A busy week...and a couple of painted figures

Canada House, eh?

Well, it's been a busy week for the Legatus; especially as regards work which involved several receptions, chairing an event for some Canadians and giving a training course to some government people.  Alas, the reception I attended at the newly renovated Canada House on Trafalgar Square meant I could not take up Eric's kind offer to visit his shed on Monday. 

The view from the conference room

Unlike the FCO, who are hounded by the Daily Mail every time they spend money on an embassy or an event, the Canadian diplomatic service realise that promoting a positive image of your country is not best done by economising on everything.

The British Columbia room

Sensibly mobilising lots of private sector sponsorship, they have taken the period interiors and modernised them through the use of modern Canadian art, furniture and some truly splendid Canadian-designed modern rugs.  Many of the rooms have been themed to reflect Canada's provinces and I was given a special tour of them.

Many of my fellow bloggers have been celebrating the life of Terry Pratchett.  Although I met him once and found him charming company I have never been able to get on with his Discworld books.  This is not because of any problem with Sir Terry's writing ability (far from it) but because I have an issue with certain types of fantasy.  This extends to wargames too.  Basically I like my fantasy to be "realistic", if that is not a contradictory term.  It must exist in a conceivably possible universe.  In fact, the more it is like our world the better.  So, despite enjoying all things Middle Earth, things like magic in wargames, and even monsters, make me less inclined to buy into it.   It's all just too silly.

But, of course isn't all fantasy silly?  The Old Bat would think so.  She thinks all fiction is "silly made-up stories" (she only watches factual programmes on TV).  Anything reeking of fantasy provokes snorts of derision. We live in a world where fantasy films have, however, become acceptable, whereas when I was growing up fantasy was low-budget nonsense for children.  Now, of course, with the Lord of the Rings and, especially, Game of Thrones it is acceptable for adults to admit to watching  and (to a lesser extent) reading fantasy.  Game of Thrones has some magic and, of course, dragons but it is possible to imagine a world like that existing.  Sir Terry lost me from the outset with the world on the back of the elephants on the back of the turtle.  Clever.  Funny.  But I couldn't get over this initially ludicrous concept.  A leap from reality too far for me.  I think I am also hampered by my non-literary mind.  When I read a book I see a motion picture in my head so, basically, I only like books which provoke motion pictures.  Books where the words themselves are there to get you to think (rather than just propelling the plot) are beyond me. I also can't relate to books where the author addresses the reader directly (sorry, Jane Austen).  It destroys the magic of the imagined world, oddly.  So my brain is unable to cope with any literary tricks or conceits.  It doesn't work like that!  I am stupid airport book person.  I actually wonder if I have any critical faculty as regards books at all!  Still, many (most) of my (far more literary than I am) friends love Pratchett's work and he is obviously much missed.  Even Playboy had a eulogy to him on their website!

Goodbye to all that

The lead pile was added to this week with a big box of two armies for West Wind's new War & Empire rules.  I bought a Spartacus slave army and a Roman republican army to oppose them.  I was attracted by the very nice 15mm figures in the Kickstarter but when I looked at them in reality I decided that buying them was a  mistake.  Firstly, they are very small "true" 15mm figures which makes them, for me, too small to paint.  Secondly, the basing for the rules means that the figures stand on comparatively large bases - three tiny figures on a 40 x 30mm base, for a warband.  This makes them look like gaming tokens and not a representation of a real army.   I am still unable to get over my irrational hatred of element basing which is why skirmish games are much better for me!  So, it's straight to eBay with this lot and I'll just take the hit on the cost.  No more 15mm for me!

Don't go running!

I've spent a lot of time at my sister's this week as she was out running last weekend, tripped over and broke her wrist.  Not a little crack either; the bone snapped completely in a Smith's fracture (where your hand bends inwards on impact rather than the more usual outwards) and she will need a plate and pins to fix it.  So I had to go over and do her shopping, change some light bulbs and open her orange juice.

The bone is completely displaced

Fortunately for her pain management programme, she has found that the ubiquity of screw-top wine bottles these days has meant that she can open wine one-handed, at least!  Hooray for modern technology!

