Author: Kim du Toit

Taking A Hammering

The Gun Thing

So the morning after the day of the Salon Privé at Blenheim Palace (see here and here, below), I was rudely awoken by Mr. Free Market hammering on my door with a cheery, “Come on! Let’s go do a little shooting!”

Now I have to admit that I’m not the drinker I used to be, and the Whisky Hobgoblins were using jackhammers on the inside of my skull. Still, a little plinking at rabbits with .22 rifles somewhere on the Free Market Towers estate couldn’t hurt, I thought as I stumbled from my bed.

Did I say “.22 rifles”? Not really. Mr. FM (who is obviously made of sterner stuff than I) had decided that we were going to do some serious shooting, as evidenced by the rifles he was stowing away in the back of the Land Rover. They are, from top to bottom: Blaser R8 in .300 WinMag, Blaser double in .30R (the Euro equivalent of the .30-06), another Blaser double in .375 H&H Magnum, and my Mauser M12 in 6.5x55mm (in Mr. FM’s words, “so that you won’t get too banged about”).

Fortunately, a couple pints of strong black coffee restored my health somewhat (I turned down a suggestion of “a hair of the dog” from Fiend FM), so off we went.

At the Corinium shooting range up in Gloucestershire, Mr. FM and I first sighted in our single-barreled rifles from the bench — I discovered that the difference in zero between a 6.5x55mm bullet of 140 grains and 120 grains amounted to approximately 1″ per 10 grains, i.e. a zero with a 140-grain bullet meant that the zero drifted up 4″ when shooting the lighter 120-grain one — while Mr. FM fired but two rounds of .300 WInMag, got a quarter-inch group in the bull and declared himself satisfied (as well he should be), and then we went downrange to play with the double rifles. (All pics by Mr. FM, by the way.) Here’s what we were shooting (l-r: Merkel .470 Nitro, Blaser .375 H&H, and Blaser .30R):

…and from the business end:

Dear Readers, I’m not going to use my hangover as an excuse for what followed.

I have always prided myself on being able to shoot offhand competently from a standing position — in the past, I have been capable of sideplate-sized groups at close range (25 yards) — but I haven’t had much (okay, any) practice in this particular discipline in several years, and boy, did it show. Here’s a pic of the fiasco:

Shooting Mr. FM’s .375 H&H double, the first shot was a clear miss of the deer — about a half-inch below the body, the second marginally better (in that it actually hit the deer silhouette), but the bullet strike was still about a quarter-inch outside the kill-zone. Result in real life: a wounded deer. Ugh. Even worse, I fired a few more rounds with range owner Paul’s Merkel .470 Nitro Express (loaded with bunny-fart practice ammo) and I still couldn’t hit anything. And recoil was not an issue, either. Here are the pre- and post pics which demonstrate the recoil — which was not excessive.

Shit. Poor shooting like this is total bullshit, and I cannot allow that to stand. So when I get back Over The Pond in two weeks’ time, I am going to be putting in some extensive trigger time in Texas on my offhand shooting: of that you can be sure.

I can only apologize to Mr. FM and Paul for my pathetic shooting, but I promise that the next time, I will not make a fool of myself again.

On a side note: I have got to lose some weight — fucking hell, I look nine months pregnant — so there’ll also be a lot less fork time when I get back.

Blenheim Salon Part 2

Guy Stuff

So after having ogled the cars etc. in the exhibition area (and the avenue leading into the exhibition, see yesterday’s post), Your Humble Narrator ambled off to the auction hall, where sundry items of deliciousness were to be found, pre-auction. Once more, I shall say but little, just post a few examples. The model dates are approximate, for reasons which will become apparent later.

1963 MG:

1950 Jaguar Mk V:

1958 Mercedes 300S:

1962 Sunbeam Tiger:

1965 Lancia Flavia (This car was so beautiful — the picture does not do it justice — that I wanted to marry it so that it could bear my children. Suffice it to say that of all the automotive pulchritude on display, even Mr. FM had found it memorable.)

1958 Jaguar XK 140:

Now, I have to confess that Mr. FM was getting somewhat impatient, tapping his watch and muttering something about “getting going before darkness falls”. Also, I have to confess that by this point, some six hours since our arrival, I was starting to feel the effects of the open bar at the Privé — let’s just say that I’d consumed fairly substantial quantities of wine, champagne and J&B — and I think Mr. FM was trying to spare me from the indignity of loud proposals of marriage to some of the cars. At least, that’s what I thought at the time.

So he bundled me into the Range Rover and off we went — but curiously, not along the same road we’d come in on. Instead, he took an abrupt turn off the main road and plunged down into a series of hills and dales along an allegedly two-lane road that was so narrow, I would have had trouble riding a Fiat 500 down it without grazing both rearview mirrors on the roadside hedgerows. Then, as the evening sun was getting close to the horizon and we reached the bottom of a valley, he pulled off onto a small piece of open land and said, “You might want to take a picture of this.”

And I did; more than one. First, the house of (I think) the owner of the property:

…followed by a couple of vistas:

Good grief. Words cannot describe the beauty of the Cotswolds. You just have to see it for yourself.

Then we went home, and Mr. FM and I finished the day’s festivities off by imbibing vast quantities of whisky before retiring for the night.

Altogether, an unforgettable day, and one for which I will be eternally grateful to my gracious host.

Blenheim Salon Part 1

Guy Stuff

So yesterday, Mr. FM dragged me kicking and screaming to something called a “Salon Privé”, an annual shindig held on the grounds at Blenheim Palace, home of the Duke of Marlborough. (I say “dragged” in the sense of “invited”; the “kicking and screaming” actually came later, when it was time to go.)

