Deadzone and Cystoscopy.

I didn't plan much for last night at the club as my holiday looms and I had other things preying on my mind (see below), so I took up Simon's offer for some fun with Deadzone, a sci-fi skirmish, a few people were MIA this week so only three games were on offer other than Deadzone; X-Wing, Frostgrave and Age of Sigmar, not a historical game in sight.

Deadzone is much like a host of other games of its type, lovely figures, small table, plays quickly and doesn't last long, despite this the book looked fairly complex to me as opposed to say Dead Man's Hand which has about 10 pages of rules. The game itself proved to be fairly simple although like any game you play for the first time you will not be able to appreciate any subtleties. In the first skirmish I was given The Plague, horrible looking people up to no good, I think the enemy were humans or one faction of them. I simply tried my best and rushed in, obviously I was quickly shot down and Simon won the game comfortably. In the second we changed sides, I had learned a little and, like Simon before me led the humans to a resounding victory. At one point I fired frag grenades into a large melee involving some of my own men as I was getting nowhere in hand to hand.

The Plague

Humans?

I get trounced.

I win.

I have played Deadzone once before but a much larger game, it is not to be taken seriously and is good fun and fine for a club night. I was a tad distracted last night but I rallied and enjoyed the game, the second far more than the first.

I sent off another order to Rubicon on Tuesday night, a truck each for the British and Germans, I have been watching quite a few Bolt Action games on YouTube and can now understand why people bring transports. Bolt Action allows every truck to have a machine gun, despite this running against commonsense, yes I know some trucks had them but you won't see many in period photographs, to me it is simply annoying and gamesmanship, so, like not putting .50 Cal's on my British halftracks I don't do it. Anyway, I digress, the truck models are due for delivery today, superb turnaround from Rubicon.

 

Julian 'Del Boy' Ankers at the club when I told him I had ordered the trucks told me he had got several for the price of one on eBay (grrr), I looked this morning and could not see any bargains at all, in fact one guy wanted (with postage) £13 more than Rubicon was charging. There is obviously a knack to this. I have been very successful with my eBay selling over the past few weeks and got rid of the last of my stuff this morning, kerching! So possibly more Bolt Action stuff on the horizon when I get home.

I had a cystoscopy a few hours ago something I have been fearful about for over a week now, it is a check up on your bladder by a camera which goes in through your penis, I feel your eyes watering already. This is a by product of not getting enough antibiotics way back in December, I knew my bladder was not the problem but hey, I didn't do seven years at university. I made it to the waiting room at Lancaster and waited my turn with a woman shouting at her dad and sharing sandwiches and coffee while the woman next to me was praying, seriously, praying in a low voice. The woman next to her was flicking through Youtube videos and the rest of us got to listen at high volume to about five seconds of each one. Thankfully I was then called away, I couldn't really understand the doctor and had to ask several times what he had said, I winged it once and guessed right according to what he then said.

I was then led to a small room, told to drop my underpants and trousers to my ankles and lie on a bed, the Doc said he would be putting an anesthetic in my penis and it might be cold and a tad uncomfortable, he was definitely right about the second part as I let out a low "Wooooooooo". Before I knew it the camera was in and I could see what was happening on a monitor to my left, big deal, just red or yellowish flesh with veins all over, I gritted my teeth and shut my eyes despite there really being no pain, only a slight strange feeling and a need to pee, I merely wished for it to be over. It must have took less than ten minutes and that was it, nothing to report. It is more painful now going to the toilet than it was during the procedure, it can take a day or so for this feeling to go. I am now really, really looking forward to getting away on Friday morning. The procedure is not as bad as you think but you can still live without it.

What happened there?

Stewart turned up on Saturday morning for our planned wargame weekend, first up was several games of X-Wing then a War and Conquest game to refresh the rules for April (see below). X-Wing is undoubtedly Stewart's game and I like to think WAC is mine, pride cometh before a fall.

I ran four X-Wings in the first game as I had had success with this at the club and was quietly confidentish, I completely mucked things up and on one turn I did not even get a shot off, I was then taught how to really play the game, first blood to Stewart. In the second game I took two B-Wings, these fly like bricks, an X-Wing and an A-Wing, Stewart had the Hounds Tooth a big ugly monster of a ship, but one which never seems to have much success, especially at the club, another two ships escorted the beast. I got everything right this time and got a very good win destroying all the enemy, my first ever win against Stewart, honours even. For our final bash we both had Imperials and both had two Tie Defenders along with one more ship, I had an Aggressor and Stewart took an Interceptor. I was out of my depth and had a bit of bad luck, I thought I would get rid of the Interceptor first and got it down to three hull points, I hit it nine times more and not one shot got through! I quickly lost the plot and Stewart won 2/1, but I was happy with that I expected it to be 3/0.

