Somehow my son managed to persuade me to purchase the 8th army to fight his Afrika Corps. Well I did get it and the support box for £80 in the bring and buy. Both are unopened so I really can’t complain. Sadly I had to buy the Churchill full price. Oh yeah of course he picked up a Tiger to go with his starter box. A MK3 and a Tiger plus an 88mm flak against my 6lb AT gun and my 25lb artillery.
Pete’s Flags was there so got another set of 15mm flags for the Italians… This time Sforza.
Finally I picked up the Bushido RPG for a fiver.
The things I really wanted I didn’t get and I ended up coming back with stuff I never expected. Even the flags weren’t the ones I really wanted.
Well we are stopping tonight in Dundee, simply because prices of hotels in Edinburgh are absolutely ridiculous due to the Fringe.
The above photo shows the rail bridge across the Tay. If you look closely you can see columns showing just above the waterline. These are the remains of the original bridge which sadly collapsed in December 1879.
On the 28th December a train began to cross the bridge in what some called a hurricane… It has been estimated that winds were gusting at 80mph.
At 19.13 a passenger train with approximately 79 passengers and crew made its way past the signal box after collecting its ‘baton’ to allow it to proceed.
A few minutes later a visitor in the signal box saw a lot of sparks from the wheels grinding against a running rail. Followed by a brief flash and then the sparks and rear lights of the train all disappeared in an instant. The signalman didn’t believe it, but was unable to contact Dundee on the northern bank.
The following photographs were taken after the disaster. The bottom one shows a carriage up against the roof of the span. The track is clearly visible to the left of the photo.
For a while workmen on the bridge had complained of lateral and vertical movement as trains crossed the central span. Evidently trains would pick up speed going North to pick up lost time. This would make the vibration worse.
In the end the bridge failed due to poor construction and poor maintenance. Repairs and systems to make it safer had been started but even these weren’t up to the job.
Of the 79 passengers and crew only 59 were ever recovered/identified.
What’s a song lyric that has stuck with you forever?
Well I used songs to give to my younger self I. An earlier prompt… At least it wasn’t an expressive dance!
So ever since I heard these they have stuck with me…
Those who feel the breath of sadness Sit down next to me Those who find they’re touched by madness Sit down next to me Those who find themselves ridiculous Sit down next to me
And if we want to go back a bit to my younger days…
Streets of London
Have you seen the old man Outside the seaman’s mission Memory fading with The medal ribbons that he wears? In our winter city The rain cries a little pity For one more forgotten hero And a world that doesn’t care
Funnily enough, it was originally going to be the Streets of Paris.
This verse is the one I can’t sing without having a little wobble in my voice.🥹
If you could rewrite any book’s ending, which one would you choose?
You know this is actually quite hard, there are a few books that bug me. Maybe not so much of the ending, but recurring, nemesis, characters in a series. I am thinking of Obadiah Hakeswill in the Sharp series here. I don’t know why but his reappearance bugs me.
But in reality what right do I have to change someone else’s story. I wouldn’t change things, but I might like to see another few chapters…
I have just finished Jurrassic Park… There could have been other survivors… What happened when the military arrived. Oh and why did the film kill off Muldoon? How long were Grant and Saddler kept against their will…etc, etc,etc.
Talking of Jurrassic Park, the one thing that really, really bugs me is Michael Criton’s overuse of the word ‘said’!
I was teaching six and seven year olds to use words instead of ‘said’…
I actually read a few other people’s ideas and I did like this rewrite…
So maybe write my own additional chapters, or possibly write my own book. Twenty or so years ago I started doing so accidentally. I set homework for my kids in my class to write the start of a story and said to make it fair I would do the same. The kids loved mine so much that it became my homework every weekend to carry it on.
I have a hard copy of about 20,000 of the 40 odd thousand words that I wrote. One day, ha ha, I will get it finished!
Well as you know I have made a start on the Florentine forces. In the back of my mind I thought I had got some of the new Militia.
I decided that I hadn’t bothered as they were pretty much the same as the mercenary troops, but with a leather jerkin and no feathers.
Evidently I was wrong… Whilst looking for my ‘Death of the Landsnekht’ book…(I spent so long looking for it that I forgot why I wanted it!).
But I digress… Whilst mooching through my crap I came across a box….
I swore!
I have just about got myself motivated to paint the originals. So I would seem to have a pike block of nine bases. Some form of command set and the rest are shot ( four bases of close, or two and three of skirmish/two close).
One of halberd and two of sword and buckler men.
So basically another sixty miniatures to paint. I am once again a bit disappointed by the quality control. Considering this is a brand new mold it’s a bit of a mess.
Some of the bases have holes in them and the vent on a lot of them will need a file taken to the bottom.
Somehow I was beginning to persuade myself that I really needed some Spanish, French or possibly a Papal army. I must be off my head.
Luckily Claymore is on the first so no doubt I will find lots of new shiny things to add to the pile of crap.
So, if you remember yesterday I painted the trousers and hose of my Pikes and ended up getting cramp so had to pack in.
Well I needed to finish three bases out of the nine. Now I thought I had chosen them randomly… Earlier when I went to finish them I came across this conundrum…
One front rank and two back ranks. So was my random actually actually or was there some form of unconscious choice being made.
I am now trying to remember, exactly how I placed them and picked them up.
To avoid wasting paint I got the arqubusiers clothing done too and used up the rest on random stuff off the tray
More clothing looking colourful…
Now because there are only sixteen miniatures their random trousers colours are less than random when compared to the pikes. I suddenly realised there was one colour left to do and not enough miniatures…
Wellll I was painting some more of the Florentine Mercenary forces…
That is all of the troops with a red coat.
I suspect we don’t know what they actually wore, but in my mind if you are employing a lot of well paid people to fight your battles then I suppose you want people to know who the money is coming from. Secondly when push comes to shove it is helpful to know who not to poke with a pointy thing and finally in other earlier conflicts the use of a jack or tabard was used to denote allegiance. Not exactly perfect, but they are mine and as the (at the present) Florentine Doge then I have decreed a uniform of sorts.
The trousers are going to be various colours to give a less uniform look… But knowing me I won’t be able to help myself and will sort of make a unified look on the lower body.
Bogenwald 