31 March 2023 ~ Three Kaliningrad babushkas in a bread shop
On the subject of cakes and pastries, my wife popped into a bakery recently to avail herself of the delicacies there and whilst on the premises was witness to an altogether Russian experience, which reveals and underscores the generation gap.
Ahead of her in the shop were three babushkas who were each having difficulty deciding which loaves of bread to buy: plain white or dark and grainy.
The young man behind the counter, seeking to introduce some levity into the proceedings, cajoled his three stout customers with, “Come on ladies, whichever loaf you choose, I’ll throw in a strip show just for you.”
Three Kaliningrad babushkas in a bread shop
In the UK, no young man behind a bread shop counter, or anywhere else for that matter, would dare to put such temptation, however jocularly meant, in the way of ladies of a certain age for fear of being ravished.
My wife immediately responded to the young man’s offer with “That would be nice!” but the triumvirate was not amused. Far from incentivised, the ladies were clearly horrified. ‘If looks could kill!’ as the expression goes.
Nevertheless, the young man’s words did bring closure to the babushka’s indecisiveness, for grabbing the nearest loaves that they could lay their hands on, money quickly changed hands and with a mutual squaring of shoulders and unified snorting, they left the shop at a gallop.
Said the young shopkeeper to my wife, “Hmmm, that didn’t go down too well, did it!”
It was a pity, because he seemed to be a nice young man with a very fine line in understatement. Let’s hope that until he lands that job as a stripper, he will use his loaf more carefully!
Do you know? Do you know that the Russian word for ‘bread’ is ‘khleb’? Of course you do. Ok, so do you know that the favourite type of bread in Russia is said to be rye rather than wheat? You know that, too. What you don’t know, however, is that Yeast karavai, a round loaf beautifully decorated with ears of corn and foliate motifs, features in the wedding ceremony. Before the reception commences, the newly weds take turns to bite into the loaf. The size of each bite is then compared, and the one who has been judged as having taken the largest bite is duly pronounced the dominant partner from then on in the marriage. How’s that for deciding equality! Neat, nice, no questions asked. When the time came to enact this ritual at our wedding, the bite I took was so prodigious that had my glass of champagne not been placed fortuitously close at hand I could have choked in the process. Hence the expression in matters of matrimony, more perhaps than in anything else, be careful not to ‘bite off more than you can chew’.
14 March 2023 ~ Lies and Democracy are they now the same thing?
When I left the UK for Kaliningrad in 2018, friends, acquaintances and business associates, but not family, who have ceased to be surprised by anything I do, responded to my decision in various ways, often extreme. I chronicled their reactions in a previous post: Moving to Russia from the UK.
When I returned to the UK after a three-year hiatus, some months after the (what shall we call it?) situation in Ukraine, I fully expected to meet with a barrage of acrimony lend leased from US propaganda and regurgitated by the UK media but was pleasantly surprised to find that the gauntlet I was prepared to run never materialised.
Brits who knew me, or knew of me, and where I now hailed from, were either conducting themselves with diplomacy or UK media had moved their mindset on ~ as it easily does ~ away from Ukraine, which in terms of audience captivation was yesterday’s news, to such earth-shattering speculations as does Prince Harry have a rogue allegiance gene passed down from his mother’s side of the family?
Does Prince Harry have a rogue allegiance gene passed down from his mother’s side of the family?
Ukraine was still in the limelight, still is in the limelight, as the fate of the globalist West depends on winning its war of attrition, but by the time I arrived in the UK it had already been put on the backburner to make way for more Woke and to annoy ‘far-right fascists’, ie the vast majority of white Brits who are genuinely concerned about the future of their country, with daily news and statistics regarding the state- and Sorryarse-sponsored cross-Channel immigrant invasion.
