Choose Wisely

 What do you get if you cross a joke with a rhetorical question?

I ask that question in honour of it apparently being World Philosophy Day, although of course every day is philosophy day at the Casa Epictetus.

A philosophy faculty are having a team meeting when suddenly a genie appears in front of them and, addressing the professor says " I come to offer you a choice: great wisdom, incomparable beauty or £100 million. What is your wish?"

"Wisdom." replies the professor, without a moment's hesitation. There is a bright flash and the genie disappears in a cloud of smoke.

When the air clears the rest of the faculty can see the professor staring thoughtfully into the distance. After an extended period one of his colleagues breaks the silence. "Professor, you have been granted great wisdom. What lesson do you have for us?"

"On reflection," replies the professor "I should have taken the money."

Who Are You?

 I've been writing this blog for almost thirteen years without bothering overmuch about whether anyone read it. I write it for myself, and only do so when I feel like it. Over the years I may have had a couple of specific readers in mind from time to time when I wrote particular posts, but one of them's husband found out and the other one died. Obviously, being my own target audience means that I am not particularly concerned with telling the truth and any stray passers-by who read posts would do well not to take what I write too literally. 

Why am I telling you this? Because suddenly I have readers, "Fousands of 'em". It would seem that 10% of all the views that the blog has ever had occurred in June 2025. Now, clearly these aren't proper sentient people. They aren't even wargamers. I'm assuming they're AI bots expanding their 'learning' to cover my ramblings. Don't you find it worrying that our new overlords will treat all this made-up tosh with a much seriousness as they do a serious thing on a serious subject written in a serious way by the Scottish philosopher Jock 'Serious' McSerious? I know I do.

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

Thought for (Match of) the Day

 "The unrestricted person, who has in hand what they will in all events, is free. But anyone who can be restricted, coerced or pushed into something against what they will is a slave." 

- Epictetus

Fate

If dawn finds someone proud,

Evening sees them brought low.
Don't believe in success,
Don't accept failure.
Clotho spins and our fortunes change.
The gods do not offer
Any guarantees.
The thread twists swiftly,
And our lives turn with it.

                   - Seneca

Bosworth 1485

"He said, ‘Give me my battle-axe in my hand,

Set the crown of England on my head so high!

For by Him that shope both sea and land,

King of England this day will I die!"

- from The Ballad of Bosworth Field

I own some half a dozen books about Bosworth, so obviously I was in need of another. As luck would have it Osprey have just published one. It is Bosworth 1485, number 360 in their Campaign series and is written by Christopher Gravett and illustrated by Graham Turner, and not to be confused with Campaign series number 66, entitled Bosworth 1485, written by Christopher Gravett and illustrated by Graham Turner. Of course, a lot has been uncovered since their first attempt was issued, not least the location both of the battlefield and of the loser.

Astonishingly, I don't own the original version so I can't be specific about the changes in either test or pictures, except to point out that the subtitle has changed from 'Last Charge of the Plantagenets' to 'The Downfall of Richard III'. I have been teasing away at that switch, all the time clutching my copy of 'L'écriture et la différence', and must conclude that I have no idea what we are meant to understand by it.

Jacques Derrida deconstructs the bowling

The book - the one on Bosworth not the one on structuralism - starts rather poorly. In the first paragraph following the introduction the author makes the bizarre claim that John of Gaunt was Edward III's eldest son. It might, I suppose, be interesting to speculate what difference it might have made to 14th and 15th century English history if he had have been. As Derrida used to say while opening the batting for the École normale supérieure: "Posed in these terms, the question would already be caught in the assurance of a certain fore-knowledge: can “what has always been conceived and signified under that name” be considered fundamentally homogeneous, univocal, or nonconflictual?"

Anyway, back to the book. It's fine. It adequately summarises all the newly available information alongside what was always known. The maps in particular are plentiful and clear. I don't think anyone reads such a work expecting to be enlightened as to the definitive version of what happened. It was all a long time ago and, in any event, the interesting question about the events of 1483 to 1485 will always be why, rather than what or where, and that is ultimately unknowable. So, a useful addition to the bookshelf, but it still leaves room for others.

