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?
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.
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:
5) Amy Adams. No way am I going to be marooned without at least one genuine redhead, and Amy is the business:
Runners-up:
Helena Bonham Carter. Because I like a little crazy.
Jennifer Tilly. Also crazy, and I need someone to play cards with when I’m too tired to do anything else.
Katarina Witt. No explanation needed. Also, I need to practice my German.
Monica Bellucci. Because mama mia.
Juliette Binoche. French lessons.
And lastly, opera singer Lucy Kay (who can sing me to sleep at night).
I’ve talked about this topic before, but I’m not sure I’ve ever told this story here.
Many years ago, a guy heard from a Reader of this website what a sucker I was for WWI- and WWII-era guns, and offered to sell me a brand-new, still-in-the-box, never-been-fired Colt Government 1911 from that time (with Colt certification). As it happened, I was a little flush with cash right then, and after a little pondering (and deciding not to pay down the car debt), agreed to his price. I went over to his house to complete the transaction, and checked it out.
(Not a pic of the actual gun.)
It was a beauty. Needless to say, I was nuzzling it and whispering terms of endearment to it (as one would a new puppy), but I did let it slip that I couldn’t wait to take this beauteous thing from my grandfather’s era out to the range and see how it could shoot.
The seller looked aghast. “You’re going to shoot it?” he asked.
“Hell yes,” was my response.
Whereupon the guy immediately canceled the sale, clearly traumatized that someone was going to take his baby’s virginity.
I told you that tale as an intro to this foolishness:
If you had a supercar, you’d probably drive it, right? Not the three owners of this Ferrari 328 GTS over the last 30 years.
They’ve clocked up a combined- and frankly meagre – 283 miles in total, making this one of the best time-warp examples of an iconic ’80s supercar we’ve seen for some time.
And it could soon be yours, if you have pockets deep enough. That’s because it’s being sold at auction in the UK next month, and the expected purchase fee is set to hit £150,000.
And the accompanying pics (out of several):
Now I have to say that I’m casting lustful eyes upon this beauty, and if those bastards at PowerBall had fulfilled their side of the bargain over the weekend, I’d be winging my way over to Britishland as you read this, letter of credit from Gringotts Bank clutched in my sweaty little hand.
And let me tell you that once I’d got it back Over Here, and after having had it checked and serviced by Giovanni at Boardwalk Ferrari of Plano (yes of course we have a Ferrari/Maserati dealership in Plano — do you even have to ask?), I would turn that 283 miles/30 years into 12,830 miles/30 years+1 month faster than you can say “Scuderia Maranello“. I’m thinking of an epic road trip around the southern states, going from one Ferrari dealership to another (because Ferrari) before the weather turns chilly.
I’ve never understood the concept of “safe queens”, whose possession is so precious that usage is forbidden. As Longtime Friend and Ex-Drummer Knob puts it so elegantly:
“Owning a beautiful car and never driving it in case you lower its value is like having a supermodel girlfriend and never fucking her, just to make her more attractive to her next boyfriend.”
In fact, now that I think of it, I’d not only drive this 328 GTS, I’d invite Knob over to drive it as well. (What the hell, as bandmates, we once shared two girls — not simultaneously — because in those days we both liked the same kind of woman: low moral standards, voluptuous figure and huge breasteses.) I figure we’d each get as much fun out of the 328, so to speak, as we did from Penny and Big Jenny.
Anyway, to wrench this train of thought back from the branch line: I have no time for people who treat machines and tools like investments, even though they can be regarded as such. And as for the Ferrari’s owner/idiot: if he’d plonked the original purchase price of the 328 into a stock index fund (to name but one investment vehicle) thirty years ago, he’d have made far more money than he’s currently going to realize from its sale. Some investment, smart guy.
And in the meantime, that gorgeous car has been wasting away like Rapunzel in the tower.
Fach.
Evil Bastard I mean Loyal Reader Petec directs my gaze to this bunch of Brit ne’er-do-well resto-modders, and my question to everyone is this:
Forget the price, and ignore the fact that it may have been sold; list your top 3 of the cars on either the “Blue Chip” or “Prestige” pages.
Mine are, in no specific order:
Trying to pick a #1 from this lot is like trying to pick a favorite child.
And if New Wife wanted in, I’d get her this little beauty (because she thinks most modern sports cars are utterly vulgar and horrible):
It’s a good thing that I haven’t won the lottery, or these guys would be getting a visit from me.
In alphabetical order:
Ahrweil, Germany
Heidelberg, Germany
Ludgate, London
Pie Town, NM (near the Continental Divide, temperature: -2F)
Silverton, CO
Trastevere, Rome
Zwettl, Austria
As with all these pics, right-click to enlarge, and feel free to use as wallpaper etc.