Miniature Wargaming The Movie: a review

When I saw the Kickstartee for Miniature Wargaming The Movie at the end of 2015 I decided to back it purely because it was unlikely that anyone else would be making a documentary about wargaming anytime soon. I had no great expectations about it and, as the months of production turned into years I mentally pretty much wrote it off, especially when they had to launch another Kickstarter to get extra funding.  It was taking nearly as long to make as Cleopatra and some of the things filmmaker (presumably he saw it as a showreel for his future projects) Joseph Piddington had issues with, such as the cost of stock footage, baffled me. Why, I wondered, did you need to buy expensive footage of wars? It should be about war gaming not war. It was starting to look like one of those Kickstarters that were a litany of delays and excuses.

I was surprised, therefore, when the DVD dropped through my letterbox last week. Yesterday my computer decided to have one of its periodic issues when it struggles to install updates and while it sorted itself out I sat down to play a bit of the film at lunchtime. Much to my surprise it was good enough that I sat through all 105 minutes of it. I nearly didn’t bother as it starts slowly with a group of modern re-enactors in a wood.  Re-enacting has nothing to do with wargaming, I thought (discuss). Then we had the first of what seemed like endless aerial drone shots of market towns (far, far too much of this) placing each of the chosen people, who were to be the principal subjects, in their environment. I soon came across the second problem that I had.  There were a number of onscreen captions which popped up from time to time offering further snippets of information. However, some of these disappeared before I could read them and all of them were really difficult to read.  I am 58 years old and only have 70% eyesight.  Even on a reasonably sized widescreen TV I couldn’t read these as the font used a very fine line and it was too small.  I did manage to read one which told me that the world’s first wargames club was set up in Oxford University in 1874, which I appreciated, as a former member of the Oxford University Dungeons and Dragons Society from 1979.

Sensibly, the director realised that to give the film wider appeal it needed some personal interest stories; people whose wargaming projects we could follow during the programme, although of these only two were wargamers only, planning to attend an international tournament in Norway.  The others were manufacturers and I think the main fundamental issue I have with the film is that it was much more about manufacturers not players.  Although we were offered glimpses of bigger players, like Warlord, the focus, perhaps accurately, was on garage style one man (or one man and a long suffering partner) operations.  These threads, like much of the film, proved to be rather downbeat and told you more about the trials and tribulations of running a small business rather than wargaming itself.

With these chosen protagonists I did have another problem in that I couldn’t hear much of what they were saying. Partly this may have been down to recording but also, to a certain extent, it was the subjects not enunciating as clearly as they might.  I have done quite a bit of TV and a lot of speeches and presentations and you do have to make a conscious effort to speak more clearly when being recorded, as I was told in my media training.  Or maybe, like my eyesight, my hearing is going too.

Thank goodness, then, for Henry Hyde, whose section on the history of wargaming was excellent and was more like what I was expecting the whole film to be like.  I have to say that I liked the animated graphics too; it should be said that there was nothing about the production that looked low budget. When the two wargamers went off to their Norwegian tournament the camera went along too. It was not the filmmaker’s fault that the big international tournament turned out to be a dozen blokes in a Norwegian wood shed (sjed?) but it was another slightly downbeat thread.  Still, they did film Salute and follow the progress of one man and his scenery stand there.

This was another fundamental issue with the film; in that this character, an ex-soldier, not surprisingly traumatised by his experiences in Kosovo, had used wargaming as a way to fight depression. It was interesting to see that he took this up at the Combat Stress rehabilitation centre, Tyrwhitt House, which is less than a mile from where I live. This is a good story but, obviously recognising documentary gold, the director dwelt for far too long on it and it unbalances the film, particularly the last third. There was a war in Kosovo, OK, but we really didn’t need two long (and no doubt expensive) clips of Bill Clinton making speeches about it.  It’s like the director thought, oh damn, I am stuck with funding for this silly wargames film but I really want to make a BBC2 documentary about fighting depression. Wargaming was obviously pivotal to this man’s recovery but the war story element and his subsequent breakdown unbalanced the message somewhat.

No doubt because of the unexpected length of the project, there was a chance to revisit some of the protagonists eighteen month later which was interesting but not necessarily very uplifting.

In conclusion, I really enjoyed the professional standard of the film with its excellent animation and good photography, although we could have done with less drone shots. There was also one sequence of a man walking down an avenue towards the camera and I thought, after several long seconds, that we were going to get a re-enactment of Omar Sharif’s first appearance in Lawrence of Arabia.  ‘Cut! Cut!’  I shouted at the screen.  I also had trouble with the unreadable captions and some of the sound.  I enjoyed the interviews and behind the scenes looks at some of the bigger companies and figures in the hobby.  Not ‘The Hobby’, they were conspicuously absent, although much referred to by previous employees.

There were some things I expected but weren’t really covered; such as a little on the mechanics of wargaming; skirmish versus big battles, units, command, morale, shooting, melee, scenarios and campaigns.  No-one watching this would have any idea of how wargames work. This, however, finally begs the question: who is this film aimed at?  Not much for the committed wargamer but equally a little baffling for the complete newcomer.

A valiant effort, very professionally realised (the section on YouTube videos on wargaming had me recalling quite how cringingly unwatchable nearly all these amateur efforts are) with a few interesting things I didn’t know.  Slightly downbeat, because of the particular personalities featured, so that the subliminal message almost came across that if you are a socially inept, sad loser you might enjoy wargaming which probably just confirms to the rest of the world what they thought about it anyway.

