Silly After Action Report

Two Dutch army officers stood looking at the recruiting poster that had been specially designed to encourage natives to join the Netherlands East Indies Army.  One of them shook his head.

"I don't see 'Your Oppressor Needs You!' having too much resonance with the local populace.  Besides, you've written it in Dutch which most of them can't read, which is probably just as well."

"Perhaps we could point out all of the social and economic benefits they've received as a result of benevolent Dutch rule."

"A little lengthy for a recruitment poster don't you think?  Besides you might want to wait until the last famine has faded from popular memory before you try that line."

"Was there a famine?" asked the other officer in surprise.

"Not for us."

Two native orderlies stood at a respectful distance waiting for their superiors to finish arguing while simultaneously working out their chances of successfully deserting.

"Surely the Japanese couldn't be worse than this lot could they?," asked one.

"I have a cousin who lived in Korea for a while," replied the other, "strangely the answer is yes."

So this is ASL Scenario J4, Wet Sahwahs which pits a possibly less than fully committed Dutch colonial force against the conquest hungry Japanese as the latter served an eviction notice on the Dutch colonial empire.  It was my turn to pick a scenario and I chose this solely because I had never played anything with rice padis before.  ROAR seemed to indicate it was biased in favour of the Japanese so we gave the Dutch the balance (swapping two green squads for first liners).  Ivan chose to be the Japanese which left me with the Dutch.

The objective for the Dutch was to gain 55 more victory points than the Japanese.  The Dutch gained victory points by killing Japanese (naturally) and also by exiting forces off the board.  In addition they gained a point for each building location they controlled at the end of each game turn.  There were six such locations all originally in Dutch hands so that was six points a turn until the Japanese kicked them out.  The Japanese also gained victory points from casualties inflicted and units exited. So to summarise I had to kill loads of Japanese while avoiding taking too many casualties and exit troops off the board while simultaneously preventing the Japanese from doing the same and it would be really good if I could hang on to the buildings while I was doing this.  Dead easy.

To achieve the near impossible I had six first line squads, two green squads and three first line half squads.  This force was equipped with three light machine guns, a pair of heavy anti tank rifles and an 81mm mortar.  I also had ten concealment counters to spread Ivan's fire out a bit.  To sweep aside the Colonial rabble Ivan had eight first line squads, three second line and crews for a heavy and medium machine gun.  He also had four light machine guns and a pair of 50mm mortars.  Supporting the infantry force were six tanks; two Type 94 tankettes armed with machine guns and four HA GO tanks with a 37mm gun.

For some reason I thought sitting in the middle of irrigated rice padis would be a fine defensive tactic and I committed a few squads to wallowing up to their lower lips in mud.  Somewhat more sensibly I put a halfsquad with an atr (also in the mud) where it could cover the approach road.  In the little patch of jungle in the centre I placed another halfsquad with atr and a squad and lmg team.  A little further south in the next clump of jungle I placed a bunch of dummies (and one real squad) as speed bumps.  The remainder of my force I set up to defend the village while my mortar (81mm of pure gold) nestled behind a wall in the village compound.

My plan was to try and get some early points with a couple of tank takedowns as Ivan approached and then a fighting withdrawal to the village followed by a gradual evacuation.  Why I thought committing my forces to slopping around in the padis would help with that I'm not entirely sure.  Perhaps I had visions of the Japanese charging across the padi fields.  They didn't.

First into the field on the Japanese side were his tanks.  Six of them, hardly impressive versions of the armoured menace but potent enough for an already nervous Dutch colonial force.  Ivan peeled off two to roll south and help his infantry forward while the other four charged blindly for, a spot a dozen hexes away from the defence where they stopped.  I had expected to be fighting hand to hand against the clanking monsters pretty much from the word go so I was a little surprised.

