Sunny weather, Bank Holidays, guns and weather girls

So its warm and sunny, I had spent a day on a training course with the all day hangover from hell, Lennie didnt say that came with the hotel room and I am sat in the beer garden of a hotel chain in Chingford, home of the aging Gilfs. So up pops email mail from Mr FM including 2 pics from his recent spring break
With a Blue Wildebeast

 With a Piggy and 3 helpers, the piggy is the prone one

 Big mistake was to leave behind the national reserve of homebrew cider, it would have made for a cheaper stay;

 On the subject of eye candy there are few finer sights first thing in the morning than waking up to a lovely weather girl. Sadly Local BBC for Chingford could only offer this;

 When I really wanted the goddes of all milfs, Carol Kirkwood who if she doesnt have her own website certainly should get one!

 I have to admit to feeling cheated by the all you can eat breakfast when I asked for two of everything and they skipped the hash browns;

 The next day they managed to get the hash browns but forget the sausages, I ask you what sort of kitchen are they running?;

 Still on return from a day spent in design review meetings in central London and the delivery fairy has brought me finally from the auctions, two Spanish 12 bore side by side non ejector boxlocks and a Parker Hale 7x57 Mauser. So not a completely wasted week then!

So a long weekend ahead, started drinking the homebrew apple and pear cider already and I'm looking forward to spending some time with the dogs. Oh and of course I passed the course!

Stagging on

Its been a shit couple of weeks, chaos at work, chaos at large in the world but at least one thing is certain, friends will always need you even if its for a comforting word.
Still forging ahead my holiday is booked, a trip up to Scotland for the start of this years Hind cull, a boys event well worth the wait.
Heres a pic or three to get your tastebuds warmed up;

 The Rigby on the Hill

 The days takings

The Blaser

Farewell Maggie

A true leader, a person who stood up for what was right regardless of the consequences!

Mausers everywhere

A trip to Yorkshire yesterday to drop Alex (Minime) off at University and I managed to grab the last two Portugese Mausers in Henry Kranks in Leeds. Now they are a shop best phoned in advance and visited in person. Sadly SBW missed my trip and put in an order a little too late. However I am now the proud owner of 1 Portugese Mauser in 6.5 x 58, 2 of the shortened rebarrelled models in 8mm and an Argentinian 7.65 x 53.
Here they are for comparisom. I will likely sporter the lower 8mm Mauser once I have had some fun, I rather fancy a 7.62 bullet in a 6.5 x 55 case so it will still be a Mauser but an oddball one;

 You can see the difference in Barrel Lengths between the original 6.5 from 1904 and the later 1930's 7.92 x 57 models;

 Its an interesting bolt thats for sure;

Well at least it keeps me off the streets and I am not posting offensive comments on twitter!


The sporter? yes the Argy and the Portugese will get restocked hopefully this year!

Taxes for the hard of thinking

With thanks to Nick on FB;
TAXES EXPLAINED

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to £100...
If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this...

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay £1.
The sixth would pay £3.
The seventh would pay £7..
The eighth would pay £12.
The ninth would pay £18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay £59.

So, that's what they decided to do..

The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve ball.

"Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by £20". Drinks for the ten men would now cost just £80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes.

So the first four men were unaffected.

They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men?
The paying customers?

How could they divide the £20 windfall so that everyone would get his fair share?

They realised that £20 divided by six is £3.33. But if they
subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer.

So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by a higher percentage the poorer he was, to follow the principle of the tax system they had been using, and he proceeded to work out the amounts he suggested that each should now pay.

And so the fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% saving).

The sixth now paid £2 instead of £3 (33% saving).

The seventh now paid £5 instead of £7 (28% saving).
The eighth now paid £9 instead of £12 (25% saving).

The ninth now paid £14 instead of £18 (22% saving).

The tenth now paid £49 instead of £59 (16% saving).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But, once outside the bar, the men began to compare their savings.

"I only got a pound out of the £20 saving," declared the sixth man.

He pointed to the tenth man,"but he got £10!"

"Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a pound too. It's unfair that he got ten times more benefit than me!"

"That's true!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get £10 back, when I got only £2? The wealthy get all the breaks!"

"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison, "we didn't get anything at all. This new tax system exploits the poor!"

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had their beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and government ministers, is how our tax system works.

The people who already pay the highest taxes will naturally get the most benefit from a tax reduction.

Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore.

In fact, they might start drinking overseas, where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D.
Professor of Economics.

For those who understand, no explanation is needed.
For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible

Hear the Tiger Roar

Alex and I got up at stupid o clock and drove to Bovington in Dorset. We went to hear the tiger roar, Tiger Tank Mark 1 Number 13 the first captured in WW2 was restored enough for a public display and I was asked to support the Hols for Heroes stand in the entrance hall.
We arrived as early as possible, the 157 mile drive flew by and we were the first in the car park, we helped set up and then wandered around the halls before the public arrived, what a great opportunity;

 Outside we saw some tanks moving around

 Both old and new ones

 Some quite rare ones

 Of course the halls are packed with examples

 Alex has a go on the PIAT simulator

 King Tiger, my what a feck off big gun!

 A Vickers?

 A WW1 Whippet

 A Ferret Mk5 with Swingfire

 

 

 

 

Another week screams by

There it went, along with my youth, health and wealth. I have been busy, a safety training day at work, a lecture/film on damascus barrel making at the HBSA and getting ready tonight for the shoot annual dinner. I am getting all tweedy in preparation. No beer or vino for me though as I am up early, another insane morning meeting tomorrow, this time in Shoreditch but afterwards I should be nipping back via Holts to catch up on the sale room and view the sealed bid stuff!
Clive sent me this, no good for me as I am neither Ginger nor coordinated;

See you tomorrow at the auctions.