Non-wargaming highlights of 2017

Reconnecting with my old College friend K after 20 years was the best thing about 2017

Many of you (well, one or two) may have been thinking that you have escaped the dreaded Legatus reviews of the year, as it is now the end of February (although I started this post in January).  I have been working on a report for the government which has taken all of my time for months, even with five other people working on it too. It's still not quite done but it is on the way enough now that I can pause (and the light is too bad to paint, again) for a thrilling non-wargaming round-up..  My (rather sparse) wargaming highlights will follow later (probably about May).

Best Foreign Trip 

I had thought that I had got away with having no foreign trips this year but then two came up on successive weeks.  Firstly, I had to go back to Botswana for a long delayed follow up to my trip of 2016.  This may well engender more trips this year, as we attempt to help the future president sort some stuff out. They had ponced up the Avani Hotel in Gaborone which meant it had lost some of its faux colonial charm and there were no Miss Botswana contestants this time, although the restaurant waitresses were as lovely and efficient as ever.

Free wine in the Hotel Zaza

I got back from Botswana and just had time to run the washing machine before setting off for Houston on my way to El Salvador. This would have been a long journey, undertaken in one go, so I decided to stop off at the relentlessly trendy Hotel Zaza for a night, to recover my equilibrium.  I was joined by my particular friend Sophie which, as a result, made this my best trip of the year.  I hadn't seen her since 2013 and she seemed very pleased to see me, as was I her. The people at Hotel Zaza were so appalled by my travel schedule  that they kept supplying free glasses of wine.

Best UK Trip

This has to be the trip I made back to Oxford in June.  One of the many peculiarities about Oxford University (and a few others in Britain) is that every seven years after you start there you get invited back to a formal dinner called a Gaudy (from the 13th century song known as Gaudeamus Igitur - Let us rejoice, therefore), which your college pays for.  If you have ever watched Inspector Morse (where my college was known as Lonsdale College) or Lord Peter Wimsey you will know that these are usually occasions for much port-fuelled drunkenness, academic scandal, illicit affairs and murder. 

My first Gaudy in 1986.  Oh what cozy fun you could have in front of a college gas fire.  Health and Safety has now seen them all removed,  meaning you can' t cook your lady toast for breakfast the next morning, either.  Spoilsports!

Now I think I have attended every Gaudy except one and that was the one seven years ago (I was abroad, I think), so I haven't been back to one for fourteen years.  Invariably I go with my friend Bill who lives just three miles away and was best man at my wedding (twenty five years since the Day of Doom in July 2017).  Bill doesn't have much to do with College (as you always call it and with a capital 'C') as he is a Champagne socialist (the worst kind) who sort of feels guilty for attending Oxford.  Also attending the first three were my ex-girlfriends J and V.  Like all of us, they were very fond of port and the abiding memory of previous gaudies was waking up the next day with splitting headaches and trudging to Brown's to fill up on the most absorbent food possible.  Oddly, I never went to Brown's when I was at College (the one in Oxford was the first one, I think) despite the alluring prospect of waitresses in short skirts (no other women wore short skirts in 1979) and fishnet tights.   This was because there was always a queue and then, as now, the Legatus does not queue for restaurants or pretty much anywhere else unless he is going through security.  This is why I always arrive at Salute an hour after the doors open!  One of my girlfriends at St Hugh's did dress up in a black miniskirt and fishnet tights (this was when I learned that to make fishnet tights look good you have to wear them over a pair of normal tights) when she cooked me spaghetti Bolognese (their signature dish at the time) once, to provide an alternate Brown's experience.

However, my friend Bill was due to start a ludicrous bike ride from Caen to Cannes (via Mont Ventoux!) on the Saturday morning so couldn't attend.  This was very disappointing, as a gaudy is definitely something which is easier to attend if you go with someone.  My ex-girlfriend J hadn't attended since 1993.  I would just have to go on my own.  As a sort of training I attended the College summer party in London  but not a single person from my year attended.  There were some people from the two years above but I never got to know them, really.  In my first year I was in a very intense relationship with one of my fellow lawyers (the one who liked Scotch Woodcock) and when we weren't in the law library we were...doing other things.  In the second year my attention was focussed on the Oxford Union (my son has been on the committee since October, which is something of an honour) and so I never really got to know that many people in my College very well.  As my friend pointed out once, apart from three men the only other people in College I kept in touch with were ex-girlfriends.  This can, of course, be the source of some delicacy (or even a little excitement in a couple of cases) when meeting again years later.

Then, some weeks later, I was contacted out of the blue by another old College girlfriend K, who was the best friend of my first red-headed girlfriend, C, (maybe I need a diagram for all this).  C always thought I was having an affair with K (which I wasn't - well not at the time) and, indeed the Old Bat didn't like me going to see K for dinner when we lived in Chelsea and K lived in Battersea.  K and I never did have a fling (well, not really - maybe a flinglet.  Or three.) but although she was one of my very best friends, I hadn't seen her for twenty years.  Now the mother of three strapping boys she said she was not going to the gaudy as she was a small, grey, middle aged Jewish housewife and everyone else would be very grand.  However, we met up in London shortly afterwards and it was like there had been no intervening twenty years at all. She didn't seem to have changed appreciably in the interim and was very fit looking indeed.  Anyway, almost immediately after we met up, K said that she had changed her mind ad had applied to go to the gaudy after all.  She couldn't get a room in College so would be staying in a bed and breakfast miles out in Cowley. 

