Vapnartak

Ok, up early, sorted the View out, bacon sarnie and out the door, weather was OK, grey and drab but better than storm whatsits name, I picked mate Simon up and we were off, Mrs Satnav wasn't quite sure but we got on the motorway and off we went. I timed things so we got there after the rush which is just as well as the show was much busier than the last time I was here a couple of years ago. I got in for nothing being a young 64 although again I was a bit miffed the doorperson, for it was a woman, didn't have the decency to look at least a little surprised that I was that old.

The crowds were really noticeable as we wormed our way in, it was Simon's first wargame show and he looked pleased, we split up and went our own way. I stopped and had a quick word with Simon and Michael at Curtey's/1st Corps where they pointed out their new Romano-British cavalry, although very nice my Romano-British army is complete and will not be getting any more troops added. The lads are putting on a War and Conquest day on 29 March at Snaith and I confirmed I will be popping along.

The amount of traders was eye popping, nearly every big wargame outfit and many of the smaller one's were present, all were doing a roaring trade, despite this I only had to wait once for a space into which to shove myself and offer my money. I went with the intention of buying very little and my list was three items written on the corner of an A4 sheet I had with map instructions on it.

I went off the rails at Ainsty Castings which had a load of Footsore bubbles on show, I bought the King Arthur figure for my Patrician general, he looked irresistible close up. A stupid idea crossed my mind for at least five minutes, which was to buy the figures I had already ordered and was waiting for and jump the gun, but commonsense prevailed and I put the blisters back. I then got my magnetic paper from Coritani which was on the list, but it would be the first and last of the three I had there. I surrendered at Great Escape Games and got more tufts, something you can never have enough of, the good thing about seeing them up close is that you get a better idea of the colours as opposed to looking and guessing online, something I have messed up several times. I also got some foliage which I will change out with the stuff on my German tanks at some point.

I passed my favourite terrain place, The Last Valley, and couldn't resist getting some stone walls, I have the Warlord pack but these will now go in reserve, TLV's walls are so much better, and as most of my WWII terrain is already from him they will fit very well. I just wish the guy would smile a bit more.

Then, as I prepared to leave I bought what I knew all along I would buy but kept saying I wouldn't because I did not need it, but it turned out I did need it after all, the gorgeous Warbases Roman Villa. I comforted myself that I managed to resist the Roman Temple, for now. David over at Tales From GHQ has one and I shall watch the construction carefully to see how his develops as I am not in a great hurry to build mine now that I know it is safely ensconced in my study.

Simon also managed to spend a bit and like me got a bit extra as well, he now has female snipers for Bolt Action, the male snipers were bad enough but now they will have attitude, he also got the War and Conquest rule book as well as a starter pack for a Greek Hoplite army, things are looking good for WAC in Lancaster.

So, my overall opinion of the show, it has almost completely morphed into a great trade show, the wargame part for me was disappointing, there were a few very good looking, large demonstration games and on one level of the building several participation games, one of which was run by two club members, Rob and Stuart, and was a big hit with the younger generation, I commend their patience. You cannot visit a show like this and not realise how lucky we are in our hobby, there is something for everyone.

Rob and Stuart, Stuart is actually taller.

On leaving and getting back to the Batmobile I found it had sunk into the wet ground, and as I tried to get her out the more she sank in, disaster was staring us in the face, a car stopped and a young lad came out and helped us try and push the car free, it was no use. We needed traction or more people, I looked in the boot and the only thing which might work was the wife's five star picnic blanket, it had to be done, I opened it up and stuck it under the wheel which looked to be the worst. A burst of energy, a hefty push and the Batmobile was free, the criminals of Gotham......sorry. I gingerly picked up the mud spattered blanket and folded it up as best I could and popped it back in the boot, that will be another story. My very grateful thanks to that lad who stopped whoever you are.

View From The Window

Here's one I prepared earlier. I am off to York today for the Vapnartak show, there is nothing I actually need but I am going with an open mind, I may pick up the odd terrain piece but that's it. The John Doe storm did not appear, I have no idea what its real name is as no one apart from the weather people seems to care, or perhaps now that we are in to February they have run out of letters, in fact we have had a couple of mild days and yesterday there was some sunshine.