End of Turn 1

It's fair to say the first few turns were not happy ones for Ivan.  One of his cruddy little Type 94s broke its MA on the first shot and a six on the subsequent repair roll would see it waltz off the board while its comrades tried to dodge an increasing amount of mortar and atr fire.  I had a half squad with an atr wallowing in the mud of a padi field who took a shot at one of the other tanks for no result.  In return a 1 flat mg shot broke and ELRed the worthless bastards.  That was it for good news for Ivan for a couple of turns.  My other atr managed to immobilise a tank and the 81mm mortar shocked two others.  These shocks would turn into UKs and then destruction and suddenly the only two working tanks were the ones Ivan had sent around to help his infantry forward.  Meanwhile I accumulated building control VPs and buffed my nails while waiting for Ivan's infantry to get forward.

Nothing daunted Ivan brought on his infantry and married the leading stacks up with his tanks, obviously intending to armoured assault his way to victory.  Unfortunately his leading stack consisting of three squads and a leader married up with a tank in line of sight of my mortar.  When the mortar ran out of rate a squad was dead and the leader wounded but on the other hand another squad had battle hardened and generated a hero so, a little something for everyone.

Mortar starting to work

Ivan then decided to advance what was left of this vanguard into an adjacent hex to get away from the menacing looking acquisition counter.  Unfortunately this was still in line of sight of my mortar and by the time I'd finished with the next fire phase a wounded leader stood alone in the blood slicked jungle.

Although reeling from this brutal pounding Ivan used his tanks to shepherd what was left of his infantry forward, carefully avoiding my mortar's line of sight.  A formidable Japanese force thus bore down on the collection of concealment counters and an expendable green squad that made up my left flank while what was left of his remaining tanks (a single immobilised vehicle) took potshots at my guys in the centre.  Unfortunately Ivan misjudged the line of sight and moved the two crews toting his heavy and medium machine guns into firing view of my mortar.  Another rate tear later and once again the shattered jungle trees were dripping with blood and the machine guns sat alone.  Ivan didn't go back for them.

Sadly despite this wholesale carnage the remainder of Ivan's force pushed forward.  He rolled his two remaining functional tanks up to my centre position while he detailed troops to work their way through the dummies I was pretending with increasing desperation were real units.  With big metal monsters (ok, HA GOs so not that big) looming over the defenders Ivan pushed infantry units forward to threaten the position.  A morale check sent one of his halfsquads berserk but it died on its mad rush to my defences.  Still he got a half squad into CC with my atr crew and the ensuing close combat killed both units.

At this point Ivan felt that the game was pretty much lost.  I had amassed a staggering number of CVPs and my hold on the village buildings was netting me a solid six points per turn.  Still he soldiered on and in truth the happy times were nearly over for me.  Ivan had run the gauntlet, paid his dues and now the wind was about to change.  I mean that last comment literally by the way.  Ivan rolled a wind change which led to a breeze blowing across the battlefield.  This would prove to be significant in a turn or two.  Ivan swung his last two tanks around to effectively cut off my centre defenders and then swamped them with troops.

I wasn't particularly concerned, I still held the village tightly and Ivan would have to come down the road to get me (we both eschewed slopping around in the padi fields early on in the piece).  Then Ivan used one of his mortars to drop a smoke round on my defenders.  Inconvenient but not tragic except for the fact that with a breeze now blowing the result was to stretch a smokescreen directly across the path he needed to cross to approach the village.

In considerably less time than it takes to write Ivan had pushed his remaining forces up to the wall around the village safely shrouded in smoke.  Suddenly I was in genuine danger which not even the killing of another tank with machine gun fire could completely free me from.  Ivan charged into close combat with my closest defenders.  It's fair to say that I didn't come off best from these contests.  I certainly inflicted casualties, at least another two Japanese squads paid the ultimate price but I lost scarce units too and suddenly the gap between my victory points and Ivan's started to narrow.

The happy times are almost over

The battlefield had been compressed to the village itself and with nowhere to run every failed morale check was a killer and my troops did not stand up to the fire well (although my mortar crew survived an overrun from his remaining tank).  With one half turn remaining and Ivan running rampant over my few remaining units I retreated the survivors (one squad and a miserable 6+1 leader) off the board for some exit points.  This left the field to Ivan who exited a tank and two squads for his own VPs.

