Fighting with Friends

Yesterday I attended a wargame in the company of Stryker and Goya, at Stryker's house. We played an excellent Napoleonic game based on the Battle of Ligny, using Stryker's Muskets & Marshals rules.

I'll attempt to put together a proper mini-report later in the week, once I've sorted out my photos. By that time, with luck, Stryker himself will have done a blog post, featuring his own (much better) pictures. For the moment, suffice to say that a very good time was had by all, history was not overturned, and Stryker's cleverly-crafted scenario worked really well. Once again, many thanks to our host for his kind hospitality and a sumptuous luncheon - a lot of work, and much appreciated.

Completely separate from the main story, a couple of odd things happened to me yesterday.

Stock photo

(1) On a bright, clear morning, at about 08:30 on my way north, I suddenly drove into a bank of dense fog in the middle of the Queensferry Crossing, the new road bridge over the Firth of Forth. Not a problem, but definitely a strange feeling to suddenly be driving along with nothing visible further away than about 15 feet - the barriers and the bridge superstructure just vanished. Only lasted about 30 seconds, but I'm very glad there was only light traffic. From then on my trip was, as before, clear and sunny.

(2) Rather more spooky. While I was getting ready to go to bed, around midnight, I raised the roller blind on the skylight in the attic bedroom, and was surprised to find that someone had scrawled a cross on the window. It was completely dark outside, but the room light showed up the marking very clearly. It was on the outside, and it looked as though someone had drawn a very rough St George's cross with their finger, right across the window - it seemed to be a light grey colour. At first I thought someone was playing a joke on me - it was a definite cross - but since it was on the outside that's not possible. There's only the roof out there.

The vertical stroke was pretty firm - quite straight, about 1cm wide and bang in the centre, top to bottom. The horizontal was more uneven and wiggled a bit, but it still went right across. I was going to check out what it was, but the weather wasn't great, so opening the skylight was not a good idea. I should have taken a photo, but my camera was still packed away from the Ligny trip, so I decided that I would open up the window in the morning and have a good look.

Came the morning, of course, and it had gone. Not a trace. I had a moment of doubt whether I'd seen it at all, but I am certain that it had been definite enough to give me something of a shock the previous night. I am half crazed, of course, but not normally given to imagining visitations.

So - no photo, no evidence, no clues really. I really wish I'd taken a picture. I can only guess that recent wet weather has resulted in a snail or a slug taking a couple of strolls across our roof window, and last night's rain subsequently washed it away. But it was very clear, and looked almost deliberate.

I'm not going to lose much sleep over this, but the nervously imaginative might react badly to a sign appearing on their window at night. If something grisly happens to me, I promise to let you know. If it's grisly enough, you might read about it elsewhere.

Hmmm....

On a visit to Edinburgh this week, I noticed this. On the 200th anniversary of the publication of Sir Walter Scott's novel Waverley (which was a couple of years ago, I think), the management of Edinburgh main railway station put up a selection of quotes from Scott around the station concourse - the station, you understand, was (and maybe still is) known as Edinburgh Waverley.

I know a number of Old Wally's quotations, but hadn't come upon this one before. It got me thinking - you don't think it's a message of some sort to self-indulgent bloggists, do you? Apparently it is from The Pirate, of which I have no knowledge.

I confess I am not a big fan - when my grandmother died, I was given a stack of her old books, which included a lot of Scott. I was very pleased to receive these, but was very disappointed with the stories. I guess they have not dated well, and I am also aware that many of them were published in serialised form in periodicals, which

(a) does something odd to the flow of the story (a cliff-edge every 30 pages), and

(b) encouraged Sir Walter to keep the story going forever, to maximise his income.

This is going to be a sacriligious thing to admit, but I gave up very quickly. If ever a man had the gift of taking an exciting story outline and turning it into a lengthy grind, it was Scott. If you are passionately fond of his stuff then you have my respect and admiration. You must drink a lot of whisky.

