2025.. a review...

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..

A good'ish year (blimey, a trend kind of continues) but nonetheless a fail... there were ten table top games in 2025 compared with 11.5 last year. 

Without a doubt the new skirmish format is continuing to work, but there were some bigger games as well. 

I play solo, so the background, the mental story, the narrative, are absolutely key to my joy and involvement in the game, to which end I'm very much enjoying the Cedar Gulch (western skirmish) environment to play in, and the 'Ruthless' rules are a joy to tinker and play with. 

I have an urge to scratch the WW2 itch at the moment though, so I think that will be the next game..

C/w these in previous years..

 

2024	11.5 (half?! yeah..😏)
2023	3
2022	5
2021	2
2020	3
2019	4
2018	6
2017	8

1. Battle of Grande Battaglia [clicky] - an opportunity to get the Marlburian troops on the table
   
   
   
   
   
2. "Jailbreak!" [clicky] - the first visit to Cedar Gulch of the year
   
   
   
   
   
3. "Put a Tiger in your Tank.. (or errr.. Hanomag)" [clicky] - first try of the Lambshead Skirmish Wargme rules..
   
   
4. One Hour Wargames - Scenario 27 - "Disordered Defence" [clicky] this years John Corrigan Memorial Game
   
   
5. "Shootout at the Sierra Corral" [clicky] - the second visit to Cedar Gulch this year
   
   
6. Incursion at Spencer's Farm [clicky] - some ACW naval action
   
   
7. "Rebel gold" [clicky] - our third visit to Cedar Gulch - albeit the outskirts - and we get to meet that legend in his own still, Zebediah.. 😏
   
   
8. "Pancho sees stars" [clicky] - a herd of cattle heading for the stock pens at the nearest rail head have encountered a block to their progress in the form of a 'gang' aiming to make a profit from their passage in the form of a per head "passage fee". No game picture but it is a good excuse to put in a picture of the glorious Jane Russell, who did, kind of, prompt the scenario.. 😁
   
   
   
9. One Hour Wargames - Scenario 28 - "Botched Relief" [clicky] - ACW big battle..
   
   
   
   
   
10. “The Noon Stagecoach Wagon Job” [clicky] - our final visit of the year to the Cedar Gulch setting - this time we get to meet the worlds slipperiest strong box! 😁
    
    
    

2/. Blog more

Success'ish (kind of 😏)!! 

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, I think the sheer quantity of blogs we saw in the old days are now much less than then. 

Blogging takes a fair amount of effort, but I'm happy with the platform, I like to write, and it suits my ordered mind, but you need creative inputs to trigger posts/content, and this is primarily a wargaming blog so I need triggers in that rough area.. 

The format of weekly posts based on a variety of inputs, reflecting my various interests (books/beer/local history/occasional game reports/painted output, etc etc) works well for me.. (if you don't know 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 42 posts (😳) not including this one in 2025, which compares as follows

2024	47
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; although the downward trend is still noticeable this year has gone a further way to reversing, or halting, it anyway, and I suspect that around the low to mid-40's per year is my new mean. When I look back, some of those posts in the early years were pretty short, and these days I like to make sure I have a decent level of content before I post, so numbers may be down compared with 2012/13, but I'd like to think entertainment levels are still satisfactorily mind numbing... 😁

By the by this year marked the 19th Anniversary of the first ever blog post here on the "Random Musings" and I'm still here 1120 posts later.... where the hell did those years go???! 😱

The "botspike" still makes me chuckle.. what on earth did they expect to find here??! 😂

3/. Try to keep up my painting efforts..

I would say I did "rubbish" with this one - my painting months tend to be the beginning and end of the sailing season, but it turns out that this year I didn't even paint in those!

I did 20 points (😮) worth this year which compares with the following.. the worse year since 2016

2024	157
2023	46
2022	100
2021	200
2020	253 (ECW project still kicking)
2019	294 (ECW project kicked off)
2018	82
2017	78
2016	8

... a definite fall off in painting efforts, in fact, the only points this year were for rebasing one of the Marlburian regiments [clicky]

4/. Continue reading more non-fiction... 

If I did nothing else in 2025, and I was looking reasonably productive according to the above, I also read.. regrettably though, and that is the point of this resolution expectation, fewer of them were non-fiction this year than last (when I read 10).. 

Never mind, for this coming year I have Holland's book on Monte Cassino all ready on the go - this is a kind of part 2 to his book "The Savage Storm" - but of all of them this 'expectation' will get the primary focus this year..

Book	Comments	Score (out of 10)
	See Blog review [clicky]..  this was my first 10+ of the year	10+
	The story of  the Special Operations Executive (SOE) in the Second World War, the purpose which was to conduct espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance in countries occupied by the Axis powers. Particularly it is about the extraordinary bunch of people who founded, and made it the success it was - immensely readable..	10

5/. I'd like to walk the circumference of the Chichester city walls

Abject failure!

