When we are confronted by an esteemed scholar, a man with his sensitive fingers right on the pulse of history, we are obliged to listen. It would be sacrilegious, not to say graceless, to fail to do so.
[I strongly refute any suggestion that I have been paid by the Save America Joint Fundraising Committee to promote this video]
This is a silly post, but someone may have a good idea. Good ideas are great; I am in favour of them.
I guess I must have used them all, because there are none left now. I need some more. I know I can get 20mm round bases in 2mm MDF, and the world is full of plastic bases, with or without slots, but I like the weight of the metal ones, and they are pleasingly slim. With discs of magnetic sheet attached underneath, they store nicely as well.
Anyone know where I might be able to get such things now? A source within the UK would be great, since international postage is now well beyond a joke.
Here's a chance to earn my undying gratitude.
If I remember, of course.
***** Late Edit *****
See Marc's comment below. It seems I do have some left after all. If I wasn't getting used to this sort of thing, I'd be embarrassed.
*********************
I have something of an aversion to the standard "me too" notices which are published on social media when a significant public figure dies; just a personal preference, but I shall break with my traditions and publish a very short note to commemorate the passing of Peter Higgs. Yes, THE Peter Higgs, the man after whom they named the Higgs boson.
Higgs was my first Mathematical Physics lecturer at Edinburgh University, long ago in another century. He was already deeply involved in his theoretical work on sub-atomic particles at that time, though no such topics ever came near us humble first-year students. I remember him as by far the best of the teaching staff in that department (which was swallowed by the Physics Dept some years later), but I have to say the competition was not great as far as imparting knowledge and enthusiasm were concerned. I also saw him often enough during my lunchtime visits to the Edinburgh Bookshop for the next 20 years or so of civilian life to be on what might be described as "nodding terms", though he had no idea who I was. I'm sure he was on nodding terms with most of the customers there, but I remember him as an affable, kindly old fellow.
My mention of Prof Higgs this evening is because he was one of the few distinguished academics that I might have recognised, and he remains one of the very few aspects of my involvement at the University that I view with anything approaching pride.
Please, if you are interested, have a look at the Wikipedia entry for him.
I ordered up various bits and pieces of siege artillery, and sorted out what I already had, and wrote some notes to myself about what I intend to do.
First off, my thanks to various kind souls, notably to Albannach for generous donation from his toy museum, to Old Glory UK, to Caliver Books for sending some Minifigs gun castings so quickly that I can only assume they had them in stock, and to a number of commenters and emailers for helpful suggestions.
I got started last night on cleaning up and assembling the things that require assembly. There is a considerable risk that if I don't get the various kits glued up then I shall lose the bits, or get them mixed up. The mortars are dead easy. The Minifigs MALA 3 siege guns are a little more tricky; I last bought some of these (my blog tells me) in July 2016, which was before the change of ownership, and the moulds are not nearly so crisp nowadays, so a lot of fettling is needed, but I'm enjoying it thus far.
I haven't yet received the extra garrison guns from Hinchliffe (which I think is Lancashire Games now), but in truth I hadn't expected to have anything at all yet, so a breathing space is fine.
The gunners for these new pieces will be based singly, so the guns may be shared by any nation that needs them. If I can play this correctly, I hope also to be able to use these guns for the long awaited Spanish Napoleonic siege train - I have some bags of SHQ Spanish gunners who have been waiting a very long time for such a moment...
Good so far - I hope to get on with painting the guns over the next few weeks, but the first stage is to get them all ready for painting. The mortars, by the way, will require a new size of MDF base, 20mm x 30mm, so I have those fine chaps (just across the Forth from here), Warbases, working on these.
I still have a couple of units to paint, but the completion of the Hessian Horse marks the Official Unofficial End of Phase One-B of my WSS Project.
Next on the agenda is to put together enough kit to add siege warfare to the period. I have siege rules (at least 2 sets, one of which is almost certainly the starting place for The Game Which Is To Come), I have fortresses in two different styles, and boxes of buildings; I have trenches and gun emplacements and all sorts - what I need now are siege artillery, gunners to man the stuff and some engineers.
My WSS infantry units comprise 3 bases each; to make them suitable for siege duty, each unit needs only to give its command base the afternoon off, so they can operate on a compact frontage, without some daft wazzock riding a horse or waving a flag. You see? - I have already thought about this!
I already have numerous field guns, in national colours, with gunners in the correct uniforms glued to the stands. To try to extend this system to siege guns would be folly, so I shall go for a studied (though dirty) compromise. I shall paint up mortars and siege guns in a boringly neutral scheme - brown wood carriages, bronze barrels, black ironwork, and I shall field small gun crews, dressed variously in blue uniforms or grey uniforms, sometimes with red cuffs, who will be based singly, and will be grouped in 2s (for mortars) or 3s (for battering guns) around the non-specific guns as necessary.
One of the beauties of the 2 and 3 man crews is that I can omit the man with the rammer, which is inappropriate for a mortar and ludicrously short for a battering piece. If anyone is puzzled by the uniforms, then I shall claim that there are Dutch gunners at work, or Walloons, or possibly militia, or whatever suits the occasion. In a siege it is very clear which side each unit is on, just from their position, so the uniforms should not constitute a problem. Anyone who is still unhappy is obviously just trying to be difficult.
I'll come back to the guns themselves in a minute. I have oodles of spare gunners, some of them painted, some not. The broken ones can be converted into engineering and sapping roles, and I shall make as much use of pre-painted ones as possible.
