Tuesday - August 02, 2011

Mr Busy

I just got back from driving across 2 counties to get to the cable TV office. Had to get a new box for the new HD service we signed up for on the phone. “You can save the $35 installation fee if you come to our office and pick up a box”, says the sales guy, “just stop in anytime and give them your account number.” So I drove there yesterday, a 50 mile round trip. No boxes. Say what?
“Lotta people be axin about them”, says the service clerk when I got there, “I don’t know why. I got a whole list of people wanting one of them boxes. The other girl, she got a big list too.”
Gosh, could it be because your company advertises 24 hours a day, and the price right now is just a tiny bit more than the old style basic plan?
I was a mite peeved, so the _omcas_ cable company got an email from me when I got home, saying they’d better get squared away. “The number one rule of business is ‘Never make it hard for the customer to give you money’; your office in ****borough needs to shape up.” That was last night. 11 o’clock this morning I get a phone call. “We have your new cable box.” Well. Fine. I’ll be right down. This time there was less traffic, and I think it’s a little cooler today.

That should only take a minute to install. Then I get can back to staining and finishing those cafe doors my customer wants installed. Nice rig, that. The doors are 1 1/2” thick clear oak with louvers. Heavy duty. They’re going to look awesome when I’m done. And I did a bit of wheeling and dealing, and got the heftier ones from the new supplier for the old price, so I saved my customer almost $100 bottom line. Good Drew.

Ok, break’s over. Back to work.

   Monday - August 01, 2011

Strokin’ redux

I know. I’ve posted this before. What I’ve never done is tell the story of how my wife and me first encountered the song.

Many years ago, we used to frequent bars with live bands. One of our favorite bands was a local group called ‘The Dinosaurs’. They covered oldies, a sprinkling of their own, which we loved but apparently never hit the top 40.

We’d been married two or three years, and we were at a nightclub that The Dinosaurs were playing. We’d already spent an hour dancing their covers of 60s and 70s hits, when they did Strokin’.

That was different! The lead singer came out wearing a kilt. And we found out what’s under the kilt. He had a huge strap-on dildo, which he stroked during the song.

I had to check if my wife was upset/offended, but she laughing louder than most of crowd. Especially the time the lead singer was ‘Strokin’’ and a drunk young woman pulled her top down. There was something in that dildo he was strokin’ because he ‘stroked’ all over her.

Well, at that point, I took my wife to the dance floor, though I must admit, both of us were laughing too hard to actually dance.

So, now you why I like this song.

It’s a shame, I believe the Dinosaurs broke up and retired in late 90s.

She’s a Mystery Girl

Okay folks! Who is this? I’ll just give a small hint: the photo is about thirty years old.

When you all give up, let me know!

Monday Motivators

Sorry. I keep telling myself to do this, but what with normal problems, abnormal problems (wife’s mother just died) I’ve been preoccupied.

Anyway, nothing has changed:

Haven’t actually watched any of the Twilight shows. I think this is about Twilight:

Sarah Michelle Gellar is looking hot.  I might even let her stake me. After I ‘stake’ her, of course.
Meanwhile, it might be a good idea to review how to reach a man, for staking, or other pleasures:

That’s right ladies. We give you atrociously expensive French perfumes, and all we ask in return is bacon.

And finally, the requisite ‘boobies’ post. Posted below the fold (just to keep BMEWS R-rated)

britain at war … a real one … august 1st, 1941

Every day for the last few years, The Telegraph has been running a reproduction, reduced in size of course, of the lead stories and page leading up to and then including events of the 2nd World War. 
Usually they are short and just the bare bone headlines and comments.  They are really very interesting and I think it’s a good way to present history.
Today’s war story is from August 1st, but it’s not the phony war in Libya 2011, where modern planes, unopposed, are now strafing and bombing TV stations.
Really.  You couldn’t make this up.
The newspaper and radio news say that attacks were made against Transmitters and the TV stations to, “PROTECT CIVILIANS.” So help me that is exactly word for word the quote.  Oh, and a chief commander, a general who defected from Gaddafi forces and was leading the folks who previously were called rebels but are now officially recognized by Brits and French as .... the Provisional Libyan Government, well the general was shot dead by ..... wanna guess?  anyone?

Hard Line Muslims! Now see ... there’s something right away wrong with that news report because the muzzies fighting against Gaddafi are supposed to be only the good muzzies.  Not those other rop lice farms. 

