  Opi?  Works, anyway.  Ol' Bob seems to have been a quite prolific artist, specialising in almost-but-not-quite SFW paintings of young ladies not wearing a lot, or of wearing it skin-tight, for the purpose of separating young men from their dollars.  Art!

Sorry the taglines are unreadably blurred

     Conrad, of course - obviously! - is delighted at having discovered this resource, because it means a huge number of sordid, sleazy cover illustrations that nevertheless are still SFW, being a win-win all round.  Mary Whitehouse is no doubt spinning in her grave at 563 r.p.m.

Remember The Dazexiang Revolt Of 209 BC?

Ah yes.  It comes down to the Qin dynasty being bottomholes.  What's their penalty for arriving late at a garrison?  Death.  What's the penalty for rebelling against the Qin?  Death.  One finds it hard to find any sympathy for a regime so stupid (hi, Dimya!).  Here's another question.  What's the Qin punishment for allowing prisoners to escape?  Death.  What's the penalty for rebelling against the Qin?  Stop me if you've heard this one before.

     Enter Liu Bang NO SNIGGERING AT THE BACK!  Art?

     He had been charged with escorting a party of prisoners, some of whom escaped.  Once again, what's the penalty for rebelling against the regime?  Okay, he started a revolt that eventually ended the Qin dynasty, put that in your pipe and smoke it.

I Found A Theme At The BBC!

Actually a whole pile of themes, these will keep us in business for months.  Anything that takes the heavy lifting out of the creativity process O THE BURDEN OF BEING UNCEASINGLY CREATIVE THE BURDEN is welcome, so let's pop back and have a look at the sordid underbelly of Los Angeles, because vice is often a whole lot more captivating than virtue.  Art!

James 'Two-gun' Davis
(Courtesy Cliff Wesselman)

     This chap was the Chief Of Police in the Thirties, which is like giving the fox the hen-coop keys, shooing it in and locking the door behind it.  He was so corrupt James Elroy used him as a character in his novels, which is saying something.  That saying 'So crooked he makes a corkscrew look straight' was probably created in reference to him.  Art!

     Yup, that's how they handled evidence back in the Thirties, even murder weapons.

     Enough of this sordid underbelly stuff, on with the torment!

More More "Tormentor"

Don't worry, we're coming to the end of this long-form fiction (can't really call it a 'book', can we?).

There – he stepped out of the encircling shrubbery, into an amphitheatre created by the landscaped horticulture.  Three figures at the far end of the football pitch huddled under a set of battered metal goalposts.

               ‘Wait here,’ he warned his companions.  ‘Whatever happens DO NOT come out onto that pitch!  Clear?’ and he was away before they could reply.

               Both parties made their way to the centre of the football pitch.  Louis tripped frequently on the hard, irregular ground churned into scalloped turf by countless boots.

               The closer he got the less he liked what he saw.

               Angela – Angela was fine.  Well, not fine exactly.  Terrified out of her wits, but still completely human and mortal.  Her normally tautly drawn features were a mask of fear and despair. 

               The captors –

               ‘Set her free!’ he called, trying to be quiet yet still penetrating.

               One of the kidnappers waved him forward.  When he took a step towards them, Angela moved a single step away from her captors.  This slow process repeated until he stood next to her.

               ‘Ange.  I can’t say sorry enough for this.  Here - ’ and he clasped her hands in his.  ‘Dave is directly behind us.  Follow my tracks in the grass and you’ll get to him.’

               Her haunted, delicate features looked more ghostly than Yvonnne.

               ‘Luma – what’s going on?’

               ‘If I get back alive I’ll tell you.  You may not make much sense of it.’

               They carried on, moving further apart as Louis got closer to the kidnappers, who were not human.  Not any more.

     Oooh, exciting!  At least I hope it is.  Since nobody has added a single Comment about it I shall take it as read that everyone loves loves loves it, and will continue to post more long-form fiction extracts forever, because believe me I've got enough of them to manage that, easily**.

Finally -

Another pontification session from Conrad, where he holds sway (at least in his own head) about the 'Special' Military Operation.  We mentioned briefly yesteryon that an Iskander missile costs £6 million, which is much higher than Conrad's back-of-a-fag-packet calculation of £4.5 million, although I don't think I did too badly.  What I wanted to find was how many of these missiles the Ruffians had fired at Ukraine, which is surprisingly difficult to discover.  Art!

