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Why It’s Good

Music

I’ve linked to the Steve Hackett/orchestral version of Firth of Fifth before, and my apologies for doing so again.

However:  did you ever wonder why it’s such a brilliant song?  Here’s Doug Helvering, a classical composer who analyzes the piece from a musical theory perspective, and after listening to this exposition, you’ll understand the genius behind Tony Banks’s masterpiece.  (It’s long, but definitely worth your time this weekend.  If you’re not au fait  with the theory terminology, don’t worry:  just watch and listen to Doug’s reaction as the music plays.)

And if you want a less-classical take on Genesis, here’s Rick Beato on their Dance On A Volcano.

Note to Reader & Friend Weetabix:  share this with your wonderfully-talented daughter, for her take.

My One Gun

The Gun Thing

After posing the question yesterday, here’s the gun I would want if I had no restrictions on ammo, availability or money:

FG-42 (FallschirmGewehr Model  42)

The top is the first model — easily distinguishable by its sharply-raked pistol grip, stowable cruciform bayonet and milled receiver — and the lower is the second iteration which was sturdier and lighter, with a stamped receiver and no bayonet.

I would take either in a heartbeat.

Here’s Ian (a.k.a. Gun Jesus) first with the background story, and then on his day at the range.

Want.  Want.

Update:  As do Readers Frognot and Preussenotto, from yesterday’s Comments, thus showing themselves to be connoisseurs of fine weaponry.

News Roundup

Bad News

Ohnoherewegoagainwithmorenewsthatdoesn’tmatter…


…ehhh, they all look the same anyway.


…yet another benefit of all that asylum-granting to Third World refugees.


…even among animals, there’s Black-on-White violence?


…did AOC just get a quid pro quo from that BJ she gave the old Commie?  I think we should be told.  And on that topic, sorta:


…Ol’ Snoop was probably referring to rum ‘n Coke, but whatever.


…the funeral for Irony will be held tomorrow.


…errr I’m a little confused.  Is that him or her being quoted?


…which will no doubt be added to the “you’re more likely to be shot by someone you know” trope.


…and in other news, the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor yesterday morning.

Biden Just Said He Wants to Ban Handguns
…file under “Stuff we’ve known about for decades”.

And now it’s time for INSIGNIFICA:

    
…probably because she’s sick of getting drunken requests for blowjobs at 3am every morning.

Finally:

Well, I know who the first two are.  But Claire Sweeney?  Who she?

Oh yeah, now I remember.  But those were taken when she was a youngin.  She’s fifty now, so…

Okay, still toothsome.  Carry on.

Now Accents?

Mocking Furriners, Snowflakes, Wokism

Great Cicero’s bleeding adenoids, have we come to this?

Linguist Dr Rob Drummond, who works at Manchester Met University, argued using accents for comedic effect in sitcoms like Fawlty Towers, where Andrew Sachs famously portrayed a clumsy Spanish waiter called Manuel, promotes ‘lazy stereotypes’ and can be ‘pretty damaging’.

Damaging to whom, exactly?

While my native accent is pure Johannesburg WASP (often mistaken for British in America, but never in Britishland), I love doing accents.  While some are not so good (my Texas twang fools absolutely nobody), my Indian-, French- and even German-accented English are all pretty good.  (Afrikaans-flavored English, of course, is second nature.)  My Scottish accent is passable outside the U.K., but nothing beats my Australian — I’ve fooled even native Aussies into thinking I was pure Ocker, and having armed myself with some Strine slang, it’s unbeatable.

And if I live somewhere for any lengthy period of time, the native accent is easy — when I lived in north Jersey, even some of my NJ buddies could be fooled when I called them up and asked in my best Hoboken Nasal, “Yo, howya dooin’?”

So now I can’t do accents anymore, in case someone is “damaged”?

Fuck that.

Ideal Gun

The Gun Thing

It all started, as so many of these things do, with a letter from Mr. Free Market which contained this pic:

Now I’ve owned the top two (CETME 7.62x51mm NATO and H&K P7 9mmP).  I didn’t like the P7 at all — that squeeze grip chamber loading thingie made my hand shake from the effort of actuating it — and as Dean Wormer famously said:

So I sold it after only a couple of months.

The CETME was a different story altogether.  I loved shooting it — preferred it to the G36 and FN-FAL, for that matter — but it was the lightweight C model which, although it could handle the 7.62mm NATO cartridge, really preferred the  .308 Win with lighter bullets.  (From memory, I only ever used the 120gr.)  So it was spendy to shoot, and in any event I’d just picked up my first AK, so I sold the CETME too a short while afterwards.

As for the bottom two guns… well, that’s a different story.  Amazingly, considering my handgun preferences, I’ve never owned a Walther P-38 (although I’ve owned a couple of Luger P-08s), but as it shoots the 9mm Europellet anyway, it’s not a serious object of desire other than as a WWII-era gun.  (That’s not to say I’d turn one down as a gift, of course;  but I’m pretty much out of collecting WWI and WWII-era guns nowadays.)

What about the rifle?

 

Let’s just say I’d get a StG-44 in a very rapid heartbeat, IF I could afford both it and the ammo it shoots (7.92x33mm or 8mm MP).   And that one in Mr. FM’s picture, with the Haenel 4x scope?  Oh be still, my twitchy trigger finger.

And for that matter, that scoped CETME also makes parts of my body tingle.

Which got me to thinking (always a dangerous thing when it comes to guns), and I came up with this question:

If money were no object, the gun was available, and ammo was both cheap and plentiful, O My Readers:  what rifle would you choose to get?

I asked the question of both Doc Russia and Combat Controller, and I’ll tell you their (and my) choices tomorrow.

Here are the rules:  you get to pick one gun, and one gun only;  no “top 3” or “1a” or any of that jive, and no crew-served weapons like the Browning Quad 4.  One rifle, of any era, and yes, full-auto is permitted.

See y’all tomorrow.