FREE MARKET FAIRY TALES

The Mother in Law from Hell has had a bit of an accident

Yesterday afternoon I got a phone call saying that the the Wicked Witch of the West had had an accident on her way over to FM Towers. She narrowly escaped injury after she she was forced to make an emergency landing in a garden on the other side of the turnpike, after encountering a problem while on final approach

The Civil Aviation Authority has already issued a preliminary report, stating that the pilots vision became impaired by black cat's tail. The absence of a post-crash fire was likely due to insufficient fuel on board & no one on the ground was injured.

The photograph below was taken at the scene to show the extent of damage to her aircraft - she was really lucky .. we were not so

Yesterday Evening

Driving across the fields with The Englishman on our way to the pub

This afternoon, we have been cutting the grass

Time to put mower away & have a cup of tea

That Friday feeling

Its a beautiful summers evening here. I think that I might just pop in here for a sharpener on the way home

There is little evidence of prehistoric settlement but the village was mentioned by name in 940 and a village grew up around the church and manor house, already standing by 1086. The village was comparatively small. Its assessment for taxation in 1334 was among the lower totals of the area but it subsequently expanded. There were 86 poll-tax payers in 1377, and by the 16th century it was apparently the largest village in the parish. Settlement seems to have remained around the lower part of ‘the street’ in the 17th century, but cottages were built on the slightly higher, better drained, land around the Green in the 18th century. A public house called the Swan stood at the south corner from 1746 at the latest

Things to do after you have spent the afternoon down at the cricket club

An afternoon down at the cricket club

Boy even made a few runs today

right up until he decided to start giving it the big yahoo...

Of Route 100, dweebs & a baritone exhaust note that could stir the most girded of loins

I have driven Vermont’s Route 100 & don’t propose to go into what a great road it truly is. If you are into that sort of thing, trust when I say that it is a box you want to tick before you hand your car keys back for the final time. So tonight dear readers we start with a short note sent to Walt from a chum of his who is a copper in Vermont...

Ya know I get to see a lot of weirdness here in Vermont, duct-taped ferrets covered in KY...farm animals on rooftops...UFO abductees’ that have never left their own town but somehow were teleported to another planet by aliens...BTDT, got the t-shirt, wore the damn shirt out.

The serious note was an attempted suicide. He lived. My shift is far from over...I have a sense of foreboding evil....plane crash? A busload of strippers runs out of gas on a dark backroad? The DNA from a Porcupine and a Moose combine producing a 1000 pound mobile cactus? I shall report further, if I survive...

Both assuming & discerning ... . I note a Ducati with a baritone exhaust note that could stir the most girded of loins... & how right you are sir– nothing sounds like Ducati. You can keep those slash pipes that people insist of fitting to Harleys when they want them to sound even more like a tractor. Carbon race cans on Japanese transverse 4s – I fitted my GSX-Rs & YZFs with Microns – done that one. Its all well & good, but as the Ducatisti know, nothing sounds like an Italian V twin on overrun as you roll off the throttle & peel into a corner...

It isn’t just a uniquely beautiful & throaty engine noise so much as one commentator put it, the complete symphony of internal combustion. I feel no need to apologise for my current outrageous levels of testosterone

Time for a swifty?

Turn out of The Englishman’s, head a few miles through the lanes ... a couple of lefts ...navigate through the sheep in the road ... avoid the milk tanker lorry coming straight at you ... make a few right turns but suddenly you might be gripped by the urge for a cheeky half. So its just as well that by now, you should find yourself outside here.

This little oasis, The Bridge Inn, was built around 1800 but pre-dates the neighbouring Kennet & Avon Canal which was opened quite recently ... in 1810. Road, bridge, canal, pub - let’s just say that that down in these yerrrr parrrrrrts, this is how we like our ‘transport interchanges’ & 'service areas'.

Desert issue?

It is often said that officers are issued with ‘G10’ Labradors. I suppose that on that basis, we could be considered to be currently troop trialling the new desert issue lab...

Of course, any lab worth its salt considers the dessert issue to be more pressing

“My heart is in the Church of England but not my mind” – Alister Hardy

We have touched upon village churches before (incidentally, it’s one of my favourite posts) & I thought that we could start this week with a picture of the church in our village

Apparently, there has been a church on this site since the 12th Century & indeed the first recorded parish priest was in 1306. No one is quite sure quite how old the current church is, but village records show that the nave & tower were added in circa 1523 & it is clearly shown on this parish map from 1773

The church was rebuilt by J.L. Pearson in the mid 1850s and re-opened in 1858. A newspaper report claimed "the number of sittings is 121". Clearly Victorian congregations were a little larger than they are these days. Mind you, there used to be in excess of 60 dwellings; today there are 34 and the village has a population of just under 100.

Really, I am a working dog

This morning I have mainly been out on the Ducati

Right, thats it

I'm done with this week & its been a real pig. Things are only now just starting to look up because I'm off to the pub with The Englishman

See y'all later

Zombies Part 2

Firstly last weekend, I walk into the sitting room to find Boy & his Pal watching Vic Reeves investigates Jack the Ripper. There followed a brief but erudite debate about the falling standards of television channels scheduling followed a not so bloodless coup which saw your humble correspondent elevated to OC Remote Control. The ensuing channel change to Where Eagles Dare was accompanied by such level of wailing that I knew that I had properly discharged my paternal duties.

So there I am trying to explain to two eleven year old boys the full majesty of Richard Burton’s career, the scale of his body of work coupled with the importance of this movie in the evolution on modern film when I’m asked...

Boy: Does anybody get ‘owned’?

YHC: Eh?

Pal: Does anyone have blown to bits?

YHC: This isn’t a Jason Statham film lad

Boy: Are there any Zombies in it?

My life is rapidly assuming all of the characteristics of a Calvin & Hobbes cartoon strip

I just knew that I shouldn't have mentioned 'convertable' Land Rovers...

... because currently my mailbox is rather full of pictures like this

from PK

Land Rover envy

The sun is shining & I too wish that just at the moment, I had a convertable Land Rover like reader NM

Today we have been down at the Carew River

More here & here

Sorry for the lack of posting...

but Family FM have been away for a couple of days

I am beginning to think that Mrs FM might have a slightly obsessive personality

& before anybody asks, you really can’t expect a Tight Head Prop (No. 3) to understand a complex instruction like “please hand your shirt in after the match”. As for No.11, Fly Halves generally can understand such an instruction but are normally too much of a prima donna to do what they are told

Il Monstro: The Devil made me do it officer

Following on from Friday's post, the Devil might not have made me do it but can you sense the hand of Mrs FM in this...

& before anybody comments, between us, we have owned that may Japanese transverse 4s (GSX-Fs, GSXRs, YZFRs & a ZXR)

but She That Shall Be Obeyed wanted something a little different

& as AJDS commented the other day, God rides a V twin & when it comes to V twins, nothing & I do mean nothing, not even a Norton, leaks oil/electrics fail/generally breaks down like a Ducati

Today at Twickenham

Family FM have been at the Guinness Premiership Cup Final

Fast Women

I am reposting this today as a little livener for events that are likely to take place over the weekend. It harks back to a happier pre-veracious veins two nippers grey haired time when my life was altogether more simple & could fit lock stock into my Alfa Romeo. So this morning dear readers I humbly commend you to this little missive on the redoubtable Mrs FM...

Mrs Free Market has been described as the sort of woman that helped build the Empire: she is able, organised & processes an iron will (as well as being monstrously competitive). Altogether, she is a much better & more pleasant person than her licentious husband. Received wisdom is however, these are the sort of people you have to watch out for. Certainly in her case, behind this facade of respectability there resides something hideously volatile & socially reprehensible.

My view is to blame this modern British society - too many rules, too many taxes & not enough emphasis on individual freedoms. The so-called experts will of course disagree (at the taxpayers expense). They will attribute this sort of antisocial behaviour to the levels of the brain chemical serotonin, which connects the cerebral cortex (which controls rational though & speech), to the limbic system (responsible for emotion)

Serotonin prevents overtly aggressive & impulsive behaviour by ensuring a balance in the connections between the two brain centres, making sure that the grab the AK & kill 'em all messages issued from the limbic centre are tempered to behaviour levels which are vital for anyone wishing to adopt the cloak of acceptable human behaviour.

The less well chemically endowed than others have a statistically increased probability of developing Anti-Social Personality Disorder (APD), a condition responsible for shortening a few queues in MacDonald's. This unfortunate condition is however, easily detectable in early life - signs for parents to watch out for include slaughtering beloved family pets & pulling the arms off other children.

Frankly, as time goes by, these unfortunate people have ever decreasing options. Either get their psychotic offspring to adopt a more acceptable behaviour patterns or pay the trick cyclists bill.This however is Brown's Bankrupt Britain - no one takes responsibility for anything ... so these parents do nothing.

Much easier to send the children off to the pub for ten pints of wife beater & fight please, landlord. If they don't fall to pieces, like a cheap suit, in their local, then when someone cuts them up in the traffic on the way home they will feel compelled to give chase, force them off the road & hack them it bits with the machete that just happened to be under the passenger seat officer.

Mrs FM however hides her social deviancy & more unsavoury social tendencies in a slightly more sophisticated manner by racing boats, as well as driving cars & riding motorcycles very very quickly. The reason that she had to dispose of her RGV250 was that she blew the engine. (Motor Cycle News ran a story about the full extent of the rebuild it required)

Rather than modifying her behaviour patterns & riding technique, she went a purchased a ZXR400 as a replacement - her principle complaint with it being, having chased me down an Italian autostrada, was that she could only get 135mph out of it. As the strap line on her bike's illegally small number plate said ... Fear No Man. I'm afraid, very afraid. I advise you all to be the same.

“There’s a breathless hush in the close tonight...”

Not so much a bumping pitch & a blinding light - in fact the pitch was so 'flat' - please excuse the camera angle - that had nothing in it for the bowlers but here we have Boy trying to give it a little air in an attempt to get some movement...

Sadly there was no swing to be had that day & consequently he got smacked all over the park for 6 overs. However laughing at his weekends bowling figures isn’t the reason for this post, its little piece of cricket trivia found by Alan

The first ‘box’ was used in 1874

The first helmet was used in 1974

It took 100 years for men to realise that the brain is also important. Apparently.

As for Sunday's result, the opposition were 161 for 3, after their 35 overs; a very respectable score. However Boy's team made 162 in 17 overs, having lost only 1 wicket. As Boy said afterwards, I knew our batsmen would bail us out !

Its what the back of your Land Rover was designed for

Snapped at Badminton Horse Trials over the weekend...

... ... & please note that despite the profusion on blankets & snoozies, we really are roughty toughty working gundogs...it’s just that it is a little bit sunny at the moment & we are both having extreme difficulty staying awake

& to bring you all up to date

But over the weekend, Youngest at the age of six years & 10 months joined the ranks of the shooting fraternity

Yes, she did hit the target & yes she is keen as mustard to have another go. Now some of you, especially those of you whose daughters burn through ammunition, will remember the sinking feeling as yet another cost line goes on to the family balance sheet. I’m currently in that place.

Some of the land at the back of FM Towers

"...gracefully surrendering the things of your youth"

Today, I got rid of my bike

As you might be able to make out in the photo, it is covered in dust, having sat unused in the back of the barn for the last 3 years. The problem is, having got rid of that, I now want a new toy (as does incidently Mrs FM). Now that really is a dangerous state of affairs!

Its still grim up North

Apologies for today’s lack of posting however for his myriad sins, once again your humble correspondent has been up North today

Diabolus fecit, ut id facerem ...

This morning we have mainly been chasing rabbits

Just a little bit of my world

Morning after

Apologies for todays very late posting however a lot of yesterday was spent errrrrrrr toasting the roast beef of Old England. In fact your humble correspondent was a guest at this little do...

Royal Marine Matt Croucher, 24, was named Englishman of the Year by charity The St George’s Day Club — for throwing himself on a live grenade in Afghanistan to save comrades. L/Cpl Matt, of Birmingham — who has received the George Cross — was congratulated by Chelsea Pensioners as he received the accolade at Grosvenor House Hotel.

I seem to remember raising my first glass at about midday. I recall leaving the pub at about tenish (I think) but after that it goes a tad fuzzy. Needless to say, Alka Seltar has figured large in my life today.

Thought for the Day

After my little weekend faux pas, I am reminded of a comment in an email from AJDS...

A married man should forget his mistakes. There's no use in two people remembering the same thing!

Let's just say that I there is still no evidence of any global warming round at FM Towers

Damnation without relief

So your humble correspondent got home at 7 am this morning. Everyone including the dogs were a-bed, so not wanting to disturb anyone I fed the dogs & then had some breakfast myself.
First downstairs was Boy – I fixed him something to eat. Next was Youngest. I asked her what she wanted & she replied Cornflakes followed by cake. What cake, I asked & received the reply, the half of Mummy’s birthday cake that we didn’t have yesterday.

OH SH1T !

Let’s just say that a lot of today has been conducted in silence

& this morning in Beijing

Just think of the airmiles!

Your humble correspondent got back from eight days in Hong Kong & Chongqing early on Monday morning. In fact I didn’t manage to get to FM Towers on Monday night as most of it was spent in the office. Today, as both the rain & the Easter Exodus from London starts, your find me back at Heathrow...

Today I am off to Beijing for ... wait for it now ... a 2 hour meeting. So its straight back out again in the afternoon & via Hong Kong, home for seven o’clock on Saturday morning.

Yep, still here

... but sadly, on the redeye back to London tonight

Its Saturday. This must be Hong Kong

Still sleepless in Chongqing

The People's Liberation Monument, located in the center of Chongqing. It was at one time the highest building in the area but now is dwarfed by numerous shopping centers. The tower was originally named as "Monument for the victory over Axis armies" but after the Communist takeover is got errrrrr “rebranded”.

This morning, it is raining in Chongqing

& today will be another busy day in Hong Kong

So its back to Cathay’s sultry charms

Tonight I shall be partaking of a few post long haul bracers in one of my favourite bars

The first day of spring

The dogs are asleep in the sun outside & its time to on with all of the chores that have been building up over the winter.

That is probably why this afternoon, your humble correspondent is getting back on a plane (again)

I wouldn’t dare post this seriously & live

so instead, I shall say that this is being published ironically

You have to remember that the adjective that Mrs FM uses most often to describe me is “irritating”

& if you are down to your last half a bar...

...this cottage is available in the next village

Enough 'character' for you?

