Wet Palette

Like most of the important things in life - I came late to this one.  Mrs Kinch very kindly got me a wet palette for Christmas.  It’s quite a substantial one about the size of an A4 page.  It’s been a revelation.  I’ve used a great deal less paint and found it much easier to thin my paints appropriately.

The only snag was it was rather large and couldn’t be brought anywhere as the lid wasn't watertight. 

The palette I had came with a refill pad of "wet pads" and palette covers. So I set to with the refill pad and some scissors and an old tobacco tin.  I cut the pad and paper to size and slipped it into the tin.   The result was watertight, light and has proved very useful.  Can’t recommend the wet palette enough - if you're doing any amount of painting at all, I would urge you to try one. 

The Kinchlets are continuing to grapple to with the problems of LEGO.  

Back once again...

...with the Renegade Master. 

Looking at my blogging of late, it has been far far too long.  Weirdly, I have a couple of entries in the drafts folder, but I haven't finished them off because I haven't been happy with them.  As perfect is the enemy of good, it just means that I haven't finished any blog posts at all.  I'm back in work full time and working shifts again, so between work and family there hasn't been a huge amount of time for wargaming. 

So in brief, I've been mucking about with Game Workshops latest offering "Kill Team" which is rather good.  Kill Team is a small scale game and reminds me very much of  first edition Rogue Trader in that it is a semi-rpg with figures.   I've only played a couple of games, but I've really enjoyed them.  

I've also been playing With the Colours, a solo computer moderated game.  It's free and quite satisfying when played as part of a campaign.  I've been leading Lt. (now Captain) McKinch of the 18th Royal Irish with some success against the Russians, though the Victoria Cross is proving elusive.  You can find a bit more about that in the latest issue of Miniature Wargames. 

I've never  experimented with computer moderated rules before, but these have really kept my attention. They provide a simple objective based game, but one that has plenty of incident and variety to keep it interesting and that still allows you to do your own dice rolling.  

Given that it's free, it is definitely worth a shot. 

The face of disappointment

Life with the Kinchlets is exhausting but rewarding.  The LadyBaby has some full sentences now and the Bear is climbing everything in sight.  

We went down to the park recently.  The LadyBaby was asleep, but the Bear was not.  Unfortunately we arrived just as some construction was under way.  The poor little chap became very upset and spent about ten minutes trying to break in.  He was not successful, but not for want of trying. 

In the meantime, I've been watching this.  This chap is quite entertaining. He reviews films and television programmes that have been adapted from books and critiques how well the adaptation succeeds. It's the sort of thing we all do when we see a film version of a book we love - but Dominic manages to raise a laugh while doing it. 

Turning the tables

We've had a wedding, a certain amount of professional change and all the drama that comes with that in the last month - so the War Room hasn't seen much use.  I'm hoping to get a game in tomorrow with a bit of luck, but that remains to be seen. 

On the plus side,  I got a new table in the War Room.  The old one was in rag order and was quite unsteady, a dear friend was getting rid of an old dining table and I managed to snap it up. Unfortunately dining tables don't really come in the sizes needed for wargames, but I've added a marine ply topper which is a respectable six and a half feet long and four feet wide. 

My eventual plan is that we will be able to take the plywood topper off for special occasions (Christmas, etc) and have dinner in the War Room, as the table underneath is rather larger than our kitchen table.   I've also added two flaps at either end which allow the table to be extended to eight and a half feet. These are hinged so that they will hang down when not in use. I've added a baton to either side to give added stiffness. 

The trick was to find a way to hold them up solidly when they were needed.  I used pipe clips and some scrap timber to do the job.  We'll see if they hold up. With a bit of luck and assuming my measurements aren't off, I should be able to play six player Epic Napoleonics games with this setup. 

Study of a sleeping baby.  Oil on wood.  Unknown student of Rembrandt. Circa 1660. 

