By way of assuring my reader that I really haven't shuffled off this mortal coil ... as we say every year... "here we go again"...😁
I'm still (still) not really a 'blowing the trumpet', 'review your triumphs', etc etc type of person (I leave that to the business corporate types I used to work with), but like my 'end of the year' review on the sailing blog it is kind of nice to cast my eyes over the year gone, and remind myself of the (mostly) ups and (some) downs.... and besides every other bugger in the blogosphere is doing the same thing so why shouldn't I?? 😁
So by way of a joining up of the threads, and a bringing to a close of the last year, let's push on...First, how did I do against my expectations [clicky]?? Note: I never, ever, make 'resolutions', just 'set expectations', and thus when I inevitably fail to meet them yet again, it is not too demoralising or depressing an event.. 😏
1/. Play more games..
| 2023 | 3 |
| 2022 | 5 |
| 2021 | 2 |
| 2020 | 3 |
| 2019 | 4 |
| 2018 | 6 |
| 2017 | 8 |
-
"One Hour Wargames" - Scenario 23 -
"Defence in Depth" [clicky]
this years John Corrigan Memorial AWI game
Ave, John... Lofty C. overlooks his little metal men still striving away after his passing.. -
"Gunfight at Dexter's Corral" [clicky] - western skirmish game as two
rival gangs 'duke it out' at Dexter's Corral..
- "Corp makes a break for it" [clicky] - just a little mini game to try out the new to me Ruthless rules for the first time.. fair to say I was sold on them.. 😀
- "Springing Zeke" [clicky] Robbie and Buck, otherwise named the 'hapless two', attempt to break Zeke out from the Union gaol he's currently incarcerated in..
- "One Hour Wargames" - Scenario 25 - "Infiltration" [clicky] - a Marlburian game for the first time in ages..
- "The Wagon .. ♥♠♦♣" [clicky] - Zeke and the boys prepare to replenish their water supplies from a passing Union supply wagon.. but it certainly doesn't come free! 😏
- "Feeling Livery'ish" [clicky] - two rival gangs have planned to rob Tex of his little nest egg for old age - little do they know he's a veteran of the Confederate cavalry and a retired Texas Ranger..
- "The Jolly Boys march again" [clicky] - Tex calls up some old mates to help him get his money back.. 😀
-
"One Hour Wargames Scenario 26 'Triple Line'" [clicky]
- first game set in the Sudan for 7 years (for shame...) and an unusual
victory for the Dervish..
-
Infantry Skirmish [clicky] using the John Lambshead "One Hour Skirmish Wargames" rules for the first
time..
-
A second run out with the John Lambshead rules but this time
including some armour [clicky]..
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Pursuit...."on y vas, mes enfants!" |
Success!!
While it is very noticeable that the hey day of Blogger has now long gone -
other platforms, new year diary syndrome, ennui, "can't be bothered", call
it what you will, the sheer quantity of blogs is now much less than it
was, blogging takes a fair amount of effort, and sometimes it's just easier
to put up a 3 line entry on Farcebook, or Twitter/X, or in my case do
nothing.... 😏
That said, I'm happy with Blogger, I like to write and it suits my ordered mind, but I do need creative inputs to prompt posts, and as much as I have an array of interests, this is primarily a wargaming blog and unlike last year, this year I was feeling the love a little more... I do like my new format of weekly posts based on a variety of inputs, it reflects my various interests (books/beer/local history/occasional game reports/painted output, etc etc) - if no one knows where the title comes from by the way, "Firing into the Brown" was a regular section in Wargamers Newsletter, where Don got to put random snippets that had caught his eye in the publication period.. always something interesting there..
Anyhoo, there were 47 posts (😳) not including this one in 2024, which compares as follows
| 2023 | 11 |
| 2022 | 25 |
| 2021 | 21 |
| 2020 | 32 |
| 2019 | 49 |
| 2018 | 35 |
| 2017 | 45 |
| 2016 | 58 |
| 2015 | 69 |
| 2014 | 68 |
| 2013 | 84 |
| 2012 | 85 |
... which is is very pleasing; though the downward trend is still noticeable this year has gone some way to reversing, or halting it anyway.