With the killing over we added up the points.  I had gained eighty four points in total.  Ivan had scored thirty.  This made me fifty four points ahead, one short of what I needed.  ONE SODDING POINT!!!

The end

This was a brutal game.  At the end Ivan had two squads and a tank left and I had one squad and the 6+1 leader.  Pretty much everyone else on both sides had died.  We approached this scenario with a fair amount of hesitation but it has to be said that we got a lot out of it and both of us had moments when we thought it was in the bag.  Sadly for me Ivan had that impression at the end when it counted.

The two orderlies staggered out of the padi field covered in mud.

"Well," said one, "that could have been worse."

"Worse!" shrieked the other, "everybody's dead."

"We're not," replied his companion.  He pointed to the corpse of a Dutch officer sinking into the mud, "And they are!"

"Good point.  What are you going to do now?"

"Hide out for a few years and then take over the country when the Dutch try and come back."

"Do you need a hand?"

"Sure, I could do with an orderly."

Fostering Dogs

I stared suspiciously at my Tasmanian correspondent. 

"Would you mind repeating yourself?" I asked in tones of measured politeness.  "Did you say you'd been attacked by a bear?"

"No you idiot," she snarled.  "Take that damn tinfoil from around your head and pay attention.  I said," but whatever she was going to say was drowned in a ghastly inhuman howl that drowned out all attempts at conversation.  I looked around wildly trying to see the pack of mutated wolves that must be threatening the life of my correspondent.  Then, suddenly suspicious, I contacted my tech support.

"Random question guys?"

"Have we by any chance been involved in a black ops genetic engineering project breeding monstrous sized wolves accustomed to feeding on human flesh and then released said wolves onto the streets of Hobart as part of the final testing stage before unleashing our hell hounds onto an unsuspecting world?"

"Ah, yeah.  Something like that."

"Of course not.  We wouldn't do something like that, again."

"It isn't wolves," interrupted my correspondent.  "It's the neighbour's foster dog."

It turns out that my correspondent's neighbours are currently fostering a dog called Bear.  From her description it seems to be a cross between a labrador and a hippopotamus.  My correspondent's involvement with "Bear" seems to involve picking him up when he escapes from his apparently not particularly attentive carers.  It would appear that it isn't only humans who slip between the cracks of our foster system.  Despite Bear's rather impressive bulk he apparently has no problem tiptoeing out while the neighbour's attention is elsewhere.

I wondered aloud if my correspondent's neighbours were the best people to look after a troubled dog.  She pointed out that they were raising four boys and a large dog of their own so they should be experienced with unmanageable animals.  They were also once responsible for a stealth wombat.  I cast a suspicious glance at my tech support but for once they appeared as bewildered as I.

Apparently at an earlier stage in their journey as not particularly effective animal fosterers these neighbours took charge of a wombat.  For those who don't know, a wombat is a sort of small, furry tank.  Their natural habitat is stretched out dead by the side of the road but occasionally one encounters a live one, normally with one's car.  This particular wombat made a habit of lurking in the shadows and then charging out when least expected and slamming into the legs of passing human beings.  This was probably a sort of race memory revenge for all of its kindred that have been hit by cars.  Still it didn't seem to indicate any sort of high quality fostering skills.

Despite this when a bloated, independent minded labrapotamus needed housing these people put their hands up and it currently resides next door to my correspondent.  She says this is only temporary.  In her opinion the thing is likely to die of a heart attack trying to get up the drive.

My Council In Action

If, seized by some ill advised spirit of discovery, you wander down to the rear of my block and peer over the fence your attention may be drawn to what appears to be a poisonous green stretch of open land.  Considering the development all around you may idly wonder why nobody has yet built a block of flats on it.  The reason is that this isn't land at all, it is a scum and weed covered patch of what, for want of a better term and for the purposes of this blog only, we shall call water.

I recently received a letter from my local council concerning this festering disease sump although I believe they described it as "a priority biodiversity site for the Inner West".  Well I guess mosquitoes do have to breed somewhere.  Apparently it provides a refuge for aquatic plants and animals.  There's an entire rivers worth of polluted filth oozing its way to the sea a couple of hundred metres away but I guess that's too far for the aquatic plants and animals to walk.

