Boardgaming Q3 2025

 

I wrote earlier in the year about how one member of my regular boardgaming group had been named Lemon Curd champion of Otley. Subsequently one of the others has been crowned Fruit Scone king of Addingham. What a talented bunch they are. I'm pleased to say that when we are not stuffing our faces with their baked goods we are still able to find time to play a few games. Here are some of them:

Azul: A very good game, which I have played remarkably few times.

Bomb Busters: I really enjoyed this cooperative deduction game in which players seek to collectively defuse a bomb by 'cutting' various wires using mechanisms that are a bit Hanabi meets Trio. I've only played a couple of the training scenarios, but apparently there are 66 in all. It's much less frenetic than the similarly themed Fuse. Do you know, I might actually have to put my hand in my pocket and buy this one.

Calico: A tile laying game where the aim is to lay out patterns and colours in certain combinations in order to create a quilt which cats can lay on. Like many such games it gets really annoying when the right piece doesn't turn up at the right time and I spent the game thinking that it was all luck However, the two players who had played before absolutely thrashed the two who hadn't, leading me to believe that there must be some strategy in it. I'd certainly play again.

Canvas: A drafting game in which what the cards drafted are mostly transparent, but with a small amount of screen printing. Three of these are combined in a special sleeve with a background card to create a 'painting'. It's a gimmick in search of a game, but plays very quickly so doesn't particularly outstay its welcome.

Distilled: Highly thematic and way too complicated game about making various types of spirits. There are something like half a dozen rounds. As we completed scoring for the first of these the person teaching the game gently told me that I had misunderstood what I was supposed to do and had in fact ended up with nul points. "Never mind" I thought, I understand it properly now. However, the same thing happened again at the end of the second round when I once more didn't trouble the scorers. I did manage to break my duck later in the game, but ended up being so far behind the eventual winner that, despite my being teetotal, I was sorely tempted to turn to one of the drinks we had been distilling.

Flamme Rouge: Astonishingly it had been eight years since I last played this excellent cycle racing game, although I have played the closely related Heat: Pedal to the Metal many times since. Nothing about my performance had improved and once again both my riders failed to cross the finish line.

The Gang: A cooperative version of poker. Just think about that for a moment. It's as terrible as you would imagine. The worst game I've played in a long time.

Lancaster: I had to teach this again, and once again that wasn't ideal. Still, this time it had only been 18 months rather than ten years. It's a good game, but I need to find someone who owns the expansion. Apparently that introduces a mechanism which can penalise those players who don't do their duty and  fight the French.

Let's Make a Bus Route: The Dice Game: I've never played the original, so can't say whether this matches my usual rule of thumb: dice/card versions of games are usually worse than the game they are based on. I thought that this was over-complicated, but possibly repeated playing would make things clearer. There are two maps to choose from. One is a random city (in which every tourist attraction is the Eiffel Tower) and the other is Mars. Odd,

Mountain Goats: A perfectly fine filler about climbing up mountains and pushing other goats off the top.

Northwest Passage Adventure: Clever enough game about racing through snow and ice. The rule book is terrible so I'm not clear how correctly we were playing it.

Prey Another Day: Eat or be eaten in  a sort of Citadels combined with Love Letter. Quick and fun.

Project L: A polyomino tile layer where you get to choose difficulty level of the puzzles you try to solve. It was OK.

Scythe: I had a disastrous first game of this a couple of years ago and it's taken this long for me to be persuaded to try it again. It went much better, but I still don't see why it is so highly rated. 

War of the 3 Sanchos: When I mentioned this last year I said that, while obscure and probably hard to find a copy, many wargamers would enjoy it. I still think so. Hopefully it won't be as long before El Cid rides out again in Otley.

Western Legends: Another game that might appeal to wargamers is this one. Take on the character of a famous figure of the old west and swan around either rustling cattle, robbing banks and shooting people or alternatively arresting those who do so. Add in prospecting for gold, playing poker and visiting the bordello and you have all the ingredients for a lot of fun. I got arrested more times than I would have wished by the NPC sheriff, but perhaps I'm just not cut out to be a black hat. Great fun.