I agree that the UK’s immigration catastrophe is far more significant to my fellow countrymen than throwing taxpayers’ money away on a conflict which, if the western powers that control the UK government so desired, they could end as quickly as they started it. But UK politicians are in no hurry to do that in the same way that they are in no hurry to stop illegal immigration. Why the UK must lay out the red carpet for thousands upon thousands of Channel-taxied migrants and pay more than seven-million pounds a day to keep them in a style to which they are not accustomed, ie free bed and lodging in 5-star hotels (Ouch!), is beyond most people’s grasp, with the exception of the politically enlightened who understand only too well the moral and financial corruption with which the plan is funded. But why should we listen to them? According to the UK media, people who rebut pseudo-liberal machinations are not only right-wing fascists they are also conspiracy theorists.
Everything has a sell-by-date and even the British media, as skilled as it is in whipping up frenzies, cannot be expected to sustain an interest in Ukraine for long when other issues, like the immigration one, can be used just as effectively to foment controversy, up the sale of newspapers and harvest more clicks on their websites with which to con their advertisers. That’s why they call it the ‘corporate media’ folks.
Lies and Democracy and Social Media Spooks
The muted response from my fellow Brits to the situation in Ukraine when I last returned to England was in stark contrast to the overarching rabidity that broke loose in February 2022 at the time it was announced that Russia had taken the initiative out of the hands of the West. For UK corporate media this was ‘breaking news’, whereas on liberal-state compliant social media it was more like breaking wind, albeit on tornado scale.
Within minutes, not hours, my wife’s Facebook account was inundated with messages. Some of these, although panic fuelled and completely out of proportion to the events unfolding, were genuine messages, messages of concern: ‘Are you alright?’ But the majority, the mainstay, were liberal lefty, frithy-frothy and within this category, at the very epicentre, within the liberal eye of the storm, particularly and typically rabid and virulent.
Indeed, the repercussions were so electrifying that on the morning after the start of the mission in Ukraine, I wondered why I had started it? As the day went on, the vitriol on my wife’s Facebook account steadily accreted. I spent the entire morning batting back the incoming. At first it was all good fun. I can outrage anyone who wants to be outraged. But, after a while, I realised that if I was going to respond to every rant and rave, I would need to employ a PA (Personal Assistant) or at least an SS (Shit Stirrer).
Within three days of CSM (Crisis Social Media), during which more avatars were changed to funny little flags than had been changed to silly little rainbows two or three months earlier, and more underpants changed, I imagine, through the exigencies of cloned rage-fulfiment, my wife made the decision, before Mr P could ban Facebook, to close her Arsebook account. You know the expression, ‘you can have too much of a good thing’, well, three days of winding up the ranters was enough. It had to be brought to an end. There are more important things to do in life than play the liberal-left’s division game.
Nevertheless, I have to say that I cannot remember a time in recent history when I have enjoyed myself so much. In many respects I felt sorry for my fellow countrygenders. I could not fathom, and I still cannot fathom, why so many people on a tiny island are so eager to believe everything and anything that the media tells them, particularly as those same people on that same small island had been well and truly led up the garden path and thereabouts shafted by the self-same media about a crisis that they, the media, had in considerable part created ~ I am referring, of course, to coronabollocks.
You would have thought by now that the UK media would be the most distrusted corporate conglomerate this side of a fairy tale and as for the governments they represent, who would want to believe or trust either Liebour or the Cons?
See Saw Nobody’s Sure If Brits will have a New Master Democracy is a cross in a box But it’s always a liberal Disaster
Think Brexit. Why did most of the UK, real legacy Britons, not those with pieces of paper in their sweaty mits that say they are British, vote to get out of the EU? Rhetorical question: because they were and are sick of mass immigration and EU implemented Woke. And what did the British people get after Brexit? ~ mass illegal immigration on an unprecedented scale and more Woke than can be spread on a field during a rural shit-spreading season.
And whilst we are it, why would you trust and did you trust the Liebour-Con pact before Brexit? Who asked you if you wanted multiculturalism? Who asked you if wanted widespread Woke? And that’s just for starters. The urban shit-spreading season started long ago and is a lot fouler and smellier than anything that can be thrown up and about in the sticks.
So, for years, specifically since the crowning of Tony Blair (and wouldn’t you like to do just that!) your political parties, your government, your managed democracy, your corporate media have been lying to you, so why should you believe what they say about Ukraine?