Having had a horrible drive via the M25 which took two and a half hours instead of an hour and fifteen minutes I turned up and picked up my room key.  They try and put you in your old room, if they can and this happened to me once but it is quite spooky and that room from my first year had some bad memories of C and our Hindenburg like disintegrating relationship (like when she poured a kettle of boiling water on my leg during an argument, leaving a scar that I would have for twenty years).  They did, however, put me in the same staircase, in the converted eighteenth century houses at the unfashionable end of College known as the Arab Quarter, for its dark, arched access and generally seedy atmosphere.   I went up to look at the door to my old room on the top floor and was appalled by the presence of carpet instead of red lino on the floors.  The old wooden stairs were still there though, which we used to jump down three at a time to the annoyance of the other inhabitants of the staircase. 

In my day, the bathrooms of my male only staircase were in the unheated basement and my room was on the top floor necessitating long, tedious descents to the freezing facilities but I saw, as I approached my guest room for the night, that there was a modern  bathroom.   There was no bath of course, the lovely one on Heberden staircase, which C and I would inhabit in candle lit luxury during the evenings after a tutorial, having been replaced by a utilitarian shower, sadly.  The real shock was the rather lovely room I had been assigned.  It had a huge double bed and a sofa and a strange keyboard thing.  I've stayed in much worse hotel rooms (especially in the Baltic States and Poland).

"This is lovely!" said K, bouncing on the bed like her eighteen year old previous self, rather than her fifty-six year old present one.  She immediately cancelled her bed and breakfast and decided to bunk in with me; thus solving the worrying problem of how she was going to negotiate the cobbles in Radcliffe Square in her high heels.  Good job my friend Bill was preparing to cycle across France as he would have been appalled by such disreputable behaviour; he is a very moral person and and I am...less so.  We got changed together and K immediately proved her worth as she could still tie a bow tie; something that always stressed me out and used to take me endless attempts.  She always tied my bow tie for College events and exams in the past. I struggle with shoelaces and never undo mine but jam my feet into already tied shoes with a shoehorn so I don't have to retie them.  It often takes me four or five attempts to deal with my normal tie, too.  I am not good at hand to eye co-ordination, hence my inability to make wargames scenery, play ball games or do DIY.  K managed my bow tie  in about eight seconds despite me doing my best to distract her as she stood there in her stockings (the fact that she still wears these being another nice nostalgic moment).  

We went to chapel before the pre-dinner reception, which is something I never did when I was there (except at Christmas) but K was in the choir.  We sat there and tried to identify the people sitting opposite.  'He hasn't changed.' 'He has really aged'.  'Who is she?' etc.  People on either side helpfully identified those we didn't know.  It was a hot day and warm in the chapel and half way through K kicked off her high heels, took her stockings off, rolled them up into a ball and gave them to me to put in my pocket, somewhat to the surprise of the lady sitting next to her (a chemist, I think).  The drinks reception took place in the small quad known as the deer park; an ironic reference to Magdalen College which has a real deer park.  The small patch of grass there used to be inhabited by the college tortoise but I have no idea what happened to him.  Eight out of twelve lawyers from my year attended, surprisingly, and it was nice to see my old friend A who now lives in Hong Kong.  Fortunately and not surprisingly, my ex girlfriend C was not there, as ever, as that would have been really difficult. Neither were my other four ex-girlfriends from College, fortunately.  K would have soon seen them off anyway. 

The old benches had given way to chairs in Hall and none of those sitting against the wall risked the old technique of climbing over the table to get to their seats. The food was very good although the red wine with dinner was not really up to College standards, I have to say.  It did get hotter and hotter inside and was the usual torture for the men while many of the women got away with floaty dresses and remained cool.  Fortunately we all escaped into the quad while they re-laid the table for dessert.

I think it says something about modern times that a (much, much better) red wine was also offered with dessert and the Port was hardly touched.  In fact it didn't even circulate as far as me as two women sitting further down the table didn't pass it on.  They would have been sconced (made to drink a quart of beer in one go while standing on the table and apologising in Latin) in my time.  I suspect not so many people drink port these days. 

Eventually getting to bed much earlier than in previous gaudies, K asked me when the last time was we had shared a bed. The Principe di Savoia hotel in Milan in 1988, I replied.  Before I met the Old Bat of course.  I think, anyway.  Maybe not. At least we woke up the next day without port induced headaches and could have a nice walk in the Botanical Gardens again. The next gaudy isn't until 2024 (a science fiction sounding date) by which time I will be dead. 


Best encounter with very large piece of military hardware.

Sailing around the USS George W Bush in the Solent.  Many years ago we sailed around the USS Dwight D Eisenhower, anchored in the same spot.  With the 'Ike' my father in law sailed behind it and dipped his white ensign, which means that technically any naval ship has to respond.  We were all amazed and impressed by the fact that the US Navy crew dipped their ensign (which was bigger than our yacht) in reply.  

Best Book (non-military)

I bought a lot of books in the second half of 2017 and I got quite a lot from the Folio Society, including their splendid Ian Fleming James Bond edition (four published so far).  Mostly I got art books, though, including ones on Boucher, Renoir, Klimt and one of my favourites, Anders Zorn.  Although I sorted out my large art books I have now run out of space for them, hence my current wargames magazines cull. 