I intended to have a good few hours painting today but the light was awful.  Nevertheless, I did a a little bit more on some Afghan Wars British.  Artizan have come out with a whole load of new exciting packs, including Afghan regulars,  and I did succumb to the first Corps of Guides figures but I am trying not to get any more until the ones I have got are finished!

I have also been making slow but steady progress on the four figures I need to finish my first Lion Rampant unit of Carolingians.  I did finish this dismounted general this weekend who will see service somewhere in my Lion Rampant force.  It has become obvious that I need to paint more units than just the basic 24 point force to give me some alternates.

Finally, I also finished the first of my North Star pirates: Anne Bonney, needless to say, who was a feisty redhead (something the Legatus has rather a lot of experience of!).

Hopefully, I will get a few more figures finished this week.  I have a couple more pirates, a slave girl, some Neanderthals and some Argonauts well on the way.

She can tickle my ivories any time

Today's music is Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, performed by German-Japanese pianist Alice Sara Ott (very much an Axis of gorgeousness).  With her potent mixture of German legginess and Asian delicacy she reminds me of my acquaintance Kiều Khanh (the German-Vietnamese Miss Vietnam 2011).

The Legatus enjoying cocktails with Miss Vietnam and her friend in Hanoi

Today, Pictures at an Exhibition is mostly heard in the orchestration by Ravel but the piano original is stunning too.  This is a live recording, which I don't usually like, but there was no noise from the audience at the Mariinsky Theatre, St Petersburg, at all.  This was one of the first classical pieces I can remember hearing.  It was played during a school assembly when I was about eight and I rushed home to my mother to ask about this brilliant piece of music by a man called Mussolini!

There is a wargames link to Pictures at an Exhibition as one of the pieces is called The Hut on Fowl's Legs, which was the dwelling of the legendary Russian witch Baba Yaga.  Eastern Front Studios actually make a version of this scaled for 28mm figures.  Never have I been so tempted by something so utterly useless for any wargames I might contemplate, especially given my views on fantasy.  In fact, the whole thing is really rather Terry Pratchett!

First Wargame of 2015: Pirates at the Shed

Spectacular scenery

The splendid Eric the Shed came though again, to get the New Year off to a splendid wargaming start.  This time it was pirates, using a version of Muskets and Tomahawks.  More here on my Swashbuckling blog.

Back from Cartagena!

Pirate capital of the Caribbean!

I've returned from what will be my last trip abroad this year, thank goodness.  Although, to be fair, if you have to go somewhere on business then the historic Caribbean city of Cartagena is not a bad destination.  As you can't fly direct to Cartagena, and it takes three flights from the UK to get there, I decided to stay in Houston for 36 hours to decompress and meet up with my particular friend S who was coming in from Florida, where her sister lives.

Houston was not at its usual sunny self and in fact it was pouring with (quite cold) rain ("just like f****** Vancouver" as S observed in her trenchant manner).  Nothing to do therefore but eat drink and, er, relax.  The restaurant at the Hotel Zaza does a very good vodka Martini indeed and as the flight over hadn't been at all bumpy (for a change) the Legatus was feeling in quite a good mood and was able to drink it in a relaxed manner rather than swigging it down in a single stress-fuelled gulp.

The old floatplane terminal in Vancouver before they moved it to build the new convention centre

I have, in the past, used Vodka Martinis to recover from particularly bad flights.  The first time this happened was in 2003 when I had to fly from Vancouver to Victoria.  I had not arranged the transport so was appalled to find that we had been booked on a seaplane.  I had done this trip before but had travelled to the main Vancouver International Airport to fly to Victoria on a proper aeroplane, not something that looked like it came from a pulp film.  It was too late to change tickets so my fellow traveller, Tim, also from England, and I climbed into the plane on a very wet and windy afternoon. And I mean climbed.  You had to stand on the float and launch yourself through the hatch (it was not a door) and hope you didn't drop anything into the water below.  On board, the captain happily told us to expect severe turbulence for the whole flight.  They never admit to "severe turbulence"!  They always say "some" or "mild".  So, the Legatus was already feeling stressed even before the terrifying process of taking off from water.

