Hooptedoodle #52 – On Being Rich and Famous

Nothing gets Breakfast TV switched off quicker in our house than the scheduled few minutes with the Show-Biz Correspondent, possibly live from Hollywood, with tales of who has been seen with whom. Glossing over the fact that I have not heard of most of the people mentioned, I really cannot believe that anyone gives a rat’s about this stuff. Does someone out there actually care?

Not being interestingly rich or famous myself, I have never paid much attention to the private lives of those who are. I accept that I appear to be in a minority here, so let’s be a bit more specific – I don’t care much about the private lives of people who are still alive, anyway. Once, long ago, astounded to learn on the BBC’s lunch-time national news that a Palace Spokesman had told the world’s press that Princess Diana was suffering from a slight cold (she was still alive at the time, I hasten to add), I complained to my wife-of-the-day that I was once again thinking of resigning from the human race, or any other species which spent its time waiting for daily news of this calibre. Bad move – I was immediately skewered with a familiar laser-beam stare.

“You,” she said, “should be trying to get in the queue to JOIN the bloody human race”.

To this day, I am sure she was right, so since then I have tried to keep track of areas where I don’t quite line up with the mainstream – not because I necessarily wish to change, you see, but because a little understanding never did any harm, and forewarned is fore-something-or-othered. Armed – yes, that was it.

All those magazines that stare at me next to the checkout in the supermarket – the ones with an exclamation mark at the end of the title – all plugged into some national obsession. “Katy Price tells all – exclusive”, and there is Katy on the cover, looking right at me – sharing her secret just with me. Good on you, girl. You tell em. Don’t tell me, though, for goodness sake.  

That’s what nearly all kids want to be now – rich and famous. Rich = famous. I’m not so sure about that, but there is a general assumption that fame brings riches, and you have to be rich to be interesting. Just as well that Jesus or Gandhi aren’t around now, then – they would get no coverage at all.

I see special celebrity editions of shows like Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, and many of the supposed celebs are unknown to me. There are more and more famous people, it seems, and I’m still not one of them. I’m probably jealous – that must be it.

I knew we were in trouble a few years ago when I saw a bit of a TV show which featured people who earned money from being professional look-alikes – being booked to turn up at hen-parties and suchlike. I found that an interesting idea, and I thought the Bruce Springsteen clone was really good, but there was one character I had not come across before, and it turned out that this particular guy earned his living from impersonating one of the then-current stooges on the Big Brother reality TV show. Just a minute – but isn’t that a reality show, featuring real people (i.e. non-celebrities)? Does that mean that exposure on reality TV converts people into celebrities important enough to justify the existence of a paid look-alike?

This is scary – especially since anyone who thinks he sings quite well in the bath can now get publicly humiliated on Britain’s Got Talent – are they all famous too? At this rate, everyone is going to be a celebrity eventually. I hadn’t thought of this – if I become the last man on earth that no-one has heard of, surely in its way that would be, like, really exclusive? I mean, you know, such a person would be interesting enough to warrant some media exposure. Someone should interview him on TV to see what’s wrong with him. Ghost-write his autobiog. Hmmm.

On the radio recently there was a pointless phone-in about something or other, and someone was sounding off at length about the obscene amount of money Wayne Rooney gets paid a week, and what a disgrace this is. [For non-UK readers, or UK readers who could not care less, Rooney is a prominent football (soccer) player with Manchester United – arguably the most gifted English player at the moment, and his private life keeps the media and the public in a state of great excitement]. For once, the pundit in the studio seemed to me to have something sensible to say:

(1)   If Rooney is offered a certain, very high, wage, is he expected to say (as we all would, of course), “Oh no, that’s far too high – I’m not worth it”? Bear in mind that a single bad injury could end his playing career tomorrow, so this whole issue is very high-geared. The man is not a filing clerk.

(2)   This is a free market – if the complainer begrudges him the money (or envies it?), all they have to do is apply for Rooney’s job. I’m sure that Man Utd would be delighted to talk to them.

Is all this, ultimately, just about envy?

I fear that, once again, I have not progressed my ideas very far – I’ve just sort of wheeled them out of the shed. No matter, I can wheel them back again for another day. On the general topic of not fitting in with the times, here’s a good song from Loudon Wainwright – this is the best clip I could find. I’m sorry that the last 4 minutes or so appear to be silent – you can stop it when the music ends or, if you prefer, you could use the silence to meditate on a topic of your choice. I guess LW is not rich or interesting enough to justify a better clip.

Once, back in the days when I wore a suit every day, I was mistaken for someone famous. I was hurrying up Charlotte Street, in the centre of Edinburgh, late for a meeting with a lawyer, as I recall, when I was stopped by two middle-aged ladies with beaming smiles.

