Hooptedoodle #325 - The Worry of Being British

My wife passed me this - if you have seen it before, apologies. I have no idea where it comes from, but it is of rather higher quality than most similar efforts, and it is so long since any aspect of Britishness made me actually smile that I thought it might be worth sharing.

The theme, of course, is the list of behaviours that being British forces on us - tick them off if they apply, but don't tell anyone what you're doing, naturally...

The Worry of Being British

• Worrying you’ve accidentally packed 3 kilos of cocaine and a dead goat as you stroll through “Nothing to declare”

• Being unable to stand and leave without first saying “right”

• Not hearing someone for the third time, so just laughing and hoping for the best

• Saying “anywhere here’s fine” when the taxi’s directly outside your front door

• Being sure to start touching your bag 15 minutes before your station, so the person in the aisle seat is fully prepared for your exit

• Repeatedly pressing the door button on the train before it’s illuminated, to assure your fellow commuters you have the situation in hand

• Having someone sit next to you on the train, meaning you’ll have to eat your crisps at home

• The huge sense of relief after your perfectly valid train ticket is accepted by the inspector

• The horror of someone you only half know saying: “Oh I’m getting that train too”

• “Sorry, is anyone sitting here?” – Translation: Unless this is a person who looks remarkably like a bag, I suggest you move it

• Loudly tapping your fingers at the cashpoint, to assure the queue that you’ve asked for money and the wait is out of your hands

• Looking away so violently as someone nearby enters their PIN that you accidentally dislocate your neck

• Waiting for permission to leave after paying for something with the exact change

• Saying hello to a friend in the supermarket, then creeping around like a burglar to avoid seeing them again

• Watching with quiet sorrow as you receive a different haircut from the one you requested

• Being unable to pay for something with the exact change without saying “I think that’s right”

• Overtaking someone on foot and having to keep up the uncomfortably fast pace until safely over the horizon

• Being unable to turn and walk in the opposite direction without first taking out your phone and frowning at it

• Deeming it necessary to do a little jog over zebra crossings, while throwing in an apologetic mini wave

• Punishing people who don’t say thank you by saying “you’re welcome” as quietly as possible

• The overwhelming sorrow of finding a cup of tea you forgot about

• Turning down a cup of tea for no reason and instantly knowing you’ve made a terrible, terrible mistake

• Suddenly remembering your tea and necking it like a massive, lukewarm shot

• Realising you’ve got about fifty grand’s worth of plastic bags under your kitchen sink

• “You’ll have to excuse the mess” – Translation: I’ve spent seven hours tidying in preparation for your visit

• Indicating that you want the last roast potato by trying to force everyone else to take it

• “I’m off to bed” – Translation: “I’m off to stare at my phone in another part of the house”

• Mishearing somebody’s name on the second time of asking, meaning you must now avoid them forever

• Leaving it too late to correct someone, meaning you must live with your new name forever

• Running out of ways to say thanks when a succession of doors are held for you, having already deployed ‘cheers’, ‘ta’ and ‘nice one’

• Changing from ‘kind regards’ to just ‘regards’, to indicate that you’re rapidly reaching the end of your tether

• Staring at your phone in silent horror until the unknown number stops ringing

• Hearing a recording of your own voice and deciding it’s perhaps best never to speak again

• The relief when someone doesn’t answer their phone within three rings and you can hang up

• Filming an entire fireworks display on your phone, knowing full well you’ll never, ever watch it again



***** Late Edit *****

Interesting - my unofficial publicist, Tango01, the famed international masturbator and creep, saw fit to share this post with the infinite number of monkeys which constitutes PMT. I think the joke - unpretentious as it is - was probably worth sharing. 

The majority of them are American, of course, and missed the point in grand style. Much half-remembered WW2 mythology about what the US and British may have said (or believed?) about each other. I'm always pleased to welcome visitors from PMT, naturally, but it surprises me that, since they are the coolest dudes on the planet, visitors from these lofty heights never deign to leave a comment, or say hello - they simply go back to giggling behind the bikesheds amongst themselves. Yes it is depressing, but rock on anyway, Tango. Maybe your head will get better one day.