The Lady Baby has a habit of fighting sleep while her brother starts looking at his watch around seven thirty.  This picture was taken after I got home from work, when she had refused to sleep for her mother.  I'm really pleased with it - though I don't think a computer screen does it justice.  She has a nasty habit of torturing Mrs Kinch and then going to bed, meek as a lamb, when Daddy gets home. 

I must go now! My people need me!

Her brother on the other hand is a bit more active during the day, but perfectly happy to get his head down at night. 

Armoured car

I often take the Kinchlets for long walks. One of our regular haunts is Collins barracks which is Ireland’s military history museum.  It is closed on Mondays, something which I had forgotten, but the walk did us good and I had the chance to photograph this AML-90. 

The AML 90 is a French built armoured car with a 90mm low pressure gun.  It has seen extensive service with the French Foreign Legion and with the South African Army.  The  South African version was called the Eland-90.  The vehicle proved very successful in African conditions with the 4x4 providing excellent mobility on plains and the 90mm gun capable of tackling second line armour, albeit at close ranges. 

The light weight (6 tons) of the vehicle meant that it was highly portable and the FFL deployed then directly from aircraft to support parachutists. 

Irish AMLs were used almost exclusively on UN service and were acquired in the 1960s.  They served in Lebanon and saw combat in the confrontation at At-Tiri in the early 1980s. 

The AMLs were retired 2013, which is presumably how Collins Barracks got theirs. 

In other news - I fear we may have been infiltrated by Bonapartists. 

Audiobooks & An Osprey Bargain

I've listened to audiobooks for a long time, but I really upped my consumption last year.  I have a couple of avenues for these, Librivox, Audible, etc. But I have been backing a Patreon run by a chap who glories in the name, Felbrigg Napoleon Herriot.  FNH does a mixture of stuff, mostly 19th century fiction, classic sci-fi and military history. I've been listening to Felbrigg's stuff for several years now - probably my favourite piece of work is his recording of Oman's "History of the Peninsular War".  He's currently working through volume 4.  I had read the first three volumes in hard copy.  It was a pleasure to revisit them in audiobook form.  I only regret that I didn't pick up all the volumes of the Spellmount edition when I had the chance, but I am slowly finding them second hand. 

FNH has recorded Stephen Crane's "The Red Badge of Courage" and made it freely available on YouTube.  If you'd like to have a listen, click on the image above. If you'd like to back his Patreon, which is less than the price of a pint a month, you should have a look here. 

If your tastes run to weird fiction, you should have a look at Edward French. He records classic horror and science fiction short stories.  He puts them all up on YouTube and they are absolutely free. French is an excellent reader and you should give him a try. 

Click on the image above to hear his recording of Algernon Blackwood's "The Empty House". 

The Men who would be Kings by Dan Mersey is an excellent set of rules and we've been playing it for about a year now. I recommend them unreservedly.  They are currently half price (£6)from the Osprey website.  If you've any interest in Colonial Wargaming, they are well worth the money.   

What I did on my holidays by Conrad Kinch, aged 37 1/2

An artists impression of John Treadaway enroute to tell me that my copy is late. 

(Squat Trike from the pen of Paul Bonner)

My recent trip to London was a roaring success. Four nights of uninterrupted sleep was magical. Meeting John Treadaway was great fun. Lovely fella - he rather put me in mind of one of the old GW

squat bikers with his beard, ponytail, leather jacket and giant machine. It was definitely a few days of meeting old friends and making new ones. 

The Austrians advance under the command of the doughty Brian Carrick. 

(picture cheerfully thieved from Bob Cordery)

The game on Saturday was magnificent. A spread of 2,000 figures on a playing area sixty feet by sixty feet. I commanded the Swedish contingent (mainly played by Prussians in this instance) and finished the game in the suburbs of Leipzig having done for the Imperial Guard, which will always remain something of a career highlight. The company was excellent. Made some new friends and caught up with some old ones.

I was not in a position to take photographs, but you'll find some good pictures at the fine blogs below. 

Tim's (game organiser) blog

Bob has several reports, so be sure to have a good look around. 

Brian has some good pictures

And David (Napoleon...boo!...hiss!) has some good shots too. 