I took this shot on the flight of doom itself

The captain was not wrong.  As we flew over the islands on the way to Victoria (which would have been interesting on a calmer day) we were bouncing around like mad.  All the Canadians were calmly reading the paper while Tim and I grabbed hold of the seat in front with every lurch of the plane.  I was calculating how far we would have to swim to reach dry land if we crashed amongst the islands.  After twenty-five terrifying minutes we landed in Victoria Harbour.  The only thing worse than taking off in a float plane is landing in a float plane, especially when the waves are up.

Our plane in Victoria Harbour

By the time our meeting had finished the weather was even worse and the flags were sticking straight our from the poles.  Tim and I agreed we really didn't fancy flying back in weather like that.  I remembered there were ferries from Nanaimo down the coast so we popped into a travel agent only to find that they had been cancelled due to bad weather.  These aren't Isle of Wight style floating tea trays either these were proper cross-channel style jobs.  And it was too rough to operate them?  The flight back was even worse than the flight there and we later found out that the winds had been at eighty miles an hour.  We crashed (I wouldn't call it a landing) back into the sea in Vancouver at about four in the afternoon.  Safely back on land Tim turned to me and said "Martini?" (he was a very sensible chap) and we went straight to the bar at the Pan Pacific Hotel.  Aftershocks of trembling fear were cured by two parts Stolichnaya, one part Bombay Sapphire, one part Dry Martini Vermouth and three drops of Angostura Bitters.  Three times.

The food at the Hotel Zaza is not quite as good as they think it is but I had a steak that wasn't too incinerated and S had a quail which looked alarmingly like it was making a break for it from the plate.  Either that or training for the quail Olympic swimming event.  It reminded me horribly of a cartoon strip from Time Out many years ago where Christmas turkeys came to life.  Turkeys are alive of course (although not for much longer)  but these were oven ready ones come to life.  Not that I'm a Time Out reader, I should add, as I'm not a communist, cannabis smoking, tequila drinker from the less salubrious parts of north London.  Incidentally, I noticed that turkey in the US is about a third the price per pound it is over here.  Rip off Britain, again.

Hector, Kiki and Zaza

I spent some time trying to explain to S that staying in the Hotel Zaza  always reminded me of the children's TV show Hector's House.  Given it was French, originally, I thought S might have seen it on TV in Montreal (where she was brought up).  However, she pointed out that she was not even born when it was first broadcast in the UK.  I had a girlfriend at college, C, who (rightly) thought I was two-timing her with her own best friend, K.  K, C  thought, was exactly like Kiki the frog from Hector's House due to her annoying and persistant twittering (not in it's modern sense of course).  She did have a point about her constant talking but she didn't look like a frog; she looked rather nice, in a Rachel Weisz sort of way,  Anyway, things came to a head one afternoon when she discovered I had taken K to the posh restaurant Les Quat' Saisons in Summertown, which had recently been set up by Raymond Blanc.  She marched over to K's room and I followed anxiously.  There was a lot of shouting, some pretty ripe language (mainly from C who was from Birmingham and was rather earthier that the more refined K, who was from Ealing).  It was all pretty noisy but harmless until C accused K of being like Kiki the frog.  Oh dear.  K assumed that C was saying she looked like a frog, not that she spoke very, quickly, constantly and waved her hands about a lot when she did so.  K grabbed C's long red hair, C responded the same way and they were soon wrestling on the floor scratching, pulling and swearing at each other.  It's the only time I have witnessed an actual catfight.  It was most diverting.  In the end I poured a glass of water over them and they calmed down.  Oddly, I didn't seem to be that much in trouble.  C's complaint was with the predatory K leading me on (which she did).  C's main issue was that K wore skintight jeans whenever she saw me.  Her jeans were, indeed, the tightest I had ever seen on anyone (she had fantastic legs) but as she wore skintight jeans most of the time (she had a fantastic posterior too) the argument that they were specifically to lead me on didn't really hold water.  Anyway they soon calmed down and after university I discovered that they had had a fling with each other.  Maybe the wrestling awakened something.  Anyway, it was soon time to leave the Zaza and set off for Bogota.

Who wouldn't want to be interviewed by this fine young lady?

Having picked up a couple of plastic bottles of wine at Houston Airport duty free it was then another five hour flight to Bogota.  I stayed in the Bogota Hilton again, which was a quite different hotel from the other people on the trip which was very useful as I managed to keep S below the radar.  I was interviewed by the local equivalent of the Financial Times by a very fetching lady journalist indeed and ended up getting my picture in said newspaper, much to the annoyance of some of the other people on the trip. Heh, heh!

