NAHARIYA, ISRAEL — What a season we’re having at the American Colosseum this year.

The Blonde Emperor rises from his throne and swivels his thumb. A White House aide spams ‘👎’ in the Pentagon groupchat.

Hellfire missiles trace the McDonald’s logo in the sky… and evaporate a legion of ‘narco-terrorists’ in the sandy arena below.

Cheers erupt from the stands. But the crowd demands more.

“Bring out the Barbarian King!” they cry. The emperor gestures to his spar-spangled legionaries. A trussed and blindfolded Nicolas Maduro is dragged into the arena to hoots and jeers.

A formation of B-52s flies overhead. Chants of “RAZE CARTHAGE” erupt from the senate gallery as the jets zoom towards Persia. Cardboard cut-outs of the latest Ayatollah are brandished at the cameras.

Season-ticket holders are handed a complimentary org chart of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps… a gold Sharpie… and a copy of Who’s Who (Iran 2026 edition, preface by Noam Chomsky).

Circle the correct sequence of Iranian officials wiped out today… and you stand to win a Happy Meal served in the Oval Office.

We jostle in our seat at the amphitheatre. Everyone wants a better view of the arena.

…And it’s only Spring.

We shake our head in regret. We should have bought the Trump Gold Card. The all-access backstage pass will pay for itself this season.

The Opening Act

We told you the war in Iran was coming back in February.

We didn’t tell you why.

“You need to keep the readers hungry,” our editor told us. “Don’t reveal your tricks. Or they’ll get bored and read Teen Vogue instead.”

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But you may as well know. Given the antics you have to put up with from our colleagues, it’s only fair. Just be careful bringing this up at dinner parties.

Actions Immortal

The American President, El Guero Emperador, is in legacy-creation mode.

His sun has risen as high as it can. Turning eighty this year, he knows it will begin setting soon.

Tangible things… riches, power… are no longer his priority.

He seeks something much more elusive: To be remembered.

Not by his enemies, who will curse him ‘til they croak. Or by his disciples, for whom he has already become a mythic figure.

But by history itself, as a man who grappled the world—and left nobody doubting who came out on top.

Physically expanding America is the most direct way of doing this. Almost any territory will do… provided it has a recognisable name.

The US last got bigger in 1986 under Reagan. But nobody has ever heard of the Northern Mariana islands, so nobody cares.

Greenland, however… Canada… the Panama Canal… even Gaza… are ‘global brands’. For the world’s foremost ‘Real-Estate Guy’, they represent acquisitions that would make his legacy undeniable. Immutable. A permanent chapter in the Book of America, pages edged with gold.

While territorial expansion is straightforward, it is especially difficult for a superpower in the modern age. The USA can’t ‘pull a Mauritius’ and get paid to take new territory.

He has a little under three years to figure out how to expand the American Imperium. If he can’t add new zipcodes to the IRS database by then, he needs a backup plan.

This is the more complicated path.

Imperial Clean-up

Lacking a physical trophy to leave behind for the nation, Trump must be exceptional:

He must fix problems his predecessors could not.

There are plenty to choose from. Pacifying Putin and neutering Xi are the obvious ones. But they are also recent. Both are ‘21st century problems’.

The longer a problem has persisted… the more presidents to have failed the challenge… the better.

Cuba and Iran have haunted the American establishment throughout the Boomer Era. Their shadows are cast across both Democrat and Republican halls of fame.

Failure on Iran stains the legacies of Carter, Reagan, and Obama. And while JFK may be the world’s favourite prez, he never did fix Cuba.

Break the mullahs and bring them to heel, offering appropriate tribute… and history will view your predecessors as lacking the courage to assert America’s might.

Bring Cuba back into the fold… and your name will be said in the same sentence as JFK forevermore. This prize alone will motivate almost any action from The Blonde Emperor.

The arrival of the Iranian government into the American Colosseum was thus assured.

Their regime was the first in the world to declare suicide bombing a sacred act of G-had, the original ‘influencers’ to make it go viral worldwide. Surrender their ambitions for regional power in negotiations with their ultimate enemy? Maybe on St Never’s day.

Kennedy’s Revenge

The Cuba operation is going to plan. Their Venezuelan sponsor kidnapped, a third of Cuba’s energy supply has been taken offline. The country has been on the ropes since Covid, and the commie stronghold is finally crumbling. The Blonde Emperor will soon arrive to deliver the coup de grâce.

Few mention it, but Trump courted Cuban exiles for a US Presidential bid as early as ‘99, during his brief dalliance with the American Reform Party. They formed a significant part of his base back in 2016 and their emissary—Cuban-American Marco Rubio—is now his Vizier. They have likely had his ear since he started doing business in Florida in the ‘80s.

Cuba could be Trump’s ticket to expand US territory. Locals may even have a shot at US statehood if they act Republican enough.

If not, a Puerto Rico style arrangement is on the cards. Puerto Ricans elect their own mayors, governor, and a commissioner who represents their interests in Washington. But they are a US Territory, not a state: They have no congressmen or senators and cannot vote in national elections. Their input on the executive branch is contained to the Democrat and Republican primaries.

We met a veteran of the Bay of Pigs invasion last year. A Cuban exile, he had signed up to the CIA’s Brigada Asalto 2506 as a teenager to retake his country. A charming gentleman with a strong taste for whisky, and a true patriot.

After the invasion failed, President Kennedy celebrated him and his comrades at the Orange Bowl Stadium in Miami. One day, JFK promised, they will be presented with the flag of their Brigade in a free Havana.

To personally fulfil such a promise is exactly the kind of spectacle Trump seeks; an act that will elevate him from man to legend.

The Spoils

The Havana Stock Exchange is used as office space by the Cuban Communist Party. For now.

But outside the country, Cuban stocks still trade. Physical share certificates from before the revolution have had sporadic booms in the past two decades.

Some of this has been driven by collectors… but others hope these cheap artefacts will grant them ownership of real assets in the event of regime change in Cuba.

Stranger things have happened. But simply owning one of these does not grant you title to (what remains of) the asset. And the U.S. Foreign Claims Settlement Commission requires proof of ownership before the revolution to make a claim.

It’s worth noting that Confederate bonds similarly traded from the grave after the American Civil War. Speculators hoping for a payout on the defaulted debts never got one.

Nosebleed Premium

If you’re not in America as you read this, there’s a more straightforward way to profit from Cuba Libre.

America is a chimney masquerading as a country. Its citizens burn through 400 million cigars a year. (If you count machine-rolled cigarillos like Swishers, the number jumps to nine billion.)

But Americans have been forbidden from importing the world’s finest variety—Cuban Habanos—since 1960.

(Kennedy, the wily dog, only signed the embargo on Cuba into law once his speechwriter had procured him 1,200 H. Upmann Petit Coronas.)

Cuban cigars have been in a bull market for years. American smokers will push this into overdrive.

The boredom of Covid lockdowns spurred enormous demand from existing cigar smokers, and created a fresh cohort of new ones. Then a spate of poor weather crushed new Cuban supply.

The country now struggles to produce 80 million cigars a year. The US could absorb this several times over.

American Boomers are about to enter the Cuban cigar market and buy everything that isn’t nailed down. If you live outside the US, buy a humidor and get your hands on the strongest Habanos you can find (these have the longest ageing capacity).

Buy from a legitimate dealer (most countries have one dominant online supplier), and make sure it is a brand produced by Habanos S.A.

Bolivar Royal Coronas are our bet. Worst case scenario, you can always impress dinner guests with them. Or wind up your wife by smoking them indoors.

Inside Baseball

We don’t pretend to understand the sports business. But readers who do should explore investment exposure to the Florida baseball scene.

Baseball is to Cubans what cricket is to Indians. They are some of the most devoted fans of the sport, and have produced numerous legendary players.

While all baseball franchises will be hungry to recruit, Florida will be the natural place for many to get their start. The Miami Marlins and the Tampa Bay Rays currently sit at the bottom of Major League Baseball by franchise value. We anticipate this will change with the coming influx of raw talent.

The Curtain Rises

“It was not by secret treachery but openly and by arms that the people of Rome avenged themselves on their enemies.”

Emperor Tiberius, 19 AD

The American Imperium used to be run in secret.

Imperial ministries like the US State Department… the Pentagon… and the alphabet soup of intelligence agencies would quietly steer foreign leaders in the direction of American interests. When they didn’t play ball, the Imperium would back their opponents. Sometimes worse.

Vassals were called ‘allies’. ‘Coalitions of the willing’ were formed around military conquests to obscure their star-spangled source and direction.

Seeking a legacy and short of time, the Blonde Emperor has torn away this disguise. The shroud has been lifted, and a heart of extraordinary unilateral power has been revealed beating beneath.

Across the Empire, citizens stare.

Some in horror. Some in fury.

Many in glee.

Every now and then in years past, America’s façade of Freedom™ would slip. Hillary Clinton couldn’t help but giggle when Muammar Gaddafi was brutally executed by militiamen her ministry funded.

“We came, we saw, he died!”

The American public were uneasy when they first saw it. Is this what supporting freedom and democracy abroad looked like? Were their leaders supposed to act like this?

No, they have since discovered. They are supposed to act like this.

They take their seats at the Colosseum. And cheer for the next act.

J. Flint
The Treasure Island Times

NAHARIYA, ISRAEL — A new war for Israel… A new all-time high for the Israeli stock market.

There wasn’t even a dip. The market was closed on Saturday when the strikes began.

And when it reopened on Sunday — the beginning of the Israeli week — it was straight back to the races.

If only the Ayatollah could see this.

Had he taken our humble advice back in February, he could be watching the price action right now from a plush Moscow apartment, his every need addressed by whatever remains of the Wagner Group.

The Kremlin could have lent him a Bloomberg Terminal. Sharia Finance is a subject sadly absent from his published works, and we suspect he had another masterpiece in him.

But it was not to be.

The Tehran Stock Exchange could not be reached for comment.

Their website is down, so we tried phoning them this afternoon. It rang for a while… then cut to an automated message from our Israeli mobile provider declaring they could not connect us.

Hopefully making such a call will not lead to a visit from the Israeli security services. But if so, we are sure they will subscribe.

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Israelis are famously keen on a good deal. Receiving this fine publication at no cost is the equivalent of dropping a tax bracket.

