Les Oreilles de Truie

1/17eme Léger, at long last - Les Higgins figures with a few interlopers in the
Command section - Qualiticast and Kennington, and the nonchalant eagle bearer in
the bicorn hat was previously (hush) a Falcata Spaniard...

After much muttering and retouching, and re-correcting of corrections, the first (and probably only) battalion of the 17eme Léger is ready for The Cupboard.

Refinishing these fine fellows has taken a lot of time and a lot of fiddling about – they will henceforth be known, not as “Napoleon’s Incomparables”, nor “Un contre huit”, nor even “Les Chasseurs du Diable”, but as “Les Oreilles de Truie” – the sows’ ears, in commemoration of the fact that they never quite made it into the Silk Purse section.

In fact I’m fairly pleased with them, and am especially pleased that I have finished the beggars. Perhaps at long last I may have learned that touching up a so-so buy on eBay cannot achieve miracles, and that – whether I like the idea or not – a complete paint job from bare metal will almost always give a better result, with probably less effort and certainly a lot less irritation.

Whatever, here they are, and it’s hardly their fault their military career with me got off to a bad start… 

Foy Gone to Pot?

Here's one I hadn't seen before. It's me, Max Foy!

This is a ceramic bust of me, manufactured in 1820 - which is after I'd retired from the army and become a prominent liberal politician, orator and effective leader of the opposition in the French Chamber of Deputies, but it is also before I died in 1825, so I guess this is a representation of me as I then was.

The bust is in the Musee Lorrain, in the Palais Ducal in Nancy. It is not there because I myself came from Nancy (I was born in the department of Somme), but because the piece was manufactured at Niderviller, in Lorraine. This is rather more jovial than I am customarily portrayed, so I have mixed feelings about it - perhaps it's sardonic? Anyway, I came across the picture by accident, while looking for something else entirely.

Hooptedoodle #133 - Hadrian's Wall - a quick revisit

In September 2012 I walked the entirety of Hadrian's Wall, West to East (which is traditionally the "wrong" way). It was a worthwhile trip, but there were a few minor regrets which caused me to make a mental note to come back another time.

(1) Doing the whole of the Wall - right across England from coast to coast - is an achievement in itself, but, of the six days it took us to do it, the first two (Bowness on Solway, through Carlisle to Banks) and the last two (Chollerford, through Heddon on the Wall and downtown Newcastle to Wallsend) show very little evidence of the wall itself, and are pretty uninspiring really, not least since parts of them have been re-routed by the National Trails people to take them right away from anything vaguely Roman.

(2) The weather was pretty awful for the second half.

(3) To be honest, my two companions really didn't get on very well, which had a lot to do with one of them having failed to prepare properly for the expedition, and thus struggling with blisters and lack of physical condition and slowing everything down. I was cast in the role of reluctant piggy-in-the-middle for much of the trip.

I promised myself I would come back, in a quieter season, with more suitable company, in decent weather, and do the lovely middle section again. This week I did it.

With three old walking buddies, I stayed two nights at the Twice Brewed Inn (which is worth the trip just for the beer and the grub), and on Tuesday we walked from Banks Turret to Steel Rigg, scrambling along the crags for much of the way, and on Wednesday we spent the morning completing the crags, from Housesteads Fort back to Steel Rigg.

Excellent - the weather was clear and actually hot, and it was really most enjoyable. We also won the pub quiz by a Roman mile on the Tuesday night, which may be connected with being the only entrants who were old enough to answer most of the music questions.

Once again, I am humbled by the engineering achievement which the wall represented in its day - or by any standards you care to name, for that matter. You couldn't get one built now, I think.

Walking alongside the River Irthing, which has moved a few hundred metres
sideways from the place where the Romans put a bridge across it

A good day for being a Roman soldier - Foy in the orange jerkin (easily visible
to rescue helicopters - which is a joke) and silly old lucky campaigning hat
(to avoid optical migraines caused by bright sunlight - which is not a joke)

Hooptedoodle #132 - The Third Light

Reckless behaviour

A long time ago, I worked in Edinburgh with a fierce old Aberdonian named Ken.

Ken was a heavy smoker, which killed him in the end, sadly, and once, in a pub session (during which smokers used to take a religious pride in making things as uncomfortable as possible for non-smokers in those days), he suddenly blew out a match offered to him, shouting "Third light!".

When I asked about this, he explained that it was very unlucky to be the third person lighting a cigarette from the same match, and that he always took this very seriously. He believed it dated from the First World War, when it was considered that the time taken to light a third cigarette gave an enemy sniper a chance to draw a bead on the third man. I imagine that no-one in the trenches was prepared to go to any lengths to disprove this practical guideline, so it became a law. Ken - and many others, apparently - were convinced that bad luck would still come to anyone accepting a Third Light, though WW1 was long gone, and there were very few snipers around in Rose Street on a Friday lunchtime in the late Seventies.