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

Albuera #2 - Game Report

Quite so - Ian Fletcher's book was available - we had the cheap, ex car-boot sale version, without pictures or maps...

Well, the game was duly played yesterday, and it was a belter. A lot of the fun, of course, comes from the excellent company, but a lot of things worked out really well. I was much happier with the amended rules, the game was very exciting and really could have gone either way - there was a lot of counter-attacking and a determined late attempt by the Allies to lose when it seemed certain they would win.

We considered a couple of alternative line-ups, but eventually decided to do without an umpire, and Goya and I jointly commanded the Allies (who won, in case I omit to mention it, though the committee approach to leadership is something I may come back to in the afterthoughts); Stryker played the part of Marshal Soult, with characteristic flair though, it has to be said, possibly with less than his usual streaky good fortune with the combat dice.

We used the latest update to my Ramekin modified version of C&CN. All worked well - we fought a battle involving something like 60 units to completion in about 4 hours - again, a large part of this is due to the enthusiasm and good humour of my guests (for which thanks, gentlemen).

As in the previous attempt at this battle in November, the armies were not far off the historical strength, though I'd set it up so that the number of actual units was understated - i.e. we fought the game with a slightly reduced number of overstrength units, which works better with the rules and the space available on the table.

We decided that 12 Victory Points would win the game. The scenario is not the official commandsandcolors.net one - it is similar, but is changed quite a bit to try to get closer to the original battle. There were bonus VPs available for possession of each of the two hexes of the town of Albuera itself - since the opening position has Karl Alten's KGL light brigade firmly installed in the town, that gets the Allies off to a flying start - 2-nil just for turning up!

The French have rather outsmarted Beresford at the start - Beresford has set his army up (mostly the day before) to defend the town and the river crossing. Many of his Spanish troops are elsewhere (as are most of his Portuguese - it's very complicated...), but he has Zayas' Spanish infantry stuck out on the right flank. Soult duly turns up and attacks the town with Godinot's independent brigade, as expected, but the bulk of the army crosses the river some distance from the town and swings left to attack the Spanish infantry. The game starts as Beresford has started to shift Stewart's and Cole's British Divisions to his right to support Zayas.

I hope that some sort of narrative can be pieced together from the captions to the photos. A quick summary (spoiler?) to start off? All right then.

Soult began with an attack on the Spanish line, using Girard's Division, supported by Gazan's - both of these divisions were smaller than the independent brigades of Godinot and Werle, which were on the right and in the centre respectively.  The Spaniards fought well enough, but as casualties mounted the inevitable came about, and the double-retreat rule for Spanish regulars did a lot of damage. The Allied line was pushed back, but the British infantry plugged the gaps, and eventually Girard ran out of steam.

Later in the day, Soult directed Godinot to attack the town, and it was partly taken - it was a struggle, and the KGL boys did not have a particularly good day. This became particularly tense - as the portion of the town next to the bridge changed hands, the VP tally swung back and forward. At one point the Allies were leading 8-4, then it came back to 10-9, then 10 all and eventually the Allies won 13-10, but it really could have gone either way.

Another sub-plot emerged towards the end, when the French (in a desperate attempt to sneak a few VP's!) brought up their cavalry on their left flank. They quickly disposed of the Spanish light cavalry (I apologise to any Spanish sympathists for this evident theme of the day - just the way the game worked out) but then were very badly handled by the British horse. I still don't understand this - the French should have won the cavalry action very easily - they had more units (5 vs the Allies' 4) and they were stronger (each unit 4 bases cf the Allies' 3). I guess the dice decided the day. Standout performance in this area came from the British 5th Dragoon Guards, who distinguished themselves, with support from the 11th Lt Dgns, who were (very surprisingly) temporarily led into action by the Spanish General Zayas, who, having run out of infantry of his own, had to fall back on friends, and obviously decided that this was the day he was going to get his wish to command some cavalry. Quite what the British light dragoons made of this foreign chap getting involved is not recorded.