& a huge sorry to Bird Dog, for copying his idea

First car

OK, its Tuesday morning confession time - mine was one of these, but a lot lot older than the one in the picture below

& yes, it was bright yellow. So come on now you lot, fess up, what was your first set of wheels

Trouble & Strife Part 2: Marital Armageddon

Regular readers might recall that just over a week ago, your humble correspondent selflessly tried to redefine the boundaries of original sin – at least as far as the memsahib was concerned. Only now that both my primary & secondary injuries are starting to heal can I come completely clean & confess to all my dear readers that my transgressions didn’t exactly cease at the end of that post.

Let’s just fast forward a little from where we left off last Friday & say that the drive down through France was being conducted in the most terrible ominous silence. Holiday plans lay in ruins & timings had all gone to ratsh1t. Looking at Disco Dave’s satnav & doing a few quick sums, it was abundantly clear that we weren’t going to make it to our destination in the Alps that day. Thinking quickly & in a vainglorious attempt to deflect some of the hellfire & damnation that would inevitably soon be raining down on my head, we needed somewhere to stay for the night. A swift call to Office Wife would ensure that we had somewhere comfortable to stay for the night for Office Wife steers me around the globe with unerring precision.

Sure enough, 20 minutes later, my BlackBerry hummed as the details of a suitable reservation. Plug in the hotel’s address & off we set for Chambery with an ETA of 2330.

To cut to the chase, could we find the hotel? Could we hell! After the best part of an hours fruitless search trying to find our hotel or indeed any hotel with a room proved a dismal failure & there was nothing to do but to drive up to Bourg St Maurice, park up at the railway station & spend what little remained of the night in the car. Disco Dave’s computer said that the outside temperature was -10 degs C. Trust me when I say that the atmosphere a considerably colder in the car.

Trouble & Strife Part 1: Mrs FM in the media

It would seem that while we were away on holiday, Mrs FM & Larry Landrover attracted the attentions of the media…

Of course, only some lily livered liberal journo could come up with a strap line like “A Landrover makes it through the flood”. It’s a Landrover you utter nanger & just as importantly, it is being piloted by little Mrs Aggression herself – trust me when I say that that particular combination would make clean through the very Gates of Hades & back again … without even having to engage the diff lock.

& its back to school for the nippers today

Final Day

Sadly today will be our last in the Alps

Still, we will squeeze in another day on the slopes & then drive the 789 miles home overnight.

& most likely there will be more of the same today

Tonight, I shall be mainly out on the toot

Yesterday afternoon

The view towards Mount Blanc...

... from Les Arcs 1950

Mr Free Markets Top Skiing Tip: No. 39

Your mid-afternoon cup of hot chocolate will be considerably enhanced by the addition of a hefty tot of dark rum.

Today could well be another long hard day

Its been another hard day on the slopes

Today we have mainly been skiing

St Valentines Day

After the events of the other day (see posts passim), were you expecting anything different?

Mr Free Markets masterclass in how to destruction test your marriage

1. Promise the Memsahib, on pain of death, that you will get home from China at the very latest by early on Thursday evening even because first thing on Friday morning Family FM are off skiing

2. Phone the War Office on Thursday morning to say that you have landed early at Heathrow & things are looking good

3. Phone the Omnipresent One mid afternoon to explain that the boss is ill & your humble & by now grovelling correspondent is having to take his place at medium to heavy duty corporate presentation on Friday. Consequently you won’t be home & it will also mean that she is driving to the Alps with the nippers, solo. You will fly out as soon as you can.

(When I say that an icy silence was all pervasive at this point, I am not talking about the crisp clear atmosphere of a high Alpine resort)

4. 0745 Friday morning - boss announces he has made a Lazarus like recovery. Inform memsahib, devise Plan B & start to calculate the net present value of future alimony payments

5. Jump in taxi to St Pancras Station figuring that the Eurostar will be the fastest way to get to Ashford International Train Station. Inform the Little Blond Ball of Fury of potential RV location & timings

6. On arriving at St Pancras, discover that you can’t buy a ticket just to Ashford. In fact, they wont sell you a ticket to Paris & allow you to alight at Ashford

7. Get taxi to Charing Cross Station & inform the Destroyer of Worlds about new Plan C

8. On arriving at Charing Cross discover that there is a security alert somewhere & a train has broke down somewhere else.

Junk Plan C .. Go buy coffee ... Contemplate the arrival of the terrible Day of Judgement & life as a quadriplegic

Blackest of rages

Today your humble correspondent is in London before hopefully getting on a flight this evening. The real p*sser is that last night I was supposed to be on a different flight to Spain for 2 days partridge shooting.

A thousand curses

Wot no salt?

Nangers!

The shortage of salt has forced Wiltshire County Council to cut back on gritting roads as the county prepares for more snowfall tonight

...which is why the A4 east of Marlborough look like this at 0645 this morning...

Forget gorillas in the mist…

Landrovers in the snow are a lot more useful than one of those girlymen Pirus piles of poo!

Has anyone got a set of jump leads for Reader Hugh who might just be needing them!

This morning I have been mainly waiting for a train...

... for some considerable time

Its still a tad snowy down in these yerrrr parrrrts

London this morning

Looks like Al & Leo were right to worry

Its a bit snowy here today

This chap is safe enough, the season just having ended. Damn! However, judging from the hysterical weather warnings that we being issued by the Met Office yesterday, I was expecting woolly mammoths in the top paddock this morning – not the ½ inch dusting on snow that we in fact received. What a nation of girly men we have become

Dirty stop-out

Ummmmmmmmmmm - I seem to recall that even when they put the chairs on the tables...

... we still didn't leave the bar last night. Today is likely to be a little slow. The dinner before hand at the Cinnamon Club was superb- eye wateringly expensive but given that we had been in The Old Star before hand, I didnt really notice quite the extent of the bill until I emptied out my wallet this morning

Ho hum

Pah & double pah!

Before catching the redeye back to Blighty last night, your humble correspondent had supper in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel’s Chinnery Bar. For those of you that are unfamilier with this institution

The Chinnery Bar was originally opened as a Gentleman's club in 1963 and was not opened to women until 1990. It serves traditional colonial cuisine and whiskey.

With a write up like that, you can understand why it is a mandatory stop on any visit to Hong Kong. Tonight, by way of contrast, I shall be staying somewhere in (groan) Leeds. If I were to be uncharacteristically charitable, I would say that such contrasts help me keep a sense of perspective. But I am feeling jet lagged & very very uncharitable. Therefore stuff contrast, I’d much rather still be in the Mando tonight

Kung Hei Fat Choi

& so its back to Hong Kong for a couple of days

This morning...

I should be out shooting pheasants, or still be snoring in my pit. Instead, I am packing a bag...

Its time to get back on the plane again

This morning...

you find me back up north

Its a tough old life

This week, Mrs FM & Daughter are off skiing. This morning, as I get on my train to work, Mrs FM will be enjoying this view from her chalet

Looks like that new deer rifle (in lieu of holiday) is getting closer & closer!

Its even colder this morning that it was yesterday

& I am still blaming Al Gore

I blame Al Gore

This morning when your humble correspondent left home this morning, this is what Disco Dave’s temperature gauge was reading…

If I meet just one of those climate change numpties today, I swear that they are going to get a black eye.

First day back at work

& the snow starts.

Typical

Boxing Day

Today, Family FM have been enjoying a spot of lawlessness down with the Royal Artillery Hunt's Boxing Day meet

& we were not alone - in fact right the way across Blighty...

About 6,000 people attended the Boxing Day hunt in Oxfordshire - the biggest number for 35 years, according to the Couuntryside Alliance

Of course it was all competely legal because no little fluffy foxy woxys were hurt over the course of the day ... we are saving them for a few nights time when we will go out with the lamps & blow 'em to smithereens

Sorry bunny huggers, you can't have it both ways: the red dogs can either take their chances with the hounds or they get an appointment with a 150 grain soft nosed bullet travelling at a little over 2,000 fps.

Merry Christmas

Right dear readers, the fire is lit & the glass is full of Talisker (but not for long).

All that there remains for me to do tonight is to wish you all of you a very Happy Christmas. Now let the feasting commence….

Sithee whippet

Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at six o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of 'ot gravel, work twenty hour day at mill for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would thrash us to sleep with a broken bottle, if we were lucky!

Well, of course, we had it tough. We used to 'ave to get up out of shoebox at twelve o'clock at night and lick road clean wit' tongue. We had two bits of cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at mill for sixpence every four years, and when we got home our Dad would slice us in two wit' bread knife.

This morning you find your humble correspondent one hundred & fifty miles north of the nearest decent gin & tonic. As they say…

They don’t just come in beige

I suppose that it all started with the Volvo 245; short of carting your family about in an actual armoured personnel carrier there was & still is, probably no safer way to move your family around. Indeed, there is a credible school of thought that maintains we could do a lot worse than to issue Volvo’s to units currently on active service in Iraq & Afghanistan. When it comes to solidly built cars, the Volvo is hewn out of the sorts of RSJs that in happier times, they used to build battlecruisers out of. As it was described by Top Gear, since the mid 1970’s, the Volvo estate has been the rubber bumpered totem of stout middle class values. That is probably why, when Family FM moved back to Blightly from Asia in 1998, I bought one. Well not one of those ‘orrible old ones with a tow bracket & a camping club sticker in the rear window that takes half a week to reach 50 miles per hour, but one of these…

… Volvo’s crazy 2nd cousin - the 225 bhp T5 estate.

Now these days, 225 bhp doesn’t sound very much, especially in a car that is the motorised equivalent of the medieval battering ram, but more one Gary Wrong in his ‘hot hatch’ has had a little bit of a shock off the lights, when a fully laden family estate car opens up a big tin of whoooooopass in 7 seconds – the same amount of time that it takes a T5 to go from 0 – 60 mph.

The problem with the T5 was that der Wilhem very quickly twigged how good they were & soon started buying them

As Performance Bikes magazine ruefully concluded, it didn’t matter if you were on the latest Kamikaze Nutter Ba*tard 1100, being chased by a T5 piloted by a police advanced driver, you should be afraid. Very afraid

This morning I have been out in the frost with the labs

A day at the ranges (Part 1)

As some of you have already worked out, we spent last week as guests of the du Toits, enjoying their bounteous hospitality & good company in north Dallas. Now I could at this point spend the rest of this post waxing lyrical about how their dining room table groaned under the weight of a Thanksgiving Dinner of truly biblical proportions: however knowing my loyal readers as I do, I know that you would much rather hear about tables down at the range that were also groaning, but under the weight of firearms, ammunition & other sundry goodies

& so it was that we found ourselves as guests down at the Dallas Pistol Club…& if the very mention of that august institution doesn’t quicken the heart, it should. In fact, in one of his pre-retirement posts, Kim pretty much covered off what we, Family du T & Doc Russia got up to

However from my perspective it did prove a most amusing range day as Mrs FM had never fired a pistol before. So under our hosts supervision, she warmed up on a varity of .22s (Colt, Ruger, Walther, Browning & Kim’s Taurus pump action)

before graduating through 9mm & 357 Magnum (Browning and Smith & Wesson)

& from there, on to 45 Auto

& why did I think that it would be otherwise?? Sometimes I am so stupid, even by my own very shabby standards

Fourth Thursday

To all of you on the left hand side of the pond, may you & your families have a happy Thanksgiving Day

& this morning dear readers you find us in...

Bags packed

After a break of a month or so, its time to get back on the plane again...

... but this time its personal (if you get my drift) so hence the lack of suit carrier. Yeap, time to forget the share price & indeed, whether I will have a job when I get back to the office on Monday, its off to Texas for your humble corrspondent & the war office. Regular readers will know exactly how this is going to end up!

I used to have one of these

However I should state that mine wasn’t in quite such good condition mainly - it did only cost me £40 (in June 1987)

Mine didn’t have a roof – if it started raining you turned the collar of your Barbour up. It didn’t have much of the floor pan either. Oh yes & then there was the matter of no rear box on the exhaust. Sounded good though! You had to remember to keep it topped up with oil owing to the amount that it leaked but it went like the clappers; well at least it felt like it was going quickly when you can see the tarmac through the holes in the floor.

Still, forget all of that, it was summer & I was a nipper that hardly troubled a razor but I had an English sports car. Better still, it is the only car that I have ever owned that I have made money on. It was sold that September to a hitchhiker that I picked up on the A303 for £165. Can’t say fairer than that!

Today Mr FM is still stranded in the dreaded north

Apologies for todays rather thin posting but…

Today your humble correspondent once again to return to the dreaded north & I do mean several hundred miles north of the nearest decent gin & tonic. Oh blackest of rages.

I shall just have to cheer myself up by closing down some factories & other such japery

This morning, I have mainly been walking the dogs

Needless to say, the dogs themselves don’t quite see it like that - they have been out chasing deer & rabbits

As well as snuffling out pheasants & partridges

Time for lunch I think & then time to settle down on the sofa of sloth & watch the rugby

Today, you find your humble correspondent heading for the dreaded north

Yes, its whippets & racing pigeons for me

Tonight Family Free Market will be attending an anti-Catholic rally

Old Reverend Paisley would be proud, however according to The Englishman, such behavior could well constitute an offense under the Terrorism Act 2006

Half Term Week

Last week was half term week & with the exception of your humble corrspondent, the rest of Family FM were down at the beach …

& of course, one of the best things about the coast at this time of year, assuming that it isn’t raining, is that you tend to have the place to yourselves…

Oh yes, & the dogs rather like their trips to the seaside as well

Harvest

Thanks to Peter B for this picture. Given the weather that we have been having over the last day or so, scenes like this seem a long way away at the moment

Home at long long last

This morning dear readers you finally find me at home…

& today, I shall be wearing my wellies for as much of the day as possible. In fact as the year starts to draw to a close, I am going to make a very dangerous prediction – save for a weeks holiday in November that will necessitate getting on a plane, I don’t have to fly again until January. That makes me very very happy. Now if you will excuse me, I am going to find my coat, favourite hat & walk off some of many airmiles.

Bags are packed & its back on the plane again this evening

Back to Hong Kong

Having escaped Beijing, it now falls to your humble corrspondent to spend the weekend in Hong Kong

Back on the plane again...

This morning, you find that you humble correspondent is back on a plane again. Goodbye Wiltshire countryside…

& hello once again to Beijing

Today I shall be mainly listening to...

