I've Heard Duck's Fart Before!

Gerald the Duck was regretting his Vindaloos from the night before.

Oh such a quaint saying (has anyone else heard this?) that basically means, yes right of course you did/will do etc. Or to put it another way, can you believe what you are hearing? I am referring in fact to my Blog Giveaway picked way back on the 15th. Lets face it the two UK guys should have received theirs by now!  Problem is I have yet to post them!!! they should go out tomorrow (That's that duck again), the problem really stems from two things. Being arsed enough to package them up (really just a padded envelope) but the other reason is any costs for the blogs has to come out of my wargames neutral stash which took that hammering at the weekend. Well I was expecting some money flowing in from selling some figures but the money has yet to land leaving me in a bit of a twist. No matter I will get them out and short term minus as I have a few other sales that will pad me out fairly well anyway and that should be in some time soon (oh the life of the unemployable). So you can stop looking in the mail, well until Monday anyway.

Close up of the damage by the farting duck (yes I know it's a drake).

Johny Cash possibly was inspired by a similar scene.

I made my wife take the picture a few weeks ago whilst we were out walking at Cromford. Well it amused me anyway. Cath was far happier taking shots like the one below, bless.

"Why am I on a wargames blog?"

And the Winners are..............

Not a bad showing, I had 15 requests for the balls, and 9 each for the books. So I got the kids to throw a D20 for each person with it going to the highest rolled. I will keep the list in case anyone does not claim their prize and work my way down the list. So drum rolls please.

The Devil's Birthday was won by Dan who has the interesting blog Gunners Wargamming which currently has a post on conversion work to Warhammer Models.

The Commando's at Dieppe was won by Andy McMaster with a roll of 20 no less. His blog is one that I have been following the longest and a good part of the reason I went ahead and started my own wargames blog (you can blame him!!) this being Another Slight Diversion. and his latest post is catching up after another successful ImagiNation games weekend. A very interesting idea that has rather grown as each player seems to have brought along yet more units!

Finally the Musket balls went not to the magical roll of 20 but 19 and was won by BrownK29 who until checking out his site I had not seen. I was impressed enough to click follow straight away so it's worth a pop over to Keith's Wargaming and Painting Blog. His latest post is is showing off his newly painted wraiths with a nice blue wash, they look great.

I have Dan's e-mail address but can Andy and Keith both get in touch with your address please. I will be posting messages on your blogs to let you know you have won as well. If any of you are at Triples this weekend I can bring along your prizes and if you are at Partisan the following week I could be convinced to attend if I can. My e-mail is

ian_willey AT hotmail dot com

Thanks to everyone who entered and better look for the rest of you next time.

Blog Giveaway Drawn Tomorrow

Today's your last chance to get in on the action (well anytime up to the draw really). Leave a comment here or the original post for a chance to win either of the two books or a couple of musket balls. The draw will be done after the kids get home from school as they will be a picking.

Good luck to you all.

Don't Forget The Giveaway

I keep forgetting to remind followers about the giveaway. Just scroll down about 4 posts to the 50 Followers Giveaway and leave a comment if you want any of the three items on offer. 9 days till I close and draw the winners.

50 Followers Giveaway

As Mr. Angry demands it, I guess it has to be. I have three items up for the giveaway, I hope you all like at least one of them. To enter all you need to do is leave a comment stating which item or items you would like to be in for. Please put in preference because if you win one you won't be allowed to win a second as I am happy for Tamsin to have the pitchfork and burning brand boys and girls camping at her place.

First of all though, many thanks for the pimping of my blog over the last 24 hours, it's great to get the help and support I recently have received and of course thanks to all of you who follow by blog both new and old.

OK first up we have The Devils Birthday by Geoffrey Powell, this is a book on the Market Garden campaign in WWII. Originally released in 1984 and written by someone who was there. This is a Pen and Sword edition.

Next up is another WWII book and recently finished by me. I have a theme going here, it is another WWII book and again has Elite British troops as the main stay and finally it was another defeat of British arms. This time it's The Commandos at Dieppe: Rehearsal for D-Day by Will Fowler. I will be reviewing this book in the next few days which may increase the interest but I will say it was a good read and great for a few skirmish scenario ideas.

So the last item has to be as different as possible? Well I keep the British connection. I offer a pair of my musket balls given to me at Newbury. These are actual 17th Century ECW balls shot in anger and really are rather nice. Please don't melt them down to make figures ;-)

I will do the draw on the 15th so as not to drag out the excitment.

And The Winner Is.....................

Early in February I reviewed Crete by Antony Beevor and offered a second copy as a giveaway prize. With the help of Joseph my 5 year old we have picked the winner. Joseph rolled the dice in random selection and Lee Hadley (Big Lee) came out the winner. Lee if you could get in touch with me at ian_willey at hotmail dot com with your address I will get it in the post to you. Well done and I hope everyone else will not be too crushed by the experience of losing :-)

Crete The Battle and the Resistance Book Review

New to this blog, but old to my other blog is the book review. I decided to swap the reviews to this blog for a couple of reasons. First of all in the polls I ran the Book Reviews were fairly low on popularity as they were not directly attached to ASL. Secondly, given that I try to keep everything on Wall Advantage WWII based it limited the reviews to just WWII and the surrounding periods. Moving it here allows other historical periods and even dare I say it fiction.

Antony Beevor is greatly respected as a WWII Popular Historian. His work on Stalingrad and Berlin are seen as some of the best mainstream books on the subject. His writing style and skill supplies a good mix of information and a feel for the battle that more dry number based accounts fail to achieve. So when I mentioned elsewhere that I was going to/was reading the book I was taken back by the amount of negative comments. Well maybe not negative, more, not his best work to his worst book kind of comments. Well I pressed on and I can see where they are coming from, but that as always is half a story.

