My grinding gears...

Hi, not a lot has been happening lately so that explains the lack of blog activity, well I mean, how can I top my visit to the Science Museum in London the other week. Seriously how many security alerts do you want?

I was going to do a "Cooking with Ed" entry the other day, but thanks to me setting an incorrect macro setting on my camera and an awkward viewing angle most of the shots where blurred. So no blog, a pity really as the "easy chilli beef" is efin amazing. I'll probably do it again in about a month.

I is up here in the "grim north" for a couple of weeks while F and the girls visit her mum in Italy. And seeing as he found a shop in Birkenhead that sells Airsoft guns and now that I also know where it is there is every opportunity that Merseyside Metropolitan Police' SO19 will be paying us a visit in the near future. And here's food for thought, since my appearance in that gun heavy pantomime at the science museum, I am now on the UK's police intelligence computer, it's a system that isn't open to any copper it's for the "intelligence" community. But rest assured dear reader, I have nothing to fear from the police as I am neither a foreign national, overtly religious or political and I certainly do not have a tan.

And now for the bit that grinds my gears.

The Violent Crimes Reduction Act
This hastily written and badly worded waste of paper has airsoft fans now dumped in between Violent drunken yobs, people who sell booze to minors and football hooligans.
Basically it has now "criminalised" anyone who owns and uses an airsoft gun. OK the community hasn't helped itself by 'demanding' realistic weapons from the makers, so that once a week they can dress up like soldiers and sow large amounts of 6mm BB's across large areas of the country or in enclosed arenas.
The government's thoughts behind this was to remove "realistic imitation firearms" {direct quote from the white paper} (the governments new term for non lethal airsoft toys ) from the hands of criminals. OK, fine, just one small problem that they fail to mention, real firearms are cheaper to buy "from some bloke down the pub" than a toy that we will soon have to register to have as honest men and women. And when the criminal element are using more real guns things will get worse. Look at it this way, a yob with a BB gun holds up a petrol station, if it all goes horribly wrong for him he runs away. Now the yob is forced to borrow a pals real gun, things go wrong for him, he squeezes the trigger. Now things have gotten worse for everyone.
If you are of the underclass/careerer criminal then getting a real gun is not too hard (anywhere in the UK), hell the media delight in getting them and doing big exposé's about the fact, when there is nothing better to report about of course.
Airsoft in this country was until recently a loose collection of BB nuts who chatted over the internet, shot their friends (with non lethal plastic balls) and generally had a lot of fun in the process. Now they are forced to become an organised and coherent body, who are for the moment, self regulating. Very bad things happen to groups who grow too big, the bureaucracy that is set up to serve and facilitate the group or body, becomes a monster with a life and a will of it's own and this life and will will eventually come to odds with it's creator. Empires rise but they only fall when the bureaucracy becomes self serving. There are members of the House that know this and have forced the airsoft community to do what it had to do to protect itself. I predict the death or complete outlawing of airsoft in this country within three years, lets wait and see.
Gun crime in this country is on the decline, we have the lowest gun crime (related death) in the world and yet some harmless enthusiasts are all going to suffer for the few, the few being the people with real guns committing real crime, whom the police cannot find. The honest man stands in the light and can be seen, the dishonest man will hide in the shadows, who will the farces of law and order see first?

I'd have to "willingly" give this up, that's not right.
To quote mister Heston.
"From my cold dead hands!"



PS
As you could see I had one of my pistols (I have two) on the table for a photo. What you didn't see was the gas canister at the other end of the table, well I've been buzzed for the last time by this mozzie.
I put a quick squirt of gas in the mag, no BB and stunned the mozzie with one shot at close range, I then de-gassed the mag and squished the mozzie with my index finger and thumb.
Hurrah for airsoft.

WHAT THE...

http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/41/wiihelm.shtml

----------------
Now playing: David Arnold - Casino Royale - Vesper
via FoxyTunes

The Imperial War Museum

This is the last gasp for my visit with I, F and the girls.
The weather outside is as it has been for most of the "summer", of course I brought the umbrella. Maybe next time I visit I'll bring a coat as well.

The museum used to be the Bethlem Royal Hospital but was more commonly known as Bedlam as it used to house the insane. But thanks to early care in the community schemes the building was emptied and used as a museum. (spot the lie in that last bit).

Here are some pics of the outside...





