Hooptedoodle #387 - Ads for Morons, Created by Morons

 Wow - I was on the CNN site this evening, trying to get the latest on the gold statue of Trump that some bottom-hole has put on display in Orlando, and some fiendish cookie or other got busy and - hey! - I got a personalised ad, just for me. That's quite something - I mean I'm not even very famous (though my reading about Trump might have been a clue), but I'm pleased that they realised I would be interested in this sort of thing.

 

North Berwick

To put this into perspective, here is a photo of my home village. I am fascinated by this potential jet service - how impressed would my friends be, for goodness sake? I am wondering whether the jets land and take off in the fishing harbour, or they use that big field behind the telephone exchange - of course, they'd have to shift the horses, but it's marvellous, isn't it?

Amazing what they can do nowadays, as I always say. There - I just said it again...

Hooptedoodle #383 - License to Kill

 I'm still coming to terms with the changes in US politics. I feel that I have spent enough time, words and worry on the former President, so I offer this farewell thought. Maria Muldaur sings Bob Dylan's song. 

Right now, to me this feels kind of holy. I'll say no more on the topic.

Dondaine

 Moving swiftly on (before I get a glimpse of Mr Trump's pardons and have an aneurism), here's a workmanlike wargaming picture. My original reasoning for my WSS basing scheme was that, since the units only have 3 bases and they'll be doing some Old School tactical manoeuvring, I wouldn't bother with sabots, though I've become very used to using them of recent years.

After just a few test games, I confess I have changed my mind. Sabots there will be. They will not be magnetised, and - since my cunning WSS base sizes give a standard footprint (approximately) - I have adopted a one-size-fits-all plain sabot. Current thinking is that sabots will be a resource for the battlefield, and will be issued when needed. My Napoleonic units each have their own magnetised sabot, and they spend their lives on them, so this is a conscious departure from my standard system.

Because the sabots are a bit long and narrow, I was worried that 2mm MDF might warp if painted on one side only. I ordered in some samples from Uncle Tony Barr at East Riding Minis, and am pleased to find that they give no problems, so a bigger order will be on its way.

 Here's a quick photo, to give the idea. These should save time and broken bayonets.

Infantry and cavalry in line or column of march - even one of my strange limbered batteries 

 

Oh yes - dondaine. One of the many French nursery rhymes my mother taught me when I was an infant was En Passant par la Lorraine, a lengthy tale of a peasant girl who may or may not have captured the heart of the King's son (the song has a quirky, uncertain ending) through her fetching appearance, complete with clogs. This song contains the chorus hook-line:

avec mes sabots, dondaine,
oh! oh! oh! avec mes sabots

I have never been able to find out what dondaine means - and still haven't really got to the bottom of it. I am assured by one of my French relatives that in fact it means nothing - it is just a song-filler expression (equivalent to "tra-la-la" or, I suppose, "hey-nonny-no"). That's kind of an anticlimax after all those years of wondering, but I guess life is a bit like that.

If anyone knows different, please shout.

Here's a noble rendition of the song - just to prove it exists. I am confident you will not last to the end of the clip, but - take my word for it - this version only uses about half the verses my mother taught me. Obviously French kids had a good attention span in the days before Instagram.

 

Hooptedoodle #381 - Granny Farr & the Strangers

 This tale is based upon a single - and unexplained - entry in the Accounts and Proceedings of the Council of the Town and Parish of Lancaster, in the County of Lancashire, dated 17th November 1621. The entry is signed by the Clerk of the Council, one Jeremiah Archibald. 

The Accounts contain no subsequent reference to the matter. Neither the strangers referred to nor Mr Joseph Smallbone were ever found, as far as we know.

 

The room was hot, and very noisy - a fire burned in the hearth, and everyone seemed to be speaking at once. The Clerk of the Council rose to his feet and shouted for order. 

 

"If it please the Council - my Lords, gentlemen, they are bringing in Mistress Farr now..." 

And Jean Farr duly appeared - she was rather frail, and her shoulders trembled slightly as she was led to a chair opposite Sir Thomas. 

"Mistress Farr," said the Clerk, "this is Sir Thomas Fanshawe, who is Member of the Parliament for this town, and who chairs today's Council meeting. Gentlemen, my Lords, Mistress Farr is cook and housekeeper for the Reverend Musgrave." 

Old Jean said something, but it was inaudible in the general din. Sir Thomas, removing his hat, rose to his feet and bowed slightly, and raised his hand for quiet. 

"Granny Farr," he said, "I know you well - you and your late husband worked at the home of my father, and I know you to be of good character. I trust and hope that the Good God has granted you health and strength? I need you to help us resolve this odd business about these strangers - it has certainly become the currency of every market stall and alehouse in the town, and the tale becomes more unholy by the minute. Since you are the only person who seems to have met and spoken to them, I shall be very pleased if you will tell me what happened - we need to know who these people are, how they got here, without any knowledge of the Town Guard, and where they have gone. Firstly, if you will, do you know why they chose the Reverend Musgrave's house to call upon?" 

The noise had now diminished to the point where Jean's voice was audible - it wavered a little, but was quite strong and clear. 

"My Lord, if it please you, they said they knew the Minister's home, being a large building, must be the dwelling of an important person. I told them that Mr Musgrave was gone on business to West Derby, but they gave me a gift for him and made a short address - their accents were strange, but I could understand most of what they said." 

"And what did they say, Granny? - what do you remember about them?" 

"They arrived in some sort of carriage - I did not see them approaching, until they knocked at the kitchen door." 

