Summer Prize Competition 2015 - Results

Well, I received some wonderful, well thought-out and often very entertaining entries. Out of a total of 19 entries, 7 identified the Amalfi area in Italy. Winner is Steve Curry, who produced a near-flawless answer:

Righto Foy, you bastard, this is driving me crazy. I've wasted three days on this puzzle already and if I don't send an entry I'll go mad picking at it.

Thanks to your clue in the follow-up post I believe I've got it:

The photo is taken from within the grounds of the Villa Cimbrone, looking down onto the town of Ravello, which is on the Amalfi Coast not far from Salerno, the target of Operation Avalanche.

The Villa Cimbrone is a mock pile built by the rather brilliant Ernest Beckett, 2nd Baron Grimthorpe, described by Michael Holroyd as 'a man of swiftly changing enthusiasms ... a dilettante, philanderer, gambler and opportunist. He changed his name, his career, his interests and his mistresses quite regularly.' I would love to have met him, but not to have lent him money!

No doubt among many other connections between Ravello and Whitby, the towns were both visited by Wilkie Collins, the author and great friend of Charles Dickens. He visited Ravello as a child with his father the painter William Collins during their two-year stay in Italy (and about which he wrote in a memoir). Dickens introduced Collins to Whitby, where he stayed in 1862 while working on his novel No Name.

More importantly, Whitby is a sister city of Porirua, New Zealand, where I was born (and which is also famous for being the site of New Zealand's first McDonald's restaurant).

I can sleep now.

PS I may have omitted the key fact that Ernest Beckett was the MP for Whitby between 1885 and 1905, during which time "his name was rarely mentioned in Hansard", suggesting that if he ever bothered to show up it was only to sleep off a hangover.

Very nice, Steve – if I ever used words like “awesome”, this would be the time to use them.

My photo is taken looking over the handrail of the last terrace at the Villa Cimbrone, Ravello.

Ravello is a remarkable town, it is about 1 km inland from the astonishing Amalfi Drive, along the Northern shore of the Gulf of Salerno, and is also about 350 metres above sea level, so the road to get up there is, shall we say, interesting. I have visited the place since then, but my photo was taken in 2000. We are looking straight down the gorge towards Atrani, where the road up to Ravello leaves the coast. Atrani, these days, is just the eastern end of the ancient town of Amalfi. The terraces and the twisting road are apparent – meeting the local bus on this road when driving a car is not recommended. I have, let it be said, walked down this same valley – I am delighted to say I came back up by bus.

Down at the edge of the sea you can see one of the old Martello-type towers which were built to watch for the approach of the Saracens, Turks, Greeks, Normans, Carthaginians, or whoever the enemy of the week was. This is the garden of Europe, my friends, and it has been open for pillage since the dawn of time.

As Steve has identified, the link with Whitby is Lord Grimthorpe.

Ernest, 2nd Baron Grimthorpe, sometime MP for Whitby

Ravello, of course, was also where DH Lawrence wrote much of Lady Chatterley’s Lover and where Wagner finished off the production details for Parsifal, but that’s all a bit cultured for this blog – I’ll leave that for other, more worthy poseurs.

Here's a picture taken 10 years later, looking the other way along the coast - with
the terrace of the Hotel Palumbo in the foreground, we are looking towards the
resorts of Minori and Maiori - Salerno and the invasion beaches are somewhere
away in the mist round the headland

Steve, if you can send me a comment with your postal address, I won’t publish it and I’ll get your parcel away to you forthwith.

The shortest entry came from Vance, who simply asked, "Is it a photo of Whitby?"

Among the “special mentions” are Jacko, who tells me that he visited the area a few years ago, in part to see the area where his grandfather was seriously wounded during WW2, and, most especially, Chris Grice, who got the place entirely wrong, and in support of this included a piece of what he dismisses as doggerel, but which by the standards of this blog is a very significant piece of high art:

“I’ve up and writ this story,” the Yorkshireman declared,

“’bout blood and bats and big black dogs. It’s sure to leave thee scared.

But I need a place to set it.” Bram Stoker then imparts.

“There’s no scary names in Yorkshire like they ‘ave in foreign parts.

I’ve wandered round the continent, ate foreign food and such,

but I found no inspiration ‘mongst the Belgians and the Dutch.

I even thought of Chateau Foy to set my tale of blood,

but the French said they pronounce it fwa, so that’s no bloody good!

