Things which disappoint
I struggled to pull a post out of my ass today, but I am in vile humor. Then Uncle B came to the rescue and dug up the perfect metaphor.
Literally. He was planting the hedges, and he excavated this small, heavy, useless chunk of metal. Yes, minions, I’m afraid this thing is what’s left of our machine gun. Can’t think what else it can be.
Perfetto!
Oh, and you know what? You’re not getting a pony for Christmas, either. Or a go-kart.
If you want my thoughts on McCain, go read Ace. Added: by which I mean, he wrote an essay that perfectly encapsulates what I’m thinking, not that I had any brilliant comments in that thread. Sometimes, you forget he’s not just another moron.
Posted: February 6th, 2008 under badger house, personal, politics.
Comments: 21
Comments
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: February 6, 2008, 6:38 pm
Oh, this is good. This was in the spam filter:
Hello all.
I am a flag-waving American citizen who
somehow landed in the Middle East and I
am looking for a way out. 🙁
(its a long story with lots of sordid details:
cheating spouse, dysfunctional inlaws,
deceipt and underhandedness…it might make a very interesting movie). 🙂
Anyway, hello to everyone and I look forward to sharing
my international experiences with all of you
in the coming months.
The kicker? Every third or fourth letter is a link to a porn site.
Comment from Pupster
Time: February 6, 2008, 7:15 pm
“Every third or fourth letter is a link to a porn site.”
*clickclickclickclickyclick*
You lie.
Too bad about the machine gun. I’ll have to add it to the list of “Things that do not hold-up well while buried in English hedgerows for 50 years”.
I’m a list person.
Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: February 6, 2008, 7:27 pm
I posted all those photos last month! The thief!
Spot on, Pupster!
At this point there is only one question left regarding the gun: does it blend? Hee, hee!
But I bet the old coot is still pleased to a degree: his mates now know he wasn’t bullshitting them all these years.
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: February 6, 2008, 7:31 pm
Haven’t talked to the old coot yet. Uncle B only dug it up this afternoon.
Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: February 6, 2008, 7:51 pm
Congratulate Uncle Badger for me! He is obviously a man of the First Caliber – one of grit and determination. No pantywaist, he!
He should let the old coot open the bundle of rust – if possible.
Comment from Uncle Badger
Time: February 6, 2008, 7:55 pm
Yeah, you see, if you need some real digging done, it’s no good frigging around with metal detectors, or old coots with spades. Not even men with heavy digging machines. What you need is a Badger .
So… the plan was to plant native hedging for the dicky boids (and weasels, but let’s not dwell on that, her Ladyship still thinks she’s getting to live inside! Ha! As if…).
Out I went to plant the bare-rooted hawthorns and blackthorns I’d bought yesterday and there I am, scrabbling away when suddenly there was a nasty, metallic ‘thunk’, a tingling shock up my spade arm and a moment’s silence.
Now, you have to understand that digging in dear old Blighty has never been quite the same since Jerry threw his toys out of the pram a few years back and started lobbing the odd bit of ordnance our way. There’s always a chance that what you hit might go pop. Very reliable these German products.
It’s really rather chilling when you think you might just be hammering away at the remains of one of dear old Werner’s V2s.
So, I dug carefully around it, teasing away the wet clay and tangled roots and, eventually, hauled out what is a surprisingly heavy chunk of aluminium (though, if it is what I suspect it might be – the remains of an American gun, I suppose that should be ‘aluminum’). But it was getting dark, so I took a quick picture, set it to one side and, tomorrow, I’ll hose it down.
If it isn’t the damned gun, I have no idea what it could be.
The rest of it, I imagine, is just pure rust.
Anyway, there’s a hedge in place now. I expect weasels by June.
Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: February 6, 2008, 8:23 pm
Holly annuity, Badger! It never crossed my mind that you were digging in the Huns battlefield, and that a piece of WWII kraut boomenwerks could go kerboom at any moment! That shit is still lethal, you know. Kraut reliability, as you said.
I was terrified reading your tale, and I wasn’t even there. It must have taken mighty spheres to continue.
You should call the old coot and his digger-friend over for the un-muddying of the glob. He may make some interesting observations or comments along the way. (I would suggest ..er…refreshments, but its none of my business).
Where’s the new hedge photo?
BTW: While on my trip I kept passing farm equipment places. I looked for treaded equipment and saw…..none.
Comment from Uncle Badger
Time: February 6, 2008, 9:22 pm
Every now and then one goes off, McGoo, so you do need to be a bit careful. Or stupid. I probably qualify among the latter.
Unexploded WWII bombs are dug up still on a regular basis and here, down in the South East, (not far from the cheese-eating surrender monkeys) the V1s and V2s rained down like heavy metal. There are plenty of them waiting for the unwary badger.
Then again, or own guys left a few toys around, too. You may have heard of something called ‘The Home Guard’. It’s treated as a bit of a joke but, in actuality, what it was, was a guerrilla force of men either too old or doing work too important to be in the regular army. They’d get together in the evenings and prepare what to do when we were invaded (which was, as far as they could see, imminent).
These part-time soldiers were subject to the ritual English piss-taking (nothing is sacred here) and much lampooned in the hugely successful TV series Dad’s Army which depicts a platoon of comic idiots.