The Iranian stock exchange was actually open when the bombing began (the Iranian weekend is Thursday–Friday). Trading was promptly halted, and the market hasn’t said a whisper since.

When might this chart jolt back to life? We don’t think it’ll have anything pleasant to say when it does…

Hedgehammer

We explained in our last letter how stocks can rise from inflation. The faster prices rise, the quicker investors will ditch the pieces of paper we call ‘money’ in exchange for assets they believe will hold their value.

Fancy types call this a ‘currency hedge’; something that will protect ('hedge’) the owner from the risk of a currency losing value in the future.

Stocks in companies that are close to the money printer (banks) can do especially well in this scenario.

Stocks in companies that extract raw commodities too. Their products sit at the beginning of the supply chain, giving them the power to dictate prices to everyone else.

But when the despair of inflation truly takes hold, ownership in almost any company looks better than a scrap of paper in your wallet.

Iran has experienced over 30% inflation every year since 2018. Its stock market has ballooned with the heat of burning money.

But the bullish Iranian investor, driven by the honest desire to preserve his earnings, has stumbled into a crevasse.

For now they are unable to sell. And when the smoke finally clears, many of the companies in the index above will be among the rubble.

Some may be physically flattened; others bankrupted. Others still may have been nationalized, or commandeered by militias.

There are few assets that will hedge a man against the ravages of both war and inflation.

Property is destroyed. Land is razed or seized. Lucky banknotes adorn the walls of museums decades later. Unlucky ones are used for the purposes of hygiene.

But gold…

It absorbs every penny of value stolen from the public by cunning statesmen. And in the pocket of a patriot it can escape the horrors of war, to be invested later in the pursuit of a life in peace.

While man goes mad and mires himself in blood and filth, debasing his fellows and desolating himself… it repeats its eternal promise: To remain the same. A tear of the gods.

Iranians are no strangers to gold. While the mullahs (or what remains of them) have a 320 tonne hoard, the Iranian public have been buying around 40 tonnes a year since 2020. Much of this accumulation has been through small coins, like the Bahar Azadi (‘Spring of Freedom’) pictured at the top of this letter.

When operations ‘Rising Lion’ and ‘Epic Fury’ are over, these small holdings of gold will be vital.

These humble reserves of private capital may be the difference between a lasting peace under a new regime, and a collapse into strife from post-war poverty.

We pray they keep those coins safe. They are the seeds of a New Persia.

J. Flint
The Treasure Island Times

I wanted to be in Israel for the war. And I got what I wanted.

Contrary to the opinions of the chattering classes, war is a spectator sport and to deny this reality benefits me zero. If you don’t laugh you cry, and that means relax and enjoy the fireworks baby. In the Missile Age a balcony in Israel is the equivalent of a private box at Wembley and it’s time to watch the Big Game dammit.

To my shame, I was barely awake for the opening salvo. My sleep remains as wrecked as it was since my last missive, during the last war.

When the first alert of the war chimed on my phone at 8:13am on Saturday, I was too knackered to even gloat to friends that I’d correctly predicted the conflict. I rolled over and went back to sleep as neighbours rushed out and booms shook the windows.

There had been a false start a couple nights prior. Both my WiFi and mobile service abruptly cut out at the same time. The outage lasted an hour, and I was left asking my bedroom ceiling if this was the beginning of the Big One.

The whole country was brimming with anticipation for another big showdown with Iran, and had been for some time.

Outside Israel, the endgame of Trump’s rhetoric on Iran was an open question. Some saw Trump’s pressure on Iran as an Art of the Deal classic: Make extreme demands in initial negotiations, then backtrack to the reasonable settlement you secretly desire from the outset.

But as our colleague Flint detailed when he accurately predicted the war, Trump II is no longer playing for low stakes. Flint will be expanding on this—and the consequences we should expect—in this publication shortly.

Inside the Holy Land, speculation on Iran was decidedly narrow: When? A prominent foreign policy journo here was so sick of public harassment that he even started wearing a t-shirt that said ‘I don’t know when there’s going to be an attack on Iran’.

But the American Eagle has now landed. The Lion of Judea has risen. And it’s time to select your in-flight entertainment.

But before we begin, a quick fatwa from our sponsors:

“When attacked by your enemy… blow up your neighbours.”

Ali Khomenei, Modesty and the Hijab

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Red Alert: Program Guide

The popular Red Alert app in Israel splits incoming threats into four types.

1. The Roman Candle

The most common alert is for the humble Rocket Barrage. These are exciting to begin with, but get boring very quickly. Israel has been receiving these for almost sixty years now and honestly it’s sooooooooooooooo last century.

Worth a watch if you’ve not seen it before. Get a quick Instagram snap in. Give it an ironic caption so your followers think you’re brave and daring: #VisitIsrael, #LoveTLV, etc. Then sprint to the bomb shelter like the rest of the boom-cattle and paper-over the void in your soul with a relationship of convenience.

When you’re out of Israel, you can now pretend to be a ‘veteran’ on Tinder dates if you’re male, or a girlboss ‘survivor’ if you’re female. Tell a doctor and try to wheedle out a fat xanny prescription.

Feels like: Daytime television.

Goes best with: Prosecco (bulk rate)

2. The Blockbuster

Up next we have the Missile Barrage. Iran saves its cruise munitions for weaker neighbours, so Israel gets the good ones: ballistics.

Each carries a warhead roughly the weight of a car. They scream from space at a mile per second and cause the earth to shudder upon impact. Solid entertainment.

It’s not often you get anything for free in Israel, and this is the greatest firework show on earth. The cost of intercepting them is greater than your lifetime earning capacity—you may as well watch.

Your car alarm will love them. And that doctor won’t need much convincing this time.

Feels like: Blockbuster at an IMAX. Or the concrete variety if you’re unlucky.

Paired best with: A Scottish craft brew. Your fate is now in the hands of the gods; you may as well drink like one.

3. Oh FU-

The worst alert one can receive is the Terrorist Incursion. Enemies are inside the wire baby, and it’s time to get the hell out.

The standard government instruction is to find a ‘safe space’ or bundle into a bomb shelter… but that could become a kill room. No, that’s when you reach for a gun if you’ve got one, or find someone who does.

Feels like: A day at the Colosseum. But not from the stands.

Paired best with: Adrenaline shot and a Masada 9mm. You’re gonna want those xannies from earlier if you make it out.

4. The Metal Martyrs

The fourth and final alert is different from all prior: The Hostile Aircraft Intrusion. A category previously reserved for bomber aircraft and the odd Cessna pilot on a g-had jolly, has now been replaced by drones as technology continues to steal jobs from the working class.

It is a chimera of fears. A flying munition like a rocket or missile, but without a fixed trajectory. An intelligent object, but not flesh and blood.

Being alerted to the arrival of such a creature before you can hear or see it is a novel experience.

There’ve been a few here over the last couple of days. I was alerted to the arrival of one late last night, and padded onto the balcony in my underwear to catch a sight of it, or a sound.

My hands on the balustrade I twitched my head this way and that, scouring the city below us and the night sky above with my small cone of vision like a mouse scanning for a predator.

But find it I could not. And as I peered across the town, trying to parse its new secret, I suddenly felt like a tiny object in the eye of an enormous snake, and spun around in sudden revelation. But I was met by only blackness.

Feels like: An assassin has infiltrated the keep.

Paired best with: Wet vodka martini, twist of lime.

Enjoy the program.

B. Pew
The Treasure Island Times

BE’ER SHEVA, ISRAEL — Not as sunny as we’d hoped out here.

After spending the festive season in Scotland, we were looking forward to a bit of daylight. Maybe even some vitamin D.

But as we stare into the Negev desert, it’s a paltry seventeen degrees Celsius. Almost long sleeves weather.

A teenager with an M-16 doomscrolls on his phone at a nearby bus stop, listless. TikTok, probably.

Oh well, we console ourselves. At least there’s a firework show to look forward to. The Iranian ballistic missile corps sure know how to light up the sky. And the ground, occasionally.

We weren’t sure we’d make it back here. There was a fair chance that Israel would close her airspace. That President Trump, El Guero Emperador, would jump the gun and unleash his legions upon Iran early.

But military action takes time. When getting all their infernal ducks in a row—navy, air force, green men, materiel—even the powerful must have patience.

It took the Americans almost half a year to plan Gulf War I. Almost a quarter of a year to arrange Gulf War II.

It’s been over two months since the uprisings began in Iran. Our weather forecast for the region is now looking considerably… inhospitable.

Over here you can see a ‘US Navy’ system moving through the Arabian Sea… cruise missiles pushing in from the West… heavy impacts on Iranian air defence… then torrential bombfall on military command centres rolling through the night.

Chance of bunker-busting, best to stay indoors where possible… sunscreen unlikely to help. Back to you in the studio.

Iran. The ‘Land of the Aryans’. Persia.

Older than our dear Albion. Older still than the mighty Rome.

Saddam tried to crush it. ‘Dubya’ Bush wanted to bomb it. Obama sought ‘regime change’... but bailed when the public wouldn’t swallow it.

The Blonde Emperor believes he is the exception. That he can defeat the ancient civilisation that has haunted the American establishment since the ’79 revolution.

Can he? We don’t know. But he got away with bombing Iran once already with few consequences, and despite calls that this would cause WWIII.

For a President who loves the spectacle of winning bigly, the Iranian regime looks like a paper tiger already curling under the heat of civil unrest. And the torch of liberty is burning warm in his hand.

The airspace will be closing soon. The Ayatollah better be quick if he wants business class on the last flight to Moscow…

A Most Outrageous Bull Market

We suspect it’s this prospect of war that has been rustling the stock market in recent weeks. (Or the financial rodeo going on in Japan, but that’s a story for another time.)

But while they are intimidated to begin with… stock markets love wars. Especially if you win them. And sometimes, even if you don’t.

The Israeli stock market (the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange 125 index) sold off hard when Israel was attacked in October ’23. The currency too.

Since then, Israel has fought in eight different theatres: Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iran, with brief forays into Iraq and Qatar. And that’s just what’s been made public.

Bold moves for a country 5% the size of France.

The protestors shriek. The celebrities make a performative weep. Gary Lineker shares his insights. The talking heads shake in solemn disapproval… and the Israeli stock market doubles.

Upon riots and outrage, boycotts and sabotage, the index climbs to new heights. Fortune favours the bold. Or in this case, chutzpah.

