Mexican Lancers in a very big landscape

Mexico City 1837

I was having dinner in the British Ambassador's residence in Mexico City earlier this week (as you do) and was very struck by this magnificent painting of Mexico City in 1837. Mexico City is now around 28 million people so to see what it looks like less than 200 years ago is rather thought provoking. At home I have a painting of my great great great grandmother, aged about 12, painted in the same year. I remember my grandmother telling me about how she met her when she was young which gives me a rather spooky direct connection to the time when both this picture and my great great great grandmother's portrait were painted.

The painting in situ in the Ambassador's residence

The picture, entitled, accurately if rather unimaginatively, Mexico City 1837, was painted by an English artist Daniel Thomas Egerton. Mexico city can be seen on the left and beyond is Lake Texcoco, which surrounded the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan. It has now been completely filled in. In the background is the Sierra Nevada mountain range and the snow-capped peak of the Popcatépetl volcano. It was unusually clear in Mexico City this week and you could actually see the mountains surrounding the city. Yesterday I flew over Popcatépetl on my way to Bogota.

The mountains from the top of the HSBC tower this week

Daniel Thomas Egerton, first exhibited in London in 1824. He arrived in Mexico some time before 1834 and traveled through Mexico and the United States later publishing a set of 12 lithographs of views of Mexico when he returned to London in 1840, where his wife had remained. He returned to Mexico in 1840 with a lady called Agnes Edwards with whom he lived, rather controversially. In April 1842, as the couple were walking their dog, they were attacked by bandits and murdered.

Although the painting, as a whole, is splendid Egerton was obviously more comfortable with landscape than figures but I liked these Mexican lancers in the foreground, very familiar for anyone who has watched The Alamo, and it has got me keen to paint some more of my Boothill Miniatures Mexicans when I get back. Hopefully. they will produce some of these lancers in due course.

Boats,Tanks, Girls, Wine and Forts

Charlotte at the helm!

I haven't updated this blog for some time as I have been in Canada and then had an unexpected extra holiday on the Isle of Wight on top of the three weeks we had around Cowes Week. We didn't do any racing at Cowes Week this year but did have some cracking sails in the boat. We actually managed to get all the sails up (which is a big job) and give it a bit of a run. Charlotte helmed mostly and wouldn't give anyone else a go.

1:1 scale Comet kits

Guy and I made our annual trip to the Isle of Wight military museum where they are still making slow but steady progress on their troop of Comet tanks. They had a new tank in the moving tank display too, a Centurion AVRE. This one was a first Gulf War veteran.

Centurion AVRE

They seemed to have spent a bit more on the museum and are trying harder. Guy and I enjoyed the air rifle shooting range and we managed to find a gun shop in Newport where I managed to get some pellets and some targets for my recently repaired Lincoln Jeffries Air rifle. This belonged to my grandfather and dates from about 1910. Guy and I have happily blasted away in the garden with it; when my wife is out, of course.

I watched the start of the Cowes Torquay Cowes powerboat race (a long time ago I competed in the Round the Island powerboat race) and watched the children sail at the RYS Swallows & Amazons week in Newtown creek. I read the Arthur Ransome books when I was young and then one of my classmates at junior school was cast in one of the lead roles in the film, which was made in about 1972. Wierdly I was chatting to a lady at one of the RYS barbecues the other week and one of her schoolfriends had been cast in one of the other parts! Charlotte, picked up the seamanship prize from the RYS and a special prize for learning semaphore in about two days and giving instructions out with flags all week. Sir Robin Knox-Johnson is a friend of my father in law and he told her how impressed he was with her signalling, which made her week!

Not so much happening on the painting front as apart from being away I have been working flat out on my new business which has been very stressful. Never mind, we have just won our first contract, beating PwC, Deloitte and Ernst & Young. Lots of trips to South America will now follow!

I enjoyed my Sudan wargame this week http://sudan1883.blogspot.com/2010/09/another-sudan-wargame.html and am now working on the final four camel mounted Beja I need for the El Teb and Tamai orders of battle. I have also started to base a few more Beja so think I will work on those for the next few weeks.

My lovely companion and I after more than five hours drinking Niagara wine in the library bar of the Royal York Hotel, Toronto. I look ropey, she still looks gorgeous in her leather suit!

My Canadian trip was very enjoyable as I met up with a few old girlfriends (including some of those whom my wife doesn't like me meeting up with!) and catching up on Canadian wine. I also had a fascinating visit to Fort York with my particular friend Sophie (although it cost me £85 in lingerie as compensation) which I will write more on soon.

I'm off to Istanbul this week so don't expect to get much painted for a while.