Talking about sunshine I see the odious ambulance chaser Phil Shiner has been struck off. It was sickening to watch the media, who were more than happy to interview him and drag the reputation of the Army through the mud, as well as point their fingers at the veterans and officers who stood up for the squaddies do a u-turn with faux shock. It was particularly galling for me to listen to the Defence Secretary standing up for the troops, the same Defence Secretary who even now is allowing soldiers to be hounded by Shiner's even more odious Northern Ireland counterpart and terrorist lawyer Mr. McGrory.

Louse.

Hypocrite.

 I have signed the petition to allow Donald Trump into the UK, not because I am particularly interested in having him here but because I do not usually get a chance to hit back at the snowflakes of this world. We all know the petitions are a waste of time whichever one you sign, but there may just be some hope for the 'don't let him in' crowd on the horizon. Gateshead Council have tabled an 'emergency' measure not to allow him on any council sites should he take a detour from meeting the Queen and decide to go north for a bamcake. And which political giants rule Gateshead with such authority and stupidity, yes, the Liberal Democrats.

Clear off bonny lad.

 This leads me on to the snowflake Methodist minister who, to salve his conscience over the bombing of Yemen by the Saudi's decided with his mate to break in to BAE Systems Warton (not this one), with a suitably marked hammer just like the bombs we used to send to Germany only his didn't say 'eat lead Adolf'. His mission impossible was so incompetent he didn't get near a plane to do any damage, however if you tried to break in to such an establishment and damage an aircraft worth a zillion pounds how many years would it be before you saw daylight again? Well the padre is out and about tending to his flock and I will bet my savings he will never do community service never mind some real porridge. I am sure the Yemeni's will appreciate his efforts and of course his sanctimonious conscience is safe.

Bang 'im up.

It's a bit of a snowstorm today, what about PETA, you remember, the people who threw paint on fur coats and went naked to convince us not to wear fur, well the four supermodels did the ugly ones on the committee didn't, I see on their site they also urge us not to eat animals either, just as well they weren't around several thousand years ago or only the animals would be here. Anyway I digress, PETA have written to Games Workshop who produce the figures for games in the year 40,000 asking them to stop putting 'fur' on the soldiers as it would be even more unethical in that time. The best answer I saw amongst the chorus of disbelief was that there was no need for PETA to worry as it was fake fur!

What did the Romans ever do for us.

I will spare you my thoughts on President Trump's 'ban' on Moslems, but the reaction of the luvvies at the Screen Actors Guild Awards required several family sized buckets to be within reach. Kerry Washington, no me neither, said it best when she said 'actors embody the worth and humanity of all people' and there was me thinking they were in entertainment for the fame and money. Then there was a dizzy blonde who said that the actors would put everything right, then suddenly remembered the rest of us and graciously said we could help as well. Have you noticed that vocal feminist actresses demanding they too are actors are quite prepared to take the prize for best actress? At the end of the day you are an actor/actress which means you cannot possibly be taken seriously as you live in a world of make believe on set and off.

Gabor Hegedus a Hungarian was charged with the following after mowing down two girls with his car; conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, driving without a licence, failing to stop after a collision, failing to report the collision and two counts of dangerous driving. Yes, he is pleading not guilty to the last two, despite the former charges all pointing to his guilt in the latter two.

Bang 'im up 2.

The news proudly, well reluctantly, reported that the economy was doing well last night and that the consumers were seemingly not bothered a whit about Brexit, not on the high street at least, but of course it could not be left at that. On shuffled Ahmed Kamal the BBC's harbinger of doom, here comes the 'but' I said to the missus, sure enough off he went. Savings were down, have been for years mate, the figures may be up but not by very much and they may go down again, yeah but you said they would only go down, he grudgingly gave the good news but always left with a 'but' and a dire warning.

And now for the bad news.

The Secret is Out

After last weeks debacle on the Eastern Front we returned there last night, a straight up fight over some secret plans which had been left in an aircraft which had had the misfortune to be shot down, not having a crashed aircraft a quaint Italian truck had to do.

I upped the points value so that we could get some vehicles on the table, also as there were four of us we needed to have a couple of decent units each, this turned out a mistake in a three hour club game. I have come to the conclusion that we have to fight Bolt Action as it was intended at the club, a one vs one game, in order to get something finished in the time available and leave fully satisfied it has to be done that way. I can do much larger games at home with multiple players but the club is not the place for it.