This year marked the 18th Anniversary of the first ever blog post here on the "Random Musings" and I'm still here.... where the hell did those years go???! 😱
3/. Try to keep up my painting efforts..
I would say I did "OK" with this one - my painting months tend to be the
beginning and end of the sailing season, I did 157 points worth this year
which compares with the following..
... a definite fall off in painting efforts, in fact, most of this years
points were for terrain, but I still added a regiment to the Marlburian
project, and the western skirmish interest prompted a positive flurry of
paint brushes.. improvement needed but a good effort.. B- as
they used to put on the report cards.. 😀
Total to date: 157 points
If I did nothing else in 2024, and I was already looking pretty
productive according to the above, I also read..
In fact 40% more non fiction than last year (!), and again I thought the
quality was good. There are two ten's in the list.. difficult decision to
decide between them so I'm not going to - they were both extraordinary
reads so they both deserve to win...
For this coming year I already have Holland's book on Monte Cassino in my
sights - this is a kind of part 2 to "The Savage Storm" (listed below)..
Done!
This was without a doubt huge amount of fun for me - not the
least because it gave me numerous excuses to hop on
Gertrude and discover yet another part of the defences, but also because it
generated numerous rabbit holes to go disappear down (gunboat sheds
anyone?! 😏)
Without a doubt one of the best things I did was join the Palmerston Forts Society [clicky], as they do numerous hosted visits to the old forts in the
area, and the trip in the middle of the summer
underground to the Lines
was a big highlight of the year.. so atmospheric down
there..
You can read all of them
here [clicky] - you'll need to start at the bottom of the posts and read up to get
them in order.. not sure what my next local history project will
be - perhaps to visit the locations of all the old gates to the
fortified dockyard??
Let's just say that this is a wish waiting to happen! 😀
Done! 😀
Hugely enjoyable
afternoon out in Gosport [clicky]
saw this one completed back in March - what a fantastic museum and
exhibit it is.. very much recommended!
...was also very much taken with their X Craft, X24 is one of the
last remaining from WW2 - the one in the museum was used used on
Operation Guidance (attacking the Laksevåg floating dock at Bergen
15 April 1944) when due to faulty intelligence and incorrect
charts, the merchant ship Barenfels alongside the dock was sunk
instead; X24 went back though, and dock was attacked and sunk in
Operation Heckle on 11 September 1944.
Must be due a re-visit soon..
.
..still not done, but as I am now (supposedly) retired and have a shed
load of time available (apparently), this one must be nearer the front
burner's, surely!? On balance this one is closer to completion this
year than any previous one's.. but I said the same last year! 😏
...during COVID horizon's closed in to the computer/virtual reality
out of necessity - all the events/things I would have been going to
were not happening, so shifted to virtual.. Farcebok became a
ways and means of keeping in touch rather than trite entertainment and
for me they still are.. tbh, with my lack of interest in
attending shows then the 'soshul meeja' [sic] platforms are kind of
doing the same thing for me so I think I'm going to call this one
done, I'm not on it all day, and it still provides a lot of
interesting content..
| 2023 | 46 |
| 2022 | 100 |
| 2021 | 200 |
| 2020 | 253 (ECW project still kicking) |
| 2019 | 294 (ECW project kicked off) |
| 2018 | 82 |
| 2017 | 78 |
| 2016 | 8 |
| Date (click to go to post) | Item description | Period | Make | Scale | Points Value/Total Pts |
| 3/2/24 | Danish Lifeguard | WSS | CP Models | 15mm | 24 @ 1pt |
| 10/2/24 | Girder bridge | WW2 | Knightwing | 12/15mm | 1 @ 15pt |
| 16/7/24 | Corp, Zeke and the boys/horses | ACW | Newline | 20mm | 9 @ 1pt |
| 31/8/24 | Magnificent Eight | Wild West | Newline | 20mm | 8 @ 1pt |
| 21/10/24 | Three buildings for Cedar Gulch | Wild West | Warbases | 20mm | 3 @ 10 pt |
| 16/11/24 |
Saloon for Cedar Gulch Hitching rails |
Wild West |
Warbases Scratch built |
20mm | 1 @ 15 pt 3 @ 5pt |
| 7/12/24 | Gibbet | Wild West | Scratch built | 10mm | 1 @ 20pt |
| 7/12/24 | Hangman | Cedar Gulch | Newline | 20mm | 1 @ 1pt |
| 21/12/14 | Navarre rebased and re-flagged | WSS | Minifigs | 15mm | 4@5pt |
Total to date: 157 points
4/. Continue reading more non-fiction...
