[new feudalism] defence might become a consideration

With the accession of the messiah in America, it’s becoming increasingly important over there which firearm to choose to defend your family and your constitution.

Now let me say from the outset that this site in no way, shape or form is promoting the use of guns or saying that you should rush out and buy one.

In fact, in Britain, where everything is completely in order and the government is much loved, where there is no culture of guns, no terrorism and complete racial harmony and if you did buy one, you’d end up incarcerated in a coffin with spikes on the inside, even if you made it that far, my advice is not to even think of purchasing any weaponry, of any sort, under any circumstances, at any time nor to consider, in the least, defending your family.

However, just for interest’s sake, in a lawless land somewhere on a far-off island, these might be your considerations:

Let’s face it, the main decision in your choice of weapon is going to be 9mm or 0.45. Whilst the stopping power of the 0.45 is desirable, the 9mm is far more readily available.

My personal choice would be the Heckler & Koch UMP. Wiki says:

As originally designed, the UMP is chambered for larger cartridges than the MP5. This was done in order to provide more stopping power against armored targets as well as increase the effective range over the MP5.

However, using a larger cartridge results in more recoil, making the weapon more difficult to control when firing in fully-automatic mode.

To counter this effect, the cyclic rate of fire was decreased to around 600 rounds per minute, making it one of the slower submachine guns in the market.

Such a slow rate of fire makes burst-fire settings impractical, yet many users cite the practicality of the 3-round burst or 2-round burst setting as a desirable feature in a submachine gun.

The only other one I’d look at is the HK MP5K. Wiki says:

It is widely considered to be one of the best close quarter battle (CQB) weapons in the world, especially considering its size. Its small size and low weight (2 kg / 4.4 Lbs) allow it to be easily concealed under clothes, in a car, or in a suitcase, and allows for high mobility, even in crowds.

A special bag and suitcase have been designed, not only to carry the weapon in, but also to fire it from. Both have a hole in them, from which the bullets are fired. The suitcase's "trigger" is in the handle, but when using the bag, you must open it and grip the trigger as you would normally.

Needless to say, this feature provides near-ultimate stealth.

The only directly notable disadvantage is a seriously decreased effective range (only 25 m / 82 ft), due to its shorter barrel (115 mm [4.5 in] instead of 225 mm [8.9 in]) and lack of shoulder stock (which makes the weapon more difficult to aim).

So it comes down to requirements in the end. Stealth is not something I’d ever be interested in but stopping power under attack is.

Hence my preference for the UMP and in a pistol, the M1911.

In my novels, I thought out the weaponry you’d use in a paired combination with your wife, say, giving her the more versatile close range guns and retaining the ultimate stoppers for yourself, if only on the grounds of weight and size.

Anyway, have a think about it but of course, forget any idea that you’d actually buy any of these, even if you could. Remember, in the coming troubles, you are to be left completely defenceless. That’s what the rule of lauranorder is all about.

For heaven’s sake, if you want to play about with guns, join your local TA.

[culinary gems] let them eat cake

Culinary gem

If you were to be served this menu on a special anniversary, [please excuse the lack of French accenting in the spellings], there would hardly be any great surprise until you came to the wines:

Soup

Imperatice and Fontanges

Hors d’oeuvres

Souffles a la reines

Removes

Fillet of sole a la venitienne
Escalopes of turbot au gratin
Saddle of mutton with Breton puree

Entrees

Chicken a la Portugaise
Hot quail pate Lobster a la Parisienne
Champagne sorbet

Roasts

Duckling a la rouennaise
Canapes of ortolan

Entremets

Aubergines a l’espagnole
Asparagus spears
Cassolettes princess

Desserts

Bombes glacees

Wines

Retour de l’Inde Madiera, sherry
Chateau -d’Yquem 1847
Chateau Margaux 1847
Chateau-Lafite 1847
Chateau-Latour 1848
Chambertin 1846, Champagne Roederer

Aside from the wines, there is much in that menu which might be provided at any special dinner today. And yet *:

Adolphe Duglere: born Bordeaux 1805, died Paris 1884

Duglere was a pupil of Careme’s and is always associated with the Cafe Anglais in Paris. The Cafe Anglais opened in the Boulevard des Italiens. It was named in honour of the peace treaty just signed between England and France, as he made it one of the most famous in the world.

He also managed the restaurant at Les Freres Provencaux and was the Head Chef at the kitchens of the Rothschild family’s kitchen The dishes he is famous for creating are Potage Germiny, souffle a la Anglaise, sole Duglere and the reknowned Anna Potatoes; named after Anna Deslions, a lady of high fashion at the time.

At an historic dinner, which became known as ‘the three Emperors’ due to the attendance of Alexander II, the future Alexander III, Wilhelm I of Prussia and Bismark, it was Duglere who was the Chef Patron. The dinner on June 7, 1867 was an expensive and extravagant affair even for those times.

The menu above was from that dinner. One marvels at how the ordinary mortal today is able to partake of such fare and not think twice about it.

What would the peasants have eaten in those days? Cake?