At last I’m in Romania, atop a gret big ‘ill,

wi’ a castle that’s just perfect! In fact I think I will

use this very same location as the setting for me tome.

Pray tell to me, your countship, what t’name is of your ‘ome.”

“It’s Cetatea Poenari,” said the nobleman with pride.

“It has been mine for centuries, well, since my father died.”

The Yorkshireman, crestfallen, grunted, “Bugger, that’s a shame.

I’d never sell me novel if I used THAT for the name!

So perhaps I’m back to Whitby as the place to set my plot

but I shall ne’er forget thee and t’reception that I got

at thy castle on a mountain, wi’ a vista so spectacular.

I’ll even name t’book after thee, my dearest Count Vlad – what was your name again?”

*******

Thanks again to everyone who took part, including those who did not send an entry, but restricted their input to abusive/helpful comments. I had a lot of fun with this – I hope you found it interesting!

Summer Competition - extra clue

I've already received a few entries - some of them really excellent - but I fear that in my attempt not to make the thing too easy I have made it impossibly difficult, so it's only fair to provide a further clue, with apologies to everyone for my lack of brain.

The stretch of water in the background - this is not the actual site, but Operation Avalanche passed near here in Sept 1943. My apologies to anyone who was misled into assuming the Whitby reference must be Dracula.

So - where is the photograph taken, and what is the association of this particular place with Whitby?

Max Foy's Summer Prize Competition 2015

My new fortress (see previous post) will require some painting, and that got me thinking about the other buildings I have waiting to be painted, and that, in turn, got me thinking about having a bit of a chuck-out, which (and the marketing people despair of me) led me to thinking that someone might like the buildings I'm chucking out. Yes, that's right - I am offering to give away some junk I don't want any more - it's as exciting as that.

Nothing wrong with any of them, all but one are still in the original packets, and they are all good quality, resin, 15mm scale buildings. They were all bought in when I was collecting scenery for my ECW project, though a number will fit in well in European 18th and 19th Century theatres, and they have been carefully stored away. I'm getting rid of them because I have enough buildings now, and because these are really sort of 15mm/10mm scale, which are a tad small for my 20mm figures, even though I deliberately use underscale houses in my wargames.

First off, the prizes - these are all unpainted, and since a photograph of an unpainted resin building in a plastic bag is not very informative, I have substituted the manufacturers' pictures of painted examples where possible, which give a better idea - but please remember, the buildings I am giving away are unpainted. If you want to have a shot at the quiz but don't want the buildings, please say so, and you can be a Category B entry.

Some Hovels 15mm buildings:

1T5 - half-timbered house - there are two of these

2T5 - another half-timbered house - two of these as well

6E5 - European double-fronted Guildhall

9A5 - humped-back stone bridge

9M5 - A-frame peasant's hut - medieval

11M5 - a pair of A-frame hovels

Some JR Miniatures 15mm buildings:

#4106 - Prussian-style Eckhaus

#4012 - Austrian/Bavarian village gatehouse

And one from an unknown maker:

British/Northern European farmhouse/manor house

********

All right, the Quiz. Here's a photograph which I took myself; it was taken in the early afternoon, on a rather hazy Summer's day in Europe, and I reckon we are facing approximately South-West.

I'd like to know, please, where the photograph was taken - what are we looking at? - and what connection has the picture got with the town of Whitby, in North Yorkshire? I'll judge entries entirely subjectively and unfairly, as always, and will give points for accuracy (based on distance from true location). Bonus points will be given for the Whitby connection, and for humour and additional whizzo facts - an amusing entry which is wide of the mark might well score better than a dead-accurate entry which is, well, dead-boring. There is only one prize - my previous attempt to give a choice of prizes was far too complicated for my poor brain, so the Category A winner will get all of these buildings as a single parcel.

I'll keep the entries open until midnight at the end of 20th July - please send them as comments (which I shall not publish if they are entries) or as emails to the address in my Blogger profile. Only restriction is that I require you to be a regular follower of this blog. Best of luck if you are going to have a go!


********

Late, late edit: there is an additional clue in the next post...

Max Foy's Mad March Mug-a-rama - results...

Well, the deadline has passed, and I must have sat up until several seconds past midnight sifting through the entries. Thanks very much to everyone who sent one – a number of people said they were going to, but obviously thought better of it, and a surprising number sent a note saying, “I’ll take one, ta…” – obviously these are people who visit the supermarket with a reversible jacket, so they can go round the free samples several times – quite right too.

