Author: Kim du Toit

Blenheim Salon Part 1

Guy Stuff

So yesterday, Mr. FM dragged me kicking and screaming to something called a “Salon Privé”, an annual shindig held on the grounds at Blenheim Palace, home of the Duke of Marlborough. (I say “dragged” in the sense of “invited”; the “kicking and screaming” actually came later, when it was time to go.)

What is this Salon thing, you ask? It’s a classic car exhibition and auction (more of which in Part 2 of this account, tomorrow).

So as we swept up the driveway towards the Duke’s little pad,

I was oohing an aahing at the exquisite cars assembled:

…whereupon Mr. FM dryly informed me, “Dear heart, this is just the parking lot; the exhibition is on the other side of the house.”

Oh.

So we wandered down the alley of cars:

…until we got to the exhibition itself.

Ahem.

I will say no more, just post a few of the dozens of pictures I took. First, the Jag XK120:

A couple of (the many) Ferraris:

Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato

Mercedes 300 SL:

Some 356 Porsches:

There were also a few shouty cars (aimed at the Russian / Arab Oil Oligarch’s Son Set, no doubt):

…but we’ll say no more about them. Instead, here’s a Bentley Tourer from the 1930s:

…which was, too, somewhat shouty (i.e. foul), except when properly decorated:

Speaking of decoration, there was lots of it:

  

…and one lovely young lady even asked me to take her pic in front of her car:

Heavens be praised, not a Train Smash Woman in sight. Just a couple more car pics. First, an Atalanta Sport:

Jaguar XJ220 (one of my favorite “modern” Jags:

…and standing out like a dog turd on a table cloth, this thing:

…which looked all the more ridiculous when you consider what was standing next to it:

But let me end this post with something of an overview:

Tomorrow, we’ll look at what was available on auction.

 

 

5 Worst Women To Be In An Orgy With

Friday Feature, The Worst

American:

There is a serious public health warning attached to each link in this post.

British/International:

  • Polly Toynbee (by the way, the link contains a big fat lie — she’s a Marxist, not a “social democrat”, whatever that is)
  • Harriet Harman (a.k.a. Harriet “Harperson”, ’nuff said)
  • Caitlin Moran (like Naomi Wolf above)
  • Diane Abbot
  • Angela Merkel

I was going to publish a companion piece of the five worst men to have an orgy with, but I suspect that most of my choices (from: O.J., Chris Brown, Howard Stern, Anthony Weiner, the entire male cast of Jersey Shores etc.) would probably find favor with quite a few women… [sigh]

Sinking Ship, Fleeing Of

Politics

I note that conservative activists are leaving California in ever-greater numbers, and while I understand the impulse that makes people want to stay and fight, I sympathize more with those who have given up California as a lost cause and just want to get back to living in freedom.

I left Chicago for precisely those reasons.

I note that one of the conservative folks in the article landed up in McKinney, which is just a town or so over from my adopted home of Plano, TX. This is a good thing. As more and more people are discovering the joys of living in a conservative, well-planned and -managed area, it’s inevitable that the creeping cancer of liberal asswipes are also going to infiltrate the place; so it’s good to get a few firebrand gun-lovers (like, errr, myself) moving in to maintain the conservative imbalance, as it were.

I note with some alarm that Hillary Bitch Clinton got more than a few votes in our voting district, which meant that the outstanding Rep. Sam Johnson (PBUH) only squeaked in with 62% of the vote — his lowest margin ever, as I recall. (To put this in perspective, the next district north of us went 78% for Trump.)

So to all conservative Californians of that ilk — please come on over: Plano, McKinney and Allen will welcome you with open arms. And I bet you’ll just love the indoor range in Frisco (not the cesspit y’all know in the north of CA, but a good conservative town). This invitation is especially aimed at those Loyal Readers who are marooned in a rising tide of Blue liberalism — you know who you are.

Screw California. Let the place circle the bowl and sink without a trace. And if, in terms of the heading of this post you’re called “rats”, let me remind you that it’s the rats who first leave a sinking ship. You’ve done your bit as much as you could; now come and relax in freedom’s welcoming arms. Oh, and speaking of arms: you can ditch those stupid California-compliant semi-automatic rifles; we prefer the real thing here.

