Sunday's Scenic Sight

Either We Are Insanely Popular -

Or Blogger's traffic tracking algorithm has gone completely potty again.  I did mention that traffic was up, perhaps thanks to my footprint on Twitter being larger than usual, but this is not normal.  473 hits on a Sunday afternoon.  Art!

     We may have the culprit here, not that I can find Singapore on the world map.  Do note that we still have one faithful Ruffian blog reader, who is taking their life in their hands by reading this scrivel.  We salute you, Pavel!

     O well.  ANYWAY on with the links for Sunday's scrivel-harvest.

2023

BOOJUM!: Contumely Come To Me (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2022

BOOJUM!: I Warned You (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2021

BOOJUM!: Camelot, Or What? (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2020

BOOJUM!: Whither The Weather (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2019

BOOJUM!: The 128-Ton Insect (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2018

BOOJUM!: Rocket Man (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2017

BOOJUM!: The Frothings Of A Furshlugginer (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2016

BOOJUM!: Discerning And Spurning (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2015

BOOJUM!: The Curse Of Cocoa! (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

2014

BOOJUM!: Wake UP! We Still Have A Lot To Get Through! (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

How To Succeed In Business

By Knowing Where The Body's Buried

Yesteryon I mentioned about observing a general principle called "Covering Your Bottom", meaning that one takes care of oneself before implementing anything visibly stupid imposed by higher management.  The second, vitally important, piece of organisational knowledge one requires is in the title here: knowing where the body (or bodies) is buried.  In essence, knowing all the dirty secrets that ought never to see daylight.  This, Conrad avers, is why Kathleen Kennedy still has a job, after losing Disney at least $150 billion last year.  Art!

The first of the trilogy.  FOUR AND FIVE DO NOT EXIST!

     I believe her film production qualifications were being able to make a cup of coffee exactly as Steven Speilberg liked it.

     ANYWAY, as an example of what I speak about, take the first episode of "Foyle's War", which I watched last night: "The German Woman".  A bit of a misnomer, as she was Czechoslovakian, though as she hailed from the Sudetenland, an understandable mistake.  Art!

     This is the pub landlord Judd, who is an underhanded cad of epic proportions.  He sits at the centre of a web of deceit and fraud, and is able to get away with it because he Knows Things.  More specifically he knows who was having a dalliance with whom - I shan't spoil it for you by naming names - and is able to extort money accordingly.

     Inevitably, he comes to a sticky end, which is one of the drawbacks about Knowing Things, as it may impel those being blackmailed into desperate measures.
     ANYWAY onto this sorry tale of Manglement.  Original Poster was a manager at a South Canadian motor dealership when it was acquired by a new owner.  This is always a difficult and stressful time for established employees, as New Owner Syndrome comes into play, where they want to make their mark, mark their territory and - if they were a Teuton employer a couple of decades ago, cut marks.  Art!

Okay, I'll admit it, a strained analogy

     New Bottomhole Owner, clearly unfamiliar with what OP did in the business, imperiously told him to "Shut up, sit down and do as I say, or leave."

     OP left and was gone within thirty minutes.

     This is where things began to escalate, because OP was the unpaid and unofficial IT expert within the dealership.  He essentially walked into the same job position with a rival dealership the same day he left, and a couple of weeks later got a frantic call from NBO's controller, panicking because their server had crashed.  Not only had it crashed, nobody within NBO's  business knew the admin password to access it.

     Except OP.  This is a pretty important body to have lurking in the background.  He was able to extort $5,000 as a 'hiring fee' from his old dealership, his new dealership boss laughing himself sick at the process, for all of a few minute's work in typing in the master password and allowing the controller to change it.  Art!

     It got worse for NBO.  That unofficial IT role for OP also came with the responsibility of making a back-up tape each morning.  Being aware, he'd also trained their two receptionists to do the job, so they could cover if he was away for any reason.  An example of Cover Your Bottom in action.

     Alas, hubris.  NBO had fired the full-time receptionist.  The part-time one resigned immediately, as she was expected to work 7-day weeks until another receptionist could be hired.

     I'm sure you can see where this is going.  Art!

So simple.  So costly.

     The business then had to work off manual records for two weeks, and use paper invoices and service orders until the system caught up, which totalled $20,000 in overtime for NBO thanks to all that manual input.  This is less knowing where a body is buried and more knowing where a minefield is buries.

