Holidays are the ultimate excuse to sprawl out on the balcony, pretending to be an intellectual while I tackle all those books I’ve been meaning to read but somehow never got around to—sipping chardonnay like I’m at a fancy gala, all while keeping an eye on yachts and canoes gliding by on the lake—pure bliss, that is, until the crowds come rolling in like a surprise sequel to a movie I didn’t even want to watch!

“Red One: A Bomb Disposal Expert on the Front Line” is a gripping and often disturbing look at modern warfare from a vulnerable viewpoint. Written by Kevin Ives, it shares his experiences as a British Army bomb disposal expert in Afghanistan, where the main threat comes from improvised explosive devices rather than conventional weapons. The story emphasizes careful, slow actions and constant risk assessment, highlighting that one mistake can lead to disaster.

What gives the book its strength is its restraint. Ives does not dramatise his work beyond what the reality already provides. The tension comes from procedure: the weight of the suit, the awkwardness of movement, the oppressive heat, and the knowledge that every wire, pressure plate, or disturbed patch of earth has been designed specifically to kill someone like him. These moments are described plainly, which only heightens their impact. The reader is brought close to the psychological reality of the job, where fear is not a surge of adrenaline but a steady companion that must be acknowledged, controlled, and set aside in order to function.

The book provides valuable insights into the Afghan conflict, highlighting how bomb disposal work is part of everyday counter-insurgency efforts that protect patrols, supply routes, and civilians. The IED threat is shown as a constant influence on behavior, morale, and unit relationships. Teamwork is emphasized, with the trust between soldiers depicted as crucial and difficult to earn, developed in situations where they must rely on each other completely.

The emotional toll of this work is addressed honestly. Instead of glorifying heroism, the book discusses stress, fatigue, and the heavy burden of facing danger repeatedly. Ives speaks about duty—to fellow soldiers, to civilians, and to family—without being sentimental. The outcome is a genuine depiction of courage: calm, professional, and often tired. It also highlights that modern warfare often depends on individuals pushing the limits of human endurance in roles that go unnoticed by the public.

As a war memoir, Red One is clear and credible. It avoids exaggeration and politics, focusing on real experiences of soldiers in unseen battlefields that suddenly become dangerous. For those interested in modern conflict, bomb disposal, or the human side of military operations, this book is worth reading. It’s not easy, but it offers a compelling and respectful view of a risky profession that stays with you after you finish.

This was an Ok read. I wouldn’t pay full price, but as an ex-library book in the Salvos for 50 cents well worth it.

Another Thrift Shop find.

Unofficial History is organized into thematic sections instead of a continuous story. Understanding these sections reveals the book’s appeal and purpose. Slim does not guide the reader through a career step by step; instead, each part shows different aspects of soldiering and command, creating a complete picture of army life as it was experienced.

The opening sections focus on Slim’s early experiences as a junior officer, highlighting the learning process through mistakes and the gap between theory and reality. Slim discusses how youthful confidence fades with experience but without resentment, emphasizing that true leadership stems from learning through failures and humility rather than ambition. The tone is ironic, setting the book apart from glorified war memoirs. As the book progresses,

Slim examines small wars and frontier soldiering, emphasizing how soldiers adapt to their environments rather than the outcomes of battles. He illustrates that discipline is truly tested in everyday challenges, giving readers insight into the army’s daily operations outside of major conflicts.

The book also dedicates significant attention to people, portraying fellow officers and soldiers through vivid character sketches, emphasizing qualities like reliability and humor over glorification. Slim highlights the professionalism and resilience of Indian and Gurkha troops while stressing the importance of trust and mutual respect in soldiering, showcasing the link between morale and fair treatment. Reflective sections throughout the book offer broader insights on responsibility and authority, revealing Slim’s skepticism towards rigid doctrines and the moral aspect of command. The later sections take a more retrospective view, acknowledging the uncertainty in military life.

