International Bomber Command Centre

 A couple of posts ago this blog featured a very brief extract from Tennyson's 'In Memoriam'. I am fond of a thematic link so let's have a photo of the man himself standing larger than life outside Lincoln Cathedral.

The cathedral itself is, I am pleased to report, still looking very impressive after a thousand years or so. The view below is from the western wall of the castle, back across the bailey and over the east wall.

The imp is still there, although just as diminutive and unimpressive as always. I'm sorry to say that Magna Carta wasn't around, having gone for what the guide described as 'a rest in the dark'. We've all felt the need for that I'm sure.

One local attraction that has opened since I was last in the city is the somewhat strangely named 'International Bomber Command Centre'. Lincolnshire of course contained many bomber bases during WWII, but this isn't actually one of them. It's a new building on farmland just outside Lincoln, with an impressive view of the city. It's fairly close to RAF Waddington, current home of the Red Arrows, and they were much in evidence while we were there. The website describes it as 'a facility' and 'an experience', both of which make sense. It's not a museum as such, having very few historical artefacts, but instead it does two things rather well. Firstly, it uses technology rather effectively to cover both the activities of Bomber Command and the stories of those across Europe who suffered due to bombing. Secondly, it has a memorial to the more than 55,000 members of RAF Bomber Command who died during the war, with all their names inscribed thereon. I thought it was all very well done, and perhaps more pertinently so did my companion for the visit, who wasn't particularly looking forward to it, but ended up glad that she came. Indeed she seemed to be rather enjoying herself controlling a Lancaster on its bombing run over Peenemünde.

If I have one observation it's that whilst it didn't shy away from highlighting the moral debate about strategic bombing, I didn't spot anything related to whether in the end it turned out to be an effective use of the Allies' resources. Perhaps the memorial is intended to make us reflect on that for ourselves.

The quiet sense of something lost

 As in the winters left behind,

 Again our ancient games had place

-Tennyson, In Memoriam

2020

 It has long been a self-indulgence of mine to write an extensive post at the end of each year outlining in completely unnecessary detail things, mainly cultural, that I have done. For reasons that I don't need to explain I find that this time around I can't be arsed. A year ago I summed up 2019 by saying that it had been, as I had predicted, worse than 2018. I make no claim that I extended that to forecast a miserable 2020 as well. Still, Trump lost - several times in fact - so it wasn't a complete wash out.

When I looked back at my diary I was rather surprised at how much  I had actually done in the circumstances, although oddly enough I seem to have read fewer books that the previous year. I played nine wargames - none since March 2nd - and traditionalists will be pleased to note that one of them was Sidi Rezegh.

Quite a few two player boardgames have hit the table at the Casa Epictetus. Conscious that I haven't suggested a boardgame in quite a while can I point you towards Targi, which I highly recommend to those whose bubble only includes only one other (*); and it's even better with the expansion.

Of course many people have left us this year. One to whose music I have been listening a lot since he died is John Prine. So let's wrap up the year by listening to him tell us just what he's doing right now:

                                                        “Hope

                                                         Smiles from the threshold of the year to come,

                                                        Whispering 'it will be happier'...”

                                                                      - Tennyson

Peace and love to you all.

* at a time

Whereon the throstle rock'd

.................if this life of ours
Be a good glad thing, why should we make us merry
Because a year of it is gone? but Hope
Smiles from the threshold of the year to come
Whispering ‘It will be happier;’

                                 - Tennyson

The Analytical War Engine

"The public character of every public servant is legitimate subject of discussion, and his fitness or unfitness for office may be fairly canvassed by any person" - Charles Babbage

The distinguished mathematician's views are as valid now as they were well over a century ago. However that's not why we're here. I have been reading the newish set of rules published by Osprey: "The Men Who Would Be Kings". They are by Daniel Mersey, who wrote "Lion Rampant", which I rather liked despite being unable to set up a scenario that works properly. These new rules cover 19th century colonial wars, which are very low down on my list of possible periods to spend time and money on. James claims that he's going to do the Sudan at some point, but I'll be long dead by the time he gets round to it. These rules aren't really the sort of thing that I'd be looking for in any case, and can anyone imagine James putting up with only three troop types?

My real reason for taking a look was because the book contains an artificial intelligence engine allowing them to be played solo; this being given the name Mr Babbage, presumably in honour of the man who first proposed the programmable computer (1). My particular interest in this is in it's applicability to my Roman vs Celts Pony Wars rip off and, sure enough, Mersey acknowledges that what he has done was inspired by Ian Beck's original, but that he has purposefully set out to simplify the process. It certainly looks straightforward enough, although, as before, the big difference from what I want is the centrality of ranged fire. I like the dice driven concept for the introduction of new tribal units anywhere on the table rather than just at the edges or at ambush points. It shouldn't be beyond my imagination to work out a way of integrating that with the other elements activated by cards in the current approach. Indeed, it may be time to get out the Romans in Britain rules and take a look, as I now have three possible areas of revision:

• The AI approach from these rules
• The melee mechanism from Lion Rampant
• Hex based movement 

I shall try to free up some time in what is, as you will appreciate, a hectic social life.

