PotCXXVIpouri

But man, proud man,

Drest in a little brief authority, 

Most ignorant of what he's most assured, 

His glassy essence, like an angry ape,

Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven 

As make the angels weep.

 -William Shakespeare

Now, I don't wish to live in a world led by China any more than anyone else does. However, having said that, I am certainly revelling in the Schadenfreude of seeing Uncle Sam have his trousers taken down and his arse spanked.

Moving on. I am currently about half way through a month long wargaming hiatus. There is talk of another Peninsular War campaign when we resume, and this time we have been promised some actual victory conditions which in turn means that this time it might end during the lifetime of all those participating. 

In the meantime I have been to the opera. This time last year I promised a review of a performance of the 1881 version of Simon Boccanegra, and here it is. It was just as good as the performance I saw of the 1857 version. My companion for the afternoon - not the most ardent of aficionados despite my encouragements - declared it the best opera she had ever seen. Mind you she also claimed to understand the plot, which is hard to believe. The issue isn't so much what they do as why they do it.

Also highly enjoyable if a tad difficult to follow in detail, was 'It is I, Seagull', Lucy Mellors one-woman show about - possibly - self esteem, the objectification of women, chasing one's dream with added opera and space-travel. The last of those comes through the story of Valentina Tereshkova, and Ms Mellors does a pretty good job of representing cosmonaut selection and training and then the orbiting of the earth with nothing more than some physical theatre, some audience participation and a few arias. I'm not sure how accurate her version of Tereshkova's story was, and she doesn't touch on her current position as a Putin-apologist politician, but as I'm old enough to recall the events it brought back memories of the mid-Sixties. Even in those days the US didn't have things all its own way. Tereshkova, Vostok 6, was in space for longer than the cumulative total of all the Americans who had been to space before her, and of course Valery Bykovsky was also in orbit in Vostok 5 at the same time.

Games, must we?

 In my last post I said that the opening scene of 'Owen Wingrave' contained a reference to Austerlitz. I nearly made a smug comment to the effect that I was probably the only person in the audience that picked it up. Two things stopped me. Firstly, the realisation that I was probably the only person in the audience that cared at all. And secondly, the possibility that I might have deduced the wrong battle anyway. There was no mention of the battle by name, simply a few oblique clues. One of these was the name of General Vandamme.

As it happens the villain in Hitchcock's 'North by Northwest', played by James Mason, is also Vandamm - no 'e', but close enough.

Two days before seeing the opera, I went to see Wise Children's stage version of the film, and am happy to report a return to form for the company. It's a whimsical crowd-pleaser rather than a straight thriller, but there is intelligence in the way that verbal humour, physical comedy and audience interaction are substituted for the darkness of the original. And then there's the action scenes. The film featured locations such as the UN building, various trains and stations, a cornfield being buzzed by a crop-spraying aircraft and, of course, Mount Rushmore; all are transposed to the stage with imagination and invention. It's well worth seeing.

Fact of the day: Eva Marie Saint, who played Eve Kendall in the 1959 film is, astonishingly, still alive and is the oldest living Academy Award winner.

False Plumes And Pride

 And so to the opera. Regular readers will know that going to the opera is as close to my heart as indulging in a bit of toy soldier action. I was delighted therefore to attend a performance which included both. The figures - understandably impossible to see in any detail - were present in the opening scene of Britten's 'Owen Wingrave' when our 'hero' and his friend are being instructed in the strategic lessons to be learned from the battle of Austerlitz. Sadly, there is no room in the libretto to include what these lessons might be, but we do learn that Napoleon was delighted with the outcome.

Less delighted with things is Wingrave himself, who subsequently rejects his family's plan for him. This is that he kills and quite possibly dies for the glory of Queen, country and the honour of the Wingrave name as countless generations have done before him. That's the countless generations haunting him in the picture. 

I'd never seen it before - it's rarely performed - but rather liked it. Unlike many operas the plot is very straightforward with literally everyone else except the title character being an unsympathetic baddie including, oddly but effectively, the house in which they all live. The piece was originally commissioned by the BBC to be shown on television, something which would never now happen, thereby neatly encapsulating the level of cultural decline in the UK during the last half century.

Obviously pacifism is a more complex issue than as portrayed here. I have never read the Henry James story on which it based, but don't really expect to find subtlety there either. The name 'Owen' means 'young soldier' and 'Wingrave' is clearly, well, 'win grave'. Possibly if Britten had not run away to the US during the second world war, but had stayed in the UK and lived out his principles in the context of a society under attack he may have been able to add some more nuanced touches.