Usually, a wartime bull market is a product of inflation. As the government rams money into the economy to keep it alive, the money itself loses value. Investors ditch paper in favour of anything with tangible worth. Stocks. Gold. Property.

Usually. But miracles happen every day in the Promised Land. We check the exchange rate this morning and find the New Israeli Shekel (ILS - ₪) has risen 30% against the dollar since the lows of October ‘23!

Stock market booming… currency climbing… all while the country sheds blood and treasure abroad. What magic has this tiny nation harnessed? When will the piper be paid?

We think we know the answer. It involves two upcoming investment opportunities that we’re keen to take advantage of. But more on that another day.

We turn to our North Star: The gold price. There is no simpler, more accurate gauge of economic hardship than its value. The higher the price, the more miserable the masses. The faster paper money burns, the brighter gold shines.

The chart below is a damning one. But not in the manner you might expect…

Since hell broke out in the Middle East, gold has risen more in pounds and dollars than it has in shekels. The currencies of nations in peacetime… are burning faster than the currency of a nation consumed by war.

Could a country younger than the US president, prosecuting war across eight theatres, really be managing its currency better than Britain?

Makes you wonder which country is really in trouble here.

J. Flint
The Treasure Island Times

The following report was recovered from the glovebox of an abandoned yellow Lada in southern Odessa, stored on removable media.

The registered owner of the vehicle, a suspected GRU operative, was last seen boarding the Donald Etsk, a cargo vessel heading east. The Lada’s engine was still warm, suggesting a degree of urgency not reflected elsewhere in the file.

Profile: Neo-Tsarist Agricultural Apparatchik (formerly CFO, Wagner Group)
Watch: A. Lange and Söhne, Lange 1 Time Zone 
Reference: 136.029 
RRP: $52,900

When Russia’s premier mercenary outfit Wagner turned against Putin in June 2023, its Chief Financial Officer was in the lush office of his Moscow apartment, blissfully submerged in a 6,000 page Excel spreadsheet.

Utterly consumed by the tide of account numbers and asset values washing across his curved 57-inch monitor, he was oblivious to the scores of messages hammering his phone (”move, blyat”).

He had his favourite noise-cancelling headphones on (Orpheus HE 1s, 9 million roubles) and the sound of two Chechen men blowing his front door off with Semtex and charging into his apartment didn’t pierce the crescendo of Tchaikovsky’s 5th symphony.

It was only when he was hogtied and hauled across Red Square that he realised something was gravely wrong.

The feeling was compounded when they used his head to open the front door of the Kremlin and the headphones came off, the harmony in his ears replaced by the voices of the Chechens (“move, blyat”) and the sound of his heart’s wet thumping.

Hands and feet bound behind his back, they bowled him down an impractically long polished table towards a suited figure sitting silently at its head.

Sliding to a stop inches from impact, the humble accountant rotated his head to find the President of the Russian Federation looking down at him with an arched eyebrow.

Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin ran his eyes across the trussed prisoner with mild irritation, settling on the Lange at his wrist.

“That’s a nice watch, tovarisch... been fraternizing with the Germans have we? A little inappropriate for these austere times, I must say - there’s a war on, if you haven’t noticed. Ruslan here will furnish you with something more fitting of your station. A Poljot, perhaps… the finest timepiece in all of Russia, once.

“Think of it as a gift, a celebration of your... reassignment. Sergei in the Ministry of Agriculture will give you all the details: You answer to him now. Now move, blyat.”

VVP flicked two fingers in impatient dismissal, barely raising his hand from the table. The minimal gesture had just enough elevation for the spreadsheet commander to glimpse a Patek Philippe Grande Sonnerie under his sleeve.

The doors were still swinging shut behind him when one of the Chechens ripped the Lange from his wrist. Ruslan (presumably) grinned at it for a second, before securing it to his own wrist beside a battered Vostok Komandirskie.

No Poljot replacement was forthcoming. Instead they kicked him down three flights of stairs, though he only remembered the first one.

When he regained consciousness, he was face down on a large coffee table. He craned his neck to find himself in a brightly lit office from the Soviet era, a desk before him piled high with papers. The ancient apparatchik behind it glanced up through spectacles half an inch thick.

“Ah, the prodigy of Prigozhin has graced us with his presence. We have been waiting for you.” He returned to the documents spread before him, signing one page after another. A beige Dell desktop hummed to his left, the Windows 95 ‘3D Maze’ screensaver glaring florid across the convex glass.

After his fifteenth autograph, the apparatchik leaned forward in his chair.

“You are good with numbers, da? Cashflow, leverage, ‘value at risk’..? Well in this ministry tovarisch, there is only one metric we need you to worry about: Crop-yield…”

He was permitted to return to his apartment, to find a department of FSB halfway through his wine cellar and laughing at the photos in his passport collection.

A senior officer, glass in hand, held court at his kitchen worktop.

“...look at this one: Syria. Now that, that is the look of a man who has shat himself. With shit still in his pants. I know this, I looked like that in Afghanistan all the time. He must have been hiding from ISIS in that photo booth.

“And what’s this... the Central African Republic. Would you look at the sunburn- bozhe moy, the sunburn! He’s redder than Lenin!”

They poured him a glass of Kristal to celebrate his new job and ushered him onto an armchair.

The programme for the evening’s events would be simple, they explained. He would be turning over to them all bank accounts, portfolios, contracts, leases and title deeds relating to Wagner tonight. One way or another.

“You want to go waterboarding, tovarisch? Surfing? Well I hate to disappoint you comrade, but we do not follow the American philosophy on extraction here. We are more, how do they say it... avant-garde.

“Here is what we can offer: Facial deconstruction. Enhanced dentistry. Tattoo removal, no tattoos required. We have even discovered a cheap alternative to the vasectomy...”

It didn’t take him long to get the picture. They let him keep his Wirecard account.

A sympathetic junior officer called him a taxi to his new accommodation - a cracking commie block recently deemed habitable by the local authorities.

It took him a month to adjust to his new role at the Ministry of Agriculture. Another to figure out how to escape it.

His whole life had been a struggle to make systems more efficient. Numbers were the easy part. It was always the human factor that was difficult to optimise.

As the wreckage of an Embraer business jet smouldered in a field in Tver Oblast, a package arrived for him.

It was his Lange 1. Surprisingly, Ruslan hadn’t scratched it much.

Both the primary display and the GMT function had been set to Moscow time. He adjusted neither.

“Move, blyat,” he said to himself, and walked out to meet his driver.

Until next time,

Jim Hawkins
The Treasure Island Times

Profile: Minister of Sand, People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN)
Watch: CIGA Design Blue Planet II 
Reference: N/A
RRP: $1,399

Being made ‘Governor of an Island’ was once a fatal punishment meted out by pirates on the high-seas (’marooning’).

These days it’s how you get ahead in the Chinese Navy, where building fake islands in the Western Pacific and lording over them as they disintegrate back into the ocean has become a unique pastime.

It’s been a dull decade working for the ‘Ministry of Sand’. You’ve dredged more than half a billion tonnes of it from the ocean floor (don’t ask about the coral reefs), before pouring it back into the ocean in a different spot.

Your zone of operations is called Mischief Reef, though the only excitement has come from occasional games of chicken with the Imperialist US Navy. (The Yankee refuses to sail on the correct side of the strait.)

You hope to inherit the wristwatch your uncle was awarded for getting the high score at Tiananmen Square, but he’s not kicked the bucket yet so you’ll have to make do with this vulgar contraption from Shenzhen. Your son gave it to you for Spring Festival last year and insists on seeing photos of it daily via WeChat (he’s not spent a day in China since he was 8, and has compensated for it by becoming a Han hypernationalist). Even the conscripts are unimpressed. For now.

The islands you have built are on borrowed time. With every ripple of its surface the ocean reclaims its lost property.

But you’ll be doing some reclaiming of your own in due course.

You received the file yesterday. Taiwan is to be brought into alignment. The sand in their hourglass is finally empty.

You have your orders. The men are ready. All that remains... is timing.

Until next time,

Jim Hawkins
The Treasure Island Times

My sleep schedule in Israel is the worst it's been anywhere, and I don't even know why.

I don't stress over rocket barrages and I'm getting a decent amount of exercise and sunlight. After a long day, I should be able to slam my head through a pillow's bosom into sweet oblivion. But I can’t. I quietly suspect it's because I don't actually know what I'm doing here.

I've been trying to sleep for over an hour, and have just decided to cease counting sheep in favour of killing them when an alarm sound I don't recognise starts blaring from my phone.

Until this point I've been using the RedAlert app for all my bombing notification needs. It tracks your location and pipes up when your area is being attacked using data from an Israeli government API.

Modes of attack are neatly categorised on-screen: 'Rocket fire', 'missile fire', 'hostile aircraft intrusion' (suicide drones in recent cases), and the highly unfortunate 'terrorist infiltration'.

But RedAlert lets you pick the ringtone you want (personally I stick with the classic Israeli lady saying Zeva Adom [Red Alert]), and this time my phone is emitting some kind of siren.

My friend Matt advised me to install an app called Home Front Command shortly before he shat himself a few days ago. Perhaps this is the source of the disturbance.

RedAlert is a third-party app, while Home Front Command comes directly from the Israeli government. You're drinking straight from the tap; a direct link to the hot IDF chicks running computer duties. Rumour has it they use their tits to press 'send' on every warning of imminent bombardment.

I unlock my phone, blue light irradiating my eyeballs and nuking any hope of slumber. A screed of Hebrew blocks everything else on my screen and requires me to press 'OK' before I can use my phone for anything else.

I screenshot the text and run it through Google translate:

Government alert

Home Front Command instructions must be followed.

Due to the preparation for a significant threat, the Home Front Command's instructions, which are currently being distributed throughout the media, must be immediately followed.

It's all kicking off, I think. Fantastic.

The occasion calls for a beer. Perhaps I can catch a free firework display at the beach.

I throw on shorts and a tshirt, slam on the flip flops and head outside. A group of four gay Americans from next door are worriedly discussing their next move. I ask them what's up.

"Iran has attacked us-" one starts, before being interrupted by his bedfellow:

"No, no, we're attacking Iran."

I ask them which bars will be open. None, they say — they'll be kicking everyone out because of the war.

I should have anticipated this. My flat is dry of booze, so no backup is available. But maybe they're wrong. I head on towards the beach.