Anyway, that being said the secret plans were in the centre of the table, it was presumed we would fight long ways but I didn't see the point of that so we merely came on across from each other, another mistake. Although to be fair long ways with transport would have resulted in pretty much the same result unless we ditched the roads.

The Russians got the first dice out of the bag and before you could say Jacques Merde were at the objective, a gnashing of teeth followed. I threw my little armoured car towards the objective with the idea of shooting the Russians before they could find the papers, it only managed to put some bullet holes in the truck before it fell victim to some captured panzerfausts, not what I had in mind. We recovered as the game progressed and threw everything into the Soviet squad at the objective, so much that it went to ground, it then became almost impossible to hit it.

A T34 rumbled on in support and loosed off a few shots but didn't do much in the way of damage, I decided to be a devil and moved my Panzer IV up to take a shot at it as the Russians now had nothing near enough apart form the T34 to knock it out. Paint chips flew from the T34 but it was immobilised, my second shot killed it dead, revenge for my 222. We lost a squad which was out in the open but the Russians around the objective were taking a lot of heat and the pins were building up. The bell went and we found we had only completed three turns, the Russki's therefore had more than enough time to run off with the secret folder. I thought we had a slim chance of either killing or pinning whoever had the papers if we got the right draw on the dice thereby preventing an escape but I was clutching at straws.

I did manage to get several vehicles on for this game, I had the tank and armoured car along with a PAK 40, a truck and a Hanomag, it was nice seeing these on the battlefield at last. Elsewhere we had another WWII game with Battleground Normandy, Frostgrave and Dave and Clive with their usual boardgame.

I am hoping the dour postman is bringing me more goodies today, also I did the right thing with Gripping Beast they are processing my order as I type, so I am going with the cavalry. I am going to try a black primer with the horses this time, something I have not done before, so that will be interesting, everyone seems to have nicer horses than me, mind you, I do not like painting horses, who does?

Here are my first Foederati unit, although there is a fair bit of armour and shiny metal on them they are not the Nobles also the back rank when I get the figures will not contain any armoured troops at all, this should differentiate both warbands nicely.

More Frustration

When will I ever learn. You know I have now decided to up my warbands from 27 to 32 figures, this means ordering the extra figures and new bases that should have been done right at the beginning. My latest Footsore order arrived half an hour ago, the first thing I noticed was that two of the horses had not been properly cast and were missing a knee on one of their hind legs, the nice gent at Arcane Models, who bag up the Footsore orders here in the UK, told me he would have replacements in the post toot sweet and this would save me going back to Footsore and a bit of mucking about. Thank you.

These cavalry were ordered to be my Bucelleri or/and Germanic Nobles, but the more I looked at them I realised the three non armoured guys just stood out like a sore thumb, I thought they would mix in with the rear rank, but seeing how tooled up most of the cavalry were they just won't do. I also did not want to wait another couple of weeks for three figures, so I have jumped on to Gripping Beast who are much faster and ordered up three blokes who will fit (three nice Late Romans).

I should still manage to keep to my schedule of having them primed for the weekend, or I could instead paint up my Gothic and Roman generals along with some priests who will be used to denote intervention points, by the time they are finished I should definitely have the replacement horses and the new troopers.

I have also decided to go to Vapnartak on Sunday, I have an idea to get some ruins for my Rally Point while staying away from the beautiful new Roman Villa by Sarissa.

I should also get the Aventine bundle tomorrow, so there is a ray of sunshine.

Frustration and a Busy Day

My Goths are going to be based by tomorrow but I have hit a snag, I want to increase the unit to 32 men so I had to order more figures yesterday and also a new base, several in fact as all my warbands will be increased when I get the time. As I was ordering the few I needed I decided to go for it and just got the rest of the troops for the army, that involved the last few from Footsore and my Huns from Aventine.

I received emails today from both company's to say my orders are on the way, I am hoping against hope Footsore will arrive tomorrow so I can get those extra five guys done and start on my cavalry, but Wednesday is probably a safer bet, grrrr.

