Finished ... at last!

The prediction that my wife and I would still be assembling the new conservatory cupboards on Saturday was wrong ... we have just finished the task today!

For some reason the problems that dogged our earlier efforts suddenly disappeared, and by lunchtime all but two of the carcasses were assembled and installed. Once we had eaten it took us very little time to complete and fit the remaining cupboards, and all that remained to be done was to fit the doors and handles.

In the past I have had trouble fitting IKEA doors on to their carcasses, but they have now changed the design of their hinges, and the door fittings just click into place. This speeded up the whole process of fitting the doors, and it took us less than an hour to install seven doors ... and that included fitting the handles to the doors.

The one thing that we have not yet added to the cupboards are the shelves, but as these are adjustable we want to work out where we want them before fitting them. I also have a car load of cardboard packaging to get rid of ... and this means that I will be making a trip to the local re-cycling centre tomorrow morning.

Estimate how long it will take ... double it ... and then add fifty percent

My wife and I started assembling our IKEA flat-pack cupboards yesterday, and we thought that we would be finished before going to bed last night.

We were wrong.

We managed to get the two largest cupboards assembled and installed by mid-afternoon, but the three-draw unit proved to be somewhat more complex to put together than expected ... and by the time we went to bed last night we had finished assembling the draw unit and its draws (but without their handles), installed it, and fixed the worktop in place.

So far this morning I have added the handles to the draws, assembled a small cupboard unit, and fixed the load-bearing battens that will support three of the small cupboards in place. I am now having a short break ... and then I will start work on assembling the next small cupboard.

With luck I will have all the cupboard carcasses in place by mid-afternoon ... and then all I will have to do is to fix the doors and shelves in place. I might just finish before I go to bed tonight ... but I suspect that the work may well extend into Saturday.

Soldiers of the Queen (SOTQ): Issue 155

Today’s post included the latest copy of SOTQ (Soldiers of the Queen, the quarterly journal of the Victorian Military Society).

The articles included in this issue are:

• Jacky Fisher: The Man Who Made the Modern Navy by Richard Freeman
• Kipling and the South African War: Dress rehearsal for Armageddon? by Dr Rodney Atwood
• Seeds of Deliverance: Lieutenant-Colonel Adrian Grant Duff and the War Book by Dr Andrew Windrow
• The Frontiersmen go to War by Geoffrey A Pocock
• The Army in India, August 1914 by Chris Kempton
• Book Reviews
• About the VMS

As a long-term fan of Kipling, I look forward to reading the article about Kipling and the South African War. For different reasons I am also very interested in the article about the Indian Army in August 1914 as it appears to include a complete break-down that shows which army, division, and brigade units were part of and where they were stationed.

Early delivery

My wife and I were expecting IKEA to deliver our new flat-pack conservatory cupboard units this morning. Last night IKEA's delivery department contacted us to say that the delivery would take place between 7.00am and 9.00am, and that we would be sent a text message an hour before the delivery was to take place.

For some reason our cat decided to wake us up at 6.30am, and we had to get up to feed her. Rather than go back to bed and wait for the text message to arrive, I got washed and dressed ... which is just as well as the doorbell rang at 7.20am, and when I opened the door I was confronted by a very cheerful IKEA delivery driver.

It took under twenty minutes for the delivery crew to unload all the boxes and packages from their van, and once it was all checked and signed for, they departed and left me to contemplate the small mountain of stuff that I now have to unpack before I can begin assembling and installing the cupboards.

Looks like I am going to have an interesting and constructive day!

Go get a Gat!

My wife and I decided to take a break from sorting out the conservatory, and took a trip to Herne Bay for lunch and a bit of light retail therapy. We had a very good lunch of fish and chips in a cafe on the seafront, and on the way back to the car I paid a visit to the newsagent's shop in Mortimer Street. It used to sell all sorts of toys and odd modelling bits and pieces, but it has now changed hands and all of their remaining stock is on sale for half price.

In amongst the racks of stuff on sale were two model 54mm-scale Gatling Guns. They were packaged under the Toyway brand and seem to be replicas of a model that was originally made by Timpo. At £2.49 each they were a real bargain ... so I bought both!

The models are a bit 'tender', and bits seem to fall off them when you look at them, let alone use them, but I suspect that a dab or two of superglue will fix that ... and then I can field them with my FUNNY LITTLE WARS armies.