     NBO's business acumen cannot have risen above this level of manglement, as within three years the franchise was withdrawn by the car manufacturer, since  they had an interest in their marque looking good, and the dealership closed, also for good.  Proof that even CYB and KWTBB can be foiled by idiotic management.

O Noes!

You know that bit in "Nosferatu", where the vampire realises that he's spent too long sipping at the virgin's blood, and disintegrates in the light of dawn?  Art!

It seems to hurt.  Good.

     Yeah.  That's how I feel.  Yes yes yes, I am being a drama-farmer.  Sue me.  Art!

     These are more Mysterious MacGuffins from the pages of "The Daily Beast", and I waited too long to go back and discover what they are, since the webpage no longer lists them.  I shall have to keep checking back, they tend to work in cycles, so maybe we'll discover what they are.  In the meantime, be careful of direct sunlight.  Art!

Proof that discovering where the body's buried can be harmful to health

More Lego Mania

Conrad confesses that he's not displayed all the 20 constructs that SpitBrix listed, as some are repetitive and resemble earlier entries.  Art!

I remember this one

     This monster contains 5 million bricks and took two weeks to assemble, with a literal assembly line creating modular blocks to stack together.  You'll notice that it only approximates a ball.  Art!

     Ten seconds later.  We may come back to this, it has an interesting backstory.

"City In The Sky"

We are currently dealing with the evacuation of New Eucla, in preparation for the anticipated attack from the alien 'squatters' lurking in the Australian outback.

     ‘I believe you mentioned a fire-engine?’ came a voice at his elbow, making the new mayor jump in shock.  Doctor Smith, of course, a man with the ability to make less noise than a mouse in felt slippers.

     ‘The fire-engine?  Yes, we have one.  Oh – you want to put out fires these slinking lizards start?’

     The little man made a rude, dismissive noise.

     ‘Hardly!  Their principal weapon appears to be a focussed thermal beam of extremly high intensity.  If you spray water on a beam like that it breaks down into hydrogen and oxygen and merely fuels the fire.  No, no, I had a rather less – ah, genteel – use for it.’

     This puzzled Mike again.  Their fire-engine constituted a half-ton water tank on a custom-built chassis, the power for pumping provided by mutually-opposed longitudinal handles on either side of the tank.  Simple and reliable, it worked for the low-rise buildings of New Eucla,.

     ‘Also, I’m looking for metal foil of any description.’

     At first Mike imagined he’d misheard.

     ‘Oil?’

     ‘No, “foil”.  The kind of stuff you wrap the turkey in for Christmas dinner!  And a wok,’ and the little man beamed a smile that made Mike wonder who between the two of them was dafter.

     Hmmm I suspect that cooking is not on the menu.

83 Million Reasons To Keep The Trap Door Shut

You will have heard by now that Pumpkinhead - actually no, I can't keep using that nickname, as there is a horror film that goes by that title.  Art!

Donald J Trump

Pumpkinhead

     Aha!  Got it - "Pimpkinhead".  Yeah, killer satire there Conrad.

     ANYWAY for the first time in weeks, Pimpkinhead has not dared to defame E Jean Carroll in speech or print, meaning that he FINALLY realises being stung to the tune of $83 million is because he couldn't keep his flapping piehole shut.  What he'll do now, as he did with the $5 million - O for the days when it was 'merely' $5 million, hmmm Donald? - is deposit a bond for some of the money and make an appeal.  However, both appeals are going to fail, because he's not been truly soaked for liability, which shows a fair degree of cunning on the jury's part.  It will delay the payout, which is what he's all about; kicking the can down the road and praying that aliens invade or the sun goes out or Sauron makes a comeback, that sort of thing.

Wouldn't hold out for that last one, matey

Finally -

Better get going, I have a drier full of laundry to sort out, and a constitutional stroll into Lesser Sodom whilst the rains hold off.  Rock and roll lifestyle, wouldn't you say?

Well, Aren't I A Happy Camper!

That Was A Rhetorical Question

The answer is "Yes", and we'll come onto exactly why in short order.  Okay, okay, medium order.  OKAY eventually.

     You see, I was idly contemplating life, the universe and when Thomas Pynchon will release a new novel, all the really important questions, and I suddenly realised I'd made a shocking omission in my list of "Doom" themed items in that recent post.  Art!