In addition, I bought the remaining three books I was missing from the Don Lawrence Trigan Empire edition.  The only comic strip I ever read, from Look & Learn magazine, a Dutch publisher put this luxurious and limited (500 copies) edition together ten years ago but at about £70 for each of the 12 volumes it has taken me some time to collect them all.  If I had lots of money and didn't have to pay £17,000 a year for my children's university accommodation (grrr!) I would commission a series of figures based on the illustrations for The Trigan Empire.

I have not done so well on reading books with just words, except Victorian erotica, which my friend Angela keeps recommending to me (she is an erotic sort of woman).  I read The Lost World again, which is one of the few books I can read over and over.  I started it again when I took delivery of my Antediluvian Allosaurus.

My favourite book which I bought in 2017, though, has to be The Libertine, which is 500 pages of eighteenth century illustrations coupled with racy literature from the time. It won an award as best hard backed trade book at the New York Book Show and is one of the most beautiful books I own.  You could stick four legs on it and call it a coffee table, though.  I still haven't quite worked out where to put it, however.

Best Film

I went to see two films at the cinema this year: Star Wars: Rogue One and Blade Runner 2.  I didn't enjoy either very much and wouldn't watch them again on DVD.  The world is depressing enough at present without watching more depressing stuff.  I did buy quite a few films on DVD but haven't watched any of them yet.  I did start to watch The Lost City of Z (I bought the book some years ago in Borders in Washington DC), for some South American Lost World inspiration but Brad Pitt was hopelessly miscast and could never act anyway.  He seemed to be putting all of his effort into maintaining his English accent and sleepwalking through the rest. I gave up half way through,as it was so widescreen and was filmed in such a way that all the action seemed to be taking place in a tiny area in the centre of the screen. I couldn't see what was going on, basically.  I need a bigger TV!  I nearly bought one on Black Friday in John Lewis in Edinburgh but the Old Bat is very anti.  We need a new cooker basically, first, she maintains (Charlotte dropped a very heavy saucepan on the ceramic top).  The Old Bat is a depressingly practical person.

Best TV Show 

I very much enjoyed the second series of Versailles, which was better than the first and actually contained a battle scene in one episode (I still haven't found my 1672 figures, though) as well as a rather splendid naked pregnant lady, which you don't get on TV that often (not even on the horrifically fascinating Naked Attraction).    Having discovered that I had Eurosport, I watched the live coverage of the three big cycling tours, which took nine weeks of evening viewing, so there wasn't a lot of time for the many boxed sets (not box sets! Grrr!) I bought.  The Old Bat and I both enjoyed the soapy The Halcyon, set in a big London hotel at the beginning of World War 2 but ITV cancelled it.  I quite enjoyed the production design of Genius, about Einstein, the second season of The Last Kingdom but wasn't so convinced by Jamestown. I did enjoy the second series of bodice ripping Forty Five rebellion DVD boxed set Outlander. 

A deliciously young and fresh Polly Walker in Poirot

My biggest discovery was in buying the complete set of Poirot at Sainsbury's.  I was aware of it, of course and had even watched the Death on the Nile feature length episode but I hadn't seen any of the others.  What a revelation!  It must have cost a fortune.  Fantastic interiors, wonderful cars, motor yachts, foreign locations, car racing at Brooklands (just up the road from here) lovely actresses in thirties clothes, vintage planes (even a seaplane in one episode and a Dragon Rapide), liners (filmed on board the Queen Mary)  and the best TV series title sequence ever made!.  

Best Music

Actual CDs!

Film and TV music

Lots of iTunes purchases this year and even a few actual CDs.  Soundtracks included: Star Wars: The Last Jedi,  Star Wars: Rogue One  (which was really quite a good pastiche of the John Williams style by Michael Giacchino (a last minute replacement for the otherwise engaged and overrated Alexandre Desplat)), Harry Potter: the Prisoner of Azkaban, The Mummy (the Tom Cruise one), The Mummy: The Tomb of the Dragon Emperor,  the extended version of Starship Troopers, The Right Stuff, the extended version of The Rocketeer, Jurassic Park 1, 2 and 3 extended versions and Alexander.  Classic scores included Max Steiner's The Adventures of Don Juan and The Charge of the Light Brigade, Salome, the extended version of The Wind and the Lion (even though I haven't see the film) and the The Man who Would be King (which I still haven't seen either),.TV music included Agent Carter, Inspector Morse and Tutankhamun

Jazz

Big band music from Ted Heath and Ivy Benson, a disc of German dance band music from the 192os an Edith Piaf compilation, several albums by Canadian singer Sophie Milman and Turn up the Quiet by Diana Krall

Pop and Folk

Mike Oldfield's rather disappointing Return to Ommadawn, Vittrad from Swedish folk band Garmana, Two Steps from Hell's Unleashed, Rick Wakeman's Piano Portraits and Seven Wonders of the World, some Steeleye Span, Sky 4, Illumination by The Medieaval Baebes, Wilde Roses by two of the Baebes, and Encore! by Barachois (a French Canadian folk group I saw live in Prince Edward Island once).

