Today Is My Blogiversary!

...and my wedding anniversary
...and my birthday
...and my brother's birthday
...and my mother-in-law's birthday

So cake all round!

But back to the blog.  

• 561 posts
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Thank you to everyone who has contributed!

Can't Wait 'Til Wednesday

Well, Dr Who Wednesday has come early this week with the news that Warlord Games have secured the licence to produce a Dr Who Miniatures Game.

To me the most significant part of the announcement is that

The licence covers not just the latest series of Doctor Who but encompasses all of the Doctors, their companions and their foes. So, expect to see Sea Devils as much as Weeping Angels, Leela as much as Martha Jones, and a long, brightly coloured scarf as much as a fez (fezzes are cool, by the way...).

There have been grumblings from those who ask what impact it will have on BTD or the others that produce NOT-Who stuff.  Well, BTD will presumably continue to have the licence to produce figures from their worn-out moulds and continue to be tardy in sending them out.  I won't weep to see them have reasonably-priced competition (especially as Warlord's figures will probably actually resemble the Doctors and Companions -  witness how good their Dad's Army figures are).

More interesting will be what happens to Crooked Dice and Hasslefree, who have been making decent Dr Who figures.  Will Warlord protect their investment and will those lines be curtailed?

Interesting developments indeed...

Last Chance to Vote!

I'll be home from my short break tomorrow, so will be winding up the little experiment on tackling the to-read pile and removing the widget over on the right there ----->

I will reserve comment on the poll until it's over, but the current standing is as follows.

But being an impatient sort (and a little bored last night), I have started a new book.  It's Harold Temperley, Frederic The Great and Kaiser Joseph.   I just wanted to quote a passage from the preface

the Bavarian Succession involved nearly all the typical elements of eighteenth century diplomacy: the intense personal influence of rulers, naked aggression veiled by genealogical pedantry, the struggle for the "balance of power." the assertion of raison d'etat as a plea for all crimes, the rapier play of contending forces, the ruthless crushing of small or neutral Powers by the military aggression of larger ones.

When I read that i couldn't help but smile fondly and remember the play-by-blog game of Diplomacy the Mad Padre ran last year!

A Mixed Day

I had quite an annoying morning thanks to a pharmacist who wouldn't fill a prescription for The Wife's meds (she takes about 15 a day).  This was on the grounds that said pharmacist "would be out of pocket" if she ordered a month's supply but only issued a week's worth.  She was therefore pestering my GP to issue a different 'scrip.  So what if The Wife ended up with more pills than she could take?  Never mind, the NHS would foot the bill...

So, resisting the temptation to go into The Eagle for a few glasses of something fruity, I decided to ignore my resolution to avoid the bookshops.  I picked up some interesting titles in the always-reliable David's (still going despite his perennial complaint that King's College is about to do something unpleasant about his lease) and later in the afternoon went to the second-hand bookshop the National Trust runs in the stables at Wimpole Hall.  The volunteer running the shop was a little taken about to encounter someone asking for a box to put his books in rather than a bag!

Nice stables

While on a Holiday Theme...

We continued our extended tour of A&E facilities in the East of England by spending three hours in Addenbrookes.

A truly delightful spot

It turns out that for the last week The Wife has been walking around on a broken foot (shades of Bert Trautmann but without the Iron Cross).  She's now been fitted with an NHS Boot.

On other fronts...

The 'What Shall I Read Next?' poll stands as follows

All I can say to those who have said that Mallowan's Memoirs is the only option that allows for any gaming is that they have obviously never played the 'Catch the Pope' scenario in Pulp Alley...

Tackling the Book Mountain

This week we're in Cambridge, staying with the mother-in-law.  It means long periods of sitting around doing nothing, but that means I've been able to get some reading in.  One downside is that for reasons of economy and trying to avoid adding to the book mountain, I'm having to avoid the many fine bookshops in the area!

Following the lead of Ian of The Blog With No Name I'm trying something different in an attempt to reduce the To-Read Pile,  I have chosen four books from the pile and am asking you to vote on which I should read next.  Feel free to leave a comment of course, but please vote using the survey widget. Votes will be counted on 18 Aug.

