It's time for the review of the year. (N.B. The wargames are right at the bottom for those who wish to skip the cultural bits.) One theme running through the year was Bradford 2025, City of Culture. I confess that I was somewhat sceptical before it started - I don't live in Bradford so was viewing it as an outsider - but I must say that I thought it was all very successful indeed. There were thousands of events, of which I went to a mere couple of dozen, albeit that they included most of the major ones, but had a good time when I did. 

Opera: I've seen 21 operas this year, one more than in 2024. For the second year running the best was a concert  performance of Simon Boccanegra, this time Opera North's contribution to Bradford 2025 at St George's Hall. Honourable mentions go to Owen Wingrave at the RNCM, Mozart's Impresario at the Buxton Festival and The Secret of the Black Spider by ON's youth company. The libretto for the last of those is a touch barking, which was also the case in various other productions seen this year. There was one in which one the characters was literally a turd, one in which someone fell in love with three oranges, one in which an AI powered robot took over the world (maybe because the Luddites had failed 200 years before, but then again maybe not), and one in which someone had to keep turning a handle to prevent the end of the world, but decided to take a bit of break instead.

Theatre: Seventeen plays this year, the best being The Railway Children, once again part of Bradford 2025. An honourable mention must go to Wise Children's North By Northwest, but other good stuff included Mary Poppins, Animal Farm and an odd but very enjoyable circus version of Tess of the D'Urbervilles.

Music: Only nine gigs this year, the best being Bywater Call. I am, as ever, contractually obliged to mention Martin Simpson and the same would be true for Fairport Convention except that shockingly I didn't see them. I do have a ticket for a gig in Harrogate in April, so normal service will be resumed this time next year.

Film: I saw 18 films this year, the most for many years. My favourite was the documentary Becoming Led Zeppelin, but the best non-documentary was probably Hamnet, which I saw at a festival although it doesn't officially come out in the UK until next week. I highly recommend it, but take some tissues. Other good stuff included The Ballad of Wallis Island, A Complete Unknown and Sunlight. The last of those is on very limited release, but catch it if you can. It was directed by Nina Conti, of whom more later. I also enjoyed The Choral which was of course not only filmed very locally to where I live, but also the screen play was by the very much still alive Alan Bennett.

Talks: Nine talks, the best of which was on William Morris and Islamic Art. It was a connection which is obvious when someone points it out but which I'm embarrassed to say had passed me by before.

Comedy: I went to sufficient comedy gigs to add a new category this year. The one I'm going to highlight is Nina Conti and, naturally, Monkey; very, very funny. The aforementioned film also features Monkey, but this time she's inside it. OK, I know she's inside the one in the picture below, but the film she's really inside it.

Exhibitions: I viewed a select number of exhibitions this year, i.e. not many at all. My favourite was certainly not the Turner Prize finalists show, which was inevitably terrible. I concur with those who say that the choice of the winner was nothing more than virtue-signalling. The best was probably We Will Sing at Salts Mill although next time I visit the top floor there I shall take the stairs more slowly. An honourable mention must go to Pigeobition in Keighley and that on gladiators at the Royal Armouries.

Books: I read 163 books in 2025, which is a good indication of how much of it was spent being ill. They include a large number of detective novels and thrillers from the past, perfect for not having to think very much. My favourite was a toss up between Passage of Arms by Eric Ambler or A Kiss Before Dying by Ira Levin. There were lots of the type of non-fiction books which are actually relevant to wargaming, but nothing leaps out as demanding recommendation. If I was forced to pick one it would be The Mexican Revolution: A Very Short Introduction by Alan Knight, but whether that is truly relevant to this particular blog is a moot point.

Boardgames: I logged 208 playings of 110 different games. I'll do a separate post on these, but my favourite game remains Dune Imperium and I continue to think that wargamers in general would like it.

Wargames: I managed 29 games in the year including half a dozen or so which I hosted in the annexe. Many of those were multi week games so all in all I spent quite a lot of time playing toy soldiers, which I have to say wasn't the way it felt at the time. Looking back I think the cowboys were what I enjoyed most; even more regression to childhood than usual.

