Nugget 237

I collected NUGGET 237 from the printers just before lunchtime today, and it is in envelopes waiting to be posted on Monday. With luck, it should be with subscribers by next weekend.

This issue is a special one because it is devoted to the memory of Paddy Griffith. For that reason, I have made it freely downloadable from the Wargame Developments website.

Another free plan

This afternoon my wife and I went shopping. I managed to buy some more Goblin Green paint from the local branch of Games Workshop (I do seem to be getting through quite a lot of it at the moment!), and on the way back to the car I happened to go into the newsagent, where I saw a copy of MARINE MODELLING INTERNATIONAL: PLANS & CONSTRUCTION SPECIAL.

What actually caught my eye was the '2 FREE PLANS' caption on the cover ... so I picked it up and realised that one of the free plans was for a Victorian Coastal Defence Battleship called HMS Lord Clive. This was not the name of an actual Victorian battleship, although the name was used for a coastal bombardment monitor during World War I.

The model is a 'stand off' scale model of what were termed 'breastwork' monitors or coastal defence ships, but it is generic enough for my purposes.

The real thing: HMS Glatton (1871)

As soon as I saw it I started to think about building something similar to it – but somewhat smaller – for my Colonial and nineteenth century wargames ... so I bought a copy of the magazine, and the plans have already been added to my archive of future projects ... which seems to be getting bigger and bigger by the day!

Tonight I was a scoundrel

It is recorded, by his biographer James Boswell, that on 7th April 1775, Doctor Samuel Johnson stated that: 'Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.'If that is true, then tonight I was a scoundrel!

Tonight was 'The Last Night of The Proms', and whenever possible I watch the finale as I like to sing along with 'Rule Britannia', 'Jerusalem', 'Land of Hope and Glory' ... and 'The National Anthem'. It reminds me that I am English and British, and it fills me with patriotic pride. I know that no country is perfect, but I feel proud to be what I am.

Does that make me a scoundrel? I hope not ... but if I am, then I am happy to be one ... if only for an hour or so.

PS. I actually think that Doctor Johnson was actually railing against false patriotism rather than true patriotism when he made his much quoted remark. James Boswell says so ... and he was there at the time.

Things To Come: The location of the battle in the colliery

Some time ago I wrote a blog entry about Alexander Korda's 1936 film THINGS TO COME.

After 'The Boss' or 'Chief' has restored some form of peace and order on 'Everytown', he starts a short but decisive war against the 'hill people' (whom one assumes are the Welsh) to capture the coal mines that will enable his 'country' to have a source of power.

The locations used for this part of the film looked very realistic ... and a recent email that I have received informs me that it was a genuine but disused colliery in South Wales.

The email was sent to me by Graham Bennett, who is a retired coal miner from South Wales. He has a particular interest in recording the history of the collieries of Wales, and he very kindly sent me the following information and photographs of the actual location used for this part of Korda's film:

• The location used for the film was the South Griffin Colliery, which was situated in the Bourneville Abertillery/Blaina area

• The first part of the mine was begun in 1873 (No. 1 Pit), and two further pits (Nos. 2 and 2 Pits) were added in 1878
• In 1888, the colliery was linked to the nearby Roseheyworth Colliery

• No. 1 Pit was closed in 1909
• In 1921 Nos. 2 and 3 Pits were closed, but continued to be used to ventilate the Roseheyworth Colliery
• In 1935, the disused colliery was used as a location for Alexander Korda's film, and many local unemployed miners were used as 'extras'
• In 1959 the colliery was capped, and the site was used as a dumping ground for waste from the Roseheyworth Colliery, which was itself closed in 1985

• The film location is no longer visible, as it is now covered by the spoil heap from the Roseheyworth Colliery

As a lover of old films – particularly those made by Alexander Korda – I am very grateful to Graham Bennett for sending me this information and giving me permission to use photographs from his collection.

100,000 hits!

A short while ago the number of 'hits' on this blog passed a very important milestone – 100,000!

The ‘hit’ counter was added to the blog on 11th February 2009 even though the first blog entry was made on 18th September 2008. By May 2009 5,000 'hits' had been registered, by June of that year it had passed 10,000, and just under a year ago – on 29th September – it reached 25,000. At the time I mused as to how long it would take to reach 50,000 'hits' ... and the answer was just under four months. The 50,000 'hit' threshold was passed on 16th January 2010 ... and on 9th May the 75,000th 'hit' was registered.

I never, ever expected that my blog would attract so much interest ... and it is very humbling to know that it does. One by-product of my blog has been that I now have an extended group of people with whom I regularly exchange information, ideas, rule mechanisms, and even whole sets of wargames rules. For someone who does the majority of their wargaming solo, this is a tremendous source of support and inspiration, and I would like to thank all of them.

Here's to the next milestone … 250,000 'hits'!

I wonder how long it will take to get there?

Painted Heroscape™ hexed terrain tiles: First set finally finished!

Despite all my good intentions, a series of work-related problems and distractions have conspired to throw my painting schedule out of gear since the weekend. As a result, I only finished painting the first ‘set’ of Goblin Green painted Heroscape™ hexed terrain tiles last night.

The pieces are now stored in a 7 litre plastic storage box manufactured by Really Useful Boxes. These boxes hold seven-high stacks of hexed terrain tiles, which means that I can store sufficient twenty-four, seven, three, two, and one 40mm hexed terrain tiles in each storage box to create a small but reasonably sized hexed battlefield. When clipped together, the set I have painted so far would cover an area of two hundred and sixty-six 40mm hexes, which equates to a hexed grid that is nineteen by fourteen hexes.