     Dog Buns.  I can only excuse this by stating that I am getting old and my blood is 50% gin.  60% on a good day.  Also, Conrad seems to remember that the mines were the reallllly Doomy part of the architecture, and perhaps the catering, which probably wasn't even gluten-free.  Art!

     The antithesis of 'Steely-eyed', because his eyes are the only thing about his face that aren't steel.  Ladies, gentlemen and those unsure, say hello to the redoubtable Victor Von Doom, Ph.D, a.k.a. Doctor Doom.  Ol' Vicci is one of those people who doubtless see themselves as a hero, because he wants to bring order and stability to the world, except it's going to be done on his terms and nobody else's - what you might call the "Sauron Syndrome".  Dictator/ruler/supreme leader <delete where applicable>, he is one of the DC universe's most formidable villains.  Art!

     This is Thulsa "Snakehips" Doom.  That's all I have to say.  Art!

     I don't think I included this in the previous Intro - which is code for "I can't be bothered to go look", so here it is, even if it is again.  Not bad stuff, I finished off the last of a four-pack last night when the gin ran out.

     We'll call it quits at this point, as I'm going to bore bore bore you with why Your Humble Scribe is a happy chappy.

The Trouble With Looking For "Starlord" -

Is that you inevitably get Google results that bring up Peter Quill, not the short-lived sci-fi comic from the Eighties.  Art!

     Fantastic cover art, by Ron Embleton I believe.  You see, seven years ago Conrad discovered that an entertaining and rather spooky comic strip from the pages of "Lion" had been lifted wholesale into this annual.  You would have paid £1.25 for this annual when it was published, and the advert above had it retailing for £34, and it had sold.  Allow me to add in the link to the BOOJUM! article way back when.

BOOJUM!: The Forbidden Planet (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)

     The strip was "Captain Condor And The Forbidden Planet", and Conrad was going to include it in the Intro because I thought the bad guys present were called "Doomes", which tells you a lot about creativity back in the Seventies.  

     Well, doing a Google search earlier this afternoon brought up a site called "ReadAllComics" and what do you know, there was CCATFP.  I had the spelling wrong, which you can forgive as it was last read fifty years ago: it ought to have been "Doommes".  Art!

     

     So, lest the site vanish when the sun goes down, I've spent part of my afternoon fondly re-reading the entire strip.  As noted back in 2017, the Cap is pretty much a clone of Dan Dare; noble, upright, steely-eyed and tall.  He also has Dan's sense of morality - no shooting unless his own life is threatened.

     I have discovered that the story was by Frank Pepper.  The artwork is more opaque as to attribution, because when this strip was originally published, the comics never credited either artist or writer.  That only came in when "2000AD" ushered in credit panels; rather to my surprise, "Starlord", despite being a sister brother publication, has no credits at all.  Art!

     Let me regale you with a panel or two from the strip.  Art!

     That there is the "Starseeker" apparently encountering a giant flattened space octopus, entirely resistant to atomic shells.  Conrad would caution about letting fly multi-kiloton warheads in close vicinity to a spaceship, but - what do I know.  Art!

    I think someone's been drinking too much coffee as their nerves seem on edge, rather.  As a side note, please be aware of how the speech bubble has been spikified, to denote raw screaming terror, and carefully placed to obscure the least amount of relevant detail.  There is a bit of an art in 'lettering' as it's known, sufficient that "2000AD" gives them a separate credit.  Art!

     O noes!  What will surely happen to the Starseeker?  Note the unusual design of the spaceship here, it looks more like a flying table than the streamlined missiles familiar from "Eagle".  Art!

     Ooo-errr Matron!  Clearly there is skulldiggery* afoot here.  I would like to finish this homage to Captain Condor with one line that has stuck with me for over fifty years.  Art!

     I won't post any more to avoid spoilers.  There is a lot more build-up to actually landing on Rigel III than I remember, and Conrad - pedantic hair-splitter that he is - has identified one plot hole already.

     There are a few more reprints of Sixties comic strips in this annual, which I shall detail at excruciating length at a later date.

"City In The Sky"

The Doctor is plotting, planning and pontificating, with a little pleading thrown in, as he anticipates the hideous alien invaders will try to destroy New Eucla and it's inhabitants.

     A procession of disgruntled citizens plodded down the hard-worn streets and main road of their township, heading towards the sound of breakers and the waiting ships beyond, already out at anchor in the bay.  Many clutched possessions, odd things that were small enough to carry or too precious to risk leaving behind.

