Bonnie Scotland

Here’s where Mr. Free Market, Doc Russia, Combat Controller and I will be stalking deer for the rest of the week. The pics were taken in years passim, when the weather was fine (i.e. not freezing with rain/sleet/snow falling).




That’s Doc Russia and CC, suitably attired. I must tell you that if the weather turns anything like that, I shall be ensconced in our temporary home  with a roaring fire in front of my chair and a glass of a warming beverage in hand. Let the youngins freeze their thingies off; I’m too old for that nonsense. Fortunately, Mr. FM has arranged for suitable digs for us:

…and my bedroom, where I’ll huddle, shivering, if it’s too miserable to hunt:

And speaking of rogues, here’s Mr. FM on last year’s stalk, fresh from his day’s work:

…and lest anyone gets bent out of shape, let me remind everyone that what we’re doing is culling the game — injured deer and roes, not trophies — because without culling, the deer would overpopulate the estate and most would die of starvation as the grazing got sparser. And the meat goes into the estate’s freezers to generate income from venison sales to the public; we don’t get to keep any of it. (We can however, buy some from previous stalkers’ activities… watch this space.)

For those interested in such matters, the guns to be used are Mr. FM’s Blaser R98, Doc Russia’s blueprinted Remington 700 and Combat Controller’s Browning A-Bolt (all in .300 WinMag) and my Mauser M12 (6.5x55mm Swedish — because I don’t own a rifle in .300 WinMag).

Posting may be somewhat light over the next few days; there are no phone lines or cell towers, let alone an Internet connection, but I’ve put a few non-date-specific posts in the hopper to keep things fresh-ish.

See y’all next week.

 

The Story So Far

I arrived in Scotland last Saturday and spent the afternoon with Mr. Free Market, shopping for sundries (flip-up scope covers, whisky etc.) in preparation for next week’s shooting in Scotland.

Then that night the Fiend Mr. FM introduced me to a drink called “Whisky Mac”, a mixture of Scotch and something called “Stone’s Green Ginger Wine” (see below).

After extensive trial (one might even say over-sampling) of said beverage, I can safely say it is a fine thing but it can cause a massive hangover, as I discovered the following Sunday morning when Mr. FM dragged me out of bed at the crack of noon, threw me into a Land Rover and dragged me off to the range for some rifle shooting. Oy vey.

Let’s just say my marksmanship has been better.

It took me a day or so to recover from my overindulgence, whereupon last night The Englishman came over in his Land Rover, dragged me kicking and screaming away from Free Market Towers and deposited me into a place which serves Wadworth 6X and fish & chips, both of which I partook in great measure.

I’m not at my best today. Further blogging will occur when (if) I’ve recovered sufficiently.

Mr. FM returns from London tonight (fresh from evicting widows, beating junior staff and doing Capitalist Things in general), and will no doubt force more of those Whisky Mac things down my unwilling gullet. So tomorrow may see even more-painful blogging.

Yes; I’m having a wonderful time back Over Here, thank you for asking. It hasn’t even rained on me yet, and temperatures are around 45°F in daytime, falling to about 34°F at night. Outside, it looks something like this:

Few leaves on the trees, otherwise still green. Yes, I love it here; why do you ask?

And now, if you’ll excuse me… I’m off to make myself a nice hot cup of tea.

Back In Britishland

Back to my digs in Hardy Country, this time for only a brief-ish period (more on that later). Free Market Towers looked its usual splendid self:

…and to show you what fine hosts I have, Mrs. FM delayed the Friday Flogging until my arrival so that I, whisky in hand, could watch.

Nothing like the moans of the working classes to put one in a good mood… and tomorrow, it’s Range Time:

But first, I have to get through a little “Welcome Back” party tonight.

It’s a hard life, but what can one do?

And Away We Go

It’s time for Part 2 of Kim’s Amazing 2017 Sabbatical.

As you read this I’ll be in the hands [sic] of the TSA again.

Think they’ll like my t-shirt? I had it made for just such an occasion.
Back:

Front:

 

 

Define “Powerful”

Britain’s Daily Express just ran an article ranking the various countries’ passports in terms of what they term “power” — which for them means the number of foreign countries to visit without requiring an entry visa of some kind.

