Oh Oh Domino

 "You may get disgusted, start thinking that I'm strange" - Van Morrison, Domino

I have always believed in the power of music - and envied the ability of composers, musicians and singers - to convey emotions such as love, desire, lust...["OK, calm down, there are plenty of other emotions, you know." (*) ] ... but have never seen its strength as being the explanation of the principles of infection control. So, despite being a huge fan of Van Morrison, I have let his recent rantings about face masks rather pass me by.

"Take off your mask and drink your milk"

I am still, other than in medical situations, rocking a bandana, and have been a bit surprised not to see more of them about. At first, when people commented, I would reply "If it's good enough for John Wayne, then it's good enough for me.", but when it became apparent just how old people had to be before they had even heard of Wayne I quickly stopped.

Should I ever adopt a more straightforward facemask then I shall be sorely tempted by those available from the Royal Armouries. The tosei gusoku has a certain something about it.

* Actually I didn't

Pot93pouri

Someone has been sent to the blog by Bing after keying in 'Yellow Ribbon Wargame Rules'. Unfortunately the particular post it sent them to is all about opera. I do hope they weren't too disappointed. I shall have to investigate those rules; presuming of course that the title is based on the  the song I'm thinking of.

Speaking of wargames rules set in North America, Miniature Wargames has a cover feature on the Mexican Revolution so, despite my lack of interest, I bought a copy. There are some very nice photos of 54mm figures owned by the author of one of the books on the subject that I featured here recently. Respect is certainly due to whoever converted and painted them all. The article rather annoyingly refers to a home brew rule set and then is itself instead based on a heavily amended version of 'Black Powder'. Still, there are some intriguing ideas for those intending to do the period at some point - which I am not - and it will go in the file.

There have been some nice comments left regarding the pictures taken in my new lightbox, for which I thank you. The question which no one has been rude enough to ask is why I painted all this crap in the first place. The simple answer is that prior to divorce, homelessness, and subsequent acquisition of the wargaming annexe I never hosted any games. Starting to do so has concentrated the mind a bit and subsequently I have to a large extent concentrated on things actually needed for the scenarios that I wanted to put on. Before that the process was the real focus; I simply did whatever I felt like doing. If one isn't going to use them in a game then painting yet another battalion of French Napoleonic infantry doesn't really stir the imagination in the same way as a heretic about to be burned.

You may notice a bit of a family resemblance between the apostate above and the chap - presumably an ancestor - who was being held captive by the Celts.

Let's finish with some more music about yellow ribbons:

Crusader Cauldron

James had rejigged the previous week's battlefield, forces, decks and rules. The drink remained coke, although there was an exciting new shelf for the British commander to put his glass on, and it was still the Western Desert in November/December 1941. One thing that hadn't changed much was my uncanny ability to bring my armour on in the wrong place; a trait that actually resonates through the ages because I did exactly the same thing with my Seljuk Turk forces a couple of months ago.

The British commander decides that the Sea of Tranquility is the best place to bring on his tanks

Fortunately, this week the initiative split my way and the armour on the British right flank was able to swing unmolested round one of the three objective hills and is currently racing across open terrain towards one of the two German armoured units. It will shortly (?) be joined by that part of my armour yet to arrive which should sweep straight across the middle of the board between the other two hills. The outcome is, I would suggest, in the lap of the cards. If they go my way I shall be able to concentrate all my armour on half of Peter's and destroy it before the other half gets into the battle, to do which it will have to run the gauntlet of a relatively formidable (for the British) anti-tank gun line. The alternative scenario is that the German's get the initiative and are able to use their technical superiority - especially in tank range and anti-tank guns - to shoot up the Brits in a rather historical fashion. Were I a betting man then my money would be on the Hun, but the Brits are by no means out of it.

There hasn't actually been that much fighting yet. A unit of German motorbike troops has been rather badly seen to - mainly because they never managed to get sufficient initiative to get off their bikes and drink their milk - and my 25 pounders have suffered a bit from Stuka attack. I suspect that next week will see the armour of both sides seriously reduced.

I'm taking these cows to Tobruk and you can't stop me