Hooptedoodle #345 - Nothing New on the Planet

Humbug!

Hooptedoodle #344a - That Russian Girl

I decided I would find out once and for all about the picture on the wall of my mother's room. I took a couple of photos of it, and spent a little while playing around with Google Images.

Found it. It is a portrait painted in St Petersburg by Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun in about 1791, the subject being Elisaveta Alexandrovna, Baroness Stroganova, who was about 12 at the time.

When she was 16 Baroness Stroganova married Count Nikolai Demidov, who was appointed as a Russian diplomat in Paris, during the time of Napoleon I. They were big Napoleon fans, apparently, but the political situation meant that they had to return to Russia. The Demidovs had two children, but eventually separated because, it seems, he was too boring. Elisaveta moved back to Paris, where she died in 1818.

Here's another portrait of her, in about 1804, in Paris, by Robert Lefèvre, at a time when presumably she was still the wife of a Russian diplomat.

She is buried in the cemetery of Père Lachaise, in Paris - as am I, of course.

Sorry about this - I realise nobody could care less, though it is a nice little picture. This post is really a celebration only of Google and Wikipedia, so it is without any merit at all, other than commemoration of my finally finding out what that damned picture from Paris Match was, after only 40-something years. This is not any kind of relative of my mother's of course, though she has probably eaten Beef Stroganoff at some time in her life. That's as close as it gets. There is no point my telling my mum what I found out, because she will have no idea what I'm talking about, so it stops there.

I did get a bit distracted during my (brief) researches - Ancien Régime portraiture is not normally my thing, but Vigée Le Brun is definitely worth a read - she's certainly more interesting than Mme Demidova

Hooptedoodle #344 - Martin's Dad

My personal context for this post is just a regulation-issue, time-of-life thing. I visit my elderly mother in her nursing home each week - always at an odd time and on a random day, so that I can't be accused of being late, or of having missed a visit. No problems with this - obviously I am happy to visit my mum. She enjoys my visits, though she doesn't remember them, but it is taking me longer and longer to recover from them. She is increasingly confused, often distressed by her chaotic interpretation of the real world and her own memories, and has become (I regret to say) surprisingly vitriolic and actually quite racist in her views. She is regularly unpleasant to her carers, which of course they handle with cheerful, professional indifference, though it causes me much agony on their behalf.

Stock photo - the elderly resident is the one on the right

From my own point of view, each visit helps to convince me a little more that extreme old age has no upside - it seems like a very mean trick indeed. In my heart I know this cannot be true, but the evidence is overwhelming. I make these regular visits to an old lady who is no longer anyone I remember; she is mostly angry, or upset, or depressed - she thinks that the staff are trying to steal her belongings, she doesn't like the other residents, because they are old and stupid, and so on. Each time I leave I feel oddly privileged to be free to walk out of the place, and I take the long route home through the lovely countryside. My wife has come to dread the days I visit my mother, because I always come home very gloomy.

This, I hasten to say, is not a whinge - it's a situation shared by a great many of my friends and contemporaries, so I have to shape up and get on with it. Apart from vague stuff like duty, I wouldn't want it any other way. It's the very least I can do for my old mum. I try not to think about how long I have until it's my turn to be visited, but it's inevitable that aspect of it should bother me a little as well.

 


Along these lines, I've recently been exchanging occasional supportive emails with my friend Martin, whose father, Ben, is becoming "a bit difficult" (to use Martin's phrase). Martin, by the way, is happy that I should post this story here. [All the names, of course, are changed!] 


