Moderators, I'm taking some detours but I will end up back on guns. Honest!
Waitone said:
One is wise to never, ever argue with a woman who can lecture with authority on semi-auto revolvers
Awww, you say that about
all the gun-girls!
Turns out I am not so all-fired clever as I thought: a very few Webley-Fosberys were chambered for the Brit .38-200 or whatever it is and one shows up the book version of "The Maltese Falcon." A good gun-geek working on the film caught it and corrected the caliber to the more common .455 -- but the movie gun is an eight-shooter! Of course, it never existed.
madmike said:
"Reliable British Engineering."
Lucas...
British Leyland...
I'm not going there.
Pleeeeeze? I've owned a couple of MGBs and gave my hubby a (ten-year-old) Jag XJ-6 a decade ago, and I am convinced the legendary unreliability of these cars is an artifact of not understanding how to take care of them.
The MGB is a "toy car." All but the very last of them are extremely simple and very accessable. They require a lot of fussing with. They were designed with the hobbyist in mind. If you treat them like a Chevy, they will bite you in the rump. If you follow the recommended maintenance, you will spend more time on your car than you might like but you'll have a fun little car with decent city performance.
You can even change the oil of a 'B sitting flat on the driveway!
The Jaq was more of a thoroughbred. It, too, required careful maintenance on the recommended schedule. Once all the long-ignored "minor" problems (
like the steering rack!!!) were fixed, it was reliable and fun, if a bit "thirsty" at the gas pump. Frighteningly quiet on the road, on the highway it was up to 80 before you knew it. And driving sitting on fine leather seats with honkin' big Smith's instruments on a slab of burl walnut before you was a delightful experience. Best car I ever drove, period. Wish we still had it.
I do electronics for a living. Lucas electrics are not hard to troubleshoot and fix. With MGs, the usual problem is that rusty or missing sheet metal does not conduct electricity very well; we can't blame Lucas for that! The Jag had a few bad switches (ten years old when we got it!), the local dealer had them in stock and I installed them. All the electic doohickeys worked a treat -- door locks, multi-adjustable seat, etc.
madmike said:
The fact is, the Brits don't make computers because they can't figure out how to make them leak oil.
Nope.
A Brit
invented a computer that would leak oil all over -- and would have required manual oiling! They've been irked ever since the Babbage Engine never quite got off the ground, and who can blame them? They'd've had a 150-odd (very!) year start on the whole computer revolution if things had worked out only a little differently. Think of it -- a steam-driven desktop PC, all glittering brass, gleaming steel and fine hand-rubbed woodwork... Okay, it would
be the desk.
And just think of the lead they would have had in navigation and
gunnery! Imagine the Royal Navy with WW II-type fire control computers, a century before WW II came along! ...Didn't happen. Probably just as well, they might've tried to reclaim the 'States.
--Herself