The reason for the council's missive was a semi disaster that happened some months ago.  Heavy rains undermined the banks of this noisome plague pit and for a while there it looked like some of my neighbours might have the interesting experience of watching their homes slide beneath the murky filth.  That happened in February last year and now, a mere sixteen months later, council is preparing to spring into action, in a year or so, to prevent such an undesirable state of affairs.  Council being council they couldn't leave it at that.  No, invitations will be solicited from the surrounding community on the future management of Dibble Street Water Hole, a name which I can only assume is used because "Slimy, disease infested cesspit" doesn't look good on google maps.  And not only the water hole!  Taking the bit between its teeth the council has decided to invite comment on the future management of the nearby Marrickville Golf Course.

I wasn't aware of this but apparently the golf course is irrigated with "water" from the water hole.  This does however explain why the principal hazard isn't the bunker at the seventeenth but rather mutated, tentacled horrors lurching across the greens in search of flesh.  I could point out that the golf course is even closer to the previously mentioned river than the water hole but in fairness you could probably bottle and sell the contents of the water hole with less damage to the local health than using the Cooks River to irrigate anything.  Probably the only thing you could use the Cooks River for is cleaning out your drains.

So it would appear that, starting sometime in 2019 hordes of council hired workers will descend on the water hole to shore up its crumbling banks with plaster of paris or some such.  The council warns that there will be no access to the water hole while said remediation works are in progress.  No explanation is given as to why the hell anyone might desire such access.  The only use I can think of for the water hole is if I wanted to dispose of a dead body.  That probably wouldn't be a problem, it would provide much needed sustenance for the aquatic plants and animals which I am assured are currently unfortunate enough to make the water hole their home.

It's Carpet Day!!!

From Dashoguz in the north to Ashgabat in the south the word has gone out.  From the hot, dry semi arid regions to the hotter, dryer totally arid regions the whole of Turkmenistan is en fete.  Battalions of floor sweepers march in proud formations through the streets and in coffee shops across the nation the age old rivalry between Dyson and Miele takes on a new edge for today is Carpet Day in Turkmenistan.  Yes, today the people of Turkmenistan gather together to celebrate all things rug.

Carpet Day is the sort of thing that happens when you get a batshit crazy dictator with too much time on his hands.  In the case of Turkmenistan said dictator was one Saparmurat Niyazov who despite the best efforts of his yesmen, lickspittles and grovellers still had time in his diary to arrange things like this.  Oh yes and closing hospitals and libraries.

For the record a standard diary page for Niyazov would probably look something like this;

9.00am Breakfast meeting with cabinet

9.30am Purge cabinet

10.00am Accept bribes

10.15am  Ethnic cleansing

10.45am Torture prisoners

11.00am Purge replacement cabinet

11.30am Quality time with wife

11.45am Quality time with mistress

1.45pm Working lunch with Minister of Oppression

2.00pm  Shoot Minister of Oppression

2.15pm  Quality time with former Minister of Oppression's sixteen year old daughter

3.00pm  Accept Chairmanship of UN Human Rights Commission

4.00pm Accept bribes

5.00pm  Answer fan mail from Phillip Adams

5.30pm  Free time

6.00pm  Start conspiracy theory

7.00pm  Arrest those involved in conspiracy theory

8.00pm Diplomatic reception

10.00pm Bed

I'm assuming that Carpet Day came up somewhere between 5.30 and 6.00pm while he was sitting at his desk and twiddling his thumbs (or at least, twiddling somebodies thumbs).  Carpet making is a traditional Turkmenistan economic activity so I guess it makes a little (a very little) sense to promote and celebrate that.  It's either that or exploit the nation's natural gas reserves.  Frankly I think he was just finding things for himself to do.  After you've rewritten your country's national anthem to name check yourself there probably aren't many other ways to fill in the time.