"Pray tell us of this carriage - how many wheels? - how many horses?" 

"Neither horses nor wheels, My Lord, it was black, and square, and it shone like glass - about the size of a small coach, but without windows or fastenings - I did not see it closely, but I knew it was strange. Unfamiliar." 

"Please go on, Granny - what about the visitors themselves?" 

"They looked very peculiar, My Lord - I told the Constable all this..." 

"Yes, yes, Granny, I have the Constable's account here - I need you to tell me what you saw, so that I may better understand this mystery." 

"There were two of them, My Lord - they were tall, they were men, I believe, though their clothes were peculiar - they had pantaloons which reached to their feet, they wore no coats or cloaks, they were without beards, their heads were bald - shaved, I think - and they had pictures and patterns painted on their skin."

 

"Pictures? Religious images?" 

"Nay, My Lord, they seemed to be some form of decoration - flowers and artistic forms." 

"Hmm - and why did they say they had come?" 

"They seemed to be upset, they were arguing with each other all the time - they asked me twice what was the date, and they said the year was wrong, though I am certain I told them the truth. They said they had come from not far away, but from a long way in a different age - from the future, they said, though I know not what they meant." 

The background chatter sprang up once more, but Sir Thomas silenced it with a glare. 

"Please go on, Granny..." 

"They gave me a box, which they said was a gift from our descendants - it would help us rid ourselves of the plague, they said." 

"The box is before you on the table, My Lord," interjected the Clerk. 

The box was about the size of a man's head - without any markings. Sir Thomas lifted a flap and put his hand inside, and removed a number of shiny, cylindrical beads with rounded ends - all identical, each about the length of his thumbnail, with one end coloured yellow and the other crimson. He looked at a few of them, in the palm of his hand, and rolled them onto the tabletop. 

"There must be many thousands of these in here," he said. "Do we know what they are?" 

The Constable, Simon Chaffell, rose to his feet. 

"If it please your Lordship, as yet we do not know. They do not seem to be any kind of explosive device." 

"Thank you, Master Chaffell," said Sir Thomas, "I shall come to you in a moment, if you will - in the meantime, let me resume my questions of Mistress Farr. Granny, please tell us what happened next?" 

"Well, My Lord, I was going to prepare for them some bread and meat, and a little ale, after their journey, but they began to shout loudly, and they ran out into the kitchen garden, and up the hill towards the Mercat - they were very upset because their coach had gone without them..." 

Sir Thomas gestured towards the Constable. 

"Chaffell, can you tell us what happened?" 

"Well, Sir Thomas, the Widow Lalsworth was watching from her window opposite, and she saw two youths playing around the coach - Young Joseph Smallbone and his friend, the Fool Michael." 

"The Fool Michael?" 

"Yes, Sire, a simpleton who lives down at the Barnlands near the Nether Gate - he spends much of his time with Smallbone, who is a thief and a prankster, who does not work and never attends the church..." 

"I understand - please go on - what did Mistress Lalsworth see?" 

"She said that she saw Smallbone interfering with the coach - he climbed upon it, and went inside it. Then there was a strange sound - like music, the Widow says - and the coach disappeared. Then the strangers came out of Mr Musgrave's garden, shouting, and chased the Fool up the hill towards the Mercat Cross. We have searched for them since two days now, and alerted all the watch, but no sign has been found. We have examined the place where the coach stopped - there are no tracks of wheels or animals - there are only three round depressions in the earth where it rested. Otherwise the ground is undisturbed." 

"Thank you, Chaffell - I am concerned that these strangers, in such an unusual vehicle, could have entered though the gates of the town without being seen - I trust that they will be apprehended if they attempt to leave. I understand that there has been no sign of Smallbone, either? We must keep this "gift" in a secure place, in case they return, and perhaps we might examine some of these beads more closely. I would really like to know what these things are. Do you have any ideas, Constable?" 

"None, My Lord - perhaps they are some kind of religious offering, or gems of some kind? I know that Mistress Farr has some thoughts about this." 

At an enquiring glance from Sir Thomas, Old Jean spoke up. 

"I know this is without sense, My Lord, but I think they may be some kind of money." 

"Money? - they do not look like any kind of money I have seen, Granny." 

"Yes, My Lord, but the strangers told me that these beads are called Penny-Shillings in their country, and are highly prized."  

 

 

 

Hooptedoodle #380 - Reasons to Be Cheerful?

Times are difficult, no doubt, but I think we have to hang on to what we can get in the way of better news. This last week or so has seen definite signs of the beginning of the ends of a few pestilences - early days, admittedly, but promising...

 

Hooptedoodle #378 - No Fun at All, in the End

Yes, yes - I realise it isn't officially finished yet, since we are likely to have to live through the expected false-flag legal challenges, but the US Election is shaping up.

It would be unworthy to enjoy someone else's misfortune - except in very special cases, of course. Around midnight last night I heard that Mr Trump was about to make an unscheduled announcement from the White House.

We don't get to live through too many historic moments, so I thought I should have a listen on the radio. It's not my country, not my election, but the last 4 years have stretched patience and belief more than a little, even from this range. In truth, all I want is for the man to go away, and maybe I shall be spared his whining voice in future. That would do, but I also wanted to see if he could make a good end - perhaps, for once, he might present himself with unaccustomed dignity and maybe a little humility - it is the accepted way to do these things, I understand.

Fat chance. He spoiled the moment completely for me - I was profoundly embarrassed for him, and for his nation and its traditions. 15 minutes of deranged nonsense - incoherent, wild, paranoid, unstructured, fantastic - left me very uncomfortable indeed.

