TEL AVIV, ISRAEL. 6 MAY, 10:04 IST.
Our schedule is interrupted this week with an impromptu report out of Southern Europe, where the North Korean approach to Net Zero targets was recently enforced.
When the power cut out across Spain and Portugal last week, the darkness was filled with accusation and speculation.
Who was to blame, and why?
The Portuguese grid pointed to an ‘induced atmospheric vibration‘ caused by disgraced former prime minister António Costa breaking wind. Others to Greta Thunberg, Putin, or their ex-wives.
Our sources in the region cannot say for sure.
But they have sent us a list of ‘the usual suspects‘ who may be responsible…
Circuit Breaker Suspect I: The Benidorm(ant) Divorcee
EIGHT PINTS IN, TWO GOALS UP, ONE GRID DOWN
“Net Zero, carbon neutral, simple as.“
Profile: Generic English Retiree Ex-Pat Football Fan
Watch: Triwa SUB Ocean Plastic, Octopus edition
Reference: N/A
RRP: $155
Retiring to Benidorm had felt like destiny. A holy pilgrimage for a lager lout who loved football, cheap pints, football, fish and chips, football, and his wife (in that order).
He arrived like Adam returning to Eden. It was perfect.
And then Gareth Southgate - that posh wretched bastard - ruined it all (again) in the 2021 Euros final against Italy. ‘30 years of hurt’ suffered by English football, condensed and relived in one traumatising penalty shootout.
His marriage had survived many a trial through the decades. But there are some acts of righteous public indecency (read: self-care) that even the most loyal bride cannot abide.
The red card was given through the mail. Divorce papers. She was moving to Barcelona, to spend more time with their daughter studying there.
For a time, he was lost. The bottom of a Carling glass no longer held its seductive allure. Solace could not be found in the dulcet tones of Gary Lineker.
The Mediterranean stretched out before him one night, a cold lonely plain, and he cast himself in, seeking eternal embrace with the silent abyss.
Alas, he was too fat.
But while floating atop the water in the darkness, a green light called to him. He turned his head, to find it emanating from his wrist.
The watch his climate-activist daughter had given him for his birthday had not only survived his attempt at oblivion, but was beckoning to him, the lume burning bright across the dial.
“TIME FOR OCEANS” it read across the rehaut.
A sign from the heavens. A chance at redemption.
Recycling. Ed Miliband’s climate agenda. Net Zero. He had a new cause.
With enough effort, he could win back the respect of his family. Maybe even his ex-wife.
And so it came to pass a week later, eight pints in at The 12th Man, flying high on a 2-0 City victory over Nottingham Forest, that an electricity transformer over the road caught his eye. And whispered to him.
Net. Zero.
Seizing a snapped bike chain lying on the pavement, and with aim honed through years of hurling debris at ethnic minority players in Maine Road Stadium, he deftly threw it across multiple power lines of the transformer. Sparks began flying, applause erupting from the pubgoers behind him.
“Get in,” he whispered to himself, softly shaking his fist in victory. If only his daughter could see this.
The sound of Match of the Day emanating from the pub suddenly cut out. He swivelled to see the pub now shrouded in darkness, the customers voicing confusion and dismay. Then all the streetlights flickered out.
The only illumination left was from the growing electrical fire on the transformer. And of course from the Triwa SUB Ocean Plastic Octopus™ on his wrist.
“OI, YOU.”
A brawny young man was emerging from the cave the pub had become, the sweat on his bald head glistening in the orange light of the flames. Definitely a Nottingham fan.
It was time for an Irish exit.
Sweeping up his pint of Carling like the sabre of Charlemagne he charged into the night, a nationwide blackout rippling across Spain like a Mexican wave at the Etihad.
Just as Ed Miliband intended.
Suspect II: Miss Eco-Terrorist 2025
THE CALL(ER) OF NATURE
“The revolution need not be mechanised… Listen a while, and you’ll hear the birds singing for our success.”
