Star Wars Ramblings: Tector-class Star Destroyer

I was just reminded of the Tector-class Star Destroyer, and how weird it is, by the excellent YouTube channel EckhartsLadder in this video. I shall quickly place this odd ship in context. The Tector is an Imperial II-class (or Imperator II-class, if you prefer) Star Destroyer variant seen in one shot of Return of the Jedi, and its main distinguishing feature is that it only has a very small ventral hangar bay rather than one capable of containing Princess Leia's corvette. It also seemingly lacks the typical aftward bulb-like protrusion you see on most Star Destroyers.

Star Destroyers typically fulfil a battle-carrier role akin to that of the Battlestar Galactica in the eponymous franchise; they are heavily armed and armoured, and have a considerable fighter wing. Star Destroyers have retrospectively become a very poor design choice. This is due to a number of factors.

 

First, George Lucas did not really think his universe through, and wanted more shiny toys in the Prequels. This led to the odd situation where it's perfectly clear that a single Venator-class Star Destroyer (one of the earlier and weaker ships seen in Revenge of the Sith) carries a large enough fighter wing to overwhelm the defences of a Star Destroyer in the later period. I'd like to note at this point that if you give anyone effectively unlimited funding and carte blanche in their creations, you should not be surprised if things go awry.

Second, game designers and authors followed up on part of what we see in the films, giving players and readers the opportunity to participate in the plucky little fighters attacking these "city-sized" warships. Again, this is perfectly understandable.

However, as I said above, what we end up with is a situation where the notionally more advanced later ships are very much worse than the older ones. A swarm of small fighters can take out one of these large battlewagons in a prolonged fight because the larger ship possesses neither the point defence capability of older, smaller models, nor their fighter capacity, while the swarm carries a number of missile weapons capable of knocking down the target's shields and destroying it. Neither the ship's armour, nor its shields are capable of resisting this swarm attack. The vessels' ability to carry about 10,000 troops does not justify this odd situation. Truly, Star Destroyers have retrospectively becomes jacks of all trades, and masters of none.

There is the context. Into this milieu the Tector-class Star Destroyer is introduced. The ship lacks the aftward ventral bulb that distinguishes the Imperial and Imperial II classes. It's reasonable to infer that this means that she is more heavily armoured. The ship's reactor (which is what the bulb is) is more heavily protected in the ship's innards. The vessel also lacks significant ventral hangar bays, and other sources have clarified that this is not made up for by the provision of replacement hangar bays dorsally or on either flank. I'm not even sure, from what we see, that the ship is capable of launching or receiving Lambda-class shuttles. I am happy to be corrected.

The ship lacks the fighter protection enjoyed by its close relatives, sacrificing it for armour and shileding that, we have established, are not sturdy defences in-universe. Moreover, it sacrifices another of the Star Destroyer's typical roles: planetary invasion or the ability to put boots on the ground. Without a large hangar, there is no way to launch the mammoth four-legged AT-ATs, the companion two-legged AT-STs or "chicken walkers", or even large contingents of infantry.

What is this thing for? Typical Star Destroyers of the I-line have a crew of c.37,000 and pack in another 10,000 soldiers. I'm going with the figures of my youth, so bear with me if the canon has changed. I was surprised earlier to see that Interdictor-class cruisers are now 900 metres in length. They were 600 once. Anyway, this ship certainly doesn't need that many Stormtroopers and vehicles if it can't get them out. The sources suggest that this design of vessel superseded the Venator because it was sturdier, which is a terrible argument. It is more specialised for capital ship combat, ignoring the vital fighter element, and is incapable of effecting a planetary invasion.

My best justification for this ship is that it is a taskforce or fleet flagship. Extracting ten thousand men lets you put in all sorts of communications goodies, and with the additional armour, the ship can survive longer in combat, decreasing command and control problems. Frankly, that's not a great justification. It's a Star Destroyer, so it's already very difficult to destroy, and in a ship that's a mile long, you can probably find a couple of rooms to jam in all the personnel you need to coordinate a fleet.

That's the Tector-class, folks. It's a ship that doesn't really make sense in a place where ships don't really make sense. Perhaps surprisingly, given how exactingly I've taken it to task for its deficiencies, I rather like it!

Links:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Tector-class_Star_Destroyer

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Tector-class_Star_Destroyer/Legends

Passion and Tedium

As part of my reevaluation of myself, I have been thinking about what I enjoy. I have a tendency either to suppress them or at least discussion of them. They are niche interests, and society looks down on them. For most of my life it has not been practical (or even possible) to go about seeking like-minded people. For instance, while there must be wargamers hereabouts, as the newsagent in town stocks WI, MW&BG, Soldiers and Strategy and White Dwarf, there are some big obstacles to actually meeting them.

