Luck Be A Lady Tonight

And so to the theatre. I have been to see 'Guys and Dolls'. It turned out to be one of those shows/films that I would have sworn blind that I had seen before, but the watching of which made clear that I hadn't. It is, as you probably already knew, based on Damon Runyon's short stories of the inter-war New York demi-monde, and as such I was rather surprised by the uncanny resemblance to certain wargamers of my acquaintance.

It wasn't so much the unlikely names of the characters: such as Nicely-Nicely Johnson, the Seldom Seen Kid or Harry the Horse, although one of my first wargaming opponents was, and is, always known as Len the Ink (*). It was more to do with the rolling of dice. The programme contained an explanation of the rules of craps which left me none the wiser except to appreciate that it is clearly more possible to roll the wrong number than it is the right one; if that's not a pithy description of wargaming then I don't know what is. But in particular there was the solution to that problem employed by Big Jule, the Chicago mobster: he has the spots removed from a set of dice, but before it is done he memorises which side was which number so when they are rolled he can tell the other players what the blank faces currently uppermost would have been displaying. Tell me that you don't know a wargamer like that.

Anyway, here's Marlon Brando annoying Frank Sinatra both in and out of character:

* Also several decades ago I shared a house with the Teddy Bear Kid, but that's a digression for another day.

Figure painting

There is an interesting opinion piece in the latest edition of Wargames Soldiers & Strategy about figure painting. The thrust of it is that current standards of painting are actually directed at the requirements of photography rather than of actually gaming. The view that I've always taken is that good enough is, well, good enough. My experience at the games hosted by James Roach shows that is perfectly possible to game very successfully with fantastically painted figures. However, I have substantial experience that gaming with far less well painted figures can be equally good. Some of my fondest gaming memories are of the Mexican Revolution being refought, after a fashion with khaki all-over Airfix WWI standing in for the Federales. I can't for the life of me remember who represented the forces of Pancho Villa; I suspect that it was Airfix Confederates and/or Cowboys, again with one coat of Humbrol.

Happy Days.

Inspiration

Goat's Head Soup

I was listening to this in the car yesterday as I drove across the moors near Skipton and it occurred to me with a certain amount of shock that it was released forty years ago.

I can vividly remember that summer - well bits of it anyway. And all those that I was knocking around with then - ooh, what happened to you, whatever happened to me, what became of the people, we used to be? Actually, an awful lot of them are washed-up has-beens rather like me.

When I think back to that summer I also always think firstly about the future mayor of Harpenden - for obvious reasons - and then about the lime in the coconut. Vicious, you hit me with a flower.

Wargaming relevance - zippo.