Overall, the book is a mosaic of experiences, providing a richer understanding of the army as a community rather than a mere historical account. It is best read not as a comprehensive history but as a companion to formal military texts, valuing character and leadership insights over technical details.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading it, but I wouldn’t pay full price for it.

As the year waddles to the finish line like a penguin in a hurry, I just wanted to shout a big ol’ thank you, preferably while wearing a party hat and confetti rain!

Thank you for stopping by, reading, and for putting up with my ramblings over the past year! Whether you stumbled upon this blog yesterday or have been here since the dawn of time (or at least since I started it), your interest, comments, and stealthy support have been more important than the last cookie in the jar—trust me, that’s saying something!

Writing can often feel like a solitary act, like talking to your plants—except your plants don’t judge your puns. But knowing that these words are being read adds a touch of camaraderie, turning your lonely scribbles into a group therapy session. That sense of connection is what keeps the work going, like that first coffee on a Monday morning!

I hope Christmas wraps you in a blanket of relaxation, with good company that doesn’t eat all the cookies and a few blissful seconds of peace before the family chaos kicks in. Here’s to a new year that’s kinder than your last holiday shopping trip, steadier than a sugar-fueled kid on a trampoline, and packed with more worthy distractions than your social media feed!

Thank you again for being here, and for reading.

Merry Christmas and best wishes for the year ahead.

In a grand gesture of gratitude to all my landlubber followers, I’m thrilled to announce that ye can snag a free PDF of me jolly pirate wargaming rules, “Scurvy Dogs,” from now until Christmas Day! Aye, don’t miss out—download it here before it walks the plank!

After reading Despertaferres’ latest post I decided to have a play on ChatGPT with modifying some images and had a lot of fun. Note – Guru is a technological Luddite and anything I say in this post should be taken with the knowledge that you are reading the work of a technophobe!

Here is the original photo I am using:

This appeared in a recent post. Some ChatGPT changes

ChatGPT’s version of a Dystopian style – I like this one.

A good representation of a Monet style. Although I am a huge Monet fan this one just doesn’t cut it for me.

ChatGPT’s version of a Dali style. Not as askew as I thought and after a few tries this was the best Dali representation I could get – again not for me.

A Rembrandt style version that I quite like.

A John Constable style. Kinda quirky but I like it.

I then thought I would try the same image with Google Gemini.

Hmm. Matched my view of Google Gemini’s drawings.

Nano Banana is Google’s AI image model for Gemini, and IMHP is not a very powerful tool. OpenAI developed its own competing image model, GPT-Image-1.5, for ChatGPT. Both have moved from a text based model to a Multimodal one but ChatGPT seems to provide a richer result.

Thanks Despertaferres’ another afternoon successfully wasted!

This was ambitious task as one of us had no idea, two had an unopened copy of the rules and one had flipped through. A case of the blind leading the blind!

Despite this we meandered through and still had a lot of fun.

I decided to take as many of the German funnies as I could in 750 points above are my Nachtjager about to cause havoc amongst the Japanese “zombies”,

Schrekwulfen, Nachtalben, and Heinrich Gross holding the centre.

Japanese advance on the Americans who were allies with the Germans!

A heavily converted US “big walky thing”.

Consolidating behind a wall after wiping out a Japanese squad,

What remains of the Japanese after the Shreckwulfen and Nachtjager attacks.

I need to do a lot more work on the rules before I tackle it again.

Found this gem the other day, I had heard about it but never had the chance to read it.

Rommel? Gunner Who? was written by Spike Milligan with Jack Hobbs.

This book is really funny and also very honest at times. It is about Spike Milligan’s time as a gunner in North Africa during World War II. Rommel? Gunner Who? is not really about the war as a campaign or a series of battles; it is about what war feels like. It shows confusion, fear, boredom, and exhaustion. It is about the everyday things that happen during war—the shouting, the sand that gets everywhere, the shellfire, and the endless waiting. Milligan does not make war look exciting or heroic. Instead, he shows the truth of it, which is often ridiculous, ugly, and deeply sad. The story is told entirely from ground level, where war is not a plan or a strategy but something you hear, see, and feel moment by moment.