Event of the Year: I lied, wargaming is not right at the bottom. I'm tempted to choose the carwash breaking down with car covered in lather with me inside. Having got out while the necessary fiddling with the controls was performed by the operative, I stayed outside until the wash completed. As I waited another car drew up behind me and the the look on the driver's face as I got back in and drove off was very amusing. He was obviously worried that he had been doing it wrong all his life. 

I also won £25 on the Premium Bonds, which is never to be sniffed at. However I'm going for the day I spent visiting the Andy Goldsworthy Hanging Stones in Rosedale, which now I think about it I could have included under the Exhibitions heading. Access is limited and the location is a bit remote, but it's a great combination of art and a walk in the Yorkshire countryside.. 

 "Each year arrives, waxes great, commits the sin of Hubris and must therefore die." - Aeschylus

Well, despite all that, a Happy New Year to you all. 

There has been a bit of wargaming going on in the background, namely a fine refight of Talavera in the legendary wargames room of James 'Olicanalad' Roach. As we get older the weekly sessions seem to get shorter before we reach the point where we can no longer stand up for any more time, and so this game has taken several weeks. As luck would have it I had to miss this week's conclusion (*), but I think I had, as Wellington, done enough to ensure the correct result.

Wargaming has also moved a bit to the foreground, which is as much to my surprise as anyone's. I have ordered a new set of rules, which obviously I don't need, and will report on them when they arrive. I have also after a long, long gap got the paintbrushes out. The main output has been the kern last heard of here two years ago. Adding Irish troops to my Wars of the Roses forces was Peter's idea; I think he thought javelin armed units would add a bit of variety. It was undoubtedly his death eighteen months ago which badly knocked my mojo. I have tried a variety of things to kick it off again such as the MTB and E-boat models I inherited from Peter (**) and buying some Mexican Revolution figures (***) off eBay. What has finally made the difference is buying myself a new lamp, one of those where the lights surround a magnifying lens. It's great. I can't paint any better, but at least I can see my mistakes more clearly.

One of the things that was passed on to us by Peter's widow was a small collection of cowboys with which we have enjoyed playing using the Too Fat Lardies rule set. While I had a brush in my hand I painted up a preacher as a small contribution to the period; he can be a bystander, innocent or otherwise. I have literally never painted a 28mm figure before, but I don't think it turned out too badly. It was also nice to get the lightbox out again.

* I went to see The Fast Show Live - very funny.

** I fully acknowledge that these are never going to be painted.

*** I haven't given up hope of these.

 What do you get if you cross a joke with a rhetorical question?

I ask that question in honour of it apparently being World Philosophy Day, although of course every day is philosophy day at the Casa Epictetus.

A philosophy faculty are having a team meeting when suddenly a genie appears in front of them and, addressing the professor says " I come to offer you a choice: great wisdom, incomparable beauty or £100 million. What is your wish?"

"Wisdom." replies the professor, without a moment's hesitation. There is a bright flash and the genie disappears in a cloud of smoke.

When the air clears the rest of the faculty can see the professor staring thoughtfully into the distance. After an extended period one of his colleagues breaks the silence. "Professor, you have been granted great wisdom. What lesson do you have for us?"

"On reflection," replies the professor "I should have taken the money."

 It's the 69th anniversary of the reason I haven't been able to post recently.

 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 glanced back. Behind me was a fan of our vehicles—a curious assortment of all types—spread out as far as the eye could see. There were armoured troop carriers, cars of various kinds, caterpillars hauling mobile guns, heavy trucks with infantry, and motorized anti-aircraft units. Thus we roared on towards the enemy ‘barricade.

I stared at the front fascinated. Right ahead was the erect figure of the Colonel commanding the regiment. On the left close by and slightly to the rear of him was the Major’s car. Tank shells were whizzing through the air. The defenders were firing from every muzzle of their 25-pounders and their little 2-pounder anti-tank guns. We raced on at a suicidal pace.”

