On 15s

I made some tray bakes at the weekend

Fifteens are a Northern Irish fridge-tray bake - apparantly unknown outside of Ulster. I came across them on a BBC evening tour of Irish food programme which is currently filling the space usually taken up by Michael Portillo and his trousers. I like the food tour programme but I miss Michael Portillo, who, if in office now would probably be the Labour Party's third greatest Prime Minister.

I'm practicing for the bake sale attached to the end of season rugby festival.

They are very very sweet.

 

Fifteens ingredients

Digestive biscuits

Marshmallows

Glace Cherries

Desicated Coconut

Almond

Condensed Milk

Milk Chocolate Chips

Very easy to make 15 each of digestives, marshmallows, cherries - whizz the biscuits in a food processsor. Chop up the marshmallows and cherries, mix in a bowl with the condensed milk, put most of the coconut on a sheet of cling film,dollop the biscuit mixture on to that, top with the rest of the coconut, roll up in to a sausage and put in the fridge overnight. Cut up in the 15 pieces (or smaller as they are very very sweet.)

I'm not actually eating them myself as I'm on a diet but the small taste test I did suggests they are dangerously moreish.

On a Weekend of Indoor Hobbies on Sunny Days.

As part of my stop being miserable and start being alive again programme I am taking up in earnest a number of hobbies.

I have joined a board games club that meets on a Friday, a table top role playing club that meets on Wednesday and next week I have an introductory session to a table top wargaming club. This all is in part spurred on by finding my old Warhammer kit spread across the bedroom floor after the burglary and being inspired to try and get it back on the table. (Improv and acting to follow.)

So over the week I spent some time assessing how much of my Games Workshop Bretonnian army was damaged (very little), how much stuff I thought I had was missing (a couple of pieces but they could easily be in a box I've not looked in yet), what sort of stuff I had that could go on the table (painted, based etc - enough for one functional but small army). That job done I needed to find a better way of storing them and put them on some movement trays.

The answer turns out to be magnets and the wonder of Amazon's business model.

Buy small magnets, glue these to the bottom of your models. Buy ferrous-rubber sheeting. Buy self-adhesive velcro tape. Buy Really Useful Storage Boxes. Spend Saturday morning listening to classic Just a Minute whilst Your Lovely Wife and Your Energetic Son are out shopping and playing golf respectively sticking them all together. Then spend some time on Sunday making magnetised movement trays out of  the cardboard that your Amazon deliveries came in, self-adhesive A4 sticky labels and cut-to-fit rubberised magnetic sheeting.

So that's the core of a Bretonnian army ready to go.

Due to changes in the rule-set I need to add in some additional models and I miss my Green Knight. The Green Knight is such a wild, mad character, in both narrative and play terms that I insist on replacing him and I need some more flag-carriers and trumpeteers and junior officers. But that can wait until after I've tried out at the club. I will avoid buying anything from your actual Games Workshop because I try not to support the business model of "change rules to force lonely teenagers to buy new models."

In terms of changes to business models that make this easier, Amazon, Amazon-style delivery,  3d printing, YouTube and all mediate by the internet.

It's now easier and cheaper to find new ideas, new suppliers, new things and have them get to your house.

When I first took up this hobby it was very difficult to buy models that were not bought in a Games Workshop shop and made by Games Workshop. Games Workshop would not sell you alternative models (and in fact ban unofficial proxies from their shops and sanctioned tournaments). They also mediated / gatekept participation in the hobby. If you didn't already have a group of friends to play with you could only easily find them with the help of Games Workshop. Knowing how to store models using magnets was difficult to find out. Perhaps Games Workshop would rather sell you £200 worth of foam-filled boxes than £30 worth of magnets and velco and therefore didn't write articles about it in their official magazine. Perhaps not, coincedence or magic, you decide. If you knew the technique finding the kit was tricky. Who has 200 5mm by 2mm magnets? Where can I get ferrous-rubber sheets? Which part of my city is the place to look for people who know who to put those together.

Turns out the internet has you covered. Mostly Amazon. Amazon can afford to stock all of the things I need and ship them to me. 3d printing allows  model designers using 3d print software to dis-aggregate themselves from physical 3d printing producers. 3d printing itself is perfect for high-value, low-volume small batch production. YouTube and Google will tell me how to make better storage and which producers of alternative models are good. I don't have to bodge together a foam-filled box in order to not have to buy one for £200. I know have instructions step-by-step on how to make a better alternative and can buy all the materials and have them arrive next day at my door.

So I've had all the storage I need delivered to  my door. Assuming that I enjoy Thursday as much I hope to I'll then have models for the Green Knight, the Lady of the Lake, some heroic knights, some on flying horses, and some pikemen delivered to my door. That should complete my Bretonnian army for the time being. Then to make and paint High Elves and Skaven which are still  mint in the box.  The long winter nights will be filled with joy (and from MLW and MES, baffled incomprehension.)

On a Weekend of Outdoor Hobbies on Sunny Days

I was also out in the sunshine doing outdoor hobby things over the weekend.

Spent Friday at the Hive with My Lovely Wife watching Edinburgh Rugby's last (home) game of the season and saw them unexpectedly win and qualify for the European Champions Cup and United Rugby Championship play-offs. Edinburgh can be a bit wobbly in crunch games. They needed at least one other result to go their way. They've been (rightly) focused on their European Challenge Cup run to the semi-finals. I thought they'd be exhausted and fumble a that the last. Instead they played with the buccanneering freedom that I enjoy watching so much and won quite convincingly in the end.

Which means they finish in the top eight, and qualify for the play-offs and, more importantly, next year's senior European tournament, the Champions Cup. The play-offs will be a challenge. They have the second placed Bulls away in South Africa which will be a challenge.

Lovely sunny evening watching rugby with my wife, drinking beer in the sun.

Saturday evening I went to see An Audience with Aggers and Tuffers at the Assembly Rooms with a non-cricketing pal. My dad dropped out due to his back. Lovely gentle chat familiar to anyone who regularly listens to Test Match Special. Had a few beers.

Sunday, did a bit of light gardening e.g. stood looking at some things in the sun whilst holding a hose either at my garden or my dad's.

It's been very dry here for several months. I don't recall any rain in Edinburgh for a month. There is talk about hose-pipe bans.