| Book | Score (out of 10) | |
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Better known for his historical and spy fiction, this is a non-fiction analysis of German armoured operational doctrine from the rise of Hitler to the fall of France.. Written a fair while ago, Deighton had a lot of advice, comment and input from (ex Wehrmacht General) Nehring backed up by the outputs from a lot of interviews and discussions with French civilians and military from the time.. it's a kind of "Blitzkrieg for Dummies" (and I mean that in a good way!) as he covers all aspects of the birth of the Panzer Divisions, Guderian's role, the technology, and how basically Blitzkrieg was a one shot weapon that could only have ever worked in the specific political/geographic and organisational period that existed in early/mid 1940.. old, but still gold.. | 9 |
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A real page turner, but in a "unfolding car crash" kind of
way.. the story f not one but a number of British Traitors,
but the one of the title was Walter Purdy, a Merchant Navy
officer, who made propaganda broadcasts and acted as an informer
for the Nazis. He was a pre-War Mosley-ite, a Fascist, described,
after the War by a work colleague, as being “as crafty as a
shit-house rat”. Every bit as treacherous as Joyce (Lord Haw Haw)
with whom he worked, and John Amery, both of whom were hanged; and
of Thomas Cooper (who bragged abut saving the Nazis bullets by
throwing Jews from tall buildings), and who like Purdy,
unbelievably was not sentenced to death. Purdy was sent to Colditz as a stool-pigeon by the Germans, but was found out, court-martialled, and sentenced to hang but nobody would hang him in cold blood so the prisoners sent him back to the Germans who he promptly told all about the tunnels and a cache containing a camera and Reichmarks. Later he joined the Britische Frei Korps (an SS unit made up of British citizens). MI9 were aware of all of this as a result of coded messages from their own people in the camps - most noticeably by the undisputed hero's of the incident, firstly double agent John ‘Busty’ Brown. A battery quartermaster, he had received training from MI9 in how to carry out clandestine activities after capture. Brown had fostered relations with the German guards by bartering Red Cross luxuries. In return, he was allowed on unescorted visits to nearby foreign labour camps, and was permitted to write an article about life in a German PoW camp that was warmly received by Joseph Goebbels’s office of propaganda and all the time working for the British! The other hero was Scottish , army dentist, Julius Green, despite the constant fear of being found out, and also being found out to be Jewish, Green devised a form of invisible ink from chemicals the Germans had given him to carry out his dental procedures, which helped him send messages back to London. Amazing book, but deals in the seamier side of the Nazi "dream".. |
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Hot on the heels of my visit to the Royal Navy Submarine museum in Gosport where I read about this sub skipper in one of the displays I immediately decided to buy this in Kindle when I saw how damn cheap it was... what an astonishing book - the wartime autobiography of Edward "Teddy" Young, one of the first RNVR officers to go through the submarine command school, and who then subsequently skippered a couple of submarines in the Atlantic, Mediterranean, and in the Far East at the end of the war.. very understated, but the guy won the DSO and two DSC's - riveting first hand account of war time life in the submarine service - you can see how much this influenced the Harry Gilmour fictional series.. | |
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Cracking (old) pamphlet written and published in the 1980's about my current little local history project.. the only reason this isn't a ten is because I would have liked even more detail then the excellent detail the author provides.. very much recommended, but you'll have to get lucky on eBay like I did, as this is long out of print | |
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See blog review [clicky].. | |