     Once they reached the beach, small rowboats ferried people out to the waiting ships, able to take four hundred passengers in total.

     Mike watched them leave, wondering if they’d have a town to come back to when all this was over – however long “all this” would be, and feeling the ghost of a smell in his nostrils, the bitter charnel stink of a murdered hamlet at Forrest.  When the ships cast off he walked amongst those left behind to reassure them.

     ‘They’ll be back in an hour.  They’re only going to drop folks off at Barralonga and then they’ll be back.  Me and the lads who stay behind will make sure nobody breaks into your houses or robs your kit.’

     He trudged back up the clinging sands, heading for the scrub beyond the beach and high ground where that strange blue box had been.  From there he could see the fleet tacking and bearing out to open waters in a combination of flapping sails and sooty smoke from the steam engines.  Two dozen ships, the most he’d seen sailing at any one time, leaving a huge creamy wake in the combers that ran into the beach’s sunny sands.

     One feels that being robbed of a few trinkets is by far the least of their worries.

Bring It On

"The Daily Beast" asks a question and BOOJUM! answers it.  Art!

     None whatsoever.  Next!

"The War Illustrated"

This illustration comes from Issue 185, dated 31st July, so it would be including images from a fortnight earlier, both because that's how slowly print media worked at that time (1944) and also to ensure the Teutons didn't pick up any interesting titbits if they bought a subscription from their embassy in Dublin.  Art!

     The top picture is interesting as it shows an abandoned Tiger tank**; abandoned because there's a British soldier firing at the enemy mere yards away, with a deceased Teuton in the foreground.  This close you can't tell if the Tiger broke down or has been brewed-up by gunfire; either way it's a loss.  Below, you can see a couple of Teuton officers having to adjust their mindset to being PoWs, and probably lamenting that they, as Untermenschen, have been captured by a Tommy about 5' tall.  To starboard you can see British soldiers doing the 'Combat Crouch', adopted by soldiers when under fire.  British officers, mind, were sternly warned NOT to do this, because "It doesn't work and the men don't like it."

     And at bottom you can see two Tommies carrying rifles, bayonets fixed.  This unpleasant contraption is the British Spike Bayonet, which was far more efficient than the enormous Sword Pattern Bayonet, yet just as effective at rendering the enemy like unto a kebab.

Finally -

Right, I've finished this blog at about the time I normally start it.  How industrious I am!

*  As remarked before, this is even worse than skullduggery.

**  Trust me, bro, I know my TANK

Blank Tanks

This Will, Of Course - Indubitably! - Take A While To Explain

Less of a theme and more of a concept, you might say.  As you may be aware, there is a ceaseless struggle in Conrad's mind to create fresh content for BOOJUM! which is all the more difficult as I refuse to re-read old stuff, because to look backward is to die.  Metaphorically.  Otherwise a zombie would be writing what you see before you, which would be awful for the creative side of things if a boon on sheer word count.  Art!

     No!  This is not a prototype for the vehicles of "Damnation Alley".  It is, apparently, a prototype amphibious vehicle called the "Scorpion", as constructed by the Opperman Company, of Second Unpleasantness vintage.  It was a rather speculative private venture that went nowhere, because DD tanks.

     ANYWAY I was minded, via a whole lot of other rabbit holes leading to rabbit holes, of a sci-fi story called "The Quaker Cannon" by Frederick Pohl and Cyril Kornbluth.  Conrad always found Mr. Pohl to be a bit of a hack, entertaining if shallow, but Ol' Cy possessed an unusual and intriguing imagination.  Art!

     TQC, as was often the wont back in Cold War days, had a plot that echoed the Cold War, with the Statele Unite versus the Sinistra Unire.  The protagonist had been captured by the Other Side, and subjected to prolonged torment in their sensory deprivation pods - their 'Blank Tanks' if you like, in order to break them and learn their secrets.  This, children, is how the Cold War armies viewed their opponents.  Conrad still remembers how Lieutenant Kramer tried to cope with his isolation by creating a crossword in his head, and gang aft agley.  It had to do with "ERNE".  Art!

A erne

     Of course, very little of this has to do with what I want to type, which is how and why we roll here, because Imperial measurements automatically trump Metric, and Sean Connery is always the best Bond.