View from the Allies' left, at the start, with the town in the foreground - Karl Alten's KGL lights are in the town, with the Portuguese of Harvey in support. You can see Zayas' boys in line in the centre of the table, some distance away, facing the main French attack

Harvey sends some of his infantry off to help oppose Werle, in the centre - Arriaga's battery seem to be armed with howitzers, but they were classified as plain Foot Artillery for the day

British infantry moving up to relieve the hard-pressed Spaniards

Hoorah! Just about the oldest man in both armies - the chef de bataillon of the 2/27eme is the last of my original Airfix soldiers from 1971 - I keep him as a reminder of those ecstatic, fevered days, and as an inspiration to his metal men - I always try to capture his rare appearances! 

Godinot's chaps standing by, just in case anyone really wants them to take the town - they were very busy later on! Note that Godinot, who is only a General de Brigade, has the regulation brown border to his base, appropriate to his rank

Zayas' boys taking some heavy punishment from Girard's men - Zayas (of whom more later) is in the foreground with white border, trying to encourage the Guardias Espanolas

The Spanish line is rapidly disappearing - eventually they were left with the remains of two light battalions - those of Campo Mayor and Barbastro - and they were in poor shape. The Brits are coming up behind.

The French have now advanced to the original position of Zayas' line - note that Zayas himself is now in the foreground, having been forced to take shelter with the British 11th Lt Dgns...

View from the Allied right flank at this stage shows that Girard's attack has pushed back the Allied line, but he is running out of men

...and that's another unit gone...

Just an instant captured for posterity - photographing dice rolls is up there with sending someone a selfie of your breakfast, but this is a goodie - this was a volley that one of Girard's fresh infantry battalions received from Stewart's lads - no-one was hurt, but they got a REALLY big fright - enough to send them back 800 paces... 

Not a great picture (bad nervous tremor), but here is a view of the French light cavalry on their left, having just chased away the Spanish light horse. General Latour-Maubourg, with the white border, was the only senior officer casualty by the end of the battle

Zayas (remarkably) brings up the 11th LD to oppose Latour-Maubourg and one of his chasseur regiments...

..on this occasion, the French cavalry had the better of the exchange - the 11LD have withdrawn to get their breath back, while the chasseurs are joined by the Vistula Lancers - the situation of the RHA battery on the hill looks desperate, but miraculously they were rescued, and survived!

Meanwhile, on the other flank, Godinot's boys have broken into the town - more Poles - 4eme Vistule - have taken part of it - the VP scoreboard is starting to swing about!

Back to the horses - with a lot of help from the impressive (and fortunate) 5th Dragoon Guards, Zayas and his chums are now wiping the floor with the remains of the French cavalry - this is where Latour-Maubourg was wounded

Significant moment - with the KGL chaps driven out, a Portuguese battalion hold part of Albuera. At this point, at the start of a turn, the Portuguese only have to march to the far end of the town, leaving behind a "Garrison" marker to claim the 12th VP and win the day - euphoria time...! However, Soult promptly wins the activation roll, and marches his own light infantry back in, which puts paid to the immediate VP objective, and - also - light infantry can fight as soon as they arrive in a town (which line troops can't), and - also - the Portuguese battalion was so battered that it was incapable of doing much about the new arrivals!

Now there's a gap between the armies in the centre - the British line looks firm enough, but the French are very depleted

More expansive view of the same thing

They also serve who only stand around and get wet. After waiting all day for a little action, the Portuguese 11th cavalry (centre foreground) eventually get an order, which is to get out of the way while some manoeuvring goes on to get fresh infantry up to fight for the town. In fact, just to keep them humble, they are required to go and stand in the river, as you see. The struggle for the town was still going on when word came from the cavalry action on the other flank that the Allies had gained a 12th VP, and the game was over.