The book is really about showing that many of the stories people tell about war are not true. It is the opposite of the big-picture view. Figures like Rommel, the “Desert Fox,” loom large in official histories and officers’ briefings, but to the gunners, Rommel is just a name they hear when they are being shelled. Milligan shows what it is like to be small, powerless, and largely unaware of what is going on, used as part of something far bigger without ever understanding it. The book makes it clear that ordinary soldiers often do not know where they fit into the war at all.

Milligan’s comedy is exactly what you would expect, but it is also more important than it first appears. It runs through the entire book. His humour shows how soldiers kept themselves mentally intact. He jokes about pointless orders, petty rules, incompetent leaders, and the gap between what the military claims to be doing and what actually happens. His writing can be strange and disjointed at times, sometimes stopping abruptly, which mirrors the mental state of men who are completely worn out. The comedy and the fact that people are dying exist side by side throughout the book.

What really matters is that combat is never made to sound exciting or impressive. When fighting starts, it is terrifying and confusing. People are so frightened that they freeze or wander around not knowing what to do. Milligan’s descriptions of explosions, wounds, and fear are powerful because he does not try to make them dramatic or noble. He simply tells the truth. There are no heroes, just people who are shocked, hurt, lost, or missing. Combat comes across as chaos, fear, and humiliation, and his descriptions of sound, pain, and confusion feel painfully honest.

One of the things that makes the memoir so effective is that Milligan clearly cares about people. He is very blunt about officers and the military system, but at the same time he writes with real affection for the men he served with—gunners, drivers, cooks, runners. These were ordinary people who went through terrible experiences together and still found ways to laugh. Milligan never turns them into stock characters from a war story. They matter because they are ordinary.

This book is important for many reasons. It is about history, but it is also about the human mind. At the time Milligan was writing, people did not openly talk about what we now call combat stress. He writes about the psychological effects of soldiering with remarkable honesty. If you know what later happened to Milligan and others like him, parts of the book read very differently. The humour does not feel like a way of avoiding reality; it feels like a warning signal that something is wrong. The jokes act as a survival mechanism, a way to stop everything from becoming unbearable.

Rommel? Gunner Who? is a special book because it tells the truth about war without dressing it up. Milligan does not try to make war meaningful or glorious. He simply shows it as it was lived. Some readers may not like it because it does not focus on maps, tactics, or detailed battle plans. But for anyone who wants to understand what it was actually like to be there, this book is invaluable.

It will be most appreciated by readers who enjoy sharp comedy, personal storytelling rather than formal history, and writing that captures anxiety, boredom, and absurdity as much as danger. Rather than celebrating war, Milligan shows how soldiers endured it, laughed at it, and were permanently affected by it. In doing so, he wrote not just a comedy memoir, but one of the most honest and moving personal accounts of the Second World War.

If you haven’t already gathered I “really like” this one!

Some extra “IRA” figures that were hanging around. They are Wargames Atlantic Partisans

I just need to finish off a Motocycle combo and a car to complete the army. Both are almost completed. Hopefully in the next few days.

Just a few more bits and pieces to finish off this army.

Tomorrow some more IRA.

Just working on some figures hanging around the painting table Some German Officers

Tomorrow some IRA figures!

Went to the “League” today to drop off some figures that I had sold on Facebook and to catch up with some guys I hadn’t seen for a while. A variety of Games were being played – predominately 15mm.

28mm Saga

15mm Glory is Fleeting

15mm Glory is Fleeting

15mm Glory is Fleeting

15mm Chain of Command

15mm What a Tanker

28mm Hail Caesar

15mm L’Art de la guerre

15mm L’Art de la guerre

28mm Bolt Action

15mm Strength an Honour “Zama”

15mm Command and Colours “Zama”

There was also a game of “Don’t Mind the Bill Hooks” going on, but they had packed up before I had a chance to take a photo.

If you haven’t been it is well worth a visit. The Caulfield RSL venue is spacious, atmospheric, and has great food and bar.