Wasted

This was going to be a post about my ongoing painting progress, but I’m feeling a little worse for wear and to be honest you’ve seen it all before anyway. We’ve had a succession of post school holiday visitors during September which put a dent in my hobby time and culminated in my brother in law beating me 4 wargames in a row. Jerk. He has a serious heart condition, so I told the wife I let him win in case he snuffed it. 

Desperate to catch a break from this continual drubbing I seized on the opportunity to help my neighbour Marie Theresa with her problematic ride on lawnmower. The machine in question is kept in her barn of mystery, into which étranger such as I are not normally allowed. Marie Theresa by the way is either seventy eight, eighty five or eighty seven - depending on the current phase of the moon. She remains married to the infamous Pradeix strangler (who she hates with a passion only a French women can muster) and who I was about to say is as mad as a box of frogs, which would of course be racially insensitive, so I won’t.

I actually never made it as far as the tondeuse auto portée because my access was blocked by an old hot water tank with a coil of copper pipe poking out of the top. My suspicions were quickly confirmed by the rows of bottles under an adjacent tarp. Seems my geriatric neighbour makes her own booze. Who knew? Well apparently not the gendarmerie. Perhaps in a bid to secure my silence I woke up this morning to several bottles of something disturbingly clear on the back doorstep. It smelled like drain cleaner. Hell it could be drain cleaner for all I know… but I’m always game for a laugh so when she came around at lunch time I shared a glass with her. 

An hour later I still can’t feel my lower jaw which is totally numb…and I have a splitting headache. Instead of the planned post you’ll have to make do with a series of loosely connected photos and some brief captions. Soz. Had a piccy of us raising a glass together but it’s on my phone and I’m buggered if I can port it across to my iPad. Not in this state anyway. 

Oh look it appeared anyway!

Cheers. 

Temu scatter terrain for 28mm urban VBCW battles. Hat tip to Keith for the heads up on this one.

Part of my birthday haul. Some lovely urban / factory type buildings for VBCW

Yet more urban gaming stuff from Sarissa 

How the hell did that get in here? Me getting my perm done. Confucius he say never post under the affluence of inkerhol.

This shouldn’t be here either. lol. Saw this 1948 Sonora 302 when I was getting my perm done. Decided to collect old French radios. Like you do. Ain’t she a beauty! This piccy is off the interweb - cos I was trying to identify it.

Ahh….back on track. 2 sections of VBCW anti fascists primed and ready for painting

Two HYW command stands - part finished. There’s another three knights to go on each of them to fill in the gaps.

Right, I think that’ll have to do me hearties. I’m going for a lie down. 

Toodleooh.

Un échange culturel

I was taking to my neighbour Élodie last week about regional accents. She claims she has one, though like all things French it’s totally and deliberately imperceptible to the unsophisticated.

(Put your hand up if you can tell the difference between a three year and a four year old wedge of Comte fromage? Yeah. Thought not).

I rest my case.

Anywhoo one thing led to another and I suggested that in exchange for her making me speak French, I would introduce her to some proper regional English (rather than my perfect “received pronunciation” BBC accent - for which I’m famous). 

As an étranger (stranger) it’s nice to hear the occasional sentence in the dulcet tones of my hometown and though it’s been tough for her, our initial interactions now broadly follow this pattern…

Me: “Bonjour Élodie, comment ça va?” Kiss Kiss.

Élodie: “Ime oar roite tarr bab…” Kiss Kiss “Owsyure belly ferr spots these days?”

A charming and useful exchange should Élodie ever find herself in the West Midlands, I’m sure you’d agree. Of course she’s mighty chuffed with her new found linguistic skills and so we quickly moved on to the mastery of the traditional exclamation upon something going right.

Me: “C’est génial. (It’s great)

Élodie: “Iss bostin innit.”

With the basics under out belt we’ve now moved on to short useful phrases such as…

Me: “Élodie, pourquoi tu te prends la mouche?” (Literally and incomprehensibly - Élodie why have you seized / taken the fly? Apparently meaning Élodie why are you in a nark?).