Today I will be shirking – well not shirking exactly. After the school run I have to pop down to Salisbury. From there it will be cross country to Cirencester for a spot of luncheon

& then on to Monmouthshire where I shall be staying in this fine hostelry tomorrow night, with seven other stout bulldogs

Do you recall all of those 12-bore cartridges … well we fully intend to put them to good use on Friday. Given that I shall be driving through some of the most beautiful & quintessentially English countryside you could ever imagine, I think that it is entirely appropriate to spend the journey listening to this man’s music

Very very loudly.

Not really the grand homecoming...

... but I got home at seven this morning & by three I was down at Greenfields of Salisbury, topping up FM Tower's magazine with a couple of thousand rounds of Eley's excellent VIP Game

Well the season has already started & I have some catching up to do

Mr FM has left Hong Kong

... well at least for a couple of weeks or so

Hungover on a Thursday

Ok, so I have to confess that Wednesday night was a little bit of a big one, what with yesterday being a bank holiday here in Hong Kong. Now when I say a little bit of a big one, to put so sort of perspective on that, when your humble correspondent finally got back to his apartment in an advanced stage of refreshment, it was daylight. Still, it was a bank holiday, so little to do save for recovering on the sofa of sloth right up until it was time to go out for dinner last night.

Now dinner was an altogether lighter affair …a spot of pasta, couple of beers & about a bottle of half decent red per person. This is why, aside from not feeling like a Captain of Industry this morning I staggered into MIX at about eight this morning with evening cell in my body screaming for comfort carbohydrates.

So what was it to be? Bacon sarnie? Toasted bagels? No, when you have a bit of a jippy tummy & the man with the jackhammer is pounding away inside your head, what to really want is some spunky monkey!

Yummy. Yes please. A large spunky monkey for me because that will really settle the stomach.

San Francisco this morning...

Breakfast taken outside ... blah blah blah ... Ferry Building farmers market ... etc etc etc ... time now to head for the airport (again). See you all tomorrow evening (Hong Kong time)

Lunch today...

taken overlooking the 18th at Pebble Beach

In fact there is no way that this photo (taken on my BlackBerry) does justice to how completely beautiful the scene was. I know that at the best of times I am a cynical of sod but I was left completely gobsmacked. Forget St Andrews, way too many Scots & its always raining – for the golfers among you, trust me when I say that I cant see how it would ever get any better than this.

& by way of comparison, here is how it looks on competition days…

Thursday evening

Back in San Francisco

Whiskey drinking time starts shortly!

Thursday morning breakfast

at Mel's Diner in Sacramento

Having got in to town on the red-eye last night, this is just what the doc ordered! Yum!

Wednesday mornings view...

... from the Hilton Hotel at Chicago O'Hare Airport

Ahhhhhh, the glamour of international travel !

Back on the plane (again)

As I can currently see this building

it must mean that yout humble corrspondent is once again in San Francisco

As its Monday morning

my bags are packed

Time to get back on the plane

Back to work & back on the plane

So Boy went back to school today & after a break of a month, you humble correspondent got back on a plane. Beijing this afternoon dear readers

& as you can see from the pic, shutting down all industry & banning most of the traffic from the streets really does clear the air. No doubt the Guardianistas will be demanding the imposition of similar measures immediately.

Heavy horse farming

Tonight I cant sleep. I have no idea why, save for the fact that I was doing hard sums until late. Anyway, its now a lot later. Rootling around online, I came across this picture taken in October 1939, showing farm workers taking a break from drilling winter wheat while there horses eat their midday meal.

The significance of the picture is that it was taken about a mile from The Englishman’s Castle & if you look closely, you can just make out his tractor in the background

Get back on the plane

Well it has been an entire week since I was last on a plane, so it is somwwhat enivitable that that has to change today ...

So forget wandering across the fields with a rifle or popping down to the clay range to shoot off a few boxes - this evening its back to being Larry Long-Haul. Curses!

I feel the need, the need for leeeeeeeeed

This morning, the redoubtable Mrs FM & your humble correspondent have been to the clay range to give the Berettas a good rousting. Whilst my 12-bore Model 686 (on the right in the picture below)

is still a wonderful wonderful gun to shoot with, Mrs FM’s 20-bore Silver Pigeon is just about the most delightful, light, fast handling shotgun that I have ever used. If I had my time again, it is probably the only shotgun that I’d ever use.

Anyway, the War Office’s shooting is coming along nicely – she is currently connecting about 50% of the time. However, when she connects, it is slap bang in the middle of the pattern stuff. So as soon as she stops thinking about what she is doing, starts to relax & shoot instinctively, that average will come up worryingly quickly. Grrrrrrrrrr!

Other than that, I feel it incumbent upon me to point out the gratuitous matching of cap, jacket & shirt…

…sometimes, just sometimes, she is such a girl!

Today, I have mainly been...

Taking the dogs for a walk & the enivitable swim this morning

followed by a trip over to The Englishman's Castle this afternoon

for a little noise creation

followed by a few cups of tea, round at mein hosts. This evening before supper, I shall wander across the field to the pub for a couple of jars of Wadsworths' finest. Racing around the globe is all very well, but this really is my sort of a day.

The final leg

& this evening its time to get on the plane for the big home run. Even my bag

that British Airways managed to errrrrr misplace between London & Amsterdam, in the middle of last month turned up up in Hong Kong yesterday evening. Anyway, its now time to go to the airport

& no, I haven't managed to escape yet

In fact today, I shall be mainly in Chongqing

Now all I have to say about Chongqing is that the locals take their food quite seriously

Hot pot is Chongqing's local culinary specialty. Tables in hotpot restaurants usually contain a central vat (or pot) where food ordered by the customers is boiled/deep fried. As well as beef, pork, lotus and other vegetables, items such as pig's kidney, brain; duck's bowels; and cow's stomach are often added to the pot.

oh, & one more thing ... its twin city in the USA is ... wait for it ... Detroit.

No, please not now

If you recall dear readers, at the end of last week a made this little quip about my somewhat hectic travel plans

(sound of mobile phone ringing): "Is that Mr Free Market? Colonel Trautman here ..."

which over the last 3 weeks have basically included a week across Europe, a week in Singapore & a week in the Middle East. Well, I started today with the prospect of ten clear days in Hong Kong ahead of me. That was at about 0830. By lunchtime, that plan had been well & truly scraped as guess who was standing in my office ???? Yep, you guessed right – tomorrow morning its time to get back on that plane again

Bank on the plane gang - Part 15

& so it finishes: the final leg or should I say couple of legs ... Muscat to Dubai

where I had a seven hour stop over ...

& then on to Hong Kong. The best part is that looking at my schedule, I dont have to get on another aircraft for a week

(sound of mobile phone ringing) "Is that Mr Free Market, Colonel Trautman here..."

Back on the plane gang - Part 14

Despite my generally poor mood, yesterday morning started reasonably enough or should I say, as well as can be expected given my enforced abstinence the night before. I made it to my 0830 meeting in Kuwait City on time & that somewhat surprisingly went much better than was expected. From there, it was a short ride down to the airport to catch the shuttle down to Bahrain & my next meeting.

OK, so the flight got cancelled & the next flight was delayed by two hours but I’m still sanguine even though I was stranded in frankly not the greatest terminal building, no prospect of a few little drinkie-poos to pass the time & for company, a Chinese workaholic & Herman the German … who talked at some length & in detail about how pure the Icelandic gene poll is. Trust me when I say that time passes very very slowly in these circumstances.

Anyway, our aircraft finally arrived & off we set, trundling down the runway. In fact we where travelling at a fair old lick when suddenly the pilot throttled back, applied full reverse thrust & with squealing tyres we came to a juddering halt. Of course, this being a Gulf Air flight, very few people had actually bother to stow anything in the overhead lockers & those that had were properly secured so in an instant, the cabin was filled with cases & assorted debris … shoes, bags & small children all piling up at the front of the aircraft. The locals collectively started their “enchalla” routine & even your humble correspondent stopped worrying about his perilous financial position for a few seconds.

Apparently, just before the pilot was about to ‘rotate’ (I assume that this is something that he & the co-pilot do with the trolley tarts) we suffered a cabin de-pressurisation, which is nice. So we taxi back to the terminal & sit there while we wait for repairs to be undertaken.

After about an hour of so, my general level of boredom was relived by the aircraft’s smoke alarms going off & the cabin filling with smoke. This was to the cue for a lot of people to run up & down the aisles with fire extinguishers & a lot more “enchallas”. It transpired that one of the local had gone for a crafty smoko in the Benghazi & having set off the smoke alarms, did the sensible thing & threw the still burning butt into the pan into the waste tissue basket. Doh!

& we went to all that trouble to “liberate” these people? Tomorrow is the last day & then I’m outta here. Right now however, I need to go & catch my next flight

Back on the plane gang - Part 13

Tonight dear readers you find me in miserable mood. Nearly three years ago, we buried a very dear (military) friend who was tragically killed in a parachuting accident. Today is his eldest son’s eighteenth birthday & I know how terribly proud he was & would have been if the Law of Averages hadn’t conspired against him one sunny September afternoon.

My general malaise isn’t helped by the fact the Daily Toerag has taken it upon itself to publish more gory details of the suicide of another friend, Sgt Richard Fuller.

All of this is made many times worse by the fact that tonight I am in Kuwait City

& I cant even get a bl**dy drink! Oh darkest of rages.

Back on the plane gang - Part 12

This morning dear readers, you find your humble correspondent in Abu Dhabi.

It’s been some six years since I was last in the Middle East & certainly my last visit comprised nothing more that three hours respite in the transit lounge a Dubai airport i.e. a bout of remorseless drinking in between two long flights that funnily enough seemed to comprise an obscene amount of drinkie-poos from the trolley. So anyway, here we all are, in a series of meetings that will at very very least, take us around the Gulf until Wednesday lunchtime.

Of course, commercial confidences preclude me ‘fessing up’ to my nefarious little plan suffice to say that the job I was sent to Hong Kong to do has completely turned on its head & the grande fromage has flown out from London to try & understand why exactly, instead of shipping boatloads of bish bosh back to dear Blighty, I have the buying hat on … just as the Asian bourses start to do a Kittinger. Its not that in commercial terms, deals in Asia can get flipped on their head in a nano-second, but as Old China Hands know, a Hong Kong Minute is a bit like the proverbial New York Minute … just a whole load faster.

So, today could be a little bit of a Day of Reckoning. At the moment I am not going to be sure if it’s a case of “somebody’s going to emergency & somebody’s going to jail”, but if the creek don’t rise, the dam don’t burst & at least one wheel stays on the global economy for just a few more weeks…

Back on the plane gang – Part 11

Since my last update on my little aerial odyssey, a few things have happened:

a) I finally got back to Hong Kong

b) This is more than my missing bag has managed to do. Thanks to British Airways, it is now back at Heathrow (maybe)

c) Upon returning to Hong Kong late on Thursday night, as I got off the plane & switched on my BlackBerry, new orders arrived which is why I have spent most of today on another aircraft (well two aircraft, if we are going to be didactic)

d) & the boss is also in the air today, making a 6 hour flight to meet with me … but more on that tomorrow morning...

Back on the plane gang - Part 10

Tonight, I have put my liver on the line, for the greater corporate good in here

This is no longer any fun, even by my very shabby standards

Back on the plane gang - Part 9

Last night, my evening started with a few cocktails here...

followed by a very long, very excellent but very liquid supper...

& then a couple of quick scoops on my way back to the hotel...

& finished for the evening with a cleansing ale.

This morning dear readers, we are not feeling like a Captain of Industry

Back on the plane gang - Part 8

& this evening, you find me in Singapore ...

with my luggage. Not I will add, with the kit that British Airways lost last week, but with the replacement luggage I have bought since. Still, right now I will settle for that. Hostilities with BA re-start tomorrow morning

Back on the plane gang - Part 7

Well, your humble correspondent actually made it home for some 20 hours before another car came to collect me & take me to Heathrow…

This is why I am spending my Saturday evening, not in the pub, but in another airport lounge

Back on the plane gang - Part 6

Still in London ...

still haven't managed to get home ...

& no, British Airways still haven't found my missing bag

Back on the plane gang - Part 5

This morning, I am back in Blighty…

& BTW, no, I didn’t even manage to get home last night as I had a dinner with what we shall politely refer to as investors (frankly, they looked like a right pair to me) & I ended up in a hotel sometime in the small wee hours.

The funny thing is that although I normally work in London, being currently based in Hong Kong means that this doesn’t feel like ‘home’ … it’s just another city.

As for my missing bag, yesterday afternoon, BA confessed that they didn’t know where it is. That shouldn’t really come as any surprise!

Back on the plane gang - Part 4

Accoding to BA (the worlds favourite airline), my luggage is now on its way back to FM Towers. Your humble correspondent however, arrived in Copenhagen late last night

Back on the plane gang - Part 3

Today, I shall be mostly be in Zurich

My luggage on the other hand might be on its way to Amsterdam ... or it may still be in London. British Airways don't seem to know. Utter utter nangers!

Back on the plane gang - Part 2

This morning you find your humble correspondent in Amsterdam

My bag however, & in so far as I can ascertain, is still at Heathrow … somewhere. May be. British Airways, still the world’s favourite airline? I think not.

My shareholders meeting starts in about an hour; currently I am

a) Wearing yesterdays shirt & a pair of jeans
b) Our shares are currently trading at a substantial discount to Net Asset Value

This has not been a good start to the week

Back on the plane gang - Part 1

This is the view from my bedroom in Hong Kong, looking west over Sheung Wan that I took last Thursday …

& this is the view looking east across the field to the village from my bedroom at home that I took this afternoon.

Out of the two, I know where I would much rather be. Sadly, in an hours time a car is going to arrive in the farmyard & once more whisk me away to Heathrow. This time its not straight back to Cathay, oh no, that would be way too simple. There is a huge tranche of travel & general b*ggering about to do first.

Today is going to be a sofa sort of day

Last night went on rather longer than common sense dictated & whilst it wasnt quite this bad...

... today will be mainly spent grafted to the sofa of sloth

Reasons to be cheerful: Part 43

My hotel's shirt service...

Starched, folded & nicely boxed. Sometimes, just sometimes, living out of a suitcase isn't so bad!

Nobody ever lost their job buying IBM ... just their sanity

Firstly, apologises for the quality of the picture at the top of this post – my camera in my BlackBerry doesn’t have enough picture definition to cope with interior shots & glass topped desks. However as you can see, currently I have two reasonable healthy laptops which makes a nice change.