So then ..... it’s August 1st .... 1941 for awhile.  This is a very interesting read.  It isn’t available on line.  I called the Telegraph and spoke to someone there and they very kindly emailed me the following, which btw took me more then an hour to lay out as close to the way they had it as possible here.  And I also had to do it twice due to a goof I made.  I have no idea what is meant by Japan’s “medical condition” unless it was a typesetting error at the paper. I have reproduced it here exactly as sent to me. Enjoy.

BRITAIN AT WAR

The Daily Telegraph and Morning Post LONDON, FRIDAY, AUGUST 1, 1941

U.S. MOVE IN ECONOMIC WAR AGAINST AXIS

ROOSEVELT SETS UP DEFENCE BOARD

INTENSIFIED Anglo–American economic warfare against the Axis and its associates, including Japan, is the primary purpose of the appointment by President Roosevelt tonight of a United States Economic Defence Board.

The Board, which is headed by the Vice–President, Mr. Henry Wallace, will maintain close contact with the British Ministry of Economic Warfare. 

The establishment of the Board follows the issue of a blacklist of Axis firms in South America and neutral countries, and the embargoes against Japan.

A notable change which the President’s executive order makes is to give administrative authority to the Vice President.

Vice Presidents usually do nothing but preside over the Senate. But Mr. Wallace is looked upon by many as a Presidential possibility, and it was politically desirable to give him an important defence post that would keep him in the public eye.

SERVICE CONFERENCES

The frequency with which the President is calling in his naval and military advisors for consultation on the critical developments in the Far East is arousing especial interest in Washington because of the widely known Service opinion on Japan’s present medical condition.

Service chiefs do not advise the President on policy, but can assume as a hypothesis that a certain policy has been accepted and proceed from that to draw conclusions on how events would work out.

The hypothesis on which the Service departments are now working is that the United States would resist any attack on the Dutch East Indies by Japan.

The possibility of such an attack has been publicly referred to by the President himself when he stated that Japan has been allowed to purchase American oil in an effort to prevent it.

Thus, if a contrary policy is followed and the economic weapons recently acquired by the President are used to clamp down a tight oil embargo, a Japanese attack may be anticipated.

There are some officials who feel that a loaded economic gun should be pointed towards Japan, but should not yet be fired. Others urge that the sooner it is fired the better. 

This is where the view of the Service experts becomes interesting. They start from the assumption that Japan is the third most war–weary nation in the world today, only Italy and Spain being more so. Her resources are strained and her armed forces dangerously extended.

By a great effort her army might be increased to 66 divisions, but that is held to be the limit. Even if 10 extra divisions can be sent to Siberia the Japanese forces would not be as great as the Russians, whose Siberian army is thought to comprise 30 divisions.

A drive southward might appear more promising, therefore, to Tokyo.

But Japanese warplanes are not as modern as the British, Dutch and American aircraft in that area, and her first–line strength is not placed higher than 2,000 or 3,000.

Her chief difficulty, however, is oil. If no oil can be imported and vigorous combatant work has to be undertaken, aircraft, mechanised equipment and naval vessels will use up Japan’s reserves rapidly.

This constitutes another reason for attack on the Dutch East Indies.

But naval forces engaged in such an attack would be operating far from their bases, and the land forces available are comparatively small, while bombing attacks would amount to suicide excursions, since interception would be possible both from Malaya and the Philippines.

In other words, always assuming that the United States is ready to engage in a shooting war, a Japanese attack on the Dutch East Indies would be a gamble with the dice loaded against Japan. 

It is possible that the bombing of the gunboat Tutuila may have been deliberately designed to test American opinion. If so, Tokyo cannot have derived any satisfaction from the result, since the immediate reaction of Congress as well as one of the Administration was one of vigorous protest.

Copyright: Telegraph Group Ltd

NEEDS NO EXPLANATION

Nothing Ever Changes

1967:

graphic from Ed Thelen’s web page, home to more Nike missile info than you ever thought possible.

$450 FINE FOR THE WRONG NO SMOKING SIGN. MOONBATS AT WORK

Well, I guess some Brits have proven that it isn’t just Americans who can be dumb.  And I very much doubt that any American authority would act in this way and plumb to this sort of stupidity.  But then, ya never know for certain in today’s pc world.

What do ya make of this?
Take a look.

Pub landlady hit with £300 fine for displaying homemade no-smoking signs
By DAILY MAIL REPORTER

A pub landlady who put up handwritten ‘No Smoking’ posters while waiting for official signs to arrive has been taken to court and ordered to pay nearly £300.