I'm a naturally retiring person, so I don't really want to go and meet new people. I am very sensitive to odours, and I am in person polite (though you might not infer that from the bluntness with which I write), so if any were to turn out to be smokers, I would simultaneously be in discomfort from the physical pain they would be causing me and unable to ask them to take steps to mitigate the problem. I used to go out to clubs with friends back before the smoking ban, and after being in a noxious environment for a while, my throat and nasal passages felt for the next 12-24 hours as though they had been sandpapered. Importantly, autistic people also lack cognitive empathy, so we're easily exploited by those who gain our trust. This has happened to me rather too often, and, like the brokenhearted, it becomes easier not to put oneself in that position again. In case you haven't clicked that link, don't mistakenly assume that autistic people don't feel for other beings; if you try to hurt my brother or my rabbit, I will break your arm if that's the way to stop you.

Aside from practical considerations about actually doing things, even discussing interests is something I have often avoided, suppressed or diminished. Partly that is politeness, but I wonder if it is also perilously inauthentic. That sentence reads oddly, so here is what I mean. If I am not telling you about what I like, and am instead nodding along as you burble merrily about football, have you actually met me? Are you just interacting with a facsimile of a human I have crafted to protect my true self? If that's the case, as that article notes people like me wonder, would you even like me? Then, of course, one wonders if people who do like you actually do or just the shell. It's a surprisingly thoughtful article for Cracked, that one.

It only misses the part where I feel I have changed who I am repeatedly through life as a survival mechanism or response to trauma. Play the part long enough, and you may become the character, for good or ill. So now I am wondering whether I am that version of me any more or a different one? After all, I have found myself considerably more boring when doing fewer things I am interested in. Whither with that, though? It is hardly as though one can go up to random people in a bar, and introduce oneself with, "Hey, I'm making a pretty nifty scale ravine for wargaming purposes. How about you?" I don't understand much about social conventions, but I know for a fact you're not allowed to be interested in oddities.

Of course, the last time I did strike up a conversation with a lady in a bar, it was the other way round. The conversation trailed off as she bored the pants off me by a) refusing to discuss what she did, declaring it boring, b) not having any literary topics to discuss, and c) listing as possible topics soap operas and football. In the unlikely event you're reading this, Scooby, your job doing something in an office for the council involving tarmac repairs for roads, while not terribly interesting, was head and shoulders above those two options. She did excellent work on being memorable, though, having that nickname, and wearing a brilliant lime green t-shirt, evoking the imagery of Shaggy from Scooby Doo. That was either attention to detail of the first water or a baffling coincidence.

So this boils down to two things. Who am I? To what extent can I be myself (whoever that is) while acquiring/having friends? This is going to take me a while to figure out.

P.S. I have often made use of having a wide range of possible topics of conversation, from my enjoyment of classic pin-ups to what may seem my bewildering support for contemporary feminism, but some just don't get the airing they deserve.

March/April Plans

Note: I wrote this before my last post, so don't be confused if it seems retrograde.

I have a few projects on the go at the minute. I am almost at the end of building the village, I think. The "Mosque", a small building, and a couple of large ones will round it out nicely, bringing the total of buildings, including what I think of as the Hacienda to a lucky total of thirteen structures. A ruin or two, and perhaps a few other things, may follow in due course, but for a while, that will be it.

I have three areas I want to focus on now. First, the Baccus BEF Infantry division alluded to on Monday. I'm very happy with the colour scheme for the guns, and am feeling confident about the infantry colour scheme. I should have finished it tonight, but I am too tired for sleeping, having got up early to drive almost to Hull for a friend's little boy's christening. Lovely time, but I'm shattered.

Since I'm too tired to paint I am, of course, cutting things up with sharp knives. Wisdom is for the wakeful! This is work on the second thing I shall be working on: a modular castle. I have posted ere now a teaser for one of several towers I am building. That is nicely advanced, and will fit in with a collection of walls I am at work on. I mean to have a good 6' of straight bits, and then have a think about a gateway, angled bits of walls and so on. Again, sleepiness currently impedes thinking and detailed planning.

Finally, I long ago decided to build a set of three connecting trench boards for 40K. Now, I haven't played 40K in years, and have no intention of going back to it, but I wouldn't be averse to some Great War trench action. I'd need to cover up a few oddities, which I shall. So the first step has been undercoating the old boards so I can get a good idea of what work needs to be done to start bringing them up to code.

Being Me and Building Walls

I incline toward the introspective and I have an excellent memory for many things. Combined, these two elements often produce unfortunate results. I consider at excruciating length what could have gone better had I done this rather than that, why I failed to perceive then what is so blindingly obvious now, and so forth. In terms of this blog, I have spent quite a while wondering what to do to interest people in reading it. However, I had an unrelated eureka moment the other day, and am now minded to kick out all that I had thought up. Instead, I shall be popping up photographs as and when I do things, so long as I have the time. Quite a lot is under way.

I am making a modular castle wall at the minute. I have a clear picture of most of the construction in my head. The body of the wall (on which models will stand) is 4" tall, made of thick polystyrene foam. A facing element (5.5" tall) will be glued to the outside, made of foamcard, the paper front removed, and the foam inscribed with blocks in courses. The rear of the wall will be of black foam, scribed again to produce courses of stones. Details of the battlements are still uncertain in my mind. I want them a bit thicker than they are at present, but I am unsure how much thicker. Flagstones of dark foam will sit on the battlements' floor, if you take my meaning. Some walls will have flights of steps so as to allow models access to the walls.

