The Daring Escape Of An Lunatic Scientist

Mad Scientist Escapes Custody, Vows Revenge On Enemies

Berlin (Reuters) The world is reeling from news of the escape from prison of a notorious mad scientist in Germany. Magnus Von Malice, the super villain alumnus of the Zeppelin Von Blood Academy For The Ethically Challenged, the sociopathic and egomaniacal scientist whose attempts at world domination have run the gauntlet from bringing z-list celebrities back from the dead, stealing million dollar coins, arms dealing, and endless tirades, was arrested several months ago after a previous escape from prison. He and his minions stole a million dollar Canadian coin from a German museum, and Von Malice’s plans and threats against the world were thwarted thanks to the timely intervention of the world’s most relentless lawman.

Von Malice and his associates had been charged with multiple counts and imprisoned pending trial in Germany. Von Malice himself had been spending several months in a body cast after an epic beat down, still recovering in recent weeks while his body was mending. Police are still investigating the means of his escape after a daring breakout achieved by an unknown number of intruders at the hospital wing of the prison where he had been held pending trial.

While Von Malice is on the run, numerous figures around the world have responded to the crisis. Chancellor Merkel seemed dismayed and irritated, which might well be her default setting. “I want answers about how this could have happened,” she told reporters. “How hard is it to keep such a man confined? This man still had broken bones mending! Now he’s out there making threats and making more plans and doing whatever mad scientists do! Do I have to remind you he’s built death rays and interfered with time itself to resurrect pointless celebrities? What else is he capable of?”

Actor- if you want to call him an actor- David Hasselhoff, who was one of the z-list celebrities resurrected by Von Malice, had his own statement on the matter. He was still mending himself, after an altercation with Sharknado co-star Ian Ziering at a promotional event for the latest sequel left the former television heart throb with facial injuries still mending. “People need to just back off and leave Magnus alone!” Hasselhoff said. “He’s not a bad guy! He brought the Hoff back from the dead, after all, and the Hoff being in the world is a great thing!”

Russian president and sometime super villain himself, Vladimir Putin, was evasive about Von Malice when asked if he was giving sanctuary to the mad scientist. “Look, it is very simple, da? One does not give straight answers when one is asked about old poker playing friend and occasional lunatic? Magnus Von Malice may or may not be in Russian territory, da? How should I know? Do you think I know everything that happens in Mother Russia? That would mean I would have spies everywhere reporting on everything, and that is just silly.” He laughed, and not in a good way, but more in the kind of way that made you think he was considering the brutal death of someone who had cut him off in traffic.

The current occupant of the Oval Office (for the moment, anyway) has been busy tweet-screaming at military widows, football players, and pretty much anyone else who’s been irritating him, not to mention contending with looming indictments and the Mueller investigation. And yet that hasn’t stopped him from issuing Twitter statements on the matter. “Manhunt on Magnus very unfair!” Trump wrote at three in the morning yesterday. “Magnus is a very fine guy! Good guy! Gave my campaign lots of money, bigly covfefe!” Another tweet following that noted: “Blame Crooked Hillary and Obama! Lock them up! Lock them up! Fake news!” The tweets that followed that became even less coherent until ending at four thirty with a final one: “Lyin’ Ted hates rabbits!”

In the morning, a press briefing was very brief, with White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders coming in and telling reporters, “The President’s Twitter account was hacked. We believe Hillary Clinton did it, and we are demanding she be arrested and perp walked by the FBI before the entire world. That’s what the president told me to say. Now off the record, if any of you can think of any places that might hire me in a month or two, let me know. I don’t think this job is going to last much longer. Thanks, no questions, bye.”

The supervillain himself made contact with the world at large through a video transmitted from an unknown location. He was sitting in a large arm chair in a comfortably furnished room, petting a ferret. His long black and silver hair was disheveled, and he was dressed in dark slacks and a turtleneck. “People of the world! It is I, the unparalleled genius that is Magnus Von Malice! Only I, the greatest mind this world has ever produced, could have escaped from custody! Only I, the leading figure of the age, could be so audacious! You cannot keep me contained. No one can stop me! For I, Magnus Von Malice, am utterly unstoppable!” He began to laugh, until his face seemed to strain in pain and he clutched his side. “Oh, damn…. My ribs. Still healing up, you see. But that does not matter! For I have demands to make!”