Some of you that drop by here on a regular basis might recall that recently your humble correspondent has been in what could be flippantly referred to as hardware hell. It all started when I closed down my laptop before getting on a redeye flight to London from Dallas. The next morning when I got to the office, half a dozen double espressos & a few smokos got me going but simply nothing would kick start Larry Laptop (aka Larry Doorstop because that’s all it was good for).

With customary optimism given that said Doorstop was under a year old & still under the manufacturers warranty, more naively than a Liberal Party canvasser, I thought that it would be a reasonably simple task to get the damn fixed … oh foolish child. There ensured a six week titanic battle of wills & abusive phone calls between Mr Reticence here & IBM Customer Support.

But here’s my point – an IBM is a premium product. My ultra cute little mega portable cost the thick end of £1,500. That’s a lot of money in my book, but when things go wrong as inevitably they do, a little help in getting them fixed would be very much appreciated. However in IBM World, the two words customer & support are mutually exclusive which is why firstly I went out & bought another laptop & secondly I sent the following letter moments before the Restraining Order kicked in …

Dear [Mr Corporate Pinhead]

Yours Sincerely

Needless to say, the stock response from IBM was that when the new recovery disks arrived (& that would take 10 days), all would be well. So I arrive in Hong Kong & had a word with the IT chappie in the office. My laptop came back completely repaired the next morning.

So to the directors of IBM, I put this to you. Achieve cost savings by firing your entire UK customer service team – they are about as much use as a sick headache. One Hong Kong Chinese techie got more done overnight than your company achieved in six weeks.

Sleep

I never can’t sleep … or at least if I can’t, a few sensible measures of Dr Free Market’s Universal Embrication will send me happily on my way. May be over the last week or so I have crossed too many time zones but for the last three nights, I’ve woken up at between 3-4 am …& that’s wide awake can't go back to sleep awake. Looks like its time to go chemical

My rear cross-member is rusting … don’t worry, they all do that sir

When Jesse Stone wrote his twelve bar blues classic Shake, Rattle & Roll, he wasn’t thinking about rock & roll, he was in fact writing about the venerable Land Rover. Bits fall off them; they leak water in & oil out. As for the runners that the rear windows sit in, there is just the right amount of moss that should be growing in them. The clutch peddle squeaks & the window winders work very very occasionally. Then there’s the smell: the delicate blend of old Labrador, smelly wellies & ditch water. Perfect

As regular readers will know Family FM will drive nothing else – after all, think of all the money that you save in car valeting when once a year, all your have to do is pressure hose the interior. Seriously. A few gallons of water, a firm yard brush & you are go to go in 15 minutes.

So anyway …

Workers at the Land Rover plant have met Prince Charles to mark the 60th anniversary of the company. The manufacturer, based in Solihull, West Midlands, produced its first vehicle in April 1948

… & to be honest, the design hasn’t moved on a lot since then, mainly because they got it right the first time round. Rather like an English ‘best gun’, future generations can try to improve upon it but for all their time & effort, all they do is frig around at the edges.

Now, there as those of you that live in countries where the Defender (to use its current name) is not currently available - not only does my heart go out to you but can I humbly suggest that you take the head of whichever agency has banned their import out the back & give them a proper kicking because you are missing out on the most capable 4x4 ever built. Without exception. Yes yes yes, you can go & buy something with a V hemi cross flow head Okie Kokie 2000 thousand thingy engine, take it down to the custom shop & spend squillions getting some cross country capability bolted onto it … or you can buy a Landie, drive out of the showroom & break down tackle just about any terrain in the world in its OEM specification. The biggest limitation to a Landrover’s cross country capability is the driver’s skill … & of course how brave he (or she) is feeling.

Oh yes & they look right. Yes I know that Fulham Farmers & the Home Counties crowd buy them in black these days, but that t’aint natural. They come in green or blue. Everything else is an aberration … a bit like the colour schemes of every other 4x4 manufacturer you care to mention.

When we are off out for a days shooting & one of the guns turns up in the latest Bitsaremushi Ruffty Tuffty replete with chrome bumpers & a surfeit of go faster spot lights, Mrs FM has been known to mutter darkly that they are not proper people & then go and get the heavy duty tow rope ready because before the end of the day, sure as sh*ts brown, she will be pulling them out of the gloop.

To my mind this well known picture says it all

… anything that was good enough for the stoutest of stout bulldogs is certainly good enough for me. & if you are going to complain that a Landrover has been left behind by more up to date designs, go & buy that piece of Jap plastic, it probably has a special hook in the cabin to hang your handbag from

San Fran to Hong Kong ... via LA & London

Not that I have been spending a lot of time on flights lately but today (just as summer has arrived) its time to pack my bags again ... this time for some months

& head for Hong Kong. Say farewell dear blighty & hellaiiirrrrr to fleshpots of Asia

The tale of how we ended up hungover like swine, went to the wrong airport & nearly never made it to LA will just have to wait for another day & a different bottle of scotch. Asia's steamy delights beckon

Stuck in San Fran

Its 0715 & I have a world class hangover. Today is going to be a long old day.

Back to San Fran

I checked into my hotel an hour or so ago

I seem to recall that the weather was just as grey when I was last here, just over a month ago

Hangovers & flights

So I could tell up that the weekend was spent at Badminton Horse Trials but if the truth be known, I never got further than the beer tent. I took this picture at about seven thirty on Saturday morning not long before my first pint …

Anyway, today is a Bank Holiday but that doesn’t mean that there is any peace for the wicked & terminally hungover. In a few hours a car will come to collect me & whisk me off to Heathrow.

Another week in the States beckons …

FILTH 2: Return to the (former) colonies

So 2 weeks ago, there I was, comfortably ensconced in the BA First Class lounge, little drinkie-poos in one hand, when the phone goes. Damn, it’s the boss was my initial reaction but then remembering that for some lamentable reason it was only my first come back sharpener I took the call.

Fifteen minutes later, it transpires that immediately after my next little West Coast junket which is next week, I have to get myself on a flight going the other way & head for Harry Honkers.

Five months unaccompanied. Yippeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Wanchai … fi de la, ummmmgoy sai

Well, that’s not completely true, Family FM will be doing a couple of trips out during that time if for no other reason than the nippers, having grown up in the darkest West Country, should find that HK will completely & utterly put the zap on their little heads. There are few things more satisfying than comprehensively trashing your children’s comfort zone! Larkin was right all along.

Still, having left in ’97 & only done two shortish trips back their since, I am quite looking forward to it, even though weather wise it will be the worst time of year. Add to that, the fact that I will have to spend a fair amount of time up country, the beer in the many bars along the Fong will be ice cold & there are deals to be done: it should make for an interesting summer.

Bestest of all however is the fact that last weekend I actually mowed the lawns at home – a job I so completely & utterly detest. By the time I get back home, the grass should just about have stopped growing. You really can't say fairer than only having to have to cut the grass once this year!

& hardware hell continues

This week, posting (even by my own shabby standards) has been somewhat erratic mainly because this is what is wrong with my laptop …

1. Initial attempt to repair boot sector by booting from XP disk and using the Recovery Console tools "fixboot" and fixmbr". The system
would not boot as it required a third-party driver which was not included with the XP distro. The system would BSOD with an Inaccessible Boot Device error code (0x0000007B).

5. BIOS disk diagnostics would run for 20 seconds or so and then stop with a "Read Error".

6. DOS 7 FDISK would not create a new disk partition, it would attempt to check the integrity of the drive and fail.

9. An attempt to update the BIOS also failed using the latest iso, 7buj24uc.iso, (from here: http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?sitestyle=lenovo&lndocid=MIGR-63145) and this failed with the same error.

I think that that means that larry laptop is well & truly …!

Singapore

They stepped into the canoe; the little girl-daughter came with them; and the Man took his kris--a curving, wavy dagger with a blade like a flame,--and they pushed out on the Perak river. Then the sea began to run back and back, and the canoe was sucked out of the mouth of the Perak river, past Selangor, past Malacca, past Singapore, out and out to the Island of Bingtang, as though it had been pulled by a string.

from The Crab that played with the Sea, Rudyard Kipling

This morning dear readers your humble correspondent has woken to find himself in Singapore

Hot? Yes, its damned hot. Ten years ago when I lived in Hong Kong I was used both heat & humidity ... but these days sadly not.

The same of this trip is that it is only a flying visit is every sense of thw word ( I am on the late flight back to London tonight) after a day of back to back meeting which I can already feel will go nowhere.

Having been covering the fall of Singpore in the "On This Day" section quite recently, I have had the opportunity to really look round & do my usual tour of war memorials etc

However, it probably is just as well that my schedule doesn't allow me time to do all of that because Mrs FM was both born & spent the early part of her likfe out here, & I am definately not forgiven for not bringing her on this trip. Oh yes sirreeeeeeee, the dog house beckons

Another day, another flight: time to get back on the plane again

Ship me somewheres east of Suez, where the best is like the worst,
Where there aren’t no Ten Commandments an’ a man can raise a thirst
from Mandalay, Rudyard Kipling

Its Sunday afternoon & instead of sleeping off a decent lunch, I'm packing a bag again

The only consolation is ... just think of the airmiles.

No Aga is complete without a slobrador to sleep in front of it

Laptops, corruption & digital disaster

So the geekie-techie bloke phones up your humble correspondent first thing this morning & tells me

you know when I said that your laptop would be completely repaired & back to you by nine o’clock today, well …

so as sure as new taxes follow the election of a Labour government, with a certain sickening inevitability, a whole litany of binary woes are laid before me. In fact it transpires that my head partition (whatever that might be when it’s a home) is even more corrupt that Ken Livingstone’s re-election campaign & judging by the dead tree media over the last few days, that really does take some doing as it transpires that Red Ken has been receiving more bungs (ooooooooophs, sorry, I meant previously undisclosed campaign donations ) than errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr the rest of the Liebore Party.

OK, fair enough, worse things might happen when you are at sea than your laptop dying on you … but when you guarantee me that something is going to be fixed, call me old fashioned but I expect my laptop to come back fixed & not receive the response that company policy is that

you cant go further than the hard drive

Cant go further than the bl**dy hard drive???? In my admittedly warped & twisted opinion, that’s a little like a young lady checking into the hotel with you & then when you get to the first button of her blouse, suddenly re-discovering her self-esteem. I thought that you had promised me that I was going to get my computer fixed & that in the highly unlikely event that it couldn’t be fixed that I wouldn’t have to pay a penny … not be presented with my still broken machine an invoice for nearly 50 quid.

Anyway, it’s a comparatively new laptop, so it was time to instigate Plan B & I phoned the IBM’s helpline. Whilst this might seem a very sensible course of action, trust me when I say that this is something that you really really don’t want to do unless you are in the office as by the time that you finally get connected to someone that purports to be able to help you, the cost of the call will be larger than than the average investment bank bale out. Again, is it just me or do the people that supposedly ‘work’ in call centres work of geological time scales?

So finally I get put through to Billy (a gentleman of Scottish extraction) & who in a previous existence peddled snake oil because he has a disk that he is going to send me which all I have to do is put it in the disk drive …
chant the mythical incantations …
& all will be made better in less time than it takes young William to get into a fight after seven pints of heavy on a Friday night.

Fantastic says I, & with all the naivety of an undergraduate in a lapdancing bar, I inquire as to whether said disk could be biked round to my office. Oh foolish foolish man … apparently the supply of the magic disks has been outsourced to a company in Bratislava & they take five to ten days to arrive!

All of ‘em, I want them dead … I want all of these people doing the lamppost tango right now. No matter how statistically improbable it may seem, I want them all to suffer debilitating brain aneurisms this morning. If I could buy Ebola from Sainburys I would be buying family packs of it to mail to each & every one of these people. I would be first in the queue at the Post Office when it opens this morning Jiffy packs in hand …. least I would be if the Government hadn’t closed them all down.

Get on the Plane, Get off the Plane – Part 11

Well dear readers, this should be my final post from the American odyssey that has been my last couple of weeks. Actually, that is not true exactly, there is actually lots to come about this trip. However, as I type this, the sun is blazing down on Dallas Fort Worth Airport but a phone call to Mrs FM revealed that the Free Markettes had been making snowmen this morning – looks like I wont be needing my sunglasses for a bit then.

Needless to say, a little bit of snow has caused London’s Heathrow Airport to grind to a complete halt but what the hell, when I checked in my luggage half an hour ago, I figured that it was probably the last time I was going to see my cases if the news about the new baggage systems at Heathrow is to be believed. This is a great shame as they as stuffed full of telescopic sights, rifle magazines for my Rugers & a veritable pile of gun porn.

Whilst I have been to the States many times, I have never made it to Texas before. Now over the next few days I hope to be able to find time to write a little more about the experience, but lets just say, between now & when I land in London, I will be trying very hard to work out how to wangle another trip.

Right now however “when I get back to London” seems to be somewhat in doubt because of the few flakes of snow that have fallen in the UK, the whole place has gone to rat sh1t & my flight has been delayed. Normally I get really pissed (in the American sense of the word) when this sort of thing happens, but the nice ladies in the British Airways lounge have found me a packet of smokos, bottle of whiskey & somewhere where I can avail myself of the pleasures of both . Therefore dear readers, if you will excuse me, I now intend to get thoroughly pissed (in the British sense of the word) while I wait for my flight; See you all (but probably not my baggage) at some stage tomorrow.

Get on the Plane, Get off the Plane – Part 10

Well this morning dear readers it is time for your humble correspondent to leave San Francisco get back on the plane again for the penultimate leg of this trip.

All I am going to say about my final port of call is that the firearms free phase of my visit to the US will be ending when I land

Get on the Plane, Get off the Plane – Part 9

It’s getting late & I’m drunk. Before I go to bed/pass out on my hotel room floor I suspect I will get a whole lot drunker. I am drunk just because. I have about 36 hours left to do in San Francisco before the penultimate leg of this trip commences. As the company’s balance sheet sinks into the waters of the bay as I proceed to methodically drain the mini-bar

here is a little game that you can play called Monday Supper Time Fun

Have supper (alone). Go to the sort of place where a steak, 2 glasses of admittedly very decent red wine & a double espresso costs US$ 100. Eat at the bar & ensure that to your left are couple of meeejar types & to your right is some bloke from New York who seems more concerned with waving his Rolex about than holding a knife & fork correctly.