Let's just say that this is a wish waiting to happen... 😀

6/. Edgehill walk...

.

..still not done, but as I am (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 (and the year before)! 😏

7/. Portsmouth City gates - visit any and all that still exist..

Done!

This was without a doubt a 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 of my home city, but also because, like the mini project on the Hilsea lines, it also generated numerous rabbit holes to go disappear down (bastions, ravelins and Cambers anyone?! 😏)

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 chronological 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?? Or perhaps the sites of the old barracks (of which there were a plethora), or maybe even the Gosport Lines as hinted at in a recent post..

8/. I've had the Household Cavalry Museum 

This one's been on my bucket list for too long.. I am hoping that I may crack this in February as I have a visit to the smoke planned..

9/. Continue losing some weight - fed up being a fat bastard...

A partial success..😏 Weight loss has kind of been maintained - not gained any but not lost anything significant either - but overall I feel better for it, I've given up caffeine, I am fitter, and I'm still 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 2025 was a good year, was it better than previous one's though?? Hung jury, but the weather in the summer was on the whole bloody lovely..  lot of time spent either on my boat, or other peoples boats, but it was a fairly windy and hot summer.. the upside was lots of sailing, but my wargaming hobby kind of took a back burner in the summer months... 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! 😁

On the (wargaming) hobby front I'll say it was an OK year...  no Salute/Colours/Warfare again (just not interested enough in the shows any more), but a few fragile signs of growth - games continued to be played, and posts written, but paint brushes were idle as most of my projects are at, or past, critical mass and I just didn't need any more units...

There were a lot of good books books though.. and apropos of absolutely nothing (I only have the number as I like to put reviews on the blog), 92 books in total were read in 2025, compared with ..

2024	100
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	Comments	Score (out of 10)
	Third book in the Jack Pembroke series.. needed a break from the spies.. this is a very underrated, but excellent, series. The book tells the story of the South African Navy's participation in WW2 through the eyes of an ex-part British Royal Navy officer albeit in a fictionalised way. The South African Navy's war was one of small ships..  coastal convoy escort and mine sweeping being two of their vital roles..  it's not well known that the South African's also played a significant part in the North Africa campaign, on the sea as mentioned, but also on land and in the air..  very good..	10
	The body of the head of a wealthy family is found dead in his study..  murdered... and Maigret cannot find a single person who might have a cause to kill him. The family are clearly covering something up, but he can't uncover it, and why would anyone want to kill the man anyway - both he and his family are very well liked and respectable..  then he discovers a chink in their armour of respectability..  very good!	10
	A completely deserved 10+/10 after a couple of comparatively low key (I thought) but still excellent books from the master story teller Harris (Second Sleep and V2). This is easily as good as his novelisation of the Dreyfuss affair, but in this case is the fictionalised account of the actual love affair between the prime minister, Asquith and the 35 year younger Venetia Stanley on and around the start of the First World War... Asquith was clearly besotted, but made some cataclysmic errors of judgement in terms of security by sharing huge amounts of first hand detail on the run up to the war and after - happily the information never got to the enemy, but he was writing to her up to four times a day at times over the 5 year period of their affair! Very much recommended..	10+
	The last in the series of a quite exceptional books and I'm not afraid to admit I was fairly discombobulated for a couple of days afterwards..  surely a sign of the very best books, either fiction or nonfiction. For this one we have the occasional situation of the fictional Montalbano trying to match himself against his TV alter ego, whilst also having a conversation with the author, trying to assuage his long term girlfriend Livia's desire to go go to Johannesburg for Christmas, oh, and solve the murder of one of a quartet of long term friends...  a fitting end to an absolutely monumental series of fiction..	10
	Maigret is blackmailed with some clever but false accusations and finds himself within an inch of being forced to take early retirement - Maigret being Maigret however he is unwilling to go quietly, and calls up all his reserves of investigative skill to disprove the accusation and identify the perpetrator, and indeed why the accusations were made..  excellent!	10
	Had to be done really.. with the recent sad death of Forsyth it was only proper to have a re-read of what I consider to be his finest book - a genre defining work if there was ever one. Despite having read this ten's of times, you're still on the edge of your seat as the denouement arrives..  stunning book...  one of my top 10 of all time...	10+
	Another one of my top 10 books of all time (I must get round to compiling that list at some point 😏)... an alternative history "what if the Germans had won and occupied Britain" book that I really really (given it's top 10 position) rate..  the authors grasp of the characters and lives of the non-fictional and fictional characters in the book is second to none.. set in the early 50's, Britain is a Nazi protectorate (akin to Vichy France), Beaverbook is prime minister, and the Gestapo are hunting a man who may very well have the secret to the atom bomb they are (still) struggling to develop..  superb..  a whole alternative world reality imagined but based on what could have happened if Britain had surrendered after Dunkirk..	10+
	..and another of my top 10's.. set in Spain shortly after the end of the Civil War the book is about life in Madid, not only for the ordinary Madrilenos, but also for those who were ex-Republican, either directly involved in the fighting or just a supporter. The main characters are respectively the friend, and lover, of a missing British International Brigade'r - presumed dead in the battles at the end of the war, but now, possibly alive, in a POW camp run by the Junta. Set also against a background of the overtures between Franco and Hitler, and the huge concern to Britain that Franco might come into the war (and possibly lose them Gibraltar), this is a book about how, depending on your position, primitive, venal, claustrophobic, impoverished, and truly awful it must have been living in Spain at the time..  stunning..	10++
	Oh my.. I blame the top 10 discussions on the blog for my having (re) read a whole load of the books on my embryo list - if only to decide in my head which one's are better than others, as if it really matters..  this one however deserves an extra plus, but then it starts getting silly..  set on Cephalonia during WW2, this is a story about life for the islanders during the war, how they were invaded by the Italians, how the Italians turned out to be a good thing when the Germans then came, about the (true) massacres of Italian soldiers by the Germans when Italy surrendered, and about a love story between one of the islanders and one of the Italians.. it is also to a slightly lesser extent about the Greek Civil War (utterly awful), and the massive earthquake that hit the island in the 50's...  it's also about a whole lot more..  stunning doesn't even begin to describe it..	10++
	Friend of mine has been going on at me for ages to read this as it is far better than the Netflix film which I saw last year.. he was right..  simply excellent - told over a period that encompasses the start and end of the second world war (plus a few post war bits at the end), this is (mostly) the story of a young blind girl originally living in Paris with her father, who moves to St Malo with him to live with her great Uncle and his housekeeper when the Germans invade..  it's also the story of a similarly aged German army recruit skilled in radio's and RDF. ..  superb..	10
	Oh my - this is a classic and one I haven't read in a considerable time - remember the BBC drama series with the theme tune by Clannad? Gritty, dirty, and about as far away from James Bond as it is possible to get, Harry is put under cover in order to identify and discover the whereabouts of an IRA "big man" responsible for shooting a cabinet minister on his door step in London. There's wrinkles of course..  inter departmental rivalry, political versus professional military opinion is at odds, and the end is truly shocking...	10
	Cruz Smith likes nothing more than dropping in complete bomb shells, and this book is no different - after the happy end of the previous book this bombshell though is a shocker indeed and explains Renko's psychological state when he arrives in the 'workers paradise' of Cuba to investigate the death (or rather not investigate as his orders are just to identify the body) of his old adversary, turned friend from Gorky Park, Pribluda.. Pribluda is ex-KGB, and was in Cuba investigating something - and the more Renko is told not to investigate the death (everyone wants it be a quiet, death by misadventure event, that will go away) the more he becomes certain he must..  very good - best one since Gorky Park and they've all been very good. NB. This one was fascinating as a lot of back story is about Russia's relationship with Cuba, and how it quickly soured in the Gorbachev era Russia - I wasn't aware up until this novel about how much money Russia pumped into Cuba (Russia only got round to writing of $35Bn dollars of debt 10 years ago) - did Cuba really bankrupt Soviet Russia though? No..  though it's estimated Russia gave economic aid estimated by some sources to be over $120 billion in total between 1959 and 1991 - that's a lot of sugar 😁	10