For another thirty minutes, Von Malice went on and on, bragging about himself and his intellect, to the point where one might think he needed to seriously dial back on the ego. Finally he got to the demands. “In the past I have insisted on sole ownership of entire countries and massive amounts of money or I would wreck havoc with the world. You refused. Instead you sent that… policeman after me. Now I will not be satisfied with just getting my hands on France, or turning the people of Denmark into playing the part of my personal chess set. I will not be satisfied with trillions of dollars handed over to me.”

He paused, glared at the screen, petting the ferret. “I will give the governments and the people of the world precisely two weeks from today. You will surrender all control of your countries to me. You will surrender all wealth to me. There is to be no negotiation, no conditions. Only I, Magnus Von Malice, can lead the world forward into the future. I will be satisfied with nothing less than total and complete world domination!” He laughed again, until the pain of mending ribs stopped him. “Ah…. Ah, that’s better. And one more thing. I want that Mountie. I want Lars Ulrich. I want revenge. I want him handed over to me. I want to strap him to a rocket and send him into the sun. You will hand him over to me so that I can end his existence. Is that clear? Welcome to the new age. The Age of Von Malice!” He started laughing, until the ferret leapt out of his hands and started clawing his face. “Owww! Somebody get Hugo off me! Stop that! Stop it, Hugo! Stop! Bad ferret!”

The video ceased at that point. Governments of the world began to debate the demands. The president of France recommended an immediate surrender. The American president tweeted, “Crooked Hillary!” The Russian president looked addled after viewing the rant and was said to have run away to the nearest reinforced bunker. 

And at an RCMP detachment in the Alberta foothills, a gruff Mountie was cautiously approached by reporters for comment. Upon being reassured that the reporters knew full well that he was not that other Lars Ulrich, the Inspector’s glare lessened. “It’s on my to-do list,” Inspector Lars Ulrich simply stated. “1: Find Magnus Von Malice. 2: Kick the crap out of Magnus Von Malice. And 3: make Magnus Von Malice cry. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get at it.” In the opinion of this reporter, Von Malice might be in a world of trouble.

A Super Villain And Masterminded Heists

Thieves Steal Enormous Million Dollar Coin Before Meeting A Bad End

Berlin (CP) A brazen heist caught the world’s attention in recent days after a million dollar coin, minted by the Royal Canadian Mint as one of six in 2007, was stolen from the Bode Museum in Berlin, Germany. The coin, on display at the museum since 2010, was taken in the early hours of March 27^th, a challenge, given that the coin weighs 100 kilograms. Reportedly as near to pure gold as it gets, the coin had a real value of four million American dollars.

Officials at the Bode were baffled by the theft, and characteristically close lipped about answering questions from the press about the burglary. Rumours out of the museum suggest blame is being placed on a sleepy guard, nicknamed Big Jurgen, on duty the night of the burglary. A police official, speaking on anonymity, confirmed that the guard had been found curled up in his office snoring by his relief the following morning. “While it’s true that a guard might not have been able to do anything to stop a determined thief or thieves, it doesn’t look good when your overnight guard is snoozing during a major robbery.”

In the days following the theft, law enforcement agencies across the globe pursued leads. There were grave fears that the coin had already been melted down into new gold bars. Memes were mounted on the internet featuring Homer Simpson trying to use the coin in a vending machine.

Suspects came to light. Three individuals who bear a striking resemblance to major Hollywood actors, and who have been suspected in heists for years, denied having anything to do with the operation. “Rusty and Linus and I were in Sydney, which the police have already confirmed when they asked,” scoundrel and former convict Danny Ocean claimed when found by reporters at his residence in upper New York state. “By the way, purely hypothetically speaking, if any of us had wanted to pull a job, we’d have wanted a bigger payoff than four million dollars.”

And yet the thieves eluded the long arm of the law. German authorities underwent a massive manhunt and investigation not seen in the country since David Hasselhoff disappeared while on a bender three years ago (for some reason Germans love Hasselhoff, which strikes the outsider as peculiar).

Four days after the theft, the mastermind behind the theft revealed himself to the world via social media in a video across multiple platforms. First appearing in silhouette in a dark room, the man was silent for several seconds as the video began, and then started to speak, a hint of high cultured German in his voice. “Ladies and gentlemen of the world, you have seen my latest endeavour. I, with the aid of my henchmen, masterminded the theft of the million dollar coin from the Bode. Only a mind of sheer criminal genius like mine could have brought it all together. Only I, Magnus Von Malice, could do it.”