“You’re him, aren’t you?” said one, “him on the telly.”

I was a bit taken aback, and explained that I was sorry, but I was not him.

“Oh, come on!” said the second lady, “we know who you are!”

I muttered something appropriately pathetic, and continued to my meeting.   

Later the same day I was telling some colleagues about this. One of them couldn’t believe that I hadn’t asked who they thought I was. I was a bit surprised that I hadn’t asked, too, but deep down I’ve always known that I would probably have been upset if I had found out, so I’m glad I never knew. Sometimes I do wonder, though.

That’s as near to famous as I ever got.

Solo Campaign - Siege Rule Tweaks

Since it looks as though my campaign may produce a siege quite soon, I was encouraged to go back to my mathematical siege rules, since there were some bits in there I wasn't sure about. There was a post on this system a few months ago - I explained there that, though an algorithmic system for sieges is certainly not a big attraction from visual and fun-generation aspects, it is (sadly) necessary to handle sieges in this way in a map campaign, since a siege will last for a number of campaign moves (and thus must be able to coexist with armies marching and fighting elsewhere on the map in a different timescale) and also since it might be necessary to have more than one siege running concurrently.

The particular bit I wasn't happy about was the section on Storming. Without getting too deeply into the nuts and bolts (again), the idea is that the defenders have a couple of numbers associated with them - a Fortress Value (FV), which represents the strength of the place and its guns, and a Garrison Value (GV) which indicates the fighting capability of the guys in the fort - this is a kind of lumpy amalgam of numerical strength, attitude, and their current ability to carry on - for whatever reason. Similarly, the besieging force have a Battering Value (BV), which is a measure of their heavy artillery capability, and an Assault Value (AV), which is the amount of force they could bring to bear in the event of (you guessed) an assault, but this number also makes allowance for the men who are available for digging ditches, carrying stuff and just constituting a threat.

The detail of the siege rules is set out in the orginal notes, here and here, so I won't go through all that again, but the idea is that bombardment and (implied) sorties and mining etc wear down these numbers. At the point that a storm is attempted, the appropriate section of the rules is set out in its new form below, with the odd explanatory annotation here and there. The inclusion of a dice roll for the defenders and the besiegers is intended to reflect performance and luck on the day. The calculation of losses bothered me - something struck me as counter-intuitive. If the totals for ASS and DSS (as described below) were very close - in other words, if the result of the storm was a close call the casualties would tend to be relatively light, which intuitively seemed completely wrong. A close-fought storm might have the heaviest casualty rates of all, so I've made a couple of changes - I now use the absolute values of DSS and ASS, rather than the difference between them, when calculating loss, and have changed the formulae slightly. It's a minor tweak really, but I'm a bit more comfortable about how it works now. In a campaign, losses have a lasting significance.

Here's the revised section from my Campaign Rules:

11.3.3 Storming:
Defenders’ Storm Strength, DSS = FV + GV + 1D6
Attackers’ Storm Strength , ASS = AV + 1D6  [BV, the Battering Value, does not count in a storm]

* If ASS > DSS then the fortress falls and the garrison surrenders. Attackers lose a final, further 0.25 x DSS (rounded to nearer whole number) from AV. Defenders lose 0.5 x ASS from GV.
* Otherwise, if ASS <= DSS, storm is repulsed; attackers lose 0.5 x DSS from AV; defenders lose 0.125 x ASS from GV
[Losses in GV and AV are not simply casualties – they represent all manner of loss of ability to continue – and note that GV and AV can become negative].

Whenever it is necessary, at any moment during the siege (or when the siege is broken off or completed), actual casualties may be computed as one tenth of the %age loss of AV or GV since the start of the siege. 

Example – if a successful besieging force started out with AV = 8, and end with AV of 6, then they have lost one tenth of 25% = 2.5% of the total force present; if the defenders started out with a GV of 5 and end with GV = -1 then casualties are 1/10 of 120% = 12%; if the fort surrenders, the remaining 88% will become prisoners.

[It occurs to me that if I don't actually get to a siege in the campaign then it doesn't really matter that I've improved the rule, but it's the principle of the thing!]

Solo Campaign - Week 13

Ciudad Rodrigo - General Reixas checks that everything is ready

Week 13 - Narrative

Having received further prompts from Paris to carry the fight to the Allies, with the objective of invading Portugal, Marmont detached D’Armagnac, with two infantry brigades (6400 men) and the Italian foot artillery battery (8 guns), together with the siege train and engineers of the Armee de Portugal. This force marched to Zamora, where they joined with Clauzel’s command.

Jourdan, with his newly assembled force, carried out a splendid piece of forced marching, travelling from Toledo, via Madrid, to Avila without any straggling.