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I'll be honest and say I only bought this to take advantage of a "two'fer" deal (in which I also bought the "The Savage Storm" see next), there wasn't anything else I wanted, and one f my mates had said he was reading it so I thought I'd take the punt.. glad I did.. funny old book though, if you are expecting a history of the development and operational use of the de Havilland DH.98 Mosquito during WW2 you'll only be partially happy. There is some stuff about the development of the plane, it's unique design, the friction and opposition Havilland faced both from RAF procurement and the War Office, and their decision to go ahead and develop the plane anyway - thank goodness they did! All in all, almost 8000 of them were built, and they served in all theatres of the war (though the Far East did give early issues with the construction type until more effective glues were developed) and served in an amazing variety of roles (Light bomber, Fighter-bomber, Night fighter, Maritime strike aircraft and Photo-reconnaissance aircraft) - as White says - strap two Rolls Royce Merlin engines to a ply wood airframe, and the plane was an absolute rocket. Most of the book though is about how the plane was used in the Nordic theatre, in particular Denmark, in support of underground and resistance activity. The book is more about how the SOE developed it's organisation there, in what was an unusual situation in Denmark as officially it was not at war with Germany. Undoubtedly the best parts are the descriptions of the raids into Denmark - Operation Carthage [clicky] was the raid on Gestapo HQ in Copenhagen also the earlier raid on Gestapo HQ in Aarhus [clicky]. His writing style is a little "dramatic" at times (examples being 'hit the tit' when describing releasing the bombs, 'opening the gate' when talking about throttle, etc.) and also, the timeline is jumbled, and he's all over the place geographically - there's an even better story waiting to be told if he could just organise it - he also needed to decide what his book was - either about the plane, or a history of the Danish underground, either of which would have been excellent in their own right.. | |
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The latest from the prolific pen of James Holland - his output
considering the detail he goes into, and the level of research he
has clearly done is remarkable.. Like his Burma book, this one
deals with a largely overlooked, and less "glamourous" campaign
(than say, western Europe, Russia or even North Africa), that of
the invasion of Italy. After the success of the invasion of Sicily, and knowing that they would be invading France the next year, Italy was always intended to be a sideshow, but with some clear aims.. get Italy out of the war, divert German forces from Russia and North West Europe, and finally, in support of the Allied aim to get absolute air supremacy over the the D Day invasion, the installation of strategic bomber bases in Italy, that could reach the aircraft factories in southern Germany more easily than from Britain. They also expected to be in Rome by Christmas. On the whole by the end of '43 (and this book only covers the period between the invasion in September, and the end of December) the Allies did magnificently.. Italy did surrender as a result of the invasion (in truth they were a spent force anyway) but the German forces driven by a slew of Hitler no surrender, no retreat orders, resisted fiercely and the campaign turned into one of the most brutal campaigns of the war. The terrain was awful, one mountain range after another, all of which the Germans reinforced, and which meant that the Allied doctrine of "steel not flesh" couldn't be pursued - their huge advantage in armour and air support was stifled, by terrain, and by weather which was cold wet and interminably raining.. it was down tot he Allied infantry to win the battles.. casualties on both sides were enormous as they fought and defended endless shattered villages and cities, in intense heat and, towards the end, frigid cold and relentless rain. As usual, and the reason I like his books so much, Holland provides a picture of the campaign through countless first person accounts on both sides, and from all types of people, civilians, airmen, tankers, gunners, fallschirmjäger, but most of all the PBI (poor bloody infantry) on both sides.. Excellent .. very much recommended, and I am hoping fervently, that as the book ends just as the Allies get to Monte Cassino there'll be a volume 2 |
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A memoir of his experiences with the Sussex Regiment during WW1 by
