Major Matt Mason

So warm up north

Thirty-five years ago right about now, after supper in jammies, my brothers and I would be breaking out the Major Matt Mason stuff, a line of Mattel space toys from the late 1960s. We don’t have any left, unlike the author of this site where I quietly pocketed a copy of the photo above. There was a rather effective little rocket launcher that had spring loaded cap-gun cap explosive power capacities. I recall launching a barrage of these at the neighbours during a dinner party the folks put on. Many shins knew the wrath. An effective distraction as we made off with cherry cheesecake. Sometimes the results were not so kind to Matt as this photo play shows.

As my older brothers moved on to GI Joe and fighting Vietnam or, care of Action Man gift packs from Grannie in Scotland, taking care of the Nazis one more time, I got Captain Lazar (Ed.:shown above left) and the Firebolt Space Cannon which beat the hell out of the GI Joes even with the jeep. Weird thinking part of my childhood play was zapping Nazi dolls with a space lazar cannon.

Detail

I have written about the great portrait collection at work before. I have a hard time keeping my eyes off this particular painting when I am in a meeting in a certain room and especially the detail over the shoulder of the Mayor for 1898, Charles Livingston:

What a merry little steam ship. I suppose the fact that the Murney’s Point Martello has all its cannon doors open is auspicious in some way I don’t get 106 years later.

Get Foxfire

While Pr0n may have created the internet as we know it, there is no way I am going to let someone’s errant .jpeg on a non-flagged “not safe for work” blog posting eat my hard drive. I just removed the IE explorer icon from the desk top and created the Foxfire one.

Update: then I realize – is this a browser issue at all?   Do I have to get the Windows out of my computer entirely?   Who knows about this?

Gurkhas

Seeing as I have right of UK abode and can get citizenship based on where the folks were born, you can file this under “it’s about time”:

Gurkhas who have served in the British Army are to be allowed to apply to settle in the UK and gain British citizenship. The announcement made by Tony Blair follows a government review and a campaign by the Nepalese soldiers. The prime minister said the Gurkhas had made an “enormous contribution” and it was important that their commitment and sacrifice were recognised. Gurkhas have fought as part of the British Army for almost 200 years.

The Gurkhas are still part of the British army and, though they come from a small country have done more than the share of many larger nations:

During World War I some 100,000 Gurkhas enlisted in regiments of the Gurkha Brigade. They fought (and died) in France, Mesopotamia, Persia, Egypt, Gallipoli, Palestine and Salonika. They won two Victoria Crosses. In World War II there were no fewer than forty Gurkha battalions some 112,000 men. Gurkhas fought side-by-side with British and Commonwealth troops in Syria, the Western Desert, Italy and Greece from North Malaya to Singapore and from the Siamese border back through Burma to Imphal then forward again to Rangoon. A total of ten Victoria Crosses were awarded to Gurkhas during World War II.

My father has a number of childhood stories shared from family members who fought in WWII and describe the skill with the knife of the Gurkhas and their way of dealing with Nazis. Recently they have publicly been in East Timor and Bosnia and when I hear of goings on on the Afghan-Pakistan border, I can’t imagine they are not there, too. Once at the CNE when I was a kid, we saw the tatoo and the Gurkhas marched – double time for the entire drill. Bagpipers, too.