I assume he remains the commander in chief of the American armed services? Goodness me. If an ageing employee of yours exhibited behaviour like that, my guess is that he would be resting at home somewhere shortly afterwards. Unhinged.

None of my business, ultimately, but is that really the best he's got? Disappointing. That was no fun at all. 

 ***** Late Edit *****

*******************

Hooptedoodle #377 - The Siege of Chateau Foy

 Further to the reference in my previous post, work continues on the landscaping here. 

The old rhododendron bed has been cut back, and the big edging stones shifted, though the Royal Engineers won't be pleased with the wobbly lines, so some tweaking is in hand. It should all be a lot more OCD-compliant by the end of today. I understand that the big rocks came from our beach - I reckon the driveway was laid when the garage was built, in about 1975, so they've been here a while. There's a lot of earth to be dug out, then hardcore to be put down, and then a few loads of whinstone chips over the whole drive. Should be fine - almost makes me wonder why we didn't do this years ago, though I'd really rather not focus too much on the reasons why. To quote an old coffee mug I used to have when I was working, I guess we finally got a Round Twit - we've needed one for years.

In an experimental mood, Barry, our Iraqi War vet, hacked a hole into one of the juniper trees, to see what would be the best way of attacking these. It's dark in there, man.

Barry is more than capable of shifting any amount of earth with a shovel, but in the interests of speed we also have a very old Italian digging machine on site - known as The Green Shovel (to distinguish it from The Red Shovel - similar naming system to WSS Bavarian grenadiers, apparently). This machine has front and rear wheel steering, and you can, if you so wish, set all the wheels at, say, 45deg and drive along diagonally. Good toy, eh?

Result of this is that we temporarily have cars parked in some imaginative locations - I've given advance warning to neighbours, to minimise the inconvenience. At present rate of progress, work should be finished next week sometime. I'll double-check Vauban's original checklist for estimating timescales.

New Troops and Old Trees

I have a couple of new units for my WSS collection - very kindly painted by Goya and much appreciated. I based and flagged them yesterday. They are both grenadier battalions for the Bavarian army.

These are the "red grenadiers" which fought at the Schellenberg - the Boismorel Grenadiers, a (supposedly) French emigré unit donated by Louis XIV to the Elector's forces. The Colonel/Owner of the unit was one Monseigneur Boismorel, who was very well-connected, and seems to have spent his brief military service in the cafés of Munich. The man on the horse, then, must be Lt.Col De La Colonie, whose memoirs I am currently reading. Fascinating book, though Colonie may be the biggest braggart before Marbot - he's a wow with the ladies, his military achievements are breathtaking, he is slighted and wronged by all sorts of people - particularly his colonel - he is constantly arranging or threatening duels. Very exciting. The figures are Les Higgins 20mm, from long ago. These are fresh painted bare-metal castings, not my usual refurb efforts. The Boismorels (yes - "forest mushrooms") were originally planned as a 3-battalion unit, two of fusiliers and one of grenadiers, based on the organisation of the Bavarian Leibregiment, but only one battalion was raised. That's probably why they had a mixture of hats.

And here are the grenadier battalion of the aforementioned Leibregiment. Thus we have red grenadiers and blue grenadiers. That's fine - I can understand that. Nice, eh? Thanks again, Goya!

One thing I don't really understand (though I suppose I could find out quite easily) is why the Bavarians had formal grenadier battalions as early as 1703 - I don't know who else did. The British, French and Austrians all had grenadier companies as part of each fusilier battalion, and sometimes on the battlefield such companies might be combined for some special task or assault, but the practice of keeping these converged groupings of grenadiers together on a semi-permanent basis doesn't seem to have caught on, though it obviously did later. Certainly I don't know of any named grenadier battalions elsewhere. I would have expected the Bavarian army to be very like the Austrian or French model, but not in this instance. Prussian?

Topic 2: Landscaping

You know how gardens are - you see problems gradually taking shape, keep putting off the moment, and one day your hand is forced and you have to get something done. Nothing desperate, but it has to be done.

(1) Our driveway is curved - negotiating it in the sort of darkness you don't get in cities is made much more difficult by having to bypass a chicane of sorts - a border which once upon a time (before my days here) was a rhododendron bed. Now it is just a mess and a nuisance. We'll straighten out the driveway, then. If we change our minds in the future, we can always add potted shrubs or something.

(2) By the garden path, we have two juniper "shrubs" which never understood when they were supposed to stop growing. They have already been shortened a few years ago (to prevent their interfering with the radio transmission which brings our broadband service, and to stop their shading the neighbour's garden in the afternoon), and it made them extremely ugly. Now they are blocking the path, encroaching on the driveway and (potentially) threatening the septic tank. The problem with junipers is that they cannot be cut back - they are black beneath the skin and will not grow back or green up. If you have a look online you will find a great many people asking, "what can I do with my overgrown juniper?", and the answer from the experts is invariably, "get rid of it and plant a new tree".

Righto - the time has come. Work starts tomorrow. We are thinking what sort of tree would be a good replacement. I have not mentioned it to anyone yet, but it has occurred to me that a couple of new juniper shrubs would take 25 years to get back to this state...

While I had my camera in the garden, I took a photo of the lane past our front gate, which a week or so ago was flooded - the way it slopes stops the water coming into our garden, but the lane itself gave a very good impersonation of a shallow river heading down the hill at the height of the rainstorm. The square which you can just see the entrance to in the distance is equipped with very big storm drains - it's obvious why this is so!