I now only have to decided what my Rally Point will be for the Romans, most people do small vignettes for these which add to the flavour of the army and are fun to paint, I have a Roman medic for the Twelfth but I need something more in keeping with the 5th C for the Field Army. I have just about decided to go to Vapnartak in York on Sunday so maybe I will see something there.

Most of my map work is done for Helion & Company but I have had two enquiries about independent projects, one of which I completed over the weekend which is good news for the Anderson Map Fortune. I have finished several interesting projects over the past week or so, including one on the shooting down of two civilian Rhodesian aircraft by terrorists, a very sad affair.

Some examples from three different books, Churchill's War with Lenin, Britain's Quest for Oil and a history of the 51st Scottish Division in WWI.

View From The Window

Rubbish morning, not so cold but it is wet and damp, just generally miserable with that horrible watery sun away in the distance which has no warmth in it. Not everyone is moving away from me, we have a new neighbour renting next door, it is a popular hobby here on the edge of the Lakes, there are a good few houses being rented in the village, several near me with another being renovated to a very high standard a few doors up for exactly the same thing.

How is it all these so called celebrities all have a charity on their CV. To kill some time last night I watched the very aptly named Pointless Celebrities and as usual only recognised one or two, but no matter what the show they are all asked which of their charities the money is going to, are they given a choice before they go on. Most of us will pop something in a tin or box but we don't 'have' a charity, I suspect neither do a lot of the pointless ones. Wouldn't it be refreshing if when asked they said "I don't believe in charities with their overpaid executives and expensive headquarters so I will be keeping the money Alexander and giving a pound to that old dear at Asda."

Isn't Donald Trump a breath of fresh air, no don't throw anything at your screen. Of course I wouldn't have him for dinner but I cannot help but wonder what he is doing wrong so far. He has warned US companies not to go abroad for cheap labour, he has punctured the ego of the Climate Change Fascists and he wants to stop what, over the years has become millions of people coming into his country illegally. I saw one woman on the news who had been in America illegally for twenty years giving the new administration stick, in black and white that is simply, eh, illegal. You may have missed this on the news the other night, but the bust of Churchill is back in the White House and Donald managed a quick jab by pointing it out. Only one president removed it since it was installed. Scotland, Trump, Labour, Brexit, Whingers, Moaners, I cannot ever remember politics being as exciting as it is now.

Tell me again what the women's march sorted out, if you listened to some of the comments they were so disparate I don't think they even knew themselves what they were marching for. Let me see, no, Donald is still there, hope you enjoyed the day out ladies.

I'm with none of them. Scince?

Scotland, OK, when is someone going to put wee Jimmy Krankie in her place, you are merely the leader of a devolved government hen, you are not a world leader, you cannot do separate deals, you cannot sit at the big table. Haud yer wheesht.

And on the subject of useless politicians why does the BBC continually run to failure Nick Clegg for comment. He bleats on about the will of the people and completely ignores the fact he ended up in government against the will of the people, no majority was mad enough to vote the Lib Dems into power, he also ignores the complete destruction of his party in the last election, he also happily tells the interviewer he will go against the will of the people and vote against Brexit if he is not happy! Dump the loser.

Were you fighting back the tears as Gina Miller explained her one woman fight to uphold the law of the land against all the odds. Gina love even with your money and success you cannot get QC's to fight your case unless you throw shed loads of moolah at them, and you got that money from interested third parties not from your piggy bank. You were never alone. It's a pity she didn't put her energies into the government stealing my wife's pension which means a lot more to her and the women of this country than a vote on Brexit.

This weeks groveller to the twittersphere is Rob Page, when his team, Northampton Town got beat 5-0 by Bristol Rovers he said watching the match was like watching "men against girls". Now having been beat like that the description was completely called for. It is the reason why women are not in the Football League, or whatever it is called, it is also why they do not play men at their own game in tennis and most other sports, because despite the odd anomaly, they will get beat. But of course it was sexist and although true he was 'forced' to apologise on social media, grow a pair for heavens sake, and your team obviously are as bad as you say.

Big Girls Blouse.