So then it was off to Cartagena, a World Heritage site and still containing an impressive walled city.  We stayed just outside of the walled city which cut the hotel price from about £300 a night to about £100.  It was very close to the conference centre which was the venue of the convention I was going to, which meant that if said conference got a bit boring (I'm just not interested in green issues I'm afraid) I could slope back to the hotel for a "relax" with S.  in fact the convention centre is built on the site where Cartagena's founder, Pedro de Heredia, first landed in 1533.

Sadly, I only had enough spare time for one dinner in the old town and a brief walk around the walls early (6.30am) one morning before it got too hot. It was up to 32 degrees by the afternoon.  S amused herself by finding an emerald shop!  In fact there are quite a lot of posh shops in the old town.  She bought an ethnic looking bag.  And some shoes, inevitably.  And a dress.  And some more gold.  More embarrassingly she bought me a very expensive Swiss watch as a twentieth anniversary present.   I had thought we had met in Montreal in 1994 but she reminded me that we had met in London in November 1993.  I was supposed to meet her boss with my boss for dinner at Clarke's restaurant in Kensington.  A good place to take non-fussy but indecisive diners as they had no options on the menu; just one thing for each course.  Anyway, both the bosses pulled out so I had to have dinner with S on my own and we hit it off immediately.  Note that in the list above I didn't mention her buying any emeralds.  That was because that was my return present.  Gulp.  Is she worth it?  Of course she is!

The main gate to the walled city

Cartagena has been the subject of numerous sieges and Sir Francis Drake captured and sacked it in 1586.   As a result of this, and raids by pirates, the Spaniards spent a fortune on the, eventually, 11 km of walls around the city.  In fact so expensive were the defences (trillions of dollars in today's money) that Charles II of Spain, when looking at the cost said that for that price he ought to be able to see the defences from Madrid!  Cartagena is the only walled city in South America (Quebec, another city the Legatus had visited) is the only walled city in North America.  Attacks by the British on the city in 1740 and 1741 were part of the War of Jenkin's Ear which will be familiar to anyone who looks at The Miniatures Page, as some members seem fixated by it (or at least, its name).

The defences today are still very impressive and amazingly complete.  On the whole you can't drive into the old town unless you are in a taxi and they often close the gates to them too in the evening.  It's all very Pirates of the Caribbean!

This, of course, means that it is a delight to walk about in, although given the heat and humidty this is really only pleasant very early in the morning.  I had trouble taking pictures at some times in the day because as soon as I switched the camera on, the lens emerged only to steam up immediately.

The lens steams up again

Anyway, I was there for a conference which was like any other conference I had been to except it had dozens and dozens of models in very short dresses decorating it.  One of the Colombians on one of the stands told me that all the exhibitors get letters from Colombia's top modelling agencies about four months in advance asking them if they have chosen their girls yet.

Nearly every stand had one or two models attached to it and they weren't just there to look nice (although most of them were).  I saw several explaining in great technical detail the highlights of a new mountain road project.  This is a typical shot of the trade stands area.  You can see some of the distractions around. The lady whose impressive legs decorate the bottom left corner of the picture was a product of the potent racial mix of European, African and native Indian that you get along the Caribbean coast of Colombia (Cartagena was the main gateway for African slaves brought in by the Spanish).  I wish I hand managed to get a picture of her as she was a world class stunner by any standards.

 The girl on the Swiss stand

One of the mountain road experts.  I do enjoy a good tunnel

It did mean that there was always something to look at during the boring bits.  Now, being with a lot of people from the UK government I had to pretend to be horrified at this politically incorrect use of young women for decorative purposes.  I didn't mean it, of course, I found the whole thing quite delightful!  The Colombians didn't have an issue with it.  The very senior Colombia lady chairing the conference (and how often would that happen in Britain and they have a lady transport minister) kept encouraging the delegates to have their picture taken with Miss Colombia on one of the stands.  Even though I could have added her to my collection of overseas beauty queens I didn't, of course, as the UK government people wouldn't have approved.  I found myself actually trying not to look at the girls, although that was partially because if they caught your eye they would slink over and give you an interesting leaflet on industrial tyres, concrete, diggers or some such.

