So the world wakes again to another US shooting atrocity. Yet another homegrown nut job. Orange Donald said it wasn’t guns to blame but mental illness – no shit, still a lump of lead to the head does you no good at all no matter how sick the trigger finger. Pity the bloke didn’t just have access to a sharp stick instead of an arsenal.Really Donald? Like any normal well-adjusted person wakes up and says “think I’ll just top a few people first thing then slide off down the gym for an hour or two.”
Easy pickings for the shooter down the local church. God’s will. I bet that one took some serious explaining. Bloke in the Big House woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Or to quote the legendary Tom Waits “There is no Devil, it’s just God when he’s drunk…”
So aside from the fact the bloke was stark raving mad, he also had access to an assault rifle. Helps if you are hell bent on carnage. Can you just imagine trying to get your twitchy fingers on one of those in the UK?
We all know of the odd dodgy boozer where various articles may be bought or sold, but I reckon you would be very lucky to so much as score a rusty converted starting pistol with no bullets. Thankfully bullets are a big sticking point, I am reliably informed, very limited supply – no ammunition for the hardware.
Fortunately for us average Joes that’s just a problem for seriously hardened criminals.
So, the USA. Crazy place. I receive daily mail shots from big US auction houses selling off general household goods. Often a way to pickup an unwanted guitar but don’t try it yourself. CITES, Customs, pitfalls, you know it makes sense.
The advertising revels in detail, typically – “Mancave Sell-Off”. Offerings include machine guns, Uzi’s, crossbows, daggers, body armour. Place a bid, buy online at the click of a button. What a fucked-up place. Can you imagine trying to ship an assault rifle home? That would make CITES look like a walk in the park. What’s the duty rate on guns, do you pay VAT? Wouldn’t surprise me if they are exempt, just to give the arms trade a boost, hard-up non-VAT registered terrorist groups not being able to reclaim input tax, wouldn’t do, they just might look elsewhere for their gear. Oiling the wheels of industry, maintain cash flow.
The right-to-bear-arms. As if the land was still swarming with Red Indians – can I say that? I wonder if they had other colours before they shot them all and nicked their land ?
I don’t think the Orange One needs to worry about letting nutters in, he’s got 1000s of home grown ones to deal with, brought up on apple pie and bullshit.
In the dim and murky past life, when I was a School Governor, I got in to serious shit over Halloween. Apparently not to be celebrated, anti-religious, devil worship, paganism. The school kids loved it though. Bit of a link there, Halloween, America, Americanisation, keep up.
Bollocks, it has something to do with Autumn and harvesting – you may not all remember that season, it’s just about disappeared now. A time of year when it started to get cold & damp, fog, all that sort of stuff. Hands up who has never seen proper fog? Thick, grey, enveloping, silencing, cuts visibility to five feet. Not like a poncy misty morning all dew and ephemeral.
Go on, say it – just what the fuck are you on about Grandad and what’s “five feet” anyway?
Don’t worry. the Planet is going to bite you back. That glaciers about to drop off the edge. You’d wish you had bought longer wellies then.
Halloween – it was all about harvesting, turnips and stuff. Maybe they were pagans, or at least always covered in shit, so must have looked like a pagan, or was it peasant?
Monty Python and the Holy Grail had peasants. I watched that on Broadway, very funny, the Americans just didn’t get it.
I think it was turnips, which is funny ‘cos when I was a kid we used to hollow out a turnip, or swede if you were posh, to make a lantern with a face. Admittedly usually some ghoulish, devil type face. Bloody hard work carving out a turnip with your Dad’s best screwdriver and a spoon.
Definitely not a pumpkin in sight and they wouldn’t have grown in the bitter North East. It’s grim up North. If they did grow, the adults would have probably squashed them – filthy foreign veg’ and kid’s should not be having fun.
Usually worked out about two glorious hours for the turnip. Stuffed with a night light (tea light for the middle classes) and carried round on a bit of string, flame blowing out every five minutes. Then blown to bits with a banger on the glorious November 5th, Bonfire Night. Along with the burning Guy, centre of the bonfire – now that is just not right in this day and age. I guess that act will have screwed a few kids up.
Those are the only two festivities that should be close together on the calendar AND they should be bank holidays. God knows what Christmas and New Year are doing so close. What’s the point? Wasted, over indulged, swollen liver and skint for about a month. It’s just not healthy. Then fuck-all to celebrate till Easter. There we go with that God thing again. Give me the turnip harvest any day.
Believe in what you want but don’t impose on others, or shoot them.
