Are We Sitting Comfortably? Then I'll begin...

 Wow, but was that a busy week... Oddly, today has been busy on the domestic front with the Memsahib having her 4th Covid shot at 8AM, breakfast, banking, the weekly shop, readying the garden for the builder and landscaper  and then,  having to power wash the entire paved area due to a misguided Scottish Terrier leaving a few hundred compost paw prints all over it. All in -1 celsius temperatures.

Tomorrow, I intend to sit at a computer and just look at figure manufacturers all day and decide what I want to get painted this year with the allocated budget.

I also need to get in contact with Roger whom I have really only bandied 'one liners' with this week as the days have been long and I'd hate him to think I was in some way upset with him.

On the matter of figures, I have several idea, but I really need to hone them down do that I get every penny's worth of play value from them. None of those 'play it once and shelve it' periods, although I do fancy a skirmish set up for early 17th century Pilgrims versus American Indians, which is a really neat way of using Pete Berry's excellent 'Once Upon A Time In The West Country' rules (which are much nicer in the original buff covers, pre-Caliver). They are a great set of rules, which are playable, detailed without being long winded, and most importantly 'fun'.

In the 80s they got some serious hammer using Wargames Foundry and Corvus ECW figures and the GW 'Blood On The Streets' cardboard buildings at my parent'shouse, or on Tuesday nights at the Sheffield University Wargames Society where Pete himself would host games, including one set in South America involving the German mercenary Sancho Panzer!

I'm pretty certain that Perry Miniatures will be involved in my plans, somewhere too and Warlord would have been, except they on't because true to the GW roots of those at the top, they are gouging people with plastic prices that are only moderately less than metal figures. Well, fuck 'em!

Sorry, but taking the piss, pisses me off, and I do get a little heated.

As I worked this week I listened to the spin of series' from the film 'This Is England' which I own but as I can't find it, haven't seen yet. The years 86, 88 and 90 feature heavily and as a lot of it was filmed in and around Sheffield, I had some moments of nostalgia. That said it's funy and painfully dark in equal measure and it actually had me reflecting on my life between 86 and 89 and wondering if I could have done some things differently. But 20/20 hindsight is all well and good, and all that...

However,  growing up in the 70s and 80s, the BBC had some great kids programmes.

I loved Jackanory, a daily 15-20 minute show where a different celebrity narrated a children's story, often rivetingly well, with the stories cutting to illustrations at key points, and hooking kids in to the idea that reading was a good thing. I was an avid reader anyway, but I loved the show and the eclectic seletion of stories on offer.

Today, acting on a hunch that 'there was something out there awaiting my attention' (no it's not scientific, but my hunches tend to pay off), I just acquired a piece of original artwork from the second instalment of The Ghost Of Thomas Kemp written by Penelope Lively and read by Ronald Pickup in December 1977.

The rear of the watercolour & ink piece has all of the BBC shooting notes on it, adding to the whole vibe emanating from it.


The numbers under the artist's signature, refer to the instalment followed by where the illustration was inserted in the shooting schedule.

This is destined for the safe wherein I have two original Graham Oakley paintings from his stupendously brilliant 'Church Mice' books.

Well, if you'll excuse me, it's been a long day and an evening of venison pate, crusty baguette, salad and a pretty decent beaujolais are in the offing.


TTFN


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