Élodie: “Mark! Dohne nevah eat yeller snow, jew ear.”

Because of our runaway success with this I have written to the Wolverhampton tourist board asking if they can send any educational linguistic material they have on hand to help Élodie on her path to full fluency.  If I can work up a proper course I reckon I should ask the mayor if I can teach the kids at the lycée in Bourganeuf. Think of it, yours truly single handedly helping to heal the wounds of Brexit. I always knew I was made for better things than playing with toy soldiers and digging holes (my other specialty).

On the subject of toy soldiers (finally), my mojo returned last week - and we’ve agreed to work on our relationship through counselling. I’m allowed to paint toy soldiers on the weekend, for now…and if my “anger issues” improve we’ll take it one step at a time from there. 

Here’s some gratuitous pics of new arrivals and weekend painting that I’ll shamelessly use as click bait in order to get you to scroll through this screed of otherwise total nonsense. 

Horses. Aaaagh. The bane of my (hobby) life. Only another 10 French knights to go. Should be finished in 2027 or thereabouts at my current pace.

And the obligatory view from the back for those wishing to get their money’s worth. Not my best work, but serviceable.

New arrivals. The gun group for the first anti fascist section / squad. To the right is the platoon commander who I’ve decided to call Leonard.

The sections manoeuvre component.

Gotta love the detail. This bank clerk’s even brought his brolly with him.

Back view of one of Sarissa Precision’s destroyed city tiles. 

And the front view of the same corner shop piece. My BUF chap only popped into to get a packet of fags and look what happened. Told him not to spark up if he could smell gas. 

Toodleooh for now, mes amis.

 

…and this just in…

Excuses, excuses.

The garden has had all my focus this month, so there’s not been a lot of hobby progress. With that said it’s been glorious weather and good for the noggin to be outside with the chickens…of which more in a mo. 

As you can see below, I’ve completed the first English box of Perrys infantry and have moved on to the French. Slow progress and not my best work but they’re reasonable gaming standard and I’m still enjoying the painting process. 

An English ‘herce’ formation as described in Never Mind The Billhooks’.

A company of French crossbowmen - which I might deploy as two 6 man skirmish units.

Wokeness in the coop.

A few posts ago I put up a photo of two new Silkie chucks - sold to me as hens. Turns out that Edna (the white one) is actually a cockerel and wishes to be called Eddie from here on in. Mmmm. Our neighbour Marie Theresa has been mystified about my choice of chickens to date (not exactly major egg layers or practical birds in any sense) and having heard from the wife about Edna’s transformation asked…in French…

(WARNING -skip down a paragraph or two if you’re easily offended by graphic content)… 

‘if she could see my cock’. 

Yes really. *

Marie Theresa and I. The moustache is an absolute fanny magnet. I’m having to beat ‘em off with a stick at the moment. Well I am if they’re over 80 and French. Excuse the 1970’s lime green leather chair. I have a bit of a pash for seventies furniture. 

This alarming exchange came a week after the missus encountered the apparently pregnant 85 year old struggling up the chemin. The foetus in question turned out to actually be a canard sauvage (wild duck) that she’d captured on the pond at the bottom of her field. She’d stuffed it under her jumper (worn whatever the weather) so that it couldn’t see and wouldn’t know how to get home if it escaped. Very sensible. For those wondering how an 85yr old captures a wild duck, she claims that she charmed it with her singing and the same technique worked on a Canadian Goose last year. 

More crisp news

Stung by my criticism of the French crisp industry, French flavour scientists have sought to top their recent falafel flavour with these… I have to wonder where this endeavour will end (possibly me dying of a crisp overdose at 25 stone).

I’d better close for now. The Current Mrs Broom tells me there are some French Knights waiting for me downstairs. They could be the Perry ones I ordered of course, but you never know out here… they could just as easily be the real thing! lol. 

Toodleooh.

* I come from a working class ‘broken home’ in the West Midlands - so I find a degree of humour in such crudeness where folk of more refined sensibilities or better breeding do not. Apologies if you are one of the better sort. 

New arrivals and a home front update.

