Author: Kim du Toit

Second-Best

The Gun Thing

We’ve had this conversation before on this website:

Should Your EDC Be A Throw-Away Gun?

The fact is, if you are involved in a self-defense shooting, say goodbye to your pistol.

The police are just doing their job, and one of their tasks is to collect evidence; ergo, your gun ends up in an evidence bag. Typically, the police will hold your firearm for a specified period until the investigation is completed.

If you are cleared and no charges have been filed, you can expect to get your gun back. Maybe. There is no set timeframe for returning your gun to you. Every state is different. But your gun will be logged as evidence.

Since I started to conceal carry—about the time Glock Gen3 pistols were introduced—I decided to be on the throw-away side of the fence. Both my EDC and pickup truck guns are throw-away guns.

Okay, I’ve thought about this issue a lot, and I think I disagree with Bob Sadowski on this one.  Here’s why.

Let’s be honest:  unless you live or travel in a high-crime area, the chances of you being involved in a self-defense shooting are fairly slim.  That’s not to say it’s impossible, of course — none of us is going to sign on to that foolishness.

But for my part, I want to know if that situation does happen to me, that I can absolutely, positively depend on my gun, and that confidence may well be the thing that saves me from harm.  I don’t want to feel any hesitation that when the hammer drops, there’ll be a boom and the bullet will go where intended.

To be fair, Sadowski is not recommending going with a cheap gun — let’s leave Saturday Night Specials to the criminal element, and let them deal with the consequences of a mag falling out of the gun, or a firing pin snapping, or all the other mishaps that El Cheapo guns are prone to.

But using my own situation as an example:  my everyday carry gun is a Springfield 1911.  It’s not a Nighthawk or an Ed Brown 1911, but it sure as hell isn’t a Jennings or Raven either.  I’ve always been reluctant to spend the extra money necessary to climb up the flattening shallow slope of the quality curve;  sorry, but “good enough” is fine for me, whether guns, cars, watches or even food.  (That I don’t have the wallet to be able to afford the premium is neither here nor there — when I have had the wherewithal, I’ve never spent it.)

So if I do have to ventilate some scrote to protect me or mine, then yeah, my Springfield could end up rusting in some poxy evidence locker somewhere.  That would be sad, believe me, but then again, it’s a sacrifice worth making because that means it worked as I expected it to do.

What I’ve done is make sure that my backup EDC is also a 1911, and should I lose the Springfield under the above circumstances then I’m going to have equal confidence in its replacement.

I’m not going to be held hostage by sentiment or some romantic notion of ownership.  At the end of the day, as much as I love my Springfield, if it fulfills its intended purpose, then it’s a job well done and yeah:  I can believe that it gave up its life for me.  How’s that for romance?

But I’m not going to leave the Springfield at home and carry a Glock 21 (which I couldn’t care less about losing because I have little regard for the spongy-triggered Glock pistols, as any fule kno).  Thanks, but no thanks.

As for a truck gun… well, that’s a whole different set of circumstances (assuming that we’re talking about a long gun like a shotgun or rifle).  Here we’re talking about shall we say some crowd control instead of just one or two individuals.  And under those circumstances, I really don’t care what happens to the piece if I’ve used it as intended.

What I’m more worried about is the possibility of theft (which is not an issue with a carry piece).

But I’ll tell you what:  a truck / trunk gun should not be that M1 Garand National Match, no matter how much you trust it to take care of business.  Honestly, one of those Mossberg 88 pump-action shotguns — preferably the second-hand one you picked up at that gun show for $90 all those years ago –should be the direction of your thinking.

Now, if you’re fairly sure you might be involved in some serious action… then you should stay home.  Seriously.  Only idiots go out looking for trouble.  But if there’s no choice in the matter, then take the very best long gun you have — and I don’t mean that $15,000 A.H. Fox side-by-side, of course;  I’m talking about an AK-47 or AR-15 because we’re talking about Last Resort / End Times / SHTF action, and you owe it to yourself (and to whomever else you’re protecting) to take the absolute best you can.  Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures.

But the chances of that happening are even less than being accosted by some scrote at a 7-11 when you popped out for an emergency pack of baby food.  The Random Goblin Encounter is what your EDC is for;  End Times will be a different situation altogether.

Pick your gun accordingly, and be careful (but prepared) out there.

Quote Of The Day

Immigration, QOTD

From the Reform UK party’s first elected mayor, Andrea Jenkyns:

“I say no to putting [illegal immigrants] in hotels. Tents are good enough for [them in] France, they should be good enough for here in Britain.”