The Strong Poetry of Wargaming

Back before I allowed myself to get side-tracked into ranting at the incompetents and hypocrites who run the country, one of the last posts on here which actually mentioned wargaming addressed our habit of constantly changing the rules, often in mid-game, a subject which often prompts questions from readers. I have been wondering whether what we do could perhaps be explained in philosophical terms. Allow me if you will to make the sweeping, and not particularly accurate, generalisation that one can divide western philosophers since the middle ages into three types: religious believers for whom the Truth is handed down on tablets of stone; enlightenment thinkers for whom there is an external Truth which can be found by reason and science; and those influenced by romanticism who take the view that Truth is subjective and found within us. I do this because it seems to me that it might be valid to divide wargamers into three portions in the same way, except that instead of the search for Truth, we are talking about the search for the ideal set of rules.

Faith based wargaming is simply to accept what someone else has decided is the case. I went through that phase myself as a teenager; we probably all did. What was written in the book that I borrowed from the library must surely be right. This is an approach is very much still alive, in both historical and fantasy settings, and in the most ultra-orthodox of forms, even to the extent that in some environments one can only play if one has toys from the official supplier. I have no first hand experience, but presumably competition wargaming wouldn't work without starting from this premise. And I would argue that it's also what is being practised by those who succumb to marketing hype and adopt new sets of rules as soon as they are published, albeit probably to eventually drop them and move on to the next big thing.

Readers will no doubt have read rulebooks written by those who take the view that there is a definitive way to play wargames, which can be uncovered by the application of scientific investigation and rational analysis. If one is only precise enough about how quickly troops marched, fired, reloaded etc in real life; about the efficacy of weapons on the battlefield; about the mechanics of command and control; if one can only reconcile ground scale, figure size and unit strength; then one will end up with what is, surely, out there somewhere waiting to be discovered, namely the 'perfect' set of rules. In the introduction to his book 'The Napoleonic Wargame', G.W. Jeffrey explains the approach: "wargames rules should be nothing more than tables of facts, which are referred to in order to determine the result of situations on the battlefield".

Paddy Griffiths on the other hand writes in 'Napoleonic Wargaming for Fun' that "No one can be very dogmatic about wargames rules, because they are always a very personal thing"; which I think places him among the romantics. I would define these as those who are searching for a game that encapsulates the ousia, the essence, of the historical period involved rather than attempting to develop a simulation of it. What this group really want is something that represents the overall feel, rather than pedantically seeks (and fails) to recreate the mechanics of, the triple acies of the Punic Wars, the clouds of skirmishers of the Napoleonic period, or whatever other historical nuance it is that interests them.

So, what does this have to do with continuously changing the rules? Well, firstly, James' example of the evolution of Kriegspiel into Free Kriegspiel took place in Germany, which was the home of Romaticism, and therefore an unsurprising place to see a switch from objective to subjective 'truth' in wargaming. And, it seems to me anyway, that this last section - the romantics - is where I/we fit. Nietzsche defined Truth as "a mobile army of metaphors" which I think nicely sums up how we go about it. We try one way of looking at something, and if it doesn't work, or perhaps if we just have a feeling that there may be a better alternative, we try another way of looking at it. If you view it as a continuing project rather than an attempt to achieve a definitive result - somewhat akin to Freud's concept that we each spend a lifetime wrestling with our unique and idiosyncratic problems which will inevitably still remain unresolved when we die - then it all makes sense.

Game changing

“These games sprang from their deep need to close their eyes and flee from unsolved problems and anxious forebodings of doom into an imaginary world as innocuous as possible.” 

                                                                - Hermann Hesse, Das Glasperlenspiel


This front pages of this morning's newspapers are filled with news of a Covid-19 test which is apparently going to be a game changer. Now a more cynical man than me might think that this sudden announcement by the government was intended to make sure that the media did not instead lead with the embarrassing policy reversal on their immigration bill that they had been forced into by Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer; any cynicism perhaps being strengthened by the fact that they said the same thing two months ago and nothing happened. Starmer, by the way, is proving quite an effective exponent of Bismark's assertion that politics is the art of the possible. Ironically, Bismark - just as conservative as, although substantially more competent than, the current UK government - was himself forced into introducing a number of social welfare programmes in Germany under pressure from socialists.