A Second Guilty Pleasure

Entertainment

Longtime Readers may recall that I’ve confessed to a guilty pleasure: reading writer John Sandford’s novels (both the Lucas Davenport- and Virgil Flowers sagas). Well, old Lucas is getting a little long in the tooth (although his latest career move seems to have rejuvenated him), and I’m a little iffy about Virgil Flowers’ character, so subconsciously I’ve been looking for a replacement guilty pleasure — and I think I’ve found it.

Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce Volker Kutscher‘s Inspector Gereon Rath of the Berlin CID’s Homicide Division. Except that whereas Davenport and Flowers are both set in contemporary Minneapolis, Rath is busy solving murders in Depression-era Berlin — to be specific, 1929-1938: one of my all-time favorite periods of history, and my dream setting for a novel*.

I think Rath is one of the best characters in fiction, of any genre, and I am so fortunate to have discovered him. (By the way, I found Babylon Berlin by chance at Foyle’s Books, which makes up for my disappointment at their “modernization” of the venerable establishment.) I read the novel in one night, and went straight back the next day to buy Silent Death.)

And the novels really are terrific: as I said, Babylon Berlin took me just one night to read and Silent Death only a little longer than that, because I didn’t want it to end quickly, so much was I enjoying it. Sadly, only these two (of the half-dozen Rath novels extant) have been translated into English so far, so I won’t be able to binge-read them; but you can be sure I’ll buy the rest as soon as they’re available. (Sadly, my conversational German is adequate, but my literary German is schrecklich, so I’ll just have to be patient.)

Even better, Babylon Berlin has been made into a 16-part TV series for German TV, so if anyone from Netflix is reading this… oh, wait: someone’s on the ball already. I can’t wait.

*I was contemplating writing a companion piece to Vienna Days, to be set in 1928 Berlin, but there’s no need now: Kutscher has relieved me of the responsibility. So: 1900 Budapest it will have to be.

What Karma?

Seen On Campus

Some tool of an academic [redundancy alert] named Ken Storey suggested that for Tropical Storm Harvey’s deluge on Texas, “I don’t believe in instant Karma but this kinda feels like it for Texas. Hopefully this will help them realize the GOP doesn’t care about them.”

Naturally, because he’s just a sociology professor, Storey wasn’t to know that Houston’s Harris County (which bore the brunt of the storm’s fury) actually went for Hillary Clinton in 2016, so perhaps this “karma” of which he wrote was actually punishment for them… if I believed in that karma nonsense, of course, which I don’t.

Regardless, maybe the real karma is that the shithead has since been fired by his employer, University of Tampa. Maybe he can blame that on Trump, just like all his little Leftist buddies do whenever catastrophe strikes.

I have to say that ordinarily, I wouldn’t agree with his firing simply for expressing an opinion. I would, however, suggest that someone in a position of public trust (i.e. a teacher) who acts like a total dickhead definitely needs a lesson in manners. Firing him is no good — he’s sure to be welcomed with open arms somewhere like Oberlin or UMass — and I’d have simply demoted him or suspended him without pay for a couple semesters.

But hey, if it makes other Lefties think twice before yapping their nonsense, maybe this will be worth it.

Then And Now, Again

Guy Stuff

I have always thought that a sports car should resemble a woman lying on her side: the front-wheel arches resembling the shoulders, the middle of the car falling away like the midsection, and the (larger) rear-wheel arches mimicking the swell of the hips.

Hence the beauty of Ferrari’s Dino 246 GT, my love for which has been well documented on these pages, and which resembles the slender female models of its era in the early 1970s:

What then, do we make of Ferrari’s new Portofino, which replaces the superb California?

Here’s what I see: it looks block-y and more muscular — more like a model who’s been working out in the gym who should look something like this:

…except that the Portfino doesn’t look like that either.

I know, I know: so much of today’s automotive design is shaped by what works in a wind tunnel as opposed to actual, you know, beauty. But Ferrari, at least until recently, seems to have been keeping the old proportions alive — which is why their cars have typically looked better than anyone else’s. I’m just not so sure about the Portofino.

(Please note that I’m only comparing the designs — the Portofino’s top speed of 198 mph dwarfs the Dino’s 145 mph.)

Update:  Reader askeptic points out that Ferrari, or at least their ad agency, used to share my sentiments. Note the ad from a later era:

Wrong Ferrari, however: the 308 looked like Twiggy, not Veruschka.