     The most recent figure I came across is 1,080, which means the Ruffians have fired off the equivalent of almost £6.5 billion - and I seem to recall that a BBC news item said that their Iskander bombardment has significantly slowed of late, probably meaning that they're running out of them, and thanks to sanctions they're not going to be building any more.  Nowhere have I been able to find a figure for their total pre-wa - sorry, pre-SMO arsenal.  

     I also noted one Professor Phillips O'Brien commenting on the Ruffians conduct in the Donbass.  Conrad believed that the Battalion Tactical Groups who Deliberately Retreated From Kiev Because It's All Going According To Plan would have been given a time-out before being thrown at the Uke front lines.  Rest, replenish, reinforce, remotivate - but no.  They've simply been thrown into combat the minute they arrived, which the Prof describes as either 'Stupidity or desperation'.  Perhaps both?  And despite Dimya loudly declaring that Mariupol is not to be stormed, guess what?  It's being stormed.  Ah well.

Dimya's advisers networking

     Let's hear it for Jonesy, Chief High Soldiering Expert in Dimya's cabinet!

*  I will not budge on this.

**  This is your first, last and only warning.

Welcome Back

It's Been A Long Time, Jack

I won't continue with these lyrics from a song by The Chameleons, as they discuss Naughty Things Not For Young Ears.

     ANYWAY here we are again, Sunday's retrospective look back over this date in BOOJUM!'s history.  Hard to credit we've been churning out this scrivel for nine years now, kudos to anyone who's stuck around patiently - your descendants will be grateful after my starship invasion fleet arrives in 243 years.

     Okay, we need an illustration to pull the punters in, don't we?  Art!  Do the duties!

     I know nothing.  On with the links!

2021

BOOJUM!: Volcano And Cake (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2020

BOOJUM!: Evil, John! Evil From The Id - (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2019

BOOJUM!: By George! (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2018

BOOJUM!: Hypergolic Colic (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2017

BOOJUM!: Did You Miss Me? (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2016

BOOJUM!: A Bit Of A Melange (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2015

BOOJUM!: A Bit Of A Melange (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2014

BOOJUM!: Make Gravity Impervious To Time (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

The Russians Are Here! The Russians Are Here!

Whisper It Who Dares

If you've been keeping track of this mass of scrivel over the past month or two, then you'll know BOOJUM!'s Ruffian readership can be mercurial, which is a posh way of saying you've got no idea what they're playing at.  Sometimes there can be a total readership almost up to South Canadian levels (the South Canadians being exemplars of good taste) and yet on other occasions there are none.  One presumes the latter occurs when the FSB makes it's Loyalty Sweeps because, by definition, if you're reading BOOJUM! then you are no fan of Dimya*.  Sniggering salaciously at Conrad's satire is probably worth a ten-stretch in the gulags.  Art!

Welcome back!

     All joking aside, reading what our editorial staff add in "Finally -" would definitely get you a fifteen year sentence because of our promoting 'fake news'.  One wonders quite what the FSB would make of "Tormentor" - 

     YURI:  I say, Vanya, what do you make of this narrative?

     VANYA: 'Documentary'?  O you mean 'Tormentor'.  It's not a documentary transcript.

     YURI:  But the dialogue is so realistic!  And the characters are so well drawn!

     VANYA <cautiously>: Have you been at the juice already?  It's only half nine in the morning!

     YURI: That's half an hour later than I - never mind that, what's this about it not being real?

     VANYA <rolls eyes>:  Look, mate, it's a load of fiction.  This degenerate 'Conrad' created it from whole cloth.

     YURI:  Well I never!  Next you'll be telling me that John Carpenter's films aren't actually documentaries.

     VANYA: You're beginning to sound like a Conrad sock-puppet ...

     YURI: <tears off Yuri mask to reveal the hideous grinning maw of Conrad:  SURPRISE!

     There you go, Your Humble Scribe just earned himself fifteen years in a Sov - beg pardon, Ruffian gulag.  If this evening's blog never arrives you know why.

    Welcome back Ruffian readers! Don't tell your friends unless you can trust them!

     For some unfathomable reason this blog remains ever-so-popular in South Canada, which is peculiar since Conrad refuses to admit the American Revolutionary War ever took place, nor that the Brits managed to lose it.  People are strange.

Proof of last sentence

     Just seen a stretch Hummer drive into Tandle Hill Road.  Unsure how they're going to turn it around, unless they intend to drive in reverse, Tandle Hill Road ending in a small car park.  Which will be rammed as the weather is nice and everyone with the world and his wife have come to kick footballs and let their dogs run free.  Yes yes yes, I know we've strayed from the subject matter.  Art!

