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Modern Classic Beauty: Kate Winslet (1)

Classic Beauty

Apart from being a really good actress, Kate Winslet has been around for a while.  Here she is at age 17, in her first movie:

I should point out that at this time she was bonking one of her co-stars, who was a dozen years her senior.  (Before anyone starts harrumphing, allow me to remind you that in Britishland, the age of consent is 16 so she was practically an old maid, by their standards.)  Here’s another couple, from the same period:

Then she grew up:

Then there was that regrettable appearance in the Movie We Should Not Name:

And on we go:

I’ll revisit the subject in black and white, some other time.

And I should point out that as I write this, she’s 50 years old.

Fearnley, Again

Fine Art

I know I’ve featured the art of Alan Fearnley many, many times before, but I’m hopelessly, passionately in love with it.

Indeed, if someone were to tell me that I could put only his paintings on my walls, I’d have no problem with it.  (New Wife, however…)

Then I found something a little different, from his “picnic” series:

Right cheeky, that is.

Random Thoughts Of A Shooty Nature

The Gun Thing

Went to the range on Christmas Eve, just to play around with a few guns, no big deal, just keeping the old eye in.  The 1911 set was especially pleasing:


(All shots are what I call “aimed rapid”, wherein I empty an 8-round mag at the target inside 10 seconds.  The exception is the head shot string at 75 feet — 25 yards — where I have to take my time because I can barely see the damn thing.)

Anyway, there was also some revolver fun, but I was trying all sorts of ammo for recoil and accuracy, and I wasn’t really trying for very tight groups.

Among those was a little time shooting .357 Mag out of the Smith Mod 65, and I didn’t really enjoy it that much because even with lighter 140gr Silvertips, the recoil got a little much after a while and I had to end the session because #OwieWrist.

Which brought a random shooty thought to mind as I was driving home.

I like shooting .357 Mag, but I really prefer to use a 6″ barrel (which makes the recoil much more tolerable).  But I don’t have a 6″ .357 revolver, just a couple in .38 Special.

So:  is anyone open to a trade?  I’ll keep the gun I’m thinking of trading a secret (for obvious reasons), but the value of the piece would be more or less the same as a Ruger GP100:

…or even a S&W 586 or 686.  I’m indifferent about color — blue or stainless, whatever — but of course the 6″ barrel is a prerequisite.

Of course, I’d love to have a 6″ Colt Python:

…but I’m not going to trade three guns #PythonsAreOverpriced so that’s probably out of the question.

If you have a spare one of any of the above, or one you don’t shoot anymore that’s in decent condition, email me if you’re interested (use “Trade Idea” in the subject line so it gets past the spam filter), and I’ll let you know what I’m thinking of trading for yours.

So head off to your gun safe(s) and see what’s there.

Christmas Present

Good Stuff

Wow, now this is interesting:

A single ticket sold in Arkansas won the second largest U.S. lottery jackpot in history, a $1.817 billion Christmas Eve bonanza in the Powerball game.

Ho ho ho, indeed.

Talk about a life-changer — and I didn’t buy a ticket, because reasons.

“What reasons, Kim?”

Here’s the thing.  The cash option on that beast was about $500 million, making the lucky winner a semi-billionaire.  And that life-changing thing is what stopped me from buying a ticket.

Don’t get me wrong:  it’s not that I wouldn’t be able to spend the money — I have plenty of relatives and friends, all of whom I could make extremely happy/wealthy.  But honestly, I don’t want to change my own life that much.

Believe me:  change it would.  With 500 big ones to your name, you become a target for all sorts of undesirable people:  kidnappers, scam artists, robbers, whatever.  You might think that you could disappear from public life and become anonymous, but you can’t;  that sum of money is just too big.  So you’d have to hire lawyers, accountants, financial planners and personal bodyguards… and that all adds up to a massive lifestyle change.

And speaking quite honestly, I’m too old for all that shit.  Not only that, but what would I want to buy?  A new house?  Two new houses?  An expensive vintage car?  Three expensive vintage cars?

Don’t even get me started on guns.  That hurts, because as much as I’d like to own some pretty shotguns and rifles, the truth is that the time in which I could shoot them is becoming increasingly shorter.  I’m in my seventies, FFS, and even though I’m in good health, my meeting with that old bastard Death is not a remote possibility, is it?  So a safe or three full of Purdeys or whatever is just not appealing, anymore.  Ten or twenty years ago?  Now that’s a different story;  but I am where I am and that’s all there is to it.

Bloody hell, I couldn’t even buy a ton of books either, because of the time it would take me to read them.

Here’s a bad one.  I don’t want to travel that much,because I’m pretty sure that most of my old haunts have turned to shit in my absence over these past few years.  London?  Paris?  Vienna?  Judging by what I’ve recently been reading about them, they’ve all turned into dangerous shitholes #Muslims #Africans #Gypsies #etc.  And cruises have never held much fascination for me, because at the end of the day, you’re in thrall to other people’s choices or itineraries and that is not the way I want to travel.  (Never mind the oceangoing part of it, because it just wastes time — that I don’t have, see above — and I don’t do sunbathing anyway.)

Frankly, the only thing that holds any attraction to me is a large-ish ranch somewhere in Texas where I could set up a few ranges of the clay pigeon, rifle, pistol and rimfire type, and blaze away to my heart’s content.

And I wouldn’t need half a billion dollars to afford that.

Anyway, I see that the Powerball jackpot has now returned to sane levels — just over $9 million for the cash option as I write this — and that would do me just fine.

Sure, my family and friends wouldn’t see much (or any) of that, once I’ve handed over the several pounds of flesh to the IRS and bought that ranch etc., but them’s the breaks.  Nobody has ever stopped them from buying their own lottery ticket, after all. Call me selfish if you want, but there it is.

And our lucky winner in Arkansas?  You’re going to need even more good luck to survive your windfall, buddy.  I hope it comes your way.

Back In The Day

Third World

Reader pkudude99 provided this link about Ponte Tower in Johannesburg — actually in Hillbrow, which used to be to downtown Johannesburg as, say, the Bronx is to Manhattan.  (Interestingly, Hillbrow’s colloquial nickname for many years was “The Bronx”.)

Back when I lived there, Ponte was a very desirable address to call one’s own, and there was a mile-long waiting list for prospective residents.  (I was on the waiting list for a while, but gave up after a year or so and moved instead to Yeoville, the next suburb over.)  Ponte was literally across the road from my apartment, as can be seen from a pic I took from my back balcony:

Here’s a daylight pic:

…and from the inside looking up:

In retrospect, I’m rather glad that I didn’t end up living in Ponte.  I went to visit a friend there once, and while the apartment was very nice (in that super-modern style that was so trendy but that I now detest), the apartment building itself was terrible.  It felt like a prison block, and it’s small wonder that it was once suggested that Ponte should be turned into a maximum-security prison (never implemented, though).

Now?  You couldn’t get me within ten miles of the place — or of Hillbrow itself.  What used to be a glittering urban location with dance clubs, all-night restaurants, coffee bars and shops, late-closing bookstores and a permanent buzz of excitement is now… Third World Africa.

Like so much of what was once wonderful in Johannesburg is now just shabby, dangerous and… sub-Saharan Africa, no different from Mogadishu, Harare (another tragedy) or Nairobi.

Makes me sick just to think about it.