Twenty Questions, more or less

Ooooh, - one of those 20 question things. Well, got nothing else to write about whilst sat on