A Ruffian dog.  So there.

Conrad: Predictably ANGRY!

I know you wouldn't expect anything less of me.  Fortunately for the Codeword compilers of the world my Remote Nuclear Detonator is out of commission, and will be for many days hence.  Apparently you're only supposed to use them 'selectively' and not bash them like a one-mole whack-a-mole.  Now they tell me.  Let the tanting begin.

"SUSHI and HAIKU":  Not only did they use two JAPANESE words, they actually intersected.  It did give me a quick win, however, so I cannot be too angry.  Seven angry's out of ten, I think.  It may interest you to know that Conrad first became aware of haikus back in the early Seventies and "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." where Ilya Kuryakin (a friendly Ruffian**!) quoted one about a frog jumping into a pond.  It's never left me.  Art!

"HERTZ": As in 'Ouch that -' hey nobody said you had to like it.  Given Codeword policy, this is not a referral to the car rental people.  No, it is a measure of frequency, as in 'Fifteen Gigahertz', which of course - obviously! - Conrad was aware of, and now you are, too.  Art!

     That's Heinrich.  Nothing to do with cars.

"TAPIR":  Erm what?  Is this a variant on a candle?  Actually no, it's a particular type of South American beast, and an odd-looking one at that.  Art!

     Looks like a cross between an elephant and a hog.  Wonder what they taste like when cooked?  ANYWAY how dare they use an exotic foreign animal as a Codeword solution!

Thank You Auntie Beeb!

Conrad has found a link to a multitude of different photographic themes under the rubric of the BBC, so believe me you are going to experience them, O yes indeed!  Art!

     No, children, those are not sweeties.  Those are drugs in pill form and we all know that DRUGS ARE BAD.  This photo shows one Captain Kearney checking out what these pills are, though he might have been better advised to wear gloves instead of shaking them onto his bare skin.

More Of "Tormentor"

We can't leave the FSB hanging, can we?

The car park at Dovecote Park lay under the wan illumination of three sodium vapour streetlamps, reflecting off the broken glass and ******* that lay all over the potholed tarmac.  The middle lamp flickered and buzzed erratically.

               ‘Spirit interference,’ said Louis, jerking his head at the flickering yellowish light.  ‘Oh – wait a minute.  Here, take these.’

               He passed Dave two of the silver balls clinking together in his pocket.

               ‘Solid silver.  They’ll destroy a spirit if they hit it, so be careful not to hit Yvonne.  Where do we meet to swap over?’

               ‘The footie pitch.  Right in the middle of the park.  ****, you look as cool as ice!’

               ‘It comes with practice.  Louis has destroyed three of the Dark Ones so far,’ interrupted Yvonne.  Dave swore under his breath.  Impressed or worried, it still sounded the same.

               Privately Louis decided to re-name the evil spirits if he survived the next half hour.  “Dark Ones” carried such a ring of third-rate Tolkein hand-me-down.

               They left their car and ventured onto the twisting path that led into the park’s interior, where illumination from streetlights filtered through trees and bushes made the darkness seem even more intense.

               Louis reflected that he’d last been here five years ago, when Natalie was still alive and wanted to go down the huge slide the council finally dismantled after endless accidents.

     Ooooh, it's all coming to a head!

Finally -

If you're a loyal fan of VVP, a.k.a. Dimya (he hates it when we call him that), then you might want to look away NOW - too late, that's fifteen years in a cell for you.  Here we comment on the 'Special' Military Operation going on in Ukraine, to see how the Ruffians can mess things up more.  By this point they have a positive omelette on their chin rather than a single egg.  Now one of their generals has come out saying that everyone knew this operation was going to take a long time.

     Er - hello?  Reality called, can you come back?  Nobody knew any such thing.  What Dimya hoped would happen was a thunder-run into Kiev, hang Zelensky from a lamp-post and be back home laden with loot in three days, a week at the most.  Instead we are now in Day Fifty-Eight, and the 'Plan' goalposts keep getting moved.  

Hardly surprising when these are your advisers

     A conservative estimate of how much this war is costing Dimya is £20 billion PER DAY.  Or over £1 trillion so far.  That contingency fund of £650 billion seems a little underwhelming now, doesn't it?  Especially since a third of it was frozen instantly and is inaccessible.  Art!

Say goodbye to £6 million

     I shall finish here but we will be revisiting this topic, O yes indeedy!

*  This harshness will probably make him cry.  Tee hee!

**  Played by a Scot.  People are strange.

The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!

