Hooptedoodle #268 - Juveniles in the Woodshed

If you can see them then they can see you - hirundo rustica, as ever was

Just to prove that Nature gets the job done, I have to report that our visiting swallows - clumsy builders though they might be - appear to have produced some chicks. Noisy little beggars, and not exactly beautiful in absolute terms, but possessing a certain rough charm.

Many thanks to the Contesse for the photo - a difficult commission - best we have to date.

Yes, our swallows have laid their eggs on top of an electric lamp. Yes, that is dumb. That's nothing, in about 12 or 13 weeks they have to fly to South Africa. Doesn't bear thinking about.

Tamames 1809

The Spanish Regiment Irlanda moving up in support of the left flank - they
performed valiantly, but the battle was decided elsewhere.

Battle of Tamames duly took place last night - excellent game. Once again history was overturned, but we consciously abandoned the historic French script.

Our game was based on the scenario published on the C&CN user site, with a couple of minor changes to the OOB (there are some typos on the scenario, though it is otherwise well thought out). Standard size C&C table (13 x 9 hexes), and, since my colleagues were new to the rules, we used the original Command Cards. which give rather quicker game-play. As always, I used my own rules for the Spanish army, rather than official C&CN Expansion #1 rules (they are pretty similar, in fact).

In the real Battle of Tamames, we are told, General Marchand (who had temporary command of the French VI Corps, while Marshal Ney was on leave in Paris) underestimated the strength of the Spanish position, not to mention their fighting qualities, and attacked their left with insufficient strength. The Spanish won, and Napoleon was as sick as a parrot.

Since we had read our Oman, and thus had the advantage of hindsight, in our game the French abandoned this approach (it was fairly evident from the troops on the table that Maucune's brigade, on the right, even with cavalry support, was not enough to defeat what he was faced with). The scenario probably understates the Spanish numbers a bit - in particular Belvidere's reserve looked a bit sparse behind the Spanish right flank, so our 20mm Marchand last night attacked on his left - though the ridge looked a bit daunting, the numbers were more in his favour - Marcognet's brigade, with support from Labassée's, went in, though it took a while to get suitable cards to promote aggressive action on that flank.

As ever, the C&C scenario has the armies developed at the start, but the attacking side (French) have some choreography to sort out, to get their artillery up from the rear.

There's a general initial picture in my previous post about this battle. The game was pretty frantic last night - brilliant fun. This may have something to do with the action not being hamstrung by the presence of a river, nor bogged down in the defence of a strongpoint, but we certainly had a lot of movement, and C&C managed yet again to provide a game suitable to get the newbies involved and enthusiastic. As is so often the case in such circumstances, I fear the photography was not as thorough as it could have been, so I'll attempt to piece together some kind of narrative from the evidence on the camera!

The French develop their left flank attack - Marcognet to the fore, with
two battalions of 25e Léger on loan from Bardet's brigade

It took a while to get it organised, but here goes the main attack, with the second
line carefully leaving enough space for the leading units to fall back if necessary...

French artilleryman's view of the ridge opposite

Things are a little more stressful for the Spanish artillery on the other side
of the table - with 2 red loss markers showing, this battery is already at reduced
effect - one more loss and they can go for an early bath

An overall view from the Spanish right - they have plenty of troops (and
reserves!) in the centre, but there is not much happening there - at the far end
there is some brisk action - a good amount of ebb and flow. The
double-retreat rule for Spaniards had some interesting effects for the
Spanish light cavalry at the far end - any reverses and they fell back
a l-o-n-g way, so there was a great deal of dashing about - more drama
than effect mostly, though the French made good use of squares on a couple
of occasions 

General Del Parque decided against making any kind of serious defence of
the town of Tamames, and pulled out to leave the place to the French
[note the statue of St Bernardino of Siena, patron saint of hay fever]

The first wave of Marcognet's attack was halted for a while, but the Spanish troops
on the ridge were gradually getting worn down

A reverse for the French - 1/39e eliminated by an exceptional volley of musketry

With numbers starting to become a problem, the French eventually got the
1/25e Léger up onto the flank of the Spanish line...

...and they quickly put paid to the Regimiento Cantabria...

...the end is nigh - General Losada brings up his last reserve on the Spanish
right - the converged grenadiers of the Africa and Reina regiments, but neither
he nor his brave troops lasted long

History is overturned yet again - the Spanish right flank has gone, the Victory
Point tally is 11-7 (9 for the win), and it's all over...

...whichever way you look at it!