Here is what I am on about. I dropped the connector for my digital camera into my orange juice, so while that dries, have some pictures taken on my telephone.

Resolve and whatnot

Happy New Year, folks.

I had a look at my stats the other day, and it made for interestingly predictable reading. In short, I had less time, what with work, and felt both worse and less inspired in 2015, what with the Revenge of Depression, so I produced far less on here. Then I got to wondering what I want to do about that, and I have some inchoate ideas. The following is rather, ah, thinking out loud, as it were. The question of available time is not worth thinking about; I can hardly give up work again, and if I move to another job, it's definitely going to demand more of my time, not less. So if I want to get more done, and I rather do, then I need to feel better and be more inspired.

I have some ideas about how to accomplish this. Watch this space.

Merry Christmas!

This has been a tricky year in many respects. My depression surged back into play, which meant my desire to do anything was sapped. So I was back on the anti-depressants - a new one this time, Sertraline. It has helped my mood, but I'm still not getting a great deal done. Exercise has been sporadic at best, and shifts at work have meant that I've missed every book club meeting at my library this year. Shifts are changing as of now, but the last meeting of the book club was, er, the last one. Inevitably.

Work has been consuming a lot of my time. I like things set and predictable (on which more in a moment), and there has been such fluidity in staffing that this has been nigh on impossible. On the one hand, it looks as though things will at last settle down. On the other, I really need to force myself out of my comfort zone and into a different job with better pay and prospects, which inevitably means more hours.

A while ago a friend recommended to me that I should get myself checked out, and the other week the assessment rolled around. I have Asperger's. It was something I had rather suspected ever since he'd suggested it, although if you'd told me it a year ago, I should have been quite sceptical. A lot of things I had assumed were sensations everyone (or a great many people) experienced are not. For instance, I presume now that most of my readers cannot imagine how incredibly, viscerally unpleasant tobacco and marijuana smell to me. Likewise, the reason I always feel too warm in surroundings comfortable to others is because I have as marked a hyposensitivity to cold as I have a hypersensitivity to odours.

While I was unsure what benefit this knowledge could have prior to the diagnosis, it has been somewhat reassuring, and suggested a few things I can do to attempt to alter my situation for the better. It's also good to know that all the time I have spent thinking other people are nuts has been subjectively right. As the doctor said, I tend to stay close to the rules, which means I am likely to be more technically correct than many others. As Hermes Conrad's superior says in Futurama "[T]echnically correct - the best kind of correct". Boom-boom! I am not forgetting that they (you?) have been subjectively right about me being crazy, mind you.

One of the particular elements of this condition that is really apparent to me is my love of detail, routine and plans. I can go "off-script", but it's unpleasant. Maybe it's like having an angry sergeant shouting in your ear while you're trying to play chess. Who knows? So moving from one routine to another is arduous. On the other hand, I know from past experience that I can make overnight changes to existing routines, which alterations I will cling to more stubbornly than an amorous puppy might cling to an embarrassed socialite's leg. So there's hope.

There is perforce a "but". The qualifier here is that I don't understand things, and I fail to grasp them in such a fundamental way that nobody can work out how to help me do them. For instance, talking to the fairer sex at a bar. I used to think there was a way to do this. I've developed the more nuanced and realistic approach that there must be an awful lot of ways to do this, what with everyone being different. However, any past success I have had in this has been a) totally fortuitous, b) fifteen years ago, and c) arguably partly based on the physique I had back then. Part of the problem may be that conversation is a tricky beast, but an equally large part is that people are often remarkably tedious.

Yes, we monomaniacs find polymaniacs as boring as they find us: football has never been, is not, and will never be in any way interesting; soap operas are markedly less fascinating than paint drying on a wall, as at least one can read a book as the paint dries, without it droning into your ears. And so on. I suppose the main difference is managing to fake interest by nodding along when people talk about Mourinho or whatever, as I have done twice this past week. On Monday, mind you, I heard a contemporary jockey's name, and thought him a seventies snooker player, so expect no more than a facade if you talk to me about such things.

In closing, I hope you've had an easier year of it than I have,* and I rather selfishly hope I get one of those easier years for myself next cycle round the sun. Merry Christmas to you all, and a Happy New Year.

* Sometimes people take such statements as "I have suffered worse than any other human! Pity me!" Don't be silly; don't take it that way.

The Keyboard Curse

Even I have to admit to being less than balletic in my movements. So when I accidentally tipped a glass of coke over my laptop some time ago, it was infuriating, but hardly unpredictable. It didn't much matter that half the keyboard was killed, happily, as I've a wireless USB mouse and keyboard connection. However, when the keyboard subsequently died of old age (was it perhaps as old as four whole years?) it was a bit of a pain. Especially as we didn't seem to have any spares in the house. After a week or two of bashing at the on-screen keyboard, it turned out Dad hadn't heard me, so I'm back with a brand old keyboard. I'll try to get some things up shortly.

The end of the year

As we approach the New Year it is tempting to look back rather than forward, to reflect on failure or past successes rather than look to future glory. A friend of mine once suggested that he should not move forward because he felt he had no "happily ever after" to look forward to. I disagreed, he was persuaded by my disagreement, and these days he is as happy as I have ever known him. You could be Wellington after Salamanca, and feel you have done all you can. You haven't. Look to the future for success. The past has nothing but itself to show you. Build on that past. Build a greater victory. Happy New Year, folks, and build yourself a better future!