Yes, I Thought THAT Would Get Your Attention

It's a film, not a warning about the Sovie - I beg your pardon, the Ruffian - hordes pouring through the Fulda Gap as they take on NATO as the Cold War turns exceedingly hot.  We have mentioned it before, but I cannot track down the link, so - a little precis.  Art!

     Briefly put, a Sinister submarine manages to strand itself off the coast of Massachusets, then sends parties ashore to try and get it re-floated, leading to invasion panic.  O - found the link -

BOOJUM!: Hoots! 'Tis Aboot Thae Sproots! (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

      Be careful, whoever wrote that has an unsound mind.  Plus not all of the photo links work

    ANYWAY  there is an armed confrontation between sub crew and citizens, which can only end in tears - Art!

Alan Arkin, an absolute gem

     A slight aside here - AA learned his Russian from a Georgian, so any Ruffian viewer of this cinematic treat thought he must be Georgian, as you can pick out the accent.  I take this on trust as, believe me, I cannot discern a Saint Petersburg accent from a Siberian one.

     ANWYAY- just testing to see if you were awake - at the climax a small child is in mortal peril of falling from the top of the church tower - Art!

The very church

     The Sinister crew, being utter marshmallows when it comes to kids, all flock to help and form a human pyramid, atop which Alexei (played by the enormous British actor John Philip Law) snags the kid dangling by his belt, bringing him back to safety.  HOORAY!  Swords into ploughshares and all that - except the USAF are beetling towards town, grimly determined to end the Commie Invasion That Wasn't.  However, by the time they arrive the Sinister Sub 'Sproot' (honestly, I'm not making this up, it means 'Octopus') has a close escort flotilla of every boat in the harbour, so the flyboys abort their attack.

     The film dates from 1966, back at the height (or should that be depth?) of the Cold War and was exceptional in showing Ruffians in a good light.  Surprisingly enough, neither the South Canadian nor the Sinister navy were interested in supplying a functional submarine.  Odd, that.

     Okay, there we go, proof that BOOJUM! is not inherently anti-Ruffian.  Don't get complacent, Tsar Poutine, you aren't safe from our ferocious satire*.

     

Conrad Is (As Usual) ANGRY!

O so angry!  That is, angrier than usual.  And yes, it's those Dog Buns! Codeword compilers again.  I think mercifully avoiding radioactive annihilation for a few days has led to an air of complacency.  Hang on, let me just bring out the Remote Nuclear Detonator -

<repeated loud banging noises ensue>

     There we go.  Keep your eyes peeled for job adverts requiring 'lexicographical skills' in the next few days.  Let my jaundiced analysis begin.

"AFFIDAVIT":  You what?  Does this have a French origin?  If not then I bet it's Latin.  My Collins Concise defines it as: "A declaration in writing made upon oath before a person authorised to administer oaths" and yes, Latin.  How the law loves Latin!  They ought to get married and have a baby.  My own oaths about using this solution have <checks> yes, they've blistered paint off the radiator.  Art!

A Davit. Close enough.

"AEGIS": A five-letter word with three vowels, none repeated?  I think I broke the Remote Nuclear Detonator or I'd be hammering it like a piano keyboard.  My CC defines it as: "Sponsorship or protection, typically used in 'Under the aegis of'.  It is also the name of Zeus's shield, I hope he got a patent for it, because Your Humble Scribe is more familiar with it as - Art!

A missile system

     Kudos to whomever dreamed that up as a product title.  Even if they were probably a horrid swot who tool lessons in Greek and Latin.

"SAPID":  Er what?  Conrad has never come across this word before, and had to guess that it might be a derivation of, or come from, "SAPIENT".

     Conrad was wrong! My CC defines it as, pretty simply, "Having a pleasant taste".  THAT IS NOT WHAT I HAVE IN MY MOUTH RIGHT NOW.  Hello?  Is that the RND Service Desk?  I need you to come out and perform a fix right now.

 

Probably sapid

What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

If you ever have to ask this question, expect fire and brimstone descending upon you in epic quantities.  Conrad, because he always has a notebook and pen to hand, made a note on a Youtube Reddit channel about 'Well that escalated quickly', concerning the Dazexiang Revolt of 209 BC.  This was during the Qin dynasty, who appear to have been a species of bottomhole.  Legend has it that a military force was trying to reach it's destination, but was prevented by flooding en route, to the point that they would have arrived late.  Art!