(1) I have seen it reported that Babbage wrote a letter to Tennyson complaining that the lines

Every moment dies a man

Every moment one is born

    did not reflect the world's growing population and suggesting that they be replaced with the more accurate

Every moment dies a man

And one and a sixteenth is born

    This is another of those stories the accuracy of which I have no desire to check.

Pelléas and Mélisande

And so to the opera. English Touring Opera are presenting three works in Harrogate. I passed on Massenet's Werther, mainly because the eponymous protagonist is so insufferable, but also partly because I made the mistake of going to see the very disappointing Spectre instead. But I did catch Debussy's version of Maeterlinck's 1893 play. I always welcome the chance to see opera in a smaller theatre and musically and vocally it was very good. The stage designs are necessarily built around transportability, but I felt they worked less well. The window in the castle tower wasn't really high enough or big enough for the Rapunzel style hair letting down and then there was the filing cabinet which lay on its side centre stage throughout. The opening and closing of various drawers to represent wells, caves, gardens etc sort of worked until late in the second half, when the top drawer was opened for the first time and a pile of papers spilled out. It was impossible to tell whether they represented anything in particular or whether someone had just forgotten to take them out. 

And what things represent is rather important here. The original play was 'symbolist'; in other words everything has a deeper meaning than that being acted out in front of us. I think - and don't quote me on this - that this one's about some things ending and other things beginning, whether we want that to happen or not. I saw echoes of Tennyson's views on the death of Arthur and the end of Camelot ("The old order changeth, yielding place to new"). Maybe that's all tied up with the mock medieval setting; maybe I'm just talking drivel. From our modern perspective it's always tempting to assume that fin de siècle (both temporally and artistically) implied some sort of intuitive awareness of the onrushing global conflict.

Whatever, I actually prefer to draw my lessons from the story as told on stage rather than looking behind it. The recital of infidelity and jealousy provides an interesting juxtaposition with both The Winter's Tale, seen on the same stage recently, and, once again against a background of impending and inevitable social change, the contemporaneous Uncle Vanya. For me, there are two pivotal moments: when the adulterous lovers first acknowledge how deep their feelings for each other are and understand that they are reciprocated; and then, when perhaps inevitably they are discovered and await whatever fate will bring, Pelléas cries "All is lost, all is won".

Out flew the web and floated wide

I have been thinking about shallots recently: the growing - my sources tell me that they provide a better crop on allotments than do onions; the eating - I cooked some in a rather fine broad bean and bacon risotto last night; and the symbolism - see posts passim.

It was therefore inevitable that on a brief trip to Leeds Art Gallery this morning my eye would be drawn to John William Waterhouse's 1894 painting. Less well known than his painting of the Lady drifting to her doom, I like it because it portrays her at her moment of existential crisis.

 A comparison of Waterhouse's various paintings based on the poem can be found here.

The Lady of Shalott has featured in this blog before, but that was, as it were, before.

"The old order changeth, yielding place to new"

Tennyson wasn't necessarily suggesting to his readers that change was good although King Arthur's own opinion on the matter is somewhat ambiguous; you will recall him reflecting that "all my mind is clouded with a doubt". I however am up for it. So, having dealt with the base of my own personal Maslow's hierarchy (source of income, somewhere to live, sufficiency of doxies) it is time to turn my thoughts to achieving self-actualisation through wargaming.

The transporting of my collection into the new wargaming annexe has forced me to have a think about what on earth I'm going to do with all this stuff, with a subsidiary helping of 'what was I thinking?'. So the time has come to impersonate a proper wargaming blog and write a posting about my plans for the future.

New stuff: the only new painting is going to be War of the Spanish Succession, the period that having been tricked into I am nevertheless going to bloody well finish regardless. Rules will be Piquet, Maurice, Beneath the Lily Banners and/or Die Fighting. I own them all so they'll all get an outing at some point.

Steady as she goes: My Wars of the Roses morphing into Hussite Wars collection will basically stay as is, but the half-hearted attempt to also morph into the Fall of Constantinople will not be pursued. Rules will be Piquet Band of Brothers suitably amended to incorporate the latest thinking from Ilkley, wargaming epicentre of lower Wharfedale.

Different tack: I actually have a fairly large 1813 Napoleonic collection albeit without any Austrians. In fact until I re-looked at it I'd forgotten how much I'd painted; or how badly, but that's a different issue. However, the units are pretty small and don't lend themselves to a lot of rulesets. So, partly based on recent experiences with the ongoing Punic Wars campaign and partly on game reports on Conrad Kinch's excellent blog, I'm thinking of giving Napoleonic Command and Colours a go. In fact I'm seriously thinking of investing in some hex terrain to do it as written.

Resuscitated project: I have lots of Celts and not many Romans, all individually based and destined for a game based on either Patrols in the Sudan or Pony Wars or both. I'd like to give this a proper go; needs some close combat rules to graft on though.

Complete fantasy: Mexican revolution - one day.

The shipwreck of my ill adventured youth

"Only reapers, reaping early

In among the bearded barley

Hear a song that echoes cheerly

From the the river winding clearly"

- Tennyson

"Tu proverai si come sa di sale

Lo pane altrui, e com' è duro calle

Lo ascendere e il salir per l'altrui scale"

- Dante