There ain't no goodhats...

 An intermittently recurring feature on the blog has been bands I wish I'd seen forty or fifty years ago, didn't, but now have. Latest to join this illustrious list is Wreckless Eric, a name he spent decades trying to avoid, but has now reclaimed. It was worth the wait:

He was supporting Dr Feelgood, who I probably would have gone to see anyway. The issue of whether I'd ever seen the original line up has now been resolved (although I can still remember absolutely nothing of the event) and this latest gig turned out to be 48 years all but one day since that previous occasion. That, I think is the longest period between my successive attendance at gigs of the same band, always assuming that you count them as being the same band. This lot are a bit of an odd mixture between being a proper band (they released an album of new material last year) and a tribute act (they play all the old favourites), but however you classify them they are bloody good and well worth seeing. Not, though as good as Wilko Johnson, Lee Brilleaux, John B. Sparkes and The Big Figure, so here they are:

Someone else who I've seen live this week is Tom Robinson, who I last saw in either late 1977 or early 1978, so not quite as big a gap. He was also excellent and extremely engaging; his anecdotes being almost as good as his music. I particularly liked the one about the time the Sunday People described him as 'Britain's no. 1 gay' when they 'outed' him for being in a relationship with a woman. Wreckless Eric's best anecdote was about Kevin Coyne, but he was perhaps topped by Maddie Prior of Steeleye Span - also seen by your bloggist with the last seven days; I am ceaseless in my search for material with which to entertain you - whose story concerned both Peter Sellers and his ukulele.

I Don't Want To Know About Evil

 I saw more films in January than I saw in the whole of last year. Among them was 'Belfast', which I really enjoyed. My companion for the evening took a different view, complaining of a lack of realism. She even donned a metaphorical anorak and question the accuracy of the way that the buses were portrayed; for the record, I have no reason to believe that she has any particular knowledge of public transport in the Northern Ireland of the 1960s. For me the fact that the film was a view through the eyes of a nine year old meant that one wasn't meant to take certain things entirely literally: the unfeasible good looks of the parents; that a miscast Dame Judi Dench is at least a generation too old for the part; and, OK fair enough, the unlikelihood of the airport bus leaving from the end of their street (*). I also felt that the music of the genius that is Van Morrison added greatly, whereas she felt unable to look beyond the pandemic having led to him completing his journey from curmudgeon to dickhead. 

This dichotomy between the teller and the tale also came up when I recently saw Sarah Jane Morris in concert, as in the first set she concentrated on the songs of John Martyn. Martyn was a sublime practitioner of jazz tinged singer-songwriting; he was also an alcoholic drug-user well known for inflicting physical and mental cruelty, especially against the women in his life. Morris didn't avoid that aspect - she is personally close to some of Martyn's surviving family -  but chose to focus on interpretation of his soulful, and often sad, lyrics.

She was backed by distinguished guitarist Tony Rémy (who has played with Herbie Hancock and Jack Bruce amongst others) and, to my surprise, the wonderful Marcus Bonfanti. I've only come across him before in a blues context - he is a member of the current incarnation of Ten Years After - but he demonstrated that he has the jazz chops as well. In the second set they played a wider variety of music including fine covers of 'Imagine' and 'I Shall Be Released'. The song I think I enjoyed most was 'Piece of My Heart'. Mostly associated these days with Janis Joplin, it was first offered by Bert Berns (who co wrote it with Jerry Ragovoy) to Van Morrison, Berns being Morrison's producer at the time. Morrison declined it, probably grumpily; dickhead. 

Not at all grumpy was Sarah Jane Morris, whose between song monologues about acts she had worked with, activism, and karma added much to the gig,  which I very much enjoyed. In case you are wondering where you have heard that name and voice before, it was her that duetted with Jimmy Somerville on the Communards' 'Don't Leave Me This Way'. Here they are, lip-synching creatively:

Great hat.

* Although, as it happens, in real life the airport bus leaves from directly outside my front door.