     Arriving late at a position under the Qin meant the death penalty.  O well, shrugged their commander: what's the penalty for rebellion?  Death as well.  Bit of a no-brainer, really.  Death or death?  Why I'll have a side-order of rebellion with death, thanks.  They ended up getting killed but provoked a huge peasant rebellion in the process.  And that wasn't the end of matters ...

Bring On The Empty Hearses

Only joking!  No, this is one of the penultimate extracts from "Tormentor", which absolutely nobody has commented on, so you must all love it.  Love love love it.  Even if it is rather dark.

Jerking free of Louis, he staggered backwards and hit a chair, falling to the floor.

               ‘Please,’ he whimpered.  ‘What’s going on?’

               ‘You’re not going mad,’ soothed Louis.  ‘Yvonne is a spirit.  I can interact with them, unlike normal human beings.  Because you were in contact with me whilst I was in contact with Yvonne, you are able to see her.  It only lasts a week or two and then you’re back to normal.’

               Dave stared between the two of them, then fainted.

 Since Dovecote Park was miles away, they needed Dave to drive, which meant waiting until he regained consciousness, then preventing him from running physically through the French windows or the front door to escape, then trying to inform him about the world of the immaterial.  And all in the space of three minutes.

               ‘So Heaven and Hell are real?’ he asked for the fourth time en route to his Ford Escort.  ‘And God and the Devil and angels and demons?’

               ‘I didn’t get an instruction manual,’ replied an exasperated Louis.  ‘I’ve had to piece this together bit by bit.  Spirits are earthbound.  Where they go once they Move On depends on their goodness in life and after.’

               ‘Messengers, not angels,’ added Yvonne.

               Dave’s car smelt of leather, sweat and tobacco.  Louis shut his eyes when climbing inside.

               ‘So it’s like karma,’ continued Dave.  ‘If you do good, then you’ll end up in heaven.  If you’re a complete *******, you go to hell.’

               ‘I think it’s more complicated than that, but you’ve got the basics there.’

               After that Dave fell silent.  Clearly he suffered from a guilty conscience.

     Luma shutting his eyes is a subtle referral to the car crash that put him in a coma and killed his wife and daughter.  He does not like travelling in cars, and you can't blame him.

Finally -

Here Your Humble Scribe holds forth as if he know what he's talking about with regards to what's going on in Ukraine.  One Youtube channel claimed that the Ruffians, strapped for soldiers, are considering 'conscripting' local Ukrainian males into their shambolic army.  Their lack of manpower is a real thing, because they cannot mobilise reserve forces unless a state of war exists.  Whereas what we have now is only a 'Special' Military Operation.  Thus the very heavy casualties they have been suffering since 24/02/2022 cannot easily be replaced, which is why they have resorted to the Chechen Tik-Tok soldiers - rubbish in action, look good in a video, at least to anyone completely ignorant of military matters.  Art!

Hairy not scary

  Conrad's guesstimate about Ruffian casualties is an average of 1,000 per day, which probably reduced when they ran away - sorry "Retreated Entirely According To Plan" from Kyiv, but which has ramped up again with their Donbass offensive.  After 57 days - we are looking at about 19,000 dead and 38,000 wounded.  This is quite plausible, since the Ukes are insisting on 21,000 dead and they are quite  inevitably going to over-estimate and exaggerate.  Over 25% of the original invasion force are now casualties, there is no end in sight and - remind me, who planned this SMO?

     Your Honour, I rest my case.

*  I keep telling you it isn't Politics, it's SATIRE.

Answers To Unasked Questions

No I Don't Mean Trite Rubbish Like "Why Is The Sky Brown?"

It's brown because you woke up on Mars, you goof.  That'll teach you to teleport in your sleep.

     No, I mean questions like "How would go you about atom-bombing the Moon?" or - one that's constantly on my mind - "How much custard powder is needed to turn the world's oceans into custard?".  Actually Conrad is unsure whether salt water can be used in custard; one for you the reader to test.  Atom-bombing the Moon is a lot easier.  It's a large target in a consistent and predictable orbit, without any defences.  Art!

Best cover illustration ever

     Ol' Baz has this as a central plot theme in the novel above.  If you hold literally to the 'atom-bombing' tenet then you'll need a spacecraft to get into orbit around our nearest astronomical neighbour, from which you can drop your PGM ("Punching Gruddam Moon") on it, to a loud whoop and holler.  Best be over the horizon when it detonates, mind, because without any atmosphere to slow down debris there will be tons of sharp shrapnel shooting skywards.

     On the other hand, you could re-target an ICBM ("I Can Blast Moon) and hit the Moon, which seems rather unsporting to Conrad.  Art!