* I’ve lost the link but the site was “Talleyrand’s Culinary Fare”.

[writing] why would you bother

Currently in a quandary as to whether to leave a character’s wife crippled or else allow her to slowly recover from an initially debilitating injury, it might be time to pause and look at this whole bloody maddening process of writing.

Almost every blogger who gets past the ‘let out all the frustrations’ stage fancies himself as a budding writer. Some even start thinking in terms of selling their wares before they even have the product.

Obstacles before you even start

In no particular order, here are some of the obstacles to overcome, before you even get going:

1. Like dancing, modelling and waitressing, it’s oversubscribed.

2. Everyone fancies himself as a writer but not many have the feedback to put their abilities in perspective.

On this point, literary agents smile when someone tells them that a ‘writer’s’ friends advised him to get his book published becase it is so good. Friends and family are often supportive but all the same, all expect free signed copies and would like to get a mention.

3. This is like point 2 in that many amateurs, without a writing background, feel they can do it as well as any they’ve read. It’s like the teaching profession – how many amateurs think it’s a piece of cake – that anyone can do it?

4. How’s your articulation, grammar and spelling? You can’t leave it all to the publisher to proof-read.

5. Can you type? With one finger or ten? How fast? Do yu know hoe publishers like to receive the MS?

6. Are you interesting enough? You might think you are, you might think your story is the bee’s knees but how many share that view? I’m certain that only a miniscule fraction of my target audience would like my work.

Who’s your target audience and is their a market for that type of book? I was asked yesterday what type my book was. I usually say romantic-thriller or thriller-romance. How many people are interested in that combination?

7. It’s time-consuming and wearying. If you’re not knackered after 11 hours of writing, you’ve been coasting. It’s all over the place – inspiration comes in the middle of the night or during the working day. You never know when it wil strike and if you don’t write it down then and there, you’re gone.

8. You become self-centred and anti-social, neglecting family and friends and find yourself having to make excuses to those with a reasonable claim to your time.

9. You have to line up with each of the other 2.5 million ‘writers’ who are looking for a literary agent to accept them.

10. It costs money, not just in getting published but in all the ancillaries, including time lost.

The process itself

1. Are you intending to write fiction or non-fiction, the former harder to get published and far more subjectively received.

2. Do you use a straight line narrative, with lots of ‘and’ and ‘then’; do you have a complex series of sub-plots and do they lead to the inevitable denouement?

3. What’s your intention – to sell the work or just to get something off chest?

4. Are your characters rounded, are there too many of them, should all be developed to the same extent and do you, the author, betray prejudice towards certain characters, not giving them a fair chance?

5. Can you avoid the Mary-Sue, the super-hero, based on yourself, who has all the answers and is a vehicle for your own ego?

The editing drudgery

1. Do you really have your timelines sorted so that you avoid anachronisms and characters who never age?
On this point, I have a character in the second book, named Genevieve Lavacquerie and she starts out, around 2005, as ‘just into her thirties’. Then I thought it would be nice to bring her in near the end of the first book, which put her in 1998. The problem is – she’s meant to be a mature woman and how can you make a 25 year old mature?

It didn’t work, so I had to go back through and in the third book, she’s still prancing about as if she’s 30 but now she has to be 45 or so.

2. Do you have the seasons and weather right? Are you jumping from summer to wineter or haven’t you thought about it at all?
3. How much local colour do you put in? I’m obsessive about details being correct or at least consistent with that town or village and this is one of the most time-consuming editorial jobs.
4. How ‘constructed’ does your anrrrative end up, after all that editing? How natural does it still feel? Doe your book begin to resemble a write-by-numbers collation?

Longevity

How long do you intend writing for? Like national football managers and singers, it’s a notoriously shortlived business and you’re only as good as your last book. Arundhati Roy wrote:

I will only write another book if I have another book to write. I don’t believe in professions.

Promotion

Just how do you intend to get yourself published and/or read?

[discrimination] all right when they do it, isn't it

Andrew Allison:

If a child can no longer talk about heaven and hell and her mother cannot ask her friends to pray for the school without the risk of losing her job, sacred rights and freedoms have been lost.

Amen, brother.

[pro-liberi] have a read of this one

There's a new blogger in the firmament who calls himself Lord T, of all things, and he has a blog called Pro-Liberi [or For the Children].

You might not agree with all he has to say but his ideas on the future are definitely down to earth, practical and sometimes even amusing. What he's about can be found here.

Here's a selection:

On surveillance devices:

I see us dropping sugar cube sized devices in the garden to watch for intruders and they use bluetooth or WiFi to call our phones to warn us. Put one in the frame of your bike and it will shout out if it goes missing. Get the kids to swallow one in the morning so you know where they are every minute of the day.

On DIY doctoring:

I like the idea of doing testing at home. Many people wait and wait, myself included, until we are convinced something is wrong before we go and see a Doctor. By then it may be too late. Home testing however seems an ideal solution such as was proposed here for bowel cancer.