St. Paul's went a little over board on the incense while I was there. 

(St Paul's survives by Herbert Mason) 

Service at Westminister Abbey was wonderful. St. Paul's was magnificent, I thought it was expensive at first, but wildly underestimated how vast the place is. Worth every penny. Had longish natter with one of the Canons named Mike.  I paid my respects at Wellington's tomb. It always does to remember the local boy.

Gordon's Tomb

(image tea leafed from the Church Monument Society)

I am a great admirer of Charles Gordon and I was strangely moved when I saw his sarcophagus.  I had not realised he was quite so small.  There I think is the difference between having read a thing and knowing it. 

My own, slightly smaller, Gordon. 

My daughter was named Gordon for a day while she was in hospital.  We had settled on a name and when we saw her, we realised that it didn't suit her exactly and it took us a day while we thought of a new one.  I was very tempted to add Gordon as a middle name when I went to register her birth, but forebore at the last moment.  She has his mercurial and exploring temperament. 

I will take her to see her (almost) namesakes tomb someday.

I miscalculated and hadn't realised that the Pre-Raphaelite exhibition at the National Gallery hadn't begun yet, which was a shame. The Horse Guards museum was a joy, particularly as you get to watch the lads at stable duty. I ended up having a long old chat with some of the Ministry of Defence police who were on duty outside. I certainly noticed the greater presence of armed police and talked to several of them around the city, I suppose because it is so unusual from an Irish perspective. They were unfailingly friendly. The thing that really struck me was the number of them with beards - the Met clearly having different regulations on this matter. .

An artist's impression of the National Army Museum

Of the National Army museum, the less said the better. It was the only sour note in an otherwise excellent trip.

I should have listened Tim. I should have listened.  And what only makes it worse is that I missed the Wallace Collection because of it. 

I survived Charing Cross Road and Martins Lane with only minor damage to my wallet. Not many books this trip, but quite a few prints - mostly fashion for Mrs. Kinch and Alice and Pooh Bear for the Kinchlets. There is more framing in my future. 

I'm still wondering if anyone does a suitable train in 20mm

I was very happy to get a single large engraving (done as a special by the Illustrated London News) of "a reconaissance in force" in 1882, which the Egyptians record as the Battle of Kafr el Dawr. It's an engagement that has intrigued me for a while, so I was glad to get it. There was a definite thrill of discovery when I recognised the geography and the regimental numbers in the otherwise anonymous piece.

After that it was home again, home again, jiggity jig. Mrs. Kinch and the Kinchlets seemed none the worse my absence and quite pleased to see me actually. 

London Calling

Ladies & Germs, I will be in London over the weekend.  The plan at present is to see some of the new museums and particularly the Wallace Collection. 

NOTE: Slight change of venue - The Round House, 2 northside Wandsworth common, clapham sw18 2ss. Probably be there around half six. 

However, if you fancy it - I will be propping up the bar at the Falcon Pub Clapham Junction at 1800hrs (that's six in the evening old money) on Sunday 24th September.  In the unlikely event you fancy talking wargaming, books or the price of fish, do let me know in the comments and I'll see you there.  

I'll be the chap on his own reading "At them with the Bayonet" by Donald Featherstone. 

Vivandieres & Why I hate Lady Macbeth

NOTE: This is a repost of an entry I wrote in 2012.  I was discussing it with a friend last night and went back to it to refresh my memory what I had written.  I've made an addition or two to it and fixed some of the broken links.  I still think it stands up as a criticism.

  Daughter of the Regiment 19th century audiences found cantinieres quite romantic   

I have a soft spot for vivandieres. A friend of Mrs Kinch's remarked on this once, though she couchedit in somewhat unkind terms. "Was it normal for the prostitutes to wear uniforms?*" 

As it happens, no it was not, though no doubt someone can produce an example somewhere. I suspect Massena's name will crop up. 