Some of Niyazov's "reforms" didn't survive his death.  I'm pretty sure they renamed the months that he'd named after himself but on the other hand the capital of Turkmenistan is still littered with statues of him and every year Carpet Day is celebrated with much rejoicing.  Well ok, I don't actually know if its celebrated with much rejoicing or any rejoicing at all but its mere presence is a handy reminder to the population of Turkmenistan whenever they ever get sick of their current brutal and oppressive government that things could be worse.  And they don't have to dip too far back in their national history for proof.

Today is also Towel Day celebrating all things Douglas Adams.   Possibly we should just rename the whole thing Linen Day and celebrate every piece of cloth we have in the house.  Personally I'm getting sick of having to remember to buy presents on Dish Rag Day.

Silly After Action Report - Part 2 - The Hungarians Have the Hill

For the record the Axis victory conditions are as follows;
Either; control all level 5 buildings by the end of turn 6 (failed) OR four of the following

• Inflict 22 or greater CVP 
• Capture all single hex stone buildings
• Control at least 9 level 5 buildings
• Have at least 4 good order squads on level 6
• Destroy or capture 2 guns (76mm don't count)
• Have at least 3 mobile AFV with functioning MA on level 5

To pick up where we left off things have got somewhat better.  My conscripts did manage to wipe out his guncrew so that's one 76mm out of the equation.  Annoyingly Ivan dashed a squad far into the rear and recaptured a stone building so now I may have to devote resources to winkling that out.  I rolled a halftrack forward to commence the winkling but he managed to stun it with a well placed sniper.  I've left a squad of Hungarian assault engineers to see what they can do about that.

In the centre things look good.  My SS cavalrymen are pushing forward delayed more by snow and hill climbing efforts than anything else while on the left Ivan retreats slowly but is leaving a trail of too heavy support weapons in his wake.

Sadly I have to write the obituary of my gallant little Zrinyi however.  With the 76mm gone I recommenced my tactic of using my Zrinyi to menace his defenders forcing them to pull back and allowing my Hungarian troops forward.  This worked until I foolishly parked underneath the hill hex that held his mortar teams.  Ivan promptly jumped a halfsquad down into CC with the Zrinyi and moved a squad with an atr into the foxhole.  I survived the CC despite having no mg armament but the next turn his atr squad blew the Zrinyi up so comprehensively that bits of it are still coming down. Conscript vengeance awaited the halfsquad now sitting amidst the flaming wreckage of the Zrinyi.

Nevertheless all this activity did allow the remainder of my Hungarians to resume slowly climbing the hill.  With the Hungarians pushing forward as though they still had a chance of winning the war its been much slower going for the Germans.  Ivan has been skilfully trading not very much space for time and on the left all my troops have been able to do is follow up his withdrawals. 

The pace began to quicken in the next couple of turns, my centre troops having finally drawn level with Ivan's left hand defenders started to hit them in the flank while the panzertruppen to the front jumped up and down and made aggressive noises.  Ivan has started to get acquisition hits on my left hand Panther with his 122mm and is discovering just how hard it is to kill one of those things from the front.  I got quite bold with my Panthers and rolled them forward to assist in denying rout paths to Ivan's left hand defenders whom my cavalry had started systematically dismantling.  The panzertruppen settled for slinking forward when it looked harmless (good tactics, let the war criminals do the dying).  To aid the right flank of my Hungarians I rolled forward my second Panther and a pair of halftracks (one carrying a 20mm cannon) to assist.  With all the attention on my flaming Zrinyi on the right I managed to insert a couple of Hungarian squads up on level 5 and furthermore did it without suffering casualties.

Realising the impossibility of killing the Panthers with his 122mm guns Ivan started trying for deliberate immobilisations and unshipped one of his 82mm mortars (which can kill a Panther) but without result except for plastering the area with so many acquisition counters that the troops could hardly move.  My centre push gathered pace and I brought up my flamethrowing halftrack as much to threaten as to burn and started eliminating units for failure to rout.  Before I knew it I had my 22 CVP objective and could work on the others.