General Stewart, who is a very old Minifigs chap, gives an inspirational word to some even older Lamming British infantry

And the RHA troop, after a miraculous escape, are still in action at the end

Afterthoughts

My compliments and sincere thanks, once again, go to Messrs Stryker and Goya for making the trip and contributing so generously to such a splendid day. This was certainly the most entertaining and exciting game I've had here for a while, and there have been some good ones. In passing, there was a noteworthy moment when Goya struck terror into the French commander at lunch, by nonchalantly pouring himself a glass of onion gravy - some kind of warrior tradition, apparently. Scary.

The game went well - very well. I am happy that the revised combat rules now provide a much better balance between the effect of ranged musketry and of melees. I believe that we still need some very minor tweaks to the properties of various unit types and "national characteristics" - in particular, French legere battalions have extra advantages and abilities which are almost certainly not justified for the Peninsular War. I'll have another look at that.

During the game I had occasional concerns that the 2-v-1 line up sometimes meant that Stryker placed his order counters and moved his troops in a businesslike manner, and then had to wait through an extended debate while the Allied command scrabbled for ideas. He was very brave and cheerful about it, and it really isn't a problem, but we should maybe give some gentle thought to re-introducing the timer to put a limit on turn time - we can discuss it, anyway (maybe). Stryker was badly let down by his cavalry - a brave effort to turn the day on both flanks might well have succeeded otherwise. Crap dice will out.

Thanks yet again, chaps!

Albuera #2 - Set Up, with a Light Interlude

I've now set up the table for tomorrow's Albuera game. Since the last time I played this (in November) was mostly intended as a test for the rules revisions, I seem to have managed to lose most of the notes I made at the time. As I recall, I produced my own C&CN style scenario, since I had a few issues with the one on the user site. I've now laid out the table by dint of much study of the photos from my blog post in November - plenty of zooming-in and "aha...!". That's a strange thing to do, with hindsight - it's like forensics, with added OCD. I took a lot of trouble to use the same generals and units, but - presumably to keep out the Evil Eye - this time I set out the table rotated 180 degrees. No reason, really.

With everything set up ready, we should get off to a flying start around 11:00 tomorrow, assuming my guests have no adventures with the trains.

These are either Osram bulbs, rated at 2135 lumens, or else they are Phillips bulbs, rated at 1800 or so. Roll the dice, place your bets.

I recently invested in some rather hotter light-bulbs for the overhead lamps for the battlefield [= dining table - Ed]. These are rated at 2135 lumens each, which is about 18% better than our usual bulbs, so two of these about 80cm above the table have helped improve the light levels for photos. As part of the battlefield set-up, I carefully swapped the bulbs, putting in the brighter ones, but when I came to take a picture, I was rather disappointed with the results. Hmmm - could this be simply because there was fairly bright sunlight outside the window, which was confusing the camera? - could it be that these bulbs really aren't as bright as I had thought? - are my eyes getting worse more quickly than I'd hoped? - it couldn't be, I suppose, that bulbs somehow get tired when they've been used a few times?

You will be ahead of me, I'm sure...

I had a sudden thought, and checked the lamps I had removed during the set-up - yes, you're correct. It seems that last time I had a wargame on this table I forgot to change the bulbs back to the standard issue, so when I carefully swapped them yesterday I was putting the dimmer ones in. Fortunately they have the manufacturers' names stencilled on them, so it is an easy thing to check. Idiot.

I am delighted to have another excuse to consult Mike Oliver and Richard Partridge's fine little book about Albuera. A nice piece of work - probably underrated. I got to know Mike a bit when he was bravely trying to be the UK distributor for Falcata Miniaturas, with no help at all from the manufacturers. Nice man - one of the hobby's gentlemen.

The Field of Albuera - Take 2 of the Game

Albuera - 16 May 1811 - painting by Duane R Hurst

The Field of Albuera

It was the fifteenth day of May
We marched through the mud and the weather;
The drums and the colours they led us away
To the field of Albuera.