Thursday nights sees peak nightlife activity here (the Israeli weekend is Friday-Saturday), but the bars are now ejecting their carousing young customers. Despite the circumstances their mood is jovial; laughter and cocktail dresses, raised voices and high heels.

I find a bar that's still open and buy an overpriced bottle of Asahi for 28 sheks. I'm not meant to leave the premises with it but I suspect everyone's preoccupied.

I walk out and head down a grassy pedestrianized path to the waterfront, and settle down on the rocks. The Asahi is crisp and cold.

The Japanese beer must have triggered something, for I've barely lowered the bottle from my lips when a friend in Nippon WhatsApps me to ask if I'm going to Iran. Not yet I respond, and send him a photo of the Asahi.

I expected an immediate military response. If not missiles from Iran then rockets from their proxies closer by. But despite the profound shift Israel has just initiated, the night is silent but for the chorus of the waves.

The mosquitoes are making short work of me, and I only have one beer. I neck it and head home restless.

Hangman

The following morning I head to Nabi Yuna, a popular coffee shop on Allenby Street for young Israelis working bullshit tech jobs. Iced latte, two sugars. "Regular milk?" Yes, regular milk.

Traveller’s trivia: In Tel Aviv, all tech work is referred to as 'High-Tech'. This implies the existence of 'Low-Tech' employment, but nobody ever uses this term, which should be applied to the myriad dodgy consumer electronics stores littering the city.

It's yet another gorgeous sunny day, and the heat has given me a thirst. I'm waiting by the water fountain to rehydrate when I notice the fat old guy filling up in front of me is wearing a rainbow Rolex Daytona in white gold (~$300k).

Perhaps he's wearing it for the now-cancelled Pride celebrations that were due to begin today. Or maybe he wants to go out like a Pharaoh, blinged to the max.

I forward the headline of Pride's cancellation to a biological weapons study raging homo friend in the Yookay. At least this war has a silver lining, I tease.

"Jesus. Bloody Israel," he responds.

I need to fix the dry fridge problem. I cross the road to WE DRINK, my favourite medical dispensary in town.

It's headed by a charming young Israeli man called Sarh. His mum is there, and they are both jubilant at the intense success of the IDF the previous night.

It's straight out of a Bond movie, Sarh says. Commando units assembling drones deep behind enemy lines to cripple Iranian air-defences. Pinpoint assassinations of Iranian VIPs sleeping in their beds, minimal collateral damage. And utter humiliation for the Iranian military as the Israeli air force flies uncontested over Tehran itself. He hooks me up with some Israeli Telegram Groups for all the juicy foreign policy gossip.

"Fuck you Iran!" his mum yells, both middle fingers raised at the i24 newscast playing above the counter.

I mostly stick to beer, but I have been impressed by some Israeli wines. Their output has improved significantly in recent decades, moving from a bulk producer of cheap crud into something more sophisticated with the help of French expertise.

I get a bottle of Abaya, a 'biodynamic' natural wine made by hippies a couple hours’ drive from Tel Aviv. Each bottle and cork is marked with the astrological sign that was in heat when the grapes were pressed. It's exactly the kind of millennial post-secular neo-spiritual bullshit I go in for. Fuckin' yaldi.

Bizarrely, the Loch Lomond brewery of Scotland has been exporting their beers out here. An act of desperation, political conviction, or just good business? I buy a few cans — maybe I'll find out.

Sarh informs me that while the bars will be shut this evening, Dizengoff Square in the middle of town is a popular spot for boozy picnics. I thank him and am saying my goodbyes, but his mum has a proposition for me before I leave: Would I be interested in volunteering to work with her in the paramedics?

"When people hang themselves, I'm too short to cut them down! I need a tall man like you to do it!" she laughs. I give her my number and head out.

My pool of reliable drinking buddies has shrunk: Both Matt the pant-shitter and Stephan the Fuhrer are no longer in the country.

The timing is deeply suspect. The pair of them flew out on separate 'business trips' mere days before the Iran strike. What did they know?

Maybe they were foreign intelligence agents on some kind of assignment here. Was Matt's act of shitting himself in front of me some kind of test? I must not have passed, clearly.

I message Nick, a gooner in Israel assisting with an IPO if he fancies drinks on the grass in Dizengoff. But the situation has given him the willies; he fears the incoming firework show. Think of it, I say — you can tell your grandkids you were drinking in Dizengoff when the fate of the Middle East hung in the balance. But he's not in the mood to think long-term right now.

In the evening I head out in the direction of Dizengoff, armed with my Loch Lomonds.

I'm drawing close to the Square when my phone turns into a jukebox in my pocket. Home Front Command again: An attack is imminent.

The streets were already empty — no cars, few pedestrians — but now I can see people scampering for the shelters.

I round the corner. Dizengoff Square is deserted. And I don't see evidence of abandoned picnics either. The Persians really must have the populace spooked.

Oh well. At least I’ll have something to tell the grandkids. I get my choice of seating and pull the tab on my first beer as sirens fill the evening silence.

Bring me my bow of burning gold

The firework display begins.

The programme for the night is simple — a series of Roman Candles fired in concert. But there's a twist: They're actually Judean Candles, which are far too big for your dad's firework box and cannot be purchased at B&Q.

This a step up from your regular rocket-attack faire: Iron Dome won't work here. It's the premier league: Ballistic missile defence.

The Nimrods at the Homa Directorate are rolling out the big guns: 'David's Sling' and 'Arrow' interceptors. There will even be guest appearances from American 'Patriot' and 'THAAD' systems.

I take a sip of my Loch Lomond (‘Southern Summit' American Pale Ale, 4% ABV) as salvos of burning peach missiles curl into the sky to meet Persian fireballs in the heavens.

Interceptions above the atmosphere are silent, and look like blossoming nebulae from a Carl Sagan documentary.

Inside the atmosphere they light the whole sky up for a second — like lightning, but a much warmer colour. Clouds in the way flash from charcoal to gold and back again, lampshades over divine light. I've never seen so much taxpayer money at work.

What really sets the experience apart is the sound. Ballistic missiles in their terminal phase before impact scream and roar overhead, while explosions at low altitudes vibrate through your skull.

I turn to find I'm not alone after all. An old woman, possibly homeless, is sitting by herself with a blanket over her knees. She's either cursing or praying in Hebrew, I can't tell.

I take a clip of the action for my fawning admirers worldwide. You can hear her in the background if you listen close:

The sonic boom you can hear at the end of the video is from a ballistic missile that gets through the envelope. An explosion different from the others confirms the impact.

I walk in the direction of the smoke. Scores of emergency vehicles pass me on the way, confirming my route.

It takes me about fifteen minutes to walk there. I finish my first beer en route.

Boomers and their consequences

A nightclub of flashing lights tells me I'm close. The missile has struck the commercial district, the kind of steel and glass Tetris zone you find in every big city.

I can't see much of the impact site — the fire brigade have already taped everything off.

An old guy with a flat cap asks me why I'm looking at this street, and not another one. I ask him what his problem is. He apologises, and says he's just angry about the war.

"I don't know why they're attacking us," he says in bitter jest. "We're such a peaceful people!"

I'm curious to hear his views. Turns out he's an Israeli in his 70s whose hatred for Israel is matched only by self-indulgent nihilism. He tells me he wants either of two things to become of Israel: For it become a Palestinian state, or for the country to collapse on itself.

His name is Ben. He's spent a total of one year of his life outside of Israel (surprise, surprise — America).

I generally give Israeli baby boomers a pass. Unlike many of their Western counterparts, they have faced numerous wars and deep economic adversity in their lifetimes.

But as Ben keeps going and tells me straight-up that he wishes to be killed by terrorists, I realise there are always exceptions to the rule.

Another alert rings out on my phone. More missiles.

I want to keep walking, but the fire brigade aren't having it. Ben and myself are directed into one of the office blocks over the road from the blast site.

We're a fair distance away from the crater now, but the shockwave from the explosion has smashed out dozens of windows and stripped large tiles from the building's exterior. Impressive.

We stride over pools of crunchy glass and arrive in the lobby of a generic 9-5 factory.

I offer Ben a beer, but he says no. He's in some celibate yoga cult where he stretches all day and can't consume meat, dairy or coffee.

No wonder you're so bleak and bitter, I say. You can't eat steak or get laid. He cracks the first genuine smile of our encounter as I snap the tab on a Loch Lomond.

The fireworks resume outside. I ask him how he got to be this way.

He tells me of his childhood in an ultra-Zionist settler community. He was the most zealous of his peers, but his world view flipped when his best mate got a gun and opened fire on Palestinian civilians. Thankfully nobody was killed.

I enquire after his family. He says he hasn't spoken to any of his six kids in 14 years, after two of his daughters accused him of sexually abusing them when they were children. He claims his ex-wife put the girls up to it after their divorce, which was in turn motivated by his changed politics. A court dismissed the allegations.

We've known each other for less than twenty minutes as he volunteers this information. His tone is deadpan, lacking all the vigour politics inspired in him a minute before.

I'm beginning to wonder if it's just alcohol I've been drinking. Maybe I got blown up back in Dizengoff Square and this is some mezzanine level of the afterlife.

The fireworks have paused once more. I bid Ben adieu and leave him preaching the gospel of intifada to the firemen.

Divine Comedy

I'm walking in the vague direction of my flat when I catch a glimpse of the divine: Light streaming onto the pavement from an open bar. This must be my path out of limbo and into heaven.

I head inside and start drinking seriously. They have Guinness, and I'm thirsty for something familiar.

The establishment is called Red October, and is abundantly decorated with busts of Lenin. I'm shocked to discover not a single customer or Omer the barman has heard of the Sean Conn classic The Hunt for Red October. The lights keep going out, making everyone wonder if the grid has been hit — turns out the circuitry in the building is simply of Israeli standard.

Omer is a solid bartender, pouring free shots for everyone roughly in sync with my drinking cadence: One shot per pint. I don't fancy Maker's Mark, so he gives me Bushmills instead. Guess I'm going full Irish tonight.

Omer wants to know if their Guinness is any good. I tell him all Guinness in Israel sucks but this isn't the worst of the bunch; he's happy enough with that.

Given the amount of anti-Israel sentiment in the emerald isle, I'm surprised you can still find these drinks out here. Perhaps the free Free Palestine crowd is tee-total.