poet Edmund Blunden. Not as well known as Sassoon or Owen perhaps, but his personal service (for which he won a Military Cross) included the Somme, Ypres and Passchendaele battles. It's clear from the book - which I found to be a really dense read, you have to concentrate as he manages to crowbar a lot of meaning and description into single sentences - that Blunden had a very dry sense of humour, and became increasingly cynical and anti-war as time went past (not surprisingly). More than once he was censured for certain comments, but I think that some slack was probably cut as this was a Kitchener battalion, not regulars, and also because he was not backwards in coming forwards when hazardous duties were required. The book ends with a selection of his poems which I'm afraid I glossed over - not a poetry fan.. 😏 |
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A lucky holiday 'reading shelf' find - the history of a B24 Squadron (741st Squadron of the 455th Bombardment Group) in the 15th Air Force (the guys who were based in Italy). The book was written as a result of a conversation with his friend George McGovern (the senator and presidential nominee for 1972) who during the war was a B-24 Liberator pilot who flew 35 missions over German-occupied Europe from their base in Italy. It's an interesting read and seeks to explain the ongoing arguments between adherents of strategic versus tactical bombing (six of one and half a dozen of the other to me), the enormous risks the pilots took flying during the day (not from enemy fighters who were largely a spent force by this time of the war, but from flak), and the search for the elusive item that, if destroyed, would cause the German war effort to fail (ball bearings, or oil, or transport hubs - all of which were tried). Easy to read and fairly interesting.. | |
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Time for a change from the hot and arid climes of Sicily.. this one is written by the well known ex-tanker Ken Tout and is specifically about "Operation Totalize" Montgomery's attempt to close the gap at, and trap a German army, in the Falaise pocket.. in three parts it features the British/Canadian and Polish experience, the German experience, and then a kind of "what if" section addressing some of the criticisms and extolling some of the innovations (the first time the Kangaroo APC was used, first time a major operation was launched at night, use of searchlights to reflect from cloud to give ambient light, etc.) I thought it was OK, but to be honest the first section was largely a list of unit names and acronyms and commanders names.. where he put in some of the first person experiences, especially the tank men, it was fascinating.. |
5/. Complete the documentation of the Hilsea Lines
6/. I'd like to walk the circumference of the Chichester city walls
Let's just say that this is a wish waiting to happen! 😀
7/. Visit HMS Alliance at the submarine museum in Gosport
8/. Edgehill walk...
9/. Spend less time on Facebook - it's wasted time, and it's too
easy to lose an hour that I could use doing something else
10/. Lose 3 stone - fed up being a fat bastard...
A partial success.. as of this point in time, two days after the
Christmas blow out, 35 pounds lost in the previous year.. 😏 I feel
better for it, I am fitter, 3 pound lighter than this time last
year, and walking more - I'll continue next year..
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
...there you go... you may beg to differ, but as it is my blog I can once
again report that all (achievable) targets and goals were achieved ...! Hurrah!!
In summary?? I've got to say that on the personal front 2024 was a good
year, was it better than previous one's though?? Jury's still out... the weather
in the summer was on the whole, pretty poor.. lot of time spent
either on my boat, or other peoples boats, but it was a fairly windy and
wet summer.. the upside was that the loft was not so hot and stuffy, and
my wargaming hobby kind of shifted focus becoming more skirmish
orientated... books and reading were my bedrock - either sitting in my
hammock chair under a tree, or in the garage in a comfortable chair with a
beer! 😁
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Shorts and tshirts... for me that's what sailing is all
about.. you can forget the salopettes and wet weather gear.. 😀 |
On the (wargaming) hobby front I'll say it was a good year...
no Salute/Colours/Warfare sure, but signs of growth and there were a
lot of good books..