I particularly like the fact that the tops of the ammunition boxes on the carriage axle tree lift up to provide a shield for the gunners. I know that this was a feature of the Maxim Gun carriages used by the British Army but was unaware of them being fitted to Gatling Gun carriages.

Ross Macfarlane's 19C Square Brigadier wargame rules

Over recent weeks Ross Macfarlane has published and play-tested his latest set of 19th century wargame rules – 19C SQUARE BRIGADIER wargame rules – on his blog BATTLE GAME OF THE MONTH.

These rules meet almost all the parameters that I laid down for the rules that I want to use with my 25/28mm-scale collection of Napoleonic wargames figures, and I am seriously giving consideration to trying them out myself once I have based up my figures.

I thoroughly recommend these rules for your serious perusal, even if they are not quite your cup of tea. They are very close to becoming that Holy Grail of wargamers, a set of back-of-the-postcard rules that work!

A problem with tablets

When I wrote yesterday's blog entry about Chris Engle's latest card-driven combat system, I added links to the three YouTube video clips that he had created to explain how the system works. This morning I looked at the blog entry on my iPad ... and realised that the links did not appear on screen. I have therefore added links from the titles for each of the sections (i.e. 'Part 1', 'Part 2', and 'Part 3') to the YouTube video clips.

A different way to fight a wargame: Three video clips produced by Chris Engle

Chris Engle is an innovative wargame designer. He devised the original Matrix Game and has continued to develop the concept in a variety of different directions ever since.

Recently he has produced a set card based rules for figure wargames, and to demonstrate how they work he has produced three video clips that can be viewed on YouTube.

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Part 1

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Part 2

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Part 3

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Chris's rules have some novel features, and do produce a narrative-style of battle in which all the participants have an input. They may not be to everyone's taste ... but they are nonetheless an interesting experiment.

The Gas-Man Cometh

When the hot water stopped flowing in my shower room yesterday, I contacted the gas supply company - with whom I have a maintenance and repair insurance policy - and at 8.30am the gasman arrived to sort out the problem. He listened to my tail of woe, nodded sagely, and pronounced the 'it sounds like your divertor valve has gone wrong'. After checking that he had the requisite spare parts in his van, he replaced said item. He completed the task by 10.30am ... and thereafter the hot water began to flow once again.

Whilst waiting for him to finish, I was put in mind of the famous Flanders and Swann comic song THE GAS-MAN COMETH ... and hoped against hope that it was not going to be a prediction of what was to come!

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'Twas on a Monday morning
The Gas-Man came to call;
The gas tap wouldn't turn - I wasn't getting gas at all.
He tore out all the skirting boards
To try and find the main,
And I had to call a Carpenter to put them back again.
Oh, it all makes work for the working man to do!

'Twas on a Tuesday morning
The Carpenter came round;
He hammered and he chiselled and he said: 'Look what I've found!
Your joists are full of dry-rot
But I'll put it all to rights.'
Then he nailed right through a cable and out went all the lights.
Oh, it all makes work for the working man to do!

'Twas on a Wednesday morning
The Electrician came;
He called me 'Mr Sanderson' (which isn't quite my name).
He couldn't reach the fuse box
Without standing on the bin
And his foot went through a window - so I called a Glazier in.
Oh, it all makes work for the working man to do!

Twas on a Thursday morning
The Glazier came along,
With his blow-torch and his putty and his merry Glazier's song;
He put another pane in -
It took no time at all -
But I had to get a Painter in to come and paint the wall.
Oh, it all makes work for the working man to do!

'Twas on a Friday morning
The Painter made a start;
With undercoats and overcoats he painted every part,
Every nook and every cranny,
But I found when he was gone
He'd painted over the gas tap and I couldn't turn it on!
Oh, it all makes work for the working man to do!

On Saturday and Sunday they do no work at all:
So 'twas on a Monday morning that the Gas-Man came to call!

... and you win some more!

Whilst I was at my Lodge meeting yesterday several of my eBay bids were successful, and I am now the proud owner of several more groups of Del Prado pre-painted 25/28mm-scale Napoleonic wargames figures.

I am not sure how many additional units I will now be able to add to my existing collection, but it is growing at a reasonable (and not too expensive) pace. Once I have finished all the work I have to do on our conservatory, I hope to begin touching up any damage the figures may have suffered before varnishing them and basing them. Once that is done, I can start wargaming with them.