I'm on my fourth pint when Home Front Command rings my phone again, like the wife I don’t have pestering me to come home. I tail Omer with my pint as he shepherds his clientele into an underground car park, and we stay outside to watch the action.

The firework show resumes, interval over. We watch three ballistic missiles in succession get through the defence envelope and slam home at a low angle. It's hard to tell in the darkness, but I would guess they're three miles away. Perhaps the interceptor batteries for that zone were exhausted, or the Iranians got clever with the trajectory.

"Close. That was close." Omer repeats. I finish my Guinness as the sirens play another encore.

A few minutes pass until the streets return to silence. I haven't eaten anything today, but I feel only thirst. It's time for another round in paradise.

We return to the bar and walk back up the steps to heaven.

B. Pew
The Treasure Island Times

"So many stitches!" the transgender nurse exclaimed, cutting and pulling them out of my chin.

I asked her how many. I hadn't thought to ask Mohammed of Nazareth, the Palestinian doctor who had stapled them in.

Seven, she replied. Lucky, I thought. A good number.

It happened nine days ago.

I had just returned to Tel Aviv after a solid weekend of drinking by the Sea of Galilee with Stephan, a travelling entrepreneur as German as he is minted.

The Galilee is really a lake; it borders the Golan Heights (good luck getting 'em back Syria), and is right next door to Jordan. It's quite beautiful, and visited by thousands of Christian pilgrims each year for the many miracles Jesus is said to have performed there - most famously his stroll across the water's surface.

Our intentions in the region were of a distinctly lower grade however, seeking little more than clean glassware and a compliant bartender.

After listening to Stephan's many sermons on the importance of 'a systematic approach' and 'the absence of a self-concept', I took to amusing myself first by falling into the lake itself, and then attempting to yell across it to the other side. To my drunken surprise, the distant lights on the far shore some eight miles away heard me and yelled back. Impressive acoustics - it's no wonder the gospel spread so fast in this part of the world.

Upon arriving back in Tel Aviv we were promptly invited for further beers by Matt, a larger than life Australian tethered to the Holy Land by the olympic levels of charm and guile that can only be conjured by an Israeli woman.

After a few tins of Goldstar on the beach, it was time to migrate: Happy Hour at Mike's Place had begun, and cheap beer may as well be illegal here.

Mike's Place is the unofficial US embassy in Tel Aviv - an American sports bar frequented by journos, tourists seeking refuge from the Zionist project, and ex-pats regretting their decisions.

We had only just started our second pint when Matt shat himself.

"Did I just... shit myself?" he asked aloud, his tone a mix of wonder and confusion.

Matt was wearing swimming shorts, and upon rising to inspect the damage revealed a sizeable brown stain on the cream cushion of the outdoor sofa.

Stephan and I watched in stunned silence as Matt unwrapped the lemon towelettes that had arrived to accompany his incoming plate of chicken wings and began scrubbing frenziedly at the sofa.

He completed his work with a proud smile, depositing the shit-stained wipes in the ashtray at the center of the table with a triumphant "Bosh!" and absconding to the toilet.

Mercifully, the outdoor section of the bar had only one other occupant - a blonde man in his forties facing away from us to the sea.

Turns out he was a Londoner from Bromley visiting the HQ of his employer, a tech firm servicing the music industry. There is no way he could have been oblivious to what happened. But he didn't say anything, even as Matt returned with a grin to sit across from him in his browned swimwear.

Bizarrely this bloke then invited his boss out to join us. The pair had never met in person before and they sat next to each other, shit-stained wipes in the ashtray placed perfectly between them.

Keen to proceed, Stephan bought us tickets to a nightclub in the North of the city. Matt changed his soiled clothing at his flat, stole some miniature spirit bottles at a supermarket for no reason, and we high-tailed it on some electric scooters.

Tel Aviv has more rentable electric scooters per capita than any city I've been in. Like everything here they cost a fortune, but for the oppressed minority known as drunk-drivers they remain an important refuge, a final safe-space for one to express oneself.

I arrived late at the club as not one but two of the scooters I commandeered ran out of juice. But the odyssey continued as I walked through velvet curtains to a bottle of Goldstar - and a horde of Israelis pushing 60.

Naturally, none of us had done any research on the club event itself, and it turned out this was an oldies night. Even Stephan the wizened couldn't fit in. How many wars had this crowd experienced? My Dutch courage was at maximum, but I didn't want to trigger someone's PTSD and get shot (lot of Glocks slotted down ass cracks).

Despite the age-chasm, there could be no retreat. We reverted to protocol, and embarked upon the ancient trial of 'drink until this is fun'. My journey past this point is recorded less with memories and more with Shazam recordings on my phone.

One of the notable elements of the Tel Aviv bar experience is the abundance of cannabis use. Medical marijuana has been legal in Israel since 1990, while recreational use was decriminalized in 2019.

While plenty of cosmopolitan cities have done this and reek of pot now, Tel Aviv stands apart with its toleration of smoking inside. This is illegal, but nobody gives a shit provided you have the requisite nod from bar staff. You'll even see bartenders hitting the blunt as they serve drinks, and offer it to customers that treat 'em right.

I can't stand the stuff, and stick to the honourable vice of alcohol. But this will often leave you in the minority out here.

Anyhow, the club hits closing time and we stagger out. Matt bails to assuage his raging girlfriend who thought he'd be home hours ago, while Stephan and I cane hotdogs at a conveniently placed nearby stall.

I hop onto a Lime scooter for an epic voyage home, and before you know it I've gotten into a fight with the pavement. Maybe not such a safe-space. I've taken a haymaker to the chin but I tell a concerned Stephan I'm fine, and get back on the scoot. But I've only been back on the road a few seconds before I find a grid of stars is blocking the way, and they're getting so bright I can barely see anything. I veer off to the pavement and tell Stephan I need to lie down.

Apparently I then stood frozen in a T-Pose position for over a minute, completely unresponsive, before starting to keel over.

I wake up feeling great to see Stephan on the phone to an ambulance. I'm fine, I say. I can just walk home.

He tells the ambulance not to bother, but insists I go to the hospital. We walk fifteen minutes and check in. The receptionist asks what I'm here for. I just point to my face, and an hour later Mohammed of Nazareth is stapling my chin shut.

In the nine days since, Israel has decided it can't wait for MGM Studios to release the next Bond movie and they're not confident Top Gun III is happening either, so they've decided to produce regional adaptations of both in Iran. That's a story for another time however.

I got the stitches out my chin yesterday, and should be allowed to start shaving again. (That said, this is the Middle East and the locals seem to be a bit more trusting now I've got a beard going on.)

I was walking back from the hospital when the air-raid sirens went off. Rocket attack. The timing was irregular, as rocket attacks in central Tel Aviv (in my experience) have generally taken place in the late evening or at night.

The quick work of the transgender nurse had allowed me to tune in right on time to a nice 5pm webinar on the benefits of hedging bitcoin with gold. The breezy discussion of gold's enduring value through geopolitical unrest paired perfectly with the streams of Israelis charging down the street to the nearest bomb shelter.

The weather was perfect. The walk home, sublime. Another couple months here and I'll have a decent tan.

For now,

B. Pew
The Treasure Island Times

Profile: Mauritian Femme Fatale
Watch: Panthère de Cartier, Art-Deco limited edition 
Reference: WF3162HV
RRP: Discontinued, $25k on secondary

BUCKINGHAM PALACE - 7 MAY 2025, 16:30 BST

“Another delay?! That’s it: He’s crossed the line. Send in the rent-boy arsonists.“

Élodie de Marans dug her thumbnail hard into the red ‘hang up’ icon, ruining her manicure and nearly cracking the screen of her iPhone.

She wanted to snap the device in half and throw the pieces away like she used to with burner phones. But that kind of behaviour wouldn’t do at the Buckingham Palace Garden Party.

She glanced to ensure she was still alone, and snatched her third Dunhill cigarette that minute from an Hermès clutch.

They were close. So close. The British government was about to pay them billions… to seize an irreplaceable piece of prime real estate worth billions more.

It would be the greatest heist in history. Not just money for nothing: Land for nothing. Land that could be ransomed again and again, to anyone with naval interests in the Indian Ocean. The great prize, the holy grail - just one signature away.

But Starmer, the weak bastard, was wavering. Again. His immolation in the polls was making him squirm.

More pressure she thought, incinerating a third of the cigarette with a Dupont blowtorch lighter and hoovering the smoke into the pits of her lungs. More pressure.

Smoking wasn’t allowed on Palace grounds, but there was no way she was abiding by that rule on a day like this.

They wouldn’t catch her anyway. Identifying blind spots in CCTV coverage had become second nature back in field training. The skill was a life saver for a smoker in Britain.

“You still out there Ellie?“ A posh Edinburgh accent (is there any other type) called from behind a topiary hedge of Prince Andrew’s face.

Robbie, her fat dumb husband emerged in a cloud of sickly sweet raspberry vapour. His brick sized vape was proportioned like a mobile phone from the 90s, plated with sterling silver and proudly engraved with the arms of his guild, The Worshipful Company of Management Consultants.

She flashed him an apologetic smile.

“Yes darling - sorry, lots of drama in the groupchat today. Charlotte from the Home Office just caught her boyfriend cheating on her with a woman in a migrant hotel. Can you believe it? I didn’t know you could even get those - she must have been staff.”

Robbie nodded sombrely, sucking hard on his vape. The device was connected via Bluetooth to his Apple Watch 10, allowing him to select the colour it glowed as he fellated it.

He had selected red this evening to match his scarlet tartan kilt, a garment that signalled his status as a distant scion of the Walkers Shortbread dynasty (12th in line for a directorship).

It was his motion of nodding while sucking the vape, rocking back and forth like a baby with a milk bottle, that caused her mask to nearly slip. Her utter contempt for the imbecile she had married to get this job done suddenly bubbled so sharp and vicious she almost drove the lit cigarette up his nostril.

Instead she bit hard into the filter, draining the remaining third of the Dunhill in one hot draw through gritted, smiling teeth.

Just a few more days. A few more days.

Robbie, or as his business card proudly displayed beside an enormous QR code, Robert Macallan de McDonalds von Famous Grouse Kincaid, could barely believe his luck when he was first approached by Élodie at the ConsultForward 2021 conference.