The original Ukraine story (though not highly original) is this:
“The United States reaffirms its unwavering support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders, extending to its territorial waters. The U.S.-Ukraine relationship serves as a cornerstone for security, democracy, and human rights in Ukraine and the broader region.” ~ U.S. Department of State 😉
Obviously, given their ulterior motives, the US’ ‘unwavering support for … sovereignity and territorial integrity’ and ‘human rights [think cancel Russian culture]’ does not extend to Russia or to any other counry for that matter that is wise enough to reject the culture-crushing embrace of psuedo-liberal neo-imperialism.
The Brits, led by the Yanks and with poor old Western Europe dragged kicking and whining into the fray, and Turdeau joining in just because of what he is ~ a nasty piece of pseudo-liberal narcissism ~ cranked up the propaganda bandwagon and all aboard they went. First there was Vietnam, then Iraq, then Yugoslavia, then Afghanistan (for a comprehensive list see: US Interventions ) … so why should we believe that Ukraine is any different?
The US and its hangers-on are constantly flitting around the world looking for ‘places to liberate’. They are constantly bringing ‘democracy’ to people and to places who are doing quite nicely without it, thank you, at least without that liberal brand of democracy that has snake-oil written all over it. Moreover, they do about as much good as Christian missionaries did running around in Africa back in the 19th century; in fact they do much worse. Sometimes, often in fact, they let their intentions slip, exposing themselves like novice flashers. For example, when that little phrase pops out of the open flies of democracy ‘intervention and regime change’. In other words, we are going to intervene in the private affairs of sovereign countries and install a liberal puppet. Watch out! There’s a lot of them about!
In the old days, chaps like Napoleon would meet their adversaries on a piece of land somewhere, and there they would slog it out; for Biden and the Brits Ukraine is such a field.
It’s not cricket, old boy. No, it certainly isn’t. What it is though, is this:
And in case you are determined at any cost not to believe what commons sense tells you, stop social media twiddling (leftist bias) get out onto the internet and cast your eyes around. There are plenty of political commentators, political analysts, journalists, authors, geo-political institutes and just plain old Joe Public out there who agree with President Putin and many of those in agreement are citizens of the West. ‘Huh! All far-right extremists and fascists I expect!’ {An Independent My Arse reader.}
Being all liberal lefty on liberal lefty social media is all well and bad if all you are interested in is mutual backslapping or worse, but if you really want to know what real people think you have to broaden your horizons. Do you remember your father telling you that? Sorry? Oh, I forgot, we don’t have fathers anymore, least not in the UK.
Lies and Democracy and the spin they put on your money
So, read nothing, view nothing, but ask yourself this simple question: When in the history of recent conflict has the West spearheaded by the US poured so much money into one country in order to (now don’t laugh) underwrite its continued democracy?
Billions of dollars in the United States are being diverted from homeland projects into the holey bucket that is Ukraine. In the UK, whose special place in the special relationship ensures that they always follow, millions of pounds have been and are being squandered on Ukraine, depriving UK citizens of much-needed funding for causes closer to home.
How many hospital wings could we build with the money that has been siphoned off? How many hospital staff could we entice to stay by increasing wages? How much money could have been devoted to cancer research and so on? Can the UK really afford this massive taxpayer drain on its already crumbling economy? If we are not careful, we will not have enough money left to pay for those hotel suites that migrants have been promised as they are ferried in VIP-fashion to a liberal fanfare at the Port of Dover. “Ooh, lovely tolerant Britain!”
Questions beget questions. Here are some more you should ask yourself and then your political classes: How many more jabs for coronavirus? How many more immigrants? How much more Woke? How low the standard of living? How high the cost of living? How much more state-funded terrorism? How much more Black Lives Matter? How much more LGBT? How many more knife-ridden streets? How much more anti-social behaviour? How much more Stasi police force? How much more propaganda. How many lies, how many lies, how many lies, lies, lies …?