Inspectors who visited Dawn Lemm’s pub – the Judge and Jury in Colwyn Bay, North Wales – discovered she had violated regulations which decree that No Smoking signs must be rectangular with the shortest side at least 6.3in long.

Inspectors discovered the pub’s landlady had violated regulations which decree that No Smoking signs must be rectangular with the shortest side at least 6.3in long

Nor did her posters bear ‘a graphic representation of a burning cigarette enclosed in a red circle with a red bar which crosses the cigarette symbol’.

Miss Lemm, 39, was given a £150 fixed penalty which she declined to pay. At Llandudno magistrates court she admitted failing to ensure proper signs were displayed and was fined £150 with £120 costs and £15 victims’ surcharge.

Last night she called the decision ‘ridiculous’.

SEE SOME COMMENTS HERE AT THE SOURCE

   Sunday - July 31, 2011

America And The Imperialism Of Ignorance. does that include our money too?

I came across this a few days ago and saw red in all its shades.

I can not begin to tell you how pissed off I was reading all of this. Or even a part of it.
Not being very articulate or terribly literate either, my immediate response was filled with four letter words and combinations of same.  And while this is perhaps about the worst of the anti-American crap I’ve read so far, and in a conservative paper I want ya to know, I became angrier still at many of the comments made by idiots in tin hats that followed his Americans are stupid diatribe. 
To be sure, not all Brits think this way. BUT …. a lot do and so you’ll understand my frustration living here, and coming up against this sort of thing from time to time. 

Wife says I should know better then to read idiots.  Thing is, that’s hard to do when ur surrounded by em.  And many get their info from … ?  Darned if I know. One person writing in comments even says that America was so paranoid after WW2, we thought we were going to be invaded by the Brits and so started shoring up east coast defense.  Have you ever heard or read anything so insane?

So then …. I managed to get through this without using any ‘F’ words.  Not sure what that means.

Take a look fellow Americans ….. 

Forget Russia, forget Iran… is America the greatest threat to world peace, asks ANDREW ALEXANDER in his provocative new book
By TONY RENNELL

Truman was in an ebullient mood after his first summit meeting with a senior minister of the Soviet Union, who’d made the mistake of interrupting the U.S. President. ‘I gave him the old one-two,’ he proclaimed with a swagger, ‘straight to the jaw!’

The Russian departed, complaining that he’d never been spoken to before in such a way, not even by his boss, Josef Stalin.
From that moment in mid-1945, relations between West and East plummeted and would soon enter the big freeze of the Cold War.

America often acted tough abroad to avoid being seen as weak back home

The confrontational pattern of world politics was set for the next 40 years — a constant clash between the two super-powers, underscored for all of us who lived through it by the terrifying threat of global annihilation from their huge nuclear arsenals.

But, according to veteran current affairs commentator and Mail columnist Andrew Alexander in a provocative new book that rips apart decades of U.S. foreign policy, all that was totally unnecessary.

The Cold War would not have happened — should not have happened — if it had not been for America’s profound ignorance of the rest of the world and what made it tick.

Between 1945 and 1991, Washington’s gigantic power coupled with immense naivety made the world a much more dangerous place than it need have been.
What’s more, it’s still doing so. In the Cold War’s successor, today’s so-called ‘war on terror’, only the enemy has changed. America’s skewed approach to international affairs remains the same.

History repeats itself. Just as the U.S. concocted the fantasy threat of Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction in 2003, so at the end of World War II it conjured up and exaggerated the menace of a rampant Soviet Union set on world domination.

It was the small-town politician Harry Truman, catapulted from vice-president to President on the death of the revered Franklin D. Roosevelt, who found himself facing — as he was assured by his excitable intelligence service — a communist red tide that would sweep over Europe and Asia unless he stopped it.
Afraid of being thought of as weak — a perennial paranoia of U.S. Presidents as they look over their shoulders at the rednecks in their electorate — he acted tough, hence his roughing up of Molotov, the Soviet foreign minister in 1945.
‘I am tired of babying the Soviets,’ he wrote. The only way to rein-in Russia was ‘with an iron fist and strong language’.
But Truman was tilting at windmills. The idea that Stalin’s exhausted nation had the will or the resources to conquer any more of the world than the eastern half of Europe it already held sway over was absurd and groundless, says Andrew Alexander.
Yes, it was now a superpower to be taken seriously, and would be formidable if not downright obstructive in negotiations. And, yes, it wanted to secure its borders with a firm grip on the countries around it. But global conquest was not on Stalin’s agenda.