Sunday dawned and it was Saxon Heptarchy vs Carolingians, I took two elite Gedriht units, a group of Geoguth and one of Ceorls, I also took some cavalry as a reserve, then I took the Franks, yes, those Franks, but this time I gave them more men so that they would always have the chance of gaining the Warband bonus, I also gave them their own general and heavy throwing weapons, surely they would not let me down with all this lavished on them? The Carolingians had two elite units, some average troops, a large unit of cavalry and some unreliable types. We both had skirmishers, I had three units and Stewart had two.

Stewart had to deploy first and it was a typical battle line, I formed the same opposite, my intention was to break the Carolingian right and roll up the line while holding my own right back until they were forced into combat. Stewart moved his cavalry into skirmish and headed for the opposite flank, I was happy with this and moved my slingers behind the line to meet them, my right could be exposed by the cavalry. However I saw an excellent opportunity to ride down the enemy skirmishers opposite my cavalry, I covered them with my archers as they moved forward, before I could charge Stewart caught me out by charging the archers, a move which was unexpected and routed them, this meant the cavalry were now targets and they took enough casualties to rout, elsewhere that turn I had another unit of archers run, three surprising routs in one turn, not good.

The sun shines on the Carolingians.

The confident Saxons

 

Still looking good.

The pendulum just about to swing.

I now threw the Franks forward and sure enough my plan worked and they beat their foes and swept them away, Stewart had come off his hill so my right was now engaged as well, I was winning these combats, the Carolingian cavalry now turned and came back. I rallied my cavalry and set them towards the enemy, Stewart looked crestfallen. Another Carolingian unit ran and my young Geoguth held their opponents to a draw, it looked like it was all over. I then made a stupid move with the Franks, counting on them moving an elite unit, which they almost did, but in the round after my forces took a severe beating, so bad the tide turned and they failed to recover, as time passed more and more Saxons fled to the rear. It was my turn to look downhearted. Stewart had grabbed a splendid victory from the jaws of defeat, even my King was captured, a black day for the Heptarchy. When will I ever learn about those damn Franks, although they could say I have to shoulder most of the blame for mucking up their move, I threw away a good opportunity there.

With most of the army running I surrender my sword.

So a good two days fighting and Stewart grabbing the laurels and no doubt driving home reliving his glory. I had even used my new Saxon dice, I was never happy with the orange ones and they just felt wrong, these svelte blue and black dice are fine despite my loss.

If you are a regular here you will know I went to a couple of War and Conquest events twice a year for a time, I like the game that much, sadly these events have not continued, for several reasons which I won't bore you with, so I decided to hold my own. I could easily fit four tables in to my Post Office but decided to go with three for a trial, this due to circumstances beyond my control has dwindled to two, no matter it is going ahead, two games on Saturday and one on Sunday.

I have been eBaying with some success recently and intend to do more once I return from holiday as decided to clear out stuff I never play with, most of my ACW ships have now gone and I have amassed enough for another couple of models for Bolt Action.

View From The Window

 It is a beautiful day here, the sun is shining and although cool it looks like warming up, very different from this time last year or any other year. Are we going to get a good year like last year, has global warming at last caught up with us after decades of warnings or is it simply something to cheer us up before we get back to more rain, rain, rain. Fingers crossed. Weather should not be a problem for me from next Friday as I am off to Vietnam, even the rain if any should be warm.

I have been having a pretty terrible time since just before Christmas when I got a urinary infection, due to no one believing me that the infection had not gone I had two periods where it recovered its strength and came back to haunt me. The main reason this happened of course is that the NHS is reluctant to prescribe you more antibiotics than they need to, not how many you need. You can get an operation or several to change your sex, you can get dancing lessons and slimming courses free gratis, you can even get an £8,000 bionic penis if your performance is not up to scratch, but you can't get another weeks antibiotics to cure you. I have changed my pharmacy because despite having around ten people behind the desk it takes them four days to get my prescriptions ready and if they are ready they are usually wrong. I also went to the Hospital last Thursday for treatment and could not get it because one of the consultants decided not to turn up. I go again this Wednesday, let's see if I have more success this time.

