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'A gaping silken dragon,/Puffed by the wind, suffices us for God./We, not the City, are the Empire's soul:/A rotten tree lives only in its rind.'

Tuesday 7 August 2012

End times...

One of the good things about this blogging thingy is that like-minded chaps alert each other to good toy soldiers, interesting rules, handy tips, and jolly good books, like this one:


This was, of course, mentioned by His Grace, the Duke of Tradgardland, in his blog a while ago, and a good read it is too. To my mind, we live in a sort of 5th Century ourselves, here in Britain (and, particularly in England). The changes are, for some of us, almost too great to bear. I think of Robert Graves' poem, 'The Cuirassiers of the Frontier', which contains these lines:

'In Peter's Church there is no faith nor truth,
Nor justice anywhere in palace and court.
That we continue watchful on the rampart
Concerns no priest. A gaping silken dragon,
Puffed by the wind, suffices us for God.
We, not the City, are the Empire's soul:
A rotten tree lives only in its rind.'

On a more toy soldierly front, Paul Elliott's book has, of course, led to the little chaps - 15mm from Donningtons, the first, below, of a DBA army:


And, finally, joy of joys, I had a day off work, and put together a new bit of staging for my 6' x 4' greenhouse:


Alpines will adorn it.

'A gaping silken dragon/Puffed by the wind, suffices us for God.'

8 comments:

  1. Sounds like an interesting book, I may have to look into that one, thanks.

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    1. Definitely worth a look - I got my copy from ABE. The author has done a very neat job of combining scholarship with the imagined story of a late Romano-British legionary, plus his own living history experiments. Sound fellow!

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  2. Left a comment earlier but lost it to Blogger!
    staging and troops look great,I will enjoy seeing these projects develop.
    I am glad you enjoyed the book.The poem is new to me and I will look it up later today

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    1. Yes, thanks again, Alan, for the tip on the book - good job you choose your holidays sensibly, i.e., within Britannia, not abroad - as a chap once said 'Abroad is hell and foreigners are fiends' !

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  3. Found the poem-excellent it is.
    I forgot to mention that I have been swithering how to depict Elliot's battles .I bought Dux Belorum rules on Saturday but we will see...

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    1. Glad you liked it. Strange fellow, Graves, but not as strange as his second muse - Laura Riding-Roughshod, as she was nicknamed. He wasn't popular amongst old comrades when he wrote Goodbye to All That - but it bought him a nice little place in Spain. Still, there are plenty of his poems I like.

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  4. That does sound like a very interesting book there

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    1. Indeedy! Well worth the price of (or less than!) a pint of English ale. But, be warned, you'll want to buy late Romans ...!

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