Game changing is something we are all too familiar with in the wargaming fraternity of the lower Wharfe valley. As I have often observed in these pages, it is rare that a game in the legendary wargames room of James 'Olicanalad' Roach ends using the same rules that it starts with. Like me you have probably been thinking of the rather pertinent point that Wittgenstein made in his book "Philosophical Investigations":

"Let us recall the kinds of case where we say that a game is played according to a definite rule.
The rule may be an aid in teaching the game. The learner is told it and given practice in applying it. Or it is an instrument of the game itself. Or a rule is employed neither in the teaching nor in the game itself; nor is it set down in a list of rules. One learns the game by watching how others play. But we say that it is played according to such-and-such rules because an observer can read these rules off from the practice of the game, like a natural law governing the play. But how does the observer distinguish in this case between players’ mistakes and correct play?"

How indeed?

Earlier in the lockdown I had an email from James about a quote he had found whilst reading on the history of wargaming, a quote which coincidentally once again relates to late nineteenth century Germany. It was about rigid Kriegsspiel, that is, Kriegsspiel moderated by strict written rules and dice rolls. Apparently, the game was largely dismissed by most officers prior to 1870 but afterwards gained a following in German military circles. However:

"….it was not due to the rules but rather in spite of them. It is doubtful if there was a single war game in the Prussian Army that was played according to the rules."

He concluded his email by saying that not much changes. It certainly doesn't.

Then shriek'd the timid, and stood still the brave

"It’s something like going on an ocean voyage. What can I do? Pick the captain, the boat, the date, and the best time to sail. But then a storm hits… What are my options? I do the only thing I am in a position to do, drown - but fearlessly, without bawling or crying out to God, because I know that what is born must also die."

- Epictetus

Trainers

The last entry here has prompted a couple of questions. The first is why the blog post entitled 'Do trousers matter? - slight return' appears to have nothing whatsoever to do with the post entitled 'Do trousers matter?'. I can only say that as most posts on this blog bear only a loose connection to the real world then I think that particular correspondent is splitting hairs. A far more appropriate question is the one as to whether a sportsman who changes his or her shoes during a sporting event is partaking in one or two sports. Now that is a problem worthy of a great philosopher such as myself, and the philosophical tool which I have chosen to use to determine the answer is empiricism.

Leeds has a strong connection with Triathlon. I would be able to see the home village of the Brownlee brothers from the window of my study as I type this, were it not for the very large hill in the way. Indeed earlier this year, prior to meeting the current man of her dreams, the younger Miss Epictetus, proving herself a real chip off the old block, came up with a convoluted plan to arrange herself a blind date with one of them. Unfortunately for her she turned out to be rather too much like her dad and the scheme was an abject failure; never mind, they're Tories anyway.

So, back to the point. Triathletes change their shoes during races; it's clearly just one sport; ipso facto changing one's footwear does not imply changing one's sport.

Ecclesiastes Chapter 1 Verse 2

"The vanity of intelligence is that the intelligent man is often more committed to 'one-upping' his opponent than being truthful. When the idea of intelligence, rather than intelligence itself, become the staple, there is no wisdom in it." - Criss Jami

So, not only has the blog gone missing for a while, but even before that the pseudo-intellectual quotient had sadly fallen away. Well today that changes. But I need to warn you that there were some attendees at the two events I am about to describe who were only there with the intention of showing off during the Q&A session; I was shocked , shocked!, to find pretentiousness involved when people met together to discuss Jean-Paul Sartre and Arnold Schoenberg.

The problem with a talk entitled 'The Existentialism of Sartre' is that even if you find yourself disagreeing with it you also partly suspect that you haven't properly understood it. And yet, the more I listened to the speaker talk about 'Being and Nothingness' the more I came to the conclusion that Sartre didn't know a great deal of mathematics. I find it rather difficult to accept that the lack of something (i.e. nothing) is meaningless unless a human consciousness is pondering its absence. Anyone disagree? What I should have done is what most of those making a point did, which is to start by stating that they hadn't read any Sartre since they were students. Call me a cynic ["You're a cynic!"], but you need to be neither a mathematician or a philosopher to realise that doesn't guarantee that they read any while at university either. I haven't read any Sartre since graduating (*) and I certainly didn't read any while I was there, unless possibly he was reviewing albums for the New Musical Express under a pseudonym. The collective brainpower of a room full of people who forty years ago had existentialism sussed, but had all managed to forget it along the way somewhere eventually came up with the question of what J-P would have made of someone's right to change gender (**). The speaker felt that he would have seen it as a case of essence before existence and therefore been against it. Someone in the audience riposted with Simone de Beauvoir's quote "One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman." and we were left none the wiser.