Von Malice, for those who might not be aware, is the nefarious mad scientist and super-villain who escaped from prison in Canada last year. Von Malice is most noted for his temporal experiments that brought several washed up celebrities back from the dead some time back, and had been imprisoned since being brought down by the world’s most feared (and cranky) lawman, the legendary RCMP Inspector Lars Ulrich. He’s been in hiding ever since his escape, one step ahead of the law.

After his revelation, the lights came up around the mad scientist on the video, and Von Malice smiled in that malevolent way that might make one think he was walking over your grave. “It could only be done by someone of the most devastating sinister mindset, stealing this coin. And it is the first step in my master plan of world domination. You will all bow before the magnificence that is Magnus Von Malice!” The video went on for another thirty five minutes of self absorbed nonsense and bragging, leaving one wondering why super-villains were so fond of endless monologues, before ending with a threat about melting down the gold unless his demands were met, including ten trillion dollars in unmarked bills, the nation of France handed over to him post haste, and a nuclear bomb “so I can destroy Mars!” He gave the world one week to carry out his demands.

While the President of France publicly mused about handing over the keys of the country to Von Malice, thus carrying on a national tradition of knuckling under and running away from a fight, other world leaders had different reactions to the crisis. Russian President Vladimir Putin shrugged. “You know, Magnus, he is not, how do you say, bad guy? He’s just misunderstood. You know, a man gets ambitious and starts threatening everyone around him, and before he knows it, everyone thinks he’s the villain.”

British Prime Minister Theresa May, busy blowing up the country’s relations with the rest of Europe, paused to comment. “You know, it might have been nice of Cameron and that buffoon Boris Johnson to stick around and deal with the consequences of their little referendum, but that would be expecting too much of them. Now we’ve got a super-villain who’s threatening the world and stealing valuable coins? At least he didn’t steal the Crown Jewels. Wait, don’t quote me on that, it might give the jackass an idea or two.”

Former London mayor and ex-Member of Parliament Boris Johnson, the aforementioned buffoon, who was a strong advocate for Brexit, was busy tumbling down a staircase near the Thames when reporters told him about May calling him a buffoon. “That’s an outrage!” the dimwitted buffoon said. “Why, it makes me want to.... whooooaaaaa!” He was cut off, falling backwards and rolling down the stairs, breaking five ribs and an arm before he hit the bottom. In between wails of agony that suggest he doesn’t tolerate pain very well, Johnson called out, “Um, a little help?”

In the Oval Office, the President tweeted, “Fake news shaming Magnus Von Malice! Sad!” It was followed by seventeen other tweets extolling the mad scientist’s golf game, suggesting Von Malice be given the Nobel Peace Prize, and blaming Paul Ryan for the whole affair.

The German chancellor, meanwhile, recommended bringing in some outside help, and so a discreet call was made to her counterpart in Canada, who readily agreed to the request. The aforementioned cranky Mountie was sent overseas to aid in the investigation, given his previous experience with the villain. Within twenty four hours, Lars Ulrich had succeeded in tracking down Von Malice to his secret hidden lair in the Bavarian Alps, engaging each of his forty eight henchmen in hand to hand combat, leaving them weeping, bloody, and battered. German officers came in his wake to cuff suspects and bring in paramedics.

The super-villain himself got the worst of it, cornered by Ulrich, cut off from his Death Ray device. According to German officers who witnessed the confrontation, the super-villain, trying desperately to find some way to escape (despite having a granite wall at his back and a grouchy Mountie advancing at him), muttered, “why can’t you just spend all your time playing the drums and leave me alone?”

“I am not that Lars Ulrich,” the Mountie declared, delivering a punch that knocked Von Malice into the wall, followed by a thrashing that left him with broken ribs, fractured arms and legs, and a battered face. As well as the removal by yanking of the villain’s Van Dyke beard. Von Malice and his minions have all been charged with criminal conspiracy, theft, fraud, extortion, and dozens of other charges. They are now in custody awaiting trial.

The coin has been recovered and will be returned back to the museum as soon as possible. Von Malice, under police guard in hospital and confined to a body cast, spoke to this reporter after negotiations with German prosecutors and his attorney. His voice suggesting he was in terrible pain, the super-villain managed to mutter, “No matter how long it takes... no matter how many things I have to do to make this happen, no matter who I have to stomp on to get it done... I swear before all I hold sacred and despicable... that I’m going to kill Lars Ulrich.”

We finish with the reaction of two Lars Ulrichs to the threat. The Metallica drummer, deafened by decades of bad living and loud noise, read the statement when reporters found him at his California mansion. He looked up from the printed page, seeming confused. “Look, I’ve done a lot of crap down through the years, man, but I don’t deserve getting threatened by guys with weird names. I mean, who names their kid Magnus?”