..so an absolutely outstanding year for good stories and so difficult to choose a favourite, as this was the year I had a little run in the blog posts on "my top 5 books of all time", so I re-read a lot of the candidates to make sure they still counted as top 5! 😁

So I won't choose a favourite..  but what I will say is that, one, the two 10++ books are very validly scored - I recommend them unreservedly, and that second, the Justin Fox book was a big surprise - I had no idea it was going to be as good as it turned out to be. This year also saw me come to the end of the Montalbano series (so, so, good, and I will revisit* them in time) but which allowed me time to continue my dive into Maigret's Paris (sublime) and start a dive into Renko's Moscow, and pre-post Soviet, Russia (gritty..  but hugely readable)..

*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 in his life to 'diss' their efforts..

This year?? Well I intend to keep pretty much the same expectations (with some exceptions/additions)! Fingers crossed...  

1. play as many or more games (note wordage change 😏)
2. forty or more blog posts a year, but ensure the mind numbing content is maintained..
   
3. try to relight painting efforts.. 
4. read more non-fiction... it is the heart and core of my hobby.. more focus needed this year!
5. I'd like to walk the circumference of the Chichester city walls
6. Edgehill walk - if we don't aim, we don't even shoot... (just call me Confucius the Wargamer....)
7. Gosport Lines and Barracks - visit any and all that still exist, or the sites thereof..
8. I've had the Household Cavalry Museum [clicky] on my bucket list for too long..
9. Continue losing some weight - fed up being a fat bastard... 😏

So finally, Happy New Year to all my reader - may the dice roll as required, your brushes always keep a sharp tip, the beer be hoppy and bright, and the books all page turners...  oh, and your water pot never dry out.. 😃