Ode to an Anthem

| February 26, 2018

If you ain’t from around here, you probably won’t know how many tweaks and revisions the national anthem of Canada — O Canada — has undergone since it was first performed, as a French poem set to music, on 24 June 1880. As with any popular patriotic song, it went through a series of translations, […]

Musings on Musketry — Part the First: Back in the Day

| February 19, 2018

The first firearm I came to own was a Lee Enfield No.4 Mk.1* service rifle built in 1942 by the Savage Arms Company as part of the U. S. lend lease programme in aid of the British war effort against Nazi Germany. In 1973, at the age of 16 and with the approval of my […]

Long Story Short

| February 5, 2018

I had cause this morning to reflect on how often I begin a statement with the words, “Nothing annoys me more than ….” As it turns out, a great many things annoy me, and they all appear to be vying for the position of top dog.

Pervertibles

| February 4, 2018

The most fulfilling moments in my so far 37 year career as a security consultant have involved engineering nasty surprises for miscreants, mostly human but occasionally from other tribes, who thought they were smarter than everyone else but weren’t. Oh, sure, along the way we’ve saved a few lives, but that was just collateral un-damage […]