My Hungarians had the bit between their teeth now and were struggling uphill through the snow and to boost their morale I rolled a Panther up onto the level 5 hill right next to his foxhole.  Then I almost had a heart attack as Ivan revealed that this was the location of his other 76mm gun.  Mentally writing the thing off as lost I attempted an overrun without success and fled into the nearby orchards.  To my great good luck Ivan's rear shot at me missed.  Still I was two hexes away and showing my rear to a 76mm gun which didn't seem like a prospect with long term life expectancy.  Then my 20mm halftrack stepped forward.  It rolled up next to Ivan's 76mm and broke the crew with a 12+2 shot, my Panther was saved!  Ivan's reaction was quite restrained under the circumstances. 

Freed from the menace from the rear my Panther cheerfully beat up his foxhole dwellers (who would die for failure to rout) while in the centre I finally managed to assemble a heavy machine gun with a line of sight to his forward 122mm.  Ivan continued with his futile attempts to scratch the paint on my Panthers while my cavalrymen and panzertruppe cleaned up the bulk of his remaining defenders.  I had seized sufficient buildings on level 5 to fulfill another victory condition and I also had three AFVs up there as well.  Embarrassingly a halftrack had bogged itself trying to climb up over a hedge but I was still in good shape.

I was in such good shape in fact that Ivan decided on one final, despairing throw of the dice. Eschewing such cover as remained he sent his remaining troops forward into close combat.  A half squad (it started out as a full squad but then there was defensive fire) jumped into CC with a halftrack I had (for reasons I can't begin to explain) sent on an exploratory raid up to level 6 and he sent a squad forward to take on one of mine on the far left.  His piece de resistance was sending a pair of squads, guided by a leader against the nearest Panther. 

Over on the left I slaughtered his squad hand to hand (yes, I won a CC!  Let the bells ring out!) but the results on the other two were ambivalent at best.  He failed to take out either the halftrack or the Panther (although I boxcarred my return roll with the self defence weapon) which meant that all I had to do was drive away.  This was enough, with his defence in tatters and such victory conditions as I hadn't already achieved within reach Ivan conceded.  Many thanks to Ivan for the game.  At least in the final play session the dice favoured me and hammered a final nail into his coffin. 

Final Positions

The Hungarian officers looked at the newly regained hill in bemusement.
"I didn't think we'd do it," said one.  "What do we do now?"
"Start writing our memoirs blaming everything on the Germans."
"Won't they be cross?"
"Hey, we're a war brotherhood not a peace brotherhood.  Screw 'em."
"What happened to that cavalry twat?"
"I think he married Eva Braun's sister."

A Rare Moment of Triumph

Glory has been showered on my unworthy head.  Or at least I was standing nearby when glory showered and I managed to stick my unworthy head in far enough to get it damp.  Yes, today I am triumphant as are half a dozen or so other far more deserving individuals.  Our corporate soccer team in which I (for want of a better term) play won our local competition.  I bask in an unaccustomed sense of achievement and self regard.  All of the effort, the minutes of preparation, the remembering to bring my shoes it was all worth it.  Let me see if I can gaze through the rose tinted fog and paint a picture for you.

At midday we left the office and headed into a crisp Autumn day.  The sun smiled on our ambitions and the scent of victory was in the air (Victory by Giorgio Armani which a disinterested relative had foisted on me at Christmas).  As we approached the ground an excited crowd greeted us.  As it turned out the excited crowd was there for the previous match and they all buggered off before we started playing but it was still pretty heady stuff.

We warmed up on the field practicing kicking the ball far over the goal mouth or, in my case, just practicing kicking the ball.  I managed it once or twice but then it was time for the match to start and I would have to put my new found skills to use.  Fortunately team spirit had bubbled over in us and we actually had enough people to field a team and have substitutes.  I took up a position on the sideline and waited for one of the real players to have a heart attack.

We dominated early in the half, taking a 2-0 lead thanks to the skills of Carly and generally ran rings around the opposition.  Then I got my chance. I ran onto the field, eager to prove my worth. By the time I ran off again the score was 2-2.  I like to think this was largely a coincidence.  My principal contribution was to kick the ball into the face of one of my team mates (sorry Carly).  Fortunately the rest of my team is composed of people who can actually play soccer.  With our backs against the wall the team rallied (except for me, I was exhausted after a five metre sprint to where the ball was some time previously).  Both teams went scoreless in the second half and the match went into extra time.