Putting the theory to the test

I have always been intrigued by pieces of folklore and common-use idioms which come from a military background. This probably comes from a time in my childhood (in Liverpool) when I suddenly realised that our everyday language and school slang involved many words and phrases which were, on the face of it, meaningless, but which on further investigation turned out to come from the merchant seaman's lexicon or from the British army in India.

An obvious attempt at suicide

OK - back to Ken. My interest in this subject is very casual, but I understand that it is likely that the origins of the Third Light superstition - also known as "Three on a Match" - are older than WW1, and may come from the Crimean War. Idly, I find myself wondering if they had snipers operating in the Crimea (I know they had them in the ACW), and just when it was that smoking became universal in the British army. In the Peninsular War, I believe that the widespread smoking habit of the Spanish was regarded as something rather peculiar by their British allies.

Anyone have any views on this? Just idle curiosity on my part.

Touching & Retouching - Sows' Ears & Silk Purses

There are a few real life distractions going on at present, and I’m recovering from a major refurb effort on some bought-in ECW figures. As a result I have been doing very little painting for a few weeks, and have only just started on another retouching job, which I can pick up or put down as time permits in the evenings.

This time it is a French Napoleonic light infantry battalion. I didn’t need or expect to have another of these, but they were on eBay, and they looked quite nice…

I should have them finished in a few days, but at present they are progressing more slowly than I had hoped, and – a recurring theme for the past 15 years or so – yet again I find that I am surprised by the manner in which simple refurb jobs never turn out to be what you thought they were going to be. You would think I would get the hang of this – it isn’t a problem, but constantly being surprised by the same phenomenon is worth thinking about, at least. My grandmother used to maintain that every day you learn something, but that it is not good if it is always the same thing.

The starting point for buying old figures always involves the same decision point – the figures are suitable, and either

(A) they are cheap enough – or rare enough – to justify a full strip-and-start-again job, or

(B) they are nice enough as they are to fit in with just a little touch-up and some new bases

...and it goes wrong immediately from that point.

I am the man who once bought some really pretty Nassau infantry from eBay, and had them in the Nitromors within a day when I saw what the paint job was really like close up. I am also the man who stripped and repainted a fairly expensive pre-owned cavalry unit when I realized that the paint had been “professionally” applied to castings which still had the original flash on them. There are many tales like this – in fact almost all of my repainted units involved a post-delivery reclassification from (B) to (A) to some extent or other.

The present battalion of Frenchies are typical. They looked super on eBay – Les Higgins figures, painted in a plain, old-fashioned style similar to mine own – they would fit right in. A bit of an indulgence to add yet another unit of lights, but hey. There was an early setback when it came to light that the seller had counted them incorrectly, and the batch was 3 figures smaller than advertised. OK – we sorted that out. So I had 15 chasseurs (they even had their bayonets) plus an officer, all painted. My bold friend and ally Iain came up with another 3 unpainted figures to provide some carabiniers, I added a charging officer and a hornist (both by Qualiticast) from the spares box, a mounted colonel by Kennington and an improvised eagle bearer, really a Falcata Spaniard. Bingo – a battalion, as defined by the house standards. More painting than I had had in mind, but fine.

And then you sit down with the painting glasses and the bright lights, and line up the selected paint pots in the right order, and get fresh water pots, and a good coffee, and put on the music (Debussy and Sarah Vaughan and Steely Dan, this week…) and take a deep breath, and then the truth starts to filter through.

It’s pointless to analyze absolutely everything, but I think I retouch things for a number of reasons:

(1) The paint is damaged

(2) The uniform details are incorrect

(3) The paintwork does not please me, for any reason at all (it’s easier to change them now than live for years with the wish that I had changed them)

(4) Wow – now that I get a good look, that white paint is pretty yellow – better sort that out

(5) …and those red plumes have faded very badly…

(6) …and any combination of the above…

These Vallejo paints are much better...

This particular batch have failed on points (2) to (4), and it is now clear that they were once expertly painted, but subsequently touched up by a less skilled artist. In the list of ouches there is a classic bad decision – the later painter decided to improve things by applying white piping to the edges of the dark blue turnbacks (on dark blue coats). Mistake. Inaccurate contrasting piping sticks out like a sore thumb – spoils the whole thing. I probably could not have done any better myself, but I wouldn’t have attempted it. I firmly believe that no piping at all looks superior to bad piping – I shall ensure that the prominent piping around the lapels is done as well as I can, but in an inconspicuous spot such as the turnbacks (and these are 20mm figures, in modern terms) it is better not to bother. I have now obliterated the piping – anyone who knows it should be there will see it anyway…

They’ll be ready soon – I’m so unprepared that I’ll have to find a suitable identity for them, so they can have a proper flag. Great stuff, but will I have learned anything? – probably not.

The Spaniards of 1809

This is all a bit of an about-face, since I have previously decided – and justified – that I would use an unexpected supply of bicorned Spanish infantry to provide units of Urban Militia to supplement my post-1811 army, rather than starting to tinker with adding battalions of white-uniformed chaps from 1809, however attractive they might be.