.

2024

 "When affairs get into a real tangle, it is best to sit still and let them straighten themselves out. Or, if one does not do that, simply to think no more about them. This is Philosophy." 

- P. G. Wodehouse

It's review of the year time. I didn't do one last year because the illness that has plagued me on and off in 2024 started with unlooked for precision on 29th December 2023. That's bad news for posterity, because I had a lot to write about and would no doubt have done so most entertainingly. This year has seen a much reduced programme of activities. Apart from funerals; I don't think I've ever been to so many in such a short space of time.  I won't write about those.

Opera: I've only seen sixteen operas this year. The clear best among them was the Hallé's 1857 'Simon Boccanegra', with a nod to 'Aleko'. Of those I've not bothered to mention here before my favourites would include 'The Sign of Four', apparently the first opera ever written about Sherlock Holmes, Albert Herring, and Peter Brook's take on Carmen at the Buxton Opera Festival.

Theatre: Only twelve plays, so another drop year on year. Best was 'My Fair Lady' of all things. Even more surprising was my enjoyment of  'A Midsummer Night's Dream' at York Theatre Royal, with a genuine circus clown as Bottom. This blog normally has a strict 'clowns are not funny' policy. Perhaps as another sign of change I went to two comedy gigs for the first time in decades. 

Music: I saw eighteen gigs, so maybe that's why I couldn't find time to go to the theatre. Best were the mighty Southern River Band, but also excellent were Mississippi Macdonald, Brave Rival, the Milkmen, Errol Linton, the Zombies and others too numerous to mention; except that I am contractually obliged to mention both Martin Simpson and Fairport Convention.

Film: I only saw five films, must try harder in 2025. I think Conclave was the pick.

Talks: I attended nineteen talks this year, the shortfall being in part because I fell out with one of the groups whose talks I used to attend. I should probably do an annual award for which organisation I have had the biggest row with that year. The best talk was on the subject of J. B. Priestley, which is obviously a good thing, with a special mention for one on the somewhat more obscure subject of Washington Phillips.

Exhibitions: I've seen a few, too few to mention. I would strongly recommend both the Silk Road at the British Museum and the Van Gogh at the National Gallery.

Your bloggist buckles his swash

Books: Obviously, if one can't go out then one stays in and reads, consequently I have read 128 books this year. Too many. My favourite fiction was probably 'Scaramouche' by Rafael Sabatini; I do like a swashbuckler. The best that wasn't a century old was 'Gabriel's Moon', a spy thriller from the ever-dependable William Boyd. From the non-fiction, Bruce Springsteen's autobiography was very good. I'm not sure why I was surprised that he can write. I read lots of perfectly adequate military history, but nothing so outstanding that I'm going to highlight it here.

Boardgames: 168 plays of 91 different games. My current favourite is definitely Dune Imperium, which is one that I would have thought might to appeal to most wargamers.

Wargames: Which, after all, is what it's all about. The most memorable was Wellington vs Sault during our Peninsular campaign, for all sorts of reasons.

So, UK election result aside, it wasn't a very good year really. I think we all know that globally it is going to be even worse next year. I suggest we approach it stoically.

“The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control. Where then do I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own…” - Epictetus

L'étoile

 I promised some wargaming news last weekend and it didn't happen; nor, thanks to an unholy alliance between Royal Mail and TransPennine Express has it happened yet. So let's over-promise again and say that not only will there be wargaming news later this week, but there will even be a second tranche later next week as well.

A Chap With a Beard

In the meantime, let me give you one of my all too infrequent opera reviews. I have been to see L'étoile, the only opera by Chabrier to still be performed, albeit not particularly often. I, for one, had never seen it before. Chabrier was a late 19th century Parisian of the Bohemian variety, friends with amongst others Manet and Verlaine. 

Indeed he was the original owner of Un bar aux Folies Bergère, which sat above his piano. It was sold along with the rest of his extensive art collection following his death in a lunatic asylum from advanced syphilis. As St Paul - another repeated over-promiser and under-deliverer - observed "τὰ γὰρ ὀψώνια τῆς ἁμαρτίας θάνατος".