The Dunkirk Directive by Donald Richmond

I've been back from Cowes a couple of weeks now but I've been too busy catching up on work to do any painting. I didn't do as well as I had hoped on the painting in the mornings on account of the fact that I took my bike over to the Isle of Wight this year and was wearing myself out so much that I didn't wake up in the morning until gone eight! Never mind, I lost over half a stone and am now the lightest I have been for over five years. Also, Cowes Week was busier than I had expected with more sailing than I had planned for.

Never mind, I got on with some Beja, some Zulus and moved my first Indian Mutiny unit along quite a bit. More on these when I have finished them.

I took quite a bit of reading with me but didn't do very well on that either. I took along the second James Holland WW2 novel, Darkest Hour, to read but struggled a bit with it. Its set in 1940 France just before Dunkirk and almost felt like two books. It didn't flow as well as the first one, The Odin Mission, which was set in Norway. The latter, very much a Sharpe for the Twentieth Century had a real narrative drive to it which is rather lacking in the rather episodic second book. I gather the third novel, Blood of Honour, set in Crete in 1941 is much better. I only finished it on the train last week on account of the fact that I picked up a much better World War 2 novel in the Freshwater lifeboat fund raising stall in Freshwater Bay (which is where I get the sand I use for my figures from-it's just the right level of coarseness).

Once I opened The Dunkirk Deception by Donald Richmond I completely abondoned the Holland novel. Sadly now out of print, it tells the story of a German plan to destroy the Supermarine factory in Southhampton using captured British Matilda tanks landed secretly on the South Coast. It was exceptionally well written and although containing a host of characters these all contributed logically to the story, unlike the Holland book where they pop up and then disappear again for no reason. One bonus was that it was set in an area I know very well; from Newhaven along the South Coast through Brighton, Chichester and Southampton. At one point I was travelling back to London for a meeting and passing through the suburbs of Southhampton which was being mentioned in the page I was reading as I passed through it! Although the concept behind the book seems hugely unlikely the author manages to make the whole thing quite plausible. A truly excellent read.

I am in Toronto at the moment and then back to Cowes for the Cowes-Torquay-Cowes anniversary race over the bank holiday so I doubt very much painting will be done until September!

Artillery piece of the month and workbench

Artillery piece for June is the Perry Miniatures Wars of the Roses cannon I bought for Guy's mini Bosworth project but never got time to paint. This is the first artillery I have painted for my Wars of the Roses army except, as mine is the Earl of Oxford's and I have painted it as Richard's Royal artillery then technically it is for another force.

These guns had barrels constructed from welded iron staves held together with hoops. They were breech loaders with separate chambers that could be pre-charged. Two of the figures in this set are depicted with these chambers. The breech chambers were held in place by a wooden wedge but the power of the gun was lessened by the gases escaping through gaps between the breech and the barrel. The stave constructed barrels were also not strong enough for the new more powerful corned gunpowder (where the constituents were mixed with water, dried and formed into granules) either.

My next Wars of the Roses figures will be some of the plastics which I have assembled but I need to get some more half finished figures out the way first.

Looking at my half way through the year painting totals I have not done too badly; having painted 98 figures compared with 213 for the whole of 2009. I am hoping to do much better in the second half of the year and shortly we will be off to Cowes where I always get a good batch done (largely as there is no television there). I am now starting to think about what to take with me to paint and I am thinking that it is time to paint some more Sudan figures again. Maybe I should be really brave and just take my Gordon Highlanders. Other possibilities are Zulu War British and maybe some WW2. I'll probably have changed my mind again by the time I leave! In the meantime I am going to try to get another unit finished and my Indian Mutiny figures are looking to be a high probablilty. This is mainly because Mutineer Miniatures have come out with another load of great new figures, including a splendid mutineers command elephant.

Looking at what I thought I would be painting and what I actually did had its usual disconnect!

This section includes armies I thought I might paint and did:

Darkest Africa Force publique 21
Carthaginians 14
Zulus 6
Elizabethan sea dogs 4
Lord of the Rings 3
Great Northern War 2
Normans 2
Gladiators 1
Schleswig War 1

These are armies I thought I might paint some figures for but didn't: =

Darkest Africa Masai
WW1 Germans
Louis XIV

Figures I had no plans to paint but did, included:

Wars of the Roses 11
Indian Mutiny 8
Spartans 8
Zulu War British 5
Darkest Africa Baluchis 4
Pirates 2
Pulp 1
Vikings 1
8th army
Trojan War 1
Mexicans 1

OK, no plans going forward other than to try and finish some more units...