Mick Hart’s totally biased review of bottled beers* in Kaliningrad (or how to live without British real ale!)
Article 24: Taurus
Oh, come on! Even those of you who are far too rational to have any truck with mystic nonsense know that Taurus is an astrological sign and, for what it’s worth, the second astrological sign in the modern zodiac. No, not the Ford Zodiac. Who remembers those long bench seats and that tricky column gear stick?!
The zodiac sign for Taurus is the bull. Zodiac people are said to be hard-headed, down-to-earth, tenacious, reliable, loyal, and sensual. I wonder if the latter quality is why so many wear the cuckold’s horns?
Reviewing Taurus Beer in Kaliningrad
So, this beer that I am reviewing today, this pilsner, is named after the second sign of the zodiac. It has a bull’s head on the label, so it must be so, but we won’t know if the label stands for zodiac sign or something else until we attempt to drink it. Well, they ~ the brewers and distributors ~ are hardly likely to adorn the bottle with a hefty pile of bull droppings, are they?
Now, I’m not a pilsner man … blah … blah … blah …. Yes, you’ve heard it all before, but that does not mean that I am not afraid to try it. I once tried a liberal girlfriend. At least, I think she was a girl? Maybe, she was a feminist.
There are some out there who say yes, but … and they don’t get any further because they are drinking a good strong ale, but others say a pilsner is a pilsner is a pilsner, and most of them are me. But what the tongue doesn’t taste the tum can’t grieve about, so whilst you can’t teach your grandmother to suck eggs (why would she want to?), you can occasionally, on a hot afternoon, get a real-ale drinker to forget his religion and sip an ice-cold lager.
And if that lager is pilsner, make sure that it is ice cold, or it could taste like the bull I am hoping this pilsner will not be.
So, off we go with the top and up to the nostrils: ‘Dull, sour smell’ ~ make a note of that.
I pour it into the glass, and it looks light. I am relieved about that; don’t want to be asking, what did you do with the water that you washed the bull’s hind quarters with?
I sip it; I taste it; I swig it: Dull metallic taste. “Just as I thought, Watson!”
“Well, you silly bugger Holmes, why on earth did you buy it?”
“Why, because I have this ‘Year of the Bull’ tea towel, which I knew would make for a very interesting photograph even if the bull’s head attachment makes it a very inconvenient tea towel.”
“What a load of bullocks!” In the farmer’s field opposite. {Watson is looking out of the window into the farmer’s field opposite.}
The strength of the beer is not OTT. It weighs in at a very respectable 4.6%, which in the hereabouts, Kaliningrad, would be seen as lightweight but in the UK regarded as A-OK. For example, a matador could drink it and still not be incapable of waving his little red handkerchief.
As with many lagers, iced over from the fridge as if imported from a Siberian winter, pilsner is nothing to do with taste but all to do with coldness and getting it down your throat, hence the expression ‘Lager Louts’. Obviously, no regard for taste and quality equals no regard for decorum.
Drinking Taurus Beer in Kaliningrad
Some pilsner lagers evade the spell checker and by the time you have finished drinking them, let alone writing about them, they have turned into something else. I am relieved to say, however, that Taurus does qualify as a pilsner, not a pisner. It has all the ~ we won’t say qualities, but we will allow ourselves to use the word usefulness ~ of an alcoholic drink that comes in handy on a hot sweaty day.
And that was the penultimate sentence, which leaves you wondering how exactly, given the Taurus-bull connection, I resisted including a word like bullshit.
😀TRAINSPOTTING & ANORAKS Name of Beer: Taurus Brewer: Kalnapilis Brewery Where it is brewed: Panevėžys, Lithuania Bottle capacity: 1 litre Strength: 4.6% Price: It cost me about 127 roubles (£1.38) [at time of writing!] Appearance: Light Aroma: Dull, sour Taste: Typical pilsner Fizz amplitude: 4/10 Label/Marketing: A load of bull Would you buy it again? Hmm, debateable … Marks out of 10: 4.5
*Note that the beers that feature in this review series only include bottled beer types that are routinely sold through supermarket outlets and in no way reflect the variety of beer and/or quality available in Kaliningrad from speciality outlets and/or through bars and restaurants.
