The Grand Duchy of Stollen

T he Grand Duchess is away at a conference, so last (Friday) night after the Young Master's bedtime, I settled into a freshly made-up bed with a nav e l orange, a glass of something cold ( F ruit j uice, rela x!) , and my trusty laptop to find something to watch on Amazon.  Finally settled on The Romantic English Woman (D i r. Joseph Losey , 1975), starring Michael Caine , Glenda Jackson, and Helmut B e rger.  You know me.  Living life to the fullest out here on the bloody edge .  It'll be a barbed wire tattoo ar ound an upper thigh next , with pierced naughty bits, and maybe even a case of Hepatitis before you know it. A n yway, n ot the most riveting film, but basically Caine is a writer developing a film script about a bored housewife who travels from the U.K. to France or Germany and then has a brief affair while in a fancy, old continental hotel.  Strangely, the story mirrors much of what is going on with his wife in the film, played by Jackson. I...

A parade of  Carl Röchling paintings this weekend!  These are as interesting as the various Knoetel illustrations in my view.  First, one o f Frederick II and von Ziethen meeting again as the Battle of Torgau ended. A t last, a free weekend for some hobby-related writing and painting after a truly brutal week full of meetings and an annual review on top of the usual teaching, paper grading, reading, movie watching, and preparation activities.  W h ew! Even better, there is another small load of unwanted Minden Prussian and Austrian infantry on the way from Belgium that I have decided to give a good home.  The pile of lead will shortly rival other stalwarts in the hobby, but it should give me everything I need to finish (yes, really) the final stages of the Grand Duchy of Stollen project during the next few years.  A nd then I will concentrate on playing more games with my toys as I drift ever closer to my dotage.   The plan is to increase t...

A bunch of 12-sided dice, much like the two bags of 25 each that arrived from Amazon earlier toda y. H ere's an item for wargamers, role-playing gamers, and, indeed, gamers of all stripes who have experience with multi-sided dice.  Who knows?  One day, anthropologists might just study the rituals and courtship practices of gamers, much like Jane Goodall's and Diane Fossey's work with the C himpanzees and G orillas of Central Africa.  There's got to be a dissertation or monograph in it at the very least. A package containing two bags of 25 twelve-sided dice each (for a total of 50 dice) was left on our front porch earlier today.  I ordered these on Friday to use as a way of quickly generating random discussion groups among the students in some of my larger courses.  Upon opening the box and confirming that the contents consisted of the expected items, I felt compelled to perform a spontaneous version of the Polyhedral Dice Erotic Courtship Dance right th...

A musketeer of the Blau Wurzburg Infantry.  I'll be painting up conjectural flags to go with a regiment of 80 figures already in the GD of S collection, who sport a strikingly similar uniform. J ust a quick post to plug Fife & Drum Miniatures for those of you who are not yet converts to this particular range of figures.  Easily some of the nicest, most cleanly molded and best proportioned mid-18th century models on the market.   A rather large order of Minden Austrian infantry and some Russian cannon with crew arrived today, part of a (late) 50th birthday present to myself.  Everything was packaged ( taped into bubble wrap and wi th foam peanu ts surrounding everything) , labelled very carefully by proprietor Jim "Der Alte Fritz" Purky, and it arrived safely just a couple of days after the order was filled and sent.  Now all I need is the time to paint them.   In any case, these are the miniatures you want for the War of the Austrian...