Karl, Baron Von Alten

Karl von Alten, with the Anglo-Portuguese Light Division, the KGL Hussars and Maceta’s Spanish volunteers, became aware that there were now French forces to the north and the south – Maceta’s contacts among the civilian population confirmed that the force at Avila (Jourdan – though the Allies did not have this information) was large enough to cause concern. The combined Allied force accordingly fell back to the area around Ciudad Rodrigo, since their relative lack of cavalry would make it impossible to withdraw if attacked.

General Barbot

Concerned about the possibility of sea-borne landings on the north coast, the French moved Barbot and his garrison troops at San Sebastian to Bilbao, replacing them at San Sebastian with a force of 4000 National Guard plus artillery from the Bayonne reserve.

Gregorio Cruchaga

Gregorio Cruchaga has been appointed in Navarra to lead the irregular partisans formerly commanded by the Gomez brothers.

Strategic Note

With the Allied army occupying Galicia, the French cannot get into Portugal without getting past the fortresses at Almeida and/or Elvas.

Marmont is convinced that the Allies will not attack him across the mountains from Galicia. Since he is once again directed by the Minister of War to invade Portugal, he has detached his siege train and some of his infantry to join Clauzel to the south.

Jourdan has moved from Toledo to Avila, and the French now have some interesting possibilities:

(1) If Von Alten stands his ground at Salamanca, attack him with some combination of Clauzel’s and Jourdan’s forces – then move to lay siege to Ciudad Rodrigo, which would require two weeks march to receive support from Cotton (who is at Orense).

(2) If Von Alten sees the threat and retires back to Ciudad Rodrigo, there are choices – either pursue him and attack him there with the combined Clauzel/Jourdan force or (riskier but potentially more decisive) hold him there with Jourdan’s force while Clauzel (now reinforced by Armagnac’s 2 brigades), attacks Cotton and Espana at Orense. Defeat for Cotton would leave Wellington isolated in Galicia and allow more time for a siege at Rodrigo.

Either way, Rodrigo is the objective.

The roads from Lugo to Almeida are not good, even in decent weather, and it would be difficult for Wellington to support Rodrigo quickly or force a siege to be lifted. He is really obliged to move south now, back into Portugal, even though this may allow the French an alternative (tortuous) route to Lisbon, bypassing the border fortresses.

The situation of Maceta, whose Spanish troops are currently in Ciudad Rodrigo alongside Von Alten’s, is interesting. He and his troops belong to the Junta de Castilla, and will not serve in Portugal. If Von Alten is forced to retire into Portugal, Maceta may have to separate his forces and head for Caceres instead.

Solo Campaign - Week 12

Quiet week in the Peninsula - Wellington survived a vote in the House by the skin of his teeth, the French are busy collecting together small forces into bigger ones and Karl von Alten is marching off to Salamanca [...do you think that's wise, Captain Mainwaring?].

Higher profile? - Marshal Jourdan

Lower profile - a contemporary sketch of Pedro Gomez

Week 12 - Narrative

A vote in the British Parliament was tabled, but voting was narrowly in favour of keeping Wellington in command in the Peninsula.

Since this is the weekend nearest 15th April, reinforcements, replacements and returns from hospital have arrived. The French have an increase of 2820 men, the Anglo-Portuguese 4010 plus 2 guns, and the Spanish regulars 320 men. No-one knows accurately the strength of the Spanish irregulars, which are diced for as occasion arises.

The Gomez brothers have been removed from the command of the irregular troops of the Junta de Navarra who were defeated at Ancenigo. In fact, they appear to have disappeared completely.

Karl von Alten, with the Light Division, and the Spanish volunteers and irregulars commanded by Maceta, have marched into the Salamanca area. Attempts to scout northwards into Zamora were foiled by superior French cavalry. All Alten knows is that there are French dragoons there.

Marshal Jourdan is now in command of a new, consolidated French force at Toledo – this comprises Neuenstein’s Confederation brigade, Maucune’s division of the Armee de Portugal and Treillard’s cavalry from the Armee du Centre. The intention is to give them some extra artillery from the fortress at Badajoz [but they didn’t have enough orders left this week]

The Anglo-Portuguese army, apart from Von Alten with the Light Division, is holding position at Lugo and Orense, on the assumption that the French will not attempt to attack through the mountains on the border between Castilla and Galicia. [If the French do attack, and if they are successful, Wellington will be accused of inactivity as well as his other problems].

Foy has rejoined his Division at Leon – he is reported to be walking with the aid of a stick.

The fever epidemic among the French (Confederation) force in Burgos appears to be over – there have been no new cases, and troops are starting to return to duty.

Falcata - 30 Years War range

Hermogenes at Falcata Miniatures sent me some of the first pictures of their forthcoming 30 Years War figures, which will be available later this year - after the Summer, Hermogenes says.