Her logic is irrefutable.

Of course, my suggestion (that the tent encampments should be located on uninhabited islands in the Outer Hebrides, far away from the British mainland) would no doubt be considered too Krool & Hartless, even by Dame Andrea.

No Surprises There

Elections, Mocking Furriners

Well, the Strylians have re-elected their left-wing Labor Party by an even larger majority than last time, so clearly they’re happy with Comrade Albanese, his fellow-travelers and their Red & Green policies.

No doubt they’ll combine massive anti-Trumpism with pleas for the US to help them fend off Chinese imperialism in southeast Asia.

Plus ça change, etc.  Hell, even the Brits are showing signs of coming to their senses — but the Strylians?  Forget abaht it, it’s just head-in-the-sand time, pour another beer on the barby and whine about the Poms beating them at cricket.

Useless fucking wankers.

My Loyal Readers from Oz — and there are quite a few — probably feel even worse about the situation than I do.

Monday Funnies

Funny Stuff

Does this mean it’s Monday and back-to-work time?

And in our weekly diary:

Back to the usual stuff:

And to end all this with something(s) worth looking at:

Now go and do that stuff you do every Monday morning.  Have one for me while you’re there.

Classic Beauty: Joyzelle Joyner

Classic Beauty

Not all Hollywood female dancers were of the Ginger Rogers-Cyd Charisse type, oh no.  Especially during the early years of the movies — notably in the silent era — there was a huge demand for “classical” or “exotic” dancers, usually as backdrop during the swords ‘n sandals genre.

Maybe the best known of these was Joyzelle Joyner, who appeared (often un-credited) in dozens of them.

In The Sign Of The Cross, her dance sequence was cut because of its “lesbian overtones”:

She’s also reputed to have done studio modeling, although not too many of those have survived (and nor have most of her movies, sadly):

Read more

Another Crap List

Drive Time, Lists

I don’t know why I subject myself to these things — pure masochism, probably — but here’s yet another flawed list of stuff as per the Daily Mail:

The 50 greatest British cars of all time ranked by experts

Okay, let’s start with some definitions, specifically the meaning of “greatest”.  Are we talking most popular in terms of sales, most memorable, most iconic, best performance… which?  Any?  All of the above?

Let’s not even start talking about a list that includes models from Toyota and Nissan.  (Ford, however, gets a pass because Ford UK has often gone their own way, in terms of both design and performance not reflected in the US company’s models.)

Sheesh, I’m not even sure that Britain has ever produced as many as 50 cars that could be called great.  My list will be confined to 25.

Still, it’s no use criticizing someone else’s list without putting forward your own, with supporting arguments.

Here’s Kim’s List of Top 25 British Cars

#1:  Mini.  Can’t argue with this one.  It’s quintessentially British, punches way above its weight class, typified the spirit of an era and not even the Germans could mess it up when they bought the company, although they tried.

#2:  E-type Jaguar.  No argument here, either.  Easily one of the most beautiful cars ever designed, and performance that even today measures up to modern sports car standards.

#3:  Land Rover Series/Defender.  Quite possibly the most iconic British car, internationally.  Can still be found chugging around the Third World, in both private and military service.  Was the most popular UV until Toyota introduced their Land Cruiser.

#4:  Range Rover.  Created the entire class, and was the benchmark for the term “luxury sports-utility vehicle”.

So my top 4 is the same as the Mail’s top 4.  Here’s where our opinions start to diverge, however.

#5:  Aston Martin DB5.  Thanks to James Bond, to many people it’s more the quintessential British sports car than the E-type.

#6:  Rolls Royce Silver Ghost.  The first true luxury sedan, made to the most exacting standards, and a car fit for kings.  Before the First World War, after which kings became somewhat redundant (more’s the pity).

#7:  MG T-Series.  Made silly little British sports cars enormously popular in the U.S., starting during WWII when visiting American soldiers discovered the concept of “open-top fun driving”, and took the TA and later the TC models home with them.  They were an absolute mainstay of British exports during that period, and helped Britain’s war-ravaged economy immensely.

#8:  Jaguar XK120.  Another stalwart export for Britain, the XK120 was also wonderfully fast for its time, and it always amazed me that in a country known principally for its rain, so many cars were “drophead” soft top models.

#9:  SS-100.  The first of the breed, the 1930s-era Standard Swallow (later Jaguar) Model 100 was a snorting monster more suited for the then-new German autobahns than the pitiful British country lanes of the period.