Martin's mother died suddenly a few years ago - she was, I am told, a lovely but rather mousey little lady, who never had a great deal to say for herself. Martin has been surprised by the extent to which his dad, who always made all the decisions and was very outspoken ("never suffered fools gladly") has shrunk into himself since he was widowed. They rarely heard from him, they were concerned that he chose to spend all his time on his own. They bought him a big TV a couple of Christmases ago, and after a month he put it back in its box and stored it in the garage. Martin suggested that his dad might join an evening class, or do some voluntary work at the local hospital, or renew his interest in photography, but he got very short answers. He got an old friend of Ben's to arrange to take him down to the pub occasionally - that didn't go well - they fell out after a couple of weeks, and Ben came close to starting a fight at the bowling club. Ben phoned up Martin a couple of times at about 3am, to tell him that there was a car parked in the street outside his house, and it shouldn't be there. Ben's street, apparently, is full of cars from end to end. Martin told his dad not to worry about it, so his dad phoned the police instead.

Round about the same time, Martin got a quiet heads-up from the family doctor that his father didn't seem very well, might not be eating or looking after himself properly, and refused to answer the door if anyone called. Martin's wife, Angie, is a treasure - she's energetic and kind-hearted and all the things which Martin claims he is not. She suggested that they should take Ben with them on their Saturday groceries-run to Sainsbury's. It would get him out of the house (they could pretend that they needed him to help them), and it would give an opportunity to make sure he was buying some decent food for his own larder.

To Martin's astonishment, his dad was delighted to go to Sainsbury's with them. It all went very well - maybe, ominously, too well, Martin thought.

The only problem initially was that the old man found the shop too noisy - too many kids, too many people. So after he'd put his own shopping in their trolley he liked to go and stand outside in the car park. On the drive home he would tell them at great length of all the examples of dangerous or antisocial parking he had observed. Martin was not invigorated by the subject matter, but old Ben was more animated than they had seen him for years, so they decided that even a rather weird interest was better than none.

By the third Saturday there was trouble. Sainsbury's had received quite a few complaints. Ben had printed a little supply of notices, and he spent his visit putting them under customers' windscreen-wipers, explaining that they had used the disabled spaces without displaying the requisite Blue Badge, or had parked in the mother-and-child spaces when they patently did not have a child with them, or had parked carelessly, protruding over the painted white lines or (more subjectively) thoughtlessly close to the next vehicle. Some customers thought initially that Sainsbury's themselves had issued these notices, but the supermarket staff had observed Ben at work. Tactfully, they mentioned to Martin and Angie that they'd have to ask for this to stop, and immediately.

By the following week, Ben was driving to Sainsbury's in his own car on Saturday - purportedly to do his weekly shopping. Martin and Angie's pleasure at this news was short-lived. He wasn't shopping. He hung around all afternoon in the car park, harassing the customers and telling them off for parking badly, or driving too quickly, or not controlling their children, or (apparently) speaking too loud. 

The manager at the local Sainsbury's had become quite a good friend of Martin's by this time, and he went to visit him, to discuss what they could do. They hatched a cunning plan.

The next Saturday, Ben arrived at Sainsbury's on his weekly mission. You are allowed 2 hours in the car park, maximum (this to prevent local workers and residents jamming up the place), and after 2 hours Sainsbury's clamped Ben's car and issued him with a parking ticket, for repeatedly breaking this rule, and parking in "an inconsiderate and antisocial manner". Ben was mortified - ashamed. He agreed with Sainsbury's that they would destroy the ticket if he promised never to hassle their customers again.

That, of course, does nothing to address Martin's other, related problems, but he is quite pleased with that outcome. He says you have to celebrate what little successes you have, as they come along.

Who's that in the car park, dear?

Hooptedoodle #343 - Castles in the Air

Yesterday I visited a friend of mine, a retired architect. When I say retired, the term is relative - he still takes on some private work - he enjoys the technical and creative challenge, and the modern computer drawing tools are good fun. He also has to pay continuing professional subs and make some token effort at keeping his knowledge up to date, and he has to pay for personal insurance. An architect is never off the hook - if a building collapses and kills someone, years after completion, the architect may still be found personally liable if the design is proved to be faulty.

Over coffee, he shared some hairy old yarns of the building sites and the shenanigans and politics in the Building Control office. This prompted a story from me which I had forgotten about for a while - a story about another architect friend of mine from years ago. It occurred to me that it might be worth a run out here.