I cannot be racist because I don't like a lot more white people than I do coloured people, in fact I can count on one hand how many non whites I have taken a dislike to. Why do I mention this, because as of today I refuse to listen or speak to anyone on the phone with an accent from the subcontinent. I, like most people get the usual scammer once a week at least, yesterday I had four, this morning I had two, one, without blinking introducing himself as Johnny O'Connor, it is never Mohammed, Arnav, Eshan or whatever, it is Malcolm, or Eugene or Felicity! I did have to give one caller 10/10 for audacity, the Tax Regulator seemingly, they were going to bring a £3,000 cheque to me but first I had to pay £150 tax, this was to be in the form of three iTunes cards at £50 each, once they had the numbers they would have the cheque to me in half an hour. How does anyone fall for this, also have the Nigerians sold out?

Should the ISIS woman and her kid get back in to the UK, NO.Where were all the bleeding heart celebrities, politicians and do gooders when the poor Pakistani woman under death threat wanted to come here, nowhere to be seen or heard, shameful.

Just when you thought politicians couldn't get any worse we have a bunch stamping their feet and withdrawing from their parties in righteous indignation, not indignant enough to offer up by-elections to see if their constituents agree with them mind. What a shambles, no matter what side of the debate you are on the country seems to be in the hands of 650 selfish, jobsworth incompetents. Pitt, Gladstone, Disraeli and Churchill amongst others must be turning in their graves. God help us.

We wus Robbed Sir.

 Muskets and Tomahawks last night, I arrived a bit late so the terrain had all been set out and as I chose to be British I was handed my OOB and orders. There was a French spy around, a Jesuit priest who we had to apprehend while keeping the unruly savages at bay, as we were the vanguard our forces arrived piecemeal so for the start of the game and most of the rest of it I had two light companies. To get further troops we had to reach certain points on the table, so it was my own fault I left my regulars to near the end.

As my Jocks set about reaching the first reinforcement point it became apparent that there were a lot of Indians in them nearby woods. I thought here was an opportunity to get some points by wiping out the savages while holding the left flank as Rob made his way to rescue the settlers near the river. As ever my shooting was terrible and it took me a long time to make the left secure, so much so I did not make my way to the next reinforcement point until almost too late. Rob meanwhile took cover in a redoubt while the women we had to rescue huddled in a nearby building, a bunch of very brave Indians was whittling his men down despite the cover. What about the priest, well that fool was running about in circles getting nowhere (dice led), but always just on the other side of the river so we could not get at him as French irregulars began to arrive. He eventually made it to safety.

An Indian chief called out Rob's commander to a duel, and in front of their men they set too with gusto, cheered on by us on the sidelines, the combat was ferocious but not deadly and eventually each was dragged away bloody and exhausted by their men. They returned to the fray a few moments later and this time the savage did not survive, huzzah!

Victory for Rob's guy.

I had eventually cleared the forest to my front and moved on the remaining Indians in the centre, the regulars had now arrived and a volley sent them to the happy hunting grounds. With the women safe, apart from one unlucky madam, the British began their withdrawal. It was time to count up points and I felt fairly confident, I had stopped Julian from scalping most of my dead and had dealt out a fair amount of damage for a score of 16. Ryan had saved the priest and leapt forward with around 32, Julian had captured a donkey and a maid so again reaped huge rewards, Rob had saved most of the women so again needed a calculator to add up his points. I was last, and last by a long shot, despite having wiped out more First Nations than John Wayne while holding the left flank.

The regulars turn up late.

The mad Jesuit is eventually saved and high fived!

Don't look Daphne.

 Another good game and a lot of fun, elsewhere we had a rowdy RPG and Deadzone going on, I am playing Deadzone next week.

 My last (for the time being) WWII kit, the Sherman arrived very quickly from Rubicon, as with all their kits you can choose which tank you want to build, with this kit you can build four, not much difference in three of them until you come to the Firefly version. My British needed a bit more punch to tackle the Germans in Normandy, although they do have a M10 tank destroyer with a 17pdr, now they have two with the addition of the Firefly.