The recent loss of two of my garden friends (Bancroft and Mable) to a Stone Marten has come as quite a nasty shock but in the spirit of “getting back on the horse” and all that I recently acquired these two little bantams to build the flock back up to four. 

Edna and Elsie have expressed an interest in editing the blog. I may take them on as interns and see how they shake out.

The white fluffy one is called Edna, and the mottled grey one is called Elsie. She immediately put me in mind of the Ostrich that Bernie Clifton used to ride in his “variety” act but it turns out that I was another innocent victim of black and white childhood TV and the damned thing was apparently orange.

Black and White Bernie Clifton circa 1970. Funny what passed for entertainment back then. He’d be jailed for that these days.

Painting progress has been slowed by the inexorable growth of l’herbe but I’ve still managed to knock out six Perry men at arms which I present here for your scorn and ridicule. 

I’ve kept the heraldry somewhat light since much of it would be beyond my capability painting wise.

I was of course intending to post another Indian Mutiny battle report instead of this blether but I’ve had a bit of a problem with terrain (needed a none European 28mm compatible bridge and some river sections too) so that’ll have to be later in the month. 

Okay right then I’d best be offski, I can see the grass in the north 40 is over 5cm high again. Sigh. 

Toodleooh.

Chicken Korma / Chicken Karma

As a rule you should never post when under the affluence of inkerhol but I’ve been round mes voisines today and Christ that Pastis of theirs is strong stuff.

I’m conscious that I owe the blog a post, but gaming has been scant of late and miniature painting has to unfortunately come second to me endlessly cutting l’herbe dehors. Fortunately the Pastis has opened a couple of the doors on my advent calendar of troubled youth, so I’ll regale you with an anecdote from the past in lieu of anything actually relevant or interesting.

Buckle up.

The Current Mrs Broom planted hundreds of Euros worth of new plants last year and within 48 hours the four new chickens I’d just purchased had dug most of them up. “Why chickens.” she demanded of me, (in a most fearsome bate) “and why now?”

It was a good question. So in concert with my recent interest in all things Indian, I consulted various Hindu and Buddhist sacred texts and burned a bit of incense. You know, like you do. The unexpected outcome was a trip in the BroomCo Time Machine (pat pending) to the long lost land of Worcestershire in the grim old winter of 1977.

Though it no doubt stretches credibility, the young Jolly Broom Man (miserable brush boy?) was nothing like the handsome strapping chap I am today, all quivering whiskers and steely gaze…no sir, I was a girly milk sop with greasy hair, a brace, and was still wearing flares when my peer group had all moved on to drain pipe jeans. 

My parents had bought a small holding and gone “back to the land” in 1974 but after a couple of years the realities of stoop labour were beginning to tell. We didn’t have much cash (to put it mildly - you try paying your rates with goats milk) and so pater would sometimes come up with the occasional wheeze in order to generate emergency lucre.

Apropos the post title - from a mixed farm perspective, cockerels are pretty worthless but my dear father had chanced upon 50 going cheap, (sorry). After injecting them with female hormones in order to make them nice and plump (for reasons I didn’t immediacy fathom) they became my charge down on the farm. 

They were a decent bunch them chucks, with the female hormones eliminating their usual urge to fight or fuck everything in sight - instead they were good with colours and partial to musical theatre as I recall. They lived in an old refrigerated van only slightly less tatty than the family home and though they were relatively well fed the conditions they lived in were generally poor. I felt bad for them but at 13 (ish) there was bugger all I could do about it.

In the winter of 77 pater got the nod from a bloke who owned the Grand Tandoori on the Soho road and the purpose of my gaggle of gay chickens became suddenly and horribly clear. On a cold and wet November night daddy got a couple of crisp new fivers and by the light of a sputtering Tilly lamp I got a lesson in how to kill a chicken by breaking its neck. Thrusting the still twitching corpse into my cold little hands he nodded to the rows of roosting birds and muttered.  ‘There’s another 49 of the bastards in there. You’d best be getting on with it.’ 

Lovely bloke my Pa. 

On reflection I’d have been better off strangling him. (Oooh girl got daddy issues!)