At this point you're all asking yourselves why a South African was being fired at by 25-pounders. The reason is that Lieutenant Heinz Werner Schmidt was fighting for the Germans. Indeed, shortly after the battle he became an aide-de-camp to Rommel himself. He survived the war, went back to South Africa, where the National Party government elected in 1948 dropped all treason prosecutions against people such as Schmidt and concentrated their efforts on introducing Apartheid.

About 15 or so years ago, when James first said that he was going to put together the forces for Operation Crusader, I must confess that I didn't appreciate that the whole thing basically amounted to one battle. However, it did and so Sidi Rezegh gets a periodic outing in the legendary wargames room. One significant change since the last time we played it is that there are far fewer toys on the table, thereby creating a bit more space. It not only looks better, but - so far - seems to be playing better as well. We are using Blitzkrieg Commander 4, with various amendments around things like target priority and off-table artillery. I had a whole raft of issues with BK4, but I've completely forgotten what they were and  so they no longer seem to bother me. If only the rest of life was like that.

The view above is from my perspective as commander of whichever panzer division it is that is trying to seize the airfield just about visible about half-way down the table. At the end of the first evening things were going reasonably well for me, although slightly less well for the infantry in the top left with the thankless task of assaulting the escarpment. No change there then.

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.

 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 whole life. 

Let's have a few lines from his most famous poem, which are sadly still as valid today as they were in 1985:

 We wear the mask that grins and lies,

 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 a new one. I think I have broken my nose. The circumstances need not bother us here; suffice it to say that they weren't as exciting as the last time I did it, a mere fifty years ago. On that occasion interventions were necessary from the London Ambulance Service, the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital and the Metropolitan Police, and I was by no means the most injured person following the, er, incident. As a good indication of how tame my life has become in the meantime all that seems to be required now are a cup of tea, some paracetamol and an early night.

Here's some music from the mighty Family:

'Rhythm in her arse' indeed. This next one is most certainly not suitable for work:

 Poetry has been somewhat absent from the blog recently, so let's rectify that. The spark for this is a sparrowhawk who decided yesterday that my garden was the ideal place to eat his prey, a chaffinch I think. It's the circle of life.

It's a bit blurry, not to mention showing that the wargaming annexe could do with a coat of paint.

This is what Ted Hughes had to say about the visitor:

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

Firstly, I'm still getting twenty thousand hits a week, and it's still annoying me; much more so that if none were being registered at all, and that would be substantially closer to the truth. I saw a statistic yesterday that 80% of all website hits on the whole internet are currently being made by bots of one form or another. However, that figure came from an AI source, so who knows.

Secondly, there has been some wargaming, so hooray for that.

It was game of To the Strongest! using James's Crusades figures. He thinks it's his best painted collection, which means it's very, very good indeed. The plan is to switch next week to possibly his least colourful period - although they're still lovely models - with some early WWII North African action. Will it be Sidi Rezegh? Let's hope so.

Various cultural activities have started up after the longish, hottish summer. I went to the Proms, something I had never done before. Also uncharted territory was a visit to a Rugby League match. I went to see the Leeds Rhinos, courtesy of Leeds Building Society who are their main sponsor. The pre-match meal etc was all rather good; the game itself left me uninspired and I didn't come away with any regrets for having given it a miss over the decades during which I've lived in the North. The outcome wasn't in doubt once the legendary Leeds ex-player brought on before the start to tell the assembled corporate guests what he thought would happen forecast that Rhinos would win at a canter by thirty or forty points. Inevitably the Catalan Dragons took an early lead and pulled steadily away as the game progressed. 

 I've been doing a little bit of research about the collection of model soldiers at Wallington in Northumberland. Unsurprisingly perhaps I discovered that this wasn't the first wargames blog in which the figures have featured. There's a bit more detail and a lot more photos on a post on Tom's Toy Soldiers from October 2013. The eponymous Tom seems to have found some notes about the collection, which is more than I did. Maybe he was extravagant and bought a guide book. It's interesting to note that the Trevelyan brothers seem to have bought whatever figures happened to be available and then used them to represent whatever they needed them to be; it seems nothing much had changed between the 1880s and when I started wargaming in the 1960s. It also explains why I thought there were figures from the Risorgimento.