Ha!  Take that, Moon!

     ANYWAY none of this preamble, of course - obviously! - has anything to do with what I really wanted to talk about, which is a Youtube channel devoted to the works of Tolkein.  JRR Tolkein, in case you were wondering.  It's not a common name but we don't want any confusion, do we?  Art!

     This channel goes into Lord Of The Rings in quite incredible detail.  One of their titles is "How Did The Dwarf Economy Work?" which is probably the poster child for today's title - not a question Your Humble Scribe has ever asked himself and am pretty sure this goes for the rest of you out there.  What I watched in it's entirety was "Ten Characters Who Aren't In The Movies", beginning with Fredegar Bolger, better known as 'Fatty', because now we know who ate all the pies.  Fatty, AS YOU SHOULD SURELY KNOW, assumes the place of Frodo in Buckland, wearing Frodo's old clothes in an attempt to persuade any over-inquisitive intruders wearing all-over black that Frodo's still at home.  Art!

Fatty doing what he does best

     That's all you see of him in the film.  In the novel he ends up leading resistance to 'Sharkey' and is imprisoned for it.

     Annnnnnnnnd that's enough of that for today's Intro.

"Reclaiming History" By Vincent Bugliosi

I know, I know, I keep going on about this work.  That's because it's over 1,500 pages long and I am at Page 846, so over half-way!

     The author, Ol' Vinnie, has taken a few pot-shots <hmmm could have phrased that better> at the conspiranoid loonwaffles so far, but is reserving the real criticism in the second part of the book.  Still, he - hang on - Art!

A weighty tome

     He takes time to lambast a so-called photography expert, one Robert Groden, who had a cottage-industry writing conspiracy guff about JFK, and who insisted that a photograph of Lee H. Oswald toting a rifle, pistol and Fair Play For Cuba leaflets was a fake.  Do we have the photo to hand, Art?

     Groden popped up at the trial of O. J. Simpson as a 'photography expert', where the prosecution did a bit of digging about him, and do you know what?  He was a complete fraud.  He hadn't taken or taught courses or even written about the field of 'Questioned photographs'.  He had no professional qualifications in the field, wasn't a member of any QP body, and hadn't done any training in photography forensics.  Still, he had once been paid to vouch for the authenticity of a ghost in a photograph, which must count for something.  No?  It doesn't?  O well.  Demolition complete.

No Blue For You

Soz.  We've used up all the BBC exhibition photographs.  Doubtless there'll be another one, so until then have a look at this -

     Don't ask me because I've no idea either.  From 'Irish Farm Services' so possibly to do with harvesting peat?   Another task I'm happy to let you research.  Now, on with this puppy and very small horse show.

More Of "Tormentor"

As you recall, a panicked Dave Hargreaves had called Luma to his sister's house, saying that she'd been abducted.  Poor Dave.  He's about to get in deeper than he could have begun to realise.

‘They rang you?’ asked Louis.  Dave nodded.

               ‘Okay, either possession or heavily-brainbashed mortals,’ analysed Yvonne, entering the room.  ‘Spirits can’t use phones and that front door was kicked in.  You can see the imprint of the sole on the wooden panelling.’

               Dave bit his bottom lip and reached into his jeans at the back, jerking and tugging until he whipped round with a sawn-off double barrelled shotgun.

               ‘Don’t try anything like running.  I can’t see any way round this unless we call the feds, or we take you down and swap you.’

               Louis looked at his acquaintance with a touch of wry amusement.

               ‘Dave, we really cannot call the feds.  No way.  I’m pretty sure we’re under observation.   Yvonne?’

               The spirit hunted round the room, her heels rapping sharply on the wooden floor.

               ‘Definitely a presence.  It’s not nearby.  Still, near enough to spot us.’

               ‘Who the **** is Yvonne?’ asked Dave, looking more sweatily unwell than before, if possible.

               ‘You might call her my guardian angel.’

               ‘Louis! Not that!’exclaimed Yvonne.

               ‘Whoops!  Beg pardon!’ he apologised.  ‘Overseeing spirit.’  Pointing at the shotgun he flicked his finger.  ‘Would you mind doing the business?’

               Dave felt the weapon snatched from his grasp.  It danced around in mid-air, turning to point at him whilst he goggled unbelievingly at it.

               ‘Yvonne, please don’t shoot him.  We need all the friends we can get.’