Sitting comfortably? - then I'll begin...

This story dates from the early 1980s. My eldest sons were then at primary school in Morningside, Edinburgh, and my then wife befriended a group of other mothers she met at the school gate. Next thing, I was roped into a round-robin of socialising with these ladies and their families. Being a miserable soul, I wasn't too keen on this kind of enforced jollity, and was relieved when it fizzled out a bit. One of the husbands, though, was Bob, with whom I got on very well - a most interesting and amusing chap. A great football fan - a life-long follower of Partick Thistle FC.

Bob was an architect - nothing glamorous - no fancy Georgian office in the New Town for him - he was a time-served, City & Guilds type architect who came up the hard way, and he worked for a little company no-one had ever heard of. In fact, this company was a small part of the bewildering empire of one of Scotland's major retail banks at that time, and it was responsible for the maintenance of the bank's property. Thus the architects there carried out a wide range of tasks, from the refurbishment of a rural branch office to the design and construction of a new banqueting hall at the head office. This, I hasten to add, was many years before the astonishing excesses of the emirates of [Sir] Fred Goodwin and his chums at RBS and elsewhere.

Bob was a good friend, and he did me a couple of very useful favours, producing very heavily discounted designs for a kitchen extension and an outbuilding at my previous home. We also enjoyed a good few beers together, and he told me stories of why the architects in his little organisation did rather well.

They all did "homers", you see - private jobs, unconnected with their employment, though a lot of the private work was done in the office, during office hours. At the time, there was a "perks of the job" facility available to directors and top management in the bank - they were allowed to take out loans at very low (sometimes non-existent) rates of interest, for the purposes of house purchase, or home improvement, or similar. Usually some bricks-&-mortar type of investment.

If this seems like an abuse, I have to say that such facilities were widespread throughout the finance industry at the time. They would also be available in some form to all permanent members of staff, though the amounts would normally be less than those involved for the top brass. As Bob said, "In a brewery there is usually the odd bottle of beer going spare - in a bank, the situation is the same, except the stock in trade is cash - the place is awash with it".  

The procedure was that a competent, detailed design would be required for the work - if it were approved, the cash would be advanced through the Personnel department. The scheme, naturally, was ultimately under the control of the same senior individuals who were benefiting most from it, and the validation and costing of the drawings were carried out by Bob's colleagues in the design office - who, in almost all cases, would have produced them in the first place. Payment for the design and drawing work was paid to the architects individually in cash, and [allegedly] a lot of this went on out of sight of the Inland Revenue. Bob reckoned that a fair proportion of this building work was never carried out - a design would be produced for a fictitious project, it would be approved and costed, the loan would be granted, cash paid for the architect's services, and the world would move on.

Bob's first involvement in this odd sideline came when he was approached by one of his directors, who wanted the attic floor of part of a listed mansion house in the Scottish Borders equipped with a TV lounge, a billiards room and a small guest apartment. Bob was puzzled by the "nudge-nudge, wink-wink" style of the proposition - and one of his more experienced colleagues explained that the job was probably a hoax - just a fund-raiser. The money might be used for anything at all - it might even be invested to provide a return well in excess of the token interest on the loan.

Despite this his professional instincts persisted, and Bob became very interested in some of the challenges of this project - at one point he went to see his client, with his drawings, to discuss an idea he had for a light-well into the stair area of this attic conversion. He realised very quickly that the director was not interested in his ideas - in fact was rather surprised to hear from him. Then he remembered - the thing would never be built.

Bob got all sorts of private commissions from the bank's senior echelons, their relatives, golfing friends and so on. He did not make a fortune out of it, because he kept a sense of proportion, but some of his colleagues really did very well indeed out of their homers. One of them, a South African chap named Albert Hinkus, became something of a legend, and achieved a sufficiently ostentatious lifestyle to attract resentment amongst his peers - someone seems to have tipped off the Revenue.