Coming back to L'étoile, it is an opera bouffe, coming chronologically after Offenbach and before Gilbert & Sullivan. Although not a credited librettist, it would seem that Verlaine contributed to certain sections, especially that relating to the Chair of Torture. But fear not, it's all light-hearted, even if King Ouf - that's him with the crown above - does promise the populace that he'll have two people executed on his next birthday to make up for the lack of spectacle this year. And yes, that woman to the left of the monarch does have a giant lipstick on her head. Anyway, I enjoyed it, good music, well sung, imaginatively staged and with some fine jokes. Remind me to tell you the one about the fish sometime.

P.S. In an attempt to shoehorn something vaguely military history related into this, can I draw your attention to the bottles of Bass Pale Ale rather incongruously sitting on the bar top in the Folies Bergère, apparently a reflection of anti-German sentiment following the Franco-Prussian War.

Mrs Thurston Kicks the Dog

 “Above all, do not lose your desire to walk: every day I walk myself into a state of well being and walk away from every illness. I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it.” -  Søren Kierkegaard

I have been away walking. The photo is of me climbing up the Long Mynd, or to be precise of me taking one of quite a few breaks as I climbed up the Long Mynd. I should perhaps have done some practice climbs up Otley Chevin before I went.

Sine my return I've only had time to catch up with the absolutely essential stuff: listening to the cricket, going to the opera, reading Private Eye etc. In the Rotten Boroughs section of the last one I was interested to see a reference to Magister Militum. The specific target of their criticism (you'll have to buy a copy if you want to find out the details) is the Tory leader of Wiltshire council, who it transpires is the owner of what the magazine describe as the toy soldier supplier. I'm normally very happy to use the term 'toy soldiers' in these pages and elsewhere, but I wouldn't give 15mm figures to real children, as opposed to overgrown children.

Opera in musica

 "Pretentiousness is the mask of worthlessness and weakness." - Rafael Sabitini

It occurs to me that the thing you will all have missed most due to my my erratic posting schedule is my self-appointed role as the leading opera reviewer among wargaming bloggers. I've seen nine so far in 2024, six of them new to me, and so I'm afraid I can't be terribly comprehensive in my catch-up. Instead I'll briefly cover a couple of highlights.

The best of those I've been to, I would say, was the Hallé's concert performance of the original 1857 version of Simon Boccanegra at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester, which was sensational and got both a standing ovation and rave reviews. I can't tell you how it compares to the revised 1881 version because I've never seen that, although Opera North are doing it in April 2025 and so readers can confidently expect me to post about that this time next year (*). I shall be particularly interested to know if the plot is any more understandable because this one was impenetrable. The most confusing moment came at the end of the first half when, the lady known as Amelia Grimaldi - who, spoiler alert, turns out to be someone else completely - comes on and tells us that she has, offstage of course, been kidnapped and then managed to get away. At this all the other characters, including those whom we know perfectly well both planned and carried out the deed, start singing "Death to Lorenzo". So far so operatic, except that to that point there had been no mention at all of any Lorenzo; nor, yet another spoiler alert, did he turn up in the second half. As opera critic Robert Thicknesse observed, it is "one of those libretti that heroically rises above explaining anything at all".

It was also at the end of the first half that the most memorable thing in Stravinsky's Rake's Progress occurred. It wasn't that I didn't enjoy the music, singing and acting or, to a lesser extent, the direction and design. It was just that the sight of the bearded lady sitting on a large horse with a cardboard box on her head - you can perhaps see why I had my reservations about what was going on in front of me - wondering why there was neither applause nor someone coming to help her down, was very funny. The reason was that the curtain had malfunctioned, the audience therefore had no clue that the act had finished (**) and it took some minutes before those behind the scenes came up with a plan to put us all out of our collective difficulty.

Other highlights included the first performance I had ever heard sung in Russian: Rachmaninov's Aleko set in a hippy commune and also featuring surprise appearances from some characters who had earlier that evening appeared in Mascagni's cavalleria rusticana, only visible to some on stage. Think Banquo's ghost. It was odd, but it worked. Also worth mentioning was Rossini's scala di seta where the silken ladder was represented by a more solid ladder let down into the pit. It was no shock to see the tenor climbing up it, more so to see the conductor do the same when joining the principals to take his bow.

* If the Lord spares me, and if I can be arsed.