Government papers from the Kremlin archive show that, at that crucial point in 1945, the Soviets were intent on finding a working relationship with the West, not fighting it.
If the Americans had been smarter, if they had grasped the intricacies of Moscow’s mindset, if they had ignored communist rhetoric and concentrated on realities, if they had stopped to think instead of rushing in like blind bulls in a china shop ……
Instead, the real possibility of a stable post-war settlement that would reduce tension
in the world was blown out of the water by Truman’s wholly unwarranted and ill-informed belligerence.

Moscow countered intransigence with intransigence. The descent began from mutual suspicion to outright rivalry and the brinksmanship of the Cold War.
Behind his Iron Curtain, Stalin — cut off from the world community and with no one to answer to — purged the last vestiges of democracy from those East European nations whose fate Truman had been so concerned about.
Not for the last time, American foreign policy achieved the precise opposite of what it intended.

Minds were now firmly closed, positions immoveable. When Stalin died in the early Fifties, a new regime in Moscow hinted it was time to call off the dogs and work towards peaceful co-existence with the West.
But Washington hawks interpreted this as the Soviets running scared. They piled on pressure to widen the gap, not close it.
The arms race speeded up; spending on the military soared relentlessly. Dr Strangelove ruled.

Foreign policy and the art of diplomacy and compromise were reduced to the simple issue of military preparedness.
Meanwhile, any event in whatever part of the world — Greece, Italy, Berlin, Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, the Middle East, Israel — took on a confrontational East-West dimension. In any international issue, no matter what the subtleties, all that mattered was where Moscow and Washington stood. Invariably, they took opposite sides.

From what they perceived as their moral high ground, free-thinking Americans howled at the Russians for being enslaved to communist ideology, ignoring the fact that their own belief systems were equally questionable.
In Andrew Alexander’s words, a ‘messianic mission’ developed that all countries should be remade in America’s image — despite the demonstrable fact that democracy is not a universally saleable commodity in all parts of the world, let alone a global cure-all.
At the heart of the problem was — and is — America’s deep-seated ignorance about the cultures of the countries it wants to change. The average American takes little real interest in the outside world.

THERE IS A LOT MORE WHERE THAT CAME FROM HERE

Below the fold I have posted some reader comments. But if you go to the link you’ll see all of them. You will note with interest, if you’re an American reading this, that anyone making pro American comments or not agreeing with the column, has earned a number of red down arrows.  In fact, I haven’t seen any green pro American arrows so far.  Just shows ya.

One of the flaws in this I see, is the diplomat saying even Stalin didn’t speak to him that way. Yeah. He’d have just had ya shot and your family too for that matter.  And that quote by Truman doesn’t sound like him at all.  At least not stated that way. But it doesn’t matter. 

I am not saying we have always had it right btw.  Heaven knows that isn’t the case.  But I sure as hell don’t believe we’ve played any worse then anyone else and we are not the devil or his spawn.  I will say however that I wish we really could rediscover isolation to some degree, stay out of everyone else’s business, stop playing Officer Goodguy and tell the world to go fuck itself, keep our money at home, stop ALL foreign aid and quit the UN.  I guess I just HAD to get that one ‘f’ word in here.

   Saturday - July 30, 2011

Inside the Lefty Mind

Oh Yeah? Well Frost This!




Former Congressweasel Martin Frost proves he failed Logic 101:


Tea Party = Taliban


I guess this is another example of that “kinder, gentler political rhetoric” that the left demanded after the Tuscon shootings. After they had flooded the airwaves for a week with their blame-the-Right vitriol, just about when the counter arguments from the right started to hit the MSM. And then they abandoned it within a week or two, as soon as the right was done with their feeble protesting that the news networks didn’t carry anyway.

Here’s Frost’s mind blowing logic: Tea Party folks don’t want budget compromise. The Taliban is not known for compromising either. Therefore Tea Party = Taliban. How about that? If you are in favor of spending sanity, then you are a terrorist.

Holy shit, what a dumbfuck this guy is.

The tea party Taliban

Ten years ago, the Taliban in Afghanistan destroyed two gigantic figures of Buddha, carved into a hillside 18 centuries before. The world was aghast at this barbarian act taken in the name of religious purity. But was powerless to stop it.