Sir William he brought up his army that day,
To vanquish an unbeaten foe;
The Duke of Dalmatia was come to dispatch us
To the Prince of Damnation below.

The morning was clear when came the advance,
We held off the French with a will.
The muskets and cannon they roared back and forth,
And the thunder replied from the hills.

Now we were the Dorsets, the 39th Foot,
Fine fellows, and brave was our fame,
But courage alone will not keep you alive
When your musket is fouled with the rain.

How handsome the horsemen who cut us all down,
How noble the plumage and lace,
And we were all muddied, all bleeding and dying,
With the wind and the steel in our face.

They tell me we won, though I know naught of that -
Forgive me that I do not cheer, sir;
My comrades are slain, and my brother lies buried
At the field of Albuera.

Traditional song (poss. attributed to James Aughton Bryde - d 1852)


Wargame next Saturday, here at Chateau Foy - we'll be staging a refight of the Battle of Albuera, which was fought here in November. It should be an interesting game, for a number of reasons, and a few wrinkles in the rules should be smoothed out this time!

More to follow.

C&CN "Garrison" Markers - the Miniatures Version

One of the additional rules which came out of the Generals, Marshals & Tacticians Expansion #5 to the GMT base game of Commands & Colors: Napoleonics was the concept of "Garrison" markers.

I've started using these fairly recently - for battles here we call them "Detachments" which is maybe a more logical name for them, but for the purposes of this note I shall call them Garrisons, to conform to the original rules.

The original rules section from Expansion #5 - there were some extra rules and afterthoughts added later by Richard Borg, and I've added some house clarifications of my own

It's a useful idea - to restate the key features, an infantry unit which has at least 2 blocks/bases remaining can leave behind one of these markers when it is ordered to move out of a BUA hex. The unit does not have to reduce its strength to do so - the detachments left behind are very small, so a unit can in theory leave behind a series of these. The marker can be ordered to fire or melee (though it may not move to do so), it can defend itself if attacked in melee - it has an allocation of 1 battle die. The Garrison does not have any of the characteristics of the unit which generated it, so it can't be classified as Old Guard, and it will always have muskets. It cannot move, cannot be joined by a Leader, does not count as support for friendly units. Since it cannot move, a retreat eliminates it, as does a single hit in combat. It cannot ignore a retreat flag for any reason. If it is joined by a friendly unit, or dislodged/defeated by the enemy it is removed from the table - no Victory Banners are associated with a Garrison or its demise. In melee, in addition to infantry and flag symbols, a Garrison is eliminated by a crossed-sabres symbol, even if it is fighting some unit type which normally does not get to count sabres (British Rifles being an example, or militia).

It goes without saying that a Garrison cannot form square, does not exist outside BUAs or similar hexes, cannot be rallied, cannot take ground if it manages to win a melee - there is almost no limit to the things a Garrison cannot do, since it is a marker and not a proper unit, but it is a useful little chap. It is a good way of avoiding that situation which happens in a lot of games where one side has vacated a village (say) but the enemy has not entered it or captured it yet - if a Garrison marker is left behind then there is no doubt who owns the village, if only until the next thing happens, and it does have some combat capability. If a Garrison is left in a BUA, the enemy can't just walk into it unopposed. The markers can be re-used indefinitely, but to keep the game sensible I am restricting supply to 3 such counters for each nation, so you can only have a maximum of 3 in play at one time - I am going to produce miniatures versions of these for France, Britain, Portugal, Spain, Austria, Prussia, Russia and Bavaria, but scheduling will probably be driven by upcoming battles. The current plan here is to refight Albuera the first weekend in March. This action involves BUAs (the village of Albuera) and those BUAs can change hands during the conflict, so it would be nice to have the French and British marker sets available - if the Spaniards or Portuguese need to leave a marker on that day, they can borrow the British ones.