** Beyond the fact that the orchestra had stopped playing; it's a good job they weren't on the Titanic.

The Barber of Bradford

 And so to the opera. The last few days have seen the inaugural Bradford Opera Festival, the centrepiece of which was a semi-staged performance of the Barber of Seville, transported to twentieth century Bradford (the sixties perhaps) and with the libretto translated into 'proper Yorkshire'. Naturally, your bloggist was there. Dealing with the last point first, I couldn't help thinking that were I, Heaven forfend, a Yorkshireman then I would have felt rather patronised. However, the packed audience at St Georges Hall, the majority of whom were presumably from God's own county, rather lapped it up. 

I very much enjoyed it: fine singing combined with highly energetic performances combined to easily compensate for the lack of the sort of production values one is more used to. I must, in particular, praise Oscar Castellino who shone in the title role. He has sung with major companies, although I don't think I've ever seen him before. I think I would have remembered an artist whose biography in the programme starts "He was born in a car on a street in Mumbai".

The creators are planning to move on next year to the 'sequel' i.e. Mozart's 'Marriage of Figaro'. My main advice to them would be to get some side title displays in so we can get the full benefit of the dialect and the swearing. Oh, and lose the fourth act.

Ainadamar

 And so to the opera. I have been in Birmingham for a couple of days, primarily to take in the Welsh National Opera production of Golijov's 'Ainadamar'. This is an unusual piece, indeed the programme describes it as 'waith unigryw'; I'm not sure about that, although I might go as far as 'gwahanredol'.

The work deals with the assassination of the poet and playwright Federico García Lorca at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War and, rather than being told in a linear narrative, unfolds in flashbacks from the deathbed (*) of Lorca's muse, the actress Margarita Xirgu. The music added flamenco, Arabic and Jewish influences and Cuban rhythms to a classical core and was wonderful, greatly enhanced by the dancing which interspersed the singing.

At university in Madrid in the 1920s Lorca was a friend of Salvador Dalí (**) and, as luck would have it, I have been to see 'Daaaaaali!' at the Leeds International Film Festival. This is directed by Quentin Dupieux, whose 'Incroyable mais vrai' I saw and enjoyed last year at LIFF, but don't seem to have bothered to mention here before. In a similar fashion to 'Ainadamar' the film eschewed a single narrative arc in favour of a sort of recursive, Russian doll like series of dreams and films with films; all entirely in keeping with the great (and egocentric) surrealist at its heart. It was very funny, and I highly recommend seeing it should it make it to your local multiplex. The scene near the beginning in the hotel corridor is worth the effort on its own.

* That's how it seemed to me; no doubt other opinions are available.

** And Luis Buñuel.

Dorothy de Kansas

 Some scepticism has been expressed as to my reading of Piazzolla's opera 'Maria de Buenos Aries' as being a metaphor for the rise, fall and rise again of tango. Indeed there was one suggestion that I may have spent too long outside without a hat in the unseasonal sunny weather we are experiencing (*).

"What do we want? The free creation of silver money alongside gold! When do we want it? Now!"

In my defence can I point to another example of the use of artistic metaphor. L. Frank Baum's 'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz' was written as a satire on the presidential campaigns of William Jennings Bryan on a Free Silver platform. The Wicked Witches are the East and West Coast bankers, the Scarecrow represents the farmers who were too stupid to avoid getting into debt, the Tin Man is the industrial workers who didn't have the heart to take action in support of the farmers, and the Cowardly Lion is politicians who were too afraid to intervene. Given that we're speaking of bimetallism the Yellow Brick Road and Silver Shoes need no explanation (**), nor does it need pointing out that Oz is the abbreviation for ounce. I am less persuaded of the idea that Dorothy was meant to be Theodore Roosevelt, which seems to have been put forward on the somewhat tenuous grounds that their names are nearly anagrams (***)

* For those who don't me I am, although it is barely visible to the naked eye, starting to go a bit thin on top. 

** I know they were Ruby Slippers in the film, but they were Silver Shoes in the book. The change was made, I believe, to look better in Technicolor.

*** It does, however, allow me to include something tangentially related to wargaming.

Maria de Buenos Aries

 And so to the opera. In my recent review of 'Frida' I forgot to mention that it was the first opera I had ever seen which was originally written for an orchestra which included an accordion (*). I have now seen a second, sort of. In fact Astor Piazzolla's 'Maria de Buenos Aries' was written for the bandoneon, but I defy even the most passionate rivet-counter amongst this blog's readership to spot the difference between the noise made by those two things.

