The sign of noble souls

Regular readers may have seen a comment posted recently that almost uniquely was neither from MS Foy (whose observations are of course always both pertinent and welcome) and nor did it concern the back catalogue of Salford songstress Elkie Brooks (who is always worth seeing; just don’t expect too much from “Pearl’s a Singer” as she rather throws it away). Furthermore this latest comment was a question colligating both wargaming and philosophy: the two raisons d’etre of this blog. [The Rhetorical Pedant cannot resist pointing out that in fact far more of the blog seems to be taken up with poetry, ruminations on goings-on in North Korea, pictures of your bloggist frolicking with the yummy mummies of Ilkley, and pointless interjections from someone calling himself the Rhetorical Pedant.] And so, at last, a proper question that not only deserves a proper answer, but is actually going to get two. Controversially, I am going to begin from the perspective of an ordinary wargamer rather than that of the giant of Stoic philosophy that you know me to be. Readers of an intellectual bent will just have to wait.

Ordinary wargamer

So, the obvious place to start is by considering Deconstruction, the literary theory propounded originally by Jacques Derrida. Derrida famously, though not pithily, said “Every discourse, even a poetic or oracular sentence, carries with it a system of rules for producing analogous things and thus an outline of methodology.” And I’m assuming that no-one is going to argue with that. In this context Deconstruction would lead us to focus on the word ‘ordinary’ rather than ‘wargamer’. Rest assured that I am extraordinarily ‘ordinary’ in my wargaming. I have piles of unpainted figures, many volumes of unplayed rules, a collection of odd shaped-dice, am a white male of a certain age with a bit of a belly, and am rather reticent when asked by the yummies what my hobbies are. I rarely put on my own games (although, as will be appreciated, this is not unrelated to not actually having anywhere to live), but am always happy to turn up when anyone else puts one on.

James ‘Olicanalad’ Roach, on the other hand, is a professional. He is an award-winning painter, a published rules author and the owner of a legendary war-games room. In fact the only thing he shares with us ‘ordinary wargamers’ is a pronounced glabrousness. Since moving to the vicinity of Ilkley – wargaming epicentre of lower Wharfedale – I have been very grateful to play in games hosted by Mark, Ken and Tim as well as, many years ago, actually hosting one myself. But I’m sure that none of the others would quibble that James’ set-up is the dog’s bollocks. That last phrase would no doubt have given Monsieur Derrida immense pleasure, but I think we can be equally clear that he would have followed it up with a question. “What” he would have pondered “has any of zis got to do with ze price of fish?”.

And the answer is plain and straightforward; qualities always much admired by French philosophers. It is such a pleasure and a privilege to be able to play wargames at James' house, with his beautifully painted figures on his equally fine terrain, that he can change the rules as often as he likes; I just don't care.