Month: August 2019

Gratuitous Gun Pic — James Purdey And David McKay Brown (12ga)

Gratuitous Gun Pics

Before we get started, let me say at the outset that I don’t care if you can find a decent second-hand pump-action shotgun for $450 at Bubba’s Bait-‘N-Guns.  This isn’t that kind of post, as you will soon see.

Some people might say that spending this much money on a pair of shotguns is ludicrous or even foolhardy.  My opinion is that these guns exist right at the very end of the quality curve — I cannot think how they could possibly be improved — and therefore the cost is irrelevant.

Granted, to buy these guns you probably have to have so much money that cost becomes irrelevant (i.e. “if you have to ask…”), but like buying (say) a Ferrari Enzo, it isn’t the money that’s important.  (I, by the way, am not one who actually subscribes to this philosophy — had the lottery been in my favor last night, I still  wouldn’t have called Collectors Firearms to put a hold on them — but I do understand why this can be important to some people, and I pass no judgment on their preference whatsoever.  There’s nothing wrong with wanting the absolute best of anything, as long as you can afford it.)

Now all that said:  there are a couple of things about these Purdeys that I don’t like.

1) I prefer my shotgun stock not  to have a pistol grip — left is the Purdey, right is my preference:

2) I prefer double triggers to single triggers:

With all that in mind:  had the lottery been in my favor last night, I might  have called Collectors to put a hold on these two David McKay Brown shotguns (#1 and #2) because they are completely in my wheelhouse, so to speak, even though they’re not a matched pair.

(And I care not that this gun bears the initials of its previous owner — I put no stock in virginity.)

These two guns are, in a word, exquisite — and for those to whom this kind of thing matters, David McKay Brown is pretty much on a par with Purdey as a gunmaker.  (Purdey has the better P.R., but McKay Brown is extremely well-respected among the shotgun cognoscenti.)  And too, they’re not as finely engraved as the Purdey guns, but frankly, I’m not in thrall to fancy scrollwork (although I do appreciate it.)

And it certainly doesn’t hurt that the McKay Brown guns are half the price of the Purdeys… still nosebleed, but from only one  nostril, so to speak.

Want.

Friday Night Music

Music

I’m sometimes asked what kind of music our old band, Atlantic Show Band, used to play back in South Africa during the 1970s and 1980s (we were together for over ten years, with the occasional break while band members did their Army National Service and other musicians filled in).  When we played clubs, we weren’t allowed to play our own stuff — covers only — and when we quit clubs and played gigs like proms and office parties, guess what?  we still  could play only covers.  Good thing, too:  none of us could write music worth a damn.

The really good thing was that as music changed between the mid-70s to the mid-80s, we changed with it, so we never got bored playing the same old stuff night after night, and of course we became better musicians by playing such a variety of music.  At a rough guess, we could play over four hundred pop/rock songs of the time (and much more if we include the old jazz standards), and I don’t think we ever played the same 45-minute set of songs unless by coincidence.  We practiced at least once a week, and learned about three or four new songs a month — and we were note-perfect, no sloppy approximations for us, although we did change the arrangements sometimes to suit our sound.

Anyway, here’s a non-chronological sample — about one set’s worth — along with a one-line comment for each.  Enjoy.

Stratus — Billy Cobham (when we played nightclubs, this was our opener — minus the opening drum solo;  we wanted people to dance, not be bored)

Hey Mr. Dream Maker — Cliff Richard (I think our arrangement was better — more powerful — than Cliff’s)

Sometime World — Wishbone Ash (the bass part in the second half of the song made me sweat blood, and  I had to sing backup harmony vocals)

Samba Pa Ti — Santana (we didn’t play too many instrumentals, but we loved this one)

July Morning — Uriah Heep (this  song was what made humping a damn Hammond B3 upstairs all worth it)

Vienna — Ultravox (what can I say? it was the 80s)

Fox On The Run — Sweet (I nearly pinched my scrotum off, hitting that high note in the harmony before the chorus)

Lady Madonna — Beatles (we only did a few Beatles numbers, as I recall, but we liked playing this one the most)

Listen To The Music — Doobie Brothers (one of the dozen or so songs we played from the beginning of the band till I left for the United States;  we loved it, and so did our audiences)

Only When You Leave — Spandau Ballet (another 80s song, but we loved it)

December ’63 — Four Seasons (another song we played for ten years — people liked our rendition of this one so much, we sometimes played it twice in a gig)

Couldn’t Get It Right — Climax Blues Band (soooo cool — and it was a Brit  band, FFS)

Happy Together — Turtles (except that we did the Mothers Of Invention version, as linked)

For a few years, we had a girl singer:  a 5’2″ little blonde thing named Gillian, who wore the shortest miniskirts in the Western World and had a voice that could stop a Sherman tank.  Next time I do this, I’ll feature some of her songs off the playlist.

Advance Notice

Housekeeping

If you don’t come to this website via a RSS feed, check out the post that’s scheduled for 7pm Central tonight.  It’s called Friday Night Music — and will be the first of many, I think.  You’ll see why when you read it.

Long Weekend

Freaks & Loonies, Mocking Furriners

As we Murkins head into the last long weekend of the summer, I thought it would be appropriate to see how others do long weekends — or specifically, how they do a “Bank Holiday” weekend in Britishland.

Last weekend, in fact, was the hottest such on record in the U.K., so of course the pasty-skinned Brits headed for the beach to get properly burned:

 

Okay,there were some  sorta-worthwhile sights along the way:

 

 

But if stuck in London, there was always the annual Notting Hill Carnival:

 

 

And for the sake of balance, just to prove that I can be inclusive:

Or, if it was too hot in daytime, one could always wait until night time and hit the pubs:

 

 

If I didn’t know better, I’d say this lot were having a pee through the windows:

 

You have to admire their stupidity bravery in balancing precariously (and, one assumes, drunkenly) over those anti-pigeon spikes, though.

But none of that is exclusive to Britishland, really — you could do all that anywhere in the world.  To make the thing British, you’d have to participate in the World Bog Snorkelling Championships, wherein one has to swim through a malodorous boggy trench — and this is what makes it truly  British — in fancy-dress costume:

 

 

Given the choices at the top of this page, I think I’d rather do the Bog thing, dressed as a Viking.

Still, in the same spirit:  enjoy the Labor Day Weekend, folks!

My Kinda List

Military

That would be the Top 25 Badass Planes Of All Time (and I especially like their choice of #1).

Now, as with all this kind of geekery, one can argue with the choices (or omissions, e.g. the WWI Fokker D.VII), but it’s still a credible selection.

(Yeah, that’s Ernst Udet in the foreground.)

And I don’t agree with Gen. Spaatz’s characterization of of the B-17, but it’s a minor quibble:  the Flying Fortress was a dandy, any way you look at it.

 

Feel free to add your suggestions — but:  if you do so, you have to say which of the existing 25 you’d drop.  (Mine would be the DC-3/C-47, to make room for the D.VII, for example).