Torn between love and hate

I was just over at io9, reading an article promoting the concept of a TV show which deals with a different story each week, like the Outer Limits, and it compared this to the idea of books which contain a lot of science fiction short stories. I know exactly how I would feel about someone filming something I had already read: conflicted. How about you? Chances are you have already experienced it. Before I was born, my mother was very into SF, and my first exposure to many stories from The Original Series of Star Trek was not on the television, but the printed page. Naturally, I imagined the appearance of characters and things, and they weren't necessarily the same as what I ended up seeing in the TV show. I don't remember finding this disappointing.

When I got older, however, I went through a phase when I would try to avoid seeing a film if I had already read it. Some folk, I guess, never escape this phase, given how much frustration can overcome people when they see not merely is the brunette being played by a blonde, but the reason the killer killed is now a quite different reason. Sometimes this still frustrates me. A few years ago ITV started adapting Miss Marple stories for the telly, and in one of these they introduced a lesbian love affair as part of the explanation for the killer's motivations. That annoyed my family, as it was an alteration to the original. I found it tiresome because it was a change that was done solely with the intent of getting some free publicity. It did nothing to change the story for the better or improve the characters. It was just change for attention's sake.

The show had me raising a supercilious eyebrow because it had been called Marple, not Miss Marple. That isn't cool, TV executives. It's a bad idea. The whole thing about Miss Marple is that she is seemingly a harmless little gossipy old lady. The fact that nobody says "Miss" these days means you should keep it as the title to reinforce that idea. Worse, the actress playing Miss Marple, Geraldine McEwan, was wrong for the role. She's a good actress and I have enjoyed her in other parts. Her cackling crone in that divertingly silly Costner version of Robin Hood remains entertaining to this day. The lady they had as Miss Marple last time I watched, Julia McKenzie, is much more suitable, and even seems preferable to me than the sainted Joan Hickson, who had a wonderful run as Miss Marple, which I fondly remember from my childhood. The theme music from that era can make me nervous even today!

Returning to my original point, there are three responses I can have to an adaptation: enthusiastic, uncaring and downright annoyed. Of course, you don't need to have had any exposure to the original to have these responses. A friend dragged me along to see the first Lara Croft film when it came out. I had not played any of the games. After having to sit through that terrible, terrible film, I had no desire to. I resorted to rudeness to avoid having to watch the sequel, which I hear is even worse. That must have taken some work. Adaptations of beloved things are "taking an awful risk", as Grand Moff Tarkin might say. There was a baffling adaptation of an early Terry Pratchett book the other year. It had none of the wit and humour of the original, seeking to replace them with famous faces utterly unsuited to the roles. Even worse, one of the actors had previously played a different character in a previous adaptation of the same writer's work. I presume that anyone unfamiliar with the universe wondered how Death's cook ended up as a cowardly wizard.

Sometimes adaptations can work excellently. I was very taken with the film American Psycho on its release, despite never having read the book. Indeed, for several years I avoided it, having been told it was decidedly nastier in tone than the film. The film had some fairly nasty things in it, but when I read the book, it was indeed full of even more horrible things. It is a good book, mind you, and the film a good adaptation. So when the idea is not just one thing that might work, but a whole slew of stories, the number of possibilities for error rocket.

There's a TV show I have been watching lately called Sleepy Hollow, and it is really inadvisable to subject it to any serious critical thinking. Frankly, though, it works brilliantly. The fact that almost nothing in it makes any sense means that almost everything in it is funny. The lead character, for instance, Ichabod Crane, has a backstory that just doesn't add up at all. He explains that he joined the British Army to help put down the American Revolution. Fine. He names his regiment. Out of interest, I looked it up, and during the Revolutionary War it was in Gibraltar and Britain, having been formerly in Ireland. That's fine. Then in a subsequent episode he is at the Boston Tea Party, helping to steal some evil thing that the Hessians are guarding. Because the Hessian mercenaries are helping to bring about the end of the world, you see. It is glorious fun, and I wholeheartedly recommend it to you with one proviso. My Dad is a big train buff, and gets peeved when a TV show set in the '30s uses one from the '40s. Since nothing in this show makes any sense, exercise caution if you find things similarly off-putting. Baddies using artefacts marked with Viking runes to do something that involves them talking in Ancient Greek to henchmen who speak German about some Egyptian hieroglyphs is too much fun - unless it isn't for you.

Terror on your Television!

SPOILERS  ABOUT CONTEMPORARY-ISH TV SHOWS WILL FOLLOW!









So, y'know, exercise a spot of common sense.










For many folks these days Comic Book Guy has come to dominate their psyche. Our engorged hero declares, "Worst. Episode. Ever." Nowadays, folks often think this, and there's doubtless an argument in support of it. There is a lot of rubbish about these days, and there has been for a while. I have to confess two things now. First, I have just listened to this Cracked webcast about the terrible endings good shows have. Second, I've only watched part of one episode of Lost, so I cannot empathise with those who have suffered worst in recent years. My brother and I have a certain way of approaching TV shows. It relies on assuming a certain comedy. I have been guilty of taking it out of the house, and folk out there don't appreciate it so much.