The other Lars Ulrich was back at his detachment in Alberta, fresh from the satisfaction of beating up a super-villain and his associates. This reporter sought him out, assured him that he was fully aware he was not the other Lars Ulrich, and asked about the threat. It seems a hollow threat to a lawman who's beaten back dark cabals, other super-villains, giant monsters, and thousands of angry people in brawls. The Inspector shrugged, and smiled in a cold way. That smile matched the coldness of the words that followed.  “He’s welcome to try.”

One Morning In The Somme

Before we get things started today, go on over to Norma's blog for her movie review for Thor: The Dark World. It's a good one. Now then, tomorrow is Remembrance Day in Canada. While it goes by different names elsewhere in the world, November 11th, the last day of the First World War, is commemorated to honour the war dead and the veterans of wars in many places across the globe. Aside from this post, keep an eye out at Sacred Ground where I wrote a guest blog for Lyn on the soldier and poet John McCrae. And have a peek at Kittie's blog, where she is paying tribute to the U.S. Marines. I'll be attending the national ceremonies here at the War Memorial tomorrow, as well as taking in things at the War Museum in the afternoon. There will be pictures to come, and you can find Remembrance Day posts starting tomorrow at my photoblog. Today, I'm going back in time nearly a century, to a dark day in the fields of France...

Each Canada Day, before the crowds start to build in downtown Ottawa, a solemn ceremony takes place at the War Memorial. A wreath is laid in memory of a terrible July 1st from the First World War. It is in memory of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment, which served under British command in the Great War, and would pay the ultimate price on a bloody July morning during the Battle of the Somme.

Until 1949, when Newfoundland joined Confederation, the province was under British jurisdiction, and Newfoundland soldiers served overseas in that conflict. A regiment sized force was sent to Europe, serving in the Gallipoli campaign under the Newfoundland Regiment name. By March of 1916, it was transferred to the Western Front, where by a trick of fate, it ended up in line at a place called Beaumont-Hamel.

What would end up being called the Battle Of The Somme is often characteristic of the futility of the First World War: an entire generation of young men, killed, wounded, or forever marked by the horrors of war, sent by officers employing tactics from the days of Napoleon.... against machine guns, accurate artillery, and poison gas. It was only towards the end, during the Hundred Days, when someone figured out how to coordinate attacks with combined arms fighting, that the stalemate would finally break. The Battle Of The Somme, which would kill or wound over a million men, saw its first day on the first of July.

Nearly eight hundred soldiers and officers of the Newfoundland Regiment set out that morning from positions following the explosion of a mine shaft beneath German lines. The explosion alerted the Germans to the impending attack, and there was confusion and miscommunication from the British command about what was happening with British units on the field. The men moved out onto the field of battle from their trenches, into the line of fire... and into history. Within a half hour, of the seven hundred eighty men who moved out from the trenches, only one hundred ten emerged unhurt, with little more than half of that number still fit for duty the following day. A casualty rate of eighty percent, it pretty much finished off the regiment, and actually ended up being the second highest fatality rate of an attacking force during the battle.

It is a wound that remains among Newfoundlanders even today, a profound shock to the system. Canada Day is also Memorial Day for Newfoundlanders, the reminder of one terrible day for so many of their own far across the sea. The shattered regiment's remnants was given the prefix Royal by King George V- a very rare distinction- and the battlefield was purchased by Newfoundland following the war, the largest portion of the Battle of the Somme to be set aside. The Commonwealth Cemetery at Beaumont-Hamel contains the remains of those who fell, in neat rows with white gravestones. It's a peaceful place, surrounded by preserved trenches and rolling ground... and yet the possible presence of unexploded ordnance still in places decades later. There are memorials there to the 29th British Division, as well as the 51st Highland Division, both of which suffered appalling losses during the battle, and the place is dominated by the Newfoundland Memorial, a bronze statue of a caribou that stands sentinel over the fields. 

On November 11th, we gather at cenotaphs to remember and honour the war dead and the surviving veterans, not only of the Great War, but those before and since. The veterans of the Great War are all dead now; those with direct memories of that time are fewer by the day. The veterans of the Second World War that finally resolved so many issues are a dwindling number in countries across the world. It is to us to remember their stories.

It is places like this, where men who fought for King and country far from home, that resonate in Canadian history, even before Newfoundland was part of our country. Beaumont-Hamel is one of the places I must see with my own eyes someday, to walk the paths, see the graves, to truly understand that terrible morning nearly a century ago.