You can go mad trying to work out what green was used by Allied tanks and what is the best equivalent, I use Russian Uniform, drybrushed with the same colour with some white added, the tracks are Track Primer and the rubber on the wheels Dark Rubber. I had decided to use mud (MIG Europe Dry Mud) on this vehicle but found on opening the tub it had solidified, so no go there. The lower surfaces were drybrushed with Flat Earth. I found some bits and pieces to put on the rear deck, you can't put too much on due to the long 'bustle' needed for the recoil of the 17pdr. The markings are for 29th Brigade, 11th Armoured Division, at first I put the blue squadron markings on, then decided you could hardly see them on the green back ground, so I overlaid yellow markings, but these again are not as bright as perhaps they should be. I then realised that the number 53 on the chassis went with the blue and not the yellow, this of course played on my mind until I eventually replaced them with the proper number, 52. No, I must not paint over the yellow, daft idea.....

I had noticed before the strange wavy pattern on the end of the 17pdr gun, I found out that it was to disguise the length of the barrel, the Germans came to fear the killing power of the gun and as there was only one tank in a troop armed with the 17pdr, if they could they would knock that tank out first. Quite clever and maybe enough to allow the British tank to get the first round off, a bit like the false bow wave on a ship to confuse U-Boats. You learn something new all the time.

I finished my extra WWII infantry this morning so it will be on with the SYW grenadiers now.

Garde Ecossais

Another bunch of Scots for the Seven Years War with more to be added later, I had a look at the Perry AWI Highlanders and think they would do for a couple of battalions and fit well with my Front Rank figures. There is also one more Scots battalion I can add to the French. So the long term plan for the rest of the year which has just come to me, is the Highland battalions for the British, Scots and Irish for the French along with another artillery battery and cavalry regiment for each and we will see where I am after that.

You really have to fit the uniform to the figures with SYW, and I think the only thing with these troops was the missing shoulder tab, which I could have painted on but didn't and the cuffs which I did paint properly with the blue slash. I get all my information from the Kronoskaf site which I take to be correct in most details and is a fantastic research site for wargamers, I even gave them some money.

I have got the Bolt Action bug again and having got the Tiger I cheap I decided as you know to buy the newly released Jagdpanther, I also got a few more figures to add to the infantry, and of course I had to even up the odds for the Allies hence the Firefly (which wasn't called a Firefly during the war but is recognised as such today). I got it built the same day it arrived and am now in the stages of painting it.

I also got myself some black acrylic skull markers for stamina in Black Powder and team casualties in Bolt Action from the excellent Charlie Foxtrot Models, Colin even put in some further examples for me, it pays to have friends in the hobby. His wonderful Eastern Front buildings are almost enough to tempt me to get Russians.


Son Stewart is coming over this coming weekend for some games, X-Wing on Saturday and War and Conquest on Sunday, the latter will be a 'training' game as we have not played for a while and I have organised a WAC weekend here in April. There was to be six of us but we are now four, so I am looking forward to that.

Meow!

I seem to be having a pre-holiday spree at the moment, the Tiger was an impulse buy because the price was right but I have now added the new Rubicon Jagdpanther. It arrived the other day in a nice solid package, perhaps they have learned that the kit box is not sufficiently sound to leave to the tender mercies of couriers, they also are very speedy with their deliveries.

Again the kit comes with two variants early or late, so you get two hulls, it is a pity you do not get some extra bogies or tracks as you could make up a very nice wreck. I went for the early version as that is the one which would most likely have been in Normandy, not a lot of difference between the two, the main one being a two part gun barrel and different mantlet. A very easy build, again smooth tracks but not as noticeable as on the Tiger I. I remodeled the skirts by cutting out a section on both sides.

There is a very reddish brown stripey pattern which seems quite popular with these vehicles and also normal Panthers, the one in the tank museum is painted like this, but I don't like it so I went for the scheme used on a vehicle in early '45. From the print I was also unsure whether two greens were used or it was just the artists way of showing the light, anyway, I went for two greens. This time I base coated the tank in Green Ochre as recommended on the box, personally I think Dark Sand is a better base for Dunkelgelb, but hey, it's done now. I used Luftwaffe Cam. Green for the green and then added some white to get the lighter colour. After this it was a watered down wash with Army Painter Soft Tone and then a dry brush with Dark Sand, the tracks and lower surfaces got another dry brush with Flat Earth. At this stage I usually put a little rust on here and there, very sparingly. A light dab with black on a sponge along the edges and voila, done.