I assume there's a great emotional connection going on in their cases. I've watched some of Friends. It was silly, but I do remember feeling a connection to Chandler. I watched some Buffy, and thought Xander the bee's knees. Then I went off to uni, and got older. Fundamentally, it's all entertainment, so if it fails to entertain, something has gone wrong. It doesn't have to be fun, necessarily. We can draw something enlightening and beneficial from sad experiences (cf. Lost in Translation). In recent years I became a fan of Dexter, the show about a loony who, driven mad by his mother's murder when he was but a toddler, goes about killing folks.

The TV show is distinct from the book. The literary Dexter is, let's be blunt, possessed by a demon. Or a Star Trek version thereof: an energy being That doesn't make the books bad. They're every bit as enjoyable as the TV show - so long as you don't staple your Serious Cap to your head. The TV version, mind you, is a lot more family-friendly. Dexter does love Rita; his adoptive children aren't also possessed by murderous demons; his adoptive sister and blood brother are not still waiting to kill one another. It's all hokum, and - let's reiterate - entertaining.

But TV shows can go spectacularly wrong. The penultimate season of Buffy saw the writers decide that the "Big Bad" of the season would be not some ancient monster, vampire, demon, crazy robot or goddess, but...life itself. I can't think of a worse idea than that. You've got a TV show you're marketing at teenagers, and who is the baddie? Life. As if kids weren't depressed and moody enough! Inevitably, the season was a huge downer. Dexter made a similar mistake. Season Four had a sad ending. Distinctly sad. Season Five was dramatically effective. Future-Sherlock Holmes led a gang of murderous, misogynistic rapists whom Dexter had to kill. It finally cheered up six or eight episodes in. I'm not checking precisely where because it is too depressing to watch.

There's the rub. Don't make your entertainment too depressing to watch. A message the folks who wrote the last season of Dexter could have learned from their fifth season, even if they never saw that bit of Buffy. In some ways, the TV finale of Dexter was masterly. Personally, I watched it because I was interested in a bloke who doesn't understand interpersonal interaction working out how to do so. But a few weeks before the finale I read some thingy to the effect that there were two classes of viewers of Dexter (um). The one wants him to get away with his crimes, living happily ever after. The other wants that naughty boy to be captured, prosecuted and punished. In the finale they showed the writers managed to accomplish something truly special. They annoyed both of these divisions, since he wasn't captured and tried, nor did he live happily ever after. He just kept living in a very depressed fashion.

It is almost as though they sought to say that this is what the average TV viewer is spending his or her life doing. If you want me, I shall be filling a bucket with my tears.

Foolishness

Rather my raison d'etre at the minute, foolishness. I habitually keep odd hours unless compelled otherwise. So last night I was tidying my room, and went outside to put some old White Dwarf magazines in the recycling bin. The house has a main part and an extension. When I came back into the extension and attempted to open the inner door, I found I mustn't have clicked the catch properly. After turning it a few times, hoping for a miracle, I gave up and went to ring the front doorbell. But everyone slept through my repeated ringing, and I had to retire defeated. It wasn't too bad, just cold. The washer and tumble dryer live back there, so I was able to pop on a couple more layers. An old thick coat of mine lives just inside the back door, and I nabbed a hat. We keep old sheets and towels to cover stuff when decorating, so I pulled a mess of those out, too, and swaddled myself in them like a mummy.

Through an odd quirk, we have an old computer in the back, hooked up to a camera system to film any invaders with nefarious intent, so I even had music courtesy of the internet. There a sink in the back, so hot and cold running water was also available. Anyway, I locked myself out about 03:30, and was released from my prison of foolishness about 09:00, an hour ago. So I suppose the lesson is not to use the back door, as it'll trickily pretend to be fine, then shut me out. Tut-tut! With that, I bid you all a good Monday morning, but from my perspective, good night! :-)

Strange Stations

I have seen some strange sights in the service stations around Birmingham. A few years ago I espied a Dalek on a trailer. Lamentably, I failed to take a photograph. A few weeks ago, en route to a wedding, I saw something fairly odd. The engine of a car had evidently caught fire, but the driver had managed to stop it getting so out of control as to consume the rest of the car. Weirdly, the car seemed just to be sitting there, and to have been sitting there for a little while. I was in something of a hurry, so I never did establish the full story. I just present to you the odd photograph I had time to take.

A little bit of everything does you good

The other day I was reading a report, either on the BBC website or in The Daily Telegraph, which related that scientists studying men had found that we generally get more frustrated by repetitive and tedious tasks than women. Having spent a few weeks now forcing myself to get lots of bunkers ready, and having found the experience fairly tiresome, I could well relate to it. Having said that, there is something greatly cheering at beholding the physical fruits of one's labours. I am a few days from that as far as the bunkers go, but lately I have also been engaged in a spot of house-painting. Ceiling, coving, walls and wainscot have had their due. In a few hours, once yesterday's undercoat is thoroughly dry, I'm going to apply the gloss to the last of the woodwork.