The minted Scottish boomer had been monopolising the event buffet when he felt a hand on his shoulder, and turned to find the Mauritian beauty thirty years his junior breaking social distancing guidelines to ask him for ‘career advice‘.

She said she’d heard of him by reputation. That he was known on LinkedIn as ‘passionate‘. That a Glassdoor review had described him as ‘results-driven‘. A natural leader.

“And I just want to do some good in the world… you know?“ she had asked, moulding her face into an intense façade of innocence. (Men over forty could never resist that one, she’d found.)

Right on cue, he’d shyly invited her for drinks at The Ned to discuss her aspirations further. And over vodka martinis he’d performatively told the barman to shake and not stir (“They say I look like Sean Connery, y’know? Yeah, no actually haha”), he asked her what issues she really cared about.

A cosmopolitan liberal of the 90s, he listened rapt and tender as she described the enduring struggle of Mauritius against European imperialism.

It was quite simple, she explained. If the UK didn’t pay Mauritius billions of pounds to annex the Chagos Islands, an archipelago in which Mauritians have never lived some 1,300 miles from the Mauritian mainland, Britain would never be free of the stain of empire.

“Aye, it’s only right“ he had nodded earnestly, lost in the dark brown pools of her eyes, wondering if the viagra gathering dust in his bathroom cupboard since his last marriage five years ago still worked. (It didn’t as it turned out, but strangely she seemed relieved.)

He had thought his friends would judge him for the age-gap, but they couldn’t seem to get enough of her company. She seemed to get on especially well with Hamish, his old schoolmate from Fettes College who was now a trusted legal advisor to the Prime Minister after a long career in the International Criminal Court (ICC).

One of the few remaining men keeping The Guardian solvent with weekly contributions, Hamish was moved to tears by her heartrending story of being denied access to US naval base Diego Garcia as a teenager. He assured her he’d keep the prime minister keenly aware of the need to surrender British territory to a tax haven aligned with China, and to invoice them billions of pounds for their trouble.

“The bigots won’t like it, but the PM knows it’s the right thing to do,“ he had nodded earnestly. “Turning legacy to leadership. Restorative justice, with global impact. It’s got Keir written all over it.”

Everything had been going to plan.

The National Security Service (NSS) of Mauritius had been running Operation Brain BIOTsy for twenty years. It had started as an influence campaign to popularise the idea of giving away British Indian Ocean Territory - the Chagos Islands - amongst senior members of the British establishment.

Expectations had been low. They had assumed that lords or silk lawyers would require enormous bribes or credible threats to their lives to betray their country.

But they were shocked to find many of the British elite would do anything you wanted if you subtly implied that doing anything else would make them a racist. Others seemed ideologically committed to destroying their own country.

The most easily bent to their will were the white cosmopolitan boomers. Consumed by self-loathing, driven mad with guilt over their private education/skin colour/accent/parent’s property portfolio, they bristled at the sight of their own flag while exhibiting fetishistic deference to the words ‘international law‘.

Élodie suspected many of the idiots her team were manipulating would shoot their own mothers if the order was printed on ICC stationery. On days when Robbie made her sick with scorn, she consoled herself with the thought of sending the letters out herself, complete with postage stamps from The Hague.

She often wondered what the point of the subterfuge was. Why bother with the secrecy? Half the gormless suckers they exploited would gleefully collaborate with them if they knew this was an intelligence op by an ‘underdog’ from the ‘Global South‘.

Threats and bribes were barely needed. Foreign Office personnel objecting to Mauritian demands could be silenced immediately by questioning their commitment to Windrush. Sir Keir Rodney Starmer, the Manchurian Candidate around whom the entire Operation had revolved for years, was over the moon with a £400 Tissot PRX they bought off eBay.

Élodie was only a decade older than the Operation herself. This was her first job since graduating university, and if she had her way, her last as well.

Of all the personal sacrifices NSS agents had made to seize Chagos, she saw her marriage to Robbie as the greatest. And she was going to make damn sure her cut of the loot was as well.

But even the most pliant of their dupes would cower away if they felt their careers were at stake. And that was why, after years of hard work, the Operation was at risk - only a signature from the finish line.

British politicos had been preaching the importance of ‘sustainability‘ to the public for well over a decade.

But the unwashed masses had impertinently begun applying this new word to subjects outside their remit. They were supposed to apply it to recycling, and Ed Miliband’s heroic crusade to reduce living standards.

Instead, they had foolishly begun to wonder if increasing the UK population by over 1% every year through mass immigration was a good idea.

The Labour Party and Keir Starmer’s premiership - both innocent victims of the affair - had taken the brunt of the xenophobic, uninformed, and un-British backlash.

“We’re a nation of immigrants, Ellie“ Robbie had said, watching BBC News 24. “When a curry in the Cotswolds can match Brick Lane, that’ll be the time for a national conversation about immigration. Not before.”

His polling in the gutter, Starmer feared the Chagos deal would push his administration into irretrievable territory.

It was time to force his hand.

A deeply private man, the British public knew Starmer little; his persona was hidden behind an unconvincing mask of curated statements. Authentic convictions, natural reactions and expressions of instinct were nowhere to be found, even if the subject was his beloved Arsenal Football Club.

It wouldn’t take much to get the public to question what secrets were hidden behind his creaking wooden exterior.

Secrets the NSS had come to know intimately through their years of surveillance.

Secrets that would be alluded to when a group of young male ‘models’ and ‘masseuses‘ committed a series of arson attacks on his former homes and car.

The Eastern European background of the hot-handed young men perfectly masked their Mauritian masters. The British establishment had blamed everything from inflation, mortgage rates, even the Nord Stream sabotage on Russia - why not add a few rent-boy arsonists to the list?

Starmer would know who it was though. And he would be informed that such events would continue to occur, so long as he failed to do ‘the right thing‘.

It was five days after the Palace Garden Party when Starmer buckled. The third arson attack had pushed him over the edge. He rang the Foreign Office to arrange delivery of the grand prize.

He had wanted an elaborate hand-over ceremony on Chagos itself with a lowering of the flag and a military parade, just as Tony Blair had done with Hong Kong.

But there was no longer time for that, he was told. The signing of the deal would be performed ten days later over Zoom, with all the prestige of a lockdown webinar.

Élodie barely slept in the days leading up to it. She watched the seconds tick down to the culmination of the robbery on her Cartier Panthère. Her handler in Port Louis had sent it to her as a wedding gift - his idea of a joke. It had originally been intended as a bribe for Starmer’s wife, until they realised a £200 Kooples gift card would be just as effective.

She joined the Zoom call as a muted observer on her MacBook, and slammed the lid shut in triumph the moment Keir solemnly clicked ‘Finish‘ on DocuSign.

The Chagos Job was over. The heist, complete. She took the victory call in the living room, smoking a Dunhill. The only time Robbie had shouted at her was when she had smoked inside. But that didn’t matter any more.

“Park the Gulfstream in Biggin Hill, I’ll be there in an hour.“

Robbie lay dead on the floor. His obituary in Management Consulting Monthly would later describe it as a tragic vaping accident.

“…And you’re bringing the drinks. Loot the High Commission if you have to. Three crates of Phoenix for the boys, two cases of Amour for the ladies. And some Pink Pigeon too.“

Her gaze lingered for a second over Robbie’s corpse. Her lip curled.

“…And tell Macron we’re reducing his cut. Thank him for the help, but he’s getting 3% max.“

Until next time,

Jim Hawkins
The Treasure Island Times

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

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

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?

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

Continuing on from last week’s issue “The top 3 watches to steal land with right now“ we shift our focus to the Nordic reaches, where America’s destiny is being outsourced manifested by other brave pioneers - with perfect timekeeping precision.

The following report was recovered from a diplomatic pouch intercepted en route to the U.S. embassy in Reykjavik. Its author, listed simply as “Operation Greenlight, Agency Observer,” was last seen boarding a freighter headed west from Thule.

THE NORDIC SPRING

CHEEKY COUP IN GREENLAND, INNIT

Pioneer: Team leader, 'Task Force Greenpeace'
Watch: Tudor North Flag 
Reference: 91210N-0001
RRP: Discontinued, available on secondary for <$3k

You didn’t see yourself blowing up Danish military personnel when you graduated from Oxford. You weren’t told it would be like this.

You glance away from your binoculars to check your Tudor North Flag for the third time this minute. The titanium timepiece was presented to you in an elaborate ceremony yesterday night by the company commander.

"Young Brits like you wore Tudor watches during the North Greenland Expedition in the ‘50s," he'd said with slow reverence as a costumed troupe of minstrels banged out Greensleeves from the far end of the tent. "It's only fitting that you wear one as we cleanse this same land of Danish tyranny."

The lumed tip of the seconds hand sweeps silently across the dial, glowing dully in the dusk light. T minus three minutes until Operation Greenlight.

Listening to music is strictly against the rules on a mission like this (or on any mission actually) but you’re Team Leader, innit. You pop the AirPods in and play American Idiot by Greenday, hoping in vain that your heady nostalgia for the 2000s will somehow ease the horrifying reality that you’re about to trigger mass bloodshed and don’t have a clue what you’re doing.

It’s no use. The dread rising from your stomach and spreading through your limbs is impossible to smother. You're in so far over your head you can barely breathe. Every second brings you closer to the possibility of death or imprisonment, maybe even an update gap on LinkedIn.

You reach into the pocket of your khaki fatigues for your weatherproof cocaine pouch. Just a little sniff. To calm your nerves. You've got time — you've got three minutes. Sod it, maybe a bigger one. This place is about to explode, who cares anyway?

You scoop out a heroic mound of powder with a spent rifle cartridge and hoover it up; the panic crushing your chest lifts slightly. As the burning sensation in your nostril wanes, you reach a rare moment of lucidity: How on God's green earth did you end up here?

Your Oxford PPE degree was meant to give you elite access to the Western establishment. The keys to the kingdom. Permission to rinse the taxpayer, snort the desiccated remains of the British Empire.

But following a short-lived internship with Sir Philip Green and a similarly terminal role assisting David Cameron at Greensill Capital, things weren't turning out as planned.

You tried out for the green berets while doing a part-time MBA at Green Templeton College and got pretty far through commando training, but then you got a greenstick fracture and the doctor discovered you were using Bavarian marching powder to get you through the long slogs.