That's an accordion

Obscure instrumentation aside this piece - which I really enjoyed - goes straight to the top of the list as the most bonkers storyline for any opera I've ever seen, and that is of course a very high bar, as realism and opera librettos are often strangers to one another. I shall attempt to provide a synopsis:

Maria is born in the slums of Buenos Aries, but, lured in part by her love of tango, escapes poverty by becoming a sex worker. 

[So far this is is unremarkable, indeed it could be the backstory to La traviata. This section ends with one of the highlights of the whole thing in which Maria loudly affirms who she is, an which is reminiscent in spirit of the party scene in Verdi's opera. However, things are just about to become weird.]

Maria then falls in love with an accordion and yes, I said accordion not accordionist (**). This proves a transgression too far even for those in the sleazy milieu in which she moves, and so they kill her. However you can't keep a good woman down and so she comes back to life, or possibly reappears as a ghostly spirit; it wasn't terribly clear. For reasons that were also somewhat obscure she is taken down to an underground cabal of psychoanalysts. When she escapes their questions - they don't seem to offer much in the way of therapy - she is pursued through the streets of Buenos Aries by three marionettes (***), who have been hired to impregnate her with their seed. This having occurred she gives birth to herself and yes, I said to herself not by herself.

So, what's it about? The director chose to play up the religious elements (she's called Maria, she rises from the dead) and the queer elements (let's face it, there aren't any, but what opera director has ever let something like that stand in their way?). Despite all that it worked a treat. The playing, singing and dancing were all great and, once one gave up trying to follow what was happening, it was a delightful evening.

The most lucid interpretation that I have subsequently read is that the piece is actually lamenting the decay of tango as a form of music and dance. Having been born in the slums of Buenos Aries, it moved to the mainstream where it was contaminated by the accordion (or perhaps the bandoneon) and other foreign influences; commercialised by the US mainstream (e.g. Hollywood), it was eventually influenced by the Avant-garde and was reborn as nuevo tango, whose prime exponent was none other than Piazzolla himself.

Is this a bandoneon? Actually, I don't think it is: 

* Although, for the record, not the first opera I had ever seen which actually included an accordion in the orchestra.

** Regular readers may at this point be reminded of this post from a few years ago.

*** These weren't real characters in the story played by puppets on stage, they were marionettes in the story played by real people on stage.

Frida

 And so to the opera. Earlier in the summer I went to see 'In Dreams', a musical using songs by or associated with Roy Orbison. It was very, very good and I'm not entirely sure why I never wrote about it at the time. It was set in New Mexico and many of the characters were of Mexican origin; inevitably the 'Day of the Dead' loomed large. The reason I mention it now is that I have been to see the first production in the UK of 'Frida', the opera by Robert Rodriguez portraying the life of the painter Frida Kahlo and, sure enough...

photo credit Rhian Hughes

I don't know how accurate the retelling of her story was. I have always taken issue with the widespread assumption that she was overlooked as a painter because she was a woman; given that her husband, Diego Rivera, was a far superior artist (*) it is at least possible that the only reason for her being so well known is actually because she's a woman. Based on the version told in the opera the thing we should most admire her for is the overcoming of innumerable physical disabilities and illnesses. In any event, what happens here - and I've no idea whether it happened in real life - is that her success comes about because Rivera sells several of her paintings to Edward G. Robinson rather than selling his own. Robinson is one of a number of eclectic characters who pop up, including Henry Ford, Nelson D. Rockefeller and of course the Trotskys. The latter give rise to a slightly odd design choice; when Natalia Trotsky first appears she is wearing a fur hat, presumably to underline just how Russian she is rather than it being strictly necessary under the Mexican sun. 

I enjoyed it all immensely. Any show that contains marching soldaderas carrying banners saying 'Tierra y Libertad' and singing 'Long live Zapata' is going to be OK with me. Add on to that a bus crashing into a tram and the assassination of Trotsky and you have all the makings of a good night out.

* In your bloggist's opinion obviously.

Sleepwalking

 And so to the opera. I have been out and about for the last week or so, including a brief trip to Glasgow, to which I may return in due course. But most of my time has been spent at the Buxton International Festival, specifically the opera part of it. 

The best thing I saw was an excellent production of Bellini's 'La sonnambula', which transcended the original sexist power set-up in a rather novel, and much appreciated by the audience, twist at the end. Set in a sixties staff canteen - more 'Made in Dagenham' than 'Dinnerladies' - the period details were finely judged; Lisa dropped more than her handkerchief following the arrival of the mysterious stranger. Both musically and dramatically it was very good indeed.