I hadn't come across Tom's blog before, but it looks like it will be worth reading. In another of those happy coincidences which always intrigue me his post from last Monday also concerned model soldiers at a National Trust property.

The George mentioned solely by Tom in terms of his role as a substitute for dice rolling grew up to be the distinguished historian George Macaulay Trevelyan. This fact was picked up by an even earlier, and with all due respect to Tom, even more celebrated wargames blogger. In his Wargames Newsletter #114 (*) from September 1971 the late, great Donald Featherston says that Trevelyan credited this early study of war games with his ability to so vividly describe battles in his own writing. Among Trevelyan's major works is his trilogy about Garibaldi; I wonder if that interest was also inspired by the figures in the collection.

* This edition also contains a letter from Gary Gygax and the exciting news that Airfix are to release a set of French Napoleonic Infantry.

 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 event I continue to attract thousands of views a day without bothering to write anything. The blog's stats page tells me that the most popular article yesterday was that from a few weeks ago complaining about the constant trawling by AI. Coincidence? I think not; these LLMs seem to be as vain as one of the blog's previous, and much missed, followers, who had a strict policy of only reading posts in which she featured.

And speaking of coincidences... I have been in Northumberland for a few days and finding myself in Alnwick I obviously popped in to Barter Books. I didn't stay long as it was hot and crowded, but I did buy a book almost at random just to show willing: "The Adventures of Speedfall" by John Fuller, which I didn't enjoy and don't recommend. I would describe it as a mediocre mashup between P.G. Wodehouse's Mr Mulliner and Tom Sharpe's Porterhouse Blue and, having put it to one side, I found the latter of those on my Kobo (*) and started to re-read it. I quickly came on a passage in which one character, as part of a diatribe against the feckless working class, mentions a painting that he once saw in which a wife served her husband a spur on a plate rather than the dinner which he was expecting. That struck a chord with me because I had myself seen that very painting - it's by William Bell Scott - the day before at Wallington. Also seen there, and of somewhat more relevance to the blog, were these:

As well as the Napoleonic figures there were what looked to be some units from the Risorgimento. Unfortunately the hand written labels seen in the first photo were all the information displayed, so I don't know how old they are. In terms of scale I would judge that they were in height a small 20mm, think Irregular or Tumbling Dice, but they were very slender. Let's end with a photo of Dunstanburgh Castle as approached from Craster:

No kippers were harmed in the taking of this picture.

* I have, not before time, kicked Amazon into touch.

 It's the summer and, relatively unusually in the UK, it has been summery. I have therefore been out and about, but, finding myself briefly back in the Casa Epictetus, here's a catch-up.

I have been in Glasgow for the second time this year. I still can't understand a word that the natives say, but they seem friendly enough. I went inside a tenement building for the first time and found it to be disconcertingly up-market. Also for the first time I tried a haggis pakora, these days just as traditionally Scottish as tenements. Probably more noteworthy was that I travelled up via the Settle to Carlisle railway, which I had never been on before. It is every bit as scenic as I had been led to believe it would be.

Two things about that photo. Firstly, you can't really see that view from the train itself; for that you're much better off walking the area, which I have done many times. Secondly, I didn't travel on a steam train. I did do so however when I went to see 'The Railway Children', part of the ongoing Bradford 2025 City of Culture programme. The film, the original with Jenny Agutter rather than the remake, which confusingly also featured Jenny Agutter albeit in a different role (*), was shot on the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway (**) and so the day started with a trip from Keighley to Oxenhope on a train pulled by the very same engine saved from disaster by Jenny's red bloomers. Then, in what I assume is an engine shed with a few tiers of seats installed on either side, the performance took place. The action took place mostly on small platforms being pushed backwards and forwards along the track by stage hands. At the climactic moment a steam locomotive suddenly shot into the theatre. Most impressive.