The new French markers: ex-Eric Knowles voltigeurs on their special grey (BUA-coloured!) bases

I haven't been doing any painting for a couple of weeks, but I've now produced the French Garrison set. The British one should follow next week sometime. The figures in the picture may be of some interest - especially to older wargamers; these are Hinton Hunt French Elite Voltigeurs, in 3 different poses, and they were among some of the odds and ends from the collection of the late Eric Knowles. I only have a few of these, so it was pleasing to be able to give them a useful job. Eric had them rather nicely painted, so out of respect I've pretty much left them alone - a little touch-up on the worn bits and some fresh varnish and that's it. They may have quite a stressful future, but they look to be up for it!

You will not be surprised to learn that I have fitted the MDF bases with discs of magnetic sheet, so they can be stored and transported as necessary in the French artillery boxes. OCD never sleeps. I would worry about them if they were free to rattle about loose somewhere...

Hooptedoodle #324 - Schlimm's Big Idea - Part 1 of an occasional series

The Grand Duke sat slumped in his chair, glowering at the papers on his desk. His breakfast tray had been pushed to one side, where a silver egg-cup caught the reflection of the small fire in the grate. He scratched his ear absent-mindedly, clearing his throat, and then re-tied the sash on his silk dressing gown.

There was a tap at the door of the study - the Grand Duke uttered a deep, meaningless grunt, and the door opened to admit a nervous-looking, thin young man, with round spectacles à la Schubert, and unruly, thinning hair. He carried a pile of workbooks and folders; he walked around to stand in front of the desk, blinking.

The Grand Duke growled at him.

"These accounts - I've read them through. We can't let anyone see these - there must be mistakes here? According to your figures," the word 'your' was stressed, "we are bankrupt. If the Hörwitzes or the Von Schiels get a whiff of this they'll be jumping up and down, not to mention queuing up here to pinch our furniture and the Grande-Ma'am's jewels to repay the loans!"

"Er - well, Highness, I would not use the word bankrupt. There is what I would term a temporary dip in liquidity. The Grand Duchy still has plenty of wealth, but it is in places where we cannot use it readily to fund our debts, or..."

He paused.

"Or buy things, or pay the workers," the Grand Duke finished off, helpfully. "Yes, I read that a great deal of our resources are concentrated in the new Deer Park project, for example - when will that be finished, by the way? - and the Duchess is going to have to cut down on her hunting lodges; at least some of them could manage without a full staff for part of the year?"

He shook his head slowly.

"What do we do now? I am required to issue a statement of the Duchy's financial situation by St Boniface's Day, as always - which gives us three weeks. If this gets out there will be riots - we already owe the tin miners six months' wages. What can we do? - you're supposed to be the ideas man, Schlimm - what can we do? I am told by the Burgermeister of Pronkendorf that there are women with babies, begging in the streets - he has had to make donations of bread and soup to the families of the men who were laid off when we closed down the Ducal Wurst factory. They will cut my head off."

"Highness - we have been through that again and again - it is far cheaper to have the sausages made in Bangladesh - the figures are in my report..."

The Grand Duke raised his right hand, and the accountant trailed off into silence.

"We have a problem, Schlimm - in fact, you have a problem. The sausage makers used to buy their bread from the state's bakers, and buy their work clothes from our state-owned suppliers, so they are feeling the pinch as well - you didn't tell me about that. What shall we do?"

Schlimm seemed unwilling to speak; he fidgeted with the collar of his jacket. Eventually he stood up a little straighter, and half closed his eyes.

"Well, Highness, we could lie a little - creative presentation, so to speak."

"Creative presentation? - what kind of presentation will mask the fact that we have a complete generation of young people with no prospect of ever working or making any money? Three hundred and fifty thousand of them, to be exact, it says here."

"Ah - yes - I was going to get to that. Let us reclassify things a little, so that most of our young people are described as 'full-time students', and we'll remove them from the totals."

"But they aren't students - we have no colleges for them to study at, for one thing, and we have no-one qualified to teach them. Anyway, we couldn't afford to do this."

