Splendid Isolation

Making The Transition

January 12, 2023 Kim du Toit The Gun Thing

I’ve been shooting 1911s in .45 ACP for pretty much all my adult life.

While there have been many forays into revolvers (Colt Pythons, various S&Ws etc.) it can truthfully be said that my bread, butter and jam has been the above gun.

Which is no longer mine, having been given to the Son&Heir for his birthday. Along with every single round of .45 ACP out of Ye Olde Ammo Locquere. (“FFS, Dad: I’ll never have to buy ammo ever again.” ) Okay, I did find a small stash of another hundred or so rounds later (everybody here knows how that can happen), but the S&H is coming over tomorrow for dinner so I’ll give him those too.

Yep, not only did I make a clean break from the 1911, I also made it difficult to go back should I be tempted to do so.

Which is all very well, except that I have a serious shortage of 9mm, never having done much Europelleting in the past. In fact, as I discovered when preparing for a range visit a couple days back, I did indeed have a couple hundred rounds of premium self-defense 9mm (don’t ask me why), but not a single box of standard 115gr. practice stuff. So I had to buy a couple boxes at full retail price (!!!), which made it almost as expensive a proposition as .45 ACP. Fortunately, I had a small cash windfall (as described yesterday), so I could buy that hundred rounds of practice ammo with only a small amount of chagrin.

Nevertheless, as I hadn’t shot the High Power in earnest for well over five years, I had to put in the practice considering that the BHP is now my everyday carry piece.

Aaargh. I couldn’t shoot it for shit — I mean, compared to the results I’ve been getting from the 1911 in, well, forever — and I found the trigger not just different, but horribly different. The 1911’s trigger had been seriously worked on, and fired over 30,000 times — use your imagination. The High Power hasn’t been touched, other than the substitution of the original spur hammer for a bobbed one, as in the pic.

I’m not happy.

Bear in mind that the paper results were not that bad, considering, but nothing close to what I’m used to, and the “unpleasant” trigger made my first proper outing with the BHP no fun at all. And I’m not familiar with coming away from a range session feeling bad about my shooting; I’ve worked too hard and practiced too much to have to put up with this.

So I’m grappling with the thought that carry duties, which I’d planned on giving to the BHP exclusively, may be shared with the S&W 65 (my bedside piece).

Not that this would be a hardship, mind you: I took the 65 to the range along with the BHP, and shot both .38 Spec+P and .357 Mag through it, with excellent results.

In fact, I had so much fun with the revolver that I might well use it as a carry piece instead of the High Power. (I also have what may be described as an “adequate sufficiency” of both .38 and .357 ammo on hand, so no hardship there, and therefore would require no building up a supply from scratch as would be the case with 9mm Europellets.)

I wish I still had my 1911.

Subtle Hints

January 12, 2023 Kim du Toit Train Smash Women

Here’s a real tearjerker for you:

Lowri Rose grew up in a devout Christian home but her local church “grassed” on her when she started flogging naked snaps.

Her stepdad then called her to say the family wanted nothing to do with her and she has had zero contact with them since.

Gosh… if her family had only had some small clue about her side job, say on their summer holidays:

…or around the house:

…or even in the backyard:

Ugh. If she was a waitress, I wouldn’t even want her serving my food.

News Roundup

January 12, 2023 Kim du Toit Bad News

Overrated?

January 12, 2023 Kim du Toit Travels

According to some guys on the Internet, the ten most overrated tourist destinations in the world are:

Of the ones I’ve been to (all but three), I’d agree with the inclusion of NYFC, Los Angeles and Rome, all of which are the dregs.

However, when you look at the reasons for said reactions, “long queues to get into museums” ranks really high — so, not of much interest to me then, because I’m a traveler, not a tourist, and other than a very few exceptions*, museums are not high on my list of things to do.

I have little of no interest in visiting Istanbul or Anatolia, unless the current crop of Muslim assholes in Turkey’s government moderates their stance towards Westerners.