Pot97pouri

I am not old enough to have seen Peter Green in his prime, but the former Mrs Epictetus and I did get to see him in 2009 when he did a low key tour. Musically it was very good, although understandably he didn't engage with the audience at all. Lovers of trivia may wish to know that he performed that night in a hat very reminiscent of those favoured by Benny from Crossroads. There have been those who have, and in the very recent past too, mocked such headgear; I trust that you are now suitably sorry for your actions.

I have been asked what happened in the 'Square Bashing' game, reports on which ended rather abruptly. You may remember that it had been that British turn to move next, and that their situation appeared to be hopeless. It appeared that way because it was in fact hopeless (*). The only sensible thing for them to do was to retreat, but as you will also remember I had been reading C.S. Forester's 'The General', in which such behaviour is forbidden regardless of logic or cost in human life. I therefore decided that, guided by this philosophy, the British would attack to attempt to recapture their lost positions. To cut a long story short, they didn't, rendering their situation some way beyond hopeless, and leading to me clearing the table. No photos were taken.

Lots of musicians have been recording concerts with no audience during these troubled times, and blog favourites The Heimatdamisch are no exception. Here's an excerpt, but be warned that what the trumpeter does at the beginning is most definitely not the recommended method of ensuring that surfaces are free of the virus. Conny seems to have spent the whole of lockdown on a sunbed, but I for one am glad to once again get the chance to admire her lungs.

* Your bloggist has been reading too much Douglas Adams recently.

Rock and Roll

Obviously the main purpose of yesterday's photo was to demonstrate that in the early seventies it was possible to be a wargamer and also to be one of the cool kids. I think that it is case proved myself, although it has subsequently been suggested to me that the clothes and hair on display aren't helping my argument very much. I don't agree, except possibly for Kitty Loewenstein's jacket and also the rather unfortunate hat being sported in the back row by someone apparently taking fashion tips from Benny out of Crossroads.

Anyway, for no particular reason here's some music - and some clothes - from about the same period:

A good hobby for an anxious time

It's been a long time since I abandoned the frivolity of reading the wargames press and limited myself to magazines of a more serious nature. I was therefore temporarily thrown when, on turning the pages of this week's issue of The Economist, I came across a photograph of the Perry Twins - the one below in fact. It was adorning a brief article about wargaming, which does indeed describe what we do as 'a good hobby for an anxious time'. Unsurprisingly, given his audience, the writer concentrates mainly on the business element of things. The effect of the pandemic has, according to Alan Perry, been "like two Christmas' worth of demand"; so someone's happy then. I also wasn't previously aware that Games Workshop now has a higher stock market valuation than Marks & Spencer. Who'd have thought there were more orc fanciers than there are lovers of the polyester trouser?

In the background of that photo is what appears to be an authentic piece of nineteenth century military headgear. It got me wondering where I had previously seen a well-known wargames figure sculptor with the same type of items displayed prominently; and then it occurred to me. I offer absolutely no apologies for revisiting this old favourite:

For those without any patience, Mrs Hinton's first appearance wearing military uniform can be found 1 minute 48 seconds in; don't ask me how I know.

The Birth of the Cool

Apologies to those who have been waiting for an update on the Square Bashing game. The British have had a turn and got some reinforcements into their line, not least because I played a bit fast and loose with the rules. I shall pick up the narrative again shortly, I hope. In the meantime there has been a certain amount of stuff going on here to distract me, as opposed of course to the amount of going out and being distracted, which has been none whatsoever. However, reopening of the sorts of places that I like to go is at least on the horizon, and therefore I have been giving some thought to what I shall be wearing when the day comes. As a noted man-about-town in these parts I am aware that all eyes will be on me for guidance as to how the hygiene-conscious dandy will best equip himself for the world post lockdown. The answer, dear readers, is this:

The new normal

I wish to offer a hat-tip (a literal hat-tip as you can see) to Peter for his advice. In one of the infrequent round-robin emails that have passed between the wargamers of the lower Wharfe valley to check whether anyone has fallen off his perch I mentioned that I intended to rock the bandana. Upon reading this, he sagely suggested that I should not forget the hat.

