Epitaph for year one.

I've been posting here a year now.

I'll not be going shooting for a little while since my rifle's currently being worked on at Sandwell Field Sports. Its action was described to me, prior to going in for treatment, as sounding 'like a skeleton masturbating in a biscuit tin'.

So on that note, I'll start the second year of the Rabbit Stew Blog.

Cheers all,

HH

The Penkridge Air Rifle Club

After strapping a hefty Weihrauch to my back and huffing and puffing up the A449 on my push-bike, I spent a lovely Sunday morning recently at the Penkridge Air Rifle Club. It's a field target set-up and, after a little while on the plinking range, I walked and fired the 18-shot course, happily chatting and comparing shots the whole time with a young, fellow springer-using chap who'd just finished a game-keeper training at the nearby Rodbaston Agricultural College. It's a great pleasure to meet folk who are also interested and involved in the shooting world and it's a double joy to share with them the challenge of shooting fiendishly positioned little metal replicas of rats, rabbits and pigeons.

The targets are set out and around a fine old stand of trees on the shoulder of a little hill which overlooks a gently twisting stretch of the pike, chub and perch-laden river Penk. The targets on this day ranged between ten and fifty yards; some more or less on the flat but the majority down varying slopes towards the water. It's a real work-out for your distance estimation and trajectory judgement - like a visit to the gym for your air rifle skills. By the time I'd finished the course I felt like my shooting had really improved, a great feeling - and it was a lot of fun, too: hugely enjoyable, in fact.

It's a tremendously laid back and friendly club; there's not a trace of any who's-got-the-most-expensive-gun mentality among the varied crowd of shooters; safety is certainly taken seriously but this doesn't mean that there's a culture of humourless regimentation in everything; there are cups of tea to hand down at the wood-stove-heated portacabin clubhouse and giant sausage and bacon butties being produced on a barbecue just outside - little short of heaven for air rifle folk, in other words.

One of the other great pleasures of meeting a crowd of fellow air-gun-heads is the chance to look at and chat about the huge variety of different shooting set-ups that people bring to the course. I got a chance to look for the first time through a really good quality Nikon 3-9x40 ProStaff scope. I'd never seen one of these before and I was genuinely startled by the luminously precise clarity of the patch of riverbank that it revealed to me; I really had no idea that scopes could be this good, that the quality of a set of lenses could make so great a difference to the sight picture; it was unbelievable, really - like stepping out of the optician's office for the first time in a pair of long-overdue new glasses. This particular scope, I was told, costs about £170 and, while that's about 165 quid beyond my pocket right now, I'm definitely going to put one of these on my wish-list for second-hand acquisition in the future.

I also got to handle a new, Birmingham-made, BSA Ultra Multishot which was a remarkably light and compact little pre-charged pneumatic. Almost a rifle in miniature, it nonetheless had a very stylish and determined air to it and I felt a pang of real reluctance handing the gorgeous thing back.

All-in-all a fine and fun day out: I pedalled back down the A449 with a smile on my face and I'll surely be returning soon.

Nude Celebrities in Image of Ethics Shock!

Well, I was eating my brekkie this morning (mashed banana in a toasted and lightly buttered Staffordshire Oatcake, since you ask) and wondering, like you do, about cynical ploys I could exploit to drive what's know as 'traffic' - and that's you, gentle reader - to my blog. Maybe I'm missing something obvious, I thought. Maybe I should just use the tried and tested methods of generating blog traffic and not try to come up any kind of smart-arse new techniques? Cynicism isn't famous for being imaginative now, is it?

So. O.K. More Nude Celebrities it is. Ta-daaa!

That's a bit of a sultry and coquettish come hither pout there from Tommy Lee, isn't it? Quite endearing. I rather like the top of what I take to be a Buddhist Lotus that I can see peeking up from the summit of his pleasure equipment, too. Nirvana is to be found here, perhaps? Well, perhaps.
Gracious, but that's an innocent expression, isn't it (on Ms. Imbrugia, I mean)? That's a very handy thing to try and keep in mind when trying to sort out the sorry tangle of rights and wrongs in human ethical behaviour, 'Do I look attractive holding this position or not?' or indeed 'Does my bum look big in this opinion?'. Cast your mind, for a moment, to the dress uniforms of World War Two; who looked the most sexy? Well, shit, the Nazi's did, didn't they? It's a no-brainer, dude! So maybe there's something in National Socialism after all? I mean, hell, they looked good.
Khloe Kardashian? Well Madam, I'm sorry, you certainly look very pleasant in the buff, but I'm afraid I'm not familiar with your work.

