Forum Soapbox

[Big Insect]

* I can't even produce a club standard set of Napoleonic wargame rules.

That is no great surprise there Steve.

A set of truly workable Napoleonic rules are the Holy Grail of wargaming - I have Napoleonic armies that have not seen the light of day for decades as I refuse to rebase them (yet again) for yet another set of "Here it is folks ... we've finally cracked it!" set of Napoleonic rules!

Getting a club set that can actually allow a game to be played in a day (let alone an evening) and that everybody actually agrees on would be a true miracle - puts solving Global Warming or the Brexit conundrum or global peace or even the NHS shambles truly into perspective.

NB: the best Napoleonic set I did once play was a 20mm game using 'Muskets & Marshalls' - very interesting combat/firing mechanism. However, it is fought at a highly abstract level. But we did finish the game in a day.

[Heedless Horseman]

BBC News site. Now being asked to register and sign in, This is the BBC... which broadcast to anyone in occupied Europe WW2 ! WTF! 

[Steve J]

I think it's to do with the TV Licence, which now covers the BBC News website as well. Could be wrong of course.

[Elliesdad]

We logged on (via both my iPad and my wife's) if only so we can vote on BBCs Saturday Kitchen.
Does the celebrity guest get to eat their food heaven (something they really, really like) or their food he'll (unsurprisingly something they really, really do NOT like)?
The website and the show itself asks you to vote whether you want to see the celeb eat their food heaven or their food hell.
Unless it is a celebrity I actually like then invariably I vote "hell" - or as I tend to call it "eat sh*t and die".
Dear Marge - does that make me a bad person? 😈

Geoff

[Leon]

I've noticed that I can't use the BBC Sport app anymore as it requires me to register. I'll just use the SkySports one instead.

[Orcs]

We logged on (via both my iPad and my wife's) if only so we can vote on BBCs Saturday Kitchen.
Does the celebrity guest get to eat their food heaven (something they really, really like) or their food he'll (unsurprisingly something they really, really do NOT like)?
The website and the show itself asks you to vote whether you want to see the celeb eat their food heaven or their food hell.
Unless it is a celebrity I actually like then invariably I vote "hell" - or as I tend to call it "eat sh*t and die".
Dear Marge - does that make me a bad person? 😈

Geoff

No , because most celebs are so full of themselves they deserve it. 

[Techno II]

I think it's to do with the TV Licence, which now covers the BBC News website as well. Could be wrong of course.

Yep...I believe it's something to do with that, Steve.

I've had a BBC a/c for years...and still I get asked to register when I click on some news stories (seems to be totally random).......Fekk off ! 
I just click "Later"..and it's fine.

Have to admit I deleted my BBC News App..and the BBC Sport App from the tablet about a week ago.
The Beeb's News app is cr*p...And the sport app is a pain in the posterior, with the number of 'updates' it keeps throwing out.

If I want to find something out, I'll take the 'long way around'.....In the long run...It saves more time than dealing with spurious updates that are of no interest, at all.

Cheers - Phil.

[Heedless Horseman]

Why is Santa in Red ? Would have thought Val913 Yellow Ochre more appropriate for cured Reindeer Skin? 

Still time to repaint and educate kids in the values of a sustainable use of renewable, natural resources.

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

Why is Santa in Red ? Would have thought Val913 Yellow Ochre more appropriate for cured Reindeer Skin?   

Eveyone knows that - CocaCola Corperation in the Early 30's - prior to that it were green. Da*nd colonials again.

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

It hides the blood stains!

[steve_holmes_11]

Why is Santa in Red ? Would have thought Val913 Yellow Ochre more appropriate for cured Reindeer Skin? 

Still time to repaint and educate kids in the values of a sustainable use of renewable, natural resources.

Modern Answer: Coca Cola branding.

Antiquarian Answer: He's the Bishop of Myra: Quite an angry bishop by all accounts.

[howayman]

I thought the coca cola rebranding story was just an urban myth .

[Ithoriel]

From https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/dec/21/coca-cola-didnt-invent-santa-the-10-biggest-christmas-myths-debunked

"1 Coca-Cola designed the modern Santa Claus as part of an advertising campaign

This is one you always hear at dinner parties. It makes the speaker sound rather clever and cynical. Except it's tosh. Coca-Cola did start using Santa in advertising in 1933. But Santa had been portrayed almost exclusively in red from the early 19th century and most of his modern image was put together by cartoonist Thomas Nast in the 1870s. Even if you were to confine your search to Santa in American soft drinks adverts, you would find a thoroughly modern Santa Claus in the posters for White Rock that came out in 1923."

[Gwydion]

Coca Cola did appropriate the idea of Santa Claus (dressed in red) in 1931 (or 33?), but...

yes, a Father Christmas type figure had been around for years in the US in different coloured robes.
Louis Prang (should have been a fighter pilot) had a set of Christmas cards with Santa in a red costume in 1875, predating Coca Cola's appropriation by 56 years (and he probably wasn't the first person to have a 'red' Santa).

(Nast's Santa was in a brown bristly fur job)

In Europe he'd been around under various names for centuries in different costumes.

[FierceKitty]

A reminder that he's in white in some countries.

[DecemDave]

And in Moscow , he can be in blue.
And to prove it here is a pic from when I was there on business one Christmas.  I took the pic so you will need to check the glass for reflections to see me. 

[Leman]

Another theory I have come across is the accessibility of those red and white mushrooms up in Lapland. You'll believe a reindeer can fly!

[Last Hussar]

Just out of interest...

Who has kids of 8, 6 and 3 years old?

[Leon]

Who has kids of 8, 6 and 3 years old?

 

People who visit the new Pendraken shop...!

[Last Hussar]

I was wondering who was failing to out himself on twatter, but seems to be keeping quiet!