Down in the dumps back home in Greenwich, you read Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey and made a conscious decision to say 'yes' to more opportunities in your everyday life. One thing lead to another at a Greene King pub in St James, and before you knew it you were cheering on the Greenbay Packers with a South African working in private security who said he could help you out.

"I'll have a couple greenbacks sliding your way bru — no stress."

He introduces you to his boss at the Ritz by Green Park the week after, a burly US military bloke straight out of a Graham Greene novel. He runs a mercenary outfit called Greenwater out of Dubai (a spin-off from his previous firm in North Carolina apparently). According to their website they 'secure the green revolution' by protecting mineral supply chains in Africa, but it soon becomes clear that they’ll secure anything of any colour if it means getting paid.

Passing you a Greenalls gin & tonic he says he's recruiting - needs some 'little green men' for a job in Scandinavia. But I'm six foot three, you say. He laughs.

"You really are a greenhorn, ain'tcha son? Heh. Also - you're five foot ten, max. Now let me tell you about this little patch of earth called Greenland..."

What's on offer is an executive position at a Rare Earth processing plant they plan to build there, a stake in a bitcoin mine, and a clifftop house overlooking both complete with Ikea furniture and DVD box sets of The Bridge, The Killing, Wallander, Borgen, Bordertown and The Valhalla Murders. They'll even throw in the complete works of Stieg Larsson (albeit second hand). It's enough to make the toffs at Balliol alumni dinners green with envy.

All you have to do in exchange, is lead a blitzkrieg assault against a NATO ally complete with war crimes.

With practised cool, you suavely tucked a pouch of Oden's Wintergreen chewing tobacco behind your lip and asked him for more details. Don't rush to accept; let them come to you, you repeated in your head, recalling The Art of Seduction by Robert Greene.

Over a pint of Green Mark vodka he explained the strategy. Everything Danish on the island has been rigged with explosives. Your job is to start the fireworks show and lead a team of other sensitive young men to wipe out the survivors. You'll be focusing on anyone in Danish uniform but have also been given carte blanche to deal 'in absolute terms' with any civilian that doesn't look happy to be liberated.

Nobody will know your allegiance or home nation thanks to a diverse and inclusive range of equipment. The explosives are Indian, your uniforms are blank Russian, and your Chinese rifles are loaded with Green Tip ammo from Pakistan, while Irish football anthem 'We are the boys in green' will be played at max volume overhead by the helicopters providing close air support.

(The Danish Navy will be unable to intervene - some bloke called 'Captain Titanic' filled them up with Premium Unleaded instead of Marine Gas at the pump last week.)

A communications outage (to be blamed later on DEI hiring practices in the Danish army) will prevent any SOS signals reaching neighbouring countries. Instead, a carefully curated collection of shaky portrait-mode smartphone videos filmed three weeks ago in Alaska will be leaked to the international media showing militants with no insignia storming 'Danish' barracks.

To justify American intervention, the media will assume the aggressors are backed by an undefined nation state. Speculation will run rampant, with news anchors and politicos discussing what ambitions the Congolese might have in the region, or if this is the remnant of a Wagner unit that got lost years ago and thinks it's in Ukraine.

(Weeks after the dust has settled, it will be concluded that this was a radical Greenlandic independence militia - the Great Revolutionary Emancipation of the Eternal North - which never would have existed if Adolescence on Netflix had been screened in Greenlandic schools.)

With Danish forces clearly useless at defending Greenland, the US Marine Corps - conveniently stationed nearby - will rush in to 'stabilize' the situation and (permanently) occupy the island. Your heroic actions will lay the foundation for another US Overseas Territory - maybe even Greenlandic statehood.

The proposition was compelling, but you were on the fence for several days. The operation clashes with a Ceelo Green concert you bought tickets for ages ago, and the carbon emissions from the explosives would violate the principles of the Green Giving pledge you made on social media last year (your ex made you sign it).

Then a woman came to your hotel room with a bottle of Johnny Walker Green Label and an eight ball of coke, and asked if there was anything she could do to assist your decision making.

She was exactly your type - a spitting image of Eva Green - and you were struck wordless by her beauty as she stood in the doorway before you rallied your confidence and boldly declared that yes, you would be willing to start an illegal war and murder civilians, if they sweetened the deal with a signed Haaland shirt.

You check your Tudor again, your wrist trembling slightly. One minute to go.

It may just be the narcotics that the same brunette succubus has been happily plying you with since you signed on the dotted line, but you have a paranoid suspicion that you're being set up as a patsy for a different plan altogether.

The commander accidentally added you to a groupchat called 'Cleanup', then removed you before you could read anything. Then you overheard one of the higher-ups laugh and refer to you as 'Oswald' when he thought you were out of earshot.

And you're pretty sure you saw a sniper team setting up at a vantage point overlooking your position two hours ago, but command says there's nobody there.

As the seconds tick down to T minus zero however, a different thought keeps pressing to the front of your mind:

If you're so important to this operation, why didn't they give you a proper Rolex?

Until next time,

Jim Hawkins
The Treasure Island Times

🕰️ Coming up next week: Sand, Blood, Oil and Time

A Chinese admiral, a Russian accountant, and a Venezuelan communist walk into a Rolex AD. Who walks out with a steel Daytona?

How much land do you own there partner?

Just gimme a ballpark figure. Total plot size. Say fifty... maybe a hunnit acres?

Yeah - you look like you could be a hunnit acre man. Maybe even two.

What was that? Wait... you don't own ANY?

I see. You spent your mortgage deposit on a Rolex Air-King... after an Instagrammer told you it was 'better than crypto' during Covid. Huh.

Nah that's ok. I hear that a lot actually.

Well hey - I got some good news for you, friend. And I'm honoured to be the one to tell ya...

Our Commander in Chief? In the Whitehouse? He's got a masterplan, see - for all of us.

Everybody hatin' on America is in for a helluva rough century...

Because the USA? It's getting BIGGER, baby.

There's gonna be whole new territories - whole new states! New national parks, ranches, condos, strip malls...

And with just a little initiative... you can claim a stake in the New America. For yourself and your family. Your dynasty.

"Go West, young man..." And North! And South! And East! The wilderness must be tamed. And Delta's gonna fly you there on a discount.

We're gonna add so much land to our country in the next few years... that you won't even need to pay for it. It's our birthright: Manifest embassy, or whatever.

Anyway, here's the brochure. Let me know if you want to swap that Air-King for something more... appropriate.

THE SAILOR OF PANAMA

AMERICAN RECONQUISTA

Pioneer: Maritime Saboteur, designation 'Captain Titanic' 
Watch: Rolex Submariner, Panama Canal Dial
Reference: 16610 
RRP: Discontinued, probably attainable at <$50k

There's something deeply cathartic about running a ship aground.

The shudder as the impact ripples through the keel. The groaning of the hull as it scrapes upon the shore. The shocked faces of onlookers, mouths agape.

It's almost sexually gratifying. Hell, it is sexually gratifying. No other type of vandalism comes close.

You were 14 the first time you did it. Your arch-rival in prep-school ($100k annual tuition btw) had left his dad's picnic boat unattended at their lakehouse.

A few minutes (and acts of courage) later, and you were racing it out of the water, across their pier and halfway through their living room window. Life was never the same after that. You'd found your calling.

So when The Agency suggested you 'follow your passion' full-time after college, you could hardly believe your luck.

Drilling holes in the Chinese fishing fleet, cutting rudders on Iranian tankers... it's been a pirate's life for you ever since.

It's not all been rum and sea shanties of course. You lost an eye in a tavern brawl in Mogadishu, and are wanted for polygamy in most countries that have a coast.

But all the hardships of a life at sea were forgiven in March 2021 - or more precisely, Ever Given…

It was never quite clear who was in charge during the 'Biden' administration. You were informed by a committee of 'stakeholders' that 'a diverse array of American voices' needed a scapegoat to blame inflation on, and had concluded that the most ‘equitable’ one available was a traffic jam in the Suez Canal.

Naturally, your name had come up.

In short order you were 'accidentally' ramming a 200,000 tonne container ship into the banks of the narrow strait ("Is this way starboard? I'm dyslexic"), plugging it shut for nearly a week.

What a rush. 400 ships adrift. $60 billion in losses to international trade. A global news item for the Covid-imprisoned masses. The harbour master looked like he'd soiled himself; walked like it too. You were still laughing days after they dragged the sorry ship out of there (from the safety of the embassy in Cairo of course).

You'd thought that was the crest of your humble career. That life couldn't get any better…

As you gaze ahead at the Panama Canal from the bridge of the supertanker ploughing forth at full speed you count your blessings: What did you do to deserve a life of such mischief?

You hold up your Rolex Submariner to the sun for an Instagram shot (the ladies are gonna love this one). Part of your cover, it's one of 150 individually numbered Submariners (75 in steel, 75 two-tone) issued to celebrate America's gift of the canal to Panama on New Year's '99.

When you're detained for capsizing the vessel in the canal and flooding it with crude oil, your ownership of the watch will hopefully add authenticity to your claims that you love Panama (you have a wife here after all) and made an honest mistake 'fumbling a handbrake turn'.

Given how angry they're gonna be, you'll need every bit of help you can get. Your trusty Rorbaugh 9mm remains snug in its hidden holster as a contingency, but if all goes to plan the US Marine Corps (who just so happen to be performing exercises in the region) will be on scene to retake the canal 'see how they can help' before things get too tight.

Declaring ‘WMD’ (Woke Monroe Doctrine), the Whitehouse will furnish its environmental credentials by forcibly repurchasing the canal - in the interest of preventing further ecological disasters, of course.

You've been informed by procurement at The Agency that another series of Rolex Submariners with limited edition dials will be issued to celebrate America taking the canal back. You don't know what will be on the dial, but you've been assured you have an allocation.

"Anything, for the Sailor of Panama."

THE NORTHERN FRONT

SETTLING THE 51st STATE

Pioneer: Montanan Mountie-Hunter
Watch: Marathon Jumbo Search And Rescue, Red Maple edition 
Reference: WW194018SS-0406 
RRP: $1,800

Given how enthusiastic Canadians have become about killing themselves 'Medical Assistance in Dying', don't be surprised when yankees talented in providing such 'assistance' start jumping the border to lend them a hand.

US military veterans are heavily overrepresented in states which border Canada. Alaska to the West, Montana to the South and Maine to the East form a pincer movement of brewing GWOT PTSD that could boil over into 'Snow Mexico' at any point.