I was less taken with performances of Mozart's 'Il re pastore' and Handel's 'Orlando', although as I'm never likely to get the chance to see either again I am glad that I was able to on this occasion. The singing and playing was very good, but the operas are somewhat slight, especially dramatically. Alexander the Great appears in the Mozart piece and was played as Napoleon, which was amusing even if the characterisation was mainly displayed by him wearing his bicorne sideways. If neither of those pieces gave one the opportunity to be emotionally invested in what was going on on stage that was made up for in the musical 'The Land of Might-Have-Been', in which the story of Vera Brittain in the First World War was told accompanied by, mainly, the songs of Ivor Novello. I thought it all worked rather well, albeit being very reminiscent of many similarly toned plays I saw between 2014 and 2018 as the centenary of the war which didn't end all wars was commemorated. Still, I hope the story of the losses and sacrifices and futility of those years never ceases to have an impact on me, and it certainly did this time. 

Cattivo consiglio

 And so to the opera. The number of views this blog gets have decreased even faster than the number of posts that I have made, but if anything should whack them right back up again it's reviews of two rarely performed operas. 

Rossini's 'Il viaggio a Reims' was written to celebrate the coronation of a King Charles, meaning that ETO's current production is perhaps more timely than one of those they performed last year. On the other hand the king in question was Charles X of France, who was crowned in 1825 and deposed in the July revolution of 1830; will the Windsors go the way of the Bourbons? Reviews have been mixed, but I'm with those who say that it's an enjoyable romp. I'm also with those who say 'lose the third act'. 

Musically stronger - Rossini wrote his piece to be performed just the once, and recycled the best bits into other operas - was Donizetti's 'Lucrezia Borgia'. I'm not sure it was dramatically stronger because, well, it made no sense at all. Nor does it appear to have much to do with history. It was however beautifully sung and blackly comic. Lucrezia is much given to reminding the Duke of Ferrara that he is her fourth husband, with the implication as to what happened to the first three being fairly clear. The work also contains what must be the worst advice in all of opera when Orsini (on the left above) tells the not terribly bright Gennaro (that's him on the right) that they should go that night's feast given by notorious poisoner Lucrezia Borgia, as there will be plenty of time to leave town tomorrow. It doesn't end well for either of them, or for pretty much everyone else in the cast come to that.

Tewkesbury again again

 Not for the first time I can report that we have replayed the battle of Tewkesbury. The 'Test of Resolve' rules continue to please, perhaps even more now that we are playing them properly. The Yorkists won, mainly by dint of throwing large numbers of elevens and twelves, against which the Lancastrians had no answer.

There were several presentational changes starting with the movement trays which I had pre-ordered and picked-up at Vapnartak. I'd also painted up some more household troops, allowing for the nobles to lead their battles from the front rather than being embedded in units in order to bulk them out. I have to report that the plastic mountain is so depleted that if I wanted to refight Towton I would actually have to buy some more; who'd have thought that day would ever come.

Speaking of buying figures, there has been a request to do Mortimer's Cross, but unfortunately I have no kern. There's no point in buying any unless I get enough to also refight Stoke Field, which it turns out requires quite a lot of them. Still, what is money for if not to buy more toys? And it will still just about cost less than an evening at the opera, particularly after factoring in the programme, the ice cream and the private jet to San Francisco with Julia Roberts.

So, next week won't feature any Irish, but there will be some in due course.

PotCXVIIIpouri

 There's been no wargaming for a while, but we shall hopefully be be back in action in the annexe this week. The blog has also been a bit quiet, although I can report that the mystery viewer has stopped looking at the post which I mentioned before and started looking at this one instead; several times a day as with the first example. I flatter myself that the new target of his/her/its attentions is somewhat less boring that the other one, but even so...

In my absence I have been painting the cultural quarter of the town red; it's the time of the year for both opera and Fairport Convention. I also saw Hayley Mills performing on stage, an actor who was a star before I was born, and I am certainly not young. Add to that a very interesting lecture on Weights and Measures and you can understand my not finding the time to post anything here.

None of the above involved any of the following people, but I do like me some John Lee Hooker:

2022

It's time for the review of the year. It was a terrible year for the world in many ways of course. In addition for me there were bereavements and funerals, but I'm afraid that is inevitable as one ages. On the plus side, the year did contain much to amuse those of us with an interest in UK politics; indeed my most read post of the year was this one. While the pandemic now seems a long time ago I found that my caution about crowded places was slow to abate. I may now be back at full flâneur level, but at the start of the year my diary wasn't so full. In any event, what did get done may be appearing here for the first time as I have been remiss in writing about culture in the blog, or indeed writing about much at all.