Mick Hart stars in his own Soviet version of Guns and Poses
Published: 5 March 2023 ~ Men’s Day in Kaliningrad Brings out the Soviet Guns
Every year, on the 23rdof February, Russia celebrates what is officially known as Defender of the Fatherland Day. Originally called Red Army Day, it was granted public-holiday status in recognition of the Red Army’s 1918 inauguration during the Russian Civil War. Known thereafter as the Day of the Red Army and the Navy, and later the Soviet Army and Navy Day, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the holiday was given its current name by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
At state level, the day honours the patriotism and sacrifices made by Russia’s military veterans. A formal ceremony is held in Moscow and in other Russian cities, with daytime parades and processions and evening concerts and firework displays. At national level, custom has morphed the day into a time when women honour their menfolk ~ not only military men but all men. Presents are given by Russian women to husbands/boyfriends, fathers, sons, brothers and also to male work colleagues, turning Defender of the Fatherland Day into the better known generic name of “Men’s Day”.
In the UK, liberals encourage ethnics to spit at our troops, not serve them in corner shops and berate them for wearing their uniforms in public. Transgenderism is rife and misandry encouraged. But the one thing that the UK does have that Russia doesn’t is Gay Pride Month …
Men’s Day in Kaliningrad Soviet Exhibition
Russia’s Men’s Day plays host to a variety of events, and this year we were invited to attend a display of Soviet militaria at the Kaliningrad Retro Car Club’s HQ, a former aircraft parts repository of historic Luftwaffe origin.
The exhibition was organised and delivered by a group of Soviet history enthusiasts/re-enactors.
On display were documents and printed ephemera relating to WWI and Soviet uniforms from both WWII and postwar periods. To generate the spirit of the occasion and to provide the public with a better idea of the look, style and fit of the uniforms, each re-enactor was dressed either in an officer’s or other ranks’ uniform and most were equipped with combat gear.
De-activated antique guns
The mainstay of the exhibition was a display of small arms, predominantly WWII in character, ranging from handguns to tripod-mounted machine guns. The cache was diverse and impressive and included within the Soviet mix were weapons of German origin. All of the guns displayed were deactivated collector’s pieces.
Although I have handled an extensive variety of classic vintage firearms thanks to my early and enduring interest in all things historic and later in my role as a dealer in militaria, some of the guns in today’s exposition fell into the category of ‘known but not encountered’ and others had eluded me.
The Browning automatic, which was the standard sidearm in WWII for both Allied and Axis forces, was an old friend: it was one of the handguns I have actually fired.
The semi-automatic Mauser, whose production dates to the 1870s, is one of the most distinctively profiled and therefore easily recognisable handguns of all time. The copy on today’s menu was interesting in that it could be fitted with a hardwood stock, a useful accessory upgrading its stability to that of a short rifle and being hollow in part it doubles as a storage case or holster.
Another familiar gun, and one that I have also fired, is the PPSH. The PPSH-41, a submachine gun instantly identifiable by its high-capacity drum magazine ~ 71 rounds when fully loaded ~ was one of the Soviet army’s most widely used infantry weapons. An icon of the period, it features extensively in photographic depictions of Soviet soldiers in battle, is often incorporated into figural war monuments and regularly appears on commemorative badges. Weighing around 12 pounds (5.45 kg), full magazine included, the first reaction of the inexperienced gun user on picking up the PPSH is usually how heavy it feels. It is without doubt a weighty specimen, but, unless you are a seasoned gun user, all guns when first encountered seem surprisingly heavy and also surprisingly clunky.
Although in many respects the Soviet PPSH bests the M1A1 U.S. Thompson, on the UK shooting range some years ago I felt less comfortable firing the PPSH than I did the Thompson. Weight for weight, there is not much difference, but the absence of a pistol grip or side grips on the PPSH means that the weapon has to be held with the supporting hand behind the drum or by cupping the drum itself, a necessity which I personally found impinged upon its accuracy. That said, the PPSH drum mag with its superior load capacity is compensation enough in any realistic performance-related comparison of these two iconic weapons.