Here's what the little silver plaque says, 'cause I know you would go batty through not knowing...
I mean... look at the size of these thing... huge...
and here is what they where used for...
Marvellous.

In we go, and may I say that I have no bag with me and so am therefore unlikely to trigger a massive security alert. They did take my umbrella off me tho' and the irony about the trip to the science museum was this, I could have caused some real damage with the brolly and not the guns in my bag, y'see the brolly has a big metal spike on the end and a sturdy wooden handle.

Anyway, this.... Boooo!!!

And this next piece, Hurrah...
If you look carefully you can just make out a Bosh spiky helmet at the foot of this heroic Tommy.

Our first port of call was in the basement, along with the loos. It was a recreation of a first world war trench, with authentic smells ( I thought the loos had backed up).
It's almost completely black and fairly cramped, just like the real thing and has some realistic sounds, it's also got some extremely detailed life size dioramas with audio and unlike some I've seen these where not cheesy.
The captain is ordering an artillery barrage on enemy positions...
Meanwhile two Tommies take a quick fag ( cigarette) break in the lull...
Letters from home...
Prisoner and escort...

And now for the worst part, up the ladders or "over the top" and walk slowly towards the enemy, but you mustn't try and evade being shot or you'll be shot. I'm surprised our generals didn't go back to the red tunics of the Napoleonic era so the Germans could shoot every soldier instead of just most of them...

Here are some examples of street names found in the trenches, a habit soldiers of all nationalities have continued since...

At the end of the "first world war" exhibit I spotted this...
and this in particular, after all I am Ex-navy...

This next piece is a bit ghoulish, it's a death clock and it's still counting the war dead, two for every revolution of the finger. Somewhere in the world two soldiers are killed in some country and some battle...
some artillery pieces...
and for some strange reason an old bus...

Next we saw this little devil...
But before I could say,
"Look out for that tank!"

I, got run over.(and somewhat over exposed)


When we saw this mini sub I asked I if it was a British one, he leans over to it sniffs and says,
"nah, it's Italian. You can smell the garlic."
He then bursts out laughing. Trust me if F had of been with us he wouldn't have said that, well not without getting belted.
There where two mini subs there the other less technical and fancy one was British. (our admiralty once nearly dismissed subs as being "ungentlemanly" , duhhh!)
And now for some planes, again the British military where somewhat loath to fully exploit the full potential of the Wright brothers invention, you sort of get the feeling that most British generals and admirals where all members of the "Flat Earth Society", but by the halfway point in WWII they had got the idea and commissioned this thing of beauty...
And it's one of the main reasons that we today don't have to say,
"Vorsprung durch technic."

Then the Americans had this little beaut'
it's the one in the middle at the back.

And Harry Hun had this excellent machine...
Many years after the war the Navy got to play with this little fella, I'm surprised that we're all still here, lol.


Right! I've got loads of phots in my "must see" folder for this blog but it's getting late so I'm going to just post them without chatting about most of them, here goes...

Monty
I was there for that, he went over to buy a cack handed BMW and came back with a huge lump of wall in the boot (trunk), cool.

The guy on the left with the bad tie is dead, ha ha ha ha.
Kiwi matelots on the piss in Blightyland...

"Don't Panic, don't panic..."

'nuff said.

And now for the sometimes forgotten heroes, the merchant navy, they kept us fed and supplied at great personal (unarmed) risk...

It's just a pity these phots are rubbish.

And as for this next one, well we entered a room full of these bad boys but this one got my attention for all the obvious reasons...
Hilarious, especially given the gravitas of the room you're in.

Oh, and this next badly focused phot, well we found and decoded these years before the Americans found their one. (U-571's director can kiss my ass!)

I gets his "little boy" out (he made me do this)
and here it is again without a retard...
Shortly after this phot we leave.
No, we didn't get asked to leave either.
Also the police were not waiting for us.

On the way towards the Palace of Westminster, we where walking, I (that's me not I) spotted this...
something my detective chum had never seen on his many trips to the war museum, some bloody detective!

Next is Westminster bridge...
and the Palace of Westminster, commonly known as the houses of parliament, or the biggest collection of bars in the smallest area on the planet...

Now, is this Big Ben?
No it's not, Big Ben is the bell inside that tolls the hour.

And now a pic of a bloke who ruled England for the most boring 5 years in it's history, him and his warts.
It's even harder to believe that he was dug up a few years after his death and posthumously 'executed'