               If disbelief can descend beyond incredulity and into the depths of impossibility, Dave’s disbelief increased so,  whilst  he saw the shotgun break, the cartridges extract and the weapon lock shut again.

               ‘Now,’ continued Louis.  ‘Dave, give me your hand.’

               Dumbly, Dave shook Louis’s hand, while Yvonne stood behind Louis and held him around the waist.

               ‘AAAHH!”shrieked Dave, looking at Yvonne and seeing her. ‘Whothe****issheandwheredidshecomefrom!’

     Told you so.

Finally -

Dimya shared a televised conference with his bezzie mate Shoigu, which (perhaps!) puts to be those rumours about Shoggy being hospitalised with an assassination-induced heart-attack.  Or perhaps it's a robot?  Probably not; if it were a Ruffian robot it's head would fall off and flames would erupt from it's input socket WASH OUT YOUR FILTHY MINDS!  ANYWAY - Art!

     Not going to put up a video of this, just trust my analysis.  For the whole of this interview Dimya grips that table as if it's about to take off and fly, to prevent the hand tremors from showing, and he cannot stop tapping his foot.  As others have said, his head looks fat and swollen (there's a joke in there if you care to dig for it).  One wag had it that his hand is on the button that will drop Shoggy into the tank full of hungry sharks beneath him.  There is a consensus that he's very ill indeed, just not what it is that's gouging him (fingers crossed it's slow and painful!), Parkinson's has been suggested as well as thyroid cancer, also possible alcohol addiction.  Gee, these past 57 days and the stress associated with his 'Special' Military Operation can't be helping, can it?

How Many Leaves In The World?

There I Was

Wondering how to replicate the atypical yet welcome phenomena of very high traffic figures as of yesterday, when I realised it might have been the title 'One Trillion Lions Versus The Sun'.  Spectacularly silly stuff, even if the original Youtuber went to a lot of effort in working out how to create a mass of lions so large it creates a singularity that destroys the sun.  Yes, all very well in theory, much less so in real life.  Art!

An ooopsie moment

     Okay, I thought to myself; what new, spectacularly silly topic can we come up with? as I stared at out neighbours trees getting severely blown about by the near-hurricane winds up in our hill country.  Then the thought came: how many leaves are there in the world?

     Here an aside.  Nothing to do with leaves.  If you Google "Exploding Sun", as I did to get that photo above, you also get "Exploding Sun", which, if Art can put down his plate of coal ...

     It sounds dodgy as all get out from the IMDB synopsis, doubtless done on the cheap with horrid cheap CGI and a has-been C-list celeb to hang it from, plus it only gets 3.7 in the IMDB ratings, so bad, only not bad enough to be enjoyable after a snifter of gin.  The blurb has it that "A historic space launch triggers a solar-storm event -" which is when I stopped paying attention.

     ANYWAY back to leaves.  It's not a question that you can frame easily, because - Art?

     It depends what time of year you ask the question.  Furthermore, are we going to exclude leaves of grass?  I think we will, just to be capricious, because you can estimate leaves per square yard quite handily and then just scale up.  So we won't.  Restricting ourselves to trees, I think we'll also exclude evergreen trees with needles instead of leaves.  Just because.

<weeps softly>

     On the other hand, we'll include hedges, because those neighbours over the road have them.  So, the best estimate of how many trees there are in the world - okay, I think we'll exclude hedges because capricious - is about three trillion.  Then we have to plump for an average number of leaves per tree, so I shall pluck a number by scanning these handy goat intestines, and that number is 100,000.  

     So the number of leaves on trees comes to 300,000,000,000,000,000.  For the moment, anyway, although the number is likely to decrease thanks to the winds up here in the mountains.  And it will fall dramatically in autumn, of course, when the trees shed.

     BOOJUM! - educating you one factoid at a time, whether you wanted it or not.

     Motley!  we need to nip down to Royton and purchase a cheap second-hand dictionary, then cut all the words out and put them in a bucket.  Then we have to hire a specially-trained penguin to pull three words out of the bucket, and that's the next silly topic we'll cover, okay?

BOOJUM! means employment for penguins

Back Into The Blue

Yes, another selection from the BBC's theme of 'Into the blue', and thank you Auntie Beeb for helping lighten the creative burden on we, the editorial staff.  Art!

Courtesy Laura Boot

     This is described AND I WARN YOU TO WASH OUT YOUR FILTHY MINDS as being a Blue Tit on a branch during a cold winter's day.  Blue on blue, you might say.   I saw one yesterday morning whilst walking Edna, along with the ever-present magpies, who are always bobbing about.  There are pigeons, too, whom Edna looks longingly at.  Dream on, Edna.