No doubt some of them were: just bank clerks playing soldiers. But some weren’t and, not widely known, is that there were ‘crack’ teams of SAS-types who really were intended to be assassins and , well, yes, ‘terrorists’ if Adolph and der boys had set-up shop in Buck House with an ‘Unter New Management’ sign and a dodgy taste in swastika wallpaper.
Such a trained nutcase, apparently, lived next door to Badger House in what is known as New Badger House (it was built by the family that got sick of ducking under Badger House’s beams). He, apparently, held the local stock of Molotov cocktails and, no doubt, gradually added to the stockpile as the war years dragged on.
Of course, Adolph’s World Tour was, as we all know, cancelled, and it seems our neighbour eventually forgot where he’d left the Molotovs.
Then one day, he had a bonfire. And found them.
I like to think we still breed that sort of maniac in dear old…
Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: February 6, 2008, 9:36 pm
Oddly enough, we occasionally have a similar problem over here in the Colonies.
Seems the “survivalist” types from the 60’s etc who went out into the great American Western desert areas (i.e. Arizona and such) collected and hid their arsenals well, lived long – and then died of old age or pot poisoning.
Time passed.
Now folks are finding these buried depots out there and having to call the authorities to relieve them of the stuff. Amazing what could be had on the black market here. They found a fully assembled howitzer out there a few years ago. No clue as to how it got there.
I’d read about some tragic kabooms over in Germany years ago involving some kids who found a landmine and threw it into a fire or something.
Comment from Gnus
Time: February 6, 2008, 9:58 pm
Unexploded ordnance is sometimes a problem hereabouts. Eglin’s ranges are just outside my windows, relatively speaking, and they allow hunting at various times, which sometimes leads to hunter’s surprises.
Admirable that a bunch of olde cootes were willing to be cannon fodder should the need arise. I suspect they’d have given a better account of themselves than anyone had a right to expect.
I’ve always wondered why the armed services won’t accept olde phartes like myself for desk jobs and support roles and such, thereby freeing up the young and fit for more rigorous duties, but that’s just me.
Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: February 6, 2008, 10:16 pm
Gnus – I sometimes suspect that those young kids behind those desks WANT to be there rather than the alternative job assignment. There’s that old expression about being “In the rear, with the gear!”
I may have mentioned this before: during the Soviet freedom revolution back in the late 80’s(?) there was a video of a Russian civilian in Moscow Square or wherever beating on a tank with a baseball bat. The tank was covered with brick-shaped blocks. Those blocks are active armor – explosive! – which literally blow away any tank missile that hits them. That civilian was beating on a big block of explosive and didn’t know it.
Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: February 6, 2008, 10:34 pm
Well, hope springs eternal.
Mitt might not be as dead as the MSM would have you believe:
http://astuteblogger.blogspot.com/2008/02/mccains-advanced-age-and-poor-health.html
Comment from porknbean
Time: February 6, 2008, 11:23 pm
And that is exactly one of the things the bitch will use against him. Too friggin old and cranky. His campaign has already said that he will not do negative ads on Obama….Mitt, of his own party, but not Obama.
I was thinking earlier that if McCain was to drop dead, I hope it is during the primaries.
Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: February 6, 2008, 11:35 pm
Ya know, pnb, I just now figgered it out. I guess I’m slow.
I don’t need to listen or read any more on the friggin’ election.
I mean, there is no way I’m going to punch a (D) candidates ballet-hole, so what’s to get stressed about?
No matter who the GOP presents, I’m gonna vote (R) regardless, because I am not gonna vote for Obama or the Witch. Period. Paragraph. End of discussion.
Case closed.
Comment from Muslihoon
Time: February 6, 2008, 11:46 pm
Oh, Your Grace, what would you do without jolly Uncle B?
Lovely prose, Uncle!
Comment from Pupster
Time: February 7, 2008, 10:46 am
After reading McGoo’s comment about ‘punching the ballot hole’, I’m not going to say ‘vote’ again. At least not this election cycle.
Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: February 7, 2008, 10:58 am
Oooh. I didn’t realize I’d done a double-entendre type thingy, Pupster.
I’ve just decided to climb off the MSM-steered (R) panic wagon and Not-Worry-Be-Happy for a while. Since I can make no real difference, I might as well be happy; its more fun anyway.
Be assured: everything will go to shit in the fullness of time without me worrying about it.
I think I’ll go re-watch “Fucking a Unicorn” again: those stupid assholes always cheers me up.
Comment from Dave in Texas
Time: February 7, 2008, 11:55 am
I think “Dakota” was the Brit name for a C-47 transport.
Comment from See-Dubya
Time: February 8, 2008, 3:26 am
You know, a little Hoppes’ 3-in-1 oil on that and it’ll be good as new. Maybe an old toothbrush in the crevices.
PS you realize that just by having that on your property, even in that shape, you are probably already committing ten thousand ongoing Crown felonies…
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: February 8, 2008, 7:15 am
Thanks for dropping by, See-Dub. Yeah, the old coot who buried it insisted we not get his name involved in any way. He was expecting us to find something that still looked like an actual machine gun, of course. We were to pretend we just found it while planting petunias. And then donate it to a local museum.
Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: February 8, 2008, 10:14 am
I don’t think I have enough Hoppe’s #9 in the house for that thing.
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