Now what do you want?

Anyway, the Legatus was more than happy with his team, who did an excellent job in looking after him.  They weren't models (they weren't exactly ugly either) but they were very efficient and quite delightful!

Colombia is perfectly safe

The President visited on the last day so that upped the security considerably, although you always see a lot of people in uniforms in Colombia.  This little team was guarding the main entrance to the conference.

S attracts men like flies to a honeypot as usual

On my last night in Cartagena I got invited to a party which wasn't part of my official programme so S took advantage of this by attaching herself, as it was on the roof of a very trendy boutique hotel.  The two women looking after the invitations at the venue were equally tall and leggy as the girls in the conference and there was some muttering from S about nineteen sixties-style Latin neanderthal attitudes to women.  This of course despite the fact that her dress wasn't exactly knee length either.

The party had a local band, lethal cocktails and some of the most elegant looking nibbles I had seen.  Given it was all lit up with trendy lighting and on the rooftops it was all rather like being in a Bacardi advert, however.  S seemed to enjoy it though, especially as she could show off her Spanish.  The Legatus, increasingly, however, can't hear other people speak when there is music playing, though. Thirty years of personal stereos have done for my hearing so I just tend to wander around looking lost (or looking for the next cocktail).

Nice lounge

Getting back from Colombia was a strain, as usual.  We had to catch the 22.25 flight from Cartagena on Friday night to Bogota.  This was then delayed and we didn't get to our hotel in Bogota until 1.00am. We then had to get up at 5.00am for an early morning flight to Houston.  The plane to Houston was then, really annoyingly, delayed so we could have had more time asleep.  Grr!  Never mind the Avianca lounge at EL Dorado is very nice and was deserted so I could get some tea, or, at least, some hot water for the Lifeboat teabags I took with me.  You can't get proper tea in Colombia and the Legatus is allergic to coffee.

Nice headboard

We got to Houston about lunchtime but it being Saturday there was, inevitably, a wedding reception on tat the hotel.  The Hotel Zaza seems to be hugely popular for wedding receptions but it does mean that the place fills with strapping Texan blondes with lots of teeth (so it's not all bad).  Five of them jumped into the lift with me at one point and they were all as tall or taller than me in their heels, which given I am 6'1" means, heels or not, they were positively Amazonian.  The clash of conflicting perfumes created a sickly fug in the "elevator" which even the ladies realised was potent and apologised for.  It was like being at an air freshener convention.  I think that subtle floral scents are not quite the thing in Texas. Because of the wedding I didn't get my usual upgrade and we had to cope with a small (i.e. normal sized) bed.  This was redeemed by the extraordinary headboard which S took such a liking too she enquired where she could get one.

We managed to get to the art museum the next day, as it is just across the road, and they had this fine hoplite helmet there, which is unusual in that it includes a representation of ears on it (Jenkins ears, perhaps?).

On checking in I discovered that my flight home had been cancelled for no discernible reason, which meant I had to leave four hours later than I had planned which meant sitting around at the airport.   S left, therefore, three hours before me which left me to sit in the KLM lounge (I have one of those useful lounge passes) and have a few (well, four) bottles of St Arnold Amber Ale, a very fine Texan beer.

So, that's it for travels this year.  I don't have anything planned until, maybe, back to Colombia in April but there are also trips to Panama and Peru floating about which may happen before then.  Frankly, I'm very happy not to have to do any more flights for a bit as I've done nearly fifty this year and they're all horrible!

It's International Talk like a Pirate day!

Swipe me with a marlinspike if it don't be talk like a pirate day again, me hearties!

I dug out my pirates for this occasion and was rather surprised at how many I have painted over the years.  I tend to paint one or two when doing other things but these have mounted up over time. Nearly all are Foundry ones which I think I bought in one of their deals, so I no doubt have a lot more lurking around somewhere.  They have bucket loads of character and just looking at them makes me want to dig another couple out!

Apart from the Foundry figures I have also done a few Black Scorpion pirate girls which are equally nice to paint but tower over the Foundry figures somewhat.  I also have some of their skeleton pirates and (not very historically accurate) Royal Marines which I got for trying some games based on the Disney Pirates of the Caribbean on-line game which Guy and I used to play a lot.  Ironically (or perhaps not) Disney are closing down this online game today, much to the annoyance of the hundreds of thousands of players worldwide.

