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Noise And Sighing

Men & Women

Here’s something in the Daily Mail  that I actually agree with:

Ignore this hyped-up nonsense about women’s sex lives

Turn on the TV or flick through the pages of any glossy magazine and you’ll get the impression that women in their 50s and beyond barely have time to catch their breath between steamy sex sessions with their (more or less) significant others.

Visions of flowerbeds abandoned, knitting unattended, reading glasses discarded, Marks & Spencer shapewear scattered underfoot as the nation’s menopausal matriarchs maintain meaningful dialogue with their nether regions. The only trouble is, it’s all hyped-up nonsense. This notion that our sex lives begin at 50 is not borne out by the facts.

And while I don’t doubt that Carol Vorderman et al are having a super time boudoir-wise, for most women the reality is rather less thrilling.

A survey of 5,000 Brits has found that 47 per cent of women aged 50 to 54 had not enjoyed any intimacy in the previous three weeks, rising to 52 per cent for those in their late 50s. Among women in their early 60s, that figure rose to two-thirds.

Three weeks?  Among women of my approximate vintage, I’ll wager that the time period can be measured more accurately in months — except that most people lie like Clintons about their sex lives.  They may be too ashamed that the last time they had any nookie was New Year’s Eve, and even then it was more like a drunken fumble before both participants passed out.  So when asked the question, they’ll cross their fingers and say “Quite recently, actually.”

Considering that most of the women in Sarah Vine’s article can most charitably be described as whores (media, attention-seeking, gold-digging, power-chasing whatever), it doesn’t surprise me that their concomitant sex lives with toyboys, ageing billionaires and their male celebrity counterparts are going off like alarm clocks.

And still more to the point:  when did the details of people’s sex lives become anyone else’s business?  I know it pays to advertise, and if I know anything about men — and I do — it’s obvious that by these women blaring out the workouts that their well-trodden pudenda are willing to offer, at least some guys are going to go after the well-aged honey in those wrinkly pots.

But as Mrs. Vine points out, that’s not the way to bet when considering normal, non-celebrity women.

Classic Beauty: Tempest Storm

Classic Beauty

“If you’re going to be bad, be bad;  if you’re going to make being bad your career, do it all your life.”

In the case of Tempest Storm, the “bad” was to be a burlesque dancer and stripper;  and she did it from her teens until… well, her last performance was at age 90.  So let’s get on with the show:

Here she is in glorious Technicolor:

And here, at age 85:

And a redhead… wonderful, she was.

Read more

Worthy Additions

The Gun Thing

Just the other day I was sauntering in a desultory fashion along the well-trodden (by me) byways of Teh Intarwebz, and happened upon Collectors Firearms Cruffler pages.  (For my Furrin Readers and others unfamiliar with the term, it stands for guns classified as curios and relics — C&R firearms — and the licencees thereof are known as Crufflers.  They are mainly people like me, although I’ve never had a C&R license.)

Anyway, here’s the page;  and if you follow the link, you’ll see that almost all the fine old beauties listed show signs of age — e.g. “some frosting in the barrels”, “slight pitting” and “dings and scratches”, to name but some.

Most alarmingly to my eyes, however, are the prices, which seem to be mostly in the > $1,000 stratosphere (and some a great deal more than that).

And yet, amidst all that carnage are to be found some excellent bargains, namely, some of the excellent Swiss Schmidt-Rubin Model 1911 straight-pull rifles and carbines (here, here and here).  Note the prices, which are well under that magic one-grand number.  Here’s the 1911 (long) rifle (one of which I once owned, and still wish I’d never sold):

Indulge me for a moment while I ramble on about these rifles.  Here’s what I said about them in my Great War Rifles post:

First introduced in 1896 and improved in 1911, chambered for the powerful 7.5x55mm Swiss cartridge, the Model 1911 had a straight-pull bolt action, and was unquestionably made to the highest quality standards of any rifle of the time (and higher even than many production rifles of today).

The Mod. 1911 is a marvel of functionality, its workings intricate and precise, its accuracy outstanding.

(For the whole story, feel free to diverge from this post and watch Othias and Mae’s take, and if you’re too impatient, just watch Mae shooting the thing.)

To work the Mod. 1911’s action is to experience poetry in engineering, and the rifle, even with that forward-mounted rear sight, is more accurate than 90% of the people who’ll ever shoot it.  (The later K.31 shortened the action and moved the rear sight back towards the breech.)