Despite being cheered by a job well done, if I may toot my own trumpet, it's also a bit dispiriting to think how much of the house could still do with a coat of paint. Rather, it's daunting to think how much remains to do. However, with the weather turning to the traditional English cold and damp, anything remaining will have to wait until next year at the earliest. I'm doing what I can with the back stairs, although to do a good job I really need to be about nine or ten feet tall. Last time I checked, I wasn't, and my failure to bang my head on the ceilings suggests that continues to be the case. In short, I may well miss a few spots. Even if I manage to avoid missing a few spots, there will doubtless be a few inadvertent splashes onto the stairs or some adjacent woodwork.

That shan't put me off, though. It needs doing, and I know how to do it. It'll soon be out of the way, and I'll feel I've accomplished something. Other things in life can be more confusing. If years ago Dad hadn't told me about the difference between gloss paints and emulsion, there'd have been a lot more dead crushes hereabouts before I figured it out on my own. There's a lesson: I would still have figured out through trial and error. Unless, of course, I never bothered painting anything, and just let the house fall gradually into disrepair. It's an easy thing to do, to let one's home or body or life come apart. Sometimes we need a poke to get things together. I know I do.

Keep your eyes peeled for those bunkers, folks. They will definitely start appearing within the next seven days. Unless someone eats them or velociraptors cut me off from them. Barring that, they should soon be on Ebay. Be well, folks.

Busy, busy, busy!

As the absence of updates has probably indicated, I have been up to my ears in this and that lately. First came my mate's stag, which took place in distant, darkest Wales. Well, really, really sunny Wales, truth be told. You think you know a country, and then it tries to help the sun set fire to your skin! We had a grand time, blasting away at clay pigeons, stumbling up a river in wetsuits, a curry (with suitably impossibly hot addition for the stag himself, naturally!), and a spot of dancing. It was a splendid do, and a certain amount of alcohol may perhaps have been consumed. Behold the stag in his manliest pose.

A few weeks later came the wedding, which was absolutely delightful. The place-settings were marked in unusual fashion, so I now have a rock with my name on it right next to me. I think this means I can't be killed. Unless rocks aren't bullets. I might need a philosopher to weigh in on this point. The bride and groom very kindly took into account my eccentric dietary preferences, and provided a vegan chocolate cake, which I shared with a lady with an egg allergy. It was a whole cake, so in combination with Scotch and a three course meal (including champagne sorbet!) I didn't manage to finish it off. It was a beautiful day, with sunlight again abounding. There's something very strange happening to the weather in Wales, I believe. Here are the happy couple cutting the cake.

Many congratulations again, Martyn and Vickie!

April Fool!

Ooh, it's one of those days! I was awakened at twenty-five past three this morning by the sound of something falling over. I stumbled to the window to see the bird-table lying on its side, and a sheepish badger partly-creeping and partly-limping back toward it to get the birdseed he'd managed to dislodge. This rather disrupted my sleep, and so when I got up to go to volunteer at the charity shop I've been working in for the last few weeks, I ended up about five minutes late. Luckily, it was closed. I had checked on Friday that it would be open today. More fool me! :D

In truth, on Friday we almost ran out of change in the till, and the manageress couldn't get any more because the banks were shut. She did manage to get some more money, but I imagine it was expended over the weekend, with the result that there was no point in opening today, as the banks are still shut, it being a Bank Holiday. Note to self: remember next time to give her my number so she can let me know. The Tower is coming along nicely. I have three of the four quadrants done, and am hopeful of getting most of the last done today. There's a slight lack of foamcard, but I doubt I'll be able to get any since everywhere's closed because it's a a Bank Holiday. The rest of today will probably be consumed by reading and watching old episodes of HIGNFY. I trust you're all having a less exhausting Bank Holiday today than I!

Occasional Irritated Blog

As you know, Bob, I've been out of work for a bit. So I have an employment advisor. I made a big mistake last time I was supposed to see her. I overslept. I was a bit worried about volunteering at a shop in town. It's nothing serious, just the residue of a social anxiety so crippling I hadn't worked in half a decade. She was upset I missed our last meeting, so when we met this morning I got loads of unusual questions. It's reminded me of the importance of deceit. I shouldn't have told her the truth about why I missed our last session. I ought to have lied. When I went along today I should not have responded honestly to her questions, as it's only got her annoyed with me.

I've been applying for admin jobs for a while. One sits in an office, entering stats into a computer, and waits with growing boredom for the day's end. I know this is what they are like, because they are the only 9-5 form of employment I have had, and three different employers had the same impact. Roughly the same impact: the first job was so boring (typing up documents) that I would get home and lie on the carpet for half an hour as blood gradually flowed back to my brain. I'd like to say this is comic exaggeration, but it isn't. Some people might like them, but I'm not one. Nonetheless, these are the jobs I've been advised to apply for. I have good qualifications, but a terrible (atrocious, dreadful, abominable, diabolical?) work history, so I accept they are a necessary stepping-stone.

