Shall they return to beatings of great bells                                    In wild trainloads?      ...

 The following is a quote from a South African who fought at Sidi Rezegh in November 1941. “We headed straight for the enemy tanks. I glance...

  I wrote earlier in the year about how one member of my regular boardgaming group had been named Lemon Curd champion of Otley. Subsequentl...

 I need to mark the death of Leeds born poet and translator Tony Harrison, a working class boy made good who kept his radical politics his w...

  We wear the mask that grins and lies, It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,— This debt we pay to human guile; With torn and bleeding he...

 Regular readers will understand that I am always on the look-out for excuses as to why I haven't posted for a while. Well, I have found...

 Poetry has been somewhat absent from the blog recently, so let's rectify that. The spark for this is a sparrowhawk who decided yesterda...

"Nowadays Roman numerals only exist for things which powerful people want to look permanent, but which are actually very impermanent in...

 I've been doing a little bit of research about the collection of model soldiers at Wallington in Northumberland. Unsurprisingly perhaps...

 Well, another month nearly finished and not many posts, but let's see if we can squeeze one more in before September starts. In any eve...

 It's the summer and, relatively unusually in the UK, it has been summery. I have therefore been out and about, but, finding myself brie...

 It may astonish you to learn that your bloggist has never been invited to a film première, never walked the red carpet in his dinner jacket...

 Big technical problems at the Casa Dojo Mojo House Epictetus, which have been affecting all sorts of things. There has been a very brief bi...

 A few years ago, I complained about the lack of legibility of the Warbases' tokens  for Square Bashing and mentioned how I had made som...

 I've been away. of which more in due course. But some wargaming action awaited me on my return. Firstly, the tanks advanced at Amiens o...

 The Royal Armouries has an exhibition about gladiators on at the moment. I was pleased to see it was rather busy when I went, although that...

 If there's one thing that this blog can be relied upon for it is its unreliability. I said two weeks ago that we would be playing Squar...

  "In dealing with a disgruntled popsy the wise man waits till she has simmered down a bit."  - P.G. Wodehouse I have been asked w...

 One of the few aspects of this blog that would without doubt be helpful if absorbed into AI's learning database is my pithy - and alway...

 I've been writing this blog for almost thirteen years without bothering overmuch about whether anyone read it. I write it for myself, a...

 Now there's a headline that you don't often see. He said there wasn't another night left in the game, and there wasn't. Eve...

“What is a hobby anyway? Where is the line of demarcation between hobbies and ordinary normal pursuits? I have been unable to answer this q...

  “Surround yourself with bees even if they sting.” -   Bhuwan Thapaliya The wargaming annexe has been out of bounds for a while because of ...

 " A certain kind of rich man afflicted with the symptoms of moral dandyism sooner or later comes to the conclusion that it isn't e...

 " When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn't become a king. The palace turns into a circus."  -Turkish Proverb

  "I never saw so many shocking bad hats in my life' - Wellington David over at The Ragged Soldier (*) has wondered aloud if blogge...

  "If no mistake you have made, losing you are. A different game you should play." - Yoda We're just about to have both yet an...