Valhalla

Not exactly ExCel

Valhalla, run by the Farnborough Wargames Society, is one of those smaller shows that fill the calendar between the behemoths of the likes of Salute and Colours. I've not been before but today I was at something of a loose end. Having spent the last however many Sundays revising English and History with Guy I found that this Sunday, Father's Day, I was on my own. My wife was at work, Charlotte was doing her Duke of Edinburgh hike and Guy is in the French Alps mountain biking with the school. I could have spent the day painting but I did quite a bit yesterday (more of which later) and didn't feel like doing a whole day's worth. I was supposed to go and collect a bike at some point from my sister in law down in the Meon Valley and realised that if I took the A31 route I wouldn't be very far from Farnborough. Decision made.

This is not a part of Surrey I am familiar with. It is very much Army country although I also drove past the famous Farnborough airfield which reminded me of a funny story my sister told me about the air show which I can't repeat as it is contrary to the Official Secrets Act!

The show was held in Elles Hall, which is now part of a large sports and community complex. The hall was named in honour of Brigadier General Sir Hugh Elles, the first commander of the Tank Corps. It was a rambling old building and I'm glad they provided a map as games and trade stands were tucked away in all sorts of odd corners. It was a very small show with 20 or so traders and a dozen or so games. It reminded me of the only other small show I sometimes go to; To the Redoubt in Eastbourne. I had a chat with Mike, at Black Hat Miniatures, and vowed to get down to the club and play a game as he was the person that recruited me. Maybe another Sudan game with Keith would be an idea.

Speaking of which, I had a look at the Redoubt stand and they had a painted model of their Sudan camel borne artillery piece and I have to say it looked pretty good. Having seen their ECW stuff I am always under the impression that their figures are huge (their ECW figures dwarf Renegade's) but most of them looked OK. I thought that their French Indian War figures would go with Galloping Major's ones and their Trojans looked a reasonable size too.

My first Mexican (actually, her name was Alicia but that is another story)

I also got some more of the Boothill Miniatures Mexicans. Whilst the Alamo would be a silly project I have really enjoyed painting the one Mexican which I did yesterday and have already got a few more well on the way. This time I got some Presidial troopers, foot and mounted, because I read a book about mountain men last summer and there seemed to be quite a few cases of mountain men coming down from the mountains (naturally!) into California and having run ins with the local troops. These presidial troops would have been just the sort in the local garrisons that would have been in California at the time.

I also picked up some more of the Newline Designs Mycenaean figures for my Trojan project. Also on the Newline stand were a bunch of packs from a firm I hadn't heard of called Pontoonier Miniatures, who are based in the Eastern US. Looking them up, they have a rather elusive reeputation (no website, for example). Their figures were lovely, however, British colonial infantry and Burmese from what turned out to be the 3rd Anglo-Burmese War of 1885-1887.

The figures turned out to have been sculpted by Paul Hicks and there are a few (not very good) photos of the range here:

http://gallery.me.com/phicks1#100040&bgcolor=black&view=grid

They look like they may be easier to get from now on through Newline, however.

A multi use building from Frontline

Finally, I found myself at the stand of another firm I didn't know, Frontline Wargaming, who had some lovely buildings and other resin scenic pieces. I picked up a thatched bungalow which would work for Darkest Africa and India and an adobe type flat roofed building which would work, at a pinch, for Mexican Texas or California, the Pirate Caribbean, the Sudan, Arab Africa and maybe India also. In addition, I got a couple of explorers tents and baggage. I recently rewatched Mountains of the Moon and they would be perfect for the attack on Burton and Speke's camp by Somali tribesmen. Maybe I should do a scenic piece of the month as well as an artillery piece!

So I bought more than I intended but hopefully I will have a bit more time at the weekends going forward.

Huge relief...

St John's

Things have been very tense over the last ten days at the Villa Hedlius as my son, Guy, has been doing his common entrance exams and we have been waiting to hear about his result. We have been helping him with his revision for the last month and so I have had very little time for painting. Him passing these exams was by no means a foregone conclusion, as he is quite dyslexic (my daughter sensitively calls him "Yug"). He needed to get 55% in his core subjects of English, Maths and Science and an average of 55% in the others. We got the results today and despite failing French he managed to get enough on the others (including an A for physics: shock!) to get his place at St John's, Leatherhead.

Where I used to work

St John's alumni include the architect Richard Rogers (who kindly got his studio to make a scale model of the Lloyd's building, where I met my wife, for our wedding cake) and Anthony Hope, the author of the Prisoner of Zenda.

Serious uniforms in Ruritania

From a military point of view the most interesting old boy is Lieutenant Geoffrey Harold Woolley, who was the first Territorial officer to win the VC. He was a member of the Queen Victoria Rifles and his unit was posted to Ypres where on his first day at the front a hand grenade was thrown into his trench. Woolley calmly picked it up and threw it out saving six or seven men.