Vivandieres and Cantinieres (for our purposes the terms are effectively interchangeable) were women who had a contract to supply spirits, shaving kit and other small necessities to the regiment to which they were attached. Strictly speaking the girls didn't have this contract themselves, it was held by a Sergeant who was known as a Cantinier. The Cantinier's wife was known as the Cantiniere and was definitely not a prostitute. She took up the job as the Cantinier was too busy with his duties, marching up and down and so forth and staring at terrified recruits and saying things like "Zis eez ze brown bess musket, eet eez ze preferred wepon ov yur enemy and it make a verey diztinktive zound when fired at you, mon brave."

An S Range Vivandiere

This figure represents a typical vivandiere/cantiniere with her basket and little barrel of brandy. She was a gift from Foy over at Prometheus in Aspic, who no doubt noted my somewhat unwholesome interest in the breed. She was painted by Krisztian, whose skill and craftsmanship is almost getting monotonous in its excellance.

 For your titilation, the ladies uncovered ankles.

Put them away you dirty, dirty girl...

As it happened Cantiniere's were rather better at surviving battles than their husbands were and as such (as well as I suspect their access to a legitimate source of booze may also have played a part) were highly sought after as spouses. Nicholette, the vivandiere, in RF Delderfields "Seven Men of Gascony" is married several times and is unabashedly unsentimental about the process.

Just pull yourself together dear...

NOTE: As I am revisiting this post, I realised that I linked to the image I used here (rather than downloading it and inserting it into the text) and whoever was using it has removed it.  For reference it was an image of a very attractive actress,  playing Lady Macbeth.  She was down to her bra and underwear and covered in so much blood she looked like something out of the third act of Carrie. 

Which brings me to the second point of this post, what does Kinch have against Lady Macbeth? Nothing per se, I like Macbeth. It's not my favourite or the one I know best, but it is very, very good. However, I don't care for the usual casting of Lady Macbeth, who is often a painfully young, screechy creature who uses the sleepwalking scene to take her hysterics for a walk.

All of which misses one of the essential truths of soldiers wives - they are tough women.

Isuzu Yamada's performance in Kurosawa's Throne of Blood is a notable exception to this somewhat depressing rule and Dame Judi Dench in Trevor Nunn's 1979 production is suitably flinty, but what makes those two stand out is that while they do portray women in a state of mental breakdown, they don't make a meal of it. To paraphrase Victoria Wood, you can't just rub some blood on your hands, scream a bit and go,  "Don't mind me, I'm a looney".

NOTE: Apparently "Don't mind me, I'm a looney" does not have the common currency that it should.  It is a reference to "Giving Notes", a magnificent sketch by the late (and much missed) Victoria Wood. It's only three minutes long and for context, the character is a producer in an amateur production of Hamlet.

 A second Vivandiere, 

based on the facings I'd say attached to a regiment of dragoons

No-one has made a film of Seven Men of Gascony, which is a pity as it's rather good and with the exception of Gerard, certainly the best fiction I've read about the period from the French point of view.  I fear however, that if one was made today, that poor old Nicolette would be hammered into the same tired "beautiful, but deadly" formula that seems to be rule for heroines these days.

This lady was a gift from Old John of 20mmNostalgic Revival and she does look fine. She's been used as an objective marker (with attached donkey) for Command & Colours Napoleonics games so far, though I think it will take a skirmish game for her to come into her own.

"I hate to see you leave, 

but I love to watch you go."

I think the point about the portrayal of Lady Macbeth that annoys me so much is that it is unfair. Sir Terry Pratchett wrote about women like her in his fantasy novel, "Guards, Guards".

"Sybil's female forebears had valiantly backed up their husbands as distant embassies were besieged, had given birth on a camel or in the shade of a stricken elephant, had handed around the little gold chocolates while trolls were trying to break into the compound, or had merely stayed at home and nursed such bits of husbands and sons as made it back from endless little wars. The result was a species of woman who, when duty called, turned into solid steel."

Sir Terry is writing about a policeman's wife, rather than a soldiers and I see a lot of Sybil in Mrs Kinch sometimes. It may no longer be fashionable or popular and I can't think of an example in popular culture in recent years, but I'll be damned if I don't give these ladies their due.