"No - we aren't really going to teach them anything - we are going to pretend."

"Go on..."

"We will create a complete network of centres of education. There is already the University of Drossel, of course - we could make a great many people long-distance pupils of the university.  We don't have to teach them anything, just get them to sign a piece of paper. It gets better - we could charge them a very large amount of money to enroll. There's not just the old University, we could rope in the seminary colleges, anyone who runs some kind of vague apprenticeship, every half-baked evening class for flower arrangement or embroidery - they will all be students - they will embrace their new universities, and they will be happy to pay for the privilege. And you, Highness, will have a new industry - education - which will employ a great many people, who will sing your praises and the National Hymn, and will pay taxes and yet more taxes, and they will aspire to send their own children to the new universities."

"You can't offer a university degree course in flower-arranging, can you?"

"Why not? People would rather be fake university students than unemployed dead-beats. They can study anything  they like - who cares? - they won't be required to use their skills on anything. All we need is to balance the books over the next few years."

"I have to say that balancing the books is just the problem I was thinking about - no-one has any money to pay for such an education, to join up for such courses."

"We shall lend them the money. We shall lend it at a very high interest rate. We'll get a lot of it back straight away in the state university fees, and then we can set up accommodation in the university towns, require students to live on-campus and charge high rents. That should catch most of the rest of it"

"Let me get this straight - we will lend the unemployed money so that they can pay exorbitant fees to enroll for worthless further education courses, most of this money will come back to us directly through fees and accommodation, and we will charge interest on what we have lent them? And we can delete these people from our unemployed lists, thus boosting our economic outlook?"

"Correct - and we'll create a whole industry of educators and cleaners and transport drivers and caterers and administrators, who will all pay taxes too. The people in the industry don't need to be skilled or anything - no-one is going to be able to tell the difference anyway - the universities themselves will carry out the assessment of the results. All you need to get this started is to get back to old Hörwitz and see if he can lend you some money - rather a lot of money, in fact - I've prepared some figures so you can see how this will work, and a prospectus for our investors..."

"Good God - I'll look at the numbers later. I underestimated you, Schlimm - I certainly underestimated you. But tell me - in the longer term, this cannot possibly work out - how do we pay back the capital, if no-one gets any actual skills or earnings expectation out of the education system?"

"I have prepared another document here, Highness - the plan is that within 10 years you will have disappeared - you will be living under an assumed name, on a very large private wine-making estate in Tuscany. I have some brochures here, to give an idea, and some rough estimates."

The Grand Duke sat back in his chair and waved his hand again, his head spinning.

"I see - good God. Well, Schlimm, you may leave me now - we must talk about this again. You are sure it will work?"

"Absolutely - that nice Russian chap assured me it could not fail."

Hooptedoodle #323 - Mugs' Game - yes, I do tacky as well

Yesterday's unexpected digression onto the topic of coffee reminded me that I have forgotten to show off my new Napoleonic mugs. I got these a few weeks ago from Amazon - I was looking for something completely unconnected, and came across them. Too good an opportunity to miss, I'm sure you will agree!

Those of you who have come to take for granted my ubercool, cosmic sophistication and exemplary good taste may be a little shaken by this picture. I thought they were fun, and crass enough to appeal to the inverted snob in my soul, so I ordered four of them (which involves a pleasing but baseless implication that I have some friends who might join me for coffee). Here they are - eat your heart out. The world of novelty mugs is a source of unbounded surprises - I did also, briefly, consider a mug bearing a political poster for Mussolini, but I decided against it. I'll maybe get the set of espresso cups with that design. Hmmm.

Interesting footnote to this purchase: I ordered 4 designs, but because I couldn't get them all from the same Amazon Marketplace supplier I spread the order over two suppliers. The spirit of competition is alive and well, even in the world of online shopping - or maybe not. The four mugs arrived in a single parcel, with a single set of documentation. The two suppliers are in fact one and the same, merely trading under two different names. Oh well.