"It's bad faith to wear my clothes without asking, Jean-Paul."

I learned somewhat more at the Schoenberg, a guided performance of 'Pierrot Lunaire' which was both well planned and executed. The first half was an introduction to the composer, the intellectual milieu of Vienna in 1912, and the original poem by Giraud. There were interviews with the conductor, director and various musicians, although not oddly the singer, who was 'preparing'; who says sopranos are divas? The background to atonality was discussed and there was an interesting, though frankly irrelevant digression into serialism. Questions from the audience were almost subsumed by someone who appeared to be intent on listing every Harrison Birtwistle work he had ever seen (no me neither), but when they came ranged from "Why did sprechstimme disappear after this work was written?" to "What can the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian empire tell us about the UK leaving the European Union (***)?". The answers were along the lines of: it didn't actually, and quite a lot now you mention it.

Theresa May visits Brussels

The second half contained the performance, which was obviously very good in its own terms, but about which I shall only say that I am glad I went along and experienced it - my mind is duly broadened. The staging was simple and effective with the moon of the title being represented by a lantern in a way that wouldn't have been out of place in "A Midsummer Night's Dream". As to what it was about; I'm afraid that I have no idea. There seemed to be a suggestion that despite the part being specifically written for a woman, that the main character is entirely and definitively male; thereby demonstrating that there is nothing  new under the sun. I'm going to say repressed sexuality was involved - the key figure in Vienna at the time was of course Freud - and death - because she did seem to mention it a lot plus it contains episodes called 'Gallows Song' and 'Beheading' - but beyond that you are on your own. One analysis I read said that Pierrot - who may or may not be Pierrot, or a man, or indeed real - ends with no hope of redemption; which gives you some idea of how cheery it was. Schoenberg himself said that it was a mistake to try to work out what it was about, instead one should go home whistling the tunes; I shall interpret that as the famed Germanic sense of humour at work.

"You know how to whistle, don't you Arnie? You just put your lips together and blow."

*      Actually I have in fact read "The Age of Reason", but to say so rather spoils my line of argument.
**    One of two subjects in the UK at the moment that seem to be obligatory on every agenda of every meeting regardless of what is supposed to be being discussed.
***  And there's the other.

Unreliable narrator

This blog’s readership has steadily shrunk, until it now represents the very crème de la crème. I have therefore no worries about readers being able to differentiate between the vast spoil heap of fantasy spewed out purely for my own amusement and the odd gold nugget of truth that somehow manages to slip through undetected.

Sadly, the concussion is all too real and is rather unsettling. Your bloggist may be a superb physical specimen, but it is his mind which sets him apart; and it’s beginning to play tricks. For more than a week I have been relaying details of the cranial allision incident to anyone who would listen, and indeed to the backs of the heads of one or two who wouldn’t. This morning, in a flash of returning memory, I now realise that the story I have been telling to them – and to myself of course – isn’t actually what occurred. It happened at a different time – by several hours – and not at all in the same way. A whole conversation that I thought I had had with the younger Miss Epictetus on the subject shortly afterwards simply never happened.

Apart from the unreliability of my brain, and leaving entirely to one side the philosophical issue of whether my consciousness exists separately from what that organ is telling me, the other symptoms would appear to be slowly easing. My balance is still bad, although I don’t have problems when moving forwards, only when standing still. Were I currently in possession of sufficient cognitive bandwidth I could possibly turn that into a valuable life lesson.

...I've had a few

“I see it all perfectly; there are two possible situations — one can either do this or that. My honest opinion and my friendly advice is this: do it or do not do it — you will regret both.” 