…apropos of absolutely nothing (I only have the number as I like to put
reviews on the blog), 100 books in total were read in 2024, compared with ..
| 2023 | 69 |
| 2022 | 40 |
| 2021 | 51 |
| 2020 | 63 |
| 2019 | 55 |
| 2018 | 43 |
| 2017 | 52 |
| 2016 | 54 |
| 2015 | 46 |
... I had a massively enjoyable reading year.. and interesting
to see the retirement effect in the continued 'up tick' this year 😁
Favourite fiction book this year? Well these were my 'perfect 10's' of the
year
| Book | Score (out of 10) | |
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The eight book in the Thomas Blackstone series set in the Hundred
Years War.. Thomas is an archer, risen from the ranks and knighted, and eventually made Edward's, the Black Prince, Master of War. Responsible for advising both the King and the Prince on all matters tactical and strategic - in this book, it is 1367 - England is allied with King Peter of Castile, who is at war with his half-brother Count Henry of Trastámara. Peter is an odious little man - and Blackstone is soon at loggerheads, but they are triumphant at the battle of Battle of Nájera, also known as the Battle of Navarrete. In chronological terms the book is set at just before the peak of English success in the Hundred Years War .. there are clear signs that the war is beginning to turn against them.. very good.. |
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What a thought invoking book this must have been for it's time (1947) but hugely typical of Shute's interest in normal people and their very interesting lives. Four men survive a plane crash in WW2, each of them has a background and a history, but the main party receives a serious head wound that after the war worsens to the point where he knows he only has a certain time to live as it is inoperable. He decides then to revisit the three other men he was in hospital with so as to find out how they are and how things have turned out for them... the book is about not judging people by the covers, issues of race, and about love and relationships... brilliant, but it's of it's time and some of the words are going to grate until you realise this book is of it's time, and we have moved a long way towards the very ideas Shute is describing .. | |
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Time to recuperate after the high octane madness of a 60's super
thriller..😏 None better than this one.. Ransome was the writer who singlehandedly got me into sailing as a much, much, younger Steve the Wargamer, and I still enjoy the books now.. this is the second in the series and the Walker's (Swallow's) and the Blackett's (Amazon's) are back on the lake, but things are not going to plan - the Amazon's great aunt is staying which has effectively confined them to quarters, and then Swallow is wrecked, and thus the Swallow's are also forced to change plans.. simply superb.. an immersive snapshot of a bygone age.. |
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I was totally and utterly surprised by this one, stupid, but I had no idea of the calibre of writing that MacLean was capable of at (what I think is) his best despite the fact that he was clearly a multi million selling thriller writer. I would put this up there with the very best books dealing with WW2 naval actions, but specifically it compares very favourably with Forester's "The Ship", and Monsarrat's "The Cruel Sea" as it is a fictionalised account of life on a convoy escort vessel, in this case on the Murmansk run. The cold, the tiredness, the lack of food, the fear, the tension, the unremitting attacks, the dark.. stunning.. a must read. | |
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Second in the series this time moving the story in into 1643 and a theatre of the war that resonates with me even more than Edgehill. Starting off with the battle of Lansdown, the depictions of the Cornish foot assaulting up the hill pike in hand are glorious, the death of Grenville heart breaking. The retreating Royalists are then pursued to Devizes, where they are subsequently relieved after the battle of Roundway Down. Rather than moving on London though, the Royalists turn on Bristol. The depiction of the siege is excellent, Ralph is now a corporal of dragoons in Prince Maurice’s Regiment, and Francis, in the Parliamentary horse. As per the the first book there is also a huge cast of other characters, I was particularly drawn to the gunnery character. | |
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The seventh book in the Cormoran Strike series and as riveting a read as any other I've read this year.. Strike and Robin are engaged by a client to recover his son who has been sucked in to a cult church. Robin ends up going under cover in the cult to find out what has happened to him and they discover a whole load of very unpleasant people doing very unpleasant things to other people within the church - cloaking it with an air of respectability with a few celebrity adherents, the "church" is being run by some very devious, amoral, psychotic and damaged people. Strike and Robin are determined to bring it down.. Galbraith is a story teller - no higher praise from me.. | |