Andrew Cook, Cash for Honours: The Story of Maundy Gregory.  Gregory was the fixer who acted as broker in the corrupt selling of honours from the end of the First World War until his conviction in 1932.

Max Mallowan, Mallowan's Memoirs: Agatha and the Archaeologist.  Sir Max Mallowan was Agatha Christies' second husband.  An expert in the archaeology of the Ancient Near East, apprentice to Mortimer Wheeler and excavator of Nimrud, he's the reason so many of her stories are set on digs.

Tony Rennell, Last Days of Glory: The Death of Queen Victoria.  The title says it all.

Carol Rittner (ed), Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust.  A series of essays exploring the controversy over what Pius knew and when, and whether he deserves the reputation as 'the Silent Pope',

I've Been Mostly Trimming My Beard...

...helped by pin-ups of two of my Household Gods.

Computer problems at the beginning of the week followed by a summer cold and ennui have cramped my style somewhat, so I apologise for lack of updates.

But this afternoon I've settled down to a docco on Revolution in WWI (Russian, British strikes, French mutinies, Italian mass surrenders, Arab Revolt, Irish Uprising and Indian Nationalism).  All very interesting - especially if your mind tends towards the Counterfactual.  

Now I am beginning to plow through a back-log of blog-reading.

You'll be pleased to know that I've been keeping my Geek up though.

I'm still playing the on-line game Pirates Glory*, and was stunned to be promoted to joint leadership of my guild.  I use the handle Diplomatist there too, so it shouldn't be too hard to find me.  

*Of course I'm no much, and I get Gold everytime an unwary type clicks on that link.

Diplomatist Books recently acquired a pile of graphic novels, so I've been reading the early numbers of The Walking Dead.  Only having seen a half-dozen episodes of the first season of the TV series, I've found these rather good.  I can now certainly see where you Z-freaks have been getting inspiration (and also now recognise some the the Not- figures).  In more traditional reading, there's also be Pratchett and Baxter's The Long Earth and a book on Bletchley Park.

The most surprising thing is the The Wife and I have become hooked on Geek and Sundy's latest on-line show, Titansgrave. 

If you'd told me twenty years ago we'd be watching Wil Wheaton playing Role-Playing Games, I wouldn't have married you!

As the above suggests, this is basically as streamed RPG.  It's in a techno-fantasy setting and is quite fun.  Now, I haven't played a RPG since before some of these telegenic 30-somethings were born, but this seems to me like RPG-lite.  There's very little number-crunching, and the systems seem relatively simple,  Perhaps this is due to good editing, or Wheaton's strength as GM, but everything seems to roll on just as good story-telling.

Episodes come out each Tuesday, and there have only been seven so far, so it won't be hard to catch-up if you wanted to.

Dr Who Wednesday #3

Nothing done on the painting front this week I'm afraid.

However, The Wife has finally decided that sit's time to watch the episodes I've been recording on the Horror Channel, and we've been going through these, starting at Season 10 (Pertwee was 'her Doctor', as I've mentioned before).

Season 10 consists of the anniversary serial The Three Doctors, Carnival of Monsters, Frontier in Space (which was either not broadcast, or I didn't record), Planet of the Daleks and The Green Death.  Of these, we've watched The Three Doctors, Carnival and Planet.

I was surprised to read The Three Doctors described as the worse story in the classic series.  I didn't even think it the worse of the ones we watched this week - Carnival of Monsters was pretty ropy!

"Ropy?  Us?!"

The quality of monsters isn't too bad.  The Dashigs in Carnival are obviously sock puppets, and the maggots in Green Death are famously condoms, but honestly, I've seen a lot worse.  Having invisible Daleks in Planet was interesting, but under-used.  But, of course there's plenty of UNIT action, with the Brigadier at his irascible best in The Three Doctors.

"What did Sooty say, Sue?"

Regular readers, will already know that I have a squad of Daleks in the rather uninspiring colour-scheme used in Planet, and it occurs to me that Crooked Dice's astronauts would do quite nicely as the Thals.  I also have quite a number of the invisible Spitidons.