 

Ten Years of Riotous Fun

Eventually, it came as a complete surprise. This blog has been running for ten years - last Tuesday, in fact. When I first started it, I had no idea what I was doing or getting into - at the outset, I made a personal note to knock it on the head if/when it needed it, and in any case kill it off after 10 years. There has to be a limit to how much rubbish one heart and mind can inflict on the world.

All this time later, I still have no idea what I'm doing. I have made a number of good friends through the blog, for which I'm very grateful, and overall I have relished the experience greatly - I've really enjoyed the writing (I always enjoyed writing) - and I have gained a lot of excellent advice and some important motivation for progressing my hobbies. So - all good, no regrets at all, though I am still perplexed by the occasional death threats...

Anyway, my bluff seems to be called - the scorer is reminding me that time may be up. What to do?

To be honest, I find the world in which I now live is darker and sadder than I had hoped, and (an irritation too far?) the dreaded New Blogger is still sufficient of a pain in the wassname to put me off doing lengthy posts with lots of photos. It would be ridiculous to keep posting just to keep up my batting average - it might become obvious that I have nothing more to say. Nothing helpful, anyway.

It would be too melodramatic to just delete the thing - I would certainly regret that sooner or later, and it would be - well - embarrassing. The one thing that is really saving it this morning is I started reading some of my earliest posts, and I remembered a few things, and I felt a little better about it. So what I'll do is have another quiet spell, I've decided. If I have something to say, I'll think about saying it. If something has happened in my hobby world that I'm pleased about, I may well share it.

Please don't send food parcels. To everyone who has read (or glanced at) this blog over the years I offer my best wishes - really appreciated. To the people I've got to know through my involvement in it, my most sincere thanks for everything. Look after yourselves.

Hooptedoodle #376 - Erm - Do You Have Anything a Little Stronger?

A friend passed me these scans of some Civil Defence-type posters issued by the UK Women's Voluntary Society in 1951, to help the population survive a nuclear attack. A quick read through suggests that everyone, even the WVS, knew that we were well screwed if there was such an attack. Statements like "you will be told..." - right - by whom? It's not that this wasn't well-intentioned, it's just that its earnest uselessness is a classic example of something whose name escapes me at the moment. Perhaps the WVS could assume responsibility for our current Covid-19 planning? I'm really glad we never had to rely on these instructions. Bless em all.

Hooptedoodle #375 - OCD Holidays with Soss

Portreath Harbour

When I was a kid, my closest relative and friend was a cousin, Dave, who was the same age. I had a pretty gruelling couple of years when I was 11 and 12 - it's a daft age anyway. Most of my friends at school lived some distance away, and I wasn't allowed to invite anyone to our house - this was in case they met my sister, who was mentally handicapped, which is a separate story altogether - my dad wasn't very good with stuff like that.

So I recall a dismal few years when there was a lot of homework and a very small amount of television, and I filled in my spare time by reading in my bedroom, and going for long walks with the dog. I later got some relief when I discovered the pleasures of cross-country running, but for a long time there was pretty much nothing going on. My family didn't talk much.

My cousin, whose parents were separated, got a place as a boarder at Liverpool Bluecoat School. The Bluecoat was an unusual school - it had day pupils - I also knew someone who attended there as a day pupil, but he said he was basically an outcast - the boarding school was very much the heart of the institution. There was a long tradition of places at the school being allocated on a charitable basis, which is how my cousin was accepted. Many of his friends in the boarding house were from military families, frequently British Army people stationed overseas - so he had pals who used to go home to Kenya or Malaya for the Summer holidays. Dave used to go home to sunny Wavertree. *

Liverpool Bluecoat School - I think that's the chapel

He also had a friend called Soss. They were pretty much inseparable. I used to go with Dave's mum to the chapel service at the Bluecoat most Sundays. The boarders all paraded in - very disciplined, full uniform - and there was a full, drawn-out service, organ, choir, proper sermon - the lot. The chapel was dark and cold and grandiose - lots of busts of Lord This and Viscount That, and General The-Other. And very, very hard pews. At the end of the service, the boarders were allowed to meet with any personal visitors - I think I used to get 5 minutes with Dave. Any items passed across had to be approved by a member of staff. I'm sure it was character-building, but my recollection is that it was a bit like a very dignified prison.

Dave was invariably accompanied by Soss, who never had visitors of his own. Soss - short for Sausage (his love of sausages was legendary at the school, apparently), his real name was Danny Burgess - was an odd character. He was quite small, and he never spoke. He would occasionally shrug, or grin nervously when spoken to, and he blinked constantly. He looked like an urchin - he had a pudding-basin haircut, years before the Beatles made such things fashionable, and his blazer was too big, and he always looked uncomfortable, and fidgeted. He was constantly in trouble for not polishing his shoes for the Sunday service.

Soss came from Cornwall. He was at the school as an Army orphan. His dad had been killed during the Suez Crisis. His dad was a driver in a transport section somewhere, and he died in a road accident around Suez time. This gained Soss a lot of contempt from those of his school chums whose families were senior officers in Colonial Places, and it added to his general exclusion. Soss's mother used to come up a couple of times a year for Speech Day, and to meet with his teachers. Her name was Antoinette, and she was a tough, rather battered little lady - very kind and very polite. She was as poor as a church mouse, and used to travel up from Cornwall to Liverpool on a relay of buses, which must have been dreadful. Because she couldn't afford to pay for accommodation, she used to stay with my aunt, and on one occasion, though it seems incredible now, she actually stayed with us. My mother got on very well with her, and they maintained a regular correspondence for some years. My mother was always fascinated by people who had had difficult lives, so I fear Antoinette may have been something of an exhibit.