- Søren Kierkegaard

"Maybe all we can do is hope to end up with the right regrets" 

- Arthur Miller

The Paradise Papers - an analysis

"In a rich man's house there is nowhere to spit but his face" - Diogenes

Taking things as they come

"The lot assigned to every man is suited to him, and suits him to itself." - Marcus Aurelius

And so to the theatre. I have been to see 'Eden End', a relatively rarely performed play by one of this blog's heroes J.B. Priestley. I rather unexpectedly found myself sitting next to Tom Priestley, the great man's son. Whilst we didn't exchange more than pleasantries it certainly caused me to think that I'd got top value for my ticket money, and I commend the idea to theatres everywhere. I'm seeing some Ibsen soon and I trust that the West Yorkshire Playhouse are already scouring Norway for a descendant of the playwright so as to add that little bit extra to my visit. In the event family influence on my enjoyment of 'Eden End' didn't stop there, because after the show, over coffee and cake, Nicolas Hawkes, Priestley's stepson asked me what I had made of the play, politely listened to my interpretation and then equally courteously told me that I had got it completely wrong. That didn't bother me in itself - no one is more aware than me of the shallowness of the intellectual foundations on which this blog is built - but there is one element that does cause some lingering embarrassment. His take on it, the official view if you will, is that the moral of the play is that one must take things as they come. Given that your bloggist's major affectation is to hide behind the name of an eminent Stoic philosopher you might be forgiven for supposing that I ought to have worked that out for myself.

Going back to Ibsen, Stella Kirby was played here by the same actress who played Nora Helmer in the production of 'A Doll's House' that I saw a few months ago. This production takes Priestley's play and gives it an additional prologue and epilogue in the form of music hall routines featuring her, the purpose of which is to allude to her character's backstory, to reference other works by the author such as 'The Good Companions' and to presage the Great War which shortly followed the play's 1912 setting (*). In the finale she sings and dances while wearing male military uniform, a costume choice which I know some blog readers find titillating, but which others have recently indicated that they see as an abomination of such horror that violence is the only appropriate response. You pays your money and you takes your choice.


(*) In case you think I'm being foolhardy in venturing my own opinions despite having earlier been shot down by someone who knew what they were talking about, be reassured that I got all that from the director, to whom I also spoke at the post show reception.

My Philosophy of Life

Just when I thought there wasn't room enough
for another thought in my head, I had this great idea--
call it a philosophy of life, if you will. Briefly,
it involved living the way philosophers live,
according to a set of principles. OK, but which ones?

That was the hardest part, I admit, but I had a
kind of dark foreknowledge of what it would be like.
Everything, from eating watermelon or going to the bathroom
or just standing on a subway platform, lost in thought
for a few minutes, or worrying about rain forests,
would be affected, or more precisely, inflected
by my new attitude. I wouldn't be preachy,
or worry about children and old people, except
in the general way prescribed by our clockwork universe.
Instead I'd sort of let things be what they are
while injecting them with the serum of the new moral climate
I thought I'd stumbled into, as a stranger
accidentally presses against a panel and a bookcase slides back,
revealing a winding staircase with greenish light
somewhere down below, and he automatically steps inside
and the bookcase slides shut, as is customary on such occasions.
At once a fragrance overwhelms him--not saffron, not lavender,
but something in between. He thinks of cushions, like the one
his uncle's Boston bull terrier used to lie on watching him
quizzically, pointed ear-tips folded over. And then the great rush
is on. Not a single idea emerges from it.It's enough
to disgust you with thought. But then you remember something
William James
wrote in some book of his you never read--it was fine, it had the
fineness,
the powder of life dusted over it, by chance, of course, yet
still looking
for evidence of fingerprints. Someone had handled it
even before he formulated it, though the thought was his and
his alone.

It's fine, in summer, to visit the seashore.
There are lots of little trips to be made.
A grove of fledgling aspens welcomes the traveler. Nearby
are the public toilets where weary pilgrims have carved
their names and addresses, and perhaps messages as well,
messages to the world, as they sat
and thought about what they'd do after using the toilet
and washing their hands at the sink, prior to stepping out
into the open again. Had they been coaxed in by principles,
and were their words philosophy, of however crude a sort?
I confess I can move no farther along this train of thought--
something's blocking it. Something I'm
not big enough to see over. Or maybe I'm frankly scared.
What was the matter with how I acted before?
But maybe I can come up with a compromise - I'll let
things be what they are, sort of.In the autumn I'll put up jellies
and preserves, against the winter cold and futility,
and that will be a human thing, and intelligent as well.
I won't be embarrassed by my friends' dumb remarks,
or even my own, though admittedly that's the hardest part,
as when you are in a crowded theater and something you say
riles the spectator in front of you, who doesn't even like the idea
of two people near him talking together. Well he's
got to be flushed out so the hunters can have a crack at him--
this thing works both ways, you know. You can't always
be worrying about others and keeping track of yourself
at the same time. That would be abusive, and about as much fun
as attending the wedding of two people you don't know.
Still, there's a lot of fun to be had in the gaps between ideas.
That's what they're made for! Now I want you to go out there
and enjoy yourself, and yes, enjoy your philosophy of life, too.
They don't come along every day. Look out! There's a big one...