I desperately want to see Milan at some point, but not for the usual “tourist” reasons; I wanna eat the food, drink the wine and imagine what it would be like to actually live there (which is the main reason I travel at all).

Then there’s this, about Paris:

The city has even coined its own syndrome, Paris Syndrome. The condition is described as a sense of extreme disappointment experienced visiting Paris if the city doesn’t live up to expectations.

I went to Paris expecting to hate it, and came away completely in love with it. (NB: that was well over a decade ago; what Paris may have become since all the North Africans have arrived may change my opinion.)

I’ve been to London so many times that I’ve become tired of life, because as Johnson added, “…for there is in London all that life can afford.” The key word here is “afford”, because London is spendy, Bubba. The only reason I’d go to London anymore is to hang out with the dreaded Mr. Free Market (when he’s there and not away in the West Country, flogging the staff at Free Market Towers), with visits to such places as John Rigby and Wm. Purdey & Son as well as the usual places where one may destroy one’s liver (of which Mr. FM has a seemingly-endless list).

Putting my beloved Vienna on the “overrated” list makes me want to have another breakfast gin lest I be tempted towards violence.

And Rome sucks green donkey dicks. The food is mediocre, the place overrun with tourists and African criminals (and I was there in winter), and were it not for the excellent Vatican tour, I cannot think of any reason to go there.

One last note: I asked New Wife where in Europe, if we won the lottery, she would like to visit (either for the first time, or a return trip).

“Amsterdam” (she’s been there before) “…Barcelona, and the French Riviera.”

No argument from me on any of them.

*Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and Kunsthistorischesmuseum in Vienna, both of which I’ve already visited anyway.

Studying Genius

January 12, 2023 Kim du Toit Music, Tragedy

I’ve studied music, sung it, played it and pretty much been into it ever since I could walk.

But I never got close to figuring out where Jeff Beck was going, ever. I could only listen, marvel and appreciate the man’s endless artistry and talent. And now he’s gone, leaving only his body of work for us to enjoy.

Probably my favorite Beck was his guitar on buddy Rod Stewart’s People Get Ready. Haunting, melodic, beautiful and perfectly suited to the emotion of the gospel hymn, Beck’s soaring riffs turned it from lovely to sublime.

Yeah, sublime — that’s the word I was looking for. Once again, the music world has lost just one more thing of beauty, and the world is a little less lovely.

Damn it, I can’t even write a proper obituary about the man and his music.

R.I.P. Jeff.

Heartfelt Thanks

January 11, 2023 Kim du Toit Friends and Family

I want to take a couple of inches here to thank you, O My Readers, for continuing to support this back porch of mine with your hard-earned dollars, especially in these times of Fuck Joe Biden Inflation.

Yesterday, I went over to the Sooper-Seekrit mailing address (SSMA), and found a small package from Britishland addressed to me. Longtime Reader Mike X found he had some US$ left over from a business trip, and sent it over with the statement that it was not worth changing back into sterling, ergo why not send it to Kim, considering all the reading pleasure he’d got from my fevered scribblings over the years? (It was not a small amount of money, by the way, and some of it was promptly exchanged for 9mm ammo at the shooting range soon thereafter; story to follow.)

He’s not the only one. Several of you have held your noses and added (and in some cases increased) a monthly contribution through Patreon, and I am often surprised by a random check arriving at the SSMA containing a check with a note saying something like “I just got a large bonus and thought I’d share some of it with you” which, as I said above, is no small thing during the Bidenflation Years.

One Reader actually apologized for the amount he’d sent, but confided that of late he’d been spending quite a lot on a particular woman of Ill Repute, Low Morals, Large Appetite For Liquor, and Advanced Sexual Prowess, so he couldn’t afford more. (Hey, as long as you’re not wasting the money, Dave…)

All in all, your generosity makes this all possible and my life more bearable. Many, many thanks. Below are a few tokens of my appreciation.