*Whereupon my mother in law (who is reading this over my shoulder, yes you Mary) says something uncharitable about the Guards Division.

Well done chaps. Do keep it up. 

A recent trip to the physiotherapist

Image from Wikipedia. 

CK: *walking back and forth while waving one of his hands in front of his face* You know, your profession must be a terrible temptation for a practical joker.

P: Oh yes. It's a tough one some times, particularly if they're not the nicest patient. I mean you tell people to pat their head and rub their belly or pull faces in the mirror and they'll do it.

CK: *staring at X painted on a window while shaking his head from side to side* Really?

P: Really. That's the thing with physio, people with muscle injuries...it's hard to get them to do their exercises. People with balance injuries, they really stick to it. They will do anything.

CK: *standing on one leg and sticking one finger up his nose and one in his ear* Gosh.

P: Yup. Now stare at this X draw on the card and twerk for the next thirty seconds or until you feel dizzy.

Dutchmen in space

Some stalwart Hollanders

I played the Quatre Bras scenario from Command & Colours Napoleonics with Sydney recently.  He is determined to learn how to use the British and their allies properly.  The game was a 9-6 win for the perfidious French and a full report will follow soon. 

However, what it did bring home to me was the fact that a goodly proportion of my Allied troops were still using blu tac'd bits of paper as unit labels rather than the rather nicer versions Capability Savage has put together.  Cue rattling through my boxes and drawing up lists and looking at uniform references as I've forgotten what regiments belong to. It's a nice little job that I can rattle along with between baby wrangling sessions. 

It's also brought home to me how Peninsula focused my uniform references are.  I'm good on Russia 1812 and after, the Peninsula and the broad strokes of most of the national armies (i.e. I can generally tell one from another) but I would struggle to identify individual regiments. 

More labels is probably a good idea then. 

In other news, I've been watching "The Expanse" on Netflix and very good it is too.  It's a multi-stranded look at a future in which Mankind has colonised the Solar System, but remains divided against itself.  Earth and Mars are at odds and "the Belt" (essentially everywhere else) is caught in the middle.  It's a slow starter and the first few episodes spend a long time setting out their stall, but the Expanse is good old fashioned science fiction about ideas and frankly that is thin on the ground these days. 

Highlights include the wonderful Shohreh Aghdashloo who plays a ruthless Terran politician with dash and aplomb. She is magnificent throughout.  Thomas Jane does a great turn as a conflicted and corrupt copper - a limited man struggling against his environment and his nature.  The rest of the cast are not bad by any means, but these two shine very brightly indeed.  Aghdashloo in particular puts me in mind of Dumas's Richelieu  - that antagonist-not antagonist, the likeable adversary and the compromised friend. It is a nuanced performance that accomplishes a great deal in relatively limited screen time.  I'm torn between a desire for more of her and the knowledge that such  would inevitably dilute the power of whats there.

Great stuff - and thankfully because its Netflix it is only ten episodes, so it dodges that usual American bullet of overstaying its welcome by being a million years (or twenty two episodes) long.  

Keeping ticking along

Joy & Forgetfulness has been quite quiet of late - so much so that some of you wrote to ask why.   Mainly I've had my hands full - delightfully full in fact.  Unfortunately Mrs Kinch became very seriously ill immediately after the arrival of the twins, so there is a little bit more to be done around the place.  She is on the mend, but it will be a long time before she's back to her full Mary Poppins like efficiency.

Matilda (left) and Edward (right, underneath the chair)

He tells me the clutch is gone and that I'm going to have to send to Germany for a replacement. 

I've managed to make a great deal of progress since I was injured, but unfortunately a full recovery seems to be eluding me. My balance is slowly returning, but my ability to focus my eyes is taking its time to return.  This means that I can not read for very long and have to ration my screen time quite bit.

However, writing in some form or other is a sickness that I have yet to be cured of.  The last eight months have been the longest period of forced inactivity I can remember and still being able to write, even in some form has been a good way of remaining chipper.