Doctor, Thals and Fiend

Season 10 marked the departure of two main characters.  The Green Death was Kate Manning's last appearance as Jo Grant.

The Gold would miss Jo...

On a more tragic note, the Season say the last appearance of Roger Delgado as The Master - he was killed in a traffic accident while filming in Turkey.  A great loss.

It had been intended to reveal that The Doctor and the Master were brothers, which would have been interesting, but this never took place and instead we got another 'Origins' take on their relationship later.

Roger Delggado, 1918-1973

It is said that with Manning and Delgado gone, Pertwee felt the 'UNIT family' had been broken and choose to leave the programme.

A Correspondent Writes...

...to me that my reference to 'Dr Who' is incorrect and the proper form is 'Doctor Who'.  On the credits in the Pertwee period at least, the character (as opposed to the programme) is referred to as "Dr. Who".  Does anyone know the truth of the matter?  Is this a question of modern branding or something more longstanding?

Logo Competition Results

First a big thank-you to all who sent me entries.  This wasn't a planned competition; I suddenly realised that I had a decent chance of getting you to do my work for me in exchange for 'stuff'.  I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of ideas sent to me.

Here are the entries (in the order they were received).

Terrain Tuesday

RoyW

ChrisS - "This is how I feel that my terrain attempts look while I am building them"

Mme Padre

JPrice

Dr Who Wednesday

RoyW's 'Rude' option

Roy's more serious entry

JPrice

RayR

AdamK

And the Winners Are...

RoyW in both categories!  I'm particularly blown away with the Terrain entry, which dates from WWII.

Honorable mention goes to JPrice for using a pic of some of my own terrain and to ChrisS for accurately representing my skill-level.

Pulpy Goodness

I've taken the opportunity of a pre-order offer (which at the time of writing is about to close) to obtain Mak and Gauge, the latest figures from Statuesque Miniatures.  They're from their Pulp Alley range and therefore also available in the States through Pulp Alley themselves.  Andrew at Statuesque is Good People (as are David and Mila at Pulp Alley) and has been sending me updates on the order and a slight (one day!) delay.

Mak looks to me as if he could do as a Not-Tintin and Gauge's usefulness as a Kayley has be commented on elsewhere.

I also took the advantage of picking up at the Vice Alley supplement to Pulp Alley and a couple of the other figures from the range.

Dr Who Wednesday #2

No news to post on the reduction of the Who Mountain this week.  Quite the contrary in fact.

The weekly e-mail came from Black Tree Design telling me that the current 'specials' are 20% off all Doctors and Companions and off the Second Doctor range.  There was no danger of me buying any of the former, but I was tempted to get some Yetis and Ice Warriors.  Fortunately, the next day I spotted a much cheaper way of getting my fix.

This month's (fortnight's?) copy of Dr Who Adventures has a five Dalek patrol as one of the free gifts (thus working out at 75p per Dalek).  They're basically the same as previous give-aways, but the casting is better and they're not in lurid colours.

So I've now got 15 more Daleks waiting to be painted.  And several posters of Jenna Coleman...

I'm not sure how I'll paint these yet, but I won't be repeating my attempt to slavishly follow the New Paradigm colour scheme.  At the moment I'm considering red and having a closer look at the colours in the 1960s movies.

Davros' Ninja Division

Terrain Tuesday #5

So, as I left things at the end of the last Terrain Tuesday, the Lost World trees and Giant Bees were put together.

This week I finally got around to the bases.  My basic method is to apply Vallajo Sandy Paste to a 2p piece, which then is painted craft shop burnt umber and dry brushed with desert brown before flocking.  A handy tip for getting that extra bit of texture is to drop a tray-full of them face down on the carpet before the paste dries.

The bees got a bit of heather for their trouble

I also did a matching movement tray for when I want to have a grove

Some of you may remember that back last September I bought a Wallace and Gromet rocketship in a charity shop.

Well, inspired by another work of genius from Colonel O'Truth, I broke out the British Racing Green.  A little homage to The Master...

I'm not sure if it's finished yet.  In fact, I'm a little tempted to look for a '4472' decal.