Since the entire episode was a dreadful conceit and self-promotion of my own I can hardly crib about the limited response. After a short ponder, I decided to award one to Epictetus for his stout effort in Limerick form (it would be graceless to mention that my nom de blog is pronounced Fwa) – this is it, and very good it is:

A philosophical wargaming bloggist

Thought a free mug was not to be missed

So for better or worse

His thoughts turned to verse

In an attempt to make the short list

His input to the hobby was duff

His painting was really poor stuff

He had written no rules

And his blog got no views

There was no way that he’d done enough

He suspected that he’d get no joy

With the arguments he could deploy

Still he gave it a go

Because you just never know

With that estimable chap MS Foy

I also awarded one to the worthy A W Kitchen, for straightforward brass neck, since he reckoned he deserved one of my mugs because he had recently broken the handle off his own. I like his style.

Though he made no formal entry, I also feel I should send one to Polemarch, whose blog got me thinking along these lines.

If you 3 gentlemen would care to send me a comment bearing your postal address (which I will not publish, of course) I shall wrestle with the logistical problem of how to send a fragile item through the Royal Mail, so that you may have the pleasure of my ugly mug watching over your wargames.

ECW Campaign - Dodgy Scripting

My ECW campaign in a mythical part of northern Lancashire has been interrupted a bit by breaks to allow Real Life to carry on, but I have enjoyed it very much. It has now reached an odd situation.

Two hefty defeats for the Royalist side have made it virtually impossible for them to rescue things; basically they have lost, and, as things have worked out, and as the randomly-generated campaign map is set out, the campaign has run out of space – the armies are stuck against the northern edge of the map, with little further scope for manoeuvre.

I have already declared that the two Royalist forces, rather than retreating northwards off the map, will lock themselves into the towns of Lowther and Erneford, and the Parliamentarians will set up formal sieges against these places. This, of course, is still possible, but seems like a lot of effort for not a lot of entertainment. My thinking on this is definitely influenced by the lack of time I have available to concentrate on the campaign at present, but I have now decided I should attempt to end the thing with rather more of a bang.

Technically, the King’s forces have already lost, but the new plan is that a relieving force will advance to their aid from Carlisle, the Royalist forces at the top of my map should fall back on this support, the Parliament army should follow them, and there will be an extra final battle to settle things. Yes – it’s faked, but it seems a more satisfying way to get out of a lame ending.

So – watch this space!

Separate topic – I’ve had a few entries for my little giveaway exercise, but I’ve also had some notes and comments from people who simply asked me to send them one of the MSFoy mugs – that’s not really what I had in mind! I offer my sincere thanks to anyone who expressed interest, but I really do want some kind of formal entry – send me a suitable prize-winning essay on exactly why you deserve one! Midnight at the end of 5^th March is the deadline – if I don’t get entries that amuse me then I shall keep the things.

So there. 

I's a Muggin' - Silly Giveaway

This follows on from a discussion on Polemarch’s very fine blog – there was a passing reference to de-emphasis of the unseemly, or politically difficult, aspects of wargaming (such as death, which we shall refer to as the D-word henceforth). 

I felt that a mug bearing a suitable message would be amusingly silly, but then dismissed the idea. Later, I thought better of it – such a mug would not only be superbly tacky, but would be just the thing to extend the intermittent range of Max Foy collectibles – sadly the much-admired tee-shirt (click) is no longer in stock, but the mug would surely be a must-have. Think how your wargaming friends would envy you if you had one, or – if, like me, you have no friends – just think how people might visit you to see it.

View of both sides of the mug - not your cup of tea?

Anyway, I ordered some, and here they are – they exist. As you see, they bear an improving message on one side and my own portrait on the other – how inspirational is that? I shall give away two, as a token of my selfless devotion to the hobby, my supreme lack of both taste and humility and my shameless determination to promote my crappy blog. If you would like one, all you have to do is send me a comment (which I shall not publish) explaining why you truly deserve one (or need one) and how much you would like to receive one. Any details of your personal contribution to the hobby (or anything else, really) will be most welcome – there are no rules at all, except that you must be a follower of this blog. Whichever two submissions amuse me most (and there may be extra points for relevance, but it’s not essential) by midnight on 5^th March will receive the mugs – I’ll retain some stock so that I can (maybe) offer them as some sort of special award in the future.

I’ll probably publish the best entries – as long as they are not too rude, of course.