It means that I have to be more selective about where I put my screen time.  I've been able to keep up my column in Miniature Wargames, but its been a bit of a struggle. Joy & Forgetfulness has taken a bit of a back seat - however, I'm hoping to blog a little bit more often now that the symptoms are abating somewhat and I'm getting better at managing them.

My laptop is no doubt beaming details of my darkest secrets to the CIA and the Intelligence Section of the Chinese Communist Party as I type this.  You'd be astonished at the number of things that come with a camera and a microphone these day. Siri, the assistant on my iphone, is perfectly capable of taking dictation.  This does occasionally lead to hilarious typos - my favourite occurred while I was writing a piece on Spanish guerrillas, which Siri rendered as Spanish Auto Giros.  Presumably it is my thick and incomprehensible Irish accent - perhaps a course in colloquial Californian might be in order.

MMMMmmmmm....kay?

One of the tricks I use to get the most out of my time, is to set up the computer and just come back to it for ten minutes.  The machine is on a chair because if I have one of the Kinchlets in the sling, I can type standing up.  I set an alarm on my phone so that I only work for ten or fifteen minutes, thus avoiding the concomitant headache, as it's very easy to overstay my welcome, get lost in what I'm doing and end up with a ringing headache for the rest of the day.

On the whole the system is working relatively well.  I get a couple of hundred words done a day and get to feel like I'm keeping my hand in, while still keeping an eye on the Kinchlets.

I'm hoping that I'll be able to up J&F to at least one post per week - we'll see how it goes.

Lately I have mostly...

Battle of Sorauren

Been neglecting my blog, but in the meantime I've been up to other things.  We managed to get the Kinchlets christened (more on that in a future post) and play some games.

Of most immediate interest to the wargaming fraternity is the Battle of Sorauren, on which a full report will follow shortly.  But in brief, it was an excellent game - we played the new epic rules for team games and they were a success.  The new mechanics keep the game moving briskly and I think lead to a game that has more engagement for all the players.  The prospect of sitting in a "quiet" sector for a few turns which bedeviled our earlier efforts has been banished.

Little Boy Blue

I don't watch much television as I'm quite limited regarding how much time I can spend looking at a screen at the moment.  However,  ITVs recent four parter "Little Boy Blue" has been some of the best television I've seen in a long time.  The programme is a dramatic retelling of the events behind the murder of Rhys Jones in Liverpool in 2007.  Jones, who was eleven years old, was returning home from football practice when he was shot dead by a member of a local gang.

The facts speak for themselves, but in sea of police procedurals that are largely indistinguishable from each other, Little Boy Blue stands out.  The writing is matter of fact, but all the more raw for it.
Stephen Graham is cast against type as a hard working copper struggling to put together a case.  He really impressed me. There are few histrionics, just a man attempting to do a job and gather evidence which will stand up in court.

Sinead Keenan and Brian F'O Byrne are brilliant as the Jones family, left rudderless after the loss of a child.  I've grown very tired of the sort of emotional pornography that a lot of crime procedurals indulge in. Sinead Keenan invests her performance with the dignity that the subject matter deserves. She shows the ugly side of grief and the our often inadequate response to it.  Most of us will never see ourselves portrayed on screen, even fewer of us will see it done well. Melanie Jones has been well served by this serious and sensitive portrayal.

This was drama that moved me. Unreservedly recommended.

Bob in full fig

Rob is a chap who runs the British Muzzleloaders channel on YouTube.  He produces quality videos on historical shooting, tactics, gear as well as battles.  As the name implies he concentrates on British and Imperial firearms and history. Rob is yet another in that phalanx of stalwart Canadians who continually brighten up the internet and brings a level of polish and imagination to his videos that is rarely surpassed.  I particularly liked his videos in which he used video editing software to "clone" himself shooting in different poses so that he could show exactly what a skirmish line would look like. 

You can find his channel here. 

Probably my favourite of Rob's videos is his one on the battle of Tel el Kebir. 