#10:  Bentley Blower.  Competed in (and won many of) the early Le Mans 24-hour races in the 1930s, sometimes in 1-2 finishes.  (The DM‘s list puts this baddest-of-bad-boys at #29, which just shows you what idiots the judges are.)

Those are my Top 10.  Now for the nochschleppers.

11.  Jaguar MkII.  I’ve spoken about this car before, noting its outstanding good looks, luxury and wonderful performance — and all for a price well below what similar luxury cars demanded at the time.

#12:  Austin Seven.  Known as the “Seven” because its 747cc engine put out a princely seven horsepower.  It may surprise some people, but back in the 1920s, the pace of life was much slower and the power of seven horses was still quite marvelous.  It was Britain’s answer to Ford’s Model T, and Austin ended up selling just under three hundred thousand of them.

13.  Morgan Plus 4.  It was made for 70 (seventy!) years, almost unchanged since 1950, and should still be in production but it isn’t.

#14:  Ford Cortina.  An unassuming little saloon car, the lightweight Cortina became a common view in the road races of its time.  I’m showing the rear view of this Mark 1 because of its trademark rear light setup.

#15:  Lotus Seven / Caterham.  “Add lightness” was the brilliant designer Colin Chapman’s famous dictum, and nothing embodies this better than the bare-bones Seven.  And in their Caterham incarnation, they’re still being made and sold either as DIY kits or fully assembled.

#16:  Morris Minor.  Designed in 1948 by the same guy who designed the Mini (#1) and manufactured until 1971 (!), the Minor was the first British car to sell over a million units (actually, 1.6 million altogether), and for a very long time, defined “Britishness” in the minds of many.

#17:  Alvis Speed 25.  The wonderful Speed 25 doesn’t even appear on the DM‘s list, hence the “crap” epithet in the title.

#18:  Austin Healey 3000.  I’ve spoken before of my affection for this lovely beast, and it took a mighty effort of will not to put it in the top 5.

#19:  MGB GT.  Beloved by everyone who ever owned one, the GT was another of those quintessentially British sports cars.

#20:  AC Ace.  The Ace was in a class of its own:  a 120bhp engine covered by a token body and begrudgingly, a seat for the driver.  It still looked wonderful, and in addition to a 100+mph top speed (rare during the mid-1950s), it was the progenitor of Carroll Shelby’s mighty AC Cobra,

#21.  Ford Escort.  Like its predecessor the Cortina, the Escort became the 1970s (and -80s) solution to the need for a small, economical family car.  And like the Cortina, it became a mainstay of street- and even rally-car racing.  Unlike the Cortina, however, Ford UK sold over four million Escorts from 1967 till 2004.  And the Cosworth-powered RS2000 model was an absolute monster which could keep up with the Dino Ferrari of similar vintage in a light-to-light drag race.

#22:  Jaguar XJ6.  Like its earlier saloon predecessor the MkII, the XJ6 combined power, extreme luxury and excellent styling.

#23:  Triumph TR4.  Yes, another sports car.  Except that anyone who’s ever driven a TR4 will still tell you how great it was.

#24:  Rolls Royce Silver Cloud MkII.  Was there ever another car which described “class” and “luxury” better, and was there another car of such ilk ever so instantly recognizable?  Unlikely.

#25:  McLaren 720S.  Alert Readers will have noticed that I’ve given short shrift to modern British cars, and that’s because nowadays they all look and behave like cars from other countries.  [250,00-word rant on modern cars deleted]
However, the 720S deserves a spot on this — or any — list of great cars, because it was built with absolutely no compromises.  It had to be super-fast, super-light and (comparatively speaking) super-reliable.  Oh, and it had to be able to carry a passenger and handle lots of luggage as well.  So the legendary Gordon Murray produced this beast, which even put the driver’s seat in the center of the chassis (for the no-compromise driver experience), relegating the two passenger seats to the rear.  And until the arrival of the ridiculous (and vanity project) Bugatti Veyron several years later, the 720S was the fastest production car in the world.

I know, I know:  British cars are unreliable, there’s Lucas Electrical, they fall apart and they leak rainwater.  However, there’s one thing the Britishlanders can do as well or better than any other nation on Earth:  design wonderful cars.  (The execution of such design magnificence, however:  hello, British Leyland.)

But when it comes to creating something beautiful, astounding and occasionally world-beating, few nations can compete with (in Jeremy Clarkson’s memorable expression) some British guy named Trevor in a shed somewhere in Blackpool.

Here’s the TVR Coupe of 1958:


(TVR = “TreVoR” Wilkinson)

Ever wonder why almost all Formula 1 cars’ headquarters are based in Britishland?

‘Nuff said.