So as you can see, karmically speaking, I had a great wrong that I obviously and unconsciously needed to address. Once I’d explained matters to the Current Mrs Broom she became a lot more understanding. I find there’s nothing like a bit of childhood trauma to grease the wheels of forgiveness. 

Makepeace, my bearded Favorol, gets human breakfast granola every day along with fresh blueberries and raspberry’s from Intermarché. The flock wanders where they will and live in a state of the art insulated coop that cost over a grand. Karmically speaking I may not now be re incarnated as a toilet seat.

One of these days I’ll tell you about the great goat caper in which a 14yr old me had to illegally drive the green family VW 1300 beetle through Birmingham to the abattoir with four billy goat kids on the back seat. Happy days - and nary a Fonz in sight.

Oh crap, I almost forgot this is a wargaming blog. 

Here’s a picture of some English 100yr war lads I’ve been working on. Proof if proof were needed that digital photography is not your friend. lol. 

Just noticed the chap in the middle has a bit of a droopy arrow. We’ve all been there.

Toodleooh mes amis. 

Merry Christmas to one and all

Merry Christmas from Maison Broom to one and all.

The Current Mrs Broom loves Christmas and insists I take part in it even though I’ve got miniatures to paint!

May all the battles you face in 2025 be little wargaming ones.

Further goings on at Maison Broom.

Bugger me it’s November already. Where the hell did October go? All the leaves are off the fruit trees and we are down to 1 egg a day so it’s definitely autumn despite the sunshine.

Although I’ve another naval game in the pipeline I thought I’d take the opportunity to bring you up to speed with matters military here at La Maison Broom. 

First off, my recent dive into the depths of the lead pile unearthed a little treasure trove of Wiglaf miniatures 18mm Saxons.  I’ve been painting away like a busy little squirrel ever since and this is where we are so far.

7th century Saxons in 18mm - discovered hiding in the lead pile.

The plusses are that I already have the terrain and the rules to use with these chaps, so apart from a few more packs of personality figures I should be good to go. The minuses are that I discovered Kalistra 10mm Romans lurking in the lead pile while digging as well. I had hoped to order some of the 3d printed ones recently showcased by Keith on his Bydand blog - but the Kalistra lads are already here so it makes more sense to persevere with them I suppose.

This latest scouring of the lead pile has made me realise how fixated on a project I can become, and also how quickly this  then seems to turn into a form of burnout and disinterest. 

What I need to do (and I’m sure the Current Mrs Broom was referring to my wargaming when I went up to bed the other night) is to spice things up a bit ;-). You know the drill, different scales, different periods, go where angels fear to tread and all that. Maybe try and have more than one project on the go that I can flip back and forth to.

Maybe, oh I don’t know, something like…this…

Or this…

Empress Miniatures 28mm Indian Mutiny range

Oh my God they look so good…

Of course it’d mean all new terrain and the figures are ruddy expensive but I’ve got a set of rules to use, so there’s that. I mean okay so I’ve been trying to cut costs, but for gods sake I could be run over by the bus tomorrow and have never even tried these. 

It’d mean a move towards skirmish gaming with The Men Who Would Be Kings and no hexes but it’d snap me out of my “I’ve got no room for gaming so I’ll only buy small minis,” rut.

Nah. 

Cmon. It makes no sense at all. What am I thinking?

But they do look soooooo good…don’t they?

Okay, enough with the levity and the ho ho ho’s. 

As you may recall I had the summer off from blogging in order to recharge the old batteries. It involved a fair amount of time with chickens (anytime spent with chickens is time well spent, trust me) but I also went for a wander or two around the outskirts of my hamlets parent village (St Dizier Leyrenne - yeah you can google earth it if you like, it’s not like I’m going to know, now is it?). 

It was July 19th and I was nearing the end of a pleasant stroll through the woods when I came across this.

And just like that I fell down the local history research rabbit hole that I referred to a couple of posts ago.

By mid 1944 the German army had been bled white. The units left “occupying” France were by and large a hodgepodge of signal troops, SD, Gestapo, recuperating units from the eastern front and so on. You get the drift. 