Foy’s Almost-Summer Prize Competition 2014 - the Actual Competition

Here it is – sorry, this is all a bit rushed now, which makes something of a nonsense of my attempt at dramatic effect, but I'm not sure I'm going to get a chance to get back to the blog over the next couple of days.

As ever, if you wish to enter you have to either be a registered follower of my blog or else someone with whom I have regular email correspondence in connection with the blog.

I’ve gone back to an old format for this competition, mainly because it used to give rise to a bigger and more entertaining response! The competition is very simple – please study this photograph, which was taken at around midday in the month of August, on a weekday, and send me a comment (or email, if you prefer) telling me where it was taken, which Napoleonic event took place near here, why whiskers are relevant(!), how you arrived at this answer, and any other thoughts you have.

I’ve deliberately made the photo large, so you can examine it in greater detail. Oh yes – I took the photo myself, so you won’t find it in Google Image. There’s quite a few clues here, but I hope it’s still a reasonable challenge.

Judging will be, as ever, completely subjective and totally unfair – I’ll allow up to 10 points for geographical accuracy, 10 points for identification of the historical associations (including the whiskers) and 20 points for your explanation of how you came to this conclusion, and any relevant observations – thus an amusing explanation of a poor answer may score as many points as a blunt presentation of the correct answer.

If you can get your solution to me by midnight (UK time) at the end of 10^th June I’ll get the details of the winner posted within a day or so after that. I won't publish entry comments received, to avoid people learning from each others’ answers, though I’ll consider publishing any clarifications, in case there are any technical issues….  (yawn)

The Prizes

This is a bit of a grand chuck-out – so I hope it appeals, there are some nice items in here. The winner will receive a parcel containing all of the following:

(1) Paperback of Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch’s Napoleonic War Stories (new)

(2) Paperback - The Wargaming Pioneers Vol.1 – edited by John Curry – includes details of Little Wars, R L Stevenson’s games, Shambattle and a pile of other early wargames (perfect, unmarked)

(3) The Napoleonic Wargame – G W Jeffrey (paperback) – (old and read, but sound and clean) – Old School, but not as we know it, Jim…

(4) Warhammer – English Civil War – rules and much more (paperback) – (very good condition)

(5) Napoleon – Matthew Fletcher - Wargames Foundry’s rules-cum-coffee table book about wargaming, which is an entertaining read – lots and lots and LOTS of pictures of their figures, with instructions on how to paint them

(6) Portuguese Army booklet as described in my previous post

If you wish to enter but do not want the prize, please say so and have a go anyway, just for the glory, and you may be the Category B winner – the prize will still go to the best Category A effort.

If you are interested then I wish you all the best, I look forward to hearing from you and thank you for reading my blog!

Foy’s Almost-Summer Competition 2014 – the Preamble

First of all – if you’re looking for an actual competition here, you’re too early – come back in a week or so!

Since it’s just a couple of weeks short of what passes for Midsummer in this part of the world, and since it’s a while since I did a competition, I decided it was time to do something about it.

The bad news is that the prize on offer consists, in part, of a very humble booklet which I put together in the 1970s. The value, if it has any, is in its rarity! I’ll set out the competition, with full details of the prize(s), in a day or so, but in the meantime a couple of stories associated with this booklet seemed appropriate – you can regard them as something to add background or, if you prefer, as further injury added to the insult already presented by the wretched prize!

Subplot 1 – the Publication

Around 1976 I was attempting to put together a Portuguese army for my 20mm Peninsular War, and became so frustrated about the lack of helpful, explicit reference information about this army that I decided to do something about it.

What I did was put a letter in the Military Modelling, asking for anyone who had any useful contacts or information to get in touch. It worked. I had been prepared to bet I would get no response, but I got a lot of mail quite quickly. Most of it was from people with a similar frustration, asking me for whatever information I already had(!), but I also got some really helpful replies – from all over the world. I remember that a chap named Gallo, in South Africa, sent me some very rare photocopies of an ancient typed monograph, with line drawings, which was better than anything I’d seen to date.

I also received a response from Herbert, who features in Subplot 2, below, which resulted in a lengthy correspondence during which we became quite good friends and exchanged a lot of information. By early 1977 I was in possession of so much material that I set it out in a formal booklet (which meant old-fashioned typing, in those days). Someone put me in touch with the Napoleonic Association, who were producing uniform and organization booklets at that time, and they were happy to publish my Portuguese effort as one of the series.

