Wargaming on the BBC (again!)

I am pleased to report that wargaming was again mentioned on the BBC this morning.  In this case it was BBC Radio Sheffield where presenter Toby Foster interviewed Sheffield Wargames Society stalwart Mark Hides.  The link to the show is here - scroll forward to 02:17:10 to hear Mark.

During the piece - which lasted for about six minutes - Mark was able to successfully plug Sheffield Wargames Society.

I should add that Radio Sheffield originally rang me at 0845 and arranged to call me back between 0900-1000.  I immediately rang Mark - while I am the Society Chairman he is the Publicity Officer - and told him what was happening.  It was as well I did so because they then rang him for the interview!

Bannockburn, 1314

While driving to a meeting yesterday I chanced to hear most of an interesting radio programme about the Battle of Bannockburn http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00y2srx 

For those of you even less familiar then me with this period, Bannockburn (1314) saw the English army under Edward II get a good kicking.  Not that I am in any way biased.

Joining Melvyn Bragg to discuss the battle, what caused it and it's effects were:
Matthew Strickland - Professor of Medieval History at the University of Glasgow
Fiona Watson - Honorary Research Fellow in History at the University of Dundee
Michael Brown - Reader in History at the University of St Andrews

The link above will take you to the BBC's 'listen again' facility and a useful reading list - I expect it'll be available for about a week.

Habakkuk of Ice

I have just spotted this on the BBC Radio7 website.  I've not listened to it as yet (althought I recall hearing it a couple of years ago), but the programme tells the story of inventor Geoffrey Pyke's plan to build a large aircraft carrier from ice!  Hallmark did a model of this in 1/6000 (it's still quite a large model, even in this scale) which I really must paint sometime...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0087495


See also: http://www.royalnavalmuseum.org/info_sheets_Habbakkuk.htm

An English Tragedy

While painting yet more 6mm WW1 Russians on Saturday afternoon, I listened to the Saturday Play on BBC Radio 4.  'An English Tragedy' by Ronald Harwood starred Derek Jacobi and proved to be very interesting. 

From the Radio 4 website:

May 1945: victory in Europe, and a Labour landslide. English traitor John Amery is arrested in Italy and brought back to London for trial. If convicted, he faces the death penalty. But his father is a senior politician; surely the Establishment will look after its own...

The play charts the weeks leading up to the execution, following John's arrest in Italy and trial in London. Like a real-life Sebastian Flyte, he clutches his teddy bear, lies, boasts and jokes as the day of execution draws inexorably nearer. Meanwhile his distraught parents try everything in their power to save him.

John Amery was the Harrow educated son of Churchill's Secretary of State for India, Leo Amery. His brother Julian was later to become a prominent Conservative MP. A troubled man, who had been expelled from Public School and bankrupted as a young entrepreneur, John became a passionate fascist. He broadcast pro-Nazi propaganda during World War 2 and ran a programme recruiting British POWs to fight for Germany on the Eastern Front. Unlike his brother Julian, John was a wild boy - bisexual, hedonistic and unstable. Why?

The play is available on the BBC's 'listen again' facility for the next few days at http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00s7vrf/Saturday_Play_An_English_Tragedy/