In The Company Of Evil

Well, I've been busy taking pics since the last blog. I'm getting my feet wet, figuring out the smartphone and thinking of photographic subjects. My next blog will feature a few more shots, and I'm thinking that I'll definitely go ahead and join in on daily photoblogs, in a seperate blog from this one, spotlighting my home town of Ottawa and beyond. Keep an eye out here for further developments as I go along. If you'll have a look over at Norma's blog, you'll see her response to my now getting my mitts on the smartphone (yes, I was dragged kicking and screaming into it, but that's beside the point).

Today, however, a bit of news occupies my attention...

Last week, news came out that the last surviving witness of Hitler's final hours had died. Rochus Misch, an SS sergeant, had been a loyal bodyguard for much of the Second World War to the most evil man of the 20th century. Misch was unapologetic to the end, suggesting that Hitler was no brute or monster. He sidestepped the issues of guilt or responsibility, claiming he knew nothing of the Holocaust, thinking of those days as just doing a job, not asking questions. He insisted Hitler had been a wonderful man, describing the events leading up to the suicide of the dictator and his mistress turned wife. Perhaps it is because of his lack of remorse about it all that the end of his days is being treated from various quarters with derision. Where the country itself has accepted the past and taken responsibility, this man never did. This is a man who's seemingly spent most of his life not atoning for the past, never accepting what most reasonable people understand: that Hitler, and the Nazi ideal by extension, was pure evil, walking the earth.

From the point of view of the writer and the reader, the news occasionally provides inspiration. And stories from the war, even seven decades on, can provide us with fodder for writing. Jack Higgins, the great British spy writer, is an influence on me as a writer and as a reader. True, I'd say his work has been declining in recent years- he really should have stopped several books ago, but it's not the huge plunge off the cliff in quality that Tom Clancy's work has taken (side note: Tom Clancy hasn't written anything of value since The Bear And The Dragon). Higgins is known for writing pot boiler thrillers, both set in the Second World War and the contemporary world. He's best known for The Eagle Has Landed, a thriller about German plans to send an operative against Churchill, through the use of an Irish operative. The book was later adapted into a movie starring Michael Caine and Donald Sutherland, one that I liked.

Most of his current work centers on Sean Dillon, a former IRA enforcer turned British operative, a hard man who can be both ruthless and yet utterly charming. Dillon started out as the villain, in a book which set him as the man responsible for the mortar attack against Ten Downing Street during Desert Storm, and yet Higgins found the character so compelling that he turned Dillon into the protagonist for his next book, Thunder Point, which draws on secrets linked to those last days of the War. It begins with the Nazi Martin Bormann escaping Germany at the end of things (making use of the rumors that persisted for years that Bormann survived), taking a submarine for sanctuary in South America. He carries pivotal documentation, including the names of those friendly to Nazi interests in Britain and America, and a document that could prove critically damaging to the Royal Family (another nod to the history of the Duke Of Windsor, who seemed entirely too comfortable around Nazis). The sub goes down in the Caribbean while Bormann is away, and decades later, the fact of its existence is uncovered, and a British intelligence officer, faced with an unknown enemy trying to reach the sub, enlists Dillon under the notion of set a thief to catch a thief, and starts the former terrorist out on the path to becoming a better man. The book remains a personal favourite, and it wouldn't be the last time Higgins made use of the war to tell a story in the present, later using a German baron starting out in the war as a young man, gradually rebuilding his life through the years after, ultimately becoming the villain in a later book, tangling with Dillon and his associates.

From the writer's point of view, I have ideas that come out of the war as well. I've mused on writing a thriller set squarely in the war. And I've also thought of using the war as part of the backstory for a book set in the present, for a villain whose family escaped to South America after the war, still holding onto Nazi ideals, still part of that legacy.

As writers, we find inspiration in some strange places. With the death of Misch, we have the end of an era, the last witness of those days in that bunker. It speaks volumes that he never made amends for it, that he still thought of that most reviled excuse for a human being as a wonderful boss.

Vampire Sex, Harperland, And Sleazy Weasels

"You can prove anything with statistics. For example, I could tell you that the next election will be rigged in our favour by a margin of two to one in seats in the House. I say that, because I already know we're rigging the election." ~Stephen Harper

A few days ago, I started looking at the statistics of my blog. Where my readers are viewing this nonsense (yes, it's nonsense) from, what sort of search terms they use, the whole nine yards (ten yards on Canadian playing fields). Mostly it's limited to the top few in a given week, month, or all time (I wish I could get my hands on the complete list of search terms).