My involvement with the NA at that time was restricted to discussion of the forthcoming booklet, and I dealt mostly with Rob Mantle, who was enthusiastic and helpful throughout. I did attend their annual dinner once, in Knaresborough, and enjoyed the evening, though I became aware of some factionism within the ranks – there were definitely insiders and outsiders, and the re-enactors treated the wargaming section with a rehearsed indifference which struck me as very amusing, but then I was a complete outsider anyway.

The booklet took a while to manufacture, which was normal for 1979, during which I was requested to add an extra chapter on available reading sources, for which, I regret, I produced a half-hearted lash-up, partly because I was expected to say something controversial, or critical of established works or authors. Also, to my great disappointment, there was no time to include a lately-acquired pile of additional detail on flags and cavalry standards.

When the booklet appeared, it was given a collective roasting, along with the NA’s other publications, in a review by Donald Featherstone (would that be in Wargamer's Newsletter? - I'm not sure now), who expressed himself as increasingly tired of the flood of low quality booklets by amateur historians. There is a potential case of pots and kettles in this, but apparently DFF and the NA had some gentle history of friction – it may be that they represented a new generation of wargamers of which he did not entirely approve (I am guessing), but it also became evident that he was one of the established writers they had set about annoying, so they had certainly succeeded in this.

As for the credentials of their authors, I confess that Mr Featherstone had a point (none of them had served in the Tank Regt in WW2, after all), but the line-up included Pete Hofschroer, who is regarded pretty seriously now.

The booklet sold a modest number of copies, as you would expect, and was eventually remaindered. I never did anything about the improved, expanded version I contemplated, but I did make a lot of information available to Terence Wise, who credits me as a source in his Osprey title on flags. The booklet was also identified as a reference by George F Nafziger PhD* in his own booklet on the Portuguese and Spanish armies, and it is listed somewhere in the Napoleon Series materials.

Not that any of this matters – I am not particularly proud of my booklet, but at the time it was probably the most thorough attempt at the subject to date in English. Since then it has been surpassed by a good many later works – particularly Chartrand’s Osprey books. Whatever, I have one or two copies left in the bookcase – I found them when I was clearing out the other week – so I’ll add a fairly clean specimen to the Almost-Summer Grand Prize. I hope I think of something half-decent to fatten up the jackpot…

* I never mention Nafziger, or his fine contributions to wargaming and military study, without reference to his doctorate from the Union Institute

Subplot 2 – Herbert

Herbert replied to my Military Modelling letter, very enthusiastic. He was an interesting fellow – he was born in Austria, of Italian descent, and his father had been an officer in the Austro-Hungarian Army at the end of WW1. Having been such an officer was not a great career enhancer in 1918, so a number of the officers handed over their savings to an entrepreneur and bought land in Brazil, and took their families to make a fresh start in a very different world. After a long voyage, they discovered it was a scam – they had bought a piece of swamp, in the jungle.

There seems to have been a violent disagreement – Herbert’s father returned to Salzburg, while his mother took the children and walked about 100 kilometers to the nearest civilization, which was the city of Sao Paulo. Herbert spent the rest of his life there, mostly working very successfully in the retail trade. When I had dealings with him he was in his eighties, retired but walking for an hour every day, reading and painting and delighted to hear from someone in (or near) Europe. He was fluent in Portuguese, German, English and French, and could turn a good hand to Spanish and Italian. He had a huge personal library of military history, acquired through a long life of private study and collecting, he had an excellent portfolio of his own watercolours of uniforms of all sorts of nations and periods and – above all else – he had contacts in the Brazilian government and the national libraries who could get copies of all sorts of obscure materials on the Portuguese army and their colonial offshoots. Some of these documents – being stored away in a colonial outpost at Brasilia – had survived political upheavals in Portugal which had put paid to the Lisbon copies, so some of the dress regulations and so on I saw were thought not to exist in Portugal.

Thus the very idea of my humble booklet, and the rather more ambitious follow-up which I abandoned, is very largely due to the input and support of my elderly Brazilian collaborator – at times, he was far more enthusiastic than I was! We eventually lost touch – he might, of course, have died, but I prefer to think he moved to a quieter part of the city. In due course I got no response to my letters. Since he would now be 120-odd, I can safely assume he is no longer alive, but I won’t forget him, or his good-humoured wisdom. He used to write (in 1976) that the Western powers should not worry overmuch about the Russians or the Chinese, and that the future threats to the world would centre on the Middle East. I would be more positive about his understanding of the world if he hadn’t been a regular reader of the Daily Telegraph, but no matter! 