                   - John Ashbery

Nominative determinism

I alluded yesterday to the name which appears on my birth certificate, leading to the inevitable, though so far imaginary, question from readers as to why I chose Epictetus as my nom de réseau. Well, I like to think that the second part comes from the Scottish word, tetus, which means a delicate person; or perhaps, though less likely, it's from the French word for stubborn; or there's always the same word in Spanish meaning tide, although I go backwards and forwards on that one. What can't be in any doubt is that the first part reflects the fact that your bloggist is indeed epic.

So, if ever there was a set of rules made to measure for yours truly it must be that part of the newly released GMT expansion, EPIC Napoleonic Command & Colours (their capitalisation, but not their spelling) which caters for games on a wider board. Expansion 6 also contains rules for La Grande Battles - an interesting mix of languages there - but that's the game which requires eight players and... well, fill in your own Billy No-mates jokes at this point. As you may recall from this post we had our own try a few months ago at making C&C Napoleonics work on a larger playing surface. I would hope to give these new, and official, rules a try in due course. If I have one reservation from reading them it is that some of the new mechanics don't seem to have any thematic basis and appear to be there simply to address the problem of more units on the table requiring more actions per turn. We shall see.

That went well

“Misfortune nobly born is good fortune.” - Marcus Aurelius

I recently forecast that the Austrians luck was about to change in the Bohemian Blitzkrieg campaign. I also made the assertion that I was indifferent to both victory and defeat. The first has come true and the second is about to be tested, for it's fair to say that the opening evening of the Battle of Sobotka didn't go entirely to plan. It started very well - I had a cracking draw and my units didn't roll up too badly - but I didn't get much initiative and in particular couldn't rally anything. None of this was helped by some less than optimal starting positions, mainly caused by me trying to leave too many options open. Still, what goes around comes around.

 "Remember that all we have is 'on loan' from Fortune, which can reclaim it without our permission - indeed, without even advance notice." - Seneca

Proverbs Chapter 28 Verse 13 (again)

I have been to Temple Newsam, and admired various rare breeds of livestock, birds of prey etc. The estate, owned by Leeds City Council, has various historical connotations of possible interest to wargamers: the Temple bit comes from the Knights Templar for example and it was the birthplace of Lord Darnley, second husband of Mary, Queen of Scots. The picture gallery contains some interesting seventeenth century battle scenes, with lots of cavalry firing pistols at each from close range. However it was another painting that caught my eye the most.

'Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery' - Gaetano Gandolfi

Now I'm no theologian, indeed now I come to think about it I'm not even a Christian. But that story (John Chapter 8) has always seemed to me to get to the heart of what the man was on about. I understand the subtexts of Jewish versus Roman law (remember this event took place only days before his own arrest and appearance before Pilate); of the Pharisees' real aim of finding evidence of his guilt rather than that of the woman ostensibly accused; and even of the gender inequality of the adultery rules of the time (married men were allowed to consort with single women - the married woman restriction was more of a property issue than a moral one). But, rising above all that, is surely the simple message: acknowledge one's own wrongdoings rather than judge other people's.

As the philosopher whose name I have assumed, wrote not long after the events above "When you are offended at any man's fault, turn to yourself and study your own failings. Then you will forget your anger."

"Our life is what our thoughts make it"

So said Marcus Aurelius. This week I have been, as Blake put it, "he who kisses the joy as it flies", and it caused me a whole lot of angst and more than one sleepless night. Whether "eternity's sunrise" will be my reward or not is, I think, neither here nor there.

                                 Moments of happiness do not come often,

                                 Opportunity’s easy to miss.

                                 O let us seize them, of all their joys squeeze them, 

                                 For tomorrow will come when none may kiss.

                                                   - W.H. Auden

I took refuge in walking and can add another to our irregular series of bridges of the Yorkshire dales. This time it's the seventeenth century Barden Bridge.

The sunlight on the garden
Hardens and grows cold,
We cannot cage the minute
Within its nets of gold

- Louis MacNeice