     ANYWAY we have introduced the concept of 'Blank', be it of mind.  I would now like to introduce the more modern version, which involves computer hard drives.  Forsooth, are we not talking about a Youtube Reddit Malicious Compliance vlog?  Yes we are, in case you were wondering.  Art!

     OP stated that they were 'released early' or 'let go' from a contract, which in plain English means that they were not-quite-fired, just that their employer thought that they were superfluous to requirements and could be given the heave-ho.  Please note that this decision was made by an idiot in middle management who never crosses the story's bounds; doubtless seeking to curry favour by pruning back on a £25,000 p.a. contract, the kind that Conrad works upon.

     O my, here comes inept Human Resources, still able to walk after inserting both feet in mouth.  They had terminated OP, meaning that all their server access from home had been disabled, so no mutual updating.  They then insisted that OP delete ALL THEIR DATA because phones and laptops and tablets and so on had to be returned in factory-delivered format.  OP, not being stupid, copied this instruction into an e-mail that went to the very highest in the land.  Art!

]
     This is an example of the most important principle you can ever observe in any organisation - Cover Your Bottom.  The South Canadians have a shorter, more vulgar version.

     FOR! six weeks after being <ahem> 'let go', the Managing Director contacted OP to ask where £8 million pounds-worth of data was.

     Gone, explained OP, pointing to the e-mail trail that led directly back to the HR manager demanding that he delete three years of work files, with no back-up.

     HR Manager was promptly fired.  The recruitment company that supplied her was permanently removed from their list of approved suppliers.  OP probably enjoyed a secret smirky celebratory drink.

Blank Ranks

Be advised that 99% of the support for Ruffia online is provided by bots, and 0.5% by idiots who think they're being dangerously edgy.

     Well, one of the 0.5% in Romania decided to hold a huge protest meeting in the centre of Bucharest, with the support of 50,000 people who declared that they were going to march in sympathy, and they would bring 500 trucks to blockade the city centre.  Art!

     In case you skeptics think Conrad has cropped the picture to remove the teeming thousands of protestors, let me find a better picture.  Art!

     I have also seen an aerial drone shot that shows the event organiser being outnumbered by the obligatory police and paramedics in attendance.  Can't find it now, of course - obviously!

     Conrad thus calculates, if there is one actual genuine real physical pro-Russian per 50,000 Romanians, there are a total of 380 in the entire country.

     

The Numbers Not Lying

Conrad has, of late, been posting on Twitter far more frequently than usual.  Not only that, I've compared my posts after having a snifter or two of gin, and being stonily sober, and there's no difference.  I am equally acerbic and unpleasant whatever my condition.  This reminds me of a response from Bruce, back in the Eighties, when I stated "I think I'm developing a horrid sense of humour" and he fired back "Developing?".  Art!

    The blog has legitimately had high traffic recently, and I'm wondering if this is a reflection of having a higher profile on Twitter?
     Being unpleasant for traffic - a dirty job but someone's got to do it.

"City In The Sky"

Catastrophe has struck, as I always suspected it might.  Ace and the crew aboard the 'Pangolin' are faced with hard choices.  Meanwhile, down at New Eucla, Australia -

‘I don’t doubt it,’ muttered Mike.  ‘I went to help at Forrest.  I know what these things can do.’

     ‘Why ain’t they here already?’ asked Lenny, shrewdly.

     The Doctor shrugged.

     ‘I don’t know.  We ought to make the most of this grace period, really.  And it isn’t just the Lithoi who pose a threat.  I mentioned my “flyswatter” and if it works the town ought to be evacuated outright.’

     ‘You still haven’t explained what you mean by that,’ commented one of the elders.  ‘Swatting flies.’

     ‘Oh, you’ll know when it happens.  Now – ah!’ exclaimed the Time Lord as an analogy struck him.  ‘I take it you still play sports here in South Australia - football?’  a rhetorical question, since he’d seen the pitches when riding out to Forrest.

     That earned him a few puzzled stares.

     ‘American, soccer and Australian rules,’ said Lenny proudly.

     ‘You don’t let spectators onto the pitch, do you – no, of course not.  That’s what I want here – a few volunteers to help keep the Lithoi busy when they turn up and prevent them from following the evacuees.  Every one else will be gone, sailed away, so we have a clear playing field.’

     This slightly strained explanation finally got the townsfolk moving.  The Timelord felt a little wry amusement at his own expense, taking so long to come up with a persuasive way of putting across the danger New Eucla was in when Ace would have managed it with sheer ingenuousness and sincerity within thirty seconds.