Terrain targets for the coming week:-

• Hot glue fun with aquarium plants
• Finish the river
• Dry-brush some resin rocks
• Look at the half-finished buildings in the Pottering Shed

Coming tomorrow: Dr Who Wednesday with news from planet Skaro.

Competition Time!

A bit of a cheek really because I actually want someone to do some free(ish) work for me.

I've recently started two new features on the blog - Terrain Tuesdays and Dr Who Wednesdays.  What these features lack are logos, such as that we know and love for Paint Table Saturdays.

What I'm asking is that you, dear reader, provide me with such logos.

If you want to enter, submit an image or images to me at diplomatist2<AT>gmail<DOT>com.  I will choose my favorites  on 14 Jul.

Prizes (as yet undetermined) will be given!

Don't fancy that?  Well, Jonathan is having a more traditional give-away on his blog.

A Little Heresy

Lady Butler 'The 28th Regt at Quatre Bras"

It's a poor admission to make this week, but I've never really been very interested in the military (as opposed to naval) aspects of the Napoleonic wars.

Lady Butler 'Scotland For Ever!'

Of course as someone interested in British military history (and also in ceremonial), I do have a basic knowledge of the wars.  But for some reason, my military interest starts in the late Victorian period.

Some of this is down to biography.

My relationship with 'history' is a bit of a paradox.  Despite everything that has happened since, I don't have any school qualifications in History.  Fed up of being asked to 'imagine life as a Tudor' I dropped it as a subject aged 14*.  As a result, most of my historical knowledge is self-taught and the result of passing interests.  

*I basically needed my History to be taught in a more old-fashioned way.

A well-worn Waterloo Medal

At about the same time as dropping History, I was devouring the works of C S Forrester and started an interest in British campaign medals.  Perhaps that is what shaped the scope of my military knowledge as the first 'proper' campaign medals weren't issued until the 1830s.  that doesn't really explain it though - the exception was the Waterloo Medal and medals were issued retrospectively for the Napoleonic Wars.  In addition, one of my first contacts in the medal collecting world was the late Tony Mullen - now recognised as the expert on the medals of the Napoleonic Wars.

Then in a twist my degree re-introduced my to formal study of history*.  In my final year I did a course on Church and State in the Modern World, which started with the French Revolution a Masters on C19th church history followed as did a professional archival qualification.

*It also introduced me to The Wife, an archeologist and medieval historian.

Why all this personal history?  I don't know (this blog is stream of consciousness if nothing else!)  I think I'm trying to explain why, despite everyone thinking I'm an historian, I don't consider myself one.  And therefor justify my ignorance!  Or to put it another way, why at one time I could speak at length about Napoleon's relationship with Pius VII or Wellington's views on Catholic Emancipation, I would struggle to name more than a handful of their battles.

This week's anniversaries of Napoleon's defeat provide all the excuse I might need to fill the holes in my knowledge.  That and having five crates of books on the Napoleonic Wars in my spare bedroom!

I shall report back...

Terrain Tuesday #4

As I mentioned in my last Terrain Tuesday post, I've got a new hot-glue gun.  On Wednesday, I sat down to give it a try.*  What a cracking piece of kit!  How had I managed without one so far?

*I'm not very good with technology or with glue.  The combination of the two was a little daunting.  I wanted to try it while The Wife was at Her Mother's in case I destroyed the house.

Within minutes I had a whole grove of my patented garlic trees.

I could paint them up as palm trees, but I quite liked their otherworldly look of them as-is when I had them on the table for my solo Dino Hunt playtest.  Exotic flora.

And for the fauna, a not quite swarm of giant bees.*

*Come on guys, they're giant bees, how many do you want?!

It was only after doing this, that I realised how apposite was the tile I was doing the hot-gluing on...

And now on to my Special Project...

The other week I spotted this book on t'internet* and immediately ordered one.

*There are useful reviews of it here and here.

After spending a couple of hours painstakingly sticking bones together, I left them on the table where they met with a whippet-related accident.  I am now banned from making things out of chicken bones,*

*In case the darling dogges choke on them.

I wasn't intending to do a model of a museum skellyton like in the book, but rather something terrain-y than explorers might come across - possibly even the fabled Dinosaurs' Graveyard.