Are you getting fed up with your food? We have had all the scares about what went into stuff over the years but no one is saying what is now being taken out. All of a sudden Rowntrees Fruit Pastilles are not as moreish as the were, Plain Salted Crisps are bland cardboard, I would like to see just how thin Walkers can get those by the way, Cadbury's delicious chocolate is now but a dream (but it is halal now). And I want someone to agree with me that Milky Way is now a completely different creature. Stop taking the salt and sugar out, I am an adult, I will make my own mind up, I have given up fizzy drinks but I want the odd pastille to taste like a pastille, a Ritz cracker never hurt anyone. Cooking programmes are the same, use lo-fat this, unsalted butter, meh.

Complicated or what.

Oh, I almost forgot the human interest story. We sell tickets for various village societies and we get people taking the hump because they cannot put their £3 quiz ticket for the village hall on their card. Yesterday a woman came in for a Gardening Club membership, not with the £6 fee of course but with a £20 note, as they all do. Then as she is leaving she slides the old membership card across the desk, "Can I give you that?" "No you can't, there's a bin outside".

Germans lose Kursk again

We hadn't played Bolt Action since well before Christmas so we decided to have a go last night, for something different I came up with the bright suggestion of trying one of the scenarios in the Ostfront book which I knew Simon had. I find the scenarios in BA mostly rubbish, my main concern is that in any which have an attacker and a defender they have both sides with the same number of points which, as any military commander will tell you, is not on when you are the attacker.

This particular scenario had the Russians with the same number of points as the Germans, but they were already ensconced on the objectives (hills), they had a bunker and enough minefields and entrenchments to cover their entire front. The Germans could if they wanted use an outflanking manoeuvre, but as you have to tell the Russians, albeit not which side of the table you are coming from they can easily sit some reserves in the rear and wait for you. Julian and I decided that was not going to be in our plan, our plan was just to move forward and hope something went drastically wrong for the Russians.

 We plonked our anti-tank gun and the newly recruited StuG III in positions which gave them clear lines of fire, but we soon found we couldn't hit anything as the scores to do so were too high, also I was a bit miffed that my anti-tank gun tow refused to move throughout the game which cut the gun off from firing at anything to its right, not that it ever managed to damage anything with did cross its line of fire.

The ground in front of Julian was really too open to attempt an advance without dying, so I moved my guys towards the left hand hill with the bunker on it, we laid smoke which for a time stopped the enemy inside from spotting or firing. I managed to get a flamethrower within shooting distance of the defenders on the edge of the slope and burned them out, my boys then scrambled up on to the hill, however more Russians were heading their way, the objective would be contested, so no points there. What made it worse was the fact I had artillery ranged on the bunker but it failed to come in for three turns and just as I got troops on the hill, guess what, yes in it came and flattened the whole area.

I think we all realised by this time that the game was a bogie as we say across the border, Simon brought on his tank and both it and the StuG traded shots without either taking damage apart from a few paint chips. It had been a while since we played and it showed as we spent a good deal of time looking at the rules, we are going to keep going with BA and will play again next week but with something we know gives a good game.
 
Simon brought out his KV1 tank which he has just weathered, and very nice it is too, Julian brought some of his German troops to show us, not enough for the game but extremely well painted, both Simon and Julian have some lovely troops for WWII. I look forward to fighting those Germans with my British.

Elsewhere we had some role playing, a boardgame and a Steampunk type game with flying battleships, this seemed to go down very well if the laughter was anything to go by.

Ouch!

Never one to turn down a game I headed over to Northumberland last Saturday with the intention of playing a game then spending some time with the grandchildren before taking my life in my hands and driving home in the dark, it's not so much the dark but the headlights of the other cars.

It was the usual for us, a stand up fight between the Carolingians who are nearing completion and my Romano-British, I have not used this army in its original form, other than at the club, for a while having given it a slight twist as Vortigern's British. Stewart is now a veteran but I had grabbed victory the last time we fought in a spectacular eleventh hour turnaround. This time I was going to try some new tactics, I mounted one Comitatus unit and gave them heavy armour, planning to smash them into the enemy cavalry, I then, against my better judgement, took the Frankish mercenaries, hoping that this time I would charge them in and gain the advantage of their heavy throwing weapons and 'weight of numbers'. So, shock and awe was the order of the day.

The game started well as we drew for deployment and Stewart had to deploy first, I mulled my response over and popped my heavy cavalry opposite his lights, the Franks were opposite the enemy peasants, then came my foot Comitatus against Stewart's favourite unit which had let him down badly in the last game. I felt confident, Stewart was a trifle worried.