When I was about 14, I suddenly learned we were going on a Summer vacation to Portreath, on the North Cornish coast, for a week, and we were going to stay with Antoinette. Sounds idyllic, but we were going in a car my dad borrowed from a work colleague who repaired cars in his spare time, and the whole spirit of the trip was along the lines of never mind how awful this is, just think of the money we're saving.

Our destination was Portreath, not far from Redruth. The holiday itself was not great. Antoinette had arranged cheap B&B at a friend's house, about a mile from her own home, for my parents and my sister, and I stayed in the village with Soss (I shared Soss's bedroom) and his mum, and her partner, Walter, who was a bit of a problem. Walter was an ex-marine, and covered with tattoos (by the standards of the day, anyway), and he was loud and aggressive, and argumentative, and he drank a great deal.

I found that I had been allocated a camp bed which rocked like a see-saw, so I stuck my suitcase under one end and a box under the other, and that stabilised things a bit. Soss had part of a large room which had been split into two by putting a partition down the middle, and this partition divided a large bay window in half, so that each half-room had a half-window, which made a sort of alcove where my bed was situated. 

I needed to add a simple map here, since the placing of the bed was one of the themes of the holiday. Problems were threefold: 

* the bed was dreadfully uncomfortable, and smelled of having been stored in someone's garage for years

* there was a street lamp right outside the window, which sounds odd, but the street lamp was a normal-sized lamppost, and the lane outside climbed steeply and turned very abruptly, so the lamppost from down the hill illuminated Soss's room quite brightly, even with the curtains closed

* the bed was tucked into the alcove to save as much space as possible, so I was at an angle to the rest of the room. Because I couldn't sleep anyway, I was constantly staring at the edges of the ceiling, which made very odd angles with my bed, which disturbed me greatly - bugged the hell out of me, with those vivid shadows! In the dead of night I got up, shifted the chair from next to the bed, and moved the camp bed so that it lay against the partition. That was better. The world was straight again, I could go to sleep.

I became acquainted with Walter after bedtime, since he came back from the pub very drunk, and started shouting and banging things about. Soss said we mustn't talk any more until the morning, or there might be trouble.

When I got up in the morning, Walter had gone to his work. He worked irregularly, and it seemed to involve a van and people that Antoinette wasn't happy with, and anyway Soss wouldn't talk about it. Fair enough.

It was a lovely day, so after breakfast Soss took me swimming in the harbour. In those days I had a glass face mask, which I got a lot of fun out of, but with hindsight it probably messed up my swimming, because I never swam any distances - I was always looking at the bottom of the pool, or playing around underwater. Whatever, off we went to the harbour. Soss, of course, swam like a tadpole - well out of my league. Because I had my face mask with me, he came up with a great idea that we would dive down, swim under some wooden fishing boats (they were two-abreast) and come up against the ladder on the harbour side. This was pretty good, actually, but on about my 4th turn the bow-wave from another vessel caused the boats to drift against the harbour wall, so that when I came up the gap had closed - I had a few seconds of absolutely blind terror, but I turned around and had enough breath left to swim back under the boats to the clear water on the far side. There was no real danger - in fact, I could have gone forward to the prow of the boat I was under, which was a shorter distance.

Soss laughed like a drain, of course, and I put a brave face on it, but I'd had a bad fright, whether or not it was justified, and I'd had enough underwater swimming for the day, thank you. I can still remember exactly how it looked and felt when I thought I was stuck down there.

We went back to Soss's house, to get rid of our swimming costumes ("cozzies" in both Liverpool and Cornwall, I recall!). My bed had been shifted back to its angled position, and there was a handwritten note:

DO NOT MOVE THE FURNITURE OR THERE WILL BE TRUBBEL. REMEMBER YOU A VISITOR HEAR!

Soss said don't worry, that was how things were in his family. I worried.

This looks about right...

OK - next adventure. Soss seemed to have a gift for targeting my neuroses - or possibly helping me create new ones. We took packets of egg sandwiches with us and went for a walk along the beach, round a couple of headlands, to what Soss called his secret beach. That was really very nice - it was deserted; we played around on the sand and in the water until lunch time, threw about a billion pebbles, and then Soss announced that we would have to get off this beach by climbing the 200-foot cliff behind us, since we were now cut off by the tide and the beach would be underwater soon. Once again, he was completely relaxed, totally in his own element, and had never considered that there might be townies who were pathetic enough to be scared of heights (as I was, and still am!). Up the cliff we went - only fear of letting myself down in front of my cousin's friend kept me going, I think, though I can't imagine what alternatives there were. We made it to the top, and I found that I had been clutching my package of sandwiches in one hand all the way up, which can't have been an advantage. There was a lot of very nervous laughter at the top, I can tell you.

Triumph Mayflower - not one of the British classics

And more of the same. I persevered with the oblique bed, dutifully went into hiding each night before Walter roared back from the pub, enjoyed the peaceful days when Walter went to work, and relished a few walks that did not involve cliffs or drowning in the harbour. I saw very little of my family - they may have been pleased to have got rid of me! To be honest, I am astonished that I can't remember much more about my stay in Portreath, though I do know that the weather changed on about day 4, and after about a day of looking at horizontal rain outside (and, I suspect, an argument between Walter and my dad, which could have left me an orphan as well) we cut our losses, and my family drove back to Liverpool in the borrowed car (which was an old Triumph). That was one occasion I was glad to get home again!