Sit down at said bar & read May/June’s edition of American Handgunner while you eat your supper. Enjoy the spectacle of other customers try to surreptitiously edge away from you during the course of said meal!

Get on the Plane, Get off the Plane – Part 8

Get on the Plane, Get off the Plane – Part 7

This morning dear readers I wake to find myself both hungover & back in San Francisco

It looks like packing my sunglasses was a little, shall we say, optimistic?

Get on the Plane, Get off the Plane – Part 6

Frankly dear readers, I have no idea where on earth I am this morning ...

My schedule says Sacramento but it could be the dark side of the moon for all I know.

Get on the Plane, Get off the Plane – Part 5

Judging by this mornings view, I must now be in San Francisco ...

... but I no longer care. Need coffee!

(Sorry, thats a really bad photo; even my BlackBerry is 'lagged' to billy-o)

Get on the Plane, Get off the Plane – Part 4

This was the view from our lunch time table.

Sadly, our schedule didnt allow us time to really appreciate it or anything else come to that ... & even though today has been conducted at break neck speed I still missed my next flight which is why I am currently in another airport lounge waiting for the next service in 3 hours time. Grrrrrrrrrrr!

Get on the Plane, Get off the Plane – Part 3

This morning, I enjoy a slightly different vista from my hotel room

I think its safe to assume that I'm now in Manhatten

Get on the Plane, Get off the Plane – Part 2

This is the view from my hotel in Boston. Apparently it is just

steps away from exciting Boston attractions, including Faneuil Hall/Quincy Market, Boston Convention & Exhibition Center, North End, Chinatown, Beacon Hill and a plethora of historical attractions such as the Boston Tea Party Museum and Freedom Trail

Right now, all I want is a whiskey & my pit ... & I'll take them in any order

Get on the Plane, Get off the Plane – Part 1

Its quarter to nine on Easter Bank Holiday morning & you find me sitting in the BA lounge at Heathrow …

Once more your humble correspondent gives a masterclass in how to destruction test a marriage!

Good Friday

This morning I have mainly been out with the dogs...

Women: You can’t live with ‘em & you can’t kill ‘em (Part 43)

Mrs FM is a living exponent of the old adage “look after your kit & your kit with look after you”. Indeed, the manner in which for example, her several cubic hectares of sailing equipment is stowed would gladden the heart of even the most tattooed & rum sodden Chief Petty Officer. Think of any type of a sail & I can almost guarantee you that we have at least three sitting in the grain store - cleaned, loosely folded, in a correctly marked sailbag & stowed in the order that they will be needed. Her neatness extends to just about every aspect life in FM Towers. Even shirts are put in my shirt draw in order so that the most recently laundered are at the bottom of the pile. When I am feeling brave, insanely brave, I sometimes throw both caution & the continued use of my legs to the wind & take a shirt from the bottom of the draw …hellfire & damnation follows as surely as a Labour Government raises the tax burden.

Maybe it’s a function of having had a Forces upbringing.
Maybe its because she was sent away to boarding school at the age of eight. Maybe, just maybe, it’s because of some deep rooted dark personality disorder brought on by being a navy brat who was sent away at a young age but at times, all this neatness boarders upon the creepily obsessive.

Numbed as I now am, by twelve years of marital bliss (or is that martial bliss?) I these days tend to take a more alcohol-fuelled & sanguine view, generally from the sofa of sloth, of this sort of anally retentive behaviour, regarding it as the normal reaction that a very organised person must feel, every time that she looks at her blithering shambles that is her husband.

But there is an upside to these tutonic levels of personal administration. Because she is so organised & is genetically predisposed to look after things, Mrs FM’s kit tends to have a half life longer than the average Carlos Santana guitar solo. That is true pretty much across the board with one notable exception … watches.

Whilst everything else in her procession lasts for years & years, Mrs FM breaks watches like Gordon Brown breaks election pledges. Not cheap watches mind you, decent ones to boot. She is the watchmakers’ nemesis … actions, cases, faces, straps buckles & clasps … the whole nine yards. She hasn’t so much as destroyed them as left a wake of carnage & devastation that could cause the entire population of Switzerland to question the very basis of its timekeeping achievements. She is a one women Hiroshima, vaporising chronograph & wristwatch without distinction & without mercy. This is way, at any given moment, the top draw of my office desk will have on average at least two watches in it, waiting to go for repair. Indeed, many of the jewellers that I have used over the years have taken early retirement off the back of our annual spend.

So this year, I finally decided to call an end to horological madness & with a birthday forthcoming, buy a really decent robust watch that would endure the slings, arrows, seawater & mud inflicted upon it by its owner. After all, the received wisdom is that if you buy a good watch it should save you money in the long run. & so

Research commenced …

Expert opinion was sought…

Learned advice was heeded …

& I ended up buying a second hand ladies Breitling.

It seemed in good order. Even Mr Breitling said it was a good’un … & there I was thinking to myself that this was going to be not just a winner, but a move that would receive plaudits from even the syndicate to credit card companies that finance our lives.

Anyway, the fateful day arrives & the gift is handed over. The box is opened
& written right across her face was that ‘look’ …

All husbands know what I mean by that ‘look’. It’s the look that will plunge even the cheeriest spouse into the desolate & bottomless pit of despair. Sometime later on that evening it transpires that what she wants for her birthday isn’t a decent watch … no sir. What she really really wants for her birthday is a new pair of Wellingtons. I give up. I really really do. For moments such as this there are only two things; booze & Ebay.

Wet Sundays

Its so wet & windy here this afternoon, even the dogs have stopped demanding walks & have taken to lurking hiding in the playroom

Time to light the woodburner methinks

Sgt Richard Fuller

Kim on the subject of British journalism yesterday

The Brits excel at “gotcha” journalism—whether it’s the political sort, or at the “Look who’s showing their naughty bits!” nonsense at horrible outlets like the Daily Mail.

Take for example this story in yesterday’s edition of the Mail

The head of security for the Duchess of Cornwall was yesterday found dead after apparently shooting himself at his home. Police Sergeant Richard Fuller, 55, was married with three grownup children.

If you can be bothered to read the article, this lowlife rag goes on to make cheap jibes at the Duchess of Cornwall in the same piece … which is nice.

I knew Richard Fuller & consider myself fortunate to have been able to call him a friend. In the picture below he is on the left, scoping the moor where we regularly hunted deer & grouse together

I don’t even know where to start, as his 23 years of service speak for themselves.

This evening there is a howling gale in the Vale & I am soaked to the skin having been standing at the bottom of the paddock for the last hour, raging at everything.

Late night phone calls

(its late, in the lobby bar there are nine people, mainly couples. The pianist is playing Beetles numbers. A mobile phone rings…)

FM: ‘allo

Colleague: Where are you?

FM: In the lobby bar

Colleague: Which hotel?

FM: The Mando

Colleaugue: Errrrr yes, but which one?

FM: Munich

Colleague: We’re in Munster

Forget "doing it for the children", just arm them now

Via Kim

The rise of violent crime was highlighted yesterday when it was revealed that children as young as eight have been caught with guns.

This photograph was taken three years ago, when Boy was seven years old. It was a beautiful evening & with a couple of hours of daylight left, we thought that we would the opportunity to go & pot some rabbits before supper.

Down in these yerrrr parrrrrrts, this is pretty much normal behaviour. In fact I simply cannot exactly recall at what age I did the same with my father. However (via The Englishman) it would seem that the GFWs don’t want our children to be taught how to safely handle legally owned weapons …

Did you realise there is no minimum age requirement for a shotgun licence, and that children as young as 10 are being issued with them?

However, I don’t feel comfortable about this, do you? Anti-gun campaigners do not feel children are mature enough to use a powerful weapon. I would be interested to know how many young shotgun holders have been involved in accidents. Do the police ask why pre-teens want a shotgun? I would like to see the data on that too.

Whilst my heart is uplifted to learn that in Suffolk alone, 182 under-16s have received Shotgun Certificates, this sort of thing really causes me to spend hours, sitting in the dark, stroking my Remington while whispering softly to her soon soon my precious, soon soon. In fact, as regular readers will know, this sort of rage is normally followed by your humble correspondent heading straight down to the gun shop to buy himself another little something (once the urge to head for the clock tower has receded). But not this time however, oh no. This time I am going to do something a little different…

The big irony in all of this is that Boy, now ten years old, doesn’t actually need a Shotgun Certificate to shoot on a regular basis & shoot on a regular basis he certainly does. However, thanks to the likes of Ms Seymour (someone who labels herself as a Member of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations , Press Consultant, Journalist, Political & PR Blogger), that is about to change. If young people being approved by their local Firearms Licensing Officer to have a Certificate causes such PSH, there is clearly only one course of action open.

Looks like I will be filling in the forms this weekend!

Yours, aye

Mr FM
(someone who when he is sober enough to remember, wants to see EVERY ONE one of Her Majesty's law abiding subjects armed & trained in the use of those arms)

Happier times

They say you can find just about anything that you want on the interest & yes, even that. Anyway, over the weekend, The Englishman found your humble correspondent this, which I purchased using an online account …

a photograph taken in 1935, of what is now Free Market Towers.

If I were to take a photograph from the same place tomorrow morning, it would be remarkable that which the exception of power & telephone lines, very very little has changed.

& yet everything has changed.

& no, this wasn't me last week

... however a few years ago, it might well have been

Contributor TDB thinks that he heard a rumour that this chap was looking for his snowmobile after a blizzard. Sadly, we will probably never know

Home at last

A round trip of 1,541 miles ...
at an average of 60.2 mph
consuming diesel at a rate of a gallon every 25.8 miles

& best of all, apparently Disco Dave produced 666.46 kg of Carbon Dioxide: how many drowning baby polar bears is that?

& so it comes to an end ...

Well, we will ski until tea time ...

... then throw all of our kit into the back of Disco Dave II & then head for home. Pah! There is nearly nothing worse than leaving the mountians, espcially when they are covered in snow.

Ski issues

I take my hat of to the guy in the ski rental shop … but how did he know I have such a puerile sense of humour???

After 3 days of incessant giggling your humble correspondent could stand it no more & yesterday morning, knocked them in for a pair of Rossignols

It was pointed out over breakfast that today is some sort of a day of note …

Guess who is in the doghouse again?

Family FM is still away skiing

& the holiday starts

The view of Mont Blanc from our apartment. It tough work I know ... but someone has to do it. The forecast for tomorrow ... sunny, -6 degs oh & for those of you that are still reading ... the snow is excellent.

Gout

So its not the port that causes it then?

Sugary drinks have been blamed for a surge in cases of the painful joint disease gout.
Men who consume two or more sugary soft drinks a day have an 85% higher risk of gout compared with those who drink less than one a month, a study suggests.

In that case, I had better get a couple of half decent bottles up from the cellar, ready for this evening

Breakfast in Tiffany’s Chengdu

I know that it wasn’t up to the Breakfast Bloggers usual standards & a million miles away from the chocolate chip muffin I had had in the Mandarin Hotel the day before but to my mind, a breakfast such as this

comprising caffeine, nicotine & alcohol (that isn’t water in the glass on the left), has all the essential food groups. The night before however was even better but apologies for the picture quality

served on a bed of red & green chillies, strips of pan fried swan. I love Sichuan cookery.

Still flooded

I got home this morning only to find that its still pretty wet

On my way back to the hotel ...

behold, 2 IFC or if you like 國 際 金 融 中 心 二 期

Proof of what capitalism & free markets can achieve. & in daylight it looks like this

Later on this afternoon, its time to go up-country

Resolution of the bar quandary

In light of my earlier concerns about what might have happened to the Captains Bar …

I am pleased to say that I gave the re-styled facilities an extensive road test last night & the décor must have been OK as I dont remember going to bed & awoke this morning to find clothes scattered all over the floor of my hotel room. So it must have been a good night then!

As views from hotel rooms go ...

this certainly isn’t a bad one

Its a shame about the pollution haze. Can’t have everything though. Time to go to the bar methinks

& so the shooting season finishes, not with a bang but a long haul flight

As game shooters will know, this weekend is the last of the season & as regular readers will also know, your humble correspondent hasn’t had much time this year to get the barrels of his Beretta warm. If fact, he didn’t even manage to make his annual pilgrimage to the moors of Scotland & if that wasn’t injury enough, not being to even get to Bisley over the last couple of months has only served to heaped up further insult. Still, all of that is going to be rectified this weekend as we have our annual end of season ‘cocks only’ day on Saturday, followed by Short Siberia japery care of EX_STAB on Sunday … assuming that the Saturday night doesn’t become as errrrrrrrrr liquid has it normally is.

As plans go, it wasn’t a bad one, right up until the moment that the CEO needed someone, experienced in dealing with whiley Oriental chappies to go at short notice to further Sino-British relations & try to undo some of the damage that the arch-nanger Brown has been doing in Peking this week. This sadly will entail missing my shooting weekend but on the flip side, it will mean abusing Cathay Pacific’s drinks trolley service for about 12 hours tonight, as I fly to Hong Kong. Yes it’s a bummer about the shooting, as is also the woeful lack of entries in the Game Book this year … but on the flip side there is the opportunity to visit old haunts in Whanchai & ‘the Fong’ – a tough call I know, but someone has to put their liver on the line for the greater corporate good.

Having left Hong Kong in 1997, returning only once a year later for a short visit, if the truth be known, I will be fascinated to see how the place has changed after what is now, nearly 11 years since Mrs T sold out to the Communists: but like everything in life, there is no such thing as a free lunch (unless you have a generous expense account) & for a few days, I shall be locked in earnest discussions with some of the more tedious lawyers it has ever been my sorry displease to meet – however when you are hung over to billy-oh, the last thing that you actually want is Bobby Broker pitching you the latest credit crunch busting financial product, with all the accompanying bluster that seems to accompany the occupants of certain Investment Bank’s ‘front desk’ personnel – so I will settle for dull lawyers, a pile of legal documentation & another Alka-Seltzer thank you very much.

Whilst the end of the week will see me up-country in some unspeakable Chinese city with a completely unpronounceable name, eating the local delicacy which will inevitably be badgers balls (or someone equally vomit inducing), on the up side, I get to drink in possibly my favourite bar (note bar, not pub) ever … The Captain’s Bar in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel.

