Things of beauty – Page 42 – Splendid Isolation

Comparison

November 14, 2019 Kim du Toit Drive Time

German:

Italian:

I report, you decide.

This Is A Test

November 3, 2019 Kim du Toit Beauty, Funny Stuff, Gratuitous Chick Pics

Here’s a simple one to test your eyesight, alertness and social awareness. Your task is quite simple: in each pic, identify which of the four girls is the most popular.

I know; it’s a tough one for a Sunday.

Here are the answers, from a woman’s perspective:

Pic #1, the second girl from the left, because you can see her eyes, and
Pic #2, the second from the right, because she has the prettiest shoes.

And a bonus question: without scrolling back up, in which picture could you see an alligator?

Say No More

October 31, 2019 Kim du Toit Food & Drink, Good Stuff, Lies and Untruths

Now this is what I call Good News:

“High cholesterol, particularly LDL cholesterol, has been demonized for allegedly bringing on heart attack deaths. But an intriguing analysis of data published at Medium.com seems to show that total mortality risk is reduced by high cholesterol levels, even LDL cholesterol.”
The point Medium.com’s P.D. Mangan makes is that even if lower cholesterol is associated with reduced heart-disease incidence, this is more than offset by an increase in low-cholesterol-associated health risks.
As Mangan puts it, from “a public health standpoint, it seems a mistake to focus on changing something that lowers the risk of death from one cause only to raise that risk from another.”

Now as we all know, next week will see the publication of yet another study which completely contradicts this wonderful news.

In the meantime (via C.W., thankee):

In Texas, that combination of the four major meat groups (ribs, pulled pork, sausage and brisket) is known as the “Four Riders Of The Apocalypse”.

Actually, that’s not true. In Texas, that’s either regarded as a well-balanced meal, or else as “Git outta mah way, Elmer!”

See y’all later.

One-Track Mind

October 30, 2019 Kim du Toit Deep Thoughts, The Gun Thing

Over at The Daily Timewaster, C.W. often posts scenic pics like this in his “Open Road” series (click to embiggen):

See, others are going to go into raptures over Nature’s Incredible Beauty etc. etc. Me, I look at it and say:

“Yeah, beautiful. I bet that little ridge on the extreme right would make a great backstop if one were to set up some targets and steel plates so that one could blast away in relative comfort from the truck (or next to it), without causing any damage or noise issues (it being somewhat Remote & Desolate).”

Am I the only one who thinks like this?

And a tangential thought: does anyone know where that pic was taken? I’m guessing Utah or maybe Arizona…

Update: Reader RichK emails:

The location is in the Alabama Hills, part of the Owens valley of California, and is looking at the Sierras.
The high peak left of the road is Mt. Langley. The far one is Mt. Whitney. I have climbed both multiple times. Stunningly beautiful country. Sad to think it is part of California.

My Style

October 28, 2019 Kim du Toit Beauty, Culture, Modernism, Traditions

As Longtime Readers are fully aware, I loathe Modernist architecture and interior design with something approaching destructive impulse (a polite way of saying that if I could get away with it, I’d pay Muslim assholes to fly empty airliners into all of them). Lest we forget, here are a couple of examples of same:

So, you may ask, what do you propose in modernism’s stead? Well, if we go according to the precept that “architecture doesn’t have to suck”, we could do with more of these:

…and for the interior design, more of these:

The above two pictures, by the way, are of an AirBnB apartment in Edinburgh (one of my favorite cities in the whole world), where I will most certainly be staying the next time New Wife and I pop Over There.

Here’s another example of an interior taken not a million miles away from a certain country house in England’s South West, where I have stayed before:

…and where we will doubtless stay again when we venture into Hardy Country.

Yes, I’m hopelessly old-fashioned and so (to the surprise of precisely nobody) is New Wife. Your opinion may vary from ours in that you prefer the top two pictures; but if so, you suck and so does your ghastly Bauhaus architecture.

Desert Island Dames

October 27, 2019 Kim du Toit Beauty, Gratuitous Chick Pics

Some time back, I riffed on the “Desert Island Discs” theme to create a “Desert Island Guns” post, whereupon a couple of you ~~bastards~~ Curious Readers took it upon themselves to ponder about which five women I would like to be marooned on a desert island with (assuming, of course, I was not married and could have my pick of any women in the world).

Five? Good grief, who do you think I am, Errol Flynn? Some NBA basketball player? A 20-year-old boy?

Okay, if the theme for the Guns post was “guns I love to shoot” then here’s my list of the five women I’d love to etc. etc. In no specific order (because I will not start a catfight before I even get there):

1) Salma Hayek. I love that accent, she seems like fun, and as for the rest, ’nuff said:Downside is that being Mexican, she’s probably jealous as hell, but there ya go.

2 ) Carol Vorderman. Apart from her obvious assets, she’s also an engineer and pilot, so during her down time (so to speak) she could fix stuff around the place and fly in supplies of booze and ammo (also Viagra) each week:

3) Sarah Palin. Apart from her delectability, she cooks and shoots, and I’d love a shooting partner.I know she’s getting a little long in the tooth, but then so am I.

4) Nigella Lawson. Because Sarah’s gonna need time off from cooking for her other activities. Only I want the earlier, sexier and more bountiful version of Nigella (see below), not the new slimmed-down shrunken model: