From Carl Hartley (of the Tom Hartley supercar dealership):
“The McLaren F1 tries to kill you. It treats you like you shagged its wife and beat its kids.”
Actually, it’s being a little cheeky: trying to kill you while it first plundered your bank balance to the tune of millions of dollars..
And he loves driving the thing. Go figure.
From The Divine Sarah, talking about depression:
“Anyway, part of the black dog these days is telling me that I’m done. I’ve done what I could, and now it’s over, and it’s time to shuffle quietly into that good night.”
I think pretty much everyone reaches that stage — I know I have — and I have nothing but respect for people who continue to do serious stuff well into their eighth decade (e.g. the current POTUS).
My old friend Max, he of the Busker Chronicles, put it in his usual cynical fashion: “Now all we have to do is wait for death.”
I find it increasingly difficult to summon up the enthusiasm to write about much — yesterday’s post about the German car business was one of the few times I could be bothered, because I was actually interested in the phenomenon that is German stupidity.
Otherwise, it’s one big shrug after another.
The only thing that continues to interest me is going “once more into the breech*”, i.e. shooting.
And now, if you’ll excuse me…
*I know, it’s “unto the breach”, thank you Shakespeare’s Henry V.
From Carl Hartley of Tom Hartley:
“Buying a Bugatti Veyron… you’re buying a cancer patient.”
He had something similar to say about the McLaren 720:
“You don’t drive it. As long as it sits in your garage, nothing’s going to break. But the minute you drive it outside, the clock starts ticking.”
I used to think the same way about 1960s-70s Alfa Romeos. The difference is that at that time, no Alfa ever cost well over a million bucks.
From these guys, talking about the response of Virginians to the latest round of socialist-inspired gun restrictions:
“When government signals that it wants to restrict a constitutional right, people often become more determined to exercise it.”
Which is what happened in Virginia. Somewhere out there, I can hear the chuckles of native Virginians Thomas Jefferson and George Washington.
“A prospective employee today saying that they don’t use A.I. is the equivalent of a prospective secretary in 1995 saying that she doesn’t use a PC.” — Scott Galloway
I hadn’t thought of it that way before — being preternaturally suspicious of A.I. as I am — but the more I read and speak to people, the more I’m starting to see why the above is true.
I’m just glad I’m not part of today’s prospective employee group.
From Reader Mike S.:
“Bloody High Standard pistols require as much fiddling as a Jaguar with SU carburetors.”
Made me giggle, that did.
But he speaketh da troof. I once had a Supermatic Trophy, like this one:
…and it was absolute mustard. But it was like an Alfa Romeo: it was a dream to run, until it stopped working. Which was often.
I’d just had it tweaked by Richard The Gunsmith, and took it to the range to see if it worked. I set up in the lane, and was taking it out of the bag when another shooter came up to me.
“You wanna sell that High Power?”
“Not really.”
“I’ll give you $600, cash, right now.”
“You collect High Powers?”
“Uh-huh. And that’s the purtiest one I’ve seen in years.”
So we settled on $700, and I used the money to buy something else — memory fails as to what gun, exactly.