Here is the Legatus' online avatar taking a last look at one of the environments as I want to build some pirate buildings based on them.

The set for Port Royal was built in Wallilabou Bay in St Vincent and bits of it are still there today.  You can see the building above which was the inspiration for its digital equivalent in the online game pictured.

Depressingly I haven't played a pirate game since November 2008 but getting some scenery for WW2 Pacific would also work for the Caribbean (pretty much).  I have ordered some palm trees so may get some scenic bases done.

Panama

Well, the Legatus had never been to Panama before and wasn't entirely sure what to expect.  I knew it had a canal, and that was (almost) all.   In fact, I can't think of another country that is so completely defined by one man-made object.  China has a Great Wall, of course, but then it has a lot of other stuff; much of it uninteresting, admittedly. But Panama is the canal.  Or so I thought.

The canal from the Bridge of the Americas in Panama City

I imagined something rather like a larger Grand Union Canal (with bigger boats) but, disappointingly, at the Pacific end, where Panama City is, it looks rather more like a river estuary as, in fact, much of the canal is in fact made up of a (man-made) lake and other exploitation of natural features, rather than a Suez-style cut.

The progress on the new locks so far, after six years work

The first proper concept for a canal was developed by an engineer from the Isle of Man but it was the French, based on their experience on the Suez Canal, who first had a proper attempt.  Indeed the project was led by Ferdinand de Lesseps himself.  Building a canal through a rain forest is not quite the same as building one through a desert, however, as the French soon discovered.  After eight years, $287 million, numerous landslides and 22,000 dead workers, the French gave up and the Americans bought them out. The American involvement in this still rankles in Colombia as this part of the world was part of Colombia at the time and the Colombian parliament blocked the American proposal to have a renewable lease from Colombia for the canal.  So the Americans backed Panamanian rebels, supported their secession from Colombia and subsequently signed their deal with the new nation in 1903.  This, the Colombians maintain, was dodgy economic-interest diplomacy of the worst kind.  

The Legatus inspects the locks

Currently, they are building another set of locks from Lake Gatun to the Pacific enabling two way traffic from the sea to the lake and the Caribbean beyond.  While there, the Legatus was shown the construction work on this.  This is a lot of concrete indeed!

So, that is the Canal out the way.  There were two other things I knew about Panama.  The first concerned the conquistadors:

At school in the mid seventies I was being forced to read my first poems by John (eh, heh!) Keats.  Now, Keats was never known as "eh, heh!" nor, indeed, did he actually say this but Martin "Pikey" Payne my (otherwise excellent, if slightly eccentric) English teacher at the time did (he was most famous for having to take months off school after "falling" through  a plate glass window).  He had a nervous tick which involved him making a sinister half-face grimace, tensing his neck muscles and emitting the strangled phrase "eh, heh" at moments of excitement.  Many of these were emitted during his lessons on John Keats.  Not as many as in his classes on DH "eh, heh!" Lawrence but still quite a lot. The ultimate expulsion of these curious noises came from a rather overheated discussion of TV advertisements during a general studies class while discussing the Old Spice TV advert with a surfer and young lady.   Mr Payne certainly loved his phallic symbols (an exciting new phrase for most of us which we could immediately try out on the girls from the school next door) and this advert was full of them (according to him, anyway).

Payne, amazingly, is still teaching at my old school which is next door to the one my daughter has just left. Her school shares the coach with the boys (wouldn't have been allowed in my day - we had to keep 22 yards from the fence between the schools) and one day some of the boys were discussing Mr Payne.  My daughter, who is an excellent mimic, immediately issued an "eh, heh!" having heard me do it whenever Keats, Lawrence or, his favourite, George (eh, heh!") Orwell was mentioned.  This brought looks of astounded wonder and subsequent great kudos from the boys from my old school. 

Anyway, one of the Keats ("eh, heh!") poems we studied was On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer which contains the following lines:

Then felt I like some watcher of the skies 
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes 
He star'd at the Pacific — and all his men 
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise — 
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

This section of the poem, of course, refers to the discovery of the Pacific by the Spanish conquistadors after crossing the Isthmus of Panama in 1513.