What is this Salon thing, you ask? It’s a classic car exhibition and auction (more of which in Part 2 of this account, tomorrow).

So as we swept up the driveway towards the Duke’s little pad,

I was oohing an aahing at the exquisite cars assembled:

…whereupon Mr. FM dryly informed me, “Dear heart, this is just the parking lot; the exhibition is on the other side of the house.”

Oh.

So we wandered down the alley of cars:

…until we got to the exhibition itself.

Ahem.

I will say no more, just post a few of the dozens of pictures I took. First, the Jag XK120:

A couple of (the many) Ferraris:

Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato

Mercedes 300 SL:

Some 356 Porsches:

There were also a few shouty cars (aimed at the Russian / Arab Oil Oligarch’s Son Set, no doubt):

…but we’ll say no more about them. Instead, here’s a Bentley Tourer from the 1930s:

…which was, too, somewhat shouty (i.e. foul), except when properly decorated:

Speaking of decoration, there was lots of it:

  

…and one lovely young lady even asked me to take her pic in front of her car:

Heavens be praised, not a Train Smash Woman in sight. Just a couple more car pics. First, an Atalanta Sport:

Jaguar XJ220 (one of my favorite “modern” Jags:

…and standing out like a dog turd on a table cloth, this thing:

…which looked all the more ridiculous when you consider what was standing next to it:

But let me end this post with something of an overview:

Tomorrow, we’ll look at what was available on auction.

 

 

5 Worst Women To Be In An Orgy With

Friday Feature, The Worst

American:

There is a serious public health warning attached to each link in this post.

British/International:

  • Polly Toynbee (by the way, the link contains a big fat lie — she’s a Marxist, not a “social democrat”, whatever that is)
  • Harriet Harman (a.k.a. Harriet “Harperson”, ’nuff said)
  • Caitlin Moran (like Naomi Wolf above)
  • Diane Abbot
  • Angela Merkel

I was going to publish a companion piece of the five worst men to have an orgy with, but I suspect that most of my choices (from: O.J., Chris Brown, Howard Stern, Anthony Weiner, the entire male cast of Jersey Shores etc.) would probably find favor with quite a few women… [sigh]

Sinking Ship, Fleeing Of

Politics

I note that conservative activists are leaving California in ever-greater numbers, and while I understand the impulse that makes people want to stay and fight, I sympathize more with those who have given up California as a lost cause and just want to get back to living in freedom.

I left Chicago for precisely those reasons.

I note that one of the conservative folks in the article landed up in McKinney, which is just a town or so over from my adopted home of Plano, TX. This is a good thing. As more and more people are discovering the joys of living in a conservative, well-planned and -managed area, it’s inevitable that the creeping cancer of liberal asswipes are also going to infiltrate the place; so it’s good to get a few firebrand gun-lovers (like, errr, myself) moving in to maintain the conservative imbalance, as it were.

I note with some alarm that Hillary Bitch Clinton got more than a few votes in our voting district, which meant that the outstanding Rep. Sam Johnson (PBUH) only squeaked in with 62% of the vote — his lowest margin ever, as I recall. (To put this in perspective, the next district north of us went 78% for Trump.)

So to all conservative Californians of that ilk — please come on over: Plano, McKinney and Allen will welcome you with open arms. And I bet you’ll just love the indoor range in Frisco (not the cesspit y’all know in the north of CA, but a good conservative town). This invitation is especially aimed at those Loyal Readers who are marooned in a rising tide of Blue liberalism — you know who you are.

Screw California. Let the place circle the bowl and sink without a trace. And if, in terms of the heading of this post you’re called “rats”, let me remind you that it’s the rats who first leave a sinking ship. You’ve done your bit as much as you could; now come and relax in freedom’s welcoming arms. Oh, and speaking of arms: you can ditch those stupid California-compliant semi-automatic rifles; we prefer the real thing here.

A Second Guilty Pleasure

Entertainment

Longtime Readers may recall that I’ve confessed to a guilty pleasure: reading writer John Sandford’s novels (both the Lucas Davenport- and Virgil Flowers sagas). Well, old Lucas is getting a little long in the tooth (although his latest career move seems to have rejuvenated him), and I’m a little iffy about Virgil Flowers’ character, so subconsciously I’ve been looking for a replacement guilty pleasure — and I think I’ve found it.

Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce Volker Kutscher‘s Inspector Gereon Rath of the Berlin CID’s Homicide Division. Except that whereas Davenport and Flowers are both set in contemporary Minneapolis, Rath is busy solving murders in Depression-era Berlin — to be specific, 1929-1938: one of my all-time favorite periods of history, and my dream setting for a novel*.

I think Rath is one of the best characters in fiction, of any genre, and I am so fortunate to have discovered him. (By the way, I found Babylon Berlin by chance at Foyle’s Books, which makes up for my disappointment at their “modernization” of the venerable establishment.) I read the novel in one night, and went straight back the next day to buy Silent Death.)

And the novels really are terrific: as I said, Babylon Berlin took me just one night to read and Silent Death only a little longer than that, because I didn’t want it to end quickly, so much was I enjoying it. Sadly, only these two (of the half-dozen Rath novels extant) have been translated into English so far, so I won’t be able to binge-read them; but you can be sure I’ll buy the rest as soon as they’re available. (Sadly, my conversational German is adequate, but my literary German is schrecklich, so I’ll just have to be patient.)

Even better, Babylon Berlin has been made into a 16-part TV series for German TV, so if anyone from Netflix is reading this… oh, wait: someone’s on the ball already. I can’t wait.

*I was contemplating writing a companion piece to Vienna Days, to be set in 1928 Berlin, but there’s no need now: Kutscher has relieved me of the responsibility. So: 1900 Budapest it will have to be.