I also managed to win most of the initial initiative rolls so off I trotted as fast as I could on my right, the small wood was little more than an inconvenience, but the enemy cavalry suddenly took flight behind the Carolingian line instead of being rode down, this caused some consternation in the ranks. I decided however to go ahead and now aimed the horse soldiers at the peasants while the Franks moved on a new target. Way over on my left my javelin armed skirmishers taunted the Carolingian heavy cavalry and although causing no harm, effectively took them out of the game.

I now found my line out of sync with that of the enemy, I had a 'spare' unit and was unsure where it was going to go. My cavalry plunged into the Liberi and for a horrible moment I thought they were beat, but in the second round they did indeed run them down. Now it was the turn of the Franks to do the same, unfortunately I lost the numbers game as too many fell to javelins on the way in, they then fought like old women, to my horror they ran and not nearly far enough and were dispersed. I should now have moved my centre over or hit the unit in front of me with two of mine, but I didn't, but I did whittle it down with missiles, but I should have moved first.

 

The Carolingians came at me in desperate charges, standing in shieldwall I expected to bounce them back, but no, it was my Dux who had to spend his energy and initiative points holding my boys in place, I could not afford one unit to run. My Comitatus could not even budge the less than 50% enemy in front of them, these guys were doing their best to get back in Stewart's good books and giving me a headache. I had to break them fast as my flank was in danger, I had hoped my cavalry would be back but they took their time and were now suffering badly from missile fire, they would be too far away to help and would be lucky to survive the hail of death.

I still had that odd unit, it was now required to be in two places at once, I decided to turn and help the Comitatus but it too was too far and time was of the essence, my bodyguard broke, and so did a Milites unit at the same time, it was time to leave the field. My Dux yelled curses at the odd Frank still wandering aimlessly behind the lines "You're sacked, never again, it's eBay for you!"

And how was the wargame, well at first it went well for me and I won most of the initiative rolls, however when I actually needed to win a crucial one I had no Strategy Intervention Points to throw in as I had used them up to keep my units in the line. I did manage to force a reroll with a special ability allowed to 'Arthur' but lost that as well. Stewart's shooting had been pretty bad and when it was good I made most of my saving rolls, but his combat dice were literally to die for, he was throwing sixteen or twenty-two dice and losing out on two or three, I could not take those kind of losses. My main problem however was the loss of the Franks and not moving to confront the victorious unit, I wavered and paid the price.

OK, the Franks will not be on eBay, but they are getting more men so that I can actually take advantage of the 'weight of numbers' rule for my warbands, something I have not acted on properly but will once the new army is ready, it will be the first to benefit from the extra men. Will I choose them again, not for a long time.

Quick One

Just popping this on as I have a full battle report to do later and I have a full day ahead, finishing two map projects and starting a new one, I also want to get started on the latest figures. I put the final touches to the bases of my second archer unit, this gives me two skirmish units for the upcoming Roman field army, I don't intend to add any more as I will have horse archers at some stage. As I was awaiting a new parcel I also decided to make my shieldwall markers for the Roman infantry, as I had extra transfers I used these to differentiate the markers, quite chuffed with these.

On the tray is the lesser of the two Goth Foederate units, now most of my units are 27 figures strong which can be reduced to 24 if I need to save points, especially with the elite formations, however after the battle on Saturday I have decided to give the warband units the option of having 32 men in four ranks of eight. I now believe to get the advantage of a rule which is called 'weight of numbers' they really need to outnumber the opposition by quite a few figures, otherwise you cannot take advantage of this and with a big bunch of less than professional warriors you need it, especially if they are Franks (more anon).

I don't have too many more figures to buy for the army so I was looking at what I need to be able to convert it to a Late Roman rather than Patrician. I looked at Aventine, one of my favourite figure manufacturers and decided to add that Steppe Noble unit after all, I was going to simply rely on the Goths but I now have a great excuse to get some of those fabulous nomad figures.

Anyway, must crack on.