     Ace has her own problems, Doctor.

Pumpkinhead Strikes Again

With Donald Buck it's all about Me Me Me.  He cannot bear to not be the centre of attention, and if he's not then he acts like a spiteful, petty 7 year-old, rather than the 77 year-old he is*.

     SO it was no great surprise that he got up and left the civil defamation lawsuit brought against him by E Jean Carroll, before the closing statements, because 7 year-old.  Art!

     This is the BBC's News webpage, and you need to squint and concentrate to find out about what The Exercise Averse One was doing.  Art!

     All this, mind you, is before the jury reached a decision on how much to soak him for and teach him what an unsecured trap-door costs.  We shall most certainly come back to that!

Finally -

I've already been out to secure fresh supplies of loose-leaf Darjeeling tea from Sainsbo's - Fairtrade obvs - and now need to take Edna for a trot, whilst the heavens are still not Uniform Grey Layer or teeming down.

     Laterz!

*  Must - resist - IQ - jokes

Shut That Door!

This Will Take A Bit Of Explaining

Waaaay back in the mists of time - the Seventies, pilgrims - there was a very camp, effete British comedian called Larry Grayson, whose schtick seemed to be - I'm not entirely sure, but it seemed to be camping it up and being effete.  Don't forget, this is in the untamed Seventies, when you could make all sorts of assertions or comments or jokes that would get you served up in the ICC today.  He must have had something to get on prime-time television; a good agent or blackmail photographs?  ANYWAY his catchphrase was "Shut that door!", which one would think had limited comedic applications, as doors are not naturally found in the wild.  Art!

Durdle Door.  The exception proving the rule.

     Don't worry, we're inching towards the meat of the matter.  Larry was only by way of introducing thaat phrase, because we are going to abruptly change channels and witter on about that most excellent children's television program "The Trap Door".  Art!

     Conrad is intimately familiar with this program as Darling Daughter had the collection on VHS.  It is from the Eighties, so a decade more advanced in the arts and graces than that barbarous period preceding it, amen.

     The plot in TTD always centres around a dirty great trapdoor, set into the very lowest basement of a sinister castle out in the boonies.  Or Romania.  One of the two.  Berk, dim-witted servant of the castle's unseen shouty master, is always battling monsters that emerge from the trapdoor.  

Don't you open that trapdoor, you're a fool if you dare!

     Art!

Berk and pal Boni

     

     Conrad, from a perspective many years later, has to wonder WHY NOT JUST PADLOCK IT SHUT!  Or, roll a large, weighty object over to sit atop it.  Perhaps I am overthinking it .....

     Not a sentence you can ever associate with -

One of these two.  I'll let you guess.

     It can hardly have escaped your attention that the Human Beef Jerky is the focus of a second defamation suit by E Jean Carroll, who must be congratulated on her parents giving her the world's shortest first name.

Photoshopped or not?  Only you can tell!

     He has already been found liable - not 'guilty' as this is a civil not a criminal trial - from the first trial and already owes $5 million.  That's not all the bad news, as the trial judge has already found him liable for this one, so the case is for the jurors to merely decide how much Trump ponies up.

     O boy.

     The reason for today's title is that DJ Tango cannot keep his flapping piehole shut, and Conrad feels a malicious glee at how despairing his attorneys must be, because the defamation continues, whilst the trail goes on, IN THE COURT HOUSE CORRIDOR.  Art!

Proof!  Proof I tell you!

     You see, Trump likes to call a gaggle of reporters and carry on defaming EJC after the day's trial is over.  This means that the latter's attorneys have now added in more defamation charges to be added to the court docket, or whatever they call it.  Way to go, Donald.
     Nor is that all.  EJC appears to be living rent-free in DJT's head, as witness his obsessive all-capitals rant on Truth Social, where he managed the admittedly impressive feat of Truthering about her 42 times in a single hour this week.  Art!

     Then we get to money, which is where Pumpkinhead suddenly starts to pay attention.  You see, there are two components to any financial judgement made against him: one is Compensatory, which is the amount an expert deems sufficient to remedy the defamation already committed.  The expert assessor in EJS's second defamation trial has set this at $12 million, although the lady herself is only going for $10 million.  The second component, which must have DJT and his lawyers sweating, is Punitive, and it's exactly what it sounds like: a punishment.  Art!

