Author: Kim du Toit

And A Not-So Joyeux Noël To You

Behind Enemy Lines, Morons & Idiots

In our family’s Great Catholic Tour of Europe back in 2008, we ended our trip in Paris in late December.

Most unusually, I got sick — some kind of Frog flu — and so when the kids wanted to go out and join the crowds in the Champs-Élysées on New Year’s Eve, we sent them off with a couple bottles of cheap champagne, hoping like hell that they wouldn’t disappear from our lives forever.  They didn’t, of course, even though there were about 600,000 people jammed along that famous Paris thoroughfare, all partying like frat boys.  As the city of Paris made travel on the Metro free from 6pm till 6am on Jan 1, the kids went from our apartment on the Place de la Bastille all the way up to the Arc de Triomphe and had the time of their lives.


(yes, it was also witch’s tit cold)

I wouldn’t think of doing that nowadays, of course, but never mind because:

The Champs-Élysées has been Paris’s symbolic place for celebrations since the Liberation parade in 1944. This is the year it ends.

Paris has canceled the iconic New Year’s Eve concert on the Champs-Élysées due to security threats (by migrants; they won’t say it’s because of migrants, and they will never address the problem). They are at the point of no return.

Now the French will have to watch the fireworks on their televisions.

They brought it on themselves, of course:  the French brought Africa into France, and have discovered that in so doing, they’ve not turned Africans into Frenchmen, but France into Africa.

Telle stupidité.

Roasted Taties

Food & Drink

I know, I know:  “A recipe?  On this website?  Kim, WTF?”

Bear with me.

As always, this year I’m hosting our family Boxing Day dinner, only this time without New Wife to help with the cooking.

This would not be a problem, because I know how to make the meal of roast beef:

However, the one thing I’ve never been able to master is the quintessential companion to rozzbiff:  roast potatoes.

And without New Wife — did I already mention that she’s gone AWOL to some family reunion thing in Cape Town? — I was going to be in trouble because I won’t say my kids are traditionalists, but any substitution of other potato formats (mash etc.) would likely cause taunting, ugly facial expressions and perhaps even a hanging.

So these past few days I’ve been experimenting, bigly, trying out various suggestions and different methodologies until finally, I figured it out.  Here, then, is Uncle Kim’s Roast Potato Recipe:

Use Yukon Gold potatoes only;  just note that large ones will require longer cooking time — I prefer to use the baby ones, myself.

Skin the things, and parboil them for about 15 minutes.  I’ve found that it works better if you drop them in cold water and bring to boil rather than dropping them into already-boiling water.

Now, about that water:  drop a half- to full teaspoon of baking soda into the water first and stir until the stuff has completely mixed in (beware clumps), and then add a teaspoonful of iodized salt.  (There’s a whole thing about alkali water being better for the potatoes to cook in than acidic water, but I don’t want to bore you to tears with the chemistry explanation.)

Remove the potatoes from the boiling water, and allow to cool for just a bit.  Pat dry with a paper towel — this is important, because they need to be completely dry at this point —  then use a fork to lightly scrape the outsides.

Spray the potatoes with some avocado oil, and sprinkle with just a little coarse kosher salt.  Stick the whole lot in a baggie and shake gently.  The salt “roughs up” the surface of the potatoes, which will make them crispy on the outside when cooked.

To cook:  Set the air fryer to 400, or pre-heat the oven to 450.  Cook for no less than 15 minutes — longer if you’re using the large potatoes or doing a large batch of the small ones.

Do not let the potatoes touch each other in the oven:  keep them separated.

Take out of the oven, and allow to sit for a just a few minutes.  Cut them lengthways in half — if for any reason they’re still undercooked in the middle, just pop them back in the oven for a few minutes more. Then serve.

Do not be surprised if these roast potatoes take the place of French fries in your future meals.  You have been warned.

Gratuitous Gun Pic: Boss 12ga

Gratuitous Gun Pics

Whilst idly browsing the shotguns at Collectors, I happened upon this wonderful piece:

Now, one might balk at paying $27,500 for a gun made in 1907, but one would run the risk of being called ignorant of Boss & Co.’s storied heritage.  And unlike some other marquee shotgun brands (Purdey coff coff ) who are part of the Beretta conglomerate, Boss is independently owned.  And as Boss has been in existence since 1812, one might assume that the London-based gun company is well-known to many discerning gun owners because of the excellence (“Best”) of their products.  And one’s assumption would be correct:

It should be remembered, by the way, that it was Boss & Co. who designed and made the very first over-and-under shotgun, back in 1909 (okay, I’ll forgive them this heresy) so in this, at least, John Moses Browning was a copier and not an originator.

And Boss haven’t made only long guns, either:

Boss & Co. are unashamedly devoted to making a premium product, and only a premium product — hence the term “Best Only”.  And yes, that premium comes at a steep price;  but to own a Boss shotgun is to own a work of art and a piece of history and heritage like few others.

And that’s the reason why I think that the old 1907 shotgun at Collectors is an absolute bargain.

More Bondi Beach Reflections

Law and Order, Terrorism

A story has come out about the OzCop who is supposed to have shot and killed one of the Muslim terrorist assholes, ending at least that one’s participation in the fun and games.

Some salient facts:  the gun was a Glock (model unknown), and the guy took his shot from just under 50 yards and dropped the dirtbag.

That’s some good shooting, or else just very lucky.  (That’s why we shooters concentrate on shooting 3- or 5-shot groups:  do it once, fine;  do it again, good;  do it five times, now we’re talking.  Consistency takes luck out of the equation.)  Consider the pic:

Couple of comments:  Note that Our Hero did two things that helped him:  he took cover behind a hefty tree, and used the trunk as a rest.  (If he’d made a 50-yard kill shot offhand, I’d have to go with a 60% luck factor unless he was a highly proficient handgunner with maybe some competition experience.)

As for the tree, it’s a well-known fact that a thick tree trunk will stop the vast majority of calibers, and as anyone will tell you, if you’re going up against a hostile shooter, cover is essential because the less of you he can see, the better chance you have of surviving.

Anyway, all’s well that ends well.  It’s just too bad the other asshole wasn’t shot and killed as well.

No More

Communication, Technology

Being a history buff, I’m always attracted to those Eeewww Choob videos that talk about the events that shaped our world.  But now I look askance at these videos, and in most cases I turn them off after only a few minutes.

The reason?  A.I. narration.

WTF is going on?  How difficult can it be to hire a speaker — an actual human — to read a frigging script, instead of turning the script over to some machine to create a sorta-human voice?

I am, as my Readers will know, something of a stickler for correct speech, be it grammar or spelling (in print, of course), and that sticklishness extends very much, oh very much indeed to the spoken word as well.

When I hear mispronounced words — sometimes with several different pronounciations of the same word during the course of the narration — it irks me as much as would a series of different misspellings of the same word in print in the course of a single article or essay.

So no, I’ve made a decision to ignore any video, no matter how interesting the topic, if it uses that stupid, wooden A.I. nonsense.

I’m irritated almost as much, by the way, by A.I.-generated “photos” or pictures, but when it comes to history, of course, there’s not always a photographic record of the event or of the people involved, so I can sort of deal with it.  Historical re-enaction using actual human beings can be horribly expensive, for not much benefit, so I can get along with phony actors and scenery.

But when it comes to speech?  Ugh, no.  There’s just too much dissonance — I mean, my own dissonance — for me to have any respect for the material, no matter the initial interest.

There it is:  no more A.I. narration for me.  I’d rather just buy a book on the topic.