Paint It Black

I LIKE to support the Orcs Nest in the Seven Dials district of central London as I find it good to have such an easily accessible model shop.
But when I went there recently to buy a bottle of gloss-black paint, I was surprised, to say the least, that the shop had none in stock.
It was no problem for me as I was able to get what I wanted at the Ian Allan model shop near Waterloo, and one bottle of paint is a very modest purchase, but even so ...

History Bargain

I HAVE taken out a six-issue subscription to History Today for the very-hard-to-beat price of £12.
The offer is available at historytoday.com/6for12. It involves committing by direct debit to a follow-on yearly subscription of £54, but this can be cancelled at the appropriate moment.

Toy Soldier Collector December/January 2020

ISSUE 91 of Toy Soldier Collector has a fascinating article on miniature playsets sold by New York-based Marx Toys.

Another glossy edition of TSC

The company boasted that their sets were "hand-painted in the British colony of Hong Kong," and the sets were apparently a popular feature of many a North American boy's Christmases.
As well as obvious themes such as Custer's Last Stand and Knights & Castle, the company, before it folded in 1980, produced a guerrilla warfare box themed in Vietnam. Perhaps my surprise at that is based on the hindsight of knowing how the conflict ended.

Slingshot November/December 2019

ISSUE 327 of the Society of Ancients' magazine was waiting for me when I returned on Sunday from a trip to Malta.

Irish warriors adorn the predominantly green cover of the latest Slingshot

The most interesting article for me is what is claimed to be the first English translation, from Latin, of Chronicon Terrae Prussiae, a history of the early activities of the Teutonic Knights in what would become the kingdom of Prussia. I only wish more of the chronicle could have been included.
Rather less successful, in my opinion, is an attempt to show every move of a wargame in diagrammatic fashion. Why not just print a photo of each move?

Camel Raiding

TODAY I finished reading Wilfred Thesiger's Arabian Sands, which I bought at Foyles in Charring Cross Road prior to flying to Malta on Saturday.
It is his account of spending many months with Bedouin over five years following World War 2.
Thesiger explored areas of the notorious Empty Quarter, usually being the first Westerner to reach the parts he traversed.

Penguin Classics' edition of Arabian sands

He stoically endured incredible hardship, often while being tracked by fanatical rival tribesmen determined to kill the "infidel" in their midst.
Later in life Thesiger was honoured by authorities in the Arabian Peninsula, who acknowledged his realistic portrayal of Bedouin life that paid tribute to the men who helped him without romanticising their lives or overlooking their faults.
I bought it primarily because I love travel books, but anyone interested in skirmish-gaming Arab raids and tribal fighting would find plenty to interest and inform.

Mdina

NO trip to Malta would be complete for someone who is into history without a trip to the ancient capital Mdina.
It is on a plateau that has been inhabited since prehistoric times, but the founding of the city is usually attributed to Phoenicians more than 2,700 years ago.
The city was abandoned after its population was massacred by Arab invaders in 870, but was later repopulated by Muslims.
It gained its modern name of Mdina - today pronounced im-dean-er - from the Arabic word for city, which is also how Medina (or Madīnah) in Saudi Arabia got its name.
Mdina fell to Normans from Sicily in 1091 as part of a re-Christianisation of the whole of Malta, which survived a renewed Arab invasion in 1429.
The Knights of St John were given Malta in 1530 by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in return for an annual tribute of a Maltese falcon.
They effectively moved the capital to Birgu, beside the Grand Harbour, and it was there that the Turks concentrated their effects in the Great Siege of Malta in 1565.
But, in an attempt to boost morale and give themselves a secure winter base, the Turks also advanced on Mdina, but were fooled into abandoning plans for an assault when the garrison fired its guns at what was considered a wastefully long range, convincing the Turkish commanders that the city was amply supplied.
Ernle Bradford's The Great Siege: Malta 1565 vividly tells the story.

Main entrance to Mdina

Close-up of the gate

A typically walled and paved street

View from a bastion with the Mediterranean in the far distance

Almost certainly St Paul - the site of his shipwrecking on Malta in about AD59 is traditionally given as being in nearby St Paul's Bay

Exmouth War Memorial

THIS photo was taken last week during a visit to Exmouth, Devon.

Exmouth war memorial in a town centre park

It is is probably one of the earlier examples of a WW1 memorial as the conflict is dated 1914 - 1919.