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A Russian defector prompts all sorts of questions and analysis as to how much use they are - they are a huge expense, and once they are out of the environment where they provide useful information soon become useless, and this particular defector also happens to be pretty unpleasant. Jonas has been moved to Russian desk, to what is hoped is a quiet out of the way place he can't do any harm, but when the Russians make an attempt on the defector, it becomes clear that there is a traitor in the team handling him in Mi6, and Jonas is sent as an impartial observer from Mi5 to ascertain who it is... inter-service rivalry, but he is not only looking for the traitor but a way of hitting back at the Russians with deadly force. Fantastic.. | |
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Jonas is now on China desk, but refuses to move from his favourite corner office in the Five building, instead he uses his extensive list of contacts to engineer a massive blow to the prestige of the Chinese Security Services through his arrest of a key Chinese agent, and all the contacts he is dealing with. In the meanwhile though, the GRU (Russian Military Intelligence) have managed to identify Jonas's identity and instigate an operation to kill him in revenge to the operation he instigated against them in "The Foot Soldiers". I am so hoping that there will be another book, but as the series have unfolded it is clear that Jonas is living on borrowed time - not only is he increasingly under pressure from his beloved wife, but he is also very much seen as a dinosaur, a lone wolf in an age of cooperation and coordination and clear lines of report.. | |
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The first book in the monumental Arkady Renko series.. Arkady is Russian police, based in Moscow, and the story is set just before Glasnost so still very much Cold War, with all the internal tensions between different Russian state functions that you would expect - the police, the militia, and the KGB all live in their own place in the hierarchy, and snipe at each other - when three bodies are found dead in the snow in Gorky Park, Renko is very much hoping he can slide this one off to the KGB. The bodies have had their faces removed, and their finger tips cut off, and been shot in the chest and head - except one of them, a girl, who was just shot in the chest.. who are they, and why were they killed.. and then a renegade New York policeman turns up with a possible link to one of the bodies.. very good... and I don't even like vodka.. 😏 |
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.Oh my this was a goody... set in the Spring 1917 the book is about
reluctant pilot George Duckwell who finds himself in a
reconnaissance squadron on the western front flying BE2C's having
left England under something of a cloud (he joined up just before
being expelled from his private school for running an illegal
gambling school 😏). Despite the average survival of a First World War reconnaissance pilot being just eighteen hours George manages to survive and become a reasonable pilot, while a succession of his comrades - inexperienced and under-trained - are shot down, burned, maimed and killed. What George really wants is a switch to fighters. George makes friends with a pilot from the fighter squadron sharing their aerodrome, William 'Mac' MacBride, a Canadian ace, is waging his own private war against the legendary Red Baron. Mac though has a past he is looking to hide, and the more planes he shoots down, the more likely it is that this will be found out as publicity is almost certain to be made of his successes. When Mac falls for George's sweetheart - front-line nurse Emily - George learns the secret of Mac's mysterious past but then Mac begins to show signs of, and then has, a mental breakdown... it's down to George and Emily to try and sort out a solution. Excellent - the flying sequences are outstanding - the sheer terror of going up in one of those things, without a parachute, no oxygen, freezing cold, and with antiquated weaponry defies belief.. |
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..so an absolutely outstanding year for good stories and so difficult to
choose a favourite, so I won't.. but what I will say is that the
Robert Radcliffe book was a big surprise - I had no idea it was so good -
and that 'Gorky Park', despite having seen and enjoyed the film, is an
even better book - I may have to get to know Arkady Renko a little more
this coming year! Remember, reader, books are like your best mates, you
want to keep seeing them, and err, taking them down the pub.. 😁
The worst lowest scoring book was still better than
anything I could write, so I refuse to comment here on it.. authors
work long hours, and they don't need someone like me who has never created
a book, to 'diss' their efforts..
This year?? Well I intend to keep pretty much the same expectations
(with some exceptions/additions)! Fingers
crossed...
- play more games
- blog more - there I said it..
- try to keep up my painting efforts..
- continue reading more non-fiction... it is the heart and core of my hobby..
- I'd like to walk the circumference of the Chichester city walls
- Edgehill walk - if we don't aim, we don't even shoot... (just call me Confucius the Wargamer....)
- Portsmouth City gates - visit any and all that still exist..
- I've had the Household Cavalry Museum [clicky] on my bucket list for too long..
- Continue losing some weight - fed up being a fat bastard... 😏