Opera: I saw eighteen operas this year, which is getting back close to normal levels. Top marks has to go to 'Orpheus Reimagined'. In the words of Opera North this 'melds the music of Monteverdi’s 1607 opera 'Orfeo' with brand new music by composer and virtuoso sitar player Jasdeep Singh Degun. Together, he and early music specialist Laurence Cummings lead a cast starring some of the best Indian classical and European baroque musicians in the UK'. I thought it was sensational. Also well worth a mention was Krenek's 'Der Diktator', both very timely in its subject matter and accompanied by a fascinating post-performance discussion about the nature of authoritarian leaders.

Theatre: I saw twenty nine plays (compared to four in 2021), which once again is somewhat more like it. Best was 'The Book of Mormon' with an honourable mention for Julian Clarey and Matthew Kelly in 'The Dresser and for 'The Corn is Green' at the National Theatre. Seven of those were Shakespeare, of which the best was 'Henry VIII' at The Globe.

Music: I went to sixteen gigs, a big improvement on 2021's four. However the best was once again Martin Simpson, so that didn't change. The best excluding the maestro was probably Errol Linton. It goes without saying that to see Connie Kreitmeier in the flesh was a highlight as well.

Film: Without doubt the best film I saw was 'Hallelujah', the documentary about Leonard Cohen, which I highly recommend. The best non-documentary was 'The Harder They Come', starring Jimmy Cliff, released back into cinemas to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of its initial release plus, of course, the sixtieth anniversary of Jamaican independence. The best current offering was 'Official Competition', which was brilliant, but both in Spanish and on rather limited release. If pressed to choose a mainstream film the one I'd recommend the most is, I think, 'The Duke', but with a nod to 'Belfast'.

Talks: I attended twenty seven talks this year, the best of which was on the subject of J.B. Priestley's time in Hollywood. Apparently his regular drinking partners whilst there were Groucho Marx and Charlie Chaplin, which would have been a pub crawl worth tagging along with I think.

Books: I have read 101 books, which is fewer than the previous year, but then again I went out more. The best fiction was Mikhail Bulgakov's 'The White Guard' with an honourable mention for  'Minty Alley', by C.L.R James. I fully appreciate that neither of those is terribly modern. Best non-fiction was 'Wagner and Philosophy' by Bryan Magee. Best non-fiction that was in any way related to the ostensible purpose of this blog was John Buckley's highly entertaining 'The Armchair General'.

Boardgames: I played 57 different games 157 times, so that's a healthy increase. I've reported on them elsewhere so I'll say no more here.

Wargames: By my reckoning I played around thirty games, many of which spread over two or three evenings. My favourite was 'Flashing Blades' at the Lard Workshop, which as I said at the time was a cracking little game. I am happy to have a go at any rules or period really and enjoyed a number of new ones this year. I found 'DBN' rather entertaining, and while I never really warmed to 'Soldiers of Napoleon' they did include some nice ideas; what they are not is a multi-player game. Probably the most disappointing new-to-me set was 'Rommel', which just didn't seem to grab any of us; perhaps it would have been better if we had used them to refight Sidi Rezegh. The rules/period which I personally would most like to revisit in 2023 is 'Jump or Burn'. Back in March James told us all to think of names for our pilots as we were just about to start a campaign, following which the planes were never seen again.

Exhibitions: The first new award category for a few years. I'm think the highlight was Walter Sickert retrospective at Tate Britain, with a special mention for the British Museum's fine exploration of the history and context of Stonehenge. 

Event of the Year: There were a few contenders. Clearly returning home to find the house full of smoke and my spare bedroom in flames must be one possibility, as was the failure of International Pigeon Rescue to mobilise their Otley branch following an emergency call by one of my occasional companions after she found an injured bird in my back garden. However, I am going for the rather tasty old-school fight on the X84 bus, which transported me momentarily back to my youth, when such things were commonplace.

For 2023 I wish us all, more than ever, love in a peaceful world.

48 Crash

"Watch Out!