View From The WIndow

It is early and it is dark, it is also very cold but it is dry as far as I can see, and of course no one stirs apart from the odd car going by. The repair men have arrived at last to work on the chimney at Washington House, having said that they look a right bunch of pirates, I still can't see the place selling unless the price is dropped substantially. Only one hiccup at Casa Anderson, we needed a couple of our new kitchen appliances sorted, small details but we are insured and phoned up, no one turned up, we checked and found out making the appointment was up to us, not them. I duly phoned up only to be told the job number was now redundant(?) and I had to go back to the insurance for a new one, I was told this by an extremely rude and curt woman whose neck I would gladly have strangled had the technology to allow my hand down the phone existed. Everything is now almost fine, the cooker hood guy turned up without the part we had said was defective, and yes, it has to be ordered up, so we will see him again.

I have had a little fun at the expense of the call centres this week, I told one looking for the business owner that I had just killed them and buried them in the back garden and was just about to make my getaway, unphased he continued to ask to speak to the corpses. The second, from Scottish Power, I informed that I did not like Scotland and was happy with my English electricity, it amused me and I had time to kill obviously.

Well Mr. Trump is now president of the most powerful country in the world and the very dodgy woman isn't. He is going to make America 'great' again which usually means powerful and it is already powerful how he will tackle poverty, loss of jobs, bad education, crime, drugs and a hundred other things which actually mean something to real people more than aircraft carriers and missiles, I don't know but I suspect that things won't really change much for them in that department over the next four years. I have however taken immense pleasure in watching those who are against Trump and their tantrums over the past few days, "he is not my president" yes he is love. And how will breaking windows, overturning rubbish bins and lighting cars up cause Trump to take pause. Once again we have a huge number of people who now do not like their voting system because it turned up the 'wrong' result, I as an outsider find the whole American system unfathomable, I have read it was fine when the country was expanding and finding its feet but for a modern state it may not be the best way to elect your leader, but I really don't know.

Were you in Edinburgh on New Years Eve, did the 'quietists' get their way? A bunch of fun killers, well one or two, maybe a couple more, complained that the noise of the fireworks was too much. The council immediately told them to clear off, no, they didn't, they seriously debated having non-noise making fireworks, completely taking away one of the two reasons why fireworks are fun, take the noise away and the pretty explosions are pretty much naff. I didn't even know you could get non- noise fireworks, as I said what would be the point, its one night a year for heavens sake.

Here's a new one for the crime statute books, a 'non-crime hate incident', yes I know it doesn't make sense but PC Plod will investigate you for it. Amber Rudd Secretary of State for the Home Department said in a speech to keep the unwashed happy that it would be made harder for British firms to employ migrants, typical political rhetoric, but an Oxford professor decided to take umbrage on behalf of all those migrants who might find it harder to get a job and reported her to the police.


I see Boris has been upsetting the apple cart again, his off the cuff remarks about Francois Hollande and his 'punishment beatings' on the UK for having the temerity to leave the EU has caused a storm in a teacup. No one reported what Hollande had said to make Johnson take umbrage however, but a few days later we have the pipsqueak Prime Minister of Malta, that great European powerhouse, saying that the EU 'needs' yes 'needs' to ensure the UK does not get a decent leaving deal. He and others should at least have the decency after all we have contributed to instead give us a fair deal and wish us well.

And as for us helping those more unfortunate than ourselves, we continue to give Pakistan, a country with nuclear submarines and missiles (but no decent toilets) our hard earned cash. Not only that, we have modernised our largesse by giving out cash cards with which the poor of Pakistan can now withdraw British money from ATM's, you don't see Malta doing that now do you.

I always thought that one big mistake the NHS made was to ensure that nurses had a degree, out went the old style nurse who, if you are a certain age, you will remember was always smart, clean, crisp, professional and there when you needed her. Having a degree changed all that so no more dirty work, that was for the plebs, shove on the old overalls and lets hang about the consoles. Now I hear that to join the Police Force, oh dear, Police Service, force won't do any more of course, you also will need a degree. Mind you if you think about it the old Bobby disappeared a long time ago as did fighting real crime so this measure will simply squeeze out the very last vestiges of the idea of having to serve the public to policing them.


The loons are still out there, what do you make of this "It's about respecting people's right to define themselves as neither male nor female" so if you are not one or the other what exactly are you, we don't have a 'right' to be whatever we want or don't want and we certainly don't have a right to have others believe the same way we do and act accordingly and it certainly doesn't get you respect. This week Jeremy I am a tree.