Woolley on Hill 60

On the night of April 20th-21st 1915 the Germans launched an attack on the trench held by the QVR. Soon all his superiors had been killed leaving him in command of the forces on Hill 60. He was ordered to withdraw but refused, saying he would only pull back if properly relieved. Waves of German troops attacked the position but Woolley stood on the trench parapet in full view of the enemy throwing bombs at them and encouraging his men to hold on. When eventually they were relieved their unit had been reduced from 150 to 20 men. Woolley was promote to captain two days later. He survived the war, served in North Africa during WW2 as a chaplain and died in 1968. His brother, who also went to St John's, was the famous archaeologist Sir Leonard Woolley who excavated the Sumerian city of Ur.

Leonard Woolley (right) with TE Lawrence in Carchemish where they were excavating between 1911 and 1914

Now of course, I have all the expense of getting Guy's uniform and sports stuff so that will cut my wargaming purchases a bit this summer !

On the Workbench..

Black Scorpion pirate girl

After a rather disastrous May, when I only completed four figures, I have already had a much better first week in June getting nine figures finished this week. Apart from my Baluchis and my Elizabethan cannon

I also finished another Black Scorpion lady pirate and a Trojan War figure. The Black Scorpion figures are bigger than my Foundry ones but their girlie pirates are just irresistible! Next up I have some very Pirates of the Caribbean marines and skeleton pirates to do.

Ajax by Wargames Foundry

The Trojan is a Foundry Ajax figure and, like many of that range, is based on the illustrations in Peter Connolly's The Ancient Greece of Odysseus. Although this is a children's book, the pictures inside are wonderful; alternating between telling the tale of the siege of Troy and the Odyssey and sections on costume, warriors buildings etc.

Ajax from the Connolly book

I first got to know the story of Troy from a book about Greek heroes by Roger Lancelyn Green, which had evocative pictures of warriors fighting outside the walls of Troy. The Greeks wearing turquoises and blues the Trojans in red. The problem of differentiating armies for this conflict remains so I am considering, for my Trojans, giving them earth colours such as terracotta, red browns and ochres etc. A book I had as a boy on archaeology, by CW Ceram, introduced me to Heinrich Schliemann and the historic background of the legends.

The best hats in cinema history: Helen of Troy (1957)

Next, I remember seeing the film Helen of Troy (1957) at my uncle's house in about 1972. He had a colour TV a long time before we did (I think it cost £400!). The impact of the colourful Mediterranean backdrops, girls in very short pepla and thousands of extras attacking Troy with siege towers imprinted it in my memory and for weeks afterwards my Airfix Romans became Greeks as they tried to get into my Lego Troy. I even made a Lego Wooden Horse!

I'll be your dog! Brigitte Bardot in Helen of Troy

Watching it today, it seems, appropriately, rather wooden but contained some good battle scenes and a very young Brigitte Bardot as a slave girl. Actually, I have stopped being a fan of Brigitte Bardot since I lost my Ray Bans. We had anchored in the bay outside her house just round the corner from St Tropez and suddenly her dogs started barking. Unfortunately I was just climbing into our dinghy and the cacophony (she has a lot of dogs) made me jump causing me to lose my sunglasses into the sea.

I even enjoyed the 3 hour American TV version of Helen of Troy (2003) with the luminous Sienna Guillory.

Sienna Guillory as Helen

Wolfgang Petersen's Troy (2004) wasn't as bad as everyone said (well, apart from Brad Pitt and granted they completely changed the story...) and I liked their take on the wooden horse. Part of Troy was filmed in Malta and I had to spend some time  there a few years ago, working with the Finance Minister. My favourite restaurant was also Brad Pitt's, when he was filming there, and this had the distinct advantage of attracting lots of young women to the place.

Frankly, if its got Mediterranean scenery, galleys, girls in Greek frocks, chariots, big walls and a wooden horse I'll watch it!

Foundry archers

Some time ago I painted some Foundry archers for the Trojan war but lost interest given the limited figures in their range. Recently, however, we have had the Newline Designs Mycenaean range and they fit perfectly with the Foundry Trojans. I picked up a pack at Salute so may add them to the never ending list soon.

Currently in the active section of my workbench I have Perry Wars of the Roses cannon and crew, Foundry Masai, Empress miniatures Zulus and British, Galloping Major French Militia, Musketeer Russian GNW, Foundry Trojans and Crusader Miniatures Normans. I'm hoping to have a good go at them this month now we have finished revising with Guy for his common entrance exams.