The Biter Not So Much Bitten As Bludgeoned, Brutally

Sit down and sip your cuppa as Conrad regales you with a tale of Revenge from a Reddit Youtube recounting; the Dog Buns things are entirely too addictive, so if I've spent much too long reading them, you are getting the benefit.

     The Original Poster worked in a South Canadian NGO, where they drew up contracts for working with other government agencies, and believe me there are a lot of South Canadian government agencies, and their IT requirements.  Art!

     Now we know more than we did five minutes ago.  The OP made a habit of scrutinising every contract she dealt with, which might vary from $10,000* up to $4,000,000, because if a government agency was impressed with a well-executed small contract, they could well become a repeat customer with a considerably greater dollar value attached.  This review process could take hours, even for a small contract.  OP's diligence and scrutiny annoyed the heck out of her Sales Director, because it slowed everything down and prevented his staff from generating bonuses for themselves.

     You can probably see where this is going.

     Eventually SD ordered OP to stop checking contracts for less than $10 K, and confirmed IN AN E-MAIL that Sales would carry out due diligence and review contracts.  The process sped up.  Then in came a small contract where the client was offered a 30% rebate, which OP immediately recognised as an error; this level of rebate was no longer offered and 5% was the usual.  However, Sales should pick it up, right?  Art!

Servants being civil

     Wrong.  They didn't.  Next thing, back comes the client with a $40 million contract, same as the earlier one just with this enormous sum at the end, and for three years, not three months.  Sales were clapping themselves on the back, seeing million-dollar bonuses in their next paycheck.

     Three months later the contract has been signed off and a conference of all the directors and leads takes place, Sales rubbing their grimy mitts with glee, until the Finance director states that the NGO is going to lose $8 million on the deal.  It's not clear in the narrative if this is going to be annually for three years or is the whole three-year deal.

     Faces drop.  Next up are Legal, who say the contract cannot be amended now that both parties have signed it, so the loss just has to be endured.  The Sales Director, red-faced with rage, tries to throw OP under the bus and tells her to get her things and leave.

     Instead she brings up The E-mail Of Doom where he orders her to stop checking contracts under $10 K, at which he still froths in rage, until she scrolls down to the bit where HE commits to due diligence and review.  

     Not only was he fired on the spot, he had to pay back his previous year's bonus thanks to a claw-back clause in his contract - $300,000.  He tried to sue for unfair dismissal and lost, having racked up legal costs of another $200,000.

     The devil's in the details.

After That Amusement, Let's Have TORMENT!

Three minutes later, he bounced up the steps to Angela’s front door, noticing splintered wood around the lock.

               ‘Forced physically,’ he announced.  Yvonne, travelling alongside, stopped to look at the damage.

               Dave Hargreaves, looking ill, paced up and down the small, bare front room.  His shoes made a hollow clacking on the parquetry floor.

               ‘Before you do anything, put your hand on this,’ warned Louis, holding out a bible.

               ‘Are you ******** barmy?’

               ‘Your hand, or this knife,’ threatened Louis.  The Sabattier knife had been a wedding present fifteen years ago but still held a wicked edge and was fifteen inches long besides.  Dave slowly put his hand onto the bible, having eyes only for the long knife, wondering what else Louis had in the briefcase.

               ‘What?  Do I have to swear an oath or what?’

               ‘No.  You pass.  What did these ******** want?’

               Dave hesitated before replying.

               ‘You.  They said Ange is the hostage.  If you go out to Dovecote Park they’ll swap her for you.’

               Dovecote Park ran along the main road into Manchester, a long narrow strip of parkland with plenty of trees and shrubbery to hide amongst.

     O noes!  Luma in peril!

Finally -

Conrad heard an interesting commentary on Youtube between a few South Canadian ex-naval personnel, who were commenting on why the 'Moskva' was so badly damaged and then sank.  Art!

All perfectly according to plan

     It seems that in Western navies, everyone aboard ship, with no exceptions, has to do damage control and fire drill, daily or at least weekly.  Train train train.  More trains than Euston Station.  The Ruffians, it seems, simply don't bother and leave internal doors open all the time, so any fire spreads rapidly and you cannot flood compartments to extinguish it.  How shocking!  Ruffian military being inept!  Once again, let's hear it for Dimya's 'Special' Military advisers -

Brought in to replace the old ones -

     - who have mysteriously vanished.  How peculiar.

*  We will temporarily suspend our Imperial values for this item.