World Music

A couple of albums (do they still call them albums) from oud player Simon Shaheen and Qantara. and several more albums of belly dancing music,

Classical

Lots of opera this year. Wagner's The Flying Dutchman, Tristan und Isolde, The Valkyrie and Siegfried , Rameau's Hippolyte Et Aricie and Les Indes Galantes. Also Minkus' Don Quixote, Richard Strauss' Don Quixote and Sinfonia Domestica, Mozart The Symphonies, Stravinsky chamber suites, Forkladd Gud by Larsson, Neilsen's 4th Symphony, some Brahm's, D'Indy's Symphony on a French Mountain Song and quite a lot of piano and organ music by various composers, including a great suite of music from Star Wars played on the organ, which wins the prize of the most played of my 2017 acquisitions..  More contemporary stuff included Australian saxophonist Amy Dickson's Philip Glass CD, John Adams Harmonielehre, Elizabeth Hainen's, Home solo works for harp and Claire Jones' latest harp disc.

 Best Artistic Discovery

Reclining nude on day bed (1900)

I have discovered lots of minor orientalist painters this year as well as many new painters active in the first part of the twentieth century.  Of these,  I really liked Giovanni Boldini (1842-1931), who was known as 'the master of swish' for the active way he used paint to produce sensuous pictures of women.

Best Exhibition

I went to a number of excellent exhibitions this year with my various 'art mistresses'.  The Lord Leighton one was superb, bringing together nearly all the the paintings depicted in a famous photograph of his studio, taken the week after his death, back to his studio for the first time since.  I also enjoyed the Modigliani exhibition which had around twenty of the thirty or so nudes for which he is most famous in the same room.  Overall, though. it had to be the Alma-Tadema exhibition (also held at Leighton House) which was the biggest exhibition of his work for a hundred years and included many of my favourites as well as an excellent film show on how his paintings have influenced the depiction of the ancient world in the cinema,.

 Best meal 

This was, perhaps surprisingly, at the Monarch restaurant in the Hotel Zaza in Houston, despite severe jet lag. When asking for steak in the US you usually have to accept some overcooked lump with the same consistency as a hockey puck.  I like my steak so blue that is is still moving about.  In a restaurant in Las Vegas once I actually had to sign a disclaimer to the effect that if I was ill afterwards I couldn't sue them.  The chef at the Monarch, however, pulled off the best fillet steak I have ever had in the Americas.  It was meltingly soft, red in the middle but still hot (the real trick with blue meat). It being Texas it was also huge too.  Lovely garlic mash and Madeira and mushroom sauce as well Delicious crab cake to start too!

Best wine 

I don't drink a lot of white wine these days, as my doctors (a lovely new Iraqi doctor at the medical practice this year) don't like it but, because of a stage of the Giro d'Italia, I tried Peccorino for the first time and it was particularly nice.

Best Beer

I have had to cut down on beer too but enjoyed the York Brewery triple pack my sister bought me back from a weekend in York.

Best Breakfast

I haven't had any really outstanding breakfasts this year. but the most unexpectedly good one was in the Plaza Premium Lounge at Terminal 2, waiting for my flight to Houston.  The curse of most restaurant breakfasts in the UK are poor quality catering sausages but the ones in the breakfast buffet in the lounge were outstanding.


Best new cheese

I got some of the Isle of Wight Cheese Company's imaginatively named Isle of Wight soft in Comes.  It  is like a a cross between Brie and Camembert except it has the advantage of not putting my money into the French economy. Very nice with cornichons. Alright, for these you have to buy French, I admit.


Best new food discovery

When I was out in El Salvador someone told me that there was somewhere in London that sold spreadable chorizo.  What genius, I thought.  It is like topless swimsuits or magnums of claret.  It turns out it hails from Majorca and is not exactly cheap but for a World Health Organisation taunting snack is perfect.

Most unexpected postal delivery

A big box of stuff from the New York Bakery Company (actually based in Rotherham) when I mentioned on their Facebook page that I couldn't find their wholemeal bagels (due to 'production difficulties').  Bagels, a mug, a pen and Tesco vouchers.  Top customer service, chaps!

Most unexpectedly complicated thing

Having, for the first time, to work out how to operate a lock on the Thames to enable my father in law to get his river launch into the boatyard for winter storage.  My father in law, who was ninety last week, is a very clever man and depressingly able with his hands,  He was a heart surgeon and was number two on Britain's first heart transplant.  He is also an engineer who built a portable kidney machine and restores cars and boats.  He finds my inability to do practical things quite baffling. It took me twenty minutes to work out how to operate the lock, despite the presence of (not very clear, I thought) instructions on the machines.

Second most unexpectedly complicated thing and best improvement to my study

My desk chair had broken earlier in the year which meant that I could only sit in it by leaning forward awkwardly, which meant the blood to my feet got cut off.  Eventually, I went to John Lewis for a new one, where the nice lady said that the chair came in four parts and was easy to assemble.  What a lie!  It took me well over an hour but has transformed my sitting (and therefore blogging and painting) experience!

The even less anticipated wargames review next!

Paint Table Saturday: Rocks and Sikhs

This week I had to go to Epsom hospital and have an injection in my eyeball which, I have to say, I was not looking forward to.  This is because the laser treatment I have had around the edge of my eye can't be done in the centre of the eye. I have noticed a real deterioration in my vision in my left eye since June, to the extent that not only couldn't I paint figures but I was having trouble using the PC if there was bright light out in the garden backlighting the screen. .  I had to shut my left eye to be able to see clearly and couldn't paint figures as I had lost my ability to judge distance.  Well the two nurses at Epsom looked after me very well indeed and after some anaesthetic drops all I felt, as they had explained, was a slight pressure on my eyeball for a second.  I did not need, as I thought I might, a piratical eye patch and the only inconvenience is the ointment I need to apply to the eye every three hours, which makes it a bit blurred and gummy feeling.