I hear rumours that it has had a bit of a freshen up but by all that is good & holy, if they have ruined it, I’m on the next flight home! So I shall direct my following comments to the old bar, as I remember it in when old Mr Lee was last building me gins in ’98 & the condensation formed on pewter tankards full of ice cold foaming Carlsberg (pronounced Carls-i-berg in HK). In fact, said esteemed hostelry almost defies description … a head on car collision between orient & 70’s chic. & boy o boy, did it ever work. Forget those faceless hotel lobby bars which could be anywhere in the world; sit in the Captains Bar & know just know that you are in Hong Kong; just don’t be surprised if an immaculate Roger Moore should walk into the place & ask for his drink not to be stirred. It’s that sort of place.

If it has been ruined by ‘refurbishment’ then expect my howls to be heard around the globe on early Wednesday evening when I fully intend to be sitting down at the end of the bar, kicking off with a couple of post flight bracers. In that case I would have to retire to the floor above , home to the wood panelled Chinnery Bar which was originally opened in 1963 but didn’t open to women until 1990. Aside from its gentleman’s club feel, it is noted for serving serving traditional colonial cuisine & whiskey. Need I say any more?

Saturday shooting

In the five minutes that it wasn't raining, Boy & your humble corrspondent whiled away time shooting tin cans

Nanny keeps saying that young people need to spend more time outdoors, but the same Nanny would keck itself if it knew just how much ammo Nipper goes through. Nothing like giving a young lad an air rifle, a tin of pellets & watch him enjoy himself.

Easy like Sunday morning

This morning you find your humble correspondent sitting at the kitchen table undertaking that onerous of tasks … filling in his tax return. Taxes are of course one of the most odious things that the state foists upon us bulldogs & to add to the indignity of it all, we are required to fill in a form that reminds us just how much we are forced to pay for such good governance. Its enough to make you want to hit the bottle hard – but even by my shabby standards, 10:15 on a Sunday morning is just a tad early to be breaking out Scotland’s finest. Now one or two of you might have noticed that I have two other forms also sitting on the table that need to be completed. The first for a variation to my FAC, the other is an application for an Explosives Certificate … oh yes!

That form is slightly different to the normal FAC/Shotgun Certificate forms. On page 8, you have to specify the generic class of explosives that you are applying for & as menus go, everything looks absolutely delicious.

For example, do you want Explosives, Blasting, Type D or what about Charges, shaped, commercial without detonator? Better still would be some Cord, detonating, flexible as there is always fun to be had playing with detcord just as there is with Charges, shaped, flexible, linear. In fact, I think I will just apply for the lot as sadly I can’t see a box entitled Enough damn explosives to overthrow the State & Bring send the entire edifice of Government sky high. Maybe the Glorious Day just took one small step closer?

Water water everywhere

The road to FM Towers this morning ...

& the view from the bridge.

Back to the belly of the beast

For the last 2 years, your humble correspondent has been working for a small company & for the 4 years preceding that, ran his own business. Those of you that are economically active in those parts of economy will know that it has a lot of advantages including but not limited to such things as flexibility & a more relaxed attitude to dress code. It is of course a professional life that comes with many issues as well.

Anyway, about 3 months ago I was approached by a very old chum who I had worked with in Asia & is now running a very very large company that for the purposes of this & any future posts, we shall refer to as Megacorp, with a view to going to work for them. At first, I feigned polite disinterest right up until it was explained just how much money they where prepared to pay for my (somewhat shabby) services – this believe you me had me downloading their Report & Accounts as well as studying their website in incredible detail. So, to cut a relatively short story even shorter, this morning you find me on a train into London, suited & booted.

I must say that all of this isn’t without more misgivings than I thought that I would have … back to commuting & wearing a tie, office politics & boardroom bust ups etc etc. However the other side of the coin is that in the week running up to Christmas & also the New Year, long forgotten things like IT Departments have been on the phone to ascertain my ‘requirements’. Then there was the office manager wanting to know how I wanted my office configured, followed by calls form PA’s & the Human Remains Dept wanting to pick up on all the other many wonderful accoutrements of corporate life … & I suddenly felt the tentacles starting to wrap themselves around me once again as that big boys balance sheet started to draw me in - & do you know what? I don’t care

This afternoon has been mainly spent donkey walloping

Boxing Day exercise

As others so correctly predicted … I bet Mrs. Free Market was involved in this little shindig ... Mrs FM & her horsy chums where off chasing foxes again, notwithstanding the Westminster Village’s ‘ban’

I do try to be consistent of this particular point but I have little time for the Foxhunters & regard the entire palaver as a very inefficient form of vermin control

However if this is how they want to spend their time, that is entirely their own business & certainly nothing to do with London’s ever nosey busy bodies

In fact, as is usual at these affairs & especially true on the Boxing Day Meet, the horses might well be champing at the bit, but there is always stirrup cup etiquette of be observed

Bollocks to Blair / Brown & a lot of others, come to that

This evening at FM Towers

as the moon rose, the mist was just starting to roll up the Vale & over the village

A minute after I took this, the moon had disappeared behind a cloud, the light had gone & the mist had settled in for the night. Time to go light the fire have a cup of tea & watch One Man & His Dog

The Daily Mail exposes Family FMs Christmas dinner plans

Apparently

For decades, a few simple slices of turkey were all it needed. But now even the traditional Christmas dinner has been supersized. Multi-bird roasts, where different types of bird are stuffed inside a larger one, have become the thing to carve this year - and the more birds involved the better.

One of the top-sellers is the Waitrose four-bird roast: guinea fowl, duck and turkey breast stuffed inside a goose. Demand has soared 50 per cent this year - even though each roast costs an eyewatering £200.

200 quid a lot of money – that’s about what a brace of driven grouse costs you to shoot.

The surge in popularity may have something to do with TV chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's creation of a ten-bird roast on his show two years ago. He stuffed an 18lb turkey with a goose, duck, mallard, guinea fowl, chicken, pheasant, partridge, pigeon and woodcock - producing a remarkable Russian doll-like dish.

Fearnley-Whittingstall is a pretty sensible individual – he kills things & eats them; nothing wrong with that. However the Daily Mail goes on to report this on little morsel…

1. Turkey, 2. Goose, 3. Barbary duck, 4. Guinea fowl, 5. Mallard, 6. Poussin, 7. Quail, 8. Partridge, 9. Pigeon squab, 10. Pheasant, 11. Chicken, 12. Aylesbury duck

Now I can’t help thinking that stopping at quail is a missed opportunity – there is surely room in there for a snipe? Best of all however is a comment left on the article by one James Mills of Nottingham

These graceful animals were alive and living a short while ago. Go veggie this Christmas and let more of gods creatures experience what you do ...Life

Mr Mills is clearly missing the point on these birds … unlike your humble correspondent who tends to kill a lot of game over the course of the season

A cold turkey leg to Gareth for this one

Today isn't going well...

due mainly to the biblical size of this mornings hangover

I might be back later, but then again, I might not. Pass the aspirin please

Peace & quiet

Currently you find your humble correspondent in formal-bid-to–go-in-by-Friday hell, having pretty much worked through Sunday night. In about an hours time, the my mailbox will to fill with the latest pricing information. Continuing this mornings somewhat wintry theme, a week or so ago, Bambi Basher sent me this picture

At the moment, I can’t think of a place that I would rather be, just as long as it doesn’t have a WLAN, GPRS or GSM coverage

Frost, tyres & the .303 cartridge

It’s not just that as I staggered out of FM Towers yesterday morning, despite being still three quarters asleep, that it was well Pearl Harbour

& certainly Disco Dave was thought it was cold enough.

I was certainly grateful for one of the most obvious manifestations on the Triumph of Western Civilization ... heated seats. Anyway, it was off into town to get some new tyres. While Dave was up on the jacks, I noticed this poster on the wall

& there was me thinking that when it comes to stopping the Hun, the Mk7 .303 cartridge is the best (cough cough) solution to the problem

AWOL

Whilst this was the sight that greeted your humble correspondent at in Heathrow’s Terminal 2 at ungodlyoclock this morning …

The real stuff that you get to drink in Milan by mid morning is a lot lot better

Its been a long day

Of flags & the General's daughter

There seems to have been quite a lot of mention of nautical flags over the last few days – Maggies Farm have been considering them in the context of social signals & Remittance Man posted Nelson’s immortal message prior to the Rugby World Cup Final.

Now I freely profess that my own knowledge of this topic is somewhat tenuous. I do know that certain flags can mean a letter if flown one way, or a message if flown another. So for example, the ‘Bravo’ flag can mean the letter B or if flown upside down or back to front or something like that, mean ‘I am taking gin on board’. Have I got that right? Maybe not, but it certainly is a plausable message knowing as I do nautical tastes.

Another example is the ‘Zulu’ flag, pictured below

It can signify that letter Z but which can also mean ‘I need a tug’ ... & stop that sniggering at the back!

This dual meaning can of course lead to a certain degree of confusion Many years ago now, Mrs FM & a chum of hers, the General’s daughter, had to sit a sailing exam for qualify them for something along the lines of a summers aft deck binge drinking. In fact it ended up as quite a long summer because having passed the exam, Mrs FM sailed away & didn’t come back for three years.

As I said at the top of this post, I know nothing about matters nautical save for the proper way to build a pink gin & exactly how much gin needs to go into it (the greater of lots / all that you have). Mrs FM is the opposite: she sets foot ashore reluctantly – it isn’t just that she can actually sail a boat very very well, she can build them to boot. Sail repairs, rigging, motors … all no problem which is why the aforementioned exam posed very little problem to her.

The same can't be said for the General’s daughter – who shall we just say had had a slightly more land locked upbringing as the General in question wasn’t just any old 3 star General, at that time he was CEO of the Army. Thus when his daughter was asked to state what the Zulu flag’s alternate message was, loudly announced to the assembled yotties

“I need a hug”

which whilst being a very good answer, isn't quite the correct one. Needless to say, that particular response is still costing her drinks to this very day & Mrs FM continues on a regular basis, to give thanks for VHF radios.

First Frost

0715, -1 degree, Jack Frost has called in the night. Still, with the onset of a couple of frosts, the sloes will now be ready of picking.

Since I took that picture, puppy has been out barking at the contractor’s tractor that arrived shortly afterwards & is currently parked in the yard. Mrs FM has a theory that the fact that its a Massey Ferguson, is causing puppy to bark.

Apparently in tests, 8 out of 10 Labradors preferred John Deeres. Personally I think Mrs FM is talking a right load of Jackson Pollocks but there is no way that I’m brave enough to tell her

Now while we are on matters rural & more specifically on how they might pertain to these yerrrrr parrrrrrrrrrrts, I simply had to steal this

from The Englishman. The funny thing is that it isn't funny at all. Things are pretty much like that down'ere

& so the autumnal rains start

The view back across the Vale this afternoon as I took the dogs out to stretch all of our legs

The hell of Microsoft

More by luck rather than design your humble correspondents recent IT issues have finally resolved themselves. The hardware was the easy part – a simple trip to the IBM dealer on the Tottenham Court Road & a very brief conversation along the lines of

Is it a company machine?

Oh, it’s definately a write off

There’s a surprise! Well, not a surprise some £1,500 later - but at least I have the latest bigger (smaller in fact) better, faster more errrrrrrr functional (eh?) Thinkpad. Wonderful, so now I have 80GB of hard drive to fill with my largely incoherent ramblings ... things might be looking up, but maybe not for you the reader!

However, reloading the software was shall we say, slightly more tortuous, mainly because that brought me into contact with Microsoft & the inevitable pain that that particular course of action brings with it. Now don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against private sector monopolies that have been created not by government mandates but by giving the customer if not what they want ... or roughly something that they think they might want. However if you use Google Images to find Microsoft Technical Support, this is what it throws up …

& nothing no nothing could be further from the truth.

That picture would seem to indicate that if you try to register some Microsoft OEM software there will be someone at the other end of the line, OK so in a different time zone, who has at least a tenuous grasp of the Queen’s English. But no, it wasn't so much that it wasn’t my evening, it just hasn't been my life recently, in more ways than one.

So to whoever it was that I spoke to & I never did quite catch your name, yes I have installed that copy of Microsoft Office on to a laptop that currently smells like a Starbucks outlet which is maybe just maybe, why I am installing the same copy on to a new machine. Do I bl**dy well sound like a Chinese software pirate that has phoned simply to taunt?? You utter utter nanger!

Mr Microsoft Help Desk fellow, thanks a lot for the ear bashing - next time I need some software, I’m going to do like every sensible person does & use a hooky copy.

Curry Heaven

Returning back to FM Towers this evening, my latest delivery has arrived from The Curry Sauce Company (whose products we heartily endorse)

Time to pop some bog roll in the fridge

Autumn is but round the corner

Yesterday morning, post walk, the Labradors of Libertarianism stretched out on the lawn in the autumnal sunshine to do what Labradors do best for a few hours.

We have had no appreciable rain at FM Towers since 18 August & the early autumn as the leaves start to turn, has been utterly glorious. Over the last two weekends, I have picked twelve pounds of damsons, ten pounds of blackberries & the bushes in the garden are covered in sloes, just waiting for the first frost before those end up in gin filled demijohns. In fact a quick check on the intharweb-thing-a-me reveals that others have been busy on similar tasks.

Pheasant season starts in a couple of weeks time so next weekends jobs include clearing out the freezers of old game that still lurks – so pie & an equal measure of game pate it is next Saturday

Black Death

Not far from where your humble correspondent was schooled (or to be truthful, dedicate teachers tried in vain to hammer some sort of education into my thick skull & about 30 miles from FM Towers is this most quintessential of English churches. However, not only does it perhaps epitomise many peoples vision of what a parish church should look like, situated at the bottom of a small hill, nestling close to the woods, it also represents over 700 years of history of one small village - mainly because it is known locally as the 'plague church'.

The church itself was already maybe several hundred years old when the Black Death - Yersinia pestis (bubonic plague) came to England in the summer of 1348. That year the harvest failed due to abnormally heavy rains & crops lay rotting in the fields, due to the nearly constant rains - I think in those days it was just a bad summer & not conclusive proof of global warming. With the harvest so adversely affected it seemed certain that there would be food shortages, but a far worse was to come.

Village legend has it that a tinker who travelled through the woods (to the rear of the church) that still contain a roman bridge to this day, carried the plague. What is clear is that inhabitants of the village were all but wiped out & the settlement abandoned. This clump of weeds is in fact the buried ridgeline of the houses. This was much more pronounced 20 years ago, but recent ploughing has made the line much less prominent. Those few who escaped, established a new village that survives to this day approximately half a mile away, further up the hill.