Hooptedoodle #267 - Throw It Away

Must be about time for another whinge, I think. It is a constant source of sorrow to me that our lives seem to be dominated by the need to dump items - especially electronic items - since they are no longer supported, and/or cannot be repaired economically - and buy nice new ones. This process is enforced by the dictates of fashion; the message comes across when the young man on the other end of the support line actually snorts when he learns that my telephone (or camera, or sat-nav, or radio, or washing machine, or whatever) is almost six years old. The implication is that only a dreadful dinosaur would have a product of such age - how can such a person show his face in decent, tech-savvy consumer society? Sometimes the trained engineer [HA!] on the other end of the phone has never even heard of that model number - that's how old and uncool it is.

Well, I've thought some more about this - my thoughts are heavily influenced by two recent examples which I shall share with you in a moment, if you are not quick enough to spot what's coming and move off elsewhere. I have been doing some thinking, and my thoughts are summed up by one word.

Bollocks.

Recent Example 1: Tom-Tom. My wife has a new car - well, it was new some six months ago, and it has a built-in sat-nav system. Very nice. This renders her old Tom-Tom unit, which I bought for her about 6 years ago, redundant. I spotted an opportunity for shameless personal gain here, so I offered to take the old Tom-Tom off her hands - I could happily use it in my van, which would avoid my having to switch my own Garmin sat-nav between my car and my van (which may not seem like much of a hardship, but hey).

I quite like the Tom-Tom - it's friendlier than my Garmin - only problem with it is that the maps have never been updated since the unit was bought. This is not entirely due to hopeless inertia on our part - until recently, our domestic broadband service was so poor that a download big enough to include a complete motoring map of Northern Europe would have taken days and days. In a state of some excitement, I now did some poking about online, and found that a map upgrade would cost me about £35 - fair enough - ordered it and paid by PayPal, but the download wouldn't work - nothing happened. A lot of further searching revealed an appropriate support number (Tom-Tom's website, by the way, is a nightmare - lots of closed loops where links point to the page you are already on, or the one you just came from etc). Nice young man (NYM) explained to my wife that the sat-nav unit in question is now so old that they have withdrawn support for it - in any case, the latest maps are too large to fit the on-board storage. He very kindly arranged a refund of the PayPal payment (which took a week to come through), and offered us a discount on one of their new models. Some thoughts at this point:

(1) Everything must come to an end - it is not unreasonable that Tom-Tom should withdraw support for an old model, though 6 years might be considered rather indecently quick - well, in my world anyway, but...

(2) At any point between 6 years ago (when it was bought) and some time later (when support was withdrawn) there must have been updated maps on sale which would fit the storage - it is quite likely that if I had attempted this transaction last year (say) then it would have worked nicely. This point extends into...

(3) Withdrawn or not, supported or not, there must be a number of past updates still on file which would be an improvement on the map which we have at present. Any one of these would have been useful - we could negotiate a fair price? Well - no....

(4) I realise it doesn't work like that. If they sold me a replacement map which was more modern than the one I have, but not fully up-to-date, then I might trustingly drive into a newly-constructed reservoir and be extinguished. The important point is that if this was simply a consequence of my being too mean or idle to buy an up-to-date map then that would be entirely my problem, but if they had sold me an outdated map which did not show the reservoir then things could get sticky. Hmmm.

(5) OK - accept that. What really pisses me off about this is that the decision to withdraw support for an old product is pretty much arbitrary - the owner has no reasonable idea when this might happen - and it is heavily weighted commercially in favour of forcing existing customers to buy a new replacement. All good economic sense, of course, but - even with a discount - this line of reasoning would discourage me from doing further business with such people.

(6) The way ahead - Ze Plan:  I shall happily continue to use my pre-owned Tom-Tom with its outdated maps, I shall keep my eyes peeled for unexpected reservoirs, and I shall chuckle to myself at the prospect of having diddled Tom-Tom out of - ooh - several pounds. One day you may read about the tragic accident which claimed my life.   

Recent Example 2: Pure. I am a big fan of DAB digital radio. Only concerns I have are that the hardware - certainly from the market-leading brands - is too expensive, and (I am learning) the sets are not wonderfully reliable. I had a small Pure unit which died miserably, about 2 months past the end of the guarantee period, and I rather disappointed myself by buying another Pure radio to replace it. Before she moved out of her own house into a care home, my mother had a surprising number of Pure radios - she liked to have one in each of several rooms (kitchen, sitting room, bedroom - in fact she had two in her bedroom - one on the bedside cabinet, one on the dressing table). This may seem excessive, but her sight is poor, and she cannot see to plug a radio into the mains, nor to retune it when it has moved. We bought 3 of the things for my mum as a batch after my sister died in 2013, so we have a pretty good fix on how old they are.

Mum now has just one of these radios in the care home with her, and she listens to it for many hours a day. Right - that's all very good.