You can tell that horse hasn't been able to get its hair cut for a while

In the same exchange he passed on the welcome news that one of his horses had foaled. When I mentioned this in conversation to a friend (with nothing whatever happening in one's life, any subject, however irrelevant, is likely to be brought up in order to keep the conversation going) she asked a question that was obvious, but which I had unaccountably overlooked. Was this the same horse that he had been riding when he fell off and hurt his leg? I shall report back.

Still still here

I have been reading and/or re-reading the Smiley novels in order. I have just finished 'The Honourable Schoolboy', and what a bloated pile of old tosh it is. However, the purpose of the post is not literary criticism, however concise and erudite, but to highlight a case of life imitating art.

Your bloggist poses in his special accounting hat

In the books Smiley is often (surprisingly often in fact) summoned from a quiet retirement pursuing his hobbies in order to shed light on something from the past that only he will remember. Your bloggist has likewise been torn away from his painting table (*) to advise a former client on something from a while ago that everyone, including him, has completely forgotten (**). It has been a complete shock to the system I can tell you, and has rather got in the way of posting here. On the plus side the unexpected income is burning a hole in my pocket in a way that can only possibly be satisfied by buying some new toys for the tabletop.


* This is merely a literary conceit; obviously no painting was actually taking place

** In one small change to events in literature, rather than going to the Aberdeen in Hong Kong I have been to the one in North-West Scotland; just as vibrant and colourful, but with more kilts.

Gong, but not forgotten

Mentioning the inhabitants of Planet Gong yesterday made me realise that I had unaccountably never posted any of their music on the blog. I only saw them once - in Freshers Week; god only knows who thought that was a good idea - and was too drunk to remember anything much about it. According to the Guardian they were not just silly, but 'could groove like mothers', so here they are. For the record the opening to this video is eerily similar to the way in which we commence an evening's gaming in the legendary wargames room of James 'Olicanalad' Roach.

Don't you think the lead singer looks as if he's throwing dice? I'm going to suggest that we get hats like that for conventions. It would be one up on those chaps who wear mess uniforms while refighting the Zulu war, and instead of drinking red wine like them we could drop acid. Just a thought.

I'm off to track down a copy of 'Live in Sherwood Forest'.

And so this is Christmas...

 "I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year." - Charles Dickens

Or, to be more precise, it isn't Christmas yet. It is a well known phenomenon that the onset of the Christmas season gets earlier each year. In Otley it starts with firstly the turning on of the lights which was last week - I didn't go - and then with the annual Victorian Fayre, as the Victorians almost certainly didn't spell it. I mentioned last year that I normally choose that staple of the nineteenth century working class festive fare, the samosa. However, and shockingly, there weren't any this year. I therefore opted for a potato and coriander pattie from the vegan street food stall followed by a Malaysian chicken wrap. We do things in the old fashioned way here in the West Riding. There was also once again no reindeer, but there were owls and donkeys, which had to suffice.

This year the big day was preceded by a Victorian Folk Extravaganza the night before. The performers, though thankfully not the audience, entered into the spirit of the event by dressing up. They mostly went for Thomas Hardy type costumes, appearing to have wandered in from either the set of 'Far From The Madding Crowd' or from a Ronnie Lane's Slim Chance gig according to one's perspective. The always excellent Yan Tan Tether looked like a themed version of the old 'I know my place' sketch that featured John Cleese and the Two Ronnies. Yan was a mob capped indoor servant, Tan was a lady from the gentry and Tether had come as Alfred P. Doolittle. Helen McCreary, who joined the Jon Palmer Acoustic band on 'Meet On The Ledge', was dressed as if she was on her way to cheerleading practice, but she's an American, and maybe things were different over there at the time. But the main honours must go to Jon Palmer himself who gone part Dickens and part Tenniel. He sported a long tailed jacket and a truly magnificent hat. Upon spotting his headgear I reached purposefully into the man bag to fetch out the camera which, as recently advised, now accompanies me everywhere. Unfortunately the battery was flat so I had to pinch the pictures above and below from Twitter.