Profile: Hippie English Birdkeeper, FSB codename Вудсток ('Woodstock')
Watch: Patek Phillippe Calatrava, Tropical Forest edition (1 of 6)
Reference: 5089G-109
RRP: Discontinued, approx $160k on secondary market (good luck finding one)
The Kremlin doesn’t carry the torch for one specific ideology anymore. These days, any kind of radical can fit its agenda - if they’re radical enough.
Recruited by Moscow while studying abroad at Barcelona university (Ecology & Conservation), Comrade Woodstock hides in plain sight behind a successful #HolisticHealth #GreenQueen #EarthLover Instagram account.
A sharp-eyed follower might wonder why there is a signed copy of The Unabomber Manifesto on her bookshelf (“Teddy’s biggest problem was he never balanced his root chakra“).
Or why the only birds she feeds and breeds in her videos are an invasive species of parakeet. An invasive species of parakeet that builds enormous communal nests on power lines, causing widespread blackouts.
The Monk Parakeet (Myiopsitta Monachus) is a particularly tenacious member of the parrot family. It can be found almost anywhere remotely warm, but the South American bird holds a special affection for Spain, where 80% of its European population nests.
The Spanish make regular attempts to control the population to prevent power outages and crop losses. But like all parrots they’re clever - and know they’re always welcome at Comrade Woodstock’s aviary. Twig by twig, nest by nest, the seeds of a great continental reset are sown…
She doesn’t wear the white gold Patek on her Instagram. That was a graduation gift from her recruiter, an ancient Soviet oligarch who spends his time seducing lefty Spanish students and occasionally referring those who carry ‘the revolutionary spirit‘ to his former colleagues in Moscow.
He told her he still believed in socialism, and she believed him.
Caressing his face with her hands, she whispered into his ear that he would live to see a Europe free of capitalist exploitation.
From the corner of her bedroom, a parakeet spoke for him:
”Blyat.”
Suspect III: An Inconvenient Mozambican
FOR MONEY… REVENGE… OR FOR NANDOS?
“I am merely finding customers for our products.”
Profile: Mysterious Mozambican, suspected SISE agent
Watch: Rolex Day-Date, fossil dial
Reference: 18238
RRP: Discontinued, approx $65k on secondary
Little is known about this operator.
He was last seen hijacking a hot air balloon and using its shadow to block sunlight over a vulnerable solar farm on the Portuguese coast. A cascade of shutdowns hit the regional grid shortly after.
We suspect he works for Mozambican intelligence (Serviço de Informações e Segurança do Estado, or SISE), but his motive for sabotaging renewable energy infrastructure has not been ascertained.
Some reports associate him with the Mozambican fossil fuel industry, penning him as a ‘hardcore’ lobbyist for natural gas, and a ‘practical activist’ against Portugal’s Net Zero targets.
Others have him down as a leftist ideologue who believes selling Mozambican oil and gas to Portugal is the only practical means of extracting reparations for colonialism.
We can only applaud the man for his exceptional taste in timepieces. Fossil dial Day-Dates are exceedingly rare, and suit someone so heavily invested in the fossil fuel industry.
The watch market’s fascination with anything 1970s has led to a resurgence in stone dials generally, and one wonders if fossil (or even coral) dials could return to the face of the modern Rolex Day-Date. Given the perceived political sensitivity around such materials, we would guess no - but one can hope. They are still making mother-of-pearl dials, after all.
We rang up an old contact at Zimbabwean CIO (Central Intelligence Office) in case he had encountered the ballooning saboteur before. He claimed the man was originally a ‘silent partner‘ in the original Nando’s chicken franchise, only to be forced out of the business when he insisted that all profits be diverted into a Mozambican sovereign wealth fund. Apparently the other founders disagreed:
“…Ah, they did not agree, no. And now, my brother? He is attacking their infrastructure, chasing those Europeans like chickens in the dust. He says their solar dreams are a lie. That his gas - Mozambican gas - is the true inheritance. And that Portugal, heh, Portugal a- HAHAHAHAHA, Portugal… still owes him a chicken! AHAHAHAHA-”
Until next time,
Jim Hawkins
The Treasure Island Times