* Footnote, nundanket style: One of Dave's great friends at school was Brian Knowles, an exceptional musician, who earned his crust for many years touring as Musical Director with Roger Whittaker (quiet at the back, please), but eventually was established as a composer and performer in his own right. He is now Composer in Residence at the Royal School, Haslemere. I find it hard to imagine him hanging around in cold, dusty corners of the Bluecoat with Dave and Soss. Dave died of prostate cancer when he was only about 50 - Knowlesy played some music at the funeral, in Birkenhead. I have no idea what happened to Soss - my mother's correspondence with Antoinette stopped fairly abruptly!

Lost & Replaced - Pocket Tripod for My Camera

No, no - this is not a return to the HG Wells theme, this is my replacement mini-tripod. I have to confess that this morning's logic workout was how to take a photo of my new tripod with a camera fitted to it. So I borrowed a camera - this is a body-double. It took a while, but I got there in the end.

 

I used to have one of these - it was very handy indeed. Light and very compact, I could stick it in my pocket. When fitted to the camera, it gave a very useful pistol-grip option, which is steadier and easier to keep level, and, of course, as a tripod it was very versatile - the bendy legs allowed all sorts of camera heights and angles, and it was great for close-up pics on the wargames table.

Sadly, it was also ideal for putting down somewhere, and losing sight of. About two years ago, I lost it. I think I took it somewhere, and forgot to bring it back. If it had been more substantial and more expensive, I hear you thinking, I'd have taken more care of it. Well - not necessarily, but I know what you are saying.

I decided a while ago that I'd better replace it, and, of course, the 5-minute job of ordering one fell down a very deep well as soon as I saw what was on the market. There are all sorts of bigger and fancier ones, ones with self-levelling platforms, ones with remote-controlled motorised panning, I even saw one with BlueTooth, but what the BT does I can't imagine. So it became obvious very quickly that there was a big market, and I was going to have to take this seriously, and do some proper research, and buy one that was not a toy, and did not come at toy prices.

Well, after about a year of avoiding this extravaganza, I decided that what I really wanted was something light and simple - something very like my old one, in fact.

The other day I found exactly the same tripod on eBay. I ordered one, it arrived in 3 days. £2.99, post free. Goodness me - this Cheap & Cheerful thread is gaining some momentum! The tripod is identical to the old one. Yes, yes - I know - you think I'm going to leave it lying somewhere stupid, in identical reprise of history, and lose the beggar, don't you? Well, it's possible, but, since I have now, at long last, bought a replacement, I am certain that I will find the original one in a pocket of my away-days hold-all bag almost immediately, so I just know I will have a spare handy.

One Crossed Off the Job List...

 

According to this blog, in October 2011 I added the Lanceros de Castilla to my 1812-period Spanish army, and I made a note at the time that I needed to fit red pennons to their lances. Almost nine years later, gentlemen, I have not done anything about this, but, before you gasp in astonished disappointment, let me add that this very week I have read that it is very probable that this regiment did not fit their pennons when on campaign.

YES.

That will do nicely.

I shall now amend my Napoleonic Catalogue notes to say that this unit is complete, and I shall move on. Another triumph. Just goes to prove that you should never rush into anything. That was smart planning on my part, to delay this little job. What's that I hear? Do I have any confirmation or cross reference for this new information I have read? I regret that I have now placed my fingers in my ears, and am singing, very loudly.

 TRALALALALALA!

Quiz: There Are Places I Remember...

Some have gone, and some remain.

I was sorting out some old notebooks and files of - well - tat, really, and I found some old addresses connected with my wargaming interests over the years. I thought that some of this stuff must be well-known (and I'm sure 10 minutes with Google could destroy the fun anyway), so I offer the following (random) list of addresses and part addresses, to see if anyone knows them, or can remember what/who they are/were.

Because this is entirely (unfairly) slanted towards the UK, and my own interests, figure scales and periods, I offer it simply as a fun quiz - no prizes offered. See how many you can identify. Send me a comment, and I won't publish it if it contains answers. Or you can email me at the address in my Blogger profile (I assume that still works).

Whatever, I'll publish the answers next week.

(1) The Square, Earl's Barton

 

(2) Station Street, Meltham

 

(3) "Rowsley"

 

(4) Ponteland

 

(5) Northam Road, Southampton

 

(6) 20 St Mary's Road, Doncaster

 

(7) Lovel End, Windsor Forest

 

(8) 66 Long Meadow, Frimley

 

(9) 69 Hill Lane

 

(10) 75 Ardingley Drive, Goring-by-Sea

 

(11) "The Quantocks"

 

(12) 130 Wexford Avenue, Greatfield

 

(13) Spade House, Sandgate

 

All these places had their moments...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hooptedoodle #372 - A Modern Epic - Heroism in Very Small Steps

Morning run - the brave boys from USPS set off with another day's deliveries

Recently, I was brave enough to purchase something online from the United States. I used to do this from time to time in the past, but have sort of got out of the habit. Shipping prices and other overheads have become more problematic (various reasons), and I have a faint concern that the handlers will realise that the package is intended for the hostile liberals overseas, and may drive a fork-lift over it, or urinate on it, or similar (call me nervously imaginative if you will).

At the time I made the purchase, a delivery date of 28th-29th July was estimated, which seemed very optimistic, but no matter - I am not in a particular rush, and I am in any case now a veteran of a recent post-lockdown postal experience of air-freight from New Zealand which took a few months, so I have the calm which comes from experience. It's OK - these are tricky times - the brave chaps on the high seas will do their best for me. Whatever. We have to be grateful.

