I have not mentioned the entertainment world in an age, mainly because I went through a patch where there was nothing to watch, then all of a sudden several shows turned up which I had been following, this sadly did not do me any good. "Van Helsing", nonsense about vampires obviously, this is now too ludicrous to watch, the same fate has befallen "Zombie Nation", I know it sounds daft but both programmes have lost the plot. In my defence these were 'to paint by' programmes, I would not actually sit down and watch one on its own. I did enjoy 'Curfew' and another dystopian piece 'Black Summer' the latter had me in tears of laughter, in an episode where a poor, dumb, frightened character is hounded by one particularly obsessive zombie, this alone was worth the watch. 'Veep' is back for the last Season and there is one episode to go, this began as a very clever play on American politics written by Armando Ianucci a Glaswegian, the same guy who gave us the splendidly monstrous Malcolm Tucker in 'The Thick of It'. Ianucci did not write the last two seasons and it showed, the characters became just plain nasty, crude and less clever but hey, one more to go. I have given up with the TV licence so have not been able to catch up with Line of Duty yet and will have to wait until it is on Catch Up, I can live with that, just. I have Now TV, Sky, Netflix and some other stuff which I never look at and it takes more than 30 minutes to find something which then has me reaching for the remote after ten minutes. Spoiled or is it that hard to find something good to watch. I hear shouts of Game of Thrones, yeah sure, the last season and it looks like the writers have given up and are now looking for other jobs as we rush to the end.
Books, after finishing Waterloo I moved on to 'The Last Mughal' before starting Tim Clayton's latest 'This Dark Business' on how we British did for Napoleon. I have read several books on the Indian Mutiny, there I go again, The First War of Independence(?), and you cannot escape the atrocities committed by both sides, I was surprised however at the scale of the punishment meted out to the city of Delhi and its inhabitants as recounted in the book. The fate of the last Emperor and his family was also severe, old Zafar sent to live in a squat in Rangoon, and lets not forget Napoleon chained to a rock in the middle of the Atlantic, it didn't do to upset the British back then.
My brush with the Waffen-SS is not over, my extra LMG teams turned up today but so did another two squads of soldiers, I told Offensive Miniatures that they should not send me more troops as they had done so already, just send the LMG's. I have now offered to send them back if they give me the postage, I really don't need them.
And of course this brings me to my stance against Big Tech, it didn't last long, less than 24 hrs I think, despite having no time for Zuckerberg and his outfit it suits my hobby needs, news from Groups and the Club in the main. I do hope though that the Americans will come down on him like a ton of bricks over his recent antics, but sadly I have my doubts as $74 billion make you just about invulnerable.
I hope once again to get a Bolt Action campaign off the ground soon using a Chain of Command book but using BA rules, I see they have once again sent out a bunch of errata and pages of FAQ's. I noticed recently that my French Grenadiers had the wrong top to their flag and I could not let it go so sorted that out today, I have also started the British 10th Dragoons.
I wasn't going to go to anymore shows but I am going along to Partizan with Julian on Sunday, the blurb shows a lot of actual wargames in the hall, so why not, the missus would only find something for me to do at home.
Busy with maps and really enjoying a couple of projects which are in colour.
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| 'Bloody Streets' |
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| 'Through Adversity' |
Hardly know where to start with that. Let's Leet up at Partizan!
ReplyDeleteYes, went a bit crazy this afternoon. My intended journey could still hit a bump but will certainly meet up.
DeletePhew! That's a relief - I thought from the title that you'd suddenly developed a strange affinity with Clare Balding? I'm also off to Partizan - it's a bit of a trek from the south coast but the list of games included quite a bit that even I might be interested in?
ReplyDeleteClare Balding, ugh, although that comment is probably some kind of 'ism on several levels. I should be sporting my Comms shirt so say hello.
DeleteInteresting re the telly. I continue to bore my young nephews with the, from my perspective, very obvious observation that when we only had three channels to choose from, much more quality made it to the screen, and far less dross polluted the screen* (*obviously I exclude 70's ITV sitcoms from this conclusion). Mrs H and I have taken to replacing our old vinyl collection with modern heavy grade vinyl, and retreating to the turntable for what we wistfully call "music nights". As you have said, there's nothing on the telly, so why not. I'm swithering about Partizan, I'll only end up buying stuff and hating the motorways south of Leeds!
ReplyDeleteIt was the same on the rigs, all those channels and I still ended up reading a book. The games at Partizan interest me although I wish you had not mentioned the roads, aaagh!
DeleteTV well what can one say, the bulk is not even worth painting to. As for more BA errata etc. I shall not bother even looking, not bothered us so far so it can't be that important, I suppose it's mainly a fop to keep the "list" people unhappy :~) Hope you get the campaign going, I have the Citadel one I may get around to playing out one day,but then probably not.
ReplyDeleteNeat looking maps.
I do hope I have some success campaign wise, bad track record with them although my own ACW campaigns always ran well. coloured maps always seem more interesting. Still a lot of work to be done on the Berlin series, I will probably buy this one.
DeleteI watch a lot of Netflix while painting as well. I quite enjoyed Black Summer, although lime you said it was a bit daft here and there. Currently watching the last few episodes if Vikings!
ReplyDeleteVikings, gave up ages ago when the women took over the village, gah. During Black Summer the wife and I kept shouting at the box "Shut the door!"
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