Not Very Intelligent Design Too : Planet Earth
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Bulgarian Umbrellas
Kneeling Man: Oi, God!
God: Yes, Neel.
KM: Don’t you care about Russians?
God: What? Of course I do, Neel. I care about all my children.
KM: So why have you given them such a shit deal for so long?
God: What do you mean?
KM: When was the last time anyone born in Russia got a fair chance at a good life? Anyone except for those favourably connected to whatever complete bastards happen to be in power?
God: Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
KM: Oh, fuck off.
God: Manners, Neel. Remember who you’re talking to.
KM: Yeah, an imaginary sky fairy with all the morals of Ivan the Terrible.
God: I’m God. I have all the morals of everybody.
KM: So why no respite for the Russians?
God: Have you seen how strong they are?
KM: Strong and ruthless. Except for the broken alcoholics. And more than willing to inflict their shit on everyone else.
God: What are you talking about?
KM: It’s one thing to have domestic feuds and retribution, but assassinating your enemies using biological, chemical and radioactive weapons in foreign lands is about as depraved as it gets. That’s full on psychopathy. Any number of innocent bystanders might be killed.
God: You talking about the Skripals?
KM: Among others.
God: What made this so important all of a sudden?
KM: It’s an intro for an excerpt for my new book, Not Very Intelligent Design Too.
God: Oh for fuck’s sake. Are you using me as a prop for your own commercial gain again?
KM: Hopefully. Isn’t that what all your preachers do?
God: Well…
KM: My efforts to exploit you don’t seem to work though. What’s the priestly secret? Pretending to take you seriously?
God: Wouldn’t hurt. I’m the biggest brand in the world, Neel. My fans are real. And real fans are staunch. Try telling KFC fans that KFC doesn’t taste good.
KM: It doesn’t. Greasy flaccid fries. Disgusting. And that gravy muck. Holy baby Jesus.
God: That’s not what the fans think. They think you’re an idiot.
KM: Yeah, shame about that.
God: So, good luck with book. Ha ha. You’re gonna need it.
KM: If you were real, I’d ask you to give it a boost, a lucky break of some sort. But given you’re as potent as a Siberian flight technician after a three-day, brake fluid bender, there’s no point.
God: Are you done?
KM: Yeah. Night, God.
God: Night, Neel.
Assassinations and unsuccessful spy gadgets
Although most deaths by castor bean involve inquisitive children and pets, ricin is also popular for killing pesky journalists, such as Georgi Markov, who was famously dispatched with a “Bulgarian umbrella” on Waterloo Bridge in London on the 7th of September 1978. Markov’s murder was thought to be a birthday present for Bulgarian State Council chairman Todor Zhivkov, who had often been the target of Markov’s criticism.
Assassination has long been a traditional birthday gift for despots in lands to the east of Europe, although ricin is not a compulsory ingredient. One of Vladimir Putin’s birthday presents on 7 October 2006, was the execution of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was gunned down in the elevator of her apartment block in central Moscow.
The Bulgarian Secret Service were not always successful in their umbrella-themed assassination attempts. Dissident journalist Vladimir Kostov discovered the cost of criticizing the Bulgarian regime in 2006 when he was attacked with a ricin-tipped Bulgarian umbrella in the Paris Metro. Kostov survived.
The Bulgarian umbrella looks like a normal umbrella but has a hidden pneumatic mechanism capable of shooting a ricin-loaded, pinhead-sized pellet from its tip with sufficient force to embed it deep into human flesh.
The Bulgarian umbrella should not be confused with ultra-luxury Bvlgarian umbrellas, most of which are not equipped with a ricin pellet delivery device, despite prices that range between eight and twelve thousand dollars. Only the top of the range Bvlgari Serpenti edition with the bejewelled snake head handle comes with the Ricinassassin device as standard. It also comes with an eye-watering thirty-four-thousand-dollar price tag, pellets not included. The Bvlgari Bvlgari Boutros Boutros Gali is not a real thing, although the Bvlgari Bvlgari Man Manbag is.
The Bulgarian umbrella was developed for the Bulgarian Secret Service by their genius inventor, R, who is not generally credited with having invented the automotive passenger ejector seat, but did in fact install one in a Lada for the Bulgarian Secret Service’s allied agents of evil, the KGB, four years before Q installed the far more famous one in James Bond’s golden Aston Martin DB5.
R is probably happy that his version is overlooked by most published works on espionage technology because its one and only deployment in the field was an abject failure.
When the KGB agent driving the Lada flipped the knob on the gear lever and pressed the button, 005 and the passenger seat were together catapulted through the roof hatch. However unlike Q’s more successful design, which jettisoned the roof hatch clear of the DB5, R’s roof hatch flipped open, but remained attached to the car by hinges on its rear edge. The design was thought to have been modified from R’s original plan for economic reasons, as the comptroller of the KGB hated the idea of discarding a perfectly good roof hatch that could easily be retained for subsequent deployments.
As 005’s surprised visage appeared above the roof line of the Lada, the KGB vehicle slowed abruptly with the vertical hatch lid now acting as a large air-brake against which the puny 1198cc Lada engine immediately struggled.
(The claimed 0-60mph time for a brand new Lada 1200 was a tortoise-like 25 seconds, which was always thought to be an optimistic claim by motoring journalists, although it was never independently tested as nobody could stay awake long enough to find out. The KGB Lada fitted with the ejector seat had already been around the clock twice, rarely fired on all four cylinders, and weighed almost twice as much as an example without the espionage equipment. The trunk-mounted, rear-facing machine guns alone weighed over 200Kg (440lbs) with full magazines.)
The propulsion unit on the base of the Lada’s ejector seat had also been downgraded for reasons of economy and so it lacked sufficient thrust to launch the British agent far enough into the air to clear the upright hatch cover. Thus he fell straight back down into the spot he had recently vacated, much to the surprise of the KGB agent behind the wheel. 005’s lightning fast reactions and advanced martial arts skills allowed him to quickly break the KGB agent’s neck with a karate chop, kick him out through the driver’s door (in every way a more economic technique than the ejector seat), and leap into the driver’s seat to effect his getaway.
The Bulgarian Ejector Seat, as it became known to condescending KGB thugs, was never again used in the field. Neither was 005, who died in a hail of gunfire a short distance down the road, his getaway hampered by his inability to close the jammed ejector hatch, thus restricting the already lethargic Lada to a top speed of 18mph (29km/h).