If anyone reads German, the adventures of the Austrian emigrants to Brazil after WW1 are the subject matter of Das Geschäft mit der Hoffnung: österreichische Auswanderung nach Brasilien 1918-1938 (Böhlaus Zeitgeschichtliche Bibliothek) by Ursula Prutsch, published 1996.

Eggmuhl Giveaway - Results

I got a total of 13 expressions of interest, if I include a couple of strange pieces of related spam and a threat.

Pleased to announce that Gary Amos wins the battlefield guide (not entirely because of the blackmail attempt), and Bart Vetters wins the German-language version.

If these two gentlemen could contact me with postal addresses I'll get the books  to you.

You can email via the address on my Blogger profile or - and maybe better, since I fear that BtInternet may have screwed up my email accounts again - send a comment to this blog post which I won't publish.

Thanks to anyone who sent an "entry", and thanks to anyone who was interested enough to follow my humble adventures on the Danube.

Minor League Giveaway - Eggmühl

While sorting out my papers and bits and pieces from my Danube trip, I found that I have a spare copy of the Battlefield Guide for Eggmühl. This is a very nice, A4 sized, illustrated publication, produced by the local tourist organisation in Schierling for the bicentennial in 2009. General editor is Dr Marcus Junkelmann. The battlefield is laid out with numbered information boards, and the guide is designed to enable the visitor to follow the course of the battle (you'll need a car!), but it also contains useful background information.

If I keep it lying around it will get damaged, so I thought someone else might appreciate it. No quiz or anything - please just get in touch, and I'll do some form of random selection on 5th October. To keep the thing reasonable, I'd like to restrict the offer to recorded followers of this blog - so, if you are not a follower and you fancy it, sign up. Bernard and I will only send you junk mail for the rest of your life...

I also have, it seems, a spare copy of the German-language copy of the same publication, so I'll make that available on the same basis. I think I only have 4 German speaking followers, so there might not be quite the same interest level for this one!

Summer Prize Competition 2013 – Results

Time up – please stop writing and put your pens down.

Well now – fascinating. Thanks again, ever so much, to everyone who entered into the spirit of the thing and submitted a name for my new ECW siege mortar – I had a lot of fun reading through them, though it certainly hasn’t been easy coming up with a winner.

There were so many really good names suggested – including a wealth of variations on the theme of large or otherwise formidable ladies, with excellent descriptions and classical references.

Pjotr suggested Big Mathilde (a B-List entry – he didn’t want the prize), and I voted this the best of the B-Listers, largely because of his story and supporting photo of a statue in Ostend which is officially called The Sea, but is universally known as Dikke Mathilde. Here she is…

The Sea...?

Special mention – among so many other good suggestions - goes to Bloggerator for Sharp Rejoinder (a pleasing tribute to Iain Banks, apart from being a good name in its own right), to Steve for Apollyon (the angel of destruction from The Pilgrim’s Progress, which has a good, near-contemporary relevance apart from the classical kudos) and – especially – to David Crook’s splendid Fuggle’s Thunder, which is based on the engrossing but unlikely tale of the famed dyspepsia of a blacksmith named Harbottle Fuggle. I also liked Evan’s God’s Hammer, and Peter’s graceful Swan of Lonsdale, which ties in nicely with my north-western campaign plans, but is maybe an odd name for a gun. I was intrigued by Vance’s Are You Sure?, and there were a couple of other ideas which may have owed something to chemical stimulants, but all very entertaining.

After much pondering, I decided I like Ray’s The Clapperdudgeon best, mainly because it is such a fantastic word. A clapperdudgeon, it seems, was a king of the beggars – there is also a theory that the word relates to a specialist beggar who treated his skin with arsenic, to produce wounds akin to leprosy and thus increase his market value. Too gory for me – the King of Beggars will do nicely and – as Ray suggests – old Charles I might be just the boy!

The Clapperdudgeon!

Pjotr and I had a brief email exchange on the topic of why the default personality should be female for an object whose physical form would appear, intuitively, to be sort of male (you would think). Pjotr’s view, with which I think I agree, is that there might be a certain reluctance for rough servicemen to say much about working with, handling or even admiring Big Archie (for example) – traditional military homophobia would make mastery of large females much less embarrassing. Let’s move on, quickly.

Congratulations and best wishes to Uncle Ray. Thanks again, everyone.