PotCXIVpouri

 I'm finding it difficult to get any wargaming momentum going for some reason. Painting has slowly progressed on the new siege works resin castings. For undercoat and base coat I used those 120ml tubes of acrylic paint (orange and burnt umber respectively since you ask) that you can pick up cheaply in variety retailers . The shop I usually frequent in Otley is known by everyone as Captain Value, although they foolishly changed the name to something else a few years ago. One of the delays to the project was caused by running out of the brown when I had painted one end of all the pieces. As the replacement burnt umber was a different make and a completely different shade it all looks a bit odd now I've painted the other halves. Still, I am sure my dry brushing and blending skills will be up to the challenge.

Culture and boardgaming have been a bit more fruitful, and I may return to both. I must mention 'Nothing Happens (Twice)', which is out on tour at the moment and which I'd recommend. The title is a obviously a reference to 'Waiting for Godot', and the autobiographical piece covers the ultimately unsuccessful attempt by two young Spanish actresses to obtain the performance rights from the Beckett  estate, via a stint dressed as flamingos in a shopping centre on behalf of the Andalusian tourist board. It's very entertaining and actually contains a largish slug of the original under the 'fair dealing' provisions of copyright.

I'm always on the look out for something spiritually uplifting, and so I have been listening to a three CD set entitled 'Drink Drugs Sex'. Picking out one of those CDs entirely at random, here's a track from the third one, Blind Boy Fuller with 'Sweet Honey Hole':

 

Jump or Burn

 A mere four years ago I wrote of the imminent return of 'Jump or Burn' to the legendary wargames room. Fittingly 'imminent' has proved to be as elastic a time concept as those contained in the rules, but after what has apparently been a whole series of 'Sitting Duck' cards (*) the game has finally arrived; and great fun it is.

Your bloggist was the German pilot in the above photograph which shows the situation after some excellent manoeuvring on my part. It also shows the situation after some appalling shooting on my part, i.e. I missed from there and the British aircraft carried out its bombing run - that's the target on the ground behind the Bosche front line - and safely dived for its own lines. However, the forgiving nature of this game meant I still got a victory point to carry forward to the next game on the basis that I didn't actually die. 

James wrote the rules the best part of twenty years ago and they were published by Piquet Inc (**), although they don't really share much with the rest of that company's games. The main overlap is in combat via opposed polyhedral dice rolls; there are no similarities in turn phasing, initiative management or morale. Having played 'X-Wing' relatively recently it was interesting to compare the different ways they deal with the concepts of simultaneous movement. What this game does is basically not worry about it too much. At the end of a full run of twenty one cards (***) all aircraft will have done (or more precisely, had the opportunity to do) everything their type is allowed to do. It's only at then that one can say that the table reflects their precise positions at a given point in time. In between it's all a bit confusing, which doesn't seem at all unthematic to me. Good stuff.

* On a 'Sitting Duck' card your plane doesn't do anything; depending on what you are flying you will have varying numbers of these amongst the cards that actually allow you move, manoeuvre, change height, fire etc. 

** It probably goes without saying that it's unlikely that we are still playing the rules as originally written and published.

*** These cards are played out from three hands of seven. Then they are all shuffled back together and the process starts again.

Baytown

"Sea air was healing, softening, relaxing -- fortifying and bracing -- seemingly just as was wanted -- sometimes one, sometimes the other." - Jane Austen

Your bloggist has been suffering from an unpleasant bug that is apparently doing the rounds, upon recovering from which he has gone for a brief convalescence on the east coast of Yorkshire.

This chap had the same idea

Bradford City of Film

 Bradford has a long connection with filmmaking; indeed it was the first UNESCO City of Film in the world. And of course the very first moving pictures ever were taken next door in Leeds. So lots of films have been made in this part of the world. I previously mentioned 'Ilkley: the movie', which was eventually released as 'Say Your Prayers'. Now, I have never seen it, and nor do I know anyone who has, from which I think we can deduce both that it had a very limited release and that it's rubbish. However, given the chance I would watch it because, you know, it's local.

In the meantime I have been to see 'Ali & Ava', also shot in Bradford, but this time in the inner city. It's a nice, warm-hearted watch with all the conflict and difficulties resolving themselves, mostly off camera and in ways not clearly explained. I did enjoy it though, and the physical Bradford shown in it is very much the real Bradford. For those who don't know the city it is perched on hills surrounding a central valley (*) and most views are across the centre to another piece of high ground, and that's faithfully reproduced here. In case anyone wonders about the sudden appearance  of an opulent bookshop among shots of gritty terraces and segregated housing estates, that's the Waterstones in the Wool Exchange, which is a lovely building. Wool of course was once the source of the city's wealth. 

I bet Heathcliffe and Cathy didn't go to Keighley first

Your bloggist is slowing down in his old age and therefore my companion was the same person that I went to see Belfast with recently. This new film contained such a glaring public transport solecism that I turned to her at the end expecting a tirade of "that would never happen". But with the contrariness of her sex, she shrugged her shoulders and said that she couldn't see anything wrong with it. So, it is left to me to point out that if one lived in central Bradford and wanted to go to Haworth for the weekend then one would just go there and not first head off in a different direction, stop at Keighley station and get on the KWVR. 