The decision was fairly easy, since I couldn’t possibly expect to collect enough figures to make a decent 1809 army, and since the earlier and later versions of the Spanish army don’t really mix very comfortably. Well, not for me.

Since then I have very quickly obtained a pile of figures – remainder stocks of NapoleoN and Falcata still existed, if you ferreted about a bit, and someone unloaded a stack of unpainted figures on eBay. Suddenly – to my considerable surprise – a proper 1809 army is a real possibility. Amazing what you can achieve when (because?) you are not really trying. OK – let’s be honest – they may not be much of a prospect for winning battles, but they should be beautiful. The white uniform introduced in 1805 is a great favourite of mine.

At present I have enough figures for some 18 battalions of line infantry, 4 of light, 4 of grenadiers, plus an adequate supply of generals, command figures and some very natty sappers. Some of my existing (post 1811) army will slot right in – particularly the light cavalry and the voluntarios in round hats. I am negotiating (haltingly) with a supplier in Spain for some 1809 artillery and cavalry, and am looking very seriously at the Kennington Spaniards – these last are just a tad small compared with the NapoleoN and Falcata boys, but self-contained units from a single manufacturer will be fine; Kennington do very nice artillery crews and line infantry. All sorts of possibilities are shaping up.

Thus far I’ve sent two 2-battalion regiments of infantry to be painted (Africa and Reina), but it now behoves me to sit down with the order of battle for the real Army of the Centre from early 1809 (which I have managed to correct and re-engineer by painstaking comparison of various sources) and plan exactly which bits of it will make up my new army.

The idea – to start with – will be to have infantry divisions each containing (typically) 2 x 2 battalion regiments of line (or guard), 2 or 3 battalions of lights, 2 battalions  of provinciales (dressed in white like the line, but all with red facings), 1 combined battalion of grenadiers and a foot battery. How many such divisions is possible or even sensible I have yet to decide – 3 might be a decent effort – I’d like 4, but that’s not feasible at present, so I’ll maybe go for a Vanguard Divn, a Reserve (with the guards in) and a Line Divn.

Having made some token show of top-down planning, I can now get back to the fun business of drooling over which uniforms I fancy! My sketch OOB includes 2 battalions of the Guarda Real, 1 of the Walloon Guards and 1 of the Regimiento Irlanda, this last in their sky blue with yellow facings, so that should all be a good colourful addition. The grenadier battalions will mostly be converged from the relevant companies of all the regiments in a division, so mixed facings will be the order of the day. I am contemplating the painting of the ornately embroidered bags on the grenadiers’ bearskins with a little alarm…

There’s no rush – I’ll just work away at building the army, and when they reach some kind of critical mass they can start doing some fighting. Pictures will appear here from time to time as parts are completed.

Cavalry is interesting – I have 2 regiments of light cavalry from my existing Spanish army who will be perfectly fine in the earlier period, and two regiments of irregular lancers, just right for Baylen. My friend Goyo is working to get me some cavalry figures which will work well as Line Cavalry (in blue) or dragoons (in yellow – I always wanted some yellow dragoons!).

Just a labour of love, really.

Hooptedoodle #131 - Not in My Back Yard (NIMBY)

We love the things to bits - Roe Deer - it's marvellous to think that wild creatures as big as these live in the forests around our home, but we have a little problem this week.

They have been coming into our garden and nibbling at the young growth on my wife's plants. The strawberries are wrecked, and a number of other promising specimens have been chewed down to ground level. I'm very sorry, but this won't do at all. I have still to have a chat with the farm's ghillie (gamekeeper) about what we can do, but I have been looking on the internet for discussion of solutions for such a problem. As ever, most of the suggestions are worthless, but there are some ideas out there.

Little machines which are triggered by infrared, and then produce strobe lights and sounds, ranging from dogs barking to ultrasonic things. Interesting, in a wacky way - expensive, too. Bags of human hair sprinkled in the woods. Things which smell of dog, or coyote, or lions (!) are reputed to discourage deer. Dried blood, I read somewhere - but this is getting a bit dark.

We are going to try our variation on a recommendation from a man in Maryland, no less. Set up a barrier about 20 feet back into the woods from the bottom of the garden, consisting of two strands of fishing line (15lb strength, so as not to hurt or entangle the animals), wound around the trees and stretching between them at about 18 inches and 2 feet from the ground, which will be adorned (if such be the word) with fishing rod bite alarms, which are little jingly bells, officially made of plastic and alloy, and thus non-rusting. That is the theory.

All sorts of comic visions present themselves - the place could sound like Santa's sleigh at night, or the deer might walk straight through them, or bring all their mates to laugh at them. The deer might even pinch them. We have a little time to think about this - assuming we still have some plants to protect, the bite alarms are coming from China, and - of course - I still have to consult the ghillie. Here's an encouraging glimpse of the jingle bells, with appropriately soothing and deer-free music.

And remember, kids - you're not really supposed to put them on your finger.