I have a good number of odd officers, in odd uniforms, who can be handed out as senior engineers to all comers. Some work will be necessary to fudge together some actual engineers and sappers, but I'm off to a flying start since I have a group of converted sappers from Eric Knowles' mighty collection, which I propose to polish up a little. I don't care for the hardboard bases, so will attempt to remove them, though I fear this may risk damaging the conversions, in which case I shall stop very quickly. Gunners and engineers will be based singly. I think this will all be fine.
Which brings me back to the heavy ordnance. I have a good selection of mortars of various sizes, most of them from Lancer Miniatures 20mm SYW range (which I think may be OOP now, replaced by 18mm). I have a good number of suitable biggish field guns in the pile already, which should help, but for yer actual 24pdr battering guns I need to think carefully. I have a few hefty guns, mostly 25mm Hinchliffe pieces, which are quite nice and might do the job, but I think (if I can still get them) I'll try to get 4 of the Marlburian siege gun from Miniature Figurines - catalogue number is MALA 3 - which I used to equip my Napoleonic French siege train.
I would also like, if they are still available, some garrison-style guns for the defenders, which are especially useful as they have a small footprint. I have 2 such guns in the spares boxes - I think they are Hinchliffe - they are not ships' guns, because ships' guns have solid wooden wheels. I'm checking these out.
I am disappointed to note that the old specialist artillery makers in 1/72 and 20mm seem to have disappeared - Finescale Factory have gone, and Art Miniaturen seem to have cut back on their more obscure artillery offerings. On the other hand, there must be a world full of guys making 3D-printed masterpieces which might be just the thing, if I only knew they were out there. That's the main reason for this post - to see if anyone has any good ideas about this 3D world. My soldiers are small 20mm - bigger than 18mm, but smaller than 1/72. I would happily use a 25mm scale model as a honking great gun, but it would have to fit the period pretty well.
Any thoughts?
Proper painting of fresh castings, this time - definitely all me own werk.
I'm using shorter sessions now, out of kindness to the old peepers, so this batch took a day or two longer than I planned, but I'm pleased with them. Nice and shiny, Old School toy soldiers.
These are a couple of regiments of cavalry from Hessen-Kassel, to support the new infantry brigade.
Hessen-Kassel is an interesting nation in this context. The Landgrave has not pitched in his army on the side of the Grand Alliance; well, not necessarily so. These two units were paid, equal shares, by the British and Dutch armies, so strictly speaking they appear as mercenaries.
More than welcome, however. As ever, the figures are mostly Les Higgins 1970s castings; the command figures are Irregular, which gives a decent scale match and a bit of welcome variety, though the horses are all Higgins.
The lads are now in the duty boxes, getting to know their colleagues.
It's all fine; like everything else, language moves along (though I miss a few old friends, and there are many things which I no longer dare say, since the meaning has changed).
A few evenings ago, I agreed with my son that we would go out later on to pick up a takeaway from the fish & chip shop in the village. We went along there about 9pm. The shop was quiet; since our order included a scratch-built pizza, we had to wait about 10 minutes. Two middle-aged couples came into the shop, very pleasant, maybe a little loud (drink had been taken, but nothing unseemly). I would guess they were visitors - North of England accents (I am something of an expert on the North of England), and they got into a slightly complicated exchange with the counter staff, all around the products and terminology you find in chip shops, which vary from area to area. Best not order anything unless you know what it is.
I got briefly involved in offering views on exactly what is the meat constituent of a scary local speciality known as the "King Rib"; which I think is a slab of ultra-processed pork heavily flavoured with something like BBQ sauce. Not recommended, anyway, except after about 4 pints.
Once the preparation of the orders was under way, one of the ladies - very polite, dressed up a little for an evening out, silk scarf, all that - said to me,
"If you don't mind my saying so, you look very..."
...and she paused for a fraction of a second, while she searched for an appropriate word - it seemed quite a long fraction of a second...
"...dapper!" she said, "Yes, that's it: dapper!"
I wasn't at all offended, neither did I take the comment any more seriously than she meant it, though I have to say that I was surprised, for a number of reasons.
(1) People who know me will be aware that my mode of dress is usually warm and comfortable, and, though I hope I do not look completely disreputable, "dapper" is a long way down the list of words I would choose myself. Last time I wore a suit, for example, was at a funeral, and I'm confident the next time I wear one will also be at a funeral, unless I have to appear in court in the interim.
(2) "Dapper" is rather an old-fashioned word, and I associate it with gentle put-downs of older men attempting to dress up. Originally it was used to describe someone who was making a genuine effort to be up-to-date, and I suspect that in the US, for example, it may still have that meaning. I am confident that this lady was not trying to take the piss out of a complete stranger, so this is a usage thing. In a similar vein, if I ever said to a friend that he was looking "with it", he would certainly be quite an elderly friend, and my comment would be (deliberately) an example of British sardonicism, since even I know that nobody says this any more.
(3) "Dapper" has thus, in the UK, become a word used in connection with old men. It is not offensive, but it is one of a number of words which, though generally positive, might be viewed with a little apprehension. If the lady had, for example, stated that I looked "very clean", I might have been nonplussed by the implied parenthesis, "[all things considered]" or similar.
Anyway, I thanked her. Thinking she might have been impressed by my cloth cap, I said something oafish about starting to dress like my father, and we parted with lighthearted laughter. Oh, what fun. The truth is that I had intended to wear my fisherman's beanie hat, which is much warmer, but couldn't find it, so defaulted to the old bunnet. If I had worn my beanie I doubt if I would have been considered dapper. I might have been told I looked like a pile of dirty laundry.
When I first lived here, my next door neighbour, Old George, who was well into his 90s, used to wear a blazer and smart tie on Sundays when he went to the church in Whitekirk, and his trouser-creases were freshly ironed, and his shoes were polished to a frazzle. Now, he was dapper.