Not the National Gallery

And, while we're on the subject of public transport, like the proverbial bus a second film shot in Bradford has appeared immediately after the first one. 'The Duke' (**) is mostly set in Newcastle, but the terraced houses seen in the film are in Bradford and the scenes purporting to be the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square were actually shot in Cartwright Hall in Lister Park (***).  I recommend the film, which is very entertaining, and there are excellent performances from Helen Mirren and especially Jim Broadbent, although they're both a decade too old for the roles they play. I said in yesterday's post about Macbeth that great acting doesn't require speech and Mirren proves that again. She manages to express her disapproval of her husband's behaviour simply by the way she knits. As H.L. Mencken astutely observed: "A man may be a fool and not know it; but not if he is married". The annoying error in 'The Duke' is class related rather than anything to do with transport. Helen Mirren lays the table for tea (and that is correct: tea not dinner) and puts the dessert spoon to the right of the knife. Wrong! In a working class home of the early sixties the spoon would have been placed across the top. Don't they do any research?

* The football ground is called Valley Parade for a reason. Unusually for this part of the world there is no river at the bottom of the valley. The road that runs along it is called Canal Road, but there's no canal either. 

** This actually has a couple of tenuous wargaming connections, one of which is that the Duke in question is Wellington.

*** I was there a couple of weeks ago to see 'Island to Island', an exhibition of photographs of the West Indies. If you're in the area I recommend both it and the vegan chocolate cake in the café. 

Sign on, Macduff

 And so to the theatre, to see Macbeth. Reading this post's title one might be forgiven for thinking that in the director has given the Thane of Fife a UB40 rather than his being driven into exile and having his family slaughtered as Shakespeare originally intended. However, what I am clumsily attempting to describe is the production's inclusivity and accessibility, with both Macduff and his wife being played by deaf actors. They signed, with their lines being interpreted into speech via other actors, primarily Lennox. I thought that all worked rather well and avoided the obvious trap of it all coming across as a bit "What's that you say Skippy? There's a man trapped in the abandoned mine? And you were from your mother's womb untimely ripped?".

"Tyrant, show thy face!"

In fact Adam Bassett's display of grief when told of the death of his wife and children showed that great acting doesn't require words. The lines of the rest of the cast were, at the performance I attended, signed by an interpreter costumed and integral to the action rather than standing to the side of the stage, and much thought had clearly been given to the physical gestures which each speaker used to accompany the blank verse. One of the assistant directors is blind, and much was also made of how it would work for unsighted members of the audience. I'm afraid I don't think that aspect worked anything like as well. 

Overall it was good, with particular credit to Jessica Baglow's Lady Macbeth and to the choreographers of the battle scenes. The set, featuring an enormous working drawbridge, was also rather impressive.

As it happens, in January I saw the recent film version starring Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand. Their ages (Washington, nominated for best actor, is even older than your bloggist, though sadly for him he doesn't seem to have aged as well as me) impel a different dynamic to the marital relationship, and one that worked a bit better for me.  I felt the film, with its obvious references to German expressionist cinema, the superior of the versions, but am glad to have seen both.

PotCXIIIpouri

 I haven't written about wargaming for a while, mostly because there hasn't been any. We played an Italian Wars game a couple of weeks ago, but frankly it wasn't very good. Unlike the previous weeks, when we were trying something new, this was a bit unexpected. The rules we were using - whose name escapes me, but will inevitably be something to do with blood - were written by James and Peter quite a few years ago and we'd happily used them on many occasions. In any event the pair of them spent the evening tutting and saying "Of course, we'd never do it like that now". My two pennyworth is that the problem wasn't either the rules or the scenario, but was just a combination of bad luck and player choices. However, I anticipate that a substantial rewrite is on the cards. If I was going to be heretical I'd say that we should just use Black Powder, which has always seemed to me to work quite well for the period. Still, who am I to deny them their fun. As Camus said: "Il faut imaginer sisyphe heureux".

Another endless task has been clearing my tabletop, except for the minor detail that it's now clear and the job is finished. But it did take a long period of not very intensive effort to achieve. I needed to find somewhere to store all the siege stuff, which meant repacking a lot of other things, which meant that every time I turned round there was more piled up on the table than when I started. I forced myself to throw away some pieces of home made, and quite possibly never used, scenery. I shall hopefully be setting up something WWI shortly.

On the plus side, the wind has dropped sufficiently for me to be able to get the spray can out for some priming:

Comfort hobbying

 The Plastic Soldier Review website currently says "..it seems almost disrespectful to talk about trivial thing such as plastic figures", and that is an entirely understandable reaction. I do, however, think that there is a psychological benefit in difficult circumstances from continuing to indulge in our hobby. I remember reading somewhere someone saying that men (*) like to model the world in miniature because that makes them think that they can control it. 

It also reminds me of something written by David Nobbs - best known for creating Reginald Perrin - in his novel, 'Second From Last in the Sack Race'. On September 3rd 1939 a group of small children are playing a literal and unsavoury game of Poohsticks:

"I don't think there was a single one of us, however small, however deplorably apolitical the home environment that helped to shape us, who was not aware that an event of cataclysmic importance was casting its shadow over our little world and over the great world beyond our little world. I remember we played some kind of game on that fateful morning. I forget the rules. They don't matter. What matters is that we felt a compulsion to play a game, a clean game, a game with rules, because we knew, with the untainted instincts of youth, that the world was embarking on an adventure which was definitely not a game, and that for many years to come there would be no rules."

* And, ironically given that I am posting this on International Women's Day, it really is men they were talking about.