On evolution:

A boy has been born in the US with 24 digits on his hands and feet. Six on each hand and foot. Read the full story here. Now is this a move towards the next stage in our evolution? More fingers would be handy whilst typing and allow a better grip on tools. Not sure about the toes though.

I imagine Lord T is going to get quite a bit of comment, positive and negative, with views like those and others.

[chivalry] and the hegemony of feminism [revisited]

I'm running this post again. I was reading this new blogger's comments on gender equality and after a year and a half, the whole damned issue needs looking at again. It really does.


Most people know Michael Bucci's list of chivalrous acts which men should indulge in and I'm right behind the idea. Men should observe good manners and so should women.

Linda Lichter is far more hardline about chivalry:

[Writing of the Titanic] I never had the courage before to openly admire those men or envy the women they saved. At least a decade before the siege of political correctness, I was silenced by the unconscious but relentless intimidation of female friends and colleagues who are educated, self-sufficient, and eager consumers of the latest feminist books.

I am supposed to owe the authors of those books unqualified gratitude for all the hard-won rights the Titanic women never enjoyed.

I would add another [thing here]: that emotional and physical esteem for women is central, not tangential, to manhood. The British statesman Lord Chesterfield, a favorite source of Victorian etiquette writers, believed everyday deference was due to all women because it provided their only shield against men's superior physical strength.

He added, "no provocation whatsoever can justify any man in not being civil to every woman; and the greatest man would justly be reckoned a brute if he were not civil to the meanest woman."

This hits the nail on the head as far as I'm concerned and is central to what chivalry means to me. Though men and women are the same - i.e. we're both human but in different forms - and though there are good and bad on both sides, chivalry recognizes "womanhood" as something to be revered and makes no distinction. You're a bad woman? You'll still be treated courteously by chivalry. It's a safety net, a catch-all and chances are that the person who is chivalrous will be this way with men as well.

Blogger Kelly Mac [and I admit she is vehemently anti-feminist] is reflecting on the early years of feminism:

Namely, where were all the "good" women when feminism started? Why didn't the women who knew they were not being abused do something to stop the misinformation that spread like wildfire? Aren't these women just as deserving of men's contempt as the hardcore feminists who started it all?

Ruth Malhotra gets down to specifics:

The notion of victimhood, that “women are oppressed and exploited,” evokes strong anti-male sentiment.

Many influential feminists demonstrate extreme animosity towards marriage and family life, even likening the institution of marriage to that prostitution.

In Feminism: An Agenda, radical feminist author Andrea Dworkin declared that the home was a dangerous place stating, “Like prostitution, marriage is an institution that is extremely oppressive and dangerous for women.”

The feminist agenda is offensive to women. With Eve Ensler and her contemporary cheerleaders in the feminist movement, initiatives such as the "Vagina Monologues" have become a central part of Women’s Awareness Month programming on campuses around the country.

The "Vagina Monologues," often promoted as a wonderfully inspiring event to empower women, is, in reality, nothing more than an atrociously written anti-male tirade, portraying women as pathetic sexual objects who will forever be victims. Such programs are not only blatantly offensive towards women but are vile and vulgar.

Elizabeth Fox-Genovese sees it this way:

It has not been easy to acknowledge that feminism has promoted the unraveling of the most binding and important social bonds. Not easy, but unavoidable. Like countless other women who cherish improvement in the situation of women in the United States and throughout the world, I was initially quick to embrace feminism as the best way to secure our "rights" and our dignity as persons. Like countless others, I was seriously misled.

In practice, the sexual liberation of women has realized men's most predatory sexual fantasies. As women shook themselves free from the norms and conventions of sexual conduct, men did the same.

There can be no doubt that women's situation has demanded improvement -- and continues to do so throughout much of the world. But the emphasis upon individual rights at the expense of mutual responsibility and service is not the way to secure it.

Worse, it is destroying the fabric of our society as a whole because it is severing the most fundamental social bonds. Binding ties constrain women, but they constrain men as well. A Danielle Crittenden has noted, the family "has never been about the promotion of rights but the surrender of them -- by both the man and the woman".

Kelly Mac agrees:

It's about the fact that dating today has become nothing but a series of pick-ups and one-night-stands (thank you sexual revolution).

It's the new vulgarity in young women, societally enforced, which upsets me. I don't know if they are trying to shock [and girls are emotionally maturing much later these days, babies or no babies]; it's the lack of graciousness in John Edwards two harpies, for example [here's one of their political comments, courtesy of Michelle Malkin]; it's the desire to be some sort of hard nut hoe for the boys - who knows?

Seriously - there's some sort of paranoid mania going down here where any sort of respect between men and women doesn't get a chance to breathe, where bile and spite constitute debate and the desire of the ordinary person for a normal relationship is mocked and derided.

What's wrong with revering a woman to the point you can't live without her and want to marry her, to have children with her, to do what comes naturally vis a vis protective instincts, without dominating one another, without constantly going on about "rights"? What's wrong with working in tandem and actually enjoying one another? Why does it have to be outside marriage?

What's wrong with normality?