Hinkus received a letter from the tax authorities, which basically said something to the effect that they suspected that he had other income which he had not declared, and they invited him to a personal interview at Drumsheugh Gardens. This was not unlike being invited to Gestapo HQ.

Bob says Hinkus had holiday properties in France, which he rented out, also a modest yacht based at Trinité-sur-Mer in Brittany, which he also rented out, and he was reputed to own a share in a vintage Le Mans-style Bentley, though his official salary was nothing extraordinary.

Gratuitous photo of vintage Bentley

Hinkus went along to his interview in a terrible state of anxiety, apparently. After having a couple of attempts at mystified denial completely ignored, he decided that they obviously did have something on him, so he confessed. Problem was that, once he started, he became very emotional and couldn't stop, and he gave them full details of many years of untaxed fees for private architectural work, amounting to tens of thousands of pounds. When he had finished, his interviewers were very worried about his state, and offered him a cup of tea and a chance to rest for a few minutes.

Over tea, one of them thanked him very much for his full and frank co-operation, and said that the only definite information they had had previously was that he had been paid some £30 for squash coaching lessons at a local private school the previous year.  He was also reminded that he must be sure to claim for his transport expenses in connection with the squash coaching.

I don't know what happened to Hinkus - I understand the abuses of the fantasy buildings scam were drastically pruned subsequently. Bob himself was a very religious fellow, and would never have done anything as iniquitous as cheating on his tax, but he said that some of his colleagues had some very sleepless nights, waiting for more letters from HM Inland Revenue.

In passing, I am reminded that Bob had some very bad luck some years later. He and his wife had bought an old farmhouse, and he had an extension built on the side, including a large conservatory which, of course, he designed himself. I never saw it - my wife had kept in touch with Bob's wife, and she said it was beautiful. Just as it was being completed there was a serious fire that destroyed much of the house. No-one was hurt, fortunately, but it took a couple of years to restore the place. Because the house was unoccupied at  the time of the fire, the police investigated the incident.

There was nothing suspicious, but the cause of the fire is alarming enough to stand as a warning. An inexpensive spotlight - designed to clip on to shelving - fell off and landed on a sofa in the new sun-lounge; unfortunately, the rocker switch on the lamp hit the sofa, and it switched itself on, scorching and ultimately igniting the sofa and resulting in a major conflagration. Never use clip-on spotlights - if they still make them, avoid them. 

Maria de Huerva (15th June 1809) - I've just played a game named Maria...

Wargaming yesterday. Things have been a bit confusing lately, but luckily Goya was able to organise a free day, and he came down to these parts for a Peninsular game, which offered a very welcome diversion for me.

Suchet (that's me, folks) thinking that these Spanish fellows fight a lot better than he had expected

This was an engagement between GdD (later Marshal) Louis-Gabriel Suchet and part of the Spanish Northern Army under Joaquin Blake. Our game was based upon the scenario published in Expansion #1 of Commands & Colors: Napoleonics - tweaked a little to reflect the relative strengths in the actual battle. In the historical battle, Suchet, having left a garrison in Saragossa, and having split off Leval's Division to protect the roads to that city, had some 10,000 men in the field. Blake was advancing north on both sides of the River Huerba, Areizaga's (large) Division being some miles from the action, so he had about 14,000.

We used the latest edition of the Ramekin Versions (based on CCN); both armies had a small off-table reserve available - Suchet spent the day waiting for Robert's brigade to join him, while Blake sort of hoped that Areizaga might condescend to send him some help when he heard the guns. In fact, neither of these reserves played any part - Robert arrived right at the end, when the game was already decided, and Blake was so stretched keeping the French at bay that he had no spare orders to do anything about a reserve, so Areizaga's chaps, wherever they were, were not much help.