"Now Keats, eh, heh, was wrong to give the credit to Cortez for discovering the Pacific," Pikey Payne declared, one tedious afternoon in the very same classroom where I had got into a fight with "Krish" (short for Krishna which was his middle name as he had an Indian mother) and "accidentally" broke his arm by pushing him over a desk onto the floor (I was over six foot tall at fourteen and he was not).  Krish was much taunted because he had a very large nose and also had an annoying vocal tick which meant that when he was excited he went "diggadiggadigga" by vibrating his tongue against his teeth, for some unknown reason. Krish seemed to think we teased him because he had an Indian (actually half Indian) mother, which we didn't. Singh, for example, was completely Indian and the only thing we teased him about was that we all fancied his mother.  In fact it wasn't really teasing, as his mother was jaw-droppingly gorgeous so we actually meant it. No we teased Krish because he was really annoying.  He went on to become a policeman.  I am sure the two are not connected.

"So who knows who actually discovered the Pacific, as it wasn't Cortez?" continued Pikey.

"Diego Pacific?" ventured Doris, the fattest boy in the year, employing fine if flawed logic.

"The other one.  Pistachio!" suggested "Eggy" Newman. 

"Vasco Núñez de Balboa" called out the Legatus, triumphantly.

Pikey looked shocked.  And stunned.  I think it was the first time I had ever volunteered anything in one of his lessons. There was an astonished silence from the class followed by a barrage of rubber bands.  I was not exactly an academic high flyer at this point and was on course for a set of very average 'O' levels.  This was because I was basically bone idle and preferred to build Airfix kits rather than spend too much time on my homework, which was generally tedious except, occasionally, History (although not the Italian Wars which was unspeakably tedious).  I was so average that when the prefects were chosen for the following year at the end of the fifth form I was not selected.  However, that summer and into the autumn of the sixth form I had my first, well, sexual experiences with a young lady (the archery one I have mentioned before) and this gave me, going into the sixth form, a confidence I had not previously possessed.  That and the fact I could drop all the subjects I was rubbish at, like French, Maths, Physics, Biology (actually I was OK at Biology as I was discovering), suddenly saw me sailing up the academic results in the sixth form.  Maybe I spent less time making Airfix kits too.  Girls always do that to you.  

Anyway, one of the few academic beacons in my first five years was a summer holiday project I did on the conquistadors (for which I won a prize - the only one in anything I ever won until I won third prize in the St Moritz British Classic Car Rally in 1994) and this led me to discover all about Cortez, Pizarro and, of course, Vasco Núñez de Balboa. 

One of the books I obtained (I still have it in the loft) was called The Discovery of South America and featured some very characterful paintings (then as now, much to the derision of my intellectual sister and friends, I preferred books with pictures in them).  I had a series of these excellent Hamlyn paperbacks: one called Rockets and Missiles and even one on Military Uniforms (more on which in another post).  One of the pictures was of good old Vasco Núñez de Balboa (did Keats actually know who really discovered the Pacific but just realised that "Cortez" scanned better?) plunging his flag into the Pacific and claiming it for Spain.

Now I soon discovered that Balboa is much revered in Panama today with many things named after him in the country. Indeed what should my particular friend S and I discover on arrival at the Waldorf Astoria in Panama than a very welcome supply of Balboa beer in the minibar.  In reality this was rather thin and metallic and didn't have the character of the Colombian beers but after another stressful flight it all disappeared very rapidly anyway.

So rapidly, in fact, that we then had to move on to the Atlas beer which was somewhat weaker and even more anodyne.  So the Balboa won that one.  There is a famous statue of Balboa planting his flag in the Pacific in Panama City but I never saw it as I was being whizzed around from meeting to meeting through the rather exciting traffic.  Panamanians are somewhat flamboyant drivers- accelerate, accelerate, accelerate -jam on brakes and try to avoid skid.  I was glad of my police escort therefore.  

These happy chaps would zoom ahead of my car, screech to a halt while the back policeman jumped off (always while the bike was still moving) and stop the traffic at any intersection.  Very useful!  Given the way they rode it's not surprising that they all had their blood groups on their helmets!

Anyway, I soon saw another image of Balboa and his flag (only the sixteenth century Spaniards could be so arrogant as to claim the entire Pacific for their country through one man sticking his flag in it) when having lunch with the President at the splendid Presidential Palace. 