I sort of acquired the rest of them, and they haven't been a huge success. One of them developed a fault with the display, so I gave it away to someone who needed an extra radio. One of the remaining two has also recently had a failure of the display - I checked the support pages on the Pure site, followed the instructions for a full power-down and reset, and the display still didn't work. I emailed them. Within a day, I got a reply from a NYM named Sam. Guess what? - the unit is so old that it is not worth getting it repaired, and they have no suitable spare parts - the best they can offer is a discount off a reconditioned product.

Does any of this sound familiar? Just a minute - they have reconditioned products? Does this mean somebody has fixed one? This seems unlikely - I doubt if they have any actual engineers - the philosophy seems to be one of unloading shiploads of new units from China - it is cheaper and easier to send out a new one than it is to attempt to test or repair an existing one - even assuming they have the skills in this country (which we may debate).

So, in addition to not buying a new Tom-Tom unit, I shall not be buying another Pure radio either - with or without discount. They can focus their marketing on customers who are more in tune [ho - see what I did there?] with their business model. I shall take my custom elsewhere.

Don't misunderstand this - young Sam is obviously a good chap - he sympathised with my situation, and said that if I change my mind (and somehow he seems to believe I will) he can supply a list of current reconditioned deals for out-of-warranty customers [dinosaurs] like me.

All a bit depressing - I'll see you down at the landfill.

I'll finish with my most treasured tale of techno-waste. Some years ago I had a friend who had retired in ill-health from his job, and had set himself up as a self-employed photographer. In his new role he did a vast amount of printing of digital photos - he had a trade card which allowed him to purchase new Canon printers so cheaply that he could now buy a brand new printer (with cartridges) for far less than the cost of a set of replacement cartridges, so it made obviously good sense for him to simply throw away his printer when the ink ran out, and buy a new one. Is it just me, or is there something wrong with this picture?

To cheer me up, here's a smashing song, written and sung by Abbey Lincoln - Abbey is dead now - she recorded this when she was in her late 70s - her voice had gone to hell, as you will hear, but this is a piece of magic. See if it cheers you up too.

Fighting Again

French on the near side - they lost the real battle, because General Marchand,
who was depping for Marshal Ney, underestimated the opposition. The Emperor
was not best pleased.

Here I am, still with soot on my face and wet boots from Saturday, and I've got another battle arranged for tomorrow night. The French and the Spaniards will be at it again - the excuse this time is a rematch of the Battle of Tamames, October 1809 - unusually, for me, I've borrowed one of the published scenarios from the Command and Colors user site. I have tweaked it ever so slightly - some minor changes in the OOB, and I have no intention of using the guerrilla rule.

Because my visiting generals are new to C&C, I've gone for an open battlefield, and we'll use the original card set, just to keep things simple and moving along.

If I'm spared, I hope there'll be a few pictures. I can go for months with no wargaming at all, and suddenly I have two within a few days. Can't be bad.

Raab 1809

General view from behind the French left, near the beginning. The replay of
Eugène's echeloned attack, starting with the cavalry on the far flank, is
already beginning to fall apart. The river is fordable throughout, and in theory
should have been a manageable obstacle, but it was heavy going...

After a postponement, our game based on the Battle of Raab duly took place at Chateau Goya yesterday, and a very fine day it was. I was the French commander - Eugène de Beauharnais - and my only mild regret is that I managed to lose, so history was overturned. To be more accurate, I should say I was defeated - my opponents did a very good job, and it really was a most enjoyable day.

I shall perform an elegant cop-out here and point you to Stryker's blog, where he has published pictures and a report which are so good that I really have very little to add - apart from my compliments and my thanks to Stryker and Goya for their enthusiasm and tireless courage, and for their excellent company, and especially to Count Goya and his family for their kind hospitality.

...from behind the French right, where the cavalry attack has already been repulsed...

Late in the day the French did much better - even managed to get some troops
across the river on the left - the only area where they really had any sustained success.

In theory, there were bonus Victory Points available for capture of the village,
but there was never any likelihood of this happening. These lovely Austrian infantry
were securely established there.

Higginses - the infantry in the French centre wait for Eugène's master plan
for how to defeat the Austrian centre - this bit did not go well.

More Transpontine Travels

I can only assume that Count Goya was granted bail - whatever, after a few weeks delay, the Battle of Raab is back on, for tomorrow, so I've been loading the invasion barge for another trip over the water to Tayside. Early start tomorrow - another grand day out. You'll hear more of this.