American passport holders have less power to travel visa-free compared to countries such as Germany, South Korea and the UK, having dropped down one tier in the Arton Capital passport index rankings since 2016.

Austria, Switzerland and Singapore rank with the above at or near the top of the list; we’re about fourth or so, because there are quite a few countries which require us to get a visa prior to arrival — India, as I once discovered for myself, being one.

And a lot of times, this is simply retaliation when we impose a visa restriction on their country:

Earlier this month, Turkey removed the visa-free status to the US after a row with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
US passports could be set to get weaker still, as the European Parliament voted to end visa-free travel for Americans back in March this year.
The vote came after Trump refused to allow visa-free travel to members of five EU countries: Croatia, Cyprus, Poland, Romania and Bulgaria.

Last time I looked, we still don’t need a visa to go to France for less than a 90-day period, which is good because I’m going to France for a week later on in the year and I’m damned if I would submit to their bureaucratic rigmarole just for that.

I once estimated that the average U.S. citizen will spend about $10,000-$12,000 (excluding airfare) over a two-week vacation trip to Europe. I am pretty sure that were the EU to make things more difficult for us to travel there, a number of people (myself included) would simply decide to go somewhere else — and thus spend our highly-prized U.S. dollars in a place where we’re apparently more welcome.

Which brings me back to the issue of “power”. Being able to visit a country without a visa does not fit my definition of power. This does.

If a citizen of a country is kidnapped or otherwise harmed when traveling in a foreign country, do you think the wrongdoers would feel more comfortable knowing that the victim is Singaporean (to pick one of the top passports at random), or an American?

Put even more simply: is there a risk that the Singaporean military would send a drone strike to snuff out the bad guys?

To me, that’s the real power of a passport: whether you can mess with your visitors with impunity, or whether you may get some more visitors from a Special Forces team in response.

So how does that make the U.S., U.K. and Germany (to name but three countries with bad-ass special forces) look now?

Of course, given the state of affairs right now, U.S. citizens face added insecurity when they travel because Muslim assholes look on us as high-visibility targets — so in that regard, we’re worse off than the South Koreans. Frankly, though, as long as Americans avoid traveling to places we’re warned about by the State Department, we do just fine. (And for those idiots who just have to spend their vacation in Yemen or Syria, you deserve everything you get.)

Right: I’m off to finish packing.

K-Cups In Britishland

 

No, this is not about some Brit tart with huge breasts — larger still than a “GGG” cup size — oh no, this is a serious post. Reader Chris C. sends me this news:

I remember you mentioned something about having a Keurig K-Cup brewer — I have one too. I also remember you mentioned something about not being able to find one in 220-240V for UK and other non-North American use.

I’ve actually found an option:

Stateside Coffee (Bidford)

They have the Keurig K140 which I think is the older version of the K145 commercial brewer that you can find in Office Depot right now. The price isn’t fantastic (£150), but given the dearth of options, it’s at least a workable one.

I don’t know about the K140/145, but I used to have the larger K150 which is an excellent coffeemaker.

(Daughter stole it from me and it’s still working, some five years since I bought it.)

So for all my Brit Readers who want to escape the Nespresso Matrix, here’s an option. As I see it, however, the only problem is the poor choice of K-cup coffee available Over There; even a cursory look through amazon.co.uk yields few options — although the Green Mountain coffee isn’t bad, it’s not Dunkin Donuts (which they may get, though, if you pester them for it. And the price isn’t too bad, about £1 per cup).

And for those of you Murkins who are looking for a more rugged version of the Keurig for your travels, Reader Chris suggests the CoffeeBoxx (which accepts K-cups):

Tactical coffeemaker? Kim likes, but the price is a little yowzer. Still (as any fule kno) you always pay more for mil-spec, so it may be worth it.

Many thanks, Chris.

I have the best Readers of any blog on the Internet. And now I think I’ll go and make me another cup of coffee, on my Keurig.

Then I’ll look at pics of Casey Batchelor on the Internet.