Mention iconic firearms in the context of Soviet history and the buzzword is likely to be not the PPSH or the Mosin-Nagant but, yes, you’ve got it, the Kalashnikov. No Soviet firearms exhibition would be worth its salt without the presence of this gun, a weapon universally revered for its outstanding reliability under conditions of an adverse nature and a gun which ticks almost every box, if not ticks every box, as best in its class in the assault rifle category.
Used the world over, the Kalashnikov was and continues to be one of the most popular weapons ever produced. No serious gun collector would regard his collection complete without one. Today’s exposition featured two AK versions, fixed wood and folding-stock variants. We sold both types, deactivated of course, through our UK vintage/militaria emporium.
Another old favourite, which whenever I see it reminds me of the times we spent with the UK re-enacting group, the Soviet 2nd Guards Rifles Division, was the Degtyaryov machine gun. The Degtyaryov, DP-27/DP-28, was the standard light machine gun of the Soviet military in WWII. The large rotating drum magazine mounted on the top of the gun shaped its unique appearance, inspiring Soviet soldiers to nickname it the ‘record player’.
The Makarov pistol, or PM as it is known, which in 1951 became the Soviet military’s standard sidearm, is, in its definitive form, so well-known and accessible that the sight of one is unlikely to rock the gun community’s world, but you never can tell with guns what variants are out there; specific demand and experimentation are capable of producing the most unusual hybrid version of otherwise commonplace guns. Take the example displayed today. This version of the ubiquitous semi-automatic Makarov had undergone a modification that makes it look as incongruous as a woman’s body defaced with tats.
In details of proportion, the erstwhile small firearm seems to have taken leave of its senses. Strapped beneath its pistol grip is a drum magazine every bit as big and as chunky as the one that is used by the PPSH. However, as wild, whacky and clumsy as it appears, and although the variant was never widely produced, for a while at least this ambitious conversion was heralded as a useful addition to Russia’s law-enforcement armoury, since it enabled officers carrying shields who only had one hand with which to hold their gun to sustain fire over longer periods before needing to reload.
Today’s small arms cache in the old Luftwaffe building was a window on the world of Soviet weaponry. From my point of view, having handled a fair amount of military weapons over a lifetime’s interest in all things history, some were old acquaintances but others took their place in the never-ending learning curve ~ the converted Makarov is a case in point. The past is littered with revelations waiting for someone to pick them up. There is always something new to discover, always something new to learn and the joy of both never grow old. It is one of the enduring delights of the antique/vintage scene.
Soviet Uniforms
The uniforms displayed also brought back memories of our vintage shop and the re-enactments that we took part in as members of the 2nd Guards group.
As I believe I mentioned in a previous post, re-enactment is a serious historical business. Everything has to be just so, an exact replica of what it was like back in the 1940s. Considerable time and effort is diligently expended in researching and getting the uniforms right and in allocating to those uniforms the correct insignia worn and where and how it was worn. Anything less than perfect is sure to be met with a stern rebuke from the re-enactment group’s leaders and spark derision in those who purport to know more than you do about such important details, one’s group peers especially and, more embarrassingly, military veterans.
At first sight, the Soviet uniform looks pretty basic, and it was. At the time the Second World War broke out It hadn’t changed much since the First World War. It certainly does not compare with the rigid formality of British wartime uniforms and the flash, Hollywood modernity of their American counterparts, whose uniforms and equipment had a certain style all of their own. But what the Soviet uniform lacks in formality and also in panache it more than makes up for in functionality, being lightweight, durable and easy to wear.
As a re-enactor and military clothes dealer, I have worn the uniforms of both Allied and Axis forces, both officers’ and other ranks’, and if I had to sum up each country’s uniform using one definitive word for each, my choice of words would be: American, ‘stylish’; British, ‘itchy’; Soviet, ‘comfortable’.