For every minute of extra time a player had to be removed from each team which was fortunate as it gave us a chance to, shall we say, emphasise the skills of our more talented players.  Nevertheless by the time the referee wanted to wander off and have a cigarette the score was still 2-2.  In desperation he announced that the match would go to penalties.  I don't actually know what this means but it involved all of us taking a turn at kicking the ball in the general direction of the goal.  This is what both teams had been doing all game but now apparently it was important.  Here the innate talents and hard earned skill of the other members of my team paid off and we wrapped the penalties up before anybody had to point me in the direction of the ball.  Victory was ours.

And not just a competition victory either.  My colleague Anna picked up the most valuable player award for the competition.  To the victors the spoils:  the spoils consisting of chicken, buns and beer, just the thing before heading back to a hard afternoon's work in the office.  Still we can't rest on our laurels.  The new competition starts next week and suddenly we have a title and a reputation to defend.  Every other team will be wanting to take us down a peg and we will need to be right on our game to maintain this winning streak.  As for me, I'll make a special effort to remember my shoes.

Into Every Life

"What the hell is going on down there?" I demanded.  My correspondent wasn't listening.  A raging tide of water was swirling around her legs as she stood on her desk making increasing futile attempts to pluck one of her children from the furious torrent gushing through her house. 

"Has a pipe burst?  Do you even have plumbing?"

"It's raining you twat," shrieked my correspondent giving up on her child and settling for trying to keep her laptop above water.  It seemed to be doing a little more than just raining.  Through the window behind her I caught a brief glimpse of cars, cows and the occasional badly designed building floating by on what looked like a migratory lake.  When water started trickling out of my own computer screen I severed the connection and contacted my Belarusian tech support.

"You guys will never believe what's happening in Tasmania," I said breathlessly.

"It's pissing down with rain and thousands of people are in danger of drowning or homelessness?"

"Well yes," I muttered.  "Has it made the news in Minsk?"

"We're the only people in Minsk who have even heard of Tasmania.  We have other sources of information."

Normally I would accept that at face value because it doesn't do to irritate people who have access to weaponised smallpox and their own super soldier program.  This time however I noticed a more than usually shifty look my teams eye.  They appeared almost embarrassed.

"Guys, what have you done?"  They shuffled their feet a little and then decided to confess all.

"Ever heard of Tlaloc?"

"The Aztec god of rain?  In the top ten Most Worshipped list for seven years straight in the 1490s.  Of course I've heard of Tlaloc, who the hell hasn't?"  My tech support acknowledged this point and carried on.

“Did you know there are certain rituals the Aztecs performed to please Tlaloc and make it rain?”

“Oh dear god.  Guys, you didn’t, did you?”  They nodded shame faced.  I shook my head in despair.  One thing I had learnt rather painfully is that you can do as many deals with the Devil as you like but when you start messing about with gods you’re in all sorts of trouble.  The thing is gods are just as dangerous and intolerant as the Devil but they lack his sense of humour.

“It was late, we were drunk.  I don’t mean going into the office in the morning drunk, properly drunk.”

"Well that's great, my nation's southern state is underwater because you guys had a Central American themed office party and the last time I saw my correspondent she was dog paddling down the main street."

"We can fix this," they offered.  "There's this Finnish goddess who owes us a favour..."

"Not her!" I shrieked.  "Hobart may be under twenty feet of water but I can't imagine it would be improved if the water was frozen solid.  Besides, she never returns my calls."

"We know, that favour she owes us.  She asked to see your browser history."

"Great so, apart from drowning Tasmania and ruining my social life have you been up to anything else lately."

"Nothing you haven't seen in the news.  So what do we do about Tasmania?"

"Oh leave it, the water will run off eventually and if I know them they're probably already building a hydro electric station in the middle of the city."  They went to sign off but a thought suddenly occurred to me.  "Just a minute as I recall, the ritual to Tlaloc asking for rain required a human sacrifice and, on a not entirely unrelated topic, what happened to your work experience guy?"