Yewchoob. (Non-WW2)

That is my favorite wing of my favorite museum.

Here is how the entrance looked in 2013 when we took my mother down to see a visiting medieval tapestry exhibit



This is a Colt that is one of three that Samuel Colt gave to Nicholas I on a trip to Russia in 1854. He was trying to land a contract. It's number 12406. 12407 is in The Hermitage.



Some other treasures. The ivory stocked flintlock pistols in the case behind and to the right of the picture belonged to Catherine the Great. They also have a pair of cap lock dueling pistols that belonged to a young Franz Joseph I. They're 'working grade' but working grade for an emperor is still pretty fancy.





If you ever get to New York City try to visit. It is really great. They have wings devoted to musical instruments, furniture, tapestries etc, in addition to all the great paintings and sculptures

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

 

Here is some more information on the Metropolitan's armor collection. It references the great silent film Ltdan posted.

 

I've been watching a number of the Jonesy's Jukebox videos on line recently. This is the radio show of Steve Jones from the Sex Pistols, who has lived in the Los Angeles area of California since the early 1980s and his interviews with a whole host of musical guests. They can be a bit hit or miss, but on the whole are extremely interesting:

 

Absolute bonkers, but!!! Don't we all like a good car wreck, used to go to a lot of stock car racing when I was younger, particularly enjoyed the banger racing

 

I never thought anyone would convince me that the problem with British Leyland cars was that they were too well engineered, but this guy did:



Really fascinating stuff.

 

Some interesting "revisionist" overviews of British Leyland cars:







I have to say that these chime in with my childhood memories, in which these cars were fairly ubiquitous and just seen as pretty ordinary vehicles - not especially good, not especially bad. The whole mythology of BL cars being awful is generally nothing more than a post-hoc meme.

 

This is the dialectic in action:

Thesis: BL cars were shit
Antithesis: BL cars were actually great
Synthesis: They had their good points and bad points compared to their direct competitors

The trouble is that this dialectic should have happened 50 years ago, but the people with the Thesis had a foghorn. I think the basic problem British industry had in the late post-war era was the exchange rate, which made British-manufactured goods either too expensive to produce, or only rendered competitive by corner-cutting. All the visible problems flowed downstream from there. I well remember that brief explosion in manufacturing activity that happened after Black Wednesday, which confirmed to me what the underlying problem was.

BMC had the best selling car in the UK for 12 years on the trot and still lost money, while Jaguar sold cars like hot cakes in the USA and also still lost money. Doesn't matter how clever you are if the value of Sterling is 2x or 3x that of other currencies.

 

Interesting about the firearms etc at the Met. I had no idea that was there. I have only visited once and I exhausted myself happily looking at all the Greek and Roman stuff.

I recently watched The Battle of San Pietro (US WW2 documentary) and then realized the director and narrator was John Huston. The Maltese Falcon, The African Queen, etc. That led me to this interview between him and Canadian cinema expert Elwy Yost back in the 70s or 80s I suppose.

 

Never knew about this:

 

Here's the complete field for the 2023 Antique Automobile Club of America car show arriving. All must be in original or restored to original condition with no modifications and be driven onto the show field.

By the 30 minute mark it is pouring rain. I think it's even better seeing them driven in the rain. I got there after they were all on the field and the rain had stopped.