What struck me when I photographed the hexes in the storage box was that there is still sufficient room in the box for several further stacks of three, two, and one 40mm hexed terrain tiles. As I still have quite a few of these sizes of hexes as yet unpainted, it would be sensible to enlarge the size of the basic 'set' so that the storage box is fuller. This has the twin advantages of increasing the amount of hexed terrain tiles I can store in each box and reducing the number of hexes that may move about in the storage box – and therefore possibly suffer damage – if I have to take the hexed terrain tiles to an 'away' game.

The Virtual Learning Environment is dead! Long live the Virtual Learning Environment!

One thing that my employers pride themselves on is their commitment to the use of IT for teaching and learning. They make great play of its use in their publicity material ... and when it works it is an extremely useful tool. The only problem is that at the moment, none of the students can use it!

Over the summer the management of our VLE (Virtual learning Environment) seems to have moved, and part of this move has resulted in a change in the way that students can log on. Previously they used their individual data number as their identity and their full postcode as their password. I understand that this has been deemed not to be secure enough, and so all the students will have to be issued with new identities and passwords; the only problem is that this has not – as yet – been done. The result is that teachers like me who have large banks of resources available on the VLE for their students to use, are having to print copies of the materials so that they can be handed out. This is not only very wasteful in terms of time and paper; it will also make it difficult for some students to do self-supported study.

We have no idea when the new identities and passwords will be issued, so I will have to divert some of the limited time I have set aside to do modelling and painting – and wargaming – so that I can prepare printed versions of the materials that are already available on the VLE.

The Virtual Learning Environment is dead! Long live the Virtual Learning Environment!

Nugget 237

The latest issue of THE NUGGET (N237) has been sent to me by the editor, and I hope to take it to the printers by the weekend so that full members should receive it by mid-September.

This is a particularly sombre issue, as it is dedicated to the memory of the founder of Wargame Developments, Paddy Griffith, who died just before COW2010.

I will make the PDF versions of THE NUGGET available for full and e-members to download from the Wargame Developments website as soon as I can.

This is the last issue of THE NUGGET to be published during the current subscription year, and reminders will be sent in the very near future to all full and e-members of Wargame Developments who have yet to resubscribe.

... but the deliveryman said, 'Sign here, please.'

After a somewhat eventful day at work, I thought that my problems were going to be never-ending when I drove up to my house … and found a delivery van parked right across the driveway! I was none to pleased, and strode towards my front door in high dudgeon … to be greeted by a friendly deliveryman who had a large parcel for me!

My bad mood evaporated in an instant, and I was only too pleased to sign for the parcel. He even apologised for parking in my way … which made me feel even better about life.

Once inside – and after a fond greeting to and from my wife, I sat down to open the parcel. It contained three books that I had ordered online, and that had been delivered far faster than I had expected. The books were …

SPANISH CIVIL WAR TANKS – THE PROVING GROUND FOR BLITZKRIEG, written by Steven J Zaloga and illustrated by Tony Bryan (published by Osprey as No. 170 in the ‘New Vanguard’ series [ISBN 978 1 84603 512 8]) …

WARGAMING ON A BUDGET – GAMING CONSTRAINED BY MONEY OR SPACE by Iain Dickie (published by Pen and Sword Books Ltd. [ISBN 978 1 84884 115 4]) and …

THE GAMES OF WAR – A TREASURY OF RULES FOR BATTLES WITH TOY SOLDIERS, SHIPS AND PLANES by John Bobek (published by AuthorHouse™ [ISBN 978 1 4343 3028 4]).

My love of the Spanish Civil War made the purchase of the first of these three books a ‘must’, but I hope that the other two will be of interest for different reasons. As I am now fast approaching the age when I will finally retire from work, I am conscious that my wargaming may well have to be less eclectic and more focused when it comes to what I can afford. A quick glance through this book indicates that there a quite a few ideas that I might find useful, and even if some of the things that are featured not applicable to my particular circumstances at present, that may well be in a few years time.

John Bobek’s book is an altogether different sort of publication, but one that nonetheless would appear to have ideas that I will find useful. From what I can gather, John Bobek has used wargaming in schools to help teach history – something I myself did years ago – and the rules I have glanced at seem very suitable for enthusiastic but possibly not very knowledgeable participants. They also seem to place quite a lot of emphasis on the use of simple mechanisms and fast-play (again, very suitable for a young audience) which is also something that is of great interest to me.

As yet I have not read and of these books, but I look forward to doing so over the next few weeks.

'The computer says no!'

Since the beginning of the month I have mention the failings of the computer system I have to work with once or twice (at least!), but today it failed me so spectacularly that the previous problems seem unimportant.

First it refused to allow me to log on; then it refused to allow me to access the Data Management System I needed to use to register my students. Once these two problems were sorted out, it then refused to allow me access to my own files, including all the teaching materials that I intended to use!

After half an hour of frantic fiddling, the IT technician managed to overcome this problem ... and somehow managed to 'corrupt' my 'roaming profile' (and yes, I don't actually know what this means but I know what it does ... the computer says 'No!' to everything that you ask it to do).

Nearly three hours into the day, the problems were finally solved, and I had full computer access ... just in time for my third lesson. I now feel about ten years older than I did this morning, several shades greyer, and totally in need of something to take my mind off work ... so I will be off home soon to do some much needed modelling and painting ... I hope!