Beevor does not start in Crete but Greece, which is required to both set the scene and help explain what follows. This was welcome as whilst I did know formations that were beaten up were sent to Crete I did not know about others that were not, nor about the units that were left in Crete such as Cretan Regiments that would have fought well on home soil. It covers the usual foul ups and missed chances that always seems to go with Commonwealth Operations but also has a very interesting view of what I will call the ULTRA excuse. I read this book whilst I was playing a campaign on Crete and it was great to be using a historical map and seeing places mentioned in the book whilst I was fighting over them.

Moving onto the battle itself I was only confused about one thing, the lackluster praise I had heard from my fellow gamers. This was just as interesting as Stalingrad and in my mind better than Berlin (both of which I want to re-visit due to this reading). In parts tragic, funny and valiant. Both sides have their moment of glory, well three sides really as The native Cretans did more than their part. But also shame and folly. All in all this section of the book is very strong and I did not want it to end as quickly as it did. This seems a good point to break the book down into it's three parts. Part one Greece 56 pages. Part Two The Battle 176 pages. Part Three 84 pages.

This is the rub. The last 84 pages will seem after all the action to be rather bland. Most of the events seem trivial, and worse repeats of previous actions. Your enjoyment of this section of the book I believe will rest on the amount of interest you have in Guerrilla Wars and Resistance fighters. I suspect the comments I had heard from others shows they had little interest themselves. Again though even if you have an interest the value of the accounts are somewhat reduced through repartition. Personally I found this section interesting at first and whilst I never became bored of it, I was glad to finish it. The exact opposite of Part 2. I think it's a case of too little stretched to far. 40 odd pages and you get the flavour without the gristle but it's the chewing not the flavour that seems o stick in the mind.

Overall I think it's a good book, I am glad I read Part Three but when I read it again I may well skip the last part. If you have an interest in Crete then I can recommend the book fully, as I could if you have interest in Paratroop drops or just a good old war story.

I have somehow managed to get two copies of the book so I am offering one up as a giveaway (the unread one LOL). So between now and the end of February any follower leaving a comment on this blog will be entered in the draw (once) and the lucky winner will be announced as soon as I get round to forcing the kids to pick a name out. Again to join in you need to be a follower so anyone accusing me of trying to pad out my followers is 100% correct!

Good Luck and all that.

Buttons, Buttons...Winner, Winner!!

I said I would pick a winner of the button give away today, but I thought I would be 2!!!.
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The first number in the Random Number Generator is 10... and that is Mary Grace from Hooked On Needles!!
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The second winner of the button give away is number 6... Growing Up A Country Girl!!!
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Just need your snail mail addresses ladies and I'll get them out this week!
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Thank you everyone for your thoughtful comments on the button frame and this give away.
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I love give aways and I think I might have a little one every Sunday. Just small things I find or would like to share with all of you. I'm going to call it Sharing Sunday...so keep an eye out next Sunday!
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See you soon,
~Karen~

Button, Button...Who's Giving Away The Button

I am that's who. I should say buttons...thanks to my blogging friend Carol who gave me a ton of buttons that were given to her from a friend. I have a little give away at the end of this post, but first I've made something else with my collection. In the past, I've made button thumb tacks and button magnets for the refrigerator or the magnetic board and now I've made a button frame!!
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I just took any one of the frames that I know we all have tucked away in a box. I painted this wooden frame black so the wood wouldn't show through all the black buttons.
spaceI started hot gluing them in the corner in no certain order. Then I kept on layering all the way around.
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Keep going until it looks like this.
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Here are a couple close ups...
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I have a hot glue tip for you too. I use a silicone pot holder or hot pad to rest my glue gun on when I'm using it. You don't have to worry about your work surface burning and...

all those glue blobs just slide right off. See that mess off to the right? Now the pad is clean as a whistle.

This is a great project to use up all those button in the button box. It would also look cute with multi colored buttons too or all shades of pink and white or blue and white for a frame in a little boy or girl's room. The caption under the picture could say "I'm cute as a button"

GIVE AWAY IS CLOSED...Now it's time for a little give away. Carol was gracious enough to give me so many buttons, I would like to share some with you. Just leave a comment here and I'll pick a winner next Sunday. I'll try and squeeze in enough buttons to fill a small flat rate box or envelope. Sorry for the flat rate, but those little buttons are heavy when you put them all together.
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Have a great day,

~Karen~

A Winner and Quilt Show Pics...

And the winner of the quilt magazine is...Jo from West Side of Straight. Just need your snail mail address and I'll get it right out to you. Go visit her blog, she makes the cutest tea cup pin cushions!!
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Here are the pictures I took at the MQX, Machine Quilters Expo, last week when I went with Tina and Sarah. There were so many beautiful quilts from so many talented people, I couldn't take pictures of all of them. The catalog said we could take pictures for our own person use, so I hope this is ok to post on my blog. I'm just sharing the inspiration for all to see and not taking credit for any of these!! The one picture with someone in it is Tina. She entered her quilt and did an awesome job. Woo Hoo for Tina!! I'll let the rest of the pictures speak for themselves. I was speechless looking at these quilts. I don't think I'll ever be at this level in quilting. If you can believe it, some of these were quilted on a regular sewing machine!
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I hope you enjoyed the show...I'm still drooling, especially over the last one. I think that one is my favorite!!
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Have a great night,
~Karen~