Today, for the first time since June, I had a good half day's painting (my vision is certainly improved) and got on with the Sikh artillery, to the extent that I may be able to finish them tomorrow.  They are not brilliant but they will do for me.  I am, at least, now contemplating getting back to finishing the next batch of ACW confederates. 

I have also got two coats of grey onto my aquarium rocks for Savage Core and The Lost World.  I reckon they need another two shades of paler grey before they are done and then I will add some follidge with the hot glue gun.  I really like the cave in the one at front left and need to work out some sort of dicing table for what will spring out of there to take on my explorers or whoever; ape men? velociraptors? saber tooth tiger? under-dressed cavegirl?  Unfortunately, I am going abroad next weekend for the first of two consecutive trips and by the time I get back and then go up to see Charlotte in Edinburgh it will be well on the way to Christmas!

My friend Bill suggested we go and see Blade Runner 2049 this week which we did at Esher cinema, which has recently been turned into an Everyman.  I don't go to the cinema very often (I haven't been to Esher since Titanic!) and as soon as I got in I realised why.  The entrance hall is now a full on restaurant and you get your tickets at what looks like (and is) a bar.  Inside, the seats are large and comfortable but they all had little side tables attached and everyone was eating.  They had (very pretty) waitresses bringing hot food into the cinema auditorium.  This is disgusting.  The noise is bad enough but the smell!  People who eat in cinemas should be killed and their bodies used for organ donation.  I didn't really enjoy the film either as I am getting sick of the unremitting trend for gritty and dark in visual entertainment.  In addition, there were a number of foreign actors in the film and I had trouble understanding what they were saying.  Despite superior special effects, I didn't think the production captured the feeling of a teeming, multi-ethnic city like the original did.  There was too much space.  I won't bother with the DVD and the music was awful.

Today's music is an old favourite, Carmina Burana, which I haven't played for some time.  I first heard this when the German TV version, by opera director Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, appeared one Saturday night on the BBC in October 1976.  What on earth is this, I asked myself at the bizarre mixture of musical and visual styles in the TV version (prepared in co-operation with Carl Orff, who always saw it as much a theatrical as an orchestral piece).  Recently, I saw another German TV version from 1996 by Hohlfeld which was better photographed, slightly racier and less straight to video looking but didn't have such a strong orchestra or singing cast.  On CD I prefer the Previn version, which is very good indeed. 

Kiss of the sun (1907)

Today's wallpaper is by the Polish painter Jan Ciągliński (1858-1913). Although born in Poland, he spent most of his career, other than a brief time in Paris. based in St Petersburg. In his will, however, he bequeathed most of his works to Poland and many of them were on exhibition in Warsaw over the last few months. He visited North Africa and the Middle East and painted a number of orientalist pictures, of the realistic, rather than the harem fantasy, type. He taught at the Imperial Academy in St Petersburg and became a professor there in 1911; teaching many well known Russian painters.  

The James Bond films of Sir Roger Moore (1927-2017)

The death of Sir Roger Moore, yesterday, gives me a reason to do something I have wanted to do with Bond films for some time, in the same way I did for Ray Harryhausen films some time ago.

The first Bond film I went to at the cinema was the Sean Connery You Only Live Twice (1967), at the age of seven.  I was probably far too young for it but was interested to go as I remember seeing the exterior of the volcano set when we drove past Pinewood Studios one day, on the way back from a trip to Whipsnade Zoo. 

The Roger Moore Bond films were the films of my teenage years and I was familiar with him, of course, from The Saint, which I watched occasionally (my parents didn't really approve of ITV) and, above all The Persuaders with it's expensive South of France locations (unlike The Saint, which constantly redressed the Home Counties).  Moore's Bond was, of course much lighter than Connery's and tends to split people of my generation between Connery and Moore.  I enjoyed several of Moore's Bond films and will examine some of the key aspects for me: Bond girls and soundtracks. 

Live and Let Die (1973)

The Film

Although I saw this at the cinema, I think I have only seen it a couple of times since and it is one of my least favourite Bonds.  Bond shouldn't be fighting tedious American criminals, I thought at the time.  A great poster, though, by Robert McGinnis, including tarot cards and speedboats from the rather ludicrous boat chase (which had been done better in Puppet on a Chain (1971)).  Moore still looked young, although he was twice the age of leading lady Jane Seymour.

The Bond Girls

After the abundant charms of Lana Wood and Jill St. John in Diamonds are Forever (1971) I found the main Bond Girls disappointing and totally lacking in the requisite sex-appeal (as we used to say back in 1973).  However, the outstanding Madeleine Smith, appearing briefly at the beginning of the film, saved it on the Bond girl front (!).

The Soundtrack

Composer for all the previous Bonds (with Monty Norman for Dr No, (discuss)) John Barry had given up on Bond following big arguments with the producers on Diamonds are Forever (1971),  Having had an Oscar nominated score (for Mary Queen of Scots (1971), he was focussing on writing musicals, so the producers called in Beatles producer George Martin. Although Paul McCartney's Live and Let Die was a big hit I am afraid I got really annoyed by the diabolical grammar in the line "in which we live in".  I didn't bother to get George Martin's soundtrack score until a few years ago.  It sounds more like a particularly funky Henry Mancini rather than a John Barry effort and was the first in a series of  attempts to modernise the James Bond sound, which all now sound hopelessly out of date. Other than the title track, the only other piece I was familiar with was Bond meets Solitaire, as it was on a Bond compilation set I had, so wins best track by reason of familiarity.