Musically it was very good, although I could have done with fewer seasonal songs; in fact none at all would have been fine by me. Jon Palmer was as good as ever (the new drummer must be at least fifty years older than the previous one) and I could listen to the unaccompanied singing of Yan Tan Tether for hours, especially as they once again did the Jake Thackray song after which they are not named. New to me was Bella Gaffney, whom I also very much enjoyed. She has a soulful voice for a folk singer, a versatile guitar technique (I was reminded of Catfish Keith himself; there is no finer praise), her between song banter is most entertaining and, according to others who pay more attention to these things than me, is rather easy on the eye.

Pot62pouri

In my sky at twilight you are like a cloud
and your form and colour are the way I love them.
You are mine, mine, woman with sweet lips
and in your life my infinite dreams live.

- Pablo Neruda

I have had cause to look back at some of this blog's posts from the past; God hasn't the quality declined? Someone who's quality hasn't in any way gone down is Jools Holland, who I have been to see for the fifth or sixth time. Admittedly there isn't anything surprising or novel about it, but what he does, he does well. Other than it being the first occasion that I've seen them since the death of Rico Rodriguez, it was exactly the same and none the worse for that. The guests this time were Pauline Black and Arthur 'Gaps' Hendrickson of The Selecter.

They both sported excellent hats; Hendrickson's in particular causing much envy on my part. If you had asked me before to name a song by their band I would have struggled, but I recognised and enjoyed them when they were being played. The duo also took vocal duties on Prince Buster's 'Enjoy Yourself', a song which always heavily featured Rodriguez. Ruby Turner was, inevitably, the star of the show. Holland seems to put up remarkably well with being upstaged at his own gigs.

Anyway, sadly another great has left us. It's as a songwriter that I think Leon Russell will be remembered. Here are a couple of covers of his songs:

And here he is singing a song by someone else, Nobel laureate Bob Dylan to be precise; and it's a song that has a very real resonance after the other events of this week:

Fracking implausible

And so to the theatre. I have been to see Square Peg's latest production, 'Roseacre'. This is claimed to be in the style of those Scandinavian noir television series that have been very popular over recent years, but as I've never seen any I can't confirm that. What I can say is that it was rather gripping and completely nonsensical; still one can't have everything. Performed in a studio theatre it contained lots of the physicality and character doubling up necessary to compensate for limited props and a small cast, and which I rather like. There was, for example, a very fine and funny method of representing a game of darts in a pub. The plot - something to do with fracking and police infiltration of protest groups - was however absolute tosh. Quite why a Detective Chief Inspector came to be in charge of the riot squad was never explained and the inference that one could change one's DNA along with one's identity was downright bizarre. As for someone's ability to go about their daily life without anyone noticing that their scalp had been sewn back on overnight by a Russian prostitute with the aid of vodka as an antiseptic, let's just say that I have my doubts. Anyway, said escort's description of her relationship with her clients as "I stand on their balls and they call me mother" made my companion for the evening laugh knowingly to herself and me wince. There's a whole world out there of which I am thankfully ignorant.

On a different subject, readers may have wondered why there had been no mention so far this summer of my magic hat; be reassured that I have retrieved it from the cupboard and it is on charge.

I Have To Go

'Cause many years from now there will be new sensations

I wanted to draw to your attention the comments section on a recent post, in which there is speculation as to what Edmund Blunden, the war poet, would have made of Noddy Holder, the shouty chap from the Black Country with the sideburns and the mirrored hat. Perhaps, if he did indeed watch the Christmas 1973 edition of Top of the Pops (and given how few channels there were in those days, I think we can assume that he would have) he may possibly have recalled these words of his own:

"And some are sparkling, laughing, singing,
Young, heroic, mild;
And some incurable, twisted,
Shrieking, dumb, defiled."

Or perhaps not. In any event, I hope you've all noted the spooky synchronicity that, among the very same pop highlights of the year, he would also have seen the Suzi Quatro performance that I posted yesterday.