Foy's Roadshow ready to roll - you will observe the IKEA playmat on the floor,
which is a prized accessory, and much envied by the lads in the local garage

The French army is in the big boxes, with vast quantities of bubblewrap. Bungee
cords are necessary, of course - you can see that my 5 foot wide table sections
just fit, which is something to think about if I harbour ideas of upgrading to a
six-foot-two wide replacement. The van is a French Renault, appropriately

Topic 2 - the Doves of War, a possible suicide pact, and other oddities

Apart from our first-time-ever subjection to the delights of having nesting swallows on the premises, we have observed some odd things going on in the garden. First - and in passing - might I mention that our Collared Doves, those icons of peace and gentleness, have suddenly become violently aggressive. In particular, they seem to have taken a strong dislike to the neighbourhood Wood Pigeons, who are bigger, but slower and (apparently) less intelligent. The pigeons here live in constant fear now - they have to keep an eye open for squadrons of warlike doves, who can swoop in at any time and give them a mighty beating up.

Another strange recent development appears to be a large upturn in the incidence of flying accidents among the birdlife. After some thousands of years of successfully flying around obstacles, our local feathered friends seem to have forgotten something or other. We had a sad moment some weeks ago when, on a rather blustery afternoon, one of our resident baby sparrows collided with the sitting room window, and died very quickly, despite the attempts of my wife to look after it. This was particularly ironic, since the poor little chap had managed to survive its parents choice of a nesting site (inside the junction box for the high-voltage overhead cables), which is impressive enough. I guess Nature claims a few - one might point to lack of flying experience as a contributory cause - presumably this is why fledglings pay through the nose for insurance?

We have had a few more collisions with buildings since, none of them fatal, but yesterday we had a real disaster - a fully-grown hen pheasant managed to fly full-tilt into our French window; the window was undamaged, but the pheasant, alas, is no more.

Sorry about this - the victim was neither young nor inexperienced - just careless -
it must have been about 20 feet off course if it intended to miss the house. The
paving stones are 55cm across, so you can see this is a large, heavy object to have
impact your window. If you found this picture upsetting, please ring
800-DEAD-PHEAS for counselling support

It was a hell of a bang - I was busy packing French soldiers into magnetised box files (as one does), when I heard the most alarming noise - I really thought that a gutter had fallen from the roof or something - the whole house shook. It became obvious what had happened - very sad. What's going on here? - has our house become less visible? - are the birds not paying attention? - is it just a blip? - is it global warming? - you don't suppose it's our new radio-transmitted broadband service, surely?

I'm keeping an eye on things. I don't suppose there's a connection, but a magic fairy ring has also appeared on the back lawn - you can clearly see where the little people crept in from the wood, behind the wall, and danced around. You do believe in fairies, I hope?

Poppycock! - another damned waste of bleach

Some of us are destined not to be successful strippers - we just have to face up to the fact. I would love it if bleach worked for me - I keep allowing myself to be duped into trying it again.

I'm currently having a minor blitz on a pile of French command figures which are waiting to be painted - I've just spent a day and and a half, filing and fettling and supergluing - mostly Hagen and Art Miniaturen figures - really rather enjoyed myself. This is partly aimed at shifting some more of the painting queue, but also at moving to my new basing standard for general officers - it may take a while to get there, but the idea is to have brigadiers based on their own, division commanders based in twos (a general + an ADC) and army commanders in threes (a general + 2 staff). I have a nice supply of figures just itching to be painted and based - all good stuff.

I made very good progress, and while I was at it I thought it would be a good idea to do something (at long last) about a Qualiticast command group I bought on eBay - it's been in the cupboard for a couple of years. Problems with it are (1) the group includes Napoleon [gasp], and (2) the group has been professionally painted, to a standard which does not please me. The painting is, to employ a technical term, crap. I could - and shall - do better myself.

So I prised the Qualiticast figures off their little diorama base, being careful to preserve the table (with map) and the scenic drum, crossed myself and placed the figures lovingly in some nice new bleach I had bought specially. I took care to avoid bubbles, and checked they were all covered to a good depth, and left them for 36 hours. When I felt they were ready, I rinsed them off, rubbed them down with the regulation toothbrush and had a speculative pick with the official penknife.

These are not, you will notice, what are termed unpainted figures

They are now drying. When they are dry I shall stick them in the hated Nitromors, or hand remover as it is known here. That will do the job. Speak not to me of bleach, nor Dettol, nor Buckfast tonic wine, nor Fairy Dust - all that can be said for my most recent bleach attempt is that I am very unlikely now to catch any infection from the figures, but the paint on them has become "a little spoilt" rather than "gone", which is the state I had hoped for.

If bleach works for you then you have my envy and my respect - it does not work for me. The number of times I have proved this to myself, you would think I would have got the hang of the idea by now.

Not to worry. Progress consists of small steps. I think Goethe said that. It might have been the Chuckle Brothers, in fact.

****** Late Edit ****** (Saturday night, 1st July)

Nice clean, airtight Douwe Egberts jar containing the Clean Spirit experiment
 - give it a couple of weeks. I'll set up another trial when the Simple Green arrives.