The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)

The Film

The bandwagon jumping Kung-Fu, energy crisis one saw Moore pushing The Persuaders style comedy while at least having a worthy opponent in Christopher Lee as Scaramanga.  The oriental locations looked good too and the angled office for M on board the hulk of the Queen Elizabeth in Hong Kong harbour was brilliant.  Another poster by Robert McGinnis, who certainly packed it with phallic symbols.

The Bond Girls

Swedish actresses Britt Ekland and Maud Adams were, at least, in their thirties, so met the general Hollywood standard of having leading ladies ten to fifteen years younger than the leading man.  Ekland couldn't act but Adams was pretty good and, uniquely for a lead, was brought back into the series in Octopussy.

The Soundtrack

John Barry was back in action for this one, although he seems to be dealing with a smaller orchestra (especially in the brass section) than his style demands, resulting in a lot of cues sounding like nineteen seventies TV music (The Persuaders, in fact).  Already busy on other work he was called in at the last minute by the producers who knew he could deliver a soundtrack really quickly. Lots of Hong Kong Phooey orchestration in this. Twang!  Lulu was a friend of Barry's lyricist Don Black (Their musical Billy had become a big hit in the West End) but struggled to copy the Bassey power in an almost hilariously innuendo filled song. . Best track of a poor selection is Goodnight Goodnight.


The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)

The Film

Despite the plot being a complete rip off of You Only Live Twice this is my favourite Moore Bond film, before they fell into (even more) self parody.   Moore has completely mastered his insouciant version of the role here.  The Egyptian locations look fabulous, there is an appearance by Shane (Scott Tracy) Rimmer and the opening ski jump stunt remains one of the greatest ever put on celluloid.  Unfortunately, Curt Jürgens performs villain Stromberg as if he was wearing someone else's teeth and appears to be on the point of dozing off for much of the film.  This time the poster was by Bob Peak, one of the greatest film poster artists of all time, who got his big break with West Side Story (1961) and also did posters for Apocalypse, Now (1979) the first Five Star Trek Films, Superman (1978), Excalibur (1981), Rollerball (1975) and many more.  

The Bond Girls

The general view of my school friends was that Barbara Bach was rather deficient in two key characteristics,  Bach was twenty years younger than Moore but, at fifty, he was still looking pretty good.  Caroline Munro as a helicopter pilot was a bonus.  This was the first film where the publicity stills really featured the incidental Bond girls.  In this case the harem tent girls (Dawn Rodrigues, Felicity York, Anna Pavel and Jill Goodall).  Appearances by former Miss World Eva Rueber-Staier and Valerie Leon make this very strong as regards Bond Girls.

The Soundtrack

John Barru had fled the UK for tax reasons and so was unable to record the score for this, as it had to be done in Britain. Given I didn't really like George Martin's soundtrack for Live and Let Die I really shouldn't have liked Marvin Hamlisch's disco beat (Hamlisch actually wrote to the Bee Gees agents and apologised for lifting one of their rhythm tracks) version of the James Bond theme (it was nominated for a Grammy) but I did.  This may be because it was the first Bond soundtrack I actually bought. although at well under half an hour, it wasn't very good value. My favourite track is the weird Arab/jazz/orchestral mash up Eastern Lights (actually composed by one of title song lyricist Carole Bayer-Sager's producers) and I have played it while sitting on the balcony of the Inter-Continental in Cairo, watching the sun go down over the Pyramids, while drinking Lebanese wine with my particular friend Sophie.

Moonraker (1979)

Moonraker had the producers jumping on another bandwagon, started by the success of Star Wars (1977) and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) (at one point Moonraker even references the key CE3K theme as a joke), so got Moore's Bond into space.  Sadly, the comedy elements (such as the gondola hovercraft) were getting more and more ludicrous.  Moore, who was starting to look his age, demonstrated some actual acting in this, particularly following the centrifuge sequence. Michael Lonsdale as villain Hugo Drax showed how to be menacing without histrionics but we could have done without the return of Richard Kiel's Jaws. The poster was by top Hollywood storyboard artist Dan Goozee, who featured some of the ancillary Bond Girls for the first time.  The last Bond film with sets by Ken Adam.

Bond Girls

Lois Chiles, in her early thirties, was a bad misfire and never really left the launching pad for the Legatus,  However, there was the compensation of a brief turn from the star of saucy French film The Story of O (1975), Corinne Cléry.  Much was made of the incidental Bond Girls this time, including a cornucopia of French actresses; Chichinou Kaeppler, Françoise Gayat,  Nicaise Jean-Louis, Catherine Serre  and Béatrice Libert.  Délicieuses!

The Soundtrack

Marvin Hamlisch was rather mystified that he was not asked back to do the next Bond soundtrac,k given The Spy Who Loved Me had been an Oscar nominated smash.  However, because the film was being shot in France, for tax reasons, John Barry was able to come back on board and initially planned an eight movement, seventy-five minute orchestral suite.  Although this was, eventually, much truncated the score is a precursor to his later big symphonic scores such as Out of Africa (1985).  Barry was back on form for this and had an 80 piece orchestra at his disposal.  I liked the Shirley Bassey theme song (it was nearly recorded by Frank Sinatra and was even offered to Kate Bush) and there was some excellent orchestration, especially in my favourite track, Bond Lured to Pyramid.