Joanna Krupa? Well, once again, I've no idea who you are but it's a nice poster; I like the chorus of spooky, staring, mesmerised pooches in particular; they add a genuinely surreal and frightening touch to this appalling photoshop-of-horrors soft porn farrago.

You know, I'm fairly sure I remember something in the Gospels about Christ saying to some guy that he'd just miraculously healed, 'go and buy two Sparrows (or something) and make an offering of them to the temple priests'. But no, these days we have the Ipod, the Kindle and Peter Singer; we know better: buying animals is always wrong (dude).

Ah, help me out; you were in the new Battlestar Galactica, yes? I think, despite my massive tolerance for imported American TV, that I bailed on this after about a half-dozen episodes. It was that or go mad, as I recall. So yes, you look better than I do in the all-together, sir, but Battlestar sucked. Sorry.

Imogen Bailey in the rude. Excellent. You were in 'Neighbours' so Wikipedia informs me. Here in the West Midlands, I have to say, very few of my neighbours look like that.

I think Mr. Rodman carries this off rather better than Tommy Lee. Maybe I should get some tattoos done before my 'Crikey no! I'd much rather wear fur than go naked!' photoshoot? What would I get done? I've teetered on the brink of ink once or twice but I've never quite toppled over the edge. The only one that really comes to mind would be a fully life-size representation of a Staffordshire Bull Terrier on my torso; one that would expand and become increasingly more threatening as my girth filled out due to consumption of 'Old Peculier' and triple-choc muffins.

Full Frontal Nudity and the Clash of the Mighty UK Rabbit-Oriented Hunter-Bloggers!

¡Ay, caramba! The Suburban Bushwacker has only gone and crashed my niche! He's gone and bought himself a fancy-pants, pre-charged pneumatic air rifle AND - as if that wasn't enough!- he's gone and got himself a brand spanking, bush-whacking new permission to hunt on some land in the New Forest!

How am I going to compete with this? Well, it's a question, I'll tell you. I might have to pull out the stops and run with a few of the post ideas that I thought were just too goddam unwise or too peculiar to venture into.

Such as, Hubert, such as?

Well, in fact, no, O.K, I don't have any ideas like that - look, I'm even writing posts about darning my socks, for God's sake, scraping the barrel was yesterday.

Ah no, no, wait a minute, I got one! I got one!

You know all those damn PeTA ads? With all the naked folks and all? You know, the "I'd rather go naked than wear fur? ones - unbearably smug and yet, yes, irritatingly, something of a turn on? Those ads?



Well, yeah, here's what I thought. Obviously, there needs to be some sort of compelling response to this from the UK air-rifle hunting community and this is what I propose: a series of photo-posters, featuring celebrity air-rifle hunters, standing around in a mid-February field, clad in nothing but a tiny posing pouch hand-sewn from the fur or feather of their choice. The posters would be emblazoned with the - I'll admit, fairly obvious line: "Crikey no! I'd much rather wear fur than go naked!"

So, yes; if the air rifle hunter-blogger community out there would be kind enough to get posing and snapping, I'll get on with designing the posters. Just send me the pictures.









Actually, dear God, no, don't, I beg of you, it's a terrible idea, I take it all back. Just imagine it! Acch!

Ye Oldee Sock Darning Tips D'Hubert

Seekst thou a yarn for to fix your sorry, ravelled socks? Old Hubert says forgeteth not the ball of wool that thou - with a mind for to bind red tails for pike and perch lures - did purchase at a car boot sale yonks hence. For verily, sayeth Hubert, verily it doth work right well: one's clothèd heels full snugly praise y'r industry when wrapped therein.