We now have a group of U.S. politicians seeking political purity, who seem to have much in common with the Taliban. They are tea party members; and because of blind adherence to smaller government, they seem intent on risking destroying what American political leaders have constructed in more than two centuries of hard, often painful work. Like the Taliban, they see compromise as an unacceptable alternative.

A dozen paragraphs later, his weasel worded essay suggests that Boehner give in to the left in the name of compromise. And that the Tea Party people learn to go along to get along.

WRONG.

Boehner’s bill failed. At it’s heart it was nothing more than a reduction in the rate of baseline spending increase. THIS IS NOT A SPENDING CUT. This is “Ok, I’m broke, but to try to get un-broke, next year I’ll try to spend more, even though the “more” is less than original spending increase I’d planned.”

HUH? Only in DC is a smaller spending rate increase seen as a cut. In the real world, it’s called spending more. Which can’t be done right now. So damn tootin’ it failed. As it should have. Now we’ve got to look at Hairy Reed’s BS bill, which is even worse. That one better fail even faster.

The whole idea of the Tea Party is the First Rule of Holes: when you get to the bottom, stop digging. Period. There is no more money. Our national debt is already larger than our GDP. The nation’s credit rating has just been cut, for the first time in history. What on earth is the matter with these cretins in DC that they can’t understand the most simple of solutions: STOP SPENDING MORE. STOP SPENDING MORE THAN YOU TAKE IN?

Remember Odipshit’s “kitchen table economics” remark a couple months ago? That was pure cynicism on his part, but it really is that simple. No spending increases on ANYTHING. Cut EVERYTHING by a fat percentage - 20% or more - right off the bat. We are at the debt ceiling. That means no more money can be borrowed. Easy solution: next year’s budget has to be based on the amount of revenue collected, and not borrow a penny. But with a bad economy, projected revenue is much higher than actual revenue. So use the actual revenue numbers, and then decrease them 10% just in case. It’s what any one of us would do at our own kitchen tables.

But golly gosh, the reality of doing that is that the federal budget will have to be cut by a full third, just to stay within their actual revenue base. Because the whole damn budget is predicated on borrowing a full third of the money every year, year after year. Yeah, so? What part of “live within your means” don’t you shysters understand?

But it’s the Tea Party people who are terrorists. “Radical extremists” according to Harry Reid the other day. Taliban according to Frost; terrorists. Terrorists because we demand the smallest bit of common sense from those in charge.

Fuck you Harry. And Fuck you Frost. And fuck Politico for even posting such a load of lefty bullshit.

No compromise on spending sanity is NOT terrorism nor is it extremism. It’s simple common sense. Something completely absent from the brains of every last jerkwad in DC, either side of the aisle. 

how appropriate

President Obama to be commemorated on new $1 food stamp.

After all, he’s done more to get more Americans on food stamps than any other president in history. 39% more folks in just 2 1/2 years. 1 in 7 now use the program. Oh SNAP!

It’s even better than you think: paper food stamps are no longer used. Recipients get a credit card they can swipe at the grocery store; there is no visual stigma involved any more. So the Obama Buck would exist, but never be seen, and quickly forgotten about. Just like those stupid dollar coins, and hopefully, just like his one term pResidency.

A Bigger Punchline

... and the old joke concludes “and she slapped her hands together and said “I TOLD you not to park the truck in front of the house!!”

Iceberg, Dead Ahead!

Massive iceberg blocks the town’s harbor : “Big Berg Blocks Boats”

An impressive iceberg arrived in Newfoundland’s Goose Cove in mid-July. “Icebergs float in from Greenland,” said the photographer, Gene Patey. This one briefly blocked the town’s harbor before breaking apart and melting, “but the fishermen took their chances.”

The Northern Peninsula’s international reputation as ‘Iceberg Alley’ continues to grow as more than a dozen gargantuan blocks of ice float down from Greenland. The largest, a chunk calved from the Petermann Ice Glacier, is yet to appear around the tip of Newfoundland however it was last seen off Battle Harbor on the Southern Labrador coast, yesterday.