This is in an attractive colonial part of the city which doesn't look like Miami; unlike the rest of the place. Much as I love Colombia, I have to say that moving on to Panama was like returning to civilisation.  It is just a much easier place for someone with rudimentary Spanish like mine to get on in.  Everyone in the hotel, for example, spoke excellent American accented English, which was certainly not the always the case in the hotels in Colombia.

 Scene of courtyard with herons

The Presidential Palace, the Palacio de las Garzas, was originally built in 1673 and served as the residence of the Spanish Governor. Garzas are herons in Spanish and they have some kept in the courtyard which have acted rather like the ravens in the Tower of London since 1922.  Bird lovers shouldn't worry about the small cages the herons are kept in, as they mostly wander around the courtyard and, indeed out onto the steps outside and have regular holidays, I was told, in the country.  They are thoroughly cosseted herons.

Waiting for the President in the Salón Amarillo

The picture of Balboa and his flag above is from one of the murals in the Salón Amarillo inside.  All around the top of the room were murals of Panamanian history from the time of the conquistadors.  The Panamanian government has given huge tracts of land to the indigenous population to protect it from development but what these people think when they come into the palace and see these very politically incorrect murals of conquistadors killing the aboriginals I don't know.

This one has the Spanish laying into the locals in a particularly nasty way.  The next one, which I didn't photograph, has some Spaniard carrying off a naked local girl across the bodies of her menfolk.  S would not have approved!  Despite all this, as I have a full set of the Foundry conquistadors, I have always wanted to do some Central and South American skirmishes - maybe to give the natives a chance to hit back a bit. Where I would find suitable figures for the locals I am not sure, although I could cheat and use the new Mayans from Gringo 40.

This wargaming aspect brings me on to the other thing I knew about Panama: that Henry Morgan sacked it. What is now the Presidential Palace was built in the new Panama City as a result of the destruction of the old city in 1671 by Morgan and his 1,200 men.  What I didn't expect was that on the road from the airport you can just glimpse the top of the ruined tower of the Cathedral of Nuestra Señora de la Asunción which is in what is left of the old Panama City (founded in 1519) before they built the new city in the 1670s.

I particularly recalled Angus McBride's painting of Morgan attacking Panama so was particularly excited to see the real cathedral tower (albeit from a speeding taxi) depicted in the painting.  It never occurred to me that any part of this original city would remain and if I go again, which now seems likely, I must get out to the ruins.  This is another battle I have always wanted to recreate and I think that some of North Star's 1672 figures would be perfect for the Spaniards with a motley selection of armed ECW civilians and troops as the pirates.

My stay in Panama was less stressful that that in Colombia for a number of reasons:  Firstly, the Waldorf Astoria Hotel was the nicest of any I stayed in on the trip.  It had only recently opened and it looked it.  I had bigger rooms in some other hotels on this visit but not such a smart one and it had a view of the Pacific.

Secondly, I knew I was on the way home with only two more flights to take.  Thirdly, I was there long enough to unpack and settle in a bit.  Fourthly, although the beer was disappointing the local rum was truly excellent and very cheap.  S and I easily polished off the half bottle in the minibar during our stay.

Finally, I had two very efficient assistants who made everything run smoothly during my visit.  Oh how we enjoyed dropping things on the floor so they had to bend down and pick them up!  Well, alright the first time was an accident but I enjoyed the effect so much I became very clumsy indeed.  Splendid!

We would have liked more time in Panama but S did buy an eponymous hat while there.  I did not, as I do not look good in hats whereas she does, especially when wearing little else.  So, all that was left was for S and I to head back to Houston and hang out in our favourite American airport diner, drink Sam Adams and eat healthy American food while waiting the endless hours for our connecting flights.

At least, from a wargaming point of view, I actually already have some of the figures I might need for these Central American adventures and might dig out a few more Foundry conquistadores to paint, especially as Gringo 40s, John Jenkins and The Assault Group have other figures (such as mounted ones) that might be used for this period.   As for Henry Morgan, well I would just need a few figures in the typical Spanish morions.  Maybe I could use the heads from some of the Foundry Elizabethan swashbucklers.  Hmm, another project or two.  Just what I need!