When re-enacting, the only bone I had to pick with the Soviet uniform was the inclusion of fresh, white, linen neck-liners, which have to be changed and sewn with irritating regularity into the underside of the tunic collar. As an actor on a film set, someone does this for you. It is altogether different when you have to do it yourself: for example, when cold and bleary eyed after a night beneath the rainy skies with only your canvas poncho for protection. Warning: Re-enactment is a serious business.
Men’s Day in Kaliningrad
The reals stars of the Soviet military display held at the Kaliningrad Retro Car Club HQ were the guns, but it would be inexcusably remiss of me if I was to leave the show without giving credit where credit is due for one of the best collections of Soviet gas masks that I have ever seen exhibited at a militaria event.
The impressive collection was the inspiration and work of a young bloke called Valordia. He confided in me that the official requirement of wearing masks during the coronavirus scare had added impetus to his collecting zeal and that during those two surreal years he had substituted cloth masks for gas masks from his collection. Good for him! I thought. I often tried to be different, too, by wearing my mask around my knee. It’s never been the same knee since. It seems to wheeze a little!
Valordia’s gas-mask collection begins with a fairly basic item from WWI, extends through the interwar years, encompasses WWII and finally comes to rest with a state-of-the-art modern mask, modelled by last years’ model (and some) me. In case you didn’t want to recognise me, there I am in the photo, standing as large as life and twice as beautiful in my designer gas mask next to Valordia. This mask has some interesting gimmicks, such as interchangeable this and that’s, and also features a drinking tube for the wearer to take in liquid refreshments (Mine’s a pint of Landlord, please.) whilst remaining safely enveloped in rubber.
It’s food for thought, but the accessorising capability of this mask stands it in good stead for nomination as the Gates/Davos prototype ~ the first live-in coronavirus and other nasty man-made-diseases facemask, a must-have accessory for the globalist’s reset future. With a built-in smartphone as standard, which I think we can safely assume it would have, proud wearers will continue to be urged to post their selfies to social media, thus preserving social media’s ongoing cloning affect. The beauty of the mask will be that even more than ever none of your ‘friends’ will know who you are and what you really are, which when assessed at its most fundamental level is what social media is all about: a world of revolving masks in a hall of revolving mirrors. The ‘Like’ tickers and back-slappers will function as before, seeing nothing and knowing less, there mutual appreciation assured as they woo each other with fulsome comments about how young and lovely each of them look hidden behind their filters. Don’t mock! It could happen. It could be a win-win situation, for those who are steadily losing.
But I digress: In an age when everything and everybody seems smartarsephoned, it is reassuring to discover that there are others in the world who share your ardent belief that there is no time like the past, and reassuring again when the other parties concerned are considerably younger than yourself. Keep up the good work, chaps!
Whilst my response to the Soviet exhibition was one of unreserved enjoyment, I completely understand why some people cannot understand why guns, old or new, should be a source of fascination. Unlike my youngest brother, who holds several medals and trophies for marksmanship in most small-arms categories, I do not. It is true that in my youth, I would occasionally run around armed in the middle of the night, not I hasten to add in an urban setting but for the perfectly reasonable purpose of poaching his lordship’s estate. In my dotage, however, guns, have taken their place among the many varied man-made objects invested with an intrinsic ability to stimulate appreciation for their craftsmanship, aesthetics and historic interest alone. And yet, despite such commendable sensibilities and the reservations from which they stem, come the day of the exhibition I could not resist the alpha temptation to pick up and tote a sawn-off or two. Both the shotgun and the rifle, even with modified barrels and stocks, were surprisingly tactile and disturbingly balanced.
Disturbingly unbalanced is the expression on my face captured in the photo where I am holding one of these guns. In that photograph I seem to have achieved a curious manly man hybrid somewhere between Clint Eastward and Bop Hope, either that or my pants are too tight.
Looking at my photo (above), I think we can safely conclude that a manly image is not so easily come by as convention would have us believe, even when its Man’s Day and even when you are holding a gun. But you’ve got to admire Squint Westwood’s brass and, if only as an act of charity, give me six out of ten for trying.