You know the 48 Crash come like a lightning flash (48 Crash, 48 Crash)" 

- Chinn & Chapman

Apologies, but the picture of Ms Quatro is mere clickbait. I am going to post about how I seem to have mislaid my wargaming mojo during 2022. Apart from actually playing the games it has been steadily diminishing; for example I have done no painting of any sort for many months now. Perhaps the last element of the hobby to go for me was my penchant for buying any new rules published for those periods which I game, or, as in the case of the Mexican Revolution, which I don't game. But even that seems to have shrivelled and died. Caliver Books were recently offering a deal on Billhooks Deluxe, expanding the 'Never Mind the Billhooks' WotR rules to cover amongst other things the Hussites. And yet, I didn't buy them. 

Whilst en route to Manchester to see 'Die Fledermaus' (*), the December issue of Wargames Illustrated caught my eye in the Smith's at Leeds station, as it contains a couple of sizable articles on the newly published rules. Would my enthusiasm be given a sufficient kickstart to get online and order a copy? Well, not so far it hasn't. I haven't been able to get over the image presented by the following quote: "Archer blocks in line can be deadly. Loosing an arrowstorm of 48 dice makes for a mighty racket as D6s bounce around the table..."

How many? Not for me I think.

* Which was excellent, featuring amongst other characters in the chorus the Spice Girls and Boris Johnson, plus an entirely unexpected appearance by Kathryn Rudge singing the 'Habanera' from 'Carmen'.

The Bear Unecessities

 “Oh well, bears will be bears,” said Mr Brown.” - Michael Bond

There are a surprising number of plays which call for a bear to appear on stage: 'A Winter's Tale' probably being the most well known. Usually, and for obvious reasons, they are represented by some technical trickery such as back projection. In a version of Philip Pullman's ' His Dark Materials' that I saw many years ago the actors playing the polar bears wore very large, but non-naturalistic head gear which worked well. In my review of Cavalli's 'La Calisto' I mention that they rendered the bear very effectively, without bothering to include the detail of exactly how they did it. Presumably I assumed my memory would be sufficient; it isn't. Why am I reminiscing about ursine theatrics? Because I've just seen a bear on stage that was far superior to any other that I have ever seen. I'd like at this point to include a picture of it, but I can't find one online so this one will have to do.

And the play? It was 'Guy Fawkes', guess what's in the barrels in the background there. Now, I don't claim to be an expert on the Gunpowder Plot, but I think all readers in the UK at least will be familiar with the basics of the story, which after all gets trotted out annually. Those basics have, in my case at least, until now excluded the bit about the bear. Still, thankfully one is never too old to learn something new.

The play may have been, shall we say, creative, but wasn't really very good. It did however make me laugh sufficient times to make me glad I went. And that is essentially the problem; they did it as a comedy. Which, when your subject matter is the plotting of a terrorist act intended to cause mass slaughter after which the protagonists are tortured and then hung, drawn and quartered, is to set oneself a difficult task. The author went for treating it as drunken pub talk that got out of hand; it didn't work. But, as I mentioned before, the bear was good.

Silla

 And so to the opera. In a rare crossover between the ultimate art form and wargaming I have been to see Handel's 'Silla'. The 'Infamy, Infamy' game which I played in Nottingham a couple of weeks ago took place in the Social War of 91-87 BCE, and the Lucius Cornelius Sulla who was involved in those as a military commander becomes Silla in Rossi's libretto. The setting is (sort of - it's not terribly historically accurate) the civil wars of a few years later, through winning which Sulla/Silla becomes dictator. It is, as the programme tells us, about a womanising populist leader who rises to power, but is brought down by those closest to him when he loses his appeal to the populace. It had a contemporary setting (*), presumably so that the audience could more easily read into it whatever parallels they could find.

It was all very good, although the music seemed vaguely familiar. Some subsequent research tells me that the dramma per musica was written for a specific time and place, only performed once and the music was simply used again in 'Amadigi de Gaula' which, of course, I saw last autumn. Among what is by now the traditional trouser-role same-sex relationships and gender-swapping, this production of 'Silla' did contain a couple things I'd never seen before at the opera. At one point Mars, god of war, encouraged the audience to clap along, which did nothing so much as prove that classical music audiences are as incapable of keeping rhythm as any other sort. Then, a bit later on, some members of the orchestra joined in the singing. If you live long enough then you will see most things eventually.

 * I can't help thinking they missed a trick by not setting it in 1960s Liverpool and giving a key role to the cloakroom attendant at the Cavern, all of which would undoubtably have been a lorra lorra laughs.