For Your Eyes Only (1981)

After the SF excesses of Moonraker, there was a conscious attempt to go back to basics by dropping gadgets, sports cars (Bond's Lotus was symbolically blown up early in the film, requiring him to drive a 2CV), over the top villains and Ken Adam's sets.  Critic Derek Malcom said that Moore played Bond as if in a "nicely lubricated daze" while Philip French said that Bond was "impersonated by Moore".  Having the big villain played by an AT-AT commander with a wayward accent didn't help either,  A different approach to the poster, featuring Morgan Kane's photograph of Joyce Bartle's legs, didn't go down too well with parts of puritan America, which cut the image of the girl at the knees or even added shorts.  The poster was, in reality, as dull as the film and director John Glem. almost killed the franchise off with this and subsequent Bond films by really not understanding Bond other than stunts, stunts and more stunts.

Bond Girls

Sleepy-eyed ("I have sluggish kidneys," she claimed) Carole Bouquet was thirty years younger than Roger Moore and becoming a proper actress in art films.  She did not appear that enthusiastic about the whole thing,  Eva Reuber-Staier returned in her brief role as General Gogol's aide and the number of decorative Bond girls (around one of the minor villain's pool in the film) had increased. These also included, unknown to the producers, a transsexual called Tula who was born Barry Cossey (far left in this photo).  Unknown to Playboy, too, who featured many of the girls (including Tula) posing naked in their June 1981 issue.  Several, such as  Lalla Dean, were Page Three or glamour models and Alison Worth was a well known mainstream fashion model.  The less said about skater Lynn Holly Johnson (the Jar-Jar Binks of the Bond films) the better. 

Soundtrack

John Barry still couldn't visit the UK and was tied up with the soundtrack of Body Heat (1981) so recommended Bill Conti, who had had a big success with Rocky (1976).  I didn't buy this funky guitar heavy score until last year and only because I am a completist. Apart from the rather good title track by Sheena Easton it is singularly lacking in memorable moments.

Octopussy (1983)

The Film

Moore is actually quite good in this, although there were more and more stupid gags (mainly involving Vijay Amritraj) which clashed with what could have been a more serious effort,  Moore had wanted to retire from Bond after For Your Eyes Only but the prospect of the Sean Connery competing Never Say Never Again got the producers to bring Moore back again.  Louis Jourdan was silky smooth as Kamal Khan but Steven Berkoff gives the worst performance of any Bond villain.  The Indian locations were splendid and Dan Goozee returned to do the poster.  Maud Adams with eight arms? What a thought!

Bond Girls

Thirty-eight year old Maud Adams returned to Bond although the producers originally wanted authentically Indian Persis (Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)) Khambatta. Adams was paired with another Swedish actress, Kristina Wayborn, whose big fight scene was a precursor of all subsequent martial arts heroines in Western action films.  Lots of action, too, from the circus and acrobatic girls supervised by former British Olympic gymnast Suzanne Dando,  Bucket loads of Bond Girls in this one including Alison Worth (again), Page 3 and Penthouse model Joni Flynn. Miss World 1977 Mary Stavin and Page 3 model and Penthouse Pet of the Month for March 1982 Janine Andrews.  Certainly the finest ensemble group to date.

The Soundtrack

John Barry (who had turned down scoring Never Say Never Again out of loyalty to the producers) had settled his outstanding tax bill with the Inland Revenue so was free to return to Britain to do the soundtrack.  The title song, sung by Rita Coolidge (originally offered to Legatus favourite Laura Branigan), was not bad and did well in the charts, accompanied, in a novel way at the time, by a pop video.  The soundtrack, which had much of the style of Diamonds are Forever about it, referenced the James Bond theme much more than previous ones, no doubt to emphasise that this was the 'real' Bond.  Favourite track is the slinky Bond meets Octopussy.

A View to a Kill (1985)

Moore was fifty seven  in this, his final Bond film and it showed. Even Moore admitted it was his least favourite Bond film.  The Legatus quite likes it, though. and, despite his age, Moore looks in better shape than in Octopussy.   It is saved bya  great sidekick performance by Patrick Macnee and some wonderful location cinematography.  The poster was the final one by Dan Goozee.

Bond Girls

Tanya Roberts looks nice in a big haired 1980s way but can't act her way out of a paper bag (she received a worst actress nomination at the Golden Raspberry awards for this).  Moore bemoaned the fact that Roberts'  mother was younger than he was. Both Alison Doody and Fiona Fullerton  (a friend of my father-in-law!) have never looked better and Grace Jones looks like a monster, as usual. The background girls featured at a party given by villain Max Zorin (an enjoyably over the top Christopher Walken), included Page 3 favourites Sian Adey-Jones and Nike Clark.

The Soundtrack

Duran Duran (who had approached Cubby Broccoli about doing the song at a party) produced the first (and very successful; it was the first Bond theme to get to number one in the US) really modern pop song for the franchise, working closely with John Barry.  Barry used Nic Raine to orchestrate the score which was somewhat dialled in. Best track is Airship to Silicon valley.  It would be Barry's second to last Bond soundtrack.

Although there are many James Bond type wargames rules and figures (Copplestone Castings do a not Roger Moore) available I have never been tempted to buy any, oddly.