Sadly, "stepping-stone" was an even worse thing to say. She asked if I thought such jobs were beneath me, and I said the worst thing possible: "Er." I won a lecture on my ego, and an admonition to find a job I really want to do which can fill the time until I can go into teaching. Problems: I don't know what I want to do because I haven't got the breadth of work experience. Asking for help gets the awful answer "Only you know what you will enjoy doing." Third problem: this doesn't mesh with the mindless government job-seeking orders, which are to check their website and apply for one job daily, and to check several other places and apply for one job from each every week. By telling the truth I have just increased my pointless workload by at least 10%. I say pointless because nobody ever gets back to me. I have had maybe half a dozen responses in the past year and a half, and one invitation to interview. I reached that place and there wasn't anywhere to park in their car park. Or in the road outside. Or in any adjacent car park.

I furrowed my brow pathetically, and sought to convey those ideas with words, but failed abominably, as I only got the same spiel again. So now I have to do all the government-mandated job applications, which never get any results, and I have to come up with some job I can pretend means something special to me. In a word, it's been a frustrating morning. I shall have to get my skates on, finish off this spectacular apartment building, and then demand GW Nottingham gives me a job building scenery for them! And pigs might fly. Yes.

Frustrating as this bureaucratic rot is for me, it's a lot worse for many people. I'm fine, really. The worst that'll happen if the government stop throwing money at me is that I won't be able to put petrol in or buy insurance for my car to get to job interviews which never manifest! Spare a thought for my friends, J&T. T's mum's unwell, but the much-hated ATOS have cut the disability benefits she has relied on for years, annihilating their cash reserves. I spent a couple of months working for a big building society once, and I realised the job wasn't for me when I spent Christmas Eve writing threatening letters to people behind on their payments. I left shortly after, though they'd wanted me to stay on permanently. After all, all that's necessary for evil to triumph is that the good do bugger all when confronted with it.

Hulk Smash!

As I resolved at the beginning of the year, I have been working out more. I have been trying not to let this get in the way of the blog, but it has rather delayed yesterday's entry. So this is just to let you folks know that there'll be yet another terrain tutorial along shortly. I am pretty cheered by how well the exercise is going, though yesterday morning I over-exerted myself, and spent the afternoon lounging about. It is mainly weight-lifting I have been concentrating on, and I can report substantial increases in the abilities of every groups of muscles I have been training thus far. For reference, I think that's all of them! I have been most pleased by the improvement in my deadlifting. For years I had been stuck at about 70kg (c.154lbs). My back wasn't greatly impressed, but my forearms simply weren't able to do more. In these last few weeks, however, I have been following the advice in Arnie's mammoth New Encyclopaedia of Modern Bodybuilding, and specifically training the forearms. The result is that I am now managing deadlifts of 110.1kg (c.243lbs) in 3 sets of 10, then 6, then 4 reps. Two friends with more experience have recommended straps, but I have yet to get my head around them.

I shan't bore you with the remaining details (for now), but rest assured that since tomorrow is a rest day (I'm working out 3 days, and taking one off), I should be able to get some essential 'gaming-based work done. Right now, though, I'm going to do some leg exercises. Until next time, happy gaming, folks!

Mysterious Knowledge

There was a quiz show on the other night, and it was revealed that when they had asked a hundred people in which modern country the ruins of Troy were located, that only five of them had known it was Turkey. Sadly, they did not tell us where the other ninety-five had mistakenly located "the topless towers of Ilium". Perhaps at the South Pole, where the Nazis sought Atlantis!* Perhaps at Rennes-le-Château, where the Templars hid their gold!* Perhaps in the Money-Pit where lies hidden pirate booty!* I am sorry. I am currently reading Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum, which is all about secret societies, and very funny. Back in '04 I was working as a temp in an office, and one of my fellow temps was talking to me about Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code, and said there must be something to it, as the Catholic Church was so vehemently against it. I stared at him for a moment, realised he was serious, so I nodded and mumbled something non-committal along the lines of "Mm" before changing the subject.

It is a grand theme, the Trojan War, which everyone should learn of. The two foundation stones of Western Literature are about it and its aftermath. Homer's Iliad tells of the wrath of Achilles, and The Odyssey tells of the roundabout journey home undertaken by Odysseus (known also as Ulysses, thanks to those confusing Romans, who spoke Latin, not Roman, because they lived in Latium. I said they were confusing). It always strikes me as funny when people refuse to look at these things, as they often think they will be too fancy or high-falutin'. Maybe it's because they're poems, and nobody reads poems these days. But people do listen to poetry all the time, never noticing it because it is being sung to them by people on MTV. These ancient works are longer than the things we hear these days, and you have to come up with the tune yourself, but the stories are as enthralling as ever.

Odysseus angers the god of the sea, which proves a bit of a mis-step. He has managed to end the Trojan War by sneaking a crack commando unit into the enemy city. The main Greek army and fleet retire out of sight, leaving behind a spy to deceive the Trojans. The crack commando unit is hidden within a great wooden horse, supposedly a Greek offering to the gods, but in fact nothing of the sort. The Trojans drag the horse into the city, unwittingly ensuring their own destruction. They think that after ten hard years of unremitting warfare, they have peace at last. They feast and drink, and then, as they lie about, useless for battle, the commandos clamber out of the horse and open the gates. The Greeks have sailed back, and their army rushes in, sacking the city, killing the men and enslaving the women.