Just after the invasion, orders were received to begin an anti partisan sweep in my department. Despite the supply and man power problems experienced by the Wehrmacht, 2500 troops, 110 vehicles and 7 “cannon” were formed into Brigade Jesser, and this caravan of retribution then burned and looted its way through my local area for about 2 months

On  16th July 1944 they arrived at the entrance to Bourganeuf, which is my nearest town. Here they were confronted by Capitaine Jaques Chapou and elements of his CFI partisan group. 

According to locals Capitaine Chapou was shot here on the approach to the town while preparing an ambush, and a number of his  men were duly captured. Zee Germans would have been approaching from the top of the picture.

Given the numbers involved the partisans were soon overwhelmed with the Capitaine going down in a hail of fire. 12 resistance fighters were captured and imprisoned in the Zizim tower until the follow up SD units could arrive. The official version is that these men were deported to Germany - though none were ever seen again. 

The tower of Zizim in the town square - left of picture. Built in the 15th century to house a captive Ottoman prince. You know… like you do. 

The Rue de Verdun was sealed off at both ends and families dragged out into the street to be searched and generally roughed up. My neighbour Solange was only 9 at the time and she still remembers it well. I guess you would.  

Rue de Verdun - then

And now…

On the 19th July Brigade Jesser arrived in my little hamlets parent village (St Dizier Leyrenne) with over 40 trucks parking on the village green pictured below. 

The 1944 Saint Dizier Leyrenne truck stop.

The accompanying SD detachment set themselves up in front of the monument slightly to the left of the picture and began their interrogations. There were less than 500 people resident in the village and surrounding farms. 61 people (apparently selected at random) were arrested and deported to the Reich for further investigation. Only 2 returned after the war. 

I can only assume that the interrogators from the SD were fairly efficient because somehow later that evening a company of soldiers surrounded 8 of Capitaine Chapou’s partisans who’d avoided the roundup in Bourganeuf and were attempting to escape the area through the woods to the north of my house. 

The soldiers involved were Crimean Tartar “volunteers” in the Russian legion and they brought with them all the excesses and barbarism of the Eastern Front. The 8 partisans were captured, tortured for information and then executed on the spot. 

Crimean Tartars of the Russian Volunteer LegIon in France 1944]

So yeah, it was exactly 80 years later to the day, on the 19th July 2024 that I was wandering through the nearby woods and I discovered the memorial. I was alone and the woods were silent. It all felt very sad. Apparently there are flowers left each year. Next year I shall add to them. 

Some of the Tartars responsible for this outrage mutinied on the 29th July and actually, while out of my area, volunteered to join a resistance group in the Corrèze region. Their fate after this point remains unknown. The rest of the unit eventually met their end in the Colmar pocket. 

Kurt Jesser was captured in October 1945 and held in a camp to be charged for war crimes. He was released in 1947 and all charges were dropped. A further investigation was launched in 1949 (perhaps when further information came to light?) but again the charges were dropped. He died at home in 1950.

Now, if you want “grim” on a larger and even more barbaric scale try googling Oradour Sur Glane which is also not too far away and well worth a visit. 

Toodleooh.

A niche within a niche

Okay so I was googling “cats that look like Hitler”* the other day…hey, I am retired… when God knows how I got there but I ended up watching a stop motion video of the battle of the bulge - all done in LEGO.

It’s fair to say I spent many a long hour when both my two lads were little playing with their LEGO…and sometimes, if they were good, they got to join in too. Our best builds were forts, or siege weapons that used elastic bands to catapult marbles at the defenders, (I like to think they were brought up proper like). Anywhoo we constantly struggled to create warlike things with what was in those days a very non military toy. 

If only we’d waited for twenty odd years!

Now, I’m kind of used to having a hobby (regular wargaming) that’s considered “niche”, but it seems I’m now totally out nerded  by a group inhabiting a niche within my niche.

Here for your delight and delectation are a whole load of screenshots of WW2 LEGO tanks and infantry - that they apparently use Bolt Action to play games with!

I’m kind of in awe.

I think.

* totally a thing…Google it, it’s hilarious.