So I was pretty relaxed about my parcel - it will get here, but it might not make it by 28th July. Hey, there are lots of people in the world with real problems, so I can stand to wait a week or two. This morning I received an email message to say that my package had arrived at the courier, and was out for delivery.

Fantastic! - in a state of some excitement, I followed the links to get some tracking details of this miracle of space-age logistics.

Hmmm. What has happened is that it has arrived at the start of the international bit of its journey. All the previous toil and endeavour appears to have been local bits of USPS handing it on to each other - or maybe putting it back in the bin for tomorrow - or maybe rubber-stamping something [come on - I can't be expected to understand how these things work]. What seems to me like the hard bit has not begun yet, and I have not even mentioned import tax and all the glumph at this end. So I've gone back to my previous assumption that it will not make it by 28th. We have not yet got to tales of aeroplanes flying over the ocean, or Big Tam with the size 12 boots at the depot in Edinburgh.

Mind you, there's still 5 days to go. If it makes it, I promise I shall sing their praises on this very blog. I'm not too worried, to be honest - if it's late it serves me right for being rash - but this view of the innards of the gig economy at work doesn't impress me as much as I had hoped.

***** Late Digression *****

Nothing to do with the above (apart from implications of international shipping, I guess), but I've just got word from Allan at Lancashire Games that they will be stocking Vauban's Wars when it is printed and released. Just thought I should mention it...

************************

Wargame Pioneers - pictures from the archives

A friend passed me this - remarkable - it shows early trials of The Portable Wargame, in Leningrad in 1924.

[Editor's Note: this is, in fact, a lie. The occasion depicted is obviously a game of very large chess, though the date and place are correct. It was a demonstration game played between two Masters of the day, Peter Romanovsky and Ilya Rabinovich. Why? - I don't know - I'm just the bloody editor - maybe because they could? Observe that the rooks/castles have artillery, which must have been a handy thing to whip around the board in a hurry. Presumably you could stop your clock while the guns were limbering up. Are the pawns expected to clean up after the knights, I wonder.]

Reluctantly, I must add a couple more photos:

Rabinovich

Romanovsky

And they did make their moves by telephone! Also megaphone, as you see. That may be Romanovsky on the right. Right background is the Alexander I monument.

Here's a more recent bash at the same idea:

Hooptedoodle #371 - Darwin Is Watching

I'm very nervously watching news of the rapid upturn in Covid infections in a number of Southern and Western States in America, which would appear to be directly related to relaxation (or abandonment) of social distancing and health guidelines. I understand that the President has expressed the view that widespread testing has inflated the figures, and makes things look worse than they are - does this mean that we are best not to know?

Frank exchange of views in Austin TX on the merits of protecting public health - photo borrowed from the BBC

Mr Greg Abbott, the Governor of the State of Texas - a man who is unlikely to be a liberal of any sort, I would have thought, has warned that hospitals may be unable to cope, and is taking steps to increase testing and to ensure there are adequate supplies of PPE. Even the Vice-President, Mr Pence, is now urging the public to obey regulations regarding the wearing of face-masks, "wherever it's indicated", saying, "we know from experience, it will slow the spread of the coronavirus", which appears to be something of a change of policy from a week or two ago.

Very alarming. Obviously, I hope this will stabilise quickly - with luck, some helpful changes of attitude might result - maybe some of them in high places - it remains to be seen. Do current trends mean that Trump's supporters are disproportionately at risk? Can we - all of us - try very hard to learn something here?

Hooptedoodle #369 - Doomsday Obsession

A number of threads - of childhood nightmares, and of my failed career as a political activist...

This story is partly prompted by a piece of old junk I found when I was clearing my mother's house a few years ago - a sort of souvenir of my early teenage years, from a time of no little uncertainty and personal anxiety.

I've been watching the goings-on in the USA and elsewhere on TV, and, I'm afraid, I've always had a tendency to expect the worst. Usually, over the years, I've turned out to be unnecessarily pessimistic, but I guess I must be a slow learner.

I've always had some kind of Doomsday syndrome, I think. I was born in Liverpool, a city which was very badly smashed up by bombing during WW2. When I was a little kid in the 1950s, on the bus with my mother, travelling into the city centre to buy shoes or something, you could see the damage, still very much in evidence. Liverpool did not have a lot of money to rebuild, and these areas would have been a low priority anyway - there would be plans somewhere to demolish the whole lot for redevelopment as soon as possible, but all I could see were the gaps in the streets - if you travelled from the Dingle to the Pier Head, along Park Road or Mill Lane, which ran parallel to the river, within half a mile or so of the Southern Docks, every 5th, 6th, 8th, 12th house would be missing. These blitz sites gave me the horrors. Real nightmares.

Liverpool took a pasting in May 1941, when the Luftwaffe had bases near enough to put on massed raids - destruction of the port and the docks would have been a big strategic blow against the UK as a whole. The local defence chaps did their best, with searchlights and barrage balloons and AA guns and all the toys, but they stood little chance. The bomber crews would fly in over Warrington, and on a clear night they could see exactly where the targets were, as the river reflected the moonlight; they just flew along the East bank of the Mersey. Easy.

The actual air-raids were years before my time, but that whole story made a big impact on me - I guess I was a rather insecure child anyway, but the idea that some outside force could turn up and drop bombs on your house - I mean your kitchen, your toys, your mum, all the comfort in the known world - that was just devastating. I was really very obsessed with this stuff for years.