You won't be able to see that because the entire run is sold out. You may however be able to catch 'The Ceremony', although I don't expect it to get a particularly wide release. In my previous post I observed that I had never been to a première; lo and behold, I now have and a Gala Première at that. The shine was slightly taken off things when we reached the end of the red carpet to be greeted by an officious lady with a clipboard who told us, quite accurately, that we weren't on the guest list and should have used the side entrance with all the other ordinary punters. However, by the time she had finished speaking my companion for the evening had already liberated a glass of fizz from a passing waiter and so it was all a bit moot. I very much enjoyed the film, most of which took place not very far from the Ribblehead viaduct pictured up above. It was extremely well acted, visually striking and quite tense. What is it about? Fair question; possibly the fact that there is good and bad in all of us. If you do go and see it then I'd be interested in your view of what all the quasi-mystical stuff with the goat (***) is about.

*      The sequel to the original was also shot on the KWVR and, inevitably starred Ms Agutter, who apparently thereby claimed the record for the longest gap between playing the same character in films.

**    Both Keighley and the Worth valley are part of Bradford

*** It might actually be a ram, reviewers are divided on the subject. 

 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 and black tie. One side effect of this is that I had never sat in a cinema alongside those actually appearing on the screen. Until, yesterday that is. 

As part of Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture I attended a screening of 'A Bunch of Amateurs', the 2022 documentary about the travails of the Bradford Movie Makers club, going since 1932, but possibly not going for much longer. I hadn't managed to see it when it first came out and was happy to take the opportunity to catch up with the film and the promised director's Q&A. It's a lovely film, both joyous and moving, full of pathos and comedy in equal measure. One implicit subtextual message - which may or may not be relevant to this blog's readership - concerned the mutual support and companionship available to men of a certain age from sharing in a common hobby. 

Watching it, however, turned out to be an odd experience. The Q&A was actually not just with the director, but also with the club members featured in the film, all of whom took their place in the auditorium. There is a scene early on in the film in which club members sit and watch the opening of 'Oklahoma', and sing along to 'Oh What a Beautiful World'; it eventually transpires that there is a rather poignant reason why they are doing that. So I sat there, flanked by people watching themselves in a film watching a film, whilst they sang along to themselves singing along to Curly McLain. Surreal.

Here is some Nice Jam:

 Big technical problems at the Casa Dojo Mojo House Epictetus, which have been affecting all sorts of things. There has been a very brief bit of wargaming though. We're still in the Great War and using Square Bashing, but now it's 1914.

These are 28mm figures from Mark's collection. I think they're Renegade, but don't quote me on that.

Cavalry as well. The infantry which look as if they are French, are in fact French; Mark didn't have enough British.

The game is going well, but its conclusion has been repeatedly delayed. I am, however, confident that it will all be over by...

 A few years ago, I complained about the lack of legibility of the Warbases' tokens  for Square Bashing and mentioned how I had made some of my own. Only now, after the usual long period of delay attached to anything which I do that is related to wargaming, have I got round to doing something about making the purchased ones usable.

It certainly would have been cheaper to do this in the first place rather than spending money on buying sheets of laminated acrylic and  laser cutting it, not to mention the extended rounded corners saga.

 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 once again. It's the only scenario in the Square Bashing book for which I have the forces, and so when short of time it's the one which gets put on. It was a victory for the British on this occasion. I obviously don't mean to criticise the good people of Peter Pig, but which side wins is entirely down to how high the die rolls the Germans make in their countdown phase at the end of their turn; nothing else actually matters at all. Still, it passed the time very pleasantly.

Then there is some Cruel Seas news. Not progress, you understand, just news. It would probably be impossible to overstate just how much wargaming crap Peter had accumulated and, while continuing with the task of sorting it out for his widow, James has turned up some more relevant bits and pieces. The most pertinent were a couple of freighters, shown above with the 3D printed one which I bought in an early burst of enthusiasm, that's the one at the back. Now I have a convoy worth sinking it almost seems churlish not to paint a couple of MTB's up and do so.