Hubert considers Deep Ecology (1)

I recently spent a few confused minutes trying to read a document which referred to itself as a Deep Ecology Platform. I say 'confused' because:

a) I'm personally a rather confused individual and;

b) The document confuses the hell out of the already confused individual it's my calling to try to be.

Why? Well, one of the things it does that I find a bit confusing is to take it as read that positions that it understands to exist outside of what it calls 'the human world', i.e., the 'non human world', these positions can be spoken for, called upon and referenced - despite their absolute and admitted 'otherness' - as being perfectly understandable to us human being kinda thingies.

For instance, it says, without so much as a blink or a question mark or any suggestive hint of the possible problems that saying such a thing might involve, "human interference with the nonhuman world is excessive, and the situation is rapidly worsening."

Well, blimy! How can you know this unless you've actually got it together to somehow ask the non-human world if this is what it thinks about things? Has the non-human world registered with Twitter and broadcast a series of terse, epigrammatic little pleas for moderation? I'm not that up on Twitter, so, really, how would I know for sure? But I guess I think that it hasn't.

So, yes, here are the first few point of the Deep Ecology Platform and maybe I'll return to this and witter on about it a bit more in the future (oh, or perhaps not. This is a blog after all; consistency is not an issue here!)

1. The well-being and flourishing of human and nonhuman life on Earth have value in themselves (synonyms: inherent worth, intrinsic value, inherent value). These values are independent of the usefulness of the nonhuman world for human purposes.

2. Richness and diversity of life-forms contribute to the realization of these values and are also values in themselves.

3. Humans have no right to reduce this richness and diversity except to satisfy vital needs.

4. Present human interference with the nonhuman world is excessive, and the situation is rapidly worsening.

5. The flourishing of human life and cultures is compatible with a substantial decrease of the human population. The flourishing of nonhuman life requires such a decrease.

For the time being though, here's an image of a rabbit glove puppet that I've put together to illustrate the fun of constructing supposedly independent external references that agree with the position you're trying to argue and - handily - are not and cannot ever be available to disagree with you about doing this. In other words, the ultimate 'We speak on behalf of the Silent Majority' argument.

Twitter?

Just made the above graphic to encapsulate my enthusiasm for micro-blogging. Feel free to cut, paste and join the movement.

And yes, I went out today and sat in the suddenly snow-free abandoned orchard and waited while late afternoon turned into early evening. I saw rabbits, certainly I did; about fifty yards away they were, which is to say, too far away for me to shoot at.

I also saw a field mouse scampering along a fallen branch in front of me and a buzzard - seemingly without a single flap of its wings - coast right across the field in one great swoop. I watched a robin skip around me, inquisitive; I saw a traffic jam develop, persist and then eventually dissolve on the motorway at the end of the fields - all while I sat and silently stared at a stretch of grass in which exactly nothing stirred.

Winter Warmers?

Well, O.K, I've got one of these things: a Peacock Hand Warmer. It does do what it's supposed to do: stay warm in your pocket for hours. In fact, sometimes it gets really hot and stays that way: leave it out all night when it's going well - without remembering to take off the little cap that holds the wad of catalytic fibres over the lighter-fuel reservoir - and it will, like as not, burn a hole in the natty tartan drawstring bag it comes in. It works.

Thing is though, if you take it out of your pocket - say by the side of a steaming river at dusk in November or in a snow-covered, wind-blown field - and use it for any length of time to try and coax some feeling back into your frozen, insensible fingers - then it cools down pretty damn quick. It keeps your pocket toasty as hell - and I'm not knocking that; having even one warm pocket on a winter's day is a happy thing - as any fule kno - but the times when I've wanted it to bring my cold, wet, frozen fingers back to life, my main memory is wishing the damn thing was warmer. Take it out of your pocket in the cold - it goes cold.

I've never tried those burning charcoal stick hand-warmer thingies you can get - does anyone out there know if they're better than these Peacock jobbies?

I suppose that there's a question to be asked about their respective carbon footprints? Well, I haven't got a clue about the answer to that question. Any ideas?

Were Tuvalu not in danger of being submerged I suppose the ideal cold weather hunting outfit might be something like a white Ghille suit plus a patio space heater. Very cosy. One or two questions regarding mobility do rather raise themselves, mind.