When we moved to Mossley Hill, a little further out into the suburbs, Saturday morning trips to the shops in Rose Lane now took us past the district Civil Defence HQ next to the railway station, and they had signs up on the walls telling you what you would have to do when the nuclear alert came - where to go, what position to assume, what you should take with you, what would happen. Not "if" the alert came - "when". This was like the WW2 blitz on an even more nightmarish scale. And there was no end of public information films on TV - all my school pals knew how near to the blast you would have to be to be vapourised, and we all knew that if you were not vapourised then things would be particularly grim thereafter. No wonder some of us grew up a little strange?

I remember going on holiday with my family - my dad hired a motor car, a real treat for us (it was a Morris!) - and we went down through the towns on the Welsh border, spending a week in Cornwall. At that time, I wasn't interested in anything - there was no point - we were all going to be vapourised anyway, so what could possibly be the point? My schoolwork was suffering, I had given up all my hobbies. On the holiday, at one point we reached a key moment - we were in the car park at Land's End. It was blowing a gale, it was cold and there was horizontal rain. My dad told me that for goodness sake I should cheer up a bit - this was a famous place, and I should enjoy being there - I might never have the chance again (in fact I've never been back). I was unimpressed - I knew that, like everywhere else, one day soon there would be a big flash in the sky (it might be over there, or it might be over there) and everything would be vapour and rocks.

Eventually I got over it, but I've always been a staunch pacifist, given the chance. I was at school when the Cuban missile crisis boiled up, I was at school when Kennedy was assassinated - I always had a good idea what was going to happen next...

At one point I took advantage of a free period at school, sagged off, took the bus into town, and visited Progressive Books in Mount Pleasant, up the hill from the Adelphi, towards the old University, and bought a small supply of CND badges for me and some fellow pacifists at school. I believe they were one shilling and sixpence each, by the way. The badges disappeared like the proverbial hot cakes, and I was commissioned to return to the "Commie Bookshop" for a further supply. No school uniform this time, either - anarchists didn't wear school uniform. The people in the bookshop were very kind to me, and obviously tried not to embarrass me, but they produced some leaflets (political - oooh...), and asked would I like to take some of these for my friends, and they were having a meeting the following Saturday if we would all like to come. I imagine I left at a good, brisk trot, without the leaflets. I delivered my load of CND badges, and the world moved on.

Not quite - I've always had that ability to see the Apocalypse coming over the hill - yet again - here it comes - 3rd time this week. That's why, when everyone was excited, watching the Berlin Wall come down, I was watching through my fingers, waiting for the shooting to start.

That's also why, when the fat fools who are in charge of the USA and North Korea were threatening each other with extermination recently, I felt that old, familiar sinking of the heart, and wondered why they couldn't get some grown-ups to do these jobs. I do hope Mr Trump doesn't frighten any little children in the world - being a child is scary enough as it is.

That's not much of a story, probably, but a lot of the shaping of my views is captured right there, however silly it may seem. That is how we were brought up - maybe I was a good boy, and reacted the right way. Maybe not. Whatever, I've always been a mug for any casual Doomsday story.

In passing, many years later, when I was married, with a young family, and striving to make ends meet, one birthday time I was given my Annual Appraisal at work by my boss of the day, who was a nice old boy - I liked him. As we finished the discussion of what I hoped to achieve, and how the professional exams were going, he said to me, "You're not still involved in the political stuff, are you?".

I was completely bewildered - I assured him I was not the slightest bit interested in politics, never had been, and he made a brief note on my file. I forgot all about it.

Many more years later, by which time I was a rather more important member of staff than I had been, something happened (was it the start of Data Protection?) and I was given the opportunity to see my personal staff file, by the same employer. I took the chance, and didn't think much about it, but in the miscellaneous section at the end was a handwritten note:

Active member of Communist Club at University and possibly a party affiliate of some sort - started at school?

I was dumbfounded - no basis for this at all. Untrue, in fact - not even close. Next to the note, in red ballpoint pen, my old boss, Bill (who had subsequently retired and was probably dead by then) had written: no evidence of this now, and that seemed to be the end of it.

Red Herring

 It doesn't matter now, but I have sometimes wondered where that came from - what on earth was it about? I guess I'll never know - probably a mistake. Yes - let's assume it was a mistake. At least they haven't vapourised me yet, though I suspect they are working on it at this very moment.

Hooptedoodle #368 - Beyond Parody

My dad was not a tough man. He would have liked to have been, but he didn't cut it - not even a bit. He used to like to watch movies about tough-guys. Sometimes he tried to adopt some of their lingo, which was potentially bizarre - James Cagney in 1950s Liverpool would have been a poor fit, and also would have had his head kicked in very quickly. Such is the ugly side of evolution, I guess, but in the long run it's a safeguard.

I did once catch my dad, when I was about 6, maybe, practising his Robert Mitchum expression in the mirror, cheeks sucked in, eyes half closed. He stopped pretty quickly, of course, and pretended he was checking a pimple on his nose, but I saw it, and I didn't forget. Very odd - after all these years it makes me laugh, but it was very odd.

There is something uncomfortably familiar about a photo I saw yesterday on the internet. What, in God's name, is this?

I guess this man is not actually weeping. More likely the picture is supposed to be intimidating. The teams of image manipulators and psychologists behind the throne have obviously decided this is The Look, and these are, let's face it, very clever people,

Fair enough. One way or another, I suppose I am impressed. I leave you to make up your own mind about this, and about what it is intended to achieve. Do you think the pedal-bin hair adds much to the overall impact?