All his stuff is freely available on YouTube and there are ninety or so videos on his channel for you to work through.  He has recently set up a Patreon account for those who wish to help support his work, though clearly the pledge (a dollar a month) is not comensurate with the level of work that goes into his productions. I have pledged my dollar and I would urge you to have a look for yourself. 

Happy Easter

Christ is risen!

Wishing you all a very peaceful and blessed Easter.

I saw this while I was at church today and thought that a story of reconciliation might be appropriate.

The Door of Reconciliation

"In 1492 two Irish families, the Butlers of Ormonde and the FitzGeralds of Kildare, were involved in a bitter feud. This disagreement centred around the position of Lord Deputy. Both families wanted one of their own to hold the position. In 1492 this tension broke into outright warfare and a small skirmish occurred between the two families just outside the city walls.

The Butlers, realising that the fighting was getting out of control, took refuge in the Chapter House of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. The FitzGeralds followed them into the Cathedral and asked them to come out and make peace. The Butlers, afraid that if they did so they would be slaughtered, refused.

As a gesture of good faith the head of the Kildare family, Gerald FitzGerald, ordered that a hole be cut in the door. He then thrust his arm through the door and offered his hand in peace to those on the other side. Upon seeing that FitzGerald was willing to risk his arm by putting it through the door the Butlers reasoned that he was serious in his intention. They shook hands through the door, the Butlers emerged from the Chapter House and the two families made peace.

Today this door is known as the “Door of Reconciliation” and is on display in the Cathedral’s north transept. This story also lives on in a famous expression in Ireland “To chance your arm”. "

(Text from St. Patrick's Cathedral website)

Apologies if I have posted this before. If I have - stories of reconciliation bear repeating. If I have not - well here's something new. 

A new addition to the War Room

The back - note the text on the cards is viewable. 

We're not at home much at present, but I came across these pictures while I was messing about on my phone.  They are from a small project that I completed before Christmas and which I'm very happy with. I was given a collection of cigarette cards by a friend some years ago, shortly before he died.  I think they belonged to his brother.  In any event, they were a complete set of uniforms of the territorial army, beginning with the London Trained Bands and finishing with the TA of 1938. I love their clean lines and bright colours, but I wanted to find a way to display them without covering up the text on the back of the cards. 

The front - a fine body of men

I ordered the mount online, as cutting windows for fifty cards seemed like a ludicrous way to spend my time.  There was also every chance that I would make a balls of it and ruin a perfectly good piece of mounting board. My plan was to get two pieces of glass cut to fit the frame and sandwich the cards and the mount between them. I wasn't sure that the frame would take the weight, but I was happy to be proven wrong.  

This somewhat Trump like construction appeared in Capability Savages garret studio recently. Whatever can it be? 

Arthur & Gordon

Arthur (left) and Gordon (right) locked in mortal combat

I'm looking forward to impending fatherhood, but its certainly been a demanding task master.  Mrs Kinch has had a hard time of it, both physically and mentally. Multiple hospital stays have taxed us both, but as we get closer to D-Day things are looking hopeful.  CODENAME ARTHUR & GORDON are hale and hearty, are possessed of the appropriate number of fingers and toes and will be appearing relatively shortly. Albeit not quite as shortly as Mrs Kinch would wish. 

We don't actually know whether they are boys or girls yet and settled on Arthur and Gordon because Twin 1 and Twin 2 just didn't sound right.  

We were at a dinner party and I was asked if we'd given any thought to girls names.  This put me on the spot, as I didn't want to be rude, but it's a matter where we've been playing our cards very close to our chests. So, I said that while "Stephen Sondheim Sir Arthur Wellesley Gordon of Khartoum Kinch" was not a family name, it was certainly traditional and we liked it. 

Somehow Arthur and Gordon stuck.  

As for whether they are boys or girls, my money is on one or the other. I'm hoping for one of each, but that's mainly because I'm terribly indecisive. 