A few miles away in St. Anthony, the icebergs are coming down in droves. Locals are making some quick summer money taking tourists out to see them. It’s a very good year for icebergs. Goose Cove and St. Anthony are towns on the northern end of the island of Newfoundland, which sits at the east end of the Bay of St. Lawrence where the St. Lawrence River empties into the sea. Maine, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia lie to the southwest, Labrador to the north. St. Anthony bills itself as the “iceberg, whale, and moose capital of the world”, and locals report that there was still snow on the ground as of last month; “it has been a cold summer thus far”. That isn’t too much of a surprise; the ice cold Labrador Current runs along the south side of the island, keeping the warmer Gulf Stream current far out to sea. And the continental shelf is quite abrupt there, so it is possible that the iceberg in the picture is not shelved, but floating.

That same Labrador Current should push the icebergs into the waters off the coast of Maine in another month or less, assuming they don’t all melt on the way as they usually do.

More interesting stuff in the same neighborhood: Did you know that Canada is less than 16 miles away from France? Seriously. You can take a ferry back and forth. Within the “12 mile circle” is the tiny island of St. Pierre. This is not a territory of France but an actual part of France, even though the area is called “Collectivité territoriale de Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon”. They use the Euro as currency, they have their own time zone, their electricity is 220v just like in France. They probably only have one shower on the whole island, just like France.

I leave it to you to debate why this summer is such a great one for icebergs. These ones come down from Greenland. Climate change, higher thermal activity from the Greenland hotspots, just random fluctuation, more seismic activity causing more calving, Eskimos being naughty with crowbars, etc?

   Friday - July 29, 2011

that face

pc wusses rename ‘gun quarter’ after 250 years

Pig ignorant pc schmucks just never stop looking for things to condemn.

These would be the very same folks who are ashamed of past Brit success and apologizing for even being Brit.  Freeken jerks.

I can’t think of anything to add to this.  Not that it needs me as the sorry event speaks for itself.

Here, see if you can make sense of this liberal pc bs.

Birmingham’s historic Gun Quarter is renamed… because PC critics say it glorifies crime

By ANDY DOLAN

It encapsulates a manufacturing heritage stretching back 250 years.

During the Napoleonic Wars, almost 1.9million muskets, rifles, carbines and pistols were manufactured for the Government in the district’s numerous weapons factories.

But Birmingham’s historic Gun Quarter is now to be renamed because of concerns that it could be linked with the firearms crime which blights other parts of the city.

Officials said residents no longer wanted to be associated with weapons of war.

Instead the district to the north and west of the city centre will be known as St George and St Chad in recognition of a local church and Birmingham’s catholic cathedral.

Yesterday, opponents of the rebranding exercise said the Gun Quarter had been sacrificed on the altar of political correctness, while even the Dean of St Chad’s Cathedral said the decision sounded ‘irrational’.

Tim Huxtable, Birmingham City Council’s Tory head of regeneration, said the decision had been taken after a public consultation, although one petition received by the council was signed by just 50 people objecting to Gun Quarter. 

He said: ‘We listened to the local community, which is the whole point of consultation. The views of local people seem quite clear.’

Just had a thought.  This one line, ‘We listened to the local community, which is the whole point of consultation.’ Yeah. That one. Funny how this ‘consultation’ thingy works. Innit?  Seems like the consultations that get listened to and acted upon, are always the easiest or the least inconvenient for the ppl in power. This was an easy decision.  But despite consultations some few years ago, our local post office is still closed. Consultations are nothing but bull shit. It’s tossing a noisy dog a bone. Nothing more.

Sir Albert Bore, leader of the opposition Labour group, said: ‘What kind of nonsense is it when we replace the Gun Quarter with St George and St Chad?

‘Like it or not, and I am not into the arms trade myself, the Gun Quarter has a historical connection with this city. This is just political correctness.’

The name change was described as a ‘terrible shame’ by the owner of one of the few surviving gun makers in the district.

Simon Clode, managing director of Westley Richards and Co, said: ‘This is an important part of Birmingham’s history. The area is not well occupied by gun makers now, but it’s still the Gun Quarter.’

The Very Reverend Canon Gerry Breen, Dean of St Chad’s Cathedral, said the name change was ‘almost as irrational as deciding not to call the Black Country the Black Country’.

Reverend Larry Wright, Rector of St George’s Church, however, said he was among those who had lobbied the council to change the name.

‘We wrote on behalf of our own congregation – many of whom wanted a name change to move away from any suggestion that this area was associated with gun crime,’ he said.

‘But they could have come up with something snappier (than St George and St Chad).’

A council spokesman insisted the gunsmith area would live on as a separately defined part of the new St George and St Chad quarter.

SOURCE

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Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:

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It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.

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