Reasons to be cheerful

I’m no sharpshooter but molehills aren’t mountains, and at 100 yards over open sights, when you’re standing unsupported, a slither of white plastic stuck into one looks vanishingly small along the barrel of a Winchester 30-30.

I’m no sharpshooter but molehills aren’t mountains, and at 100 yards over open sights, when you’re standing unsupported, a slither of white plastic stuck into one looks vanishingly small along the barrel of a Winchester 30-30. That’s the sort of rifle — almost a carbine — you might have seen John Wayne twiddling around his finger in ancient westerns, though I wouldn’t fancy firing with one hand. The advantage of molehills is that the spurt of earth shows where your shots go, and the advantage of the Winchester (still made, 150 years on) is that it feels part of you: balanced, compact, handy, with a kick and bang that mean business.

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James Delingpole

I’m warming to Meghan Markle – only joking

That was the third time in a week I’d felt the not-quite mystical unity of man and machine that poets don’t write about (though Ted Hughes came close with a poem about a tractor).