I recently sent Ian Dury a number of Peter Laing figures, and in return he sent me several artillery pieces and limbers, mostly from Irregular Miniatures' REALLY USEFUL GUNS range.
These will help fill several gaps in my slow-burn FUNNY LITTLE WARS/PORTABLE WARGAME project, especially as I have recently found several painted figures that will form the basis of an additional army to add to this collection.
For those of you who haven't realised, the title for this blog post is the title of Private Baldrick's famous poem entitled THE GERMAN GUNS:
Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom
Boom, Boom, Boom
Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom
Boom, Boom, Boom
There is some dispute as to whether this is the best poem in his collection of two, the second being entitled UNTITLED SECOND POEM.
Hear the words I sing,
War's a horrid thing,
So I sing sing sing...ding-a-ling-a-ling.
Hello there Bob,
ReplyDeleteThat is a very useful selection of weaponry for sure! I am rather taken with the Gatling gun - less so with Baldrick’s poetry....
All the best,
DC
David Crook,
DeleteIt is going to provide some very useful artillery and machine guns for my small FLW/PW armies.
As for Baldrick’s poetry ... I’ve read worse!
All the best,
Bob
BOB,
ReplyDeleteVery good of your friend IAN to send to you these very useful Cannons and Guns - are they 15mm or 20mm? (It is hard to gauge their scale). Regards. KEV.
Kev Robertson (Kev),
DeleteIt was a great swap, and I think that we both benefitted from it.
The models are scaled to fit with large 15mm/small 20mm figures.
All the best,
Bob
Oh great, now I'm thinking about Rat au Van with Custard for pudding!
ReplyDeleteRoss Mac,
DeleteAh, rat au van! A superb choice! As for the custard, do you want ground nutmeg on it?
All the best,
Bob
And here’s me thinking it was going to be about John Lee Hooker, and not one of the great WWI Poets.
ReplyDeleteThose guns look good models.
Nundanket,
DeleteFunnily enough, John Lee Hooker’s BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM was an answer on a quiz programme this afternoon!
All the best,
Bob
I thought of John Lee Hooker too! Actually saw him play, on same bill with Bobby Bland and B B King, now that was a show! Sorry, this is completely off topic.. 😄
DeleteDavid in Suffolk,
DeleteGood music is never too far off topic in my book!
All the best,
Bob
I saw it too Bob. It's funny how things work like that. I often find that when there's two quiz shows on the same day, a very similar question comes up on both. E.G. Monday's Pointless might have a question that has a related question on University Challenge.
DeleteNundanket,
DeleteThat is very true. I seem to remember a sequence on ONLY CONNECT that contained the answer to a question on the same evening's UNIVERSITY CHALLENGE!
Perhaps they are all sharing the same books of questions ... or question devisers!
All the best,
Bob
Hello Bob,
ReplyDeleteNice one. I admit I thought of John Lee Hooker before Baldrick. I guess I'm a blues guy before a Black Adder guy.
Cheers, Wolfgang
Unknown (Wolfgang),
DeleteNothing wrong with preferring the Blues to Blackadder!
All the best,
Bob
I read a. Chinese poem once, it was the flavor text for a sci-fi hunting rifle in a video game I played. It referenced the Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den" (Chinese: 施氏食獅史; pinyin: Shī-shì shí shī shǐ) is a short narrative poem written in Classical Chinese that is composed of about 94 characters (depending on the specific version) in which every word is pronounced shi ([ʂɻ̩]) when read in present-day Standard Mandarin, with only the tones differing
ReplyDeleteAnd apparently means something when each word is said with the proper intonation.
Thanks Wikipedia for that paragraph I hacked in.
There's also:
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo
Where each use of Buffalo has a different meaning in the poem and is grammatically and syntactically correct.
So maybe Baldric was on to something?
Mr. Pavone,
DeleteI suspect that he was.
On a less proper note, it never ceases to surprise me how a British Army NCO can use the f-word as a noun, an adjective, and a verb ... all in the same sentence and still make it sound as if it makes sense!
All the best,
Bob
Bob,
DeleteI recall reading an officer's recollections of service in which his driver was unable to start his jeep. The motor pool sergeant was summoned and after tinkering under the bonnet reported,
"The f---ing f---er's f---ing well and truly f---ked up, sir!"
Re War Poetry, I recall a cartoon in Private Eye (IIRC) showing two Tommies crouched in a shell hole, scribbling in notebooks, while behind them men are attacking, led by a private kicking a football towards the Hun.
One of the men in the shell hole says, "That's Fothergill - lucky blighter, he's excused poetry."
Best wishes,
Arthur
Arthur1815 (Arthur),
DeleteI know an ex-NCO who could produce similar sentences! Such utterances have a poetry all of their own!
I would love to have seen that cartoon ... and sent copies of it to certain English teachers. I can think of one in particular who used to go into great detail about what life was like in the trenches when ‘doing’ the First World War poets. Most of their ‘accurate information’ was drawn from sources that favoured the ‘Lions led by Donkeys’ school of thought, most of which have now been shown to be very variable in veracity.
All the best,
Bob
Odd but I can't find Private Baldrick's two masterpieces in any of my school boy era books of First World War poetry ... maybe an undiscovered masterpiece from a later edition?
ReplyDeleteI look forward to hearing famous actors and members of The RSC enunciating this one in their best, most poignant poetry voices ... ding a ling a ling ...
Mark, Man of TIN,
DeleteI think that they were only discovered in the 1990s, screwed up in a Princess Mary Gift Fund box from Christmas 1914. The box also contained a number of cigarette ends, a half-eaten bar of chocolate, and what looked like a mummified slug.
Ken Branagh is the running to be the actor who will record these poems, although Patrick Stewart has also shown an interest.
All the best,
Bob
What an excellent collection of artillery. I am especially impressed that Ian bothered to buy a load of limbers too.
ReplyDeleteMartin Rapier,
DeleteIt is an excellent artillery park, which I hope to start using soon.
By the way, they came from Ian Dury NOT Ian Drury!
All the best,
Bob