In the corner of the churchyard, is the village yew tree. Whilst the presence of yews at places of worship dates back to a pagan age, perhaps its most well known use was as the material of choice for longbows. 5' or more in length, with a flat back & round on the belly, for hundreds of years, the weapon of choice of stout bulldogs when administering a beating to the perfidious French.

On the subject of taking a beating, in the picture at the top of this post, you will see part of a tall tree to the left of shot. There are 2 columns of 4, in the churchyard, planted in memory of the 8 men of the village who were killed during the Boer War.

Staying on the subject of a glorious death, to the rear of the church is the small grave of the Scott family. The family moved to the (new) village in the 1830's. The most famous descendent, was one Robert Falcon Scott who led his ill-fated expedition to the South Pole & died on his return journey. To this day, the current villages sheltered housing for OAP's is known as Scott's Close; built on land that the family formerly owned before falling on hard times.

There used to be a church bench to the front of the church built from deck timbers salvaged from HMS Hood, the British battle cruiser sunk with all by 3 hands, by the Bismarck, in the Denmark Strait in 1941. The bench was donated by Vice-Admiral Beaver, who is buried in the graveyard. Rather sadly, I hear that this bench was stolen 15 years ago.

So there tucked away in a field in Somerset is maybe a thousand years of village history for all to see - & I haven't even touch upon the Saxon windows & the original Georgian pews inside. However, whilst the church has been deconsecrated, it is still used 3 times a year for Evensong in the summer & for the village carol service at Christmas. Happily at these services it is packed; it would be a greatest of crimes for it to fall into disuse & disrepair because it is little places like this that represent the real England

Easy like Sunday morning

After a week which lamentably seemed to comprise interminable legal wrangling with the low down lawyers at least there has been some respite over the weekend. This morning, with little better to do, I threw nippers & dogs in the back Larry Landrover & headed off into the darkest corners of the Vale. Having lived down in these yerrrr parrrrrts for 8 years now, I have never grown bored of just how damn pretty the this little corner of the West Country is. So we spent the morning driving down one track & on to the next - stopping to walk the labs & pick blackberries.

Sadly, the utter utter madness that currently comprises work, will commence again tomorrow morning

This Evening

It would seem that friends have been mentioning my intemperate habits today

The view this evening as The Englishman & I drove down to the pub across the fields.

This afternoon ...

... I have mainly been sleeping underneath Larry Landrover

Yesterday afternoon ...

the labs took time out from their busy schedules to practice formation snoozing

Off to Hunsville (again)

What I really wanted to do today was to post a long piece of invective about the weekend flooding - sadly that will have to wait a while as your humble correspondent is off sausage-side this morning

A Kool-Aid kinda day/week/life

A lot of this week has once again been consumed with your humble correspondent doing the soft shoe shuffle across the Westminster village with all of the nonsense & absurdity that that entails – if I have to talk to another ‘political aid’, I swear that I’m going to fill Disco Dave II with a few bottles of propane, some of the contents of The Englishman’s barn & driving to London for Mr FM’s surprise parliamentary summer barbeque.

Now, if all of this wasn’t bad enough, yesterday afternoon, I was looking at the prices of some flights to the States – a simple task you would have thought or at least you would have thought before you started to try & redeem some of the air miles on your British Airways account. Here’s the rub: I have a little over 16,000 so-called miles on said account however for the (off peak) flight I wanted, using the miles/part cash option, the cost of the flight would have been £318. If you simply pay cash, the cost was £280. You utter utter nangers! The “World’s Favourite Airline” …. I think not.

So its Thursday, late afternoon & in deference to greener than thou Gore’s dire warnings of global drought, the rain is lashing against the office window in a manner that would have had Mr Noah scurrying down to B&Q. I get a phone call from someone whom we are trying to conclude a contract with at the moment. Blah blah blah blah he drones on & in a vainglorious attempt to get him for the line I suggest that his uber-pondlife lawyer send me the travelling draft fully marked up & I would agree any amendments of amendments of amendments & we could circulate engrossments on Monday. No no, apparently under so Law Society restrictive practice, his lawyer will only speak to my lawyer @ a combined hourly cost of three times Tanzania’s total sovereign debt.

Then to cap it all, last night I am sitting in a drub hotel in the West Midlands - its getting late (about quarter to my fifth whiskey) when reader Gremlin emails your humble correspondent to tell him to extract the thumb & read this comment that was posted yesterday…

It has been brought to our attention that you are displaying an image by one of the artists we represent without permission at http://www.fmft.net/archives/cat_society.html The image is a cartoon by Kevin Smith (Kes). The cartoon is within the January 2005 section. We take abuse of copyright very seriously and have a responsibility to the artists we represent to ensure that their intellectual property rights are not abused. I would therefore ask that the image is removed within the next 24 hrs or we will have no alternative but to bill you for the full price of the correct license to display the image plus any additional administrative expenses we incur in the recovery of funds. I look forward to your prompt response in this matter.

So if you will excuse me, I had better go & pen something suitably vitriolic to one Joel Mishon Esq – whether that is before I empty out all of the contents of the rifle cabinets so that everything I need is close at hand remains to be seen – the voices from behind the printer are becoming both more persistent & more persuasive

Boots

It isn’t without considerable horror that I read this piece ( via Maggies Farm ) about the latest craze to hit the burgeoning ranks of fashion victims out there …

It is 8 o'clock on a serene blue morning in Beverly Hills and Dr Ali Sadrieh, a podiatrist, has just performed a 45-minute operation on a client, cutting a section of bone out of her toe to shorten it. She was awake during surgery, watching a film; next week Sadrieh will do the same thing to the second toe on the other foot. There was nothing medically wrong with the toes, but his patient didn't like the way they protruded over the lip of her high-heeled Manolo Blahniks.

Having operations on your feet so that they fit into this seasons ‘must have’ absurd & potentially hazardous pair of Jimmy Choo’s is not only ludicrous but also adds weight to Mrs FM’s argument that women this stupid should be kept bare foot, pregnant & chained to the Aga. As a little benchmark mark for y’all here, the War Office has long held that any shoes you can’t drive a Landrover in, quite rightly belong in the dustbin.

Happily dear readers & as you might have guessed, we have no such issues at Free Market Towers as anyone who has tried to get through the front door can testify to. The porch is occupied by a mountain of wellies, boots, riding hats, dog leads, cricket bats, shooting sticks & other miscellaneous stout footwear … which all, in a slightly contrived manner, brings us on to our topic for this morning with is your humble correspondents impending footwear crisis.

Thinking about it, when we returned from Asia (10 years ago), I must have gone out & bought myself new pairs of wellies & Karrimor KSBs. Over the last decade both have seen sterling service but a bit like their owner, they are now pretty much shagged out. In fact the wellies now have so many leaks that on Saturday night I walked into the grain store, only to find them holding their own ‘confidential press briefing’ & as for my beloved KSBs, the soles are pretty much shot & the stitching is coming apart faster than Nu-Liebour’s immigration policy.

Now I do recognise that I am being a complete old git about this, but 10 years isn’t a long time & I actually resent have to go out & buy replacements. This sort of kit is supposed to last a lifetime & whilst inputting my lifestyle to English Standard Life Tables No.14, I mightn’t have long to go – this stuff should outlast me, not fall apart like my liver has. Yes, I know that we now live in a throw away culture but I really had expected better from Messers Hunter & Karrimor - in proper sporting terms, a decade is the mere blink of an eye.

Of course, technology has moved on & I now have the perfect excuse to go & buy the latest pair of Danner go-fasta oki-cokie 2.5 GTIs but frankly, some of this footwear looks like something out of a Goth fetishists jazz mag. I just want a pair of boots & a pair of boots that will last. No, I am not going to go extreme ironing in the Karakoram Valley & I wont we buying a pair of the Scott of the Antarctic limited edition Yeti Trog gaiters. The old ones that I forgot to give back to the QM do nicely thank you. At least they still work … well sort of.

& it’s the same with Wellingtons. I’d like a pair of Wellingtons please, not something that will entail me taking on similar levels of debt to Brazil – unless of course they are lined with the hide of an endangered species, in which case, I will have 4 brace. Why do I want wellies that are technically advanced & hand-crafted 100% in natural rubber? Forgoddnessake, the Iron Duke must be turning in his grave at the very thought of it. The next thing is that they will be saying they are snake bite proof ... which is very useful in Wiltshire.

I just want a couple of pairs of boots that are comfortable, keep my feet dry, warm, don't cost the earth & last. Thats not too much to ask, is it?

For her word is the law

It all started innocuously enough – buying Mrs FM one of those iPodwalkmanthings. Over the weekend she that shall be obeyed announced that she wanted the matching laptop instead of the Viao that she has at the moment. Over my dead bl**dy body are we having one of those things in the house – but in all truth, I know that all resistance is futile. Now tootling around online this evening I found a piece of Mac kit that has completely changed my views ….

From Oleg Volk via The Smallest Minority

Escape

So your humble correspondent has finally escaped the clutches of the Hun- in a daring bid for freedom on Thursday night – which nearly didn’t happen.

Having been delayed for 2 ½ hours on the a flight from Heathrow to Berlin & then a further hour on a flight down to Frankfurt. The final 1 ½ hour delay on my flight back home was fortuitous, because if it had been running on schedule, I would have never have made check-in. Still, it was this delay that actually gave me the time to notice that not only was my flight number 911 & the registration on the Airbus we were actually flying on … G-BUSH. Clearly someone in British Airway Operations Dept has a sense of irony!

Happy birthday to me ...

Puppy is 1 today

Mr FM is still handing it out to the Boches

Mr FM is still a long way behind enemy lines

Talking sloooooowly but LOUDLY to the Hun

Today ... Mr FM will be sausage-side

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Black Adder goes Forth, Episode 4: Private Plane
Scene 4: In The Trench
----------------------
[As he emerges from the dugout BA sighs and prepares to light his pipe.
Squadron Commander Lord Flasheart jumps down from his crashed plane.]

Flasheart: Ha! Eat knuckle, Fritz!

Flasheart: Is it? Oh, that's a piece of luck. Thought I'd landed sausage-side! Ha!

Yes dear readers …. I am afraid that today’s lack of posting is because your humble correspondent is about to depart on a super secret mission Sausage-side. Two eggs on my plate & all of that - its off to the heart of the Reich for me!

Labradors & Landrovers: Part 421

Reason No. 3,623 for owning a long wheelbase Landrover Defender ….

Your (supposedly rufty tufty) working dogs can travel in ‘labbie luxury’! Now while we are on this topic, over the weekend the Torygraph reviewed the ‘new’ Defender & holds that …

The exterior remains the same, apart from a raised bonnet, which you wouldn't notice unless it was pointed out. And thank goodness for that. Like the traditional Champagne bottle, the basic Swiss army knife and the standard Gibson Les Paul, the Defender is a timeless classic.

and …

After two million sales in almost half a century (and don't forget that 70 per cent of them are still running), the iconic Defender is regarded by some as yesterday's 4x4, entering the final phase of an impressively long life. I don't see things like that. There have been many attempts to dethrone this English-made classic, this ultimate, all-wheel-drive tool, but no rival manufacturer has yet managed it (although some have come close). So capable is the latest, deliberately understated Defender that I believe the opposition will fail again. The 4x4 king is anything but dead. I've driven all its rivals in tough conditions, but there is no doubt in my mind that the Defender remains the best of the bunch.

Up in the Arctic Circle, I repeatedly asked myself whether there was another heavy-duty 4x4 I'd prefer to be in. I drove across regular (but totally untreated) snow, ice-packed roads, frozen lakes, treacherous ruts and other savage obstacles, but can't think of another car that would have coped better. Also, there's something inexplicably reassuring about being in the Arctic with a Land Rover parked outside your tent or, on a good night, hotel room.

After all, Mrs FM flatly refuses to have any other vehicle – what more can I add?

Of Rugers, cartridges & cardiac arrest

As regular readers might well have noticed, there has been a distinct that of posting in the Guns Galore section recently. This is because of a couple of reasons: firstly our shoot has undergone a little (cough cough) metamorphosis but more pertinently, because since the Mboto Gorge Challenge your humble correspondent has had his nose to the grindstone in the endless pursuit of mammon, even missing a day at Bisley on Friday. There is no lack of work ethic here, I promise you – oh darkest of rages!

Anyway, in a vainglorious attempt to cheer myself up on Friday, having missed said day on Short Siberia range, that evening (what with it being The Englishman's birthday & all of that), I got well & truly stuck into some very fine 20 year old port, while reader NBC, who appeared to have grown a set of horns by that stage of the proceedings – damn that was decent port started to have a play with our hosts latest acquisition, an antique Browning A5.

Now that’s what I call a proper gentleman's evening – excellent booze & semi-automatic firearms.

However, given my recent abstinence from all things that go kaboom, in the end, it all proved tooooooo much – way way too much & on the following afternoon, with hangover still raging like the very flames of Islam that according Al-Jizzeara will consume my debased & decadent western lifestyle Tricky & I went off to one of our local clay clubs go get some fooookin’ lead in the air … instead of building the two fences that Mrs FM had tasked me with three weeks ago: but please trust me when I say that that is a particular topic they we don’t want to go near.

Still, with happy heart (& I use that phrase deliberately as you will see if you read on) off I went & a couple of hundred rounds later, topped off with a cup of tea & a slice of excellent Victoria sponge, I jumped back into Disco Dave II to head back to FM Towers, when all of a sudden I was gripped by – well it might as well have been the cold hand of the deadly phantom because I had a searing pain right in the middle of the left hand side of my chest & could hardly stand up.

The first thought other than pondering whether or not I really was right royally b*ggered was “Sh1t, the meme sahibs away & I need to get home to feed the dogs” - nothing like staying cleared headed & maintaining proper priorities in what might be a crisis but at least the Labradors of Libertarianism would be fed & happy.

Dogs attended to, I drive 10 miles to the nearest hospital only to be told that the Minor Injury Unit is closed & they cant admit anyone – remember this is the NHS that Mr Blah tells us we are all so proud of – time to go postal?? So I drive another 25 miles to the next hospital & end up spending the next 24 hours rigged up to all kinds of machines, only to discover that notwithstanding my thoroughly licentious & debauched lifestyle, I remain in ruddy health, save for some probably irritated nerves that a combination of torso movement & recoil had inflamed. Still, nothing like being rigged to an ECG machine to give you a sense of perspective … so from now on, never miss a range day. You never know if it might be your last.