 

I also felt the need to even things up so ordered a Sherman 'Firefly' this morning, it is now on the way, well done Rubicon. Now I need to get a big game to get them all on the table, one day.

A close run thing.

As I have come to expect, another dreich night heading into Lancaster, it was Napoleonics with Andy, Stuart and Simon using Black Powder, so I traveled light, dice and tape measure. Andy had settled on the battle of Rolica from the BP scenario book about which I had not a clue.

It looked like a decent little club game, Simon had four battalions and a gun while I had two and a unit of cavalry, we were the French, however we had a long front to defend and were spread thin with no reserves. I had the right flank and it looked decidedly weak, right opposite me was two battalions of riflemen and two cavalry units, in the centre was a full brigade of British and the same on our left, it looked like I would be home early.

Battle lines are drawn

Hold, hold, or whatever it is in French.

Sure enough the British came straight at us, my cavalry was charged and against the odds sent their opponents running, as the lines came together the British lost two battalions trying to budge our defenders, things looked just dandy. The second British cavalry unit came in and although I was forced to retire my horsemen, they did not break, more time wasted as the clock ticked down. On the left Stuart made a serious attempt to dislodge Simon's anchor battalion, but these stalwart lads held as the red tide surged against their line, with the help of a Swiss battalion the British right was thrown back in disarray and lost the will to continue.

Here they come.

Simon's stalwarts.

Meanwhile in the centre the British were again held and forced back, it only needed a couple more routs and British morale would have collapsed. The clock struck ten and that was it, a surprising French victory despite the odds being stacked against them, and a great little game. It may have been different if the British left had been more aggressive but several bad command rolls took their toll on Andy's plans and my cavalry managed not to die.

The British attack stalls.

The Garde Ecossais could be getting varnished by the weekend, I seem to have my painting mojo back. Next up are British grenadiers, I had thought of making each stand different as they were pulled from different regiments, but then thought that might be too much of a faff, so I have decided to do half and half from two different regiments.

I have also got a few British and German WWII riflemen coming as I need the odd figure now and then for Bolt Action and if I use all the squads I have I have nothing spare. I also took delivery of a package yesterday but am keeping it back as a surprise.

Stuck for something to paint by the other night I found the updated 'Das Boot' series (Sky Atlantic, I think) and the first ten minutes had me glued to my seat, great find thought I. This didn't last long, the usual but very unlikely gay couple turned up in episode three, it was so unlikely it reminded me of 'Allo 'Allo. By the halfway mark some of the story lines were so insane I started to fast forward through the action ashore and only watched when at sea with the U-Boat, at times even that was a struggle. A great pity as the production values are spot on, you might like it, but I will stick with the movie although the first series from the '80's has been recommended to me.

My BBC licence has now gone, the only thing I miss is the News at 6, although usually having seen the headlines I switched it off, I now have to talk to the missus, I wonder if the BBC will have me back? I complained about a news item last week and got my reply yesterday, they didn't know which interview I was complaining about so could do nothing about it, I had told them the date and time, which channel and who was being interviewed!

Da, da, da, dadada.

Another dark and dingy night for Club Night, although I notice the days getting that bit longer, snow on the hills has gone but it is cold.

Alex who was new to X-Wing asked me for a game this week, as he also flies Imperials I thought I would take the Rebels for a change, they don't get out of the box very often. I wanted to keep it simple so looked around online for some inspiration and decided to go with four named X-Wing pilots, nothing fancy but the X-Wing is a pretty decent all round fighter as you would expect.

The Empire turned up with three Tie Interceptors led by Soontir Fel, apparently he is an Ace pilot, I don't know that much about the Star Wars universe but the card is a good one. I started off with an advance and a turn to meet the enemy, I survived the salvoes which came at me and started to return fire, I had all my ships target lock one Interceptor and ganged up on him, at the end of that turn he was space dust. The rest of the game turned into the same routine, my ships kept together and the sheer volume of fire took care of the rest, a win for the Rebels and one of my few solo game wins. Alex's die rolling was superb in attack but rather useless in defence, my own were pretty good on both counts and the target lock ability was deadly to the Imperials.

Repainted X-Wings.

