Books: Couple of good reads here

Couple good reads Ken lent me:

Peter James "Dead Tomorrow", another Detective Roy Grace novel, starts off with a bod being dredged off the bottom of the English Channel and turns into a slickly written rush from several different perspectives to the central denouement involving human trafficking and organ harvesting.
The subject matter's a little on the gruesome side for me, but James paces this mystery extremely well with the approach from the different characters, so you can get through the 650 odd pages in nightly instalments with each segment neatly partitioned, and another thread resumed the next.
He also provides a good insight into what it'd be like to be a parent of an organ transplant candidate.
9 out of 10, and only missing the perfect score on account of the macabreness not being my cuppa.

CJ Box "Winterkill"
I've read a couple of Box's Joe Pickett yarns before, and for a long while into this book I had a sense of having already read it, but no, it turned out new read territory.
Ken passed this book on because we'd been through the Twelve Sleep County, Wyoming, on the US rides he organised for us Kiwi motorcyle tourers. We've done the trip in the summer, so its interesting to imagine the winter-scape that Box mostly writes about in his novels.
In this one, aside from severe snow-outs and mysterious killings, Joe deals with rampant bureaucracy, sovereign nationalists, and threat of losing an adopted daughter.
Joe's no super hero, just a capable ranger dealing with extraordinary circumstance, which makes the this particular genre an agreeable read.
8 out 10, good descriptive prose, storytelling a bit ragged round the edges in places.

Life of Note: Mikhail Kalashnikov

The Saturday Dom runs a weekly obit page on lives of note and there's some really interesting stuff on people who had an influence on history, no less so than did Major General Kalashnikov, inventor of the AK47 assault rifle, who died age 94, couple of days before Xmas.
Its estimated 70 million of the Avtomat Kalashnikov 1947 model (I guess avtomat is Russian for automatic),  were made, excluding copies produced in third-world backstreet workshops. 7.62mm carbine, it can fire 600 rounds per minute, accurate to 300 metres, still lethal at 1500 metres, reputed as robust, lightweight, easy to maintain, operable in environments ranging the full gamut from sand to mud, less sensitive than the American M16, and more reliable than most British counterparts, continuing to operate when most others would jam.
Kalashnikov was born in Khazakstan, a 17th child of a peasant family, went to work on the Turkistan-Siberian railway on leaving school, and on call-up for military service in 1938, trained as a tank driver, then a tank commander, seriously wounded in the 1941 Battle of Byansk, (a stand-off southwest of Moscow where two Panzer divisions surrounded the 50th Army, who managed to extricate without much actual fighting, despite a huge toll of 80,000 killed and 50,000 taken prisoner as a result of the artillery and air bombardment), brooding on the superiority of German weapons, he conceived the idea of making a simple weapon for soldiers "that dont go to university", and built the prototype while recovering at the railway workshops, all with hand tools.
On later posting to the Emsk small-arms proving ground he developed the final version, which became the chosen standard weapon for the Soviet army, but given the 1947 date, never saw active usage in WWII. The pity of it all, and much to Kalashnikov's disappointment, the rifle went on to become the weapon of choice for anybody but the good, was probably responsible for killing most of the Russians killed during the Afghanistan occupation, and the Chechen uprising. Asked at a press conference how he felt about inventing a weapon that had killed more people than the Hiroshima bomb, he replied he'd received a lot of negative letters but still slept well. "Weapons are not to blame when used illegally," he replied. "the ones to blame are the politicians, not the designers."
Anywhere other than Russia, Kalashnikov would have become a multi-millionaire for his invention, instead he got honours heaped on him by Moscow, Hero of the Socialist Labour, Stalin Prize, Lenin Prize, a doctorate in engineering, 3 Orders of Lenin, Order of the Red Banner, and at age 75, Yeltsin promoted him to Major-General.
Ironically, he became a friend of Eugene Stoner, the inventor who made a fortune from his M16 rifle, who gave him more than a taste of the lavish hospitality he missed out on.
A lot of people would condemn the invention of such a weapon, but you couldnt deny the influence the man had on history.

Book: Never Go Back; Lee Child

I'm so hooked on Lee Child and Jack Reacher, he has to be my all time favorite read.
This one I started at 10.30pm to go to sleep on, only I roared through it to the end without the sleep.
11 out of 10!

Book: Leighton Smith; Beyond the Microphone

LOL...
Leighton says something like, with the growth of social media, people make a heap of sharp comment that isn't worth reading, none more so than book reviews, so what can I say?
Well, for starters I did enjoy this book. You couldn't say it was high literature, but given his lengthy career in radio, it was a nostalgic commentary of our times, and although I've only been a sporadic listener to his morning talk-back only recent years, its the only talk-back I can be bothered listening to.
Why?
I think I get educated by listening, the others are just a load of petty proletariat gripings and platforms for talk-show hosts to mouth their own less educated and formed, and sometimes nasty, opinions. You can chuck sports-talk into this category as well. No search for a solution, most times I'm made to feel better off than any caller, so the ills of the world are all my fault.
In his book Leighton details what amounts to a good life.
He's earned it.
A 5 out of 5 read for me.