I thought it might be a nice heads-up for anyone with an interest in 1/72 metal figures for this period. They aren't in the catalogue yet, but the catalogue is worth a look anyway - check out the Carlist Wars figures, and I fancy some Isobelinos for converting into late Peninsular War Spanish.

ECW - Yet more figure comparisons

Still my investigations continue into which figures will work with my principal choice of Les Higgins as maker of my 20mm ECW armies. Progress has been a bit ponderous, because of my own lack of organisation. At last I have samples from Tumbling Dice, who were very helpful and quick once I had got around to emailing them.

So here is yet another strange green picture with unpainted figures. My conclusions to date are:

* Les Higgins are still the standard for my armies, by reason of affection and long-held ambition.
* Hinton Hunt are compatible, near enough.
* SHQ/Kennington - foot figures are nice, but a bit chunky to mix in - self-contained units probably OK. This was a bit disappointing, because I had hoped to be able to use SHQ foot command figures in Higgins units, but I'm not so comfortable about that now. SHQ cavalry are a good match with Higgins - no problems there - in fact Higgins riders on SHQ horses look good as well.
* Tumbling Dice - foot figures are similar in stature to SHQ - not quite so beefy - I am optimistic about being able to mix TD infantry figures in with Higgins units. This was a surprise, since I had expected them to be bigger. Cavalry are an excellent match, though the horses are bigger than both SHQ and Higgins. TD riders on SHQ horses also work OK.
* Art Miniaturen - they are lovely, but too big in this context.
* S-Range Minifigs - they have a charm of their own, but next to the Higgins figures they are big-headed and their physique looks wrong and, of course, they are armed with telegraph poles.
* Plastics - a lot of nice stuff out there, but in general they are too big to match - I'm keeping an open mind.

I hope to get as far as actually painting a trial unit in a week or three, and there is talk of some visiting armies coming for a VwQ game.

In my reading, I'm still looking for a regional context for my own ECW - I'm currently interested in Lancashire in 1644. I may have changed my mind in a couple of days. I'm looking for an area which strikes some personal chimes, and which is obscure enough to allow liberties to be taken with actual history.

No end of possibilities - I could do with having more time.

Hooptedoodle #51 - Not Like Me at All

Thomas Newman

For almost all my life I've loved, played and collected music. I tend to lose critical arguments on the subject, because my tastes are (I think) unusually wide and, because I studied it for so many years, I have been exposed to, and impressed by, all sorts of styles and genres. I also think that the passing years bring a change to one's perception and appreciation - I am less interested in attitude these days (though I have my moments) and more involved by textures and orchestration. I am mystified by the number of sub-categories of contemporary dance music, and can't really see why anyone would be interested enough to go to the trouble of coming up with all those names, but this kind of trainspotting approach to music classification appears to have partly replaced what I would recognise as artistic appreciation. No matter.

I have a very large collection of CDs - visitors might probably be disoriented more by the lack of consistency than anything else. Delius, Robben Ford, Planxty, loads of jazz (whatever the hell that is - anything from King Oliver to John Scofield, but an awful lot of Bill Evans and 1950s be-bop guitarists), 1940s R&B, Cuban bands, on and on. Of late I have been listening to gypsy jazz guitarists, the work of Vince Mendoza, Mendelsohn's symphonies, Tom Waits, Fauré, a lot of baroque concerti, Anthony Wilson - a very mixed bag. I have no axes to grind, it's just stuff that I like.

One thing I have never got much involved with is film music - I've maybe even been slightly prejudiced against it. I have Shostakovich's "Gadfly" on CD and I bought the music from "Gladiator" (because I couldn't get it out of my head), and I have a couple of albums of music from Jacques Tati's films (because it makes me feel happy), but otherwise not much. Music designed to go along with a movie seems, intuitively, to be only part of something. Also, because they are meant to generate a variety of moods and support a wide assortment of dramatic situations in a film, listening to a series of short tracks in quick succession in your living room can be a bit unsettling - they tend not to develop in a symphonic sense.

It is not like me at all, but recently I have become very interested in the hypnotic soundtrack works of Thomas Newman. I was aware of the big hit theme from "American Beauty", and also that he was a very successful composer for film, with a huge back catalogue - I even knew that he was Randy Newman's cousin - but his work had mostly passed me by. I've now bought the soundtrack albums for a number of his films, and I think they are remarkable. Most of the clips for Newman on YouTube feature distracting (and sometimes soppy) trailers from the films, so I've included a clip which shows somebody's Canadian photos - and very nice too.

Not everyone's cup of tea, for sure, and until recently I wouldn't have bothered to listen, but I may have become a fan. Mind you, after an hour or so I'll be digging out my old Steely Dan albums.