So everything is done, and Odysseus can at last go home. He sets out, and his fleet is smashed by storms, his ship driven wildly off course. He and his crew have adventure after adventure, but the sort of adventure that gets you killed and, quite often, eaten. A murderous one-eyed giant tries to farm them like sheep. Their ship is nearly dragged into a giant whirlpool. Beautiful yet deadly women try to lure them onto rocks which would smash their ship and kill them all. They come to rest on a wonderfully hospitable island, teeming with life, with abundant food, and then suddenly it all comes crashing down. Their hostess is a malevolent witch, who turns the visitors to animals, and so the next ship that lands there eats the men who came before. She seduces Odysseus, and he remains there for years.

Meanwhile, Odysseus' kingdom, the island of Ithaca, is overrun by dishonourable men. They are trying to make his faithful wife, Penelope, marry again. She has her husband's cunning, and promises to choose a husband from among them when she has completed a tapestry. Every day she works on it, and every night she secretly unpicks every stitch she made in the day. Eventually, though, the suitors notice, and she is forced to pick a husband. Odysseus' son, Telemachus, has grown to manhood in his father's absence, but cannot fight off all these men who want to steal his kingdom. At the critical moment, Odysseus returns to Ithaca, disguising himself as a beggar, he sneaks back to his home, experiences the ignoble behaviour of the suitors, and engineers a contest. Whichever of the suitors can draw the great bow left behind by Odysseus, and fire an arrow through holes in a dozen axes in a row will be chosen to marry Penelope. None of them can manage it, and then the beggar achieves the feat, throws off his disguise, and with his son slays the men who would have stolen his kingdom. Of course, Odysseus' life does not end here . . .

* Neah, that's just silly.

The Oops of War

Another couple of battles from 2012 here. In the first I thought it would be fun to throw a trio of Klingon C7 Battlecruisers at their Federation Kirov-class counterparts, while a black hole in the middle of the table pulled everything inward. As it turned out, the moving terrain rather threw out my brother's plans, so all three of my ships were able to get the drop on one of his, while his other two frantically tried not to crash into an asteroid field being sucked into the middle of the table. With one ship dead, and my fleet pretty much unharmed, it wasn't going to be much fun carrying on, so we called it a day.

In the second one I was still trying to use my laptop as a reference point for all the ships, which went disastrously when I tried to deploy about a thousand points of warships on either side, and foolishly tried my hand at a comparatively huge solo game. I ended up getting as far as the second or third turn, when the fleets had just started taking pot-shots at one another, and then gave up in utter befuddlement! Pretty pictures of a massed "battle", but that's about all that came out of this!

2012 and 2013

The Roman god Janus had two faces, one which looked back, while the other one didn't. As his month of January begins, it behoves us to follow his example. 2012 has been rather a good year for me. I have made steps toward employment, including spending a week sitting in on History (and Politics and RE and Modern Language) lessons at my old school, which made me sure that teaching is something I should be happy to do. I attended two friends' weddings, and this has also been a year of babies being born, which is rather sweet. On the wargaming front, I have been consistently having a few games, granted only by coercing my brother! The blog has grown by leaps and bounds. I apologise for the paucity of posts this last month, but December has turned out to be remarkably full. Expect better of January!

So what for this year? I am not by nature an ambitious man, being rather more aptly described as half-asleep. Money and power don't really speak to me. Well, let us be ambitious in other ways. I am waiting to hear back about starting a PGCE in the autumn, but prior to that I mean to get some teacher training experience, so that I am better informed. I was a little late applying this year, so if things should fall through, I shall be able to put together a better and earlier application next year. Hope for the best, plan for the worst, and all that! As well as that, I have already begun a deliberate rescue effort. I have deduced that within me is a thin man attempting to get out, so I jogged a mile earlier, walked another four and did some light weights. I hope to see some heartening results in a few months.

As part of a plan to try new things I experimented with a foodstuff called kassava on New Year's Eve. It's a little on the bland side for my tastes, though if it were a foodstuff native to these shores, it would compare favourably with the potato (yes, yes, I know). Even the inflated prices of spuds following this year's torrential rains don't let the imported kassava yet stand shoulder to shoulder. Anyway, experimenting with food is one thing, but insufficiently adventurous. Having looked about at friends doing things, I  have drawn up a list of ridiculous things I would never consider doing. At some point be prepared to learn that I have thrown myself from an aeroplane - or been thrown by the experienced person I'll tandem-jump with. That will not be for a while, and I have some other madcap plans in mind. At a more down-to-earth level, I mean to have a proper look about the area for some other gamers. I am still very into this whole Star Fleet system, so it's mainly opponents for that I'll be seeking. I had a Romulan fleet arrive for Christmas, pictures of which should be up in the next few days. There may be a slight problem, as I appear to have an addiction for the Constitution-class Heavy Cruiser: I bought another three the other day, which will bring me up to half a dozen, plus the Lexington Command variant and Gettysburg Heavy Command variant. My name is Pete, and I have a problem!

In closing, I wish you all a Happy New Year and much success!