Having lost his marriage to Operation Enduring Freedom, his faith in the US government to Operation Inherent Resolve, and his sanity to QAnon, the Montanan Mountie-Hunter has little to lose and a 51st state to gain.

After Iraq he vowed he wouldn't be fooled again. But then a hot blonde MAGA patriot on Rumble said Canadians would greet him as a liberator if he waged a campaign of guerrilla warfare against the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. To free them from the grips of Communist Carney, of course.

With Justin Castreau out, Cuba's puppet government in Ottawa is on its last legs, she proclaimed through the screen of his UnPlugged™ smartphone.

"We only have to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down!" she said, icy blue eyes flashing, her usual Texan accent sounding strangely Russian for a second.

He barely noticed. He was already loading his Remington .300 and grabbing the INCH (I'm Never Coming Home) survival bag he'd spent an entire election cycle building.

Living in accordance with the traditional Montanan principle of 'living off the land' the Mountie-Hunter doesn't believe in paying for things when you can earn them with the sweat off your brow.

Sure, you could blow a couple thousand bucks on a new watch. Or you could find the ideal ambush spot overlooking a Tim Hortons, work hard, and furnish yourself with the scalps fruits of your labour once the smoke has cleared.

The Mounties strive to attain government issued kit like this Jumbo Search And Rescue watch from Marathon - so should you.

With drilled lugs, double-screwed links and 300M of water-resistance, the JSAR is as tough as you'll need to be to conquer the 51st state and bring Alaska home to the mainland USA.

While the Maple symbol will be outlawed as 'un-American' in all states and territories following your victory, you can be confident that Marathon (an official supplier to the US government) will offer you a sanitized replacement dial at no cost.

THE HOLY(IN-ONE) LAND

TEEING OFF IN THE ARAB RIVIERA

Pioneer: Dark MAGAzan Pathfinder 
Watch: Hamilton Ventura, Dune Edition
Reference: H24624330
RRP: $1,200

A dark shape stalks the blistering sands of the Levant.

His frame is enormous; his gait grim.

There are few things worse than being alone in the desert. But one of them is being alone in his company.

Placed in a coma and submerged in a tank of methylene blue for six months by order of RFK Junior himself, the Dark MAGAzan’s eyes now burn brighter than the dial on his bizarre quartz timepiece from Hamilton.

RFK was not the only one with plans for him. After confiscating all testosterone supplements from trans personnel in the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Hegseth ordered that they be directed into the the comatose MAGAzan via drip. He has become a hormonal bio-weapon; should he ever die, his corpse will transition the country that kills him.

His back is hunched, nearly buckling under the weight of past and upcoming war crimes. That, and from lugging an ultra-high capacity Sun Mountain™ golf caddy hundreds of miles across the arid wasteland.

His only animating force is to manifest the will of DJT. And one other thing.

'Clean out the strip', m'Lord Trump? It shall be so. I have but one request, sire...

Can I get a lifetime membership for the new course? And a property set back from the fairway of a signature hole on the back nine; elevated enough for a panoramic view, but shielded from direct ball fire by trees and/or landscaping. Maybe even with a view of a water hazard or - if possible - an especially scenic green. Close enough to feel the rhythm of the course (of course), but far enough away for some privacy and quiet. And positioned so the view from the porch is framed naturally, not forced — ideally capturing long sightlines down the fairway, with the pin visible in the distance. Morning light would be a bonus, but if the property can catch the golden hour across the course, even better. Ideally it sits past the 280-yard mark on a par five, where you can judge the line players take off the tee, and track who lays up and who goes for it in two. A spot where you could read greens from your veranda and know, instinctively, whether someone’s about to miss low si-

Jim Hawkins
The Treasure Island Times

⏭️ Coming up next week: Wetwork, Wallander, and the Wrong Watch for War Crimes

A coked-out Oxford grad grapples with the smouldering inadequacy of wearing a █████ watch while cleansing Greenland of Danish tyranny.

With the accession of Finland to NATO, the imminent stationing of Russian nukes in Belarus, and the US State Department telling all Americans to flee Russia, it’s time to start asking the big question.

Yes, dear reader - you know the one.

“How do I flex on my in-laws and every other poor bastard in the fallout shelter?”

Back in 2018, Putin showed a flashy CGI video of Russian hypersonic missiles nuking Florida, so my current circumstances have made answering this question a priority.

Picture the scene.

Hunkering down in the darkness of your shelter, listening alternately to radio static and the diesel generator churning in the background. Card games by candle-light. Your daughter’s annoying boyfriend (you never should have let him in) consoling her in a thinly disguised attempt to get laid.

Beef-jerky and cold baked beans to keep the hunger away. Potassium pills to stave off the white death.

No, really, my cold-wallets of BTC will make us aristocrats in the New World. Look beyond the mushroom clouds on the horizon - bitcoin is antifragile and nuclear-resistant. Seriously, I heard it on a Twitter Space. Saifedean Ammous was there. Listen, you wouldn’t understand- just empty the chemical toilets and go to bed.

As resources dwindle and daylight deficiency rot the brain, tempers grow brittle. Nerves strain.

It’s imperative you maintain your authority over your fellow shelter-mates - especially males - to prevent in-fighting and the collapse of your fragile patch of civilisation amidst the fields of ash. Remember: it’s for their own good. You were destined to do this, or whatever.

With that in mind, you must passively radiate (heh) your authority at every turn. And how better, than to flex on the competition with the only piece of jewellery straight anglo males can get away with?

After all, it’s the only time you can actually justify owning a watch. With batteries in short-supply and civilizational progress running in reverse, mechanical watches finally hold a practical purpose.

Billions may be dead, and civilization may be cancelled, but there’s still time to #bunkerflex.

Behold - five exquisite timepieces that’ll bring your nuke-chic wardrobe to critical mass…

1. Blancpain Fifty Fathoms, ‘No Radiations’ edition (reference: 5015B-1130-52)

About as ‘on the button’ as it gets for the oldest watchmaker in Switzerland. At 45mm in diameter, nobody is going to miss this as you strut about the fallout shelter doing absolutely nothing.

The ‘No-rad’ has a crossed-out radiation symbol on the dial (albeit in red and yellow rather than the traditional yellow and black), with the words NO RADIATIONS printed inside it.

Originally issued in the 1960s when Blancpain stopped using radioactive materials to make their dials glow in the dark, this modern re-release is a fitting accessory for bunker-dwellers of the managerial class.

PRO TIP: Use the dive bezel to time the underlings as they go about their chores. When someone starts slacking off, shove the watch in their face and get them to read the NO RADIATIONS print aloud. Then, verbatim:

“Right. That’s the message we’re trying to send in this shelter community. We don’t tolerate toxic attitudes, so if you don’t align with our values, you’re more than welcome to leave.”

2. Pobeda, RHBZ edition (reference: 2609)

To counter the conservative Swiss dial imagery (and high costs), let’s get the Russians involved. After all, it’s likely their plutonium you’ll be sheltering from.

Something of an antidote to the Blancpain, the dial also shows the radioactive symbol, but without a cross through it and in the colours you’d expect: yellow and black.

Manufactured in the USSR, this watch is dedicated to the RHBZ: the Soviet, and now Russian military unit tasked with Radiochemical, Biological, and Chemical defense.

Sheltering from Russian radiation with this on your wrist is especially ironic. When anyone questions your authority, say a member of the RHBZ warned you nuclear war would happen, and gave the watch as a gift upon completing a shelter-management course.

3. Panerai Radiomir, 3 Days Acciaio (reference: PAM00687)

A vintage-looking piece, with a dial designed to look like it has been discoloured due to continued radiation exposure. Perfect for the grizzled nuclear veteran that you aren’t.

Panerai have pulled-off two marketing miracles in the 21st century:

• Creating nostalgia for Mussolini’s military amongst politically correct Westerners.

• Creating nostalgia for the use of radioactive lume (radium) in watches.

Panerai used radium to make their dive watches legible underwater during their hey-day in the 1930s-40s. Despite the horrific tale of the Radium Girls, Panerai have (somehow) managed to cultivate a yearning for this era with their Radiomir line.

With a 47mm case diameter, nobody can avoid this titanic timepiece. Channel Il Duce as you bring order to the proles: “Democracy is beautiful in theory; in practice it is a fallacy.”

4. Breitling Emergency II (reference: E76321)

The most practical watch on this list, the Emergency contains a satellite emergency beacon that should summon a rescue team to your location almost anywhere on earth (provided you paid the necessary bond when you purchased it).

Will the Thunderbirds still arrive after a nuclear apocalypse? Only one way to find out. But you’ll need to place the beacon at ground-level or higher for it to work, so make sure you don’t pull the short-straw.

At 51mm in diameter, this is also the largest watch on the list - noodle-wrists will have trouble exerting authority with this jangling around on their arm. If this is you, buy a grip strengthener to bulk up your forearms - you’ll need one to while away the hours in the bunker anyway.

PRO TIP: Buy a second-hand Emergency with the Omani khanjar crest on the dial. Claim the Sultan gave it to you as a token of his appreciation after you “did him a solid” (refuse to elaborate).

5. Jaeger Le-Coultre Polaris, Mariner Memovox edition (reference: Q903818J)

This watch comes last on the list for a reason: it’d be worn better by the man launching the nukes rather than the one sheltering from them. Think Trident submarine captain. Sean Con in ‘Hunt for the Red October’. Barron Trump. Joe Biden when someone stirs his pill-soup the wrong way.

Jaeger claim this watch is named after the North Star, but they ‘launched’ it in the middle of the Cold War (1968) when Polaris nuclear missiles had been in the field for seven years already. Either they wanted to beat Lockheed Martin on the marketing front (lol), or it was a covert appeal to armchair generals.

At 42mm, this is the second-smallest watch on the list after the Pobeda, but the in-built alarm will make this stand out the most. Set it to chime at arbitrary times throughout the day. When it does, look down at your wrist, shake your head, and say “you need to be faster than this” at whoever is working nearby.

On the rare occasion when you have to do any work, excuse yourself from doing it as soon as the alarm rings. “I need to check our inventory/the geiger readings/the water acidity, I’ll be a while. Can I trust you to handle this?”

Until next time,

Jim Hawkins
The Treasure Island Times