Author: Kim du Toit

Maybe Not

Men & Women

Them times sure are a-changing… just not quite how Dylan envisaged it:

Tabitha Willett has sparked debate as she criticized ‘commuting men on their phones’ for not offering her a train seat – despite wearing a ‘baby on board’ badge. 

The Made In Chelsea star, 33, who is expecting her second child, took to Instagram on Tuesday to tell London commuters to ‘do better’. 

Sharing a short video of a busy train showing a number of people sitting and standing on their phones, Tabitha penned: ‘I don’t want to be a moan but… 

‘On the way back from the school run and a carriage full of men on their phones and no one stood up for a pregnant woman with a badge or elderly couple next to me. 

‘Do better London’.

Not gonna happen.

I mean, I myself will always stand up to offer my seat to a woman, pregnant or not.  But I’m not a younger man who’s had the shit kicked out of me since childhood by the public school system, by the media and by women in general for my toxic masculinity and frequent screams of “we can do anything that men can do”.

Well then, young men might say, you can bloody well stand on the train when there aren’t any open seats, just like men do.

And let’s be honest:  that passive-aggressive button (“Baby On Board”?  give me strength) isn’t going to help matters.

Back in the day, of course, such boorish and selfish behavior from younger men would have sparked a response from other men in the railway carriage, said miscreants being hoisted out of their seat by the collar, with maybe a few solid cuffs to the head thrown in.

Now?  No chance, chickie.

And you can think your ultra-feministicals for that, because men have a simple response for when the rules of the game are changed to their detriment:  they just stop playing.

Manners and courtesy, you see, have always been an indulgence and not a duty.  And the days of indulgence are over.

Like I said:  I’m not going to change;  the habits and manners of a lifetime are too ingrained in me for that simple rejection.  But when young men have never been taught those simple manners, those lubricants of polite society, and even been chided that said manners are arrogant and prime examples of The Patriarchy / Toxic Masculinity…

Well, they’re just going to stay in their seats.  As they should.

Right Direction?

Drive Time

Okay, maybe it’s not all doom ‘n gloom on the automotive front:

A legendary British muscle car, which went out of production 50 years ago, is set to be reborn as a luxury model for the 21st century – and it won’t be powered by batteries and electric motors.

The returning classic will be built near Oxford and powered by a V8 petrol engine, bosses behind the new project promise.

Banbury-based car firm Jensen International Automotive (JIA) on Wednesday confirmed that its ‘all-new, ultra-high-performance, luxury Grand Tourer’ will arrive this year.

And from the single teaser image shown, the new car is set to follow in the tyre tracks of the iconic Jensen Interceptor, with a two-door shooting brake silhouette.

Here’s the teaser pic:

Of course, that looks nothing like the old Jensen, more’s the pity:

…but at least they’re adhering somewhat to the Jensen formula of “British styling, American engine”, opting for the Corvette 6.2-liter V8 instead of the Chrysler 6.3-liter.  This way, they can call on 495hp compared to the older engine’s 250hp (anemic by today’s standards, but quite astonishing in its day).

From the looks of things, their target market would be… one-time Jaguar drivers.

Now tell me that didn’t push the needle of the old Irony Meter off the scale.

Seriously Tough

Hunting

Mr. Free Market has been doing some Internet research (LOL) during his break from evicting widows and demolishing historic homes, and has come up with this series of African hunting escapades, the PH being the peerless Buzz  Lightyear  Charlton, who cannot be described as a Zimbabwean.  Nope, anyone who stalks his prey in the African bush wearing Crocs or Birkenstocks is a damn Rhodesian.

Eland  (which makes me realize how lucky I was to get mine)

Buffalo

Elephant

I can’t see what the clients are shooting, but Buzz carries a .500 Nitro Express double rifle.

To call him an expert PH is to make a mockery of the term “expert”.

Oh, and note that after the shot is made, the party is in no hurry to get to the downed animal.  Caveat venator.

Scaling Down

Lifestyle

This is an interesting development:

Fewer booze buyers are reaching for the top shelf.

Americans aren’t thirsting for for the high-end tequila that once flowed freely, spirits companies said, as demand for $100 spirits has dropped off. Consumers appear to be trading down—or selecting less expensive versions of their preferred beverage—said Lawson Whiting, CEO of Brown-Forman (BF.A, BF.B), on Thursday, as sales of more affordable bottles fell less.

“We are seeing some weakening, for the first time, in terms of trade down,” Whiting said on a conference call, according to a transcript made available by AlphaSense. “When you look at $100 and above or $50-to-$100 [segments], those price points have weakened considerably.”

Industrywide, the number of $100-plus bottles sold has fallen 18% in the past three months, according to the market research firm NielsenIQ.

I’m not surprised.  All that high-end stuff, at the end of the day, delivers not much more in terms of taste and shall we say “knockdown power”, for a premium price.  And that would be okay, in isolation.

But when you have to spend $120,000 for an “economy” car — think I’m joking?  see how much you end up paying in total when you finance $45,000 over seven or ten years — and the cost of even the cheapest meal for two in a non-fast food restaurant will set you back well over $60, and your grocery bill rockets from $30 per week to $140… it doesn’t take a Nostradamus to predict that things are going to change when it comes to spending your money on what is after all an indulgence.

And the change can come with reduced consumption (as above) or simply learning to live with cheaper merchandise.

In earlier, less fucked-up times, I would now have been on my second or maybe even third car after the Tiguan;  instead, I now know that barring some kind of miracle, the Tiggy is going to be my lifetime vehicle.

I can’t remember the last time I bought a bottle of single-malt — years, I suspect — and it doesn’t matter because I seldom drink the stuff unless friends show up for dins, and a single after-dinner cocktail is called for.

It’s not just me, either:  the Son&Heir drinks maybe 10% of what he used to drink, booze-wise, and even my rowdy friends have cut back.

But spare me the sob stories of what this means for the manufacturers of high-end bling.  If ever there’s a case study in ripping people off for the “status” of using their products, vendors like Louis Vuitton, Glenfiddich, Porsche and Swarovski are headed for bleak times;  and I care not a fig for their predicament.