Let me be succinct:  if one takes into account the quality of workmanship, ease of use, smoothness of the action, efficacy of the ammunition, and finally price, I cannot see a better bargain in the firearms market than these three rifles.

So:  what about the ammo?

Sadly, the original RUAG-made 7.5x55mm (or GP 11) ammo ended production in the 1990s, but apparently has since been restarted as of 2016.  I say “apparently” because I suspect it’s being made purely for domestic use in Switzerland as I can’t find it for sale anywhere in the U.S. of A.  Here’s what it looks like:

It was the only ammo I ever used when I still had my 1911 rifle, so I have no idea how other brands will perform.

“Did you say other brands, Kim?”

Indeed I did.  A quick perusal at Ammoseek brought forth these options (click to embiggen):

I know, it’s a little spendy at $1.20+ per pull, but to put it in perspective, that’s cheaper than the current price of .30-30 I’ve been seeing.  (I would go with the Czech Sellier & Bellot, just because I’ve had excellent results with their other calibers before.)

Here’s my suggestion:

For just under (or a little over, depending on your choice) $1,000 you can get your hands on one of the best bolt-action rifles ever made, one that still shoots as well as the day it left the factory, along with 200 rounds of ammo to feed it.  It will almost certainly outshoot all the other C&R rifles listed at Collectors, and most likely a whole bunch of the other rifles they sell, too, not just the mil-surp ones.

Just in case you have a spare grand burning a hole in your pocket and a desire to own something special.

I don’t have the grand, but the desire to own a Schmidt-Rubin 1911 again is burning a hole in my heart… and I am not lying.

By the way:  yes, the later model K.31 was a shorter rifle (e.g. how the Germans changed the Gew. 98 into the K98k), but:  the 11’s receiver was forged, and the 31’s cast.  I happen to prefer the ring! of the 11 to the clack! of the 31, just as I prefer the sound of the pre-64 Winchester Model 70 over their successors (for the same reason).  There’s nothing wrong with the K.31 — and it loses over 2lbs off the Mod. 1911’s 10.  Yes, the older rifle is heavy;  but you’re not going to go on any route marches or parades — and whether in offhand or bench modes, that extra weight tames the stout recoil of the GP 11 cartridge.

Worse Ways To Go

Good Stuff, Old Fartism

I have to admit that I’m not only sympathetic, I’m a little envious of the way this guy decided to go out.

Porn was being filmed onboard a retired doctor’s party yacht before cops swooped and arrested him on suspicion of drug and gun charges, according to new police documents. 

Authorities raided his 82-foot-long yacht called the JessConn, named after his two children, on September 5 in Nantucket after a woman on board called a friend for help. The woman told the man, ‘they were doing drugs all weekend long and people on the boat had been making pornographic films’. She added that she wanted to leave the boat before passing out, causing her male friend to contact authorities – telling them that she had overdosed.

The man told the Nantucket Police Department that the boat had ketamine, Adderall, ecstasy and cocaine on board.

Law enforcement sources told the Current that several prostitutes were found on the boat. No charges have been brought on these claims.

Scott Burke, 69, was charged with one count of trafficking a Class B drug, one count of possession to distribute a Class A drug, one count of possession of ammunition without a license and four counts of possession of a large-capacity feeding device.

He pleaded not guilty to the charges and was ‘extremely uncooperative’ when police boarded the yacht and was placed in handcuffs and detained because of his behavior, according to an affidavit.  The married father-of-two claimed that the woman who overdosed had been working for him for a few weeks, and her female friend was staying on the boat.

But here’s the kicker:

Burke was released on a $200,000 bail last week after his lawyer told Plymouth Court that he has terminal stage four cancer — and just months to live.

So if you know you’re going to die soon, and if you have the money, why not go batshit crazy and spend it on one last over-the-top sex orgy?

The charges, by the way, are bullshit.  He’s a doctor, so presumably he has the Rx prescription for all those drugs, and the “unlicensed ammo” charge is idiotic — but it’s Massachusetts, so anything’s possible.

And by the way:  I want to know what a “large-capacity feeding device” is, and why possession thereof is illegal.

Now that he’s out on bail, Burke might just off himself with an OD of drugs they didn’t find, rather than letting the cancer take him.  Under the same circumstances, who wouldn’t do the same?