 

We had time to play a second game, the line up was the same and I started off the same way as game one, it took slightly longer this time but I still managed to concentrate on one Interceptor and put him away. Then it all went wrong, I don't know what happened but I screwed up my movement something terrible, some of the manoeuvres when turned over didn't make sense and I suffered for it, I lost one X-Wing and found it hard to concentrate fire on one ship. As time ran out I lost a second ship and my other two were not going to get close enough to do any damage to the enemy, which was a shame as both of them only had one hull point left.

A good run out for me and two enjoyable games, the four X-Wing combo was very good, I do think the Imperials lack a decent ship to combat the X-Wing, I know people say that the Imperial ships are more manoeuvrable and that they can have the numbers, but I don't buy that. Besides you have to be a very good player to keep control of say six Tie Fighters, and that is not me.

A busy night at the club, a WWII Battlegroup game, a Dark Age/Fantasy skirmish, Frostgrave and Roots (murder and mayhem with furry creatures), almost a full house. Napoleonic next week, Black Powder.

Oh dear, Rubicon have just announced a JagdPanther turning up in a week or so, I suddenly realise I 'need' one.

Tiger 123 and other stuff.

My Vapnartak post got more comments than anything else I have done, at the end of the day any show is what you make of it, I always enjoyed the wargames but I am harking back to my days at the McClellan Galleries in Glasgow or Claymore in the building across from the Museum of Scotland, back when CND picketed we armchair generals. I can get everything I want online so the wargaming side is more important to me, but I think I am barking up the wrong tree there. The issue of being ignored is another matter entirely but I will let that rest, maybe it is me, my classic good looks tend to scare people.

Anyway, I have finished the Rubicon Tiger 1 I treated myself to. The kit was pretty easy to build and had options for early, mid and late war, I am not a rivet counter here and would be quite happy to pay a couple of quid less than get road wheels and such I have to throw in the bin. The only thing I was not entirely happy with was the tracks, to my eyes they were just not very detailed, and the bottom layer which the wheels sit on was so smooth I thought I had put them on wrong. That aside it is a nice looking tank, of course it is, it's a Tiger. I undercoated the whole thing with Dark Sand made slightly lighter with the addition of some white, this does as Dunkelgelb the colour which the tanks came from the factory. For the camo I used a piece of sponge dipped in either Cavlary Brown or Green Grey, I saw something similar to this in a colour print and as I do not have an airbrush that was the best way for me to do it, the tracks were painted with Track Primer. To tone this down a bit I then gave the whole tank a watered down wash of Army Painter Soft Tone and then a drybrush with Dark Sand, the tracks were drybrushed with Flat Earth. And there you have it, no complaints next time I play Bolt Action that that Tiger is a PzIV, no it really will be a Tiger. All paints are Vallejo unless specified. I nearly forgot, the tank comes with an AA machine gun for the commanders cupola, after looking at a load of Tiger photographs I decided to leave this off.

I have now also managed to finish the 51st Foot, I didn't do much painting at all between Christmas and the end of January and these guys sat about for most of that time. I got these figures from Front Rank's AWI range, they are billed as British Regulars and as they were in a nice firing position I ordered them. They have their coats buttoned up so no lace there, the cuffs are also fairly thin so I did not do a double line of lace on them, my eyes are simply not that good, but who will be rude enough to point that out to an old guy. They do have a distinctly campaign look about them, they have a waterbottle and some kind of wooly/fur bag on their backs, no matter, they are of the period and look fine to me. Next up are the Royal Ecossais or as my son picked me up on the title the Garde Ecossais, I am looking forward to painting these but as I have a holiday coming up it could be some time in April before they are finished, I had planned to have more battalions than this done for Easter but hey, what's the rush.

I bought three foreign movies last week, The Admiral and The Fighter Pilot, both Japanese, the former about the attack on Pearl Harbour and the latter about a Kamikaze pilot, the third is Viking which is Russian, I came across the two Japanese films while looking for a particular clip on YouTube, the Russian movie I have wanted for a while, but it had slipped my mind recently. Now I just need to get rid of the wife for a few nights.

I have decided to rid myself of the tyranny of the BBC and cancel my licence, no longer will my hard earned cash benefit Gary Linekar, Graham Norton, Dan Snow, woke programming or the monstrous regiment of women currently de rigueur in BBC dramas. Yes, of course there is the odd programme which I like (Luther, Line of Duty) but the overall output is just not for me, nor for the million people who cancelled last year.