Book: Gavin Menzies "Who Discovered America"

Interesting read, maintaining Chinese colonised America by sea, plenty of evidence, DNA and archaeology, they were there about the right time.
Major plank being the land bridge from Asia theory is shot full of holes, who'd want to tramp 1000's of miles across snow and ice, no local food source to sustain the journey.
But my question from the outset was, no reason why planet Earth might'nt have been a lot warmer at odd times past, permitting shorter sea crossings and more land based migration.
And neither is there much evidence today of the supposed Chinese shipping armada, although I had a cousin researched building himself an ocean-going steel boat, and after pretty thorough research came up with the chinese junk being the most sea-worthy, easiest built and rigged, one-man sailed model.
So who knows. The ancients were no less clever than we are today.
Who can say what civilisations were swept away by natural catastrophe.

ANZA Harley Demo Day

Quick blat over to PN today for the annual demo day put on by ANZA. Booked in for two rides.

Couple of nice bikes

First up, on the left, the Fat Bob. Gee, this bike keeps getting better. Couldn't get over how quiet it was, moreso from inside my Schuberth helmet, which gives the quietest ride out anyway, surging grunt delivered as quietly as the kitchen fridge. Have to agree with a lot of commentators that 6th gear nearly superfluous. I'd emphasise the "nearly"..., for cruising round US style open roads it would be ideal.
The bike cornered beautifully too, and brakes only needing a touch. I liked the toggle on the digital read-out that gave an option of gear indicator, plus rpm. Other's on the toggle included fuel, odo, and distance.
The forward controls were fine, but I was getting a bit uncomfortable after 30 odd mins.

I mainly wanted to see what the Breakout went like. Pretty similar really, but some bark from the exhaust. I think I liked the deceptive quiet rumble of the Fat Bob better.
Handled pretty much as nice as the FB too, maybe better, certainly no influence felt from the phat back tyre.
A lot more comfortable ride for me though, dished seat and forward controls felt better placed.
6th gear indicator light in a nice big speedo. The left side ignition switch had me tricked.

Back on my old 99 LowRider coming home, I felt more comfortable, maybe neither of them would be good trip bikes without some changes, but you'd be hard placed to find a more fun commuter straight off the shop floor.

The LR embarrassingly gave a bit of starting trouble to get on the way home, how convenient said the shop staff. Unfortunately I couldnt respond positively by leaving it as a deposit on a new machine, but I did vindicate myself by coming home with a new helmet, Scorpion EXO100. Open face model which will earn me criticism from the full-face brigade. Such critics ignore that lack of a visor riding into the sun is pretty imperilling with full-face, this one has a visor. Its also got a flip down sun lens, and have to comment its one of the best shaded lens I've looked through, excellent definition and very little dimming of the vision, and lovely range of sight through to the peripheral. Easily removable, and a clear one comes with it. The visor clips off too.

Didn't have a face scarf coming home, but wind wasn't unpleasant. The wind noise is a bit distracting.
At the sale price, $149 incl, it would make an excellent round-town lid.
Bugger the full-face critics, most cops round the world wear this model, and as far as looks go, its a stunner.
At the price, I had farm use in mind if I wasn't bowled away with on-road suitability.
OSH have a real problem getting farm people to wear helmets on bikes and quads, and I think the main drawback is the models available are so, so, plain DAWKY.
A model like this, boys will be boys, couldn't help wanting to put this one on!
The clasp is an interesting ratchet latch, with an easy open tab, very comfortable to wear, if perhaps a little on the heavy side.

Thanks to Kerry and the ANZA staff for once again putting this day on, really appreciated.
This year simultaneous events were held in Wellington, New Plymouth, and Napier, so it was a one-day affair, and ample riding opportunity for a smaller attendance.

Wellington Oct '13

Aztecs - Conquest and Glory, exhibition at Te Papa till 9 Feb, staged in partnership with Mexico's National Council for Culture and Arts, and National Inst of Anthropology and History, plus Australian Museum and Museum Victoria, so goes without saying there's a wealth of interesting stuff to see and ponder on.
An education on the great culture of city and pyramid building, the largest city lying underneath present day Mexico City, and a now filled in lake.
The schism of class was greater than I had been aware, another case of an upper class keeping hordes of minions under control by fear and hocus pocus, human sacrifice an integral part in a supposed continuum of appeasing gods, but conveniently keeping the proletariat on the back foot.
Nothing like a live beating heart to feed the eagles.
I'd always thought it was the superior war technology, steel and mounted cavalry, that handed a small Spanish force conquest over a vastly more numerous indigenous people, but really when you think about it, the recruitment of disaffected Indians who saw one bloke dying on the cross back in the past, was a far better lurk than being regular eagle fodder.
Te Papa's stream of quality exhibitions keeps coming, and its certainly a help being a Friend of the museum, and having access to 2 days parking as part of membership.

Had also won a couple of tickets in a Dompost draw, to the stage show "No Naughty Bits", put on at Circa.
Being a fan of the Month Python series years back, thought this dramatisation of the difficulty experienced getting the show into USA could be a good lurk. A newspaper reviewer subsequent to my big win wasn't quite so enthusiastic, but we couldn't complain about the price!
Well, we both had a little nod off in the first half, but the second half came to life with snappy dialogue in the court-room scene, with lots of laughs, credit to the cast for keeping this up.

Quick bite at Joe's Garage beforehand, filling lamburger with glass of pinot.