Rudy when he heard the verdict

     This is a parallel case, where Rudy Giuliani was being sued for defamation, and guess what? he behaved just like his ex-employer - namely defaming the plaintiffs whilst the trial was ongoing.  This is distinctly bad form as it merely provides the jurors with concrete up-to-date evidence of what a bottomhole you are.

     Rudi got hit with $130 million in punitive damages.  Ouch.  And he had far less financial backing than DJ Tango.  Who ought to have a padlock put on that trap door of his.  People, including Conrad, are waiting to see what kind of fine he gets hit with.  "Hit" being the operative word.  Tee Hee!

Speaking Of Monsters

Yes we did, in that part about "The Trap Door" PAY ATTENTION! or you will surely suffer the consequences when I take over.  Any day now.

     ANYWAY Conrad happened to notice a rather outstandingly big beast in a Youtube thumbnail, which he saved as a link.  Art!

     Looks frighteningly impressive, doesn't it?  This, ladies and gentlemen and those unsure, is the "Lego Technic Liebherr LTM 11200 Crane.  It has "MOC" in the title, which Conrad has translated as "Mine Own Construction" or, in other words, a bespoke build.  I shan't go into any more details as I've not watched the vlog myself.  Will definitely get back to you on this one.

"The War Illustrated"

Back to bedlam.  Art!

     This is Issue 185 since I managed to cut the top of the magazine off. dated July 31st, by which date the Teutons mayyyyyy have begun to suspect that this 'feint' invasion was, perhaps, possibly, on the balance of things, the real deal.

     Unfortunately for the Teutons, by the title date on this issue, things had gone so badly awry for them that there was no coming back from it.  Their armies elsewhere had been retained in place to deal with anticipated invasions that were completely fictional and never in issue.  Tee Hee!

     Also, the chap to starboard above was General De Gaulle, who was an insufferable prig.  He though the entire invasion should be commanded by none other than himself, because he was so important.  In his own mind.  He was more prickly and arrogant than Montgomery, which is an impressive failing, and the entire Allied leadership by this point in the war were utterly fed up with him.

     No doubt there was a tad of arm-twisting to get him on this front cover.

"City In The Sky"

Things are looking a mite dodgy aboard the 'Pangolin', after an unpleasantly loud noise denotes an accident.

Enough maneuvering fuel left to manage three hundred seconds of vectoring, which meant either being able to re-orient Pangolin when they reached the Trojans or when they returned to Arc One; they didn’t have enough fuel to do both.  Not being able to change course meant a much longer stop-over, reducing their already non-existent reserve of oxygen.

     ‘Good,’ he replied, blandly.  ‘Let’s get on with this mission.’

     There was a way out of their mess, if it came to that.  Of course, it meant one of them would die.         

CHAPTER FIFTEEN: Running Wild

      It hadn’t been easy to persuade Mike, Lenny and half a dozen of New Eucla’s more senior and responsible citizens that the whole town needed to be evacuated without delay.  They could, and did, send a pair of couriers east and west on the Eyre Highway to pass on news about the Lithoi infiltrators, their human-shaped transport and their human dupes. 

     Their meeting was held on the floor of the main town hall, where a continuous parade of curious citizens came to gawp in wonder at the gutted maquette of Old Ben the Wanderer, laid out on the stage with a protective guard to make sure nobody touched the mangled thing.

     ‘Please!  You are all in very great danger!’ the Doctor expounded, again, emphasising his actions with an umbrella wave.

 

"It's Not Looking Good"

Big K's recurrent phrase during his most recent analysis of the land of Ruffians.  Just remember that Ruffia is immensely larger than This Sceptred Isle, with twice the population, and now has an economy about one-third of the UK's.  What an achievement!  Because it used to be half.  Art!

His (subversive) drink of choice

     Big K explained that one of The Populous Dictatorship's biggest car manufacturers is no longer exporting to Ruffia.  Chinese banks are now halting their financial business with the Ruffians, all thanks to the threat of that dreaded phrase "Secondary Sanctions".  This is on top of India's crude oil purchases falling catastrophically.

     Ooops.  Before the Special Idiotic Operation China's economy used to be 10x bigger than Ruffia's.  One wonders how much bigger now - 12x?  15x?     

Finally -

Not sure how to end this.  In a blaze of fire and glory?  Art!

     Hmmm.  Hopeful but - WRONG.  Sorry!