And were I ever to direct a film of Blunden's life in a Baz Luhrmann musical stylie - which I hope we can agree is not the strangest idea ever to appear in this blog - then I would depict him sitting in the trenches singing this song, which sadly he never got to hear, having died before it was released:

And some are sparkling, laughing, singing,/Young, heroic, mild;/And some incurable, twisted,/Shrieking, dumb, defiled. - See more at: http://www.poetryarchive.org/poet/edmund-blunden#sthash.4UB6R1qV.dpuf

And some are sparkling, laughing, singing,/Young, heroic, mild;/And some incurable, twisted,/Shrieking, dumb, defiled. - See more at: http://www.poetryarchive.org/poet/edmund-blunden#sthash.4UB6R1qV.dpuf

And some are sparkling, laughing, singing,/Young, heroic, mild;/And some incurable, twisted,/Shrieking, dumb, defiled. - See more at: http://www.poetryarchive.org/poet/edmund-blunden#sthash.4UB6R1qV.dpuf

Let loose the hats of war!

As one would expect I've been watching 'War and Peace'. The production raises many important questions about the human condition and I have been wrestling with one in particular: would I prefer to wear Ade Edmonson's hat or that of Jim Broadbent? I have tassel envy. By the way, Prince Vassily Kuragin is the spitting image of a chap that I used to know very well indeed some thirty five or so years ago. Admittedly he never dressed like that when we went to Griffin Park, which is a real shame now I come to think about it.

"Up the Bees"

Channel 5 have another historical documentary series worth watching, although this one is sadly presented by a proper historian rather than a glove puppet. It's about the Wars of the Roses, despite being bizarrely titled 'Britain's Bloody Crown'. I'm not sure what those in North Britain who weren't directly involved in the affair make of that. Anyway, I found it very interesting, but had some reservations regarding the reconstructions, especially what the various participants had on their heads while fighting. In the case of the main players - York, Warwick (whose father Salisbury was notable mainly for his absence), Somerset etc. - this was nothing at all. No wonder so many of the aristocracy perished during the conflict. In the case of the hoi polloi it was some odd conical efforts that rang no bells whatever with me. I suspect they were props left over from something else, perhaps a programme about Genghis Khan.

In other news,  my copy of Command & Colours Expansion #5 has arrived despite a heroic effort on the part of Royal Mail not to give it to me. In this particular case it wasn't their fault so much as that of the vendor who had put the wrong name on the parcel thereby making it impossible for me to produce valid ID to collect it from the sorting office. A review - of the game, not the inefficiencies of the supplier's dispatch department - will follow in due course.

Where was Moses when the lights went out?

And so to the theatre. Greta Scacchi is starring as Amanda Wingfield in Headlong's production of The Glass Menagerie now previewing at the West Yorkshire Playhouse. I enjoyed the show very much - the acting was superb - but I did want to grab most of the characters and give them a slap.

The play's most overt theme is dysfunctional families, and there is something sitcom like about the set-up of people trapped with family members who they both love and loath (think Steptoe and Son) and there are some very funny moments amidst the sadness. For me though the biggest resonance was the question raised about whether what ails us psychologically is more devastating than our physical infirmities. Laura's social anxiety is far more difficult to cope with than her mobility problems. As an aside, I didn't care for the way that the director represented the latter; it seemed clumsy and in bad taste to me. I was also in two minds about the colour blind casting of Jim O'Connor. Normally I'm all in favour, but given the piece revolves around Amanda's recollection of her upbringing (it was parodied as 'For Whom the Southern Belle Tolls') I'm not sure that it worked.

The staging was simple and uncluttered, even by chairs; there was a lot of sitting on the floor. Mention must be made of the magnificent hat that Ms Scacchi wears for the visit of the gentleman caller, which even Barrie Rutter in his more flamboyant moments wouldn't have tried to get away with. Speaking of Bazza, the autumn culture fest continues shortly with Northern Broadsides Winter's Tale - the first of a positive splurge of Shakespeare - although sadly I don't think he's in it.