Kinch 

(artists impression, taken from life) 

I've had to cut back on my writing (blog and otherwise) of late, not least because we've been in and out of hospitals, but also because I sustained a head injury in work just over a month ago.  It's made things a bit more difficult, as it is harder to focus and concentrate on tasks. The headaches are definitely getting better. I will never, ever complain about another hangover so long as I live, but I'll be moving a little bit more slowly than usual. Recovery is taking rather longer than we'd hoped.   I'm finding it more difficult to marshal my mental resources and having to ration my attention accordingly. 

That I'm afraid, is why I haven't written up our Barbarossa campaign report or several of the other things that readers very kindly written and inquired about.  I will get to them in time. I have also taken the opportunity to dress up a few old pieces that I had written, but hadn't finished over the years. 

Rest assured J&F will continue chugging along, just at a slightly more leisurely pace than usual. 

Farewell Bluebear Jeff

Bluebear Jeff of Saxe Bearstein passed away recently. May perpetual light shine upon him and may he know peace. 

A breach of decorum

"To every thing there is a season,
and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal"

Ecclesiastes 3:3 is a verse that sticks with me. It's not a favourite (it's no Romans 13:4 or Mathew 22:37-40 or for that matter Mathew 8:9), I've just heard it so often that I can finish the quotation without effort.  I suppose it has been rendered trite by repetition - I've heard it too often at family funerals.  One of the tragedies of our modern comfortable lives is that we hear truth so often that it can lose it's meaning, like Kipling's Copybook Headings, as it is repeated, decontextualized, satirised and commoditised. We lose sight of it, like a page photocopied time after time, until it becomes a grey mass of artifacts and noise. The signal is lost unless we search for it.

I write Joy & Forgetfulness for a variety of reasons. It started as a writing exercise, the literary equivalent of cracking out a few press ups of a morning, since then it has become a sort of personal showcase for my hobby endeavours, a repository for very silly jokes, a means of blowing off steam and communicating the weird little fraternity of wargaming bloggers, many of whom have done me the honour of becoming my friends. 

But if to every thing there is a season, to everything there is also a diction, a language that is suitable to the discussion of the thing.   The sense of decorum in the original sense of the word, was behaviour and language that was appropriate to the moment. I rarely write seriously here, so I hope you'll forgive the breach of decorum as Mrs Kinch and I have some very wonderful, but rather serious news, but rest assured we will be back to toy soldiers and silliness shortly.

But the long and the short of it is that we were gifted with a genuine miracle. 

Six years ago, we were told that we would be unable to have children.  It was a hard blow, but we made our peace with it eventually.   It wasn't easy, but the doctors were kind and the tests were clear. God is good, if not always easy to understand, and we were just going to have to make the best of it.

Several years later, Mrs Kinch lost an aunt and an uncle in rapid succession. A bright, lively talented couple who were taken far too young. Mrs Kinchs uncle, recently a widower and a bibulous old Tory who loved art and ties so loud that they were visible from space was of the opinion that,

"Doctors are idiots.  My father was one and I should know. You deserve children."

We smiled and thanked him and carried on.  But shortly after his death, we discovered he had made arrangements so that we could get a second opinion and had put in place the finance to make it happen.


It was a strange and unexpected legacy and we went down the path of IVF with no expectations. We already knew the answer.  IVF is a painful and often humiliating process and we were in two minds as to whether to go down that road again.  Eventually we decided that it would have been disrespectful to the memory of a kind and very generous couple not to try.


And it emerged contrary to everything we were told all those years ago, something miraculous had happened. We discovered that what we had been told was impossible was not and if our courage could bear it, we could try with a reasonable chance of success.  With the help and encouragement of our friends and family, the hard work of some very kind doctors and nurses and most of all, the considerable grit of Mrs. Kinch - we embarked on what was to prove a difficult journey.

It has been a long and hard road, especially for Mrs Kinch, and there has been heartbreak along the way.  But we have been blessed and are expecting the arrival of the Kinch twins some time in November.  I hardly know how to write about it - but there it is.

To steal some lines from Cowper,

"His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding ever hour,
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flower."