As is expected, Americans outnumber the second placer in any given time period, usually by two to one. Such as the case when I had a peek at the listings, both in the last few days and over the long term; here are some of the biggest readerships of my blog by country:

United States, Germany, Russia, Poland, Canada (hey! Where are my fellow Canucks?), France, United Kingdom, Ukraine, Turkey, Australia,  Netherlands, and Thailand.

I imagine Thailand might be the reason I get a lot of spam in my spam folders. And who in Turkey or the Ukraine is looking in on this? Germany got a big spike last week; it must be the Nutella blog I did a few days ago. Where typically my blogs might get a hundred views a piece, the Nutella blog spiked up to 900 in the last few days, and Germany was holding second place in the country listings for last week. Maybe it was my remark in that blog about Germans getting angry. Maybe it was taking a shot at David Hasselhoff, who for some bizarre reason is as close as you get to sainthood in Germany.

Maybe Angela Merkel is mad at me. Angela, can I call you Angela? No? Okay, Chancellor, can we talk, just you and I, and my blog readers? I get why you might be a bit annoyed. I'd be annoyed too if I had to put up with the prospect of that Italian sleazeball Berlusconi ever attaining any position of political power again too. Anyway, no hard feelings about the Germans getting angry remark, right? Right?

Though tell me... just why is it Germans are so fascinated by that Hasselhoff dimwit? Come on, Chancellor. We all know he's a dimwit. It's not as if it's a secret.

That leads us to the other matter. The search terms which actually lead to my blog. If you're familiar with GK Adams' blog, she occasionally lists those search terms (and trust me, they can get really weird). The first two from my results aren't surprising. The blog title and A Day In The Life Of A Cat are consistent in being at the top of the heap. My disdain for the uberpartisan zealot currently occupying the Prime Minister's Office (hi, Stevie!) here is well known, so it's not particularly a surprise that his name would turn up in such a list. Some of the others, however... are a bit eyebrow raising. Here are some of the current listings:

William Kendall speak of the devil, A Day In The Life Of A Cat, Harperland, Devon Actress, Sleazy Weasel, Crazy Squirrel, Death, Vampire Sex, Amelia Earhart Diary, Funny Godzilla Pictures, Where's Waldo, Justin Bieber Parody, Spoiled Brat, Miss Piggy, Evil Fluffy, and Maple Leafs.

Hmmm... my calling Seth McFarlane a sleazy weasel really drew out that much of a response? I still stand by my statement, for the record. And did one Where's Waldo blog really draw that much attention? I'm surprised that Grumpy Mountie, Lars Ulrich, or Entertainment Reporters didn't lead more people here.

As to Vampire Sex.... I would think my firing shots across the bow at Twilight (Mr. Sparkles, Sullen Idiot, and Dog Boy more than have it coming, and you know they do) is pretty far removed from Vampire Sex. So how does that turn up among search results that lead to this blog?

Does Nutella Stay Fresh In A Post Apocalyptic World?

Before getting to today's mischief, some business to see to. On a frequent basis, my partner in crime Norma and I chatter away by email about ideas that might make for good blogs. There might not be enough material for a blog, though, but there's an alternative. The International Intruder started out as something of an inside joke years ago for Norma and fellow authors. She and I resurrected it over at Facebook. Some of these small ideas we get in mind make for good fake newspaper articles, so go on over, have a look, and click on like!

Now, as for other fake newspaper articles....

Thieves Make Brazen Heist of Delicious Sandwich Spread Before Getting Caught

Berlin (AP).  After the recent theft of five tons of Nutella in the German town of Bad Hersfeld in recent days, authorities knew they would have to move quickly to calm public fears of a shortage of the delicious food. A group of thieves stole the Nutella, valued at over $20 000 American, from a parked trailer several days ago. The spread, which is made by the Italian company Ferrero and beloved for its exquisite taste by millions all across the world, proved to be too tempting a target for thieves.

“I don’t know who thinks of it as a sandwich spread,” Ferrero spokesperson Anna Mastrionni told reporters from the company headquarters the day after the theft. “After all, it’s something you eat directly from the spoon. Nevertheless, let us reassure everyone that there will be no shortage of Nutella due to this unfortunate incident. We are taking steps to ensure that the supply is uninterrupted, and we have every confidence that the police will soon have the culprits in custody.”

Chancellor Angela Merkel looked grim later that day as she spoke to reporters. “This isn’t funny,” she remarked. “Give us back our Nutella! You don’t want to see a German get angry, do you?”