There can be only one musical way to sign off, so here's to the (unseen) fifth character:

It is not the healthy who need a doctor

"It is in moments of illness that we are compelled to recognise that we live not alone, but chained to a creature of a different kingdom, whole worlds apart, who has no knowledge of us and by whom it is impossible to make ourselves understood: our body." - Marcel Proust

I have been ill again. I checked my symptoms online and came to the conclusion that I had malaria. Fortunately it can only have been a mild version because after a good night's sleep I am recovered. Indeed I am recovered enough to cook and eat this lot: asparagus, sweet potato and leek hash topped with fried egg, caramelised rhubarb.

I was invited to Headingley by a business contact to watch the cricket, but was equally rapidly uninvited. I wasn't as miffed as I might have been because the weather has been truly dreadful here in what the locals insist on calling God's Own County. If they weren't Yorkshiremen I would suspect them of having a sense of irony.

However, the second test has been the catalyst for my magic hat to be taken down from the peg for its first outing of the 'summer'. It still works.

Pot32pouri

My Luxembourg correspondent has been complaining that my other, serious, work-related blog has not been updated for - and I'm paraphrasing - a yonk. This non-work-related and not at all serious blog is in danger of going the same way. I'm not sure why; perhaps having a wargames room negates the point of a blog which after all was originally specifically about not actually wargaming. Anyway, while I reflect on that existential point let's give a small nod to what's happening in the world.

The death of the Reverend Ian Paisley might seem a logical point at which to relate in detail the episode involving him, me and the giraffe, but perhaps the world is not yet ready. Others have commented on his character and the part he played in the history of the Troubles. For me the main memory I am left with from our infrequent and brief interactions is just how big he was physically - he was absolutely bloody enormous.

There has been more wargaming in the annexe, which followed a similar pattern to the previous week. James has the knack of just whittling away at enemy units just one stand at a time; before you know it they've disappeared and the game is over. Of course he did bring his own dice this week - just saying.

Which just leaves me time to post a photo of Ritchie Blackmore in a stupid hat.

"This is her picture as she was"

This is that Lady Beauty, in whose praise
Thy voice and hand shake still,--long known to thee
By flying hair and fluttering hem,--the beat
Following her daily of thy heart and feet,
How passionately and irretrievably,
In what fond flight, how many ways and days! 

- Dante Gabriel Rossetti

As you know, this blog doesn't just write itself. So a few days after a brief burst of 'Lady of Shalott' and some Dante I went to Cartwright Hall in Bradford to see their exhibition of studies that Dante Gabriel Rossetti did of Jane Morris, wife of William and the fulcrum of one of those odd set-ups that the Victorians seem to have all carried on behind closed doors. It's well worth seeing, as are the other two temporary exhibitions there at the moment.

The first, a travelling show from the British Museum, is basically just one turban, but what a turban. It's a Sikh fortress turban from the nineteenth century with a small amount of background material and other artifacts. I was sorry to see that I had missed lectures earlier in the month on Sikh troops in the First World War and one in conjunction with the Royal Armouries on Sikh arms and armour.

The third exhibition was actually the best, a number of lithographs and prints from the city's own collection. There was inevitably, and quite rightly, some Hockney, in this case 'The Rake's Progress' a series of sixteen prints from the early sixties. There are also some colourful and amusing Glenn Baxter's and a selection of prints specially commissioned to celebrate the 2012 Olympics including works by Tracey Emin and Chris Ofili. Perhaps of most interest to wargamers would be a dozen small prints by Sir William Rothenstein entitled 'Landscapes of the War', the war in this question being that of 1914-18 because Rothenstein served as an official war artist in both world wars. However, those that I'd personally like on my walls are thirteen Lowry's from the mid 1960s.

Pot25pouri

Now obviously I'm not a fairweather walker, but spring has returned to Yorkshire, yesterday was an absolutely glorious day and I was walking near Skipton.

Embsay Crag

I have for some reason picked up 'A Blood-Red Banner: The Alamo' from the games pile and have been playing it. I still can't win as the Texians with the basic rules. Very frustrating. However, a couple of new games have joined the pile; details as and when I play them.

And speaking of what the well-dressed man wears on his head, now that some sun protection is required I have dug out my magic talking hat; and it's still rather fine.

Finally, there is progress on the wargaming annexe. Further details on that soon as well.