RogerBW's Blog

One for the Brow part 6: scenarios and Harpoon stats 31 May 2014 - 4 comments

So that's my fantasy Royal Navy. Who's it going to fight? Practically anybody.

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Red Storm Rising, Tom Clancy (and Larry Bond) 30 May 2014 - 2 comments

Some time in the 1980s, a terrorist attack on oil infrastructure leads the USSR to invade Europe.

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A Walk at Goring (May 2014) 29 May 2014 - 4 comments

Last Sunday, we went for a walk on the Thames Path near Goring. Images follow: cc-by-sa on everything.

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Reading Boardgames Social 27 May 2014 28 May 2014

Feels like a very long time since the last of these.

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Doctor Who Re-Watch, series 15 27 May 2014 - 5 comments

As always, spoilers abound. See Wikipedia for production details)

Doctor Who - Tom Baker
Leela - Louise Jameson
K-9 (voice) - John Leeson

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Juvenile bluetits 26 May 2014 - 2 comments

A flock of young bluetits has found our bird-feeder. I have my suspicions about where they nest, but I'm not going to risk disturbing them by finding out. Large images follow: cc-by-sa on everything.

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Die Wand 25 May 2014

2012, dir. Julian Roman Pölsler, Martina Gedeck: IMDb / allmovie

A woman staying in a remote lodge discovers that an invisible barrier is separating her from the rest of the world. (In German, viewed with subtitles.)

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Northrop YF-23 24 May 2014 - 2 comments

The YF-23 was a prototype that competed against the Lockheed YF-22 to become the USAF's Advanced Tactical Fighter in the 1990s; the Lockheed plane won.

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Firefly: The Artful Dodger 23 May 2014

In the Firefly board game, the Artful Dodger is an optional add-on ship. Is it worth picking?

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Diamond Dust, Peter Lovesey 22 May 2014

Diamond Dust is the seventh book in Lovesey's Peter Diamond series, and one that makes for a very substantial change in tone.

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Why I have no smartphone 21 May 2014 - 4 comments

A reader expressed surprise that I don't use a smartphone.

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Wargaming ethics 20 May 2014 - 5 comments

People have all sorts of objections to wargaming with particular periods, wars, or types of unit.

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Augmenting Chronicle 19 May 2014

I've been keeping this blog since the beginning of the year, and it's gradually been accreting ancillary code.

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Chain of Command: The Battle of Grange Farm 18 May 2014 - 5 comments

Yesterday I played my third game of Chain of Command, and while I was still beaten I did a bit better than last time. Still fun. Be warned, this is a very image-heavy post; each image links to the original high-resolution version. cc-by-sa applies to all images.

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Still more tales from Tech Support 17 May 2014

The last Helldesk stories. For now.

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Dive in the Sun, Douglas Reeman 16 May 2014

Late in the Second World War, the crew of a midget submarine gets into trouble off the Italian coast.

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Tamara Drewe 15 May 2014

2010, dir. Stephen Frears, Gemma Arterton, Luke Evans: IMDb / allmovie

Tamara Drewe, formerly the ugly duckling and now a glamorous journalist, returns to the village where she grew up… and everything is upended.

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One for the Brow part 5: other combatants 14 May 2014 - 6 comments

Carriers and submarines are dealt with. What about the rest of the Navy?

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Doctor Who Re-Watch, series 14 13 May 2014 - 3 comments

As always, spoilers abound. See Wikipedia for production details)

Doctor Who - Tom Baker
Sarah Jane Smith - Elisabeth Sladen
Leela - Louise Jameson

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Camden Town Brewery Tour, May 2014 12 May 2014 - 3 comments

Last Saturday I went with some friends to tour the Camden Town Brewery. (Images follow; all are cc-by-sa.)

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Yakovlev Yak-38 11 May 2014 - 9 comments

The Yak-38 (NATO reporting name "Forger") was the Soviet carrier-borne fixed-wing aircraft of the Cold War.

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Rebuilding the Royal Navy, D. K. Brown and George Moore 10 May 2014

In 1945, Britain had a large and often hastily-constructed fleet which was clearly close to obsolete, and very little money with which to update it. This is the story of what happened next.

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Firefly Pirates and Bounty Hunters: first look 09 May 2014

My hopes for the Pirates and Bounty Hunters expansion to Firefly were that it would increase interaction between players and make runaway victories more difficult. My copy arrived yesterday. At first glance, how does it do?

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Frozen 08 May 2014

2013, dir. Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee, Idina Menzel, Kristin Bell: IMDb / allmovie

The new queen flees from her coronation, plunges the country into winter, and disappears; her sister goes to find her.

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Thirsty Meeples 6 May 2014 07 May 2014

This boardgame café has recently opened in Oxford, and I went along with some friends to try it out.

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More tales from Tech Support 06 May 2014 - 2 comments

Some more things that happened while I was on the Helldesk. (Of course that's what we called it. Sometimes we challenged each other to answer the phone that way)

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Shattered Trident, Larry Bond and Chris Carlson 05 May 2014

In 2016, China and an alliance of South-East Asian nations go to war over the Spratly Islands.

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A Walk in the Woods (May 2014) 04 May 2014 - 3 comments

Yesterday was sunny, and we went for a walk in one of the local woods. (Images follow.)

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Lockheed XV-4 Hummingbird 03 May 2014 - 2 comments

The XV-4 was a prototype V/STOL aircraft built for the US Army.

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The Martian, Andy Weir 02 May 2014

Astronaut Mark Watney is on Mars. Alone; the rest of the crew thought he'd died in the dust storm that they were escaping from. Now he's trying to work out how to survive.

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One for the Brow part 4: carriers and submarines 01 May 2014 - 3 comments

So Queen Elizabeth, Duke of Edinburgh and let's say Eagle are built during the early 1970s. That's the easy bit. What aircraft do they carry?

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