1 Minnesota Jones: If we fly to Kiev, we can still intercept Dr Smith. To the airport!
2 Prof. Jones: Oooh. There's a good view of Kiev's Saint Sophia Cathedral and Mariyinsky Palace from the air.
3 Monty: Isn't it a bit difficult to see them out of a tiny plane window?
4 Prof. Jones: Not if ukraine your neck.

Saint Sophia Cathedral is one of the major landmarks of Kiev. Construction began in 1037, and reconstruction occurred in the 17th century. It's an impressive Byzantine structure, with 13 green cupolas mounted by golden spires. It's also the first site in Ukraine to be listed as a World Heritage site.

Mariyinsky Palace is the ceremonial residence of the President of Ukraine, adjacent to the Ukrainian Parliament. There have actually been two palaces on the site. The first was built in 1755 and burnt down in 1819. After 51 years, the palace was rebuilt with the same facade, using old drawings and paintings as reference.

When I put the set together for this strip, I included a figure in the background through the window. Unfortunately, the random LEGO guy I grabbed from my box of figures happened to be wearing a sleeveless shirt, and in the resulting photo he looks rather like he's naked. And his hand is in a rather unfortunate position if you squint and have a dirty mind...

So to avoid any questions about what that guy in the window was doing, or accusations of breaking my PG rating, I did a rather more aggressive crop of the images for panels 2 and 3 than I had originally intended.

I'm just glad I noticed this when I was putting the strip (no pun intended) together, and not after readers started questioning it. Such are the hazards of creation!

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2014-10-02 Rerun commentary: What, you don't like Ukraine puns? Oh, Crimea river...