Now, on a related matter, if I can ask you to cast your mind back to this, I am pleased to report that the gentleman in question on Friday took delivery of his first rifle, a Ruger 1022

I can see that my work there is just about done with another stout bulldog starting to get properly tooled up. Now ready to serve customer number …

Anyone got any mint sauce?

The view from The Towers late this afternoon

(I cant get no) ... Perspective

Firstly, apologies for the near complete lack of posting last week – your humble correspondent was rather swept away on a tsunami of work related issues. Ah, the worship of mammon is a terrible thing & despite the worst efforts of the socialist hegemony that we continue to labour under, one or two of us still believe in the protestant work ethic. Still what with today being a) a Bank Holiday, & b) too wet to do the fencing jobs that Mrs FM has saved up for me, its time to kick back for the afternoon, draw breath & just for a moment indulge in a few minutes (sober) reflection …

Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour,
That's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned,
A sun that is the source of all our power.
The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour,
Of the galaxy we call the 'Milky Way'.

Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars.
It's a hundred thousand light years side to side.
It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick,
But out by us it's just three thousand light years wide.

We're thirty thousand light years from galactic central point.
We go round every two hundred million years,
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe.

The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whizz
As fast as it can go, the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute and that's the fastest speed there is.

So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth,
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth.

Antares is the 15th brightest star in the sky & yet is more than 1000 light years away - which really does put that currently unwritten development plan into some form of perspective. Right enough of that - time to go to the pub!

(Lyrics c/o Monty Python's Galaxy Song)

"Play up! play up! and play the game!"

OK, so we haven’t talked about England’s lamentable performance in cricket’s World Cup & what with today being St George’s Day it is probably not an appropriate moment to start. So instead please forgive your humble correspondent if he reports that on an exceptionally green wicket Nipster got out to the second ball of the day that he faced.

Luckily this tawdry performance with the willow was redeemed by his bowling, finishing the day with figures of 5 overs, 3 maidens, 5 wickets for only 6 runs. Ok, ok, so that’s enough proud father stuff for the time being

On a less happy note, notwithstanding skill with ball, the Free Markette is still in a state of high curmudgeon ... now that Mrs FM has banned him for shooting pigeons before breakfast on school days!

Yesterday's bag

None of you like this sort of thing, do you?

Well actually, I know at least 3 of you do & you know who are are.

P.S. Hugh, as you can see, your godson hasn't been idle this holiday

Do we become what we detest?

Life round at the Free Market Corporation has been somewhat busy of late. Aside from all the hydro schemes that displace irreplaceable native villages, there have been logging schemes to fund with globalised banking conglomerates to say nothing of the purchase of climate damaging third world petrochemical plants. All of this has taken your humble correspondent to Spain & last week what started as a 6 hour visit to Germany, ended up with 3 days in the Italian Defence Ministry closing the sale of some cluster munitions that My Little Toni says are too nasty to use on the towel’eads - & as we all know dear readers, where there’s a willing seller, willing buyer & most importantly an arbitrage … there’s a market.

Now I wanted to relate all of this to us in a post entitled The Axis of Axis; however it gets worse – tomorrow I take a plane to the heart of darkness itself – yep your humble correspondent is off to Weasel-land for a couple of days & at the back of what little remains of my alcohol ravaged mind, I can’t help thinking that I am fast becoming euro-trash.

Happily, there might be just a little glimmer of light at the end of Le Tunnel, which is maybe – just maybe, if the creek don’t rise & the dam don’t burst, this stout bulldog might just have to go to Virginia next week. In the meantime I must get on with finishing off my little missive on why the Italian Defence Ministry is so much better than our own. Its really funny. Promise.

& in the absence of any new dead fox photos...

because when we were last out, Shoot Captain missed an 80 yrd sitter. So instead, I thought we would upset the GFWs this week with another in our 'Children & Air Weapons' series.

In fact, Nipster's shooting is coming along nicely - having regular (shotgun) shooting lessons while spending just about every spare minute indulging in the proper boys job ... of vermin control. Over the last few months, his Gamo air rifle has acquired a 4 x 32 AGS scope which is being put to very good use. The score so far includes rats, woodies, collared doves, a crow ... & the tally mounts on a daily basis! So when I read things like

All our objectives are predicated on the belief that the interests of public safety demand a reduction in the availability and attractiveness of guns of all ... Minimum age of 18 for the ownership, use and possession of all guns

on the GCNs UK website, Family FM just goes down to the woods. In fact youngest now aged 4 1/2 is already asking when she can have her own gun - just as long as its pink. Dont worry darling, it wont be long.

P.S. Last week Mrs FMs shotgun certificate arrived & for any GFWs reading this, it already has 5 shotguns entered on it. The next step in her education involves one of my 1022s

Just for the record, the UKs (crazy) law as it pertains to air weapons & youngsters is

It is an offence for anyone under 14 to have with them an airgun or ammunition except:
If they are under the supervision of someone aged 21 or over.
The gun is used by a member of an approved club engaged in target practice.
The gun may be used on private land, provided the pellets are not fired beyond the boundaries. It becomes an offence for both child and supervisor with a maximum fine of £1000 if this happens.

However, there are many happy youngsters enjoying their shooting here. Down the the Shires, I'd say that the GCN & the likes of Mothers Against Reality still have a mountain to climb ... thankfully.

Car questions

Saturday evening was spent (well at least by the small hours) in somewhat of a stupor … round at a chums place who has been extolling the virutes of his latest acquisition …

… they did have a (Jaguar) XJR. Pacific Blue, Champagne leather and with a fully stamped up main dealer service history. And it is quick. 370 BHP. 390 ft / lbs of torque. 5.3 seconds 0-60mph. Faster than my 911.....

but its still an old mans car, isn’t it ??

& I spent how much on her ski pass?

Mrs FM seemed to spend a lot of yesterday taking it rather easy

... still skiing at last light

0730 this morning

The view on my way to get some bread for breakfast

The view from our apartment this afternoon

... just thought that I would share it with you all

Its time to hit the slopes

Yep ... Family FM are off skiiiiiiing for the week. Bye bye Blair .... bonjour crazy frogland. Well not so much f'land as this
Apparently where we are staying has an internet connection - so I might even be posting pics of daring do. Alternatively, I might just go to the bar

Puppy report

New puppy seems to be settling in ...

All change

The scene that greeted us this afternoon ...

Climate change? Looters? No, much much worse …. its Hurricane Puppy.

Behold, the latest addition to Family FM: a six month old lab puppy that we have effectively rescued from a stupid bitch that had all but abandoned her.

Mrs FMs Doggie Boot Camp starts this morning

Observations from our Scotland trip

Despite having been to Scotland many many times, your humble correspondent has never been there for New Year. All I can say is that I thoroughly commend it to you all. At quarter to two in the morning, we still had people coming through our door – probably because I was stupid enough to admit to the extent of my whisky reserves

The evening had started in the local hotel where one shapely young lady (sporting her little black number) complained that the men were only interested in “beer & deer”

I test fired my Remington at about quarter to midday on New Years Day, in these conditions

All was well, expect by the time that nipster & I had walked the two miles back to the farmhouse, it looked like this...

The next day was spent stalking on the hills behind & some 1,000 ft above us. Trying to get on a small group of hinds with at best 2 feet of snow proved too cold & difficult which is why we came down off the hill without a beast to my name.

Will we be going back soon? Do you really think that you have to ask?

Boxing Day Hunts

Guess what Family FM were up to today???

More than 200 hunts have held traditional Boxing Day meets, claiming the two-year-old ban is unworkable. Under the ban, dogs can still be used to follow a scent - and foxes can be killed by a bird of prey or shot.

But Fox Hunting is banned isnt it?? Looks like no one thought to tell all of these stout bulldogs...

Dog days

Labbie is six today!

Extra large bones all round. Now, while we are on the subject of Labs ...

A little earlier, I was reading Blognor Regis' excellent post on The non-PC Damnbusters, which is where I right clicked this picture from

Now, I wanted to name our current dog 'Nigger'. If that name was good enough for Wing Cmdr Guy Gibson VC, DSO (Bar), DFC (Bar) it is certainly good enough for our dog. Sadly, like so much in my life, Mrs Free Market banned it. Also vetoed was my second choice was 'Winnie'.
Happily, we might be having another addition to the family in the spring - probably another black lab - sadly I might have to settle for 'Dyson'.

We are not going to talk about the cricket or the round ball game, come to that

Given what is currently going on down under, the Nipster & your humble correspondent thought that we had better put England’s dismal showing in the current Ashes series to one side

England need something truly special from their bowlers in Perth on Saturday to have any chance of keeping the Ashes series against Australia alive.

& pop down to watch Bath play Harlequinslater on this afternoon … because if for no other reason that it is real mens sport - Willie Woofters need not apply

After all, you would want your son & heir turning into a soccer ponce (like the one pictured below) coming out with phrases like 'the lads done triffick' & 'it were a game of two 'arves' with a hair do & handbag - that’s for tail gunners

Not only do they all look so bl**dy stupid (try dressing like a human being from time to time), every time opposition player gets within five yards they fall on the ground, feigning pain & demanding a make over. Forget the old adage of football (soccer) being a game for gentlemen played by yobs … the dreaded round ball game is played by the unspeakable & is no place for an impressionable young man.

Much better he learn not only proper teamwork but also how to take a punch & not blub like a girl

So, thats where we will be this afternoon

Nutritious breakfasts

Over the weekend, I am hoping to get round to a little blogroll maintenance: some of the links are MIA, others (as we all do from time to time) have gone off the boil. However among many that I will be adding is Breakfast Blogger, if for no other reason that this sort of gratuitous imagery …

This mornings breakfast this seems rather paltry in comparison

Chuggin' good fun

Today, wending an unsteady post lunch path back to the office having got rid of pre-pub pastiness, your humble correspondent to set upon by a chugger*, purporting to be raising money for the National Deaf Children’s Society …

Chugger: Helllllooooo sir, I am from the National Deaf Children’s Society. Could you spare me a couple of minutes of your time?”
Me: Pardon
Chugger: I am from the National Deaf Children’s Society. Could you spare me a couple of minutes of your time?
Me: Pardon
Etc etc etc

* Chugger (n): Charity Mugger. One of those people who stands in the street with a big brightly-coloured bib & quite possibly a clipboard soliciting donations to the Feline Liberation Army or for gay paraplegic Moldavian orphans … some other worthy cause. Usually an agency worker where the agency takes a hefty cut of the hourly rate that the charity in question has paid for, whilst at the same time increasing profits by selling on details of those numpties stupid enough to actually stop & sign up to said cause.
Bl**dy hell, I had to pretend to be on my mobile phone for about ten minutes walking down the High Street to avoid all the chuggers!

Weekend labbie pic

Been walking the dog ...

Not so much the Boston Tea Party as ...

Regular readers will know that the FM’s are oft wont to slip across to New England for a whole host of reasons including but not limited to the Manchester Firing Line Range & the Kittery Trading Post. Over a number of trips the itinerary has become honed pretty much to perfection: arrive in Boston early afternoon & go hire the biggest most gas guzzling SUV we can get our hands on, then head north on Route 1 until a combination of the time difference & the effects of the in-flight refreshments overtakes us. This is normally about the time we reach Freeport, Maine. As destinations go it is pretty good because no matter how hard we try, because of the time difference, we are both wide awake the next day at about 5 am which is in good time to get down to LL Beans 24 hour store.

The previous evening, prior to collapsing, we normally head down to Gritty McDuff’s for a spot of supper & a little drinkie-poos. Gritty’s does pretty decent food & good beer: beer brewed on site, in a traditional manner using excellent ingredients – all the makings of a decent pint. Least it would be if they then didn’t proceed to ruin it by carbonating the damn stuff. By all that is good & holy, who the hell puts CO2 in proper beer. Fizz is something for girls drinks – it has no place in an honest beer. It turns a pint of finest foaming into something akin to shandy.

So, I see that once again, as we approach the festive season, we have being trying to send it relief supplies but …

A Christmas beer brewed in Oxfordshire has been banned in parts of the United States because it has a picture of Father Christmas on the label. Officials in the state of New York told English brewers Ridgeway Brewing that the image on bottles of Santa's Butt could encourage under-age drinking.

The beer, a 6% winter porter, is brewed in South Stoke for the US market. The ban was challenged by the beer's American importer and lifted, but has now been imposed in the state of Maine … This is not the first time that Ridgeway Brewing has fallen foul of state authorities in the US. Last Christmas two of its beers - Seriously Bad Elf and Warm Welcome - were banned in Connecticut on the same grounds

Good to see that Nanny’s American relations are keeping themselves busy. Enjoy the Carbon Dioxide chaps; you cant say we didn’t try

5 mistakes: 23:30 26 Nov 06 – 16:57 28 Nov 06

Apologies for the lack of posting yesterday, however it was one of those occasional days when real life & the seemingly endless pursuit of mammon, had to take a front seat, which as regular readers will know, is somewhat usual. Like all of these things, it all started harmlessly enough. It was late-ish on Sunday night, your humble correspondent was slumped in his armchair drinking & trying to write a post … & in the absence of the heavenly muse … slumped there simply drinking while pondering exactly which name in the Black Book will have the honour of being the first to become aquatinted with the electrodes, come the Glorious Day.

Mistake No.1
In the normal course of events, your humble correspondent would have gently slipped beneath the waves of the evenings chosen bottle … least that’s what would have happened had I not thrown caution to the wind & hit the email send/receive button

Mistake No.2
Those of you that have preserved over the last three years with my repeated crimes against spelling, punctuation & logical argument may find this almost impossible to comprehend, but I seem to have a glimmer of talent at drafting interminably dull bid documents & presentations (cue death by Powerpoint). This is why as I read the email I suffered that sinking feeling … a complete 82 page re-write & a Tuesday 1700 tender deadline

Mistake No.3
The whiskey n’ soda (voda) that had just started to ring & actually agreeing to do it. Actually, it wasn’t a case of agreeing to do it: nope, the truth was that it was far more like a the opening scene from Mission Improbable … “FM, unless you get this bid in, those 4 directorships that you hold will self destruct in 5 seconds!”

Mistake No.4
Half cut, sitting down to do a complete redraft, all the while fighting the urge to write the entire damn thing in iambic pentameter. As dawn broke on Monday morning I had managed a measly 20 pages

Mistake No.5
After no sle