In the real battle, Blake's troops demonstrated against Musnier's Division, on the French right, in an attempt to goad the French into attacking them (the Spanish position was along a very presentable ridge, and the Spanish Army - especially in this game - is at its best when defending ground of its own choosing). On the French left, Wathier's cavalry brigade advanced, and frightened the Spanish cavalry from the field, leaving the infantry's flank exposed - the Spanish right crumbled, but Blake did a creditable job of withdrawing his army, and the defeat was not the complete disaster it might have been.

So much for history. Our game didn't really go like that at all. The field looks a bit barren - that is correct - apart from the parallel lines of hills, the scene was more or less featureless. For the record, Suchet and Co were rated as "Good" commanders for the day, and Blake as "Competent". C&CN Tactician Cards were in use, and 7 Victory Points were required for the win.

General view at the start, from behind the French left flank. From this end, the French have Habert's infantry brigade, plus Wathier's cavalry, and on the ridge is Musnier's division, with the Vistula Lancers attached. The Spaniards, on the other side of the field are, from this end, Col O'Donnell with the flank force, then the Divisions of Lazan (front) and Roca (rear). The Spaniards were all regular troops - no provinciales, no irregulars. The Monasterio de Santa Fe is in the foreground.

Spanish in a good defensive position. Blake is visible with the yellow border to his base, in the background.

Spanish light troops - these are the Cazadores de Barbastro, on the left end of the line.

More general view of the Spanish position, with Musnier's French on the right edge of the photo. That gap between the two ridges was a real killing ground.

Musnier finds it hard to get started, as his men are taking casualties already.

Quick aerial view of the Monasterio, with prize-winning vegetable plot visible.

It's very rare for my Vistula Lancers to put in a good performance, but on this occasion they got it right, and probably won the day for the French in the end. Occasionally they strayed too far from their command to be able to receive orders, which was a nuisance, but when they were good they were very good.

View from behind the Spanish left - having gone off the idea of a straight frontal attack, Musnier sends out a force (just visible at the left edge) to attempt to turn the left flank of the Spanish front line 

Here his leading battalion gets up onto the Spanish ridge, though they look very short of friends at this point

They were repulsed, and again lack of command was a problem as the French tried to advance

Over on the Spanish right, O'Donnell, with grenadiers, light cavalry and light infantry (1st Cataluna, in the foreground), fought doggedly and impressively

There weren't as many as there had been, but Lazan's force sorted themselves out and began to win some VPs of their own. They got the situation back from 2-6 to 4-6, and Suchet was getting very nervous

Musnier rode out to take personal command of the flank attack - that's him on the left, with the white base-border.

Now there is a 3-pronged attack (dashing, but not much support available), in the foreground, Musnier with the 2/86eme attacks the Regto de Africa, who are still fresh; in the centre, the lancers turn to threaten the Regto de Ribero, who are already fighting (very well) against more French infantry

Musnier and friends are making short work of Africa - lots of red markers in evidence on the Spanish left flank

Leadership in action - Musnier encouraging his lads...

...when suddenly there is a dastardly Spanish trick, and they play a Short Supply card - we don't know what it was that the 86eme were running out of, but whatever it was they were obliged to whizz back to the baseline to get some more

At this point, at long last, Suchet was delighted to see Robert's brigade appear from the direction of Saragossa, on the edge of the field by Santa Fe - the sight probably didn't cheer up the Spaniards very much, but Robert had no time to contribute much to the French effort...

...because the Vistula Lancers, in a "Combined Arms" attack with support from artillery across the valley, now eliminated the battered Regto de Ribero...

...and that was that - the French had won 7-4

A good game - no real problems with the rules or the scenario. The Spanish put up a good show, but they always have problems - they fight well enough, but moving fire is poor, and in melees they are reliable only when they are standing firm. The biggest disadvantage is the double-retreat rule - if they do fall back, they fall back a long way, and if the retreat is blocked they suffer losses instead.

Afterwards we retired to Zitto in North Berwick for food and deep analysis - always a good idea. Subsequently, things slipped a bit when Goya's train of choice was cancelled, but he managed to get a later one without problem, and made it home safely.