German authorities ran down every lead they could on the theft. Every theory was explored, from a black market Nutella ring to the notion of someone hosting a Boy Scout jamboree who was just too cheap to buy spreads for sandwiches and so decided to steal it instead. The theory was even suggested that a group of marijuana users wanted the Nutella to complete their brownies, cupcakes, and cheetos collection of munchies. The decision was made to call in for some outside help. From across the ocean, legendary RCMP Inspector Lars Ulrich arrived on a flight from Alberta.

Ulrich, the grouchy and yet heroic Mountie who has saved the world from a Muppet super-villain, and who once rescued the Stanley Cup from kidnappers, has a reputation for fearlessness and a loathing for entertainment reporters. Last year he investigated a similar theft involving maple syrup in Canada, and singlehandedly brought down the thieves. He was in the country before reporters even knew he was there, conferring with German police, looking at the evidence, following leads.

Within two days, Ulrich had determined the ultimate fate of the five tons of Nutella, leading German police to an isolated rural property in the northern reaches of Germany. There a standoff began, with what police described as an “end of the world” survivalist who had taken the Nutella to stock his underground bunker. Karl von Boch, described by neighbours as “disturbed” and “completely insane” held off police from his bunker entrance, swearing that he’d never let anyone take his Nutella from him.

While the police kept von Boch occupied, Ulrich apparently flanked the survivalist, taking him by surprise, disarming him, and knocking him out. He then singlehandedly went into the bunker, and, in the words of police spokespeople, forced the rest of von Boch’s inner circle to surrender. They did so without incident.

Reporters kept at a distance watched as von Boch was taken into custody. The survivalist was ranting about the “coming of the zombie plot bunnies” and the “Illuminati Sisterhood”. His five co-conspirators were taken into custody and booked without incident. The Nutella was removed with reverence and awe by police crime scene officers and carefully accounted for. Inspector Ulrich himself seemed to frown when he saw the reporters gathered at the road on his way out.

When asked how he persuaded the remaining members of the theft ring to surrender, Ulrich shrugged. “I glared at them. Apparently my glare makes people quake in fear. They all dropped their weapons without so much as a word. Now, if you’ll excuse me...”

“Lars! Lars! I’m Hans Olbricht, with TMZ Germany. If you’re here, is it true that Metallica is going to do a concert with David Hasselhoff?”

Ulrich stared at Olbricht for a long moment in a way that would have suggested he was calculating the amount of time needed to tie a noose around his neck. The real reporters on the site seemed to part in two, as if to give the Inspector a clear path to the entertainment reporter. Finally he spoke in a low, growling voice. “You know, I’ve never understood the German fascination with David Hasselhoff. The man is a complete horse’s ass.” Every German reporter in the crowd seemed to gasp in shock. “And by the way, you witless buffoon...I am not that Lars Ulrich!!!!”

Olbricht looked confused. Entertainment reporters always look like that. Finally he asked, “So is that a no to Metallica and Hasselhoff doing a duet of Helter Skelter?”

Inspector Ulrich charged the reporter, who started running for his life. When last seen, Ulrich was chasing him towards the North Sea. In the opinion of this reporter, Olbricht won’t be missed.

A Prelude To Overlord

"Just as the defending force has gathered valuable experience from... Dieppe, so has the assaulting force. He will not do it like this a second time." ~ Field Marshal von Rundstedt

Before I get to things today, have a look over at Lyn Fuchs' blog Sacred Ground, where I wrote a guest blog about the Three Peaks Challenge in Great Britain. Have a look, and let me know what you think.

Tomorrow is Remembrance Day, the ninety fourth anniversary of the end of World War One. The guns fell silent in the trenches of Europe on November 11th, 1918, and ever since, the day has become a focal point, across the world, for remembrances of the sacrifices of veterans not only of the First World War, but the wars that were to follow.

This year marks the seventieth anniversary of the Battle of Dieppe, a moment that weighs heavily on Canadian history during the Second World War. The raid on the Nazi held port of Dieppe in France on August 19th, 1942 turned out to be a disaster for the invading forces, mostly Canadians, with a number of British soldiers and a handful of American rangers, and the supporting air forces.

After the evacuation at Dunkirk in 1940, Allied command set to work for the day when they could push back across the English Channel and start to drive back the Germans. Operation Rutter- later renamed Operation Jubilee as the specifics of planning changed- started to develop out of this, an amphibious landing on the coast, as a way to capture a port- or a series of ports- and test the strength of German defenses in preparation for a full scale invasion. In addition, there was pressure coming from the Soviet Union to relieve some of the pressure of the Nazi invasion into their borders. Dieppe was selected for its relative closeness, an asset for air support across the channel. The port is set along a cliff on the Channel, with two rivers flowing through, and at the time, German artillery batteries and coastal defenses already set up.

The operation, overseen by Lord Mountbatten, was meant to capture the port in an amphibious raid, conducting as much destruction on enemy defenses- particularly the artillery posts- as possible without destroying infrastructure, before withdrawing back across the Channel. It would serve as a test for the coordination of land, sea, and air forces in the eventual main invasion. General Bernard Montgomery, who would go on to take on Rommel in the Sahara the following year and annoy pretty much everyone else in the Allied Command through the rest of the war, selected Canadian troops for the bulk of the raid, to give them combat experience and seasoning. Nearly five thousand of the invaders were Canadians, men of the 2nd Canadian Infantry Division. They were joined with a thousand British commandos and fifty Rangers. They were supported by naval craft and aircraft from the RAF and RCAF, and were dispatched across the Channel.

The landing started well, though that didn't last. Commandos neutralized one of the artillery batteries on the west flank. Other beach landings in the predawn went the other way. German troops on the ground countered Canadian forces, in some cases driving them back and forcing them to evacuate before attaining their objectives. Other landings were disastrous, the waves of the Channel wrecking havoc with the amphibious craft, delaying their beach landings. Failing to take the eastern headlands allowed German artillery to blast the beach in the main attack area, dooming the raid entirely. Landing craft were destroyed. Men drowned. Others were gunned down as they arrived on the pebble beaches. Tanks were destroyed or disabled in the attack. Troops found themselves cut off from getting back to evacuate as the operation came apart, and found themselves forced to surrender.

By the end of the morning, the raid was called off. 3367 men, of whom 2752 were Canadian, were either dead or taken prisoner on the beaches of Dieppe. The raid was deemed a failure, with the conclusion that Allied command had no appreciation for the risks involved in the operation. Still, lessons were learned, which would come in handy two years later in the Overlord landings in Normandy. Improved communications between field officers and headquarters was essential, as well as between the naval, sea, and land components of an invasion. The importance of a seaport for the focal point of an invasion was dropped out of further plans. The need for air bombing of enemy targets was made perfectly clear for an invasion to have a chance of success. Naval ships had to work much better to support infantry against coastal defences. Landing craft had to be improved. Beach obstacles had to be quickly dealt with and bypassed for infantry to gain a better foothold on landings. Everything had to be planned, down to the finest detail. Canadian General Henry Crerar later said that D-Day would have been a disaster had it not been for the hard lessons learned at Dieppe.

Seventy years on, we now know something that wasn't public knowledge at the time. Recently declassified military documents confirm the long suspicion that part of the true purpose of the raid was to capture German documents and devices such as the Enigma machine to allow Allied command to decode German communications. This aspect of the raid, it turns out, was devised by Ian Fleming, who went on to write about a suave secret agent years after the war ended. The attempted theft, or "pinch", as the English called it, didn't succeed at Dieppe.

The guns are silent now. Seventy years after Dieppe, most of the veterans of the raid are gone. Those who remain are in their late eighties or early nineties, like so many veterans of the Second World War. Each week that passes, more of them die. Across the ocean, the graves of those who fell are tended in perpetuity, sacred ground for the nations who sent their young to fight and die, not only to free Europe, but to save it... and the world itself.

Remember them.

The Summer Of Our Discontent

"Upon the lowly two legged creature who tossed me in the pool for a gag photo, I shall have my revenge. This I swear upon the almighty scratching pole. No one throws me into a pool and lives to see their grandchildren!"  ~ Hannibal

"Wake me up when autumn comes." ~ Winston

It would seem that the summer of 2012 is at an end (finally). Droughts in some areas (a good deal of the United States and Canada had that going on this year). Heavy rains elsewhere (Britain, I'm looking at you, but then there's always rain in Britain).

At least it's over. The weather in these parts has moderated somewhat, the water levels are slowly improving, and we're getting cooler weather now that summer is near the end of the line. It's about bloody time. I don't understand the sort of person who loves summer weather.

They must be off their rocker. Mental. Cracked in the head. Loopy.

Of course, editorial cartoonists over the course of the season ran with the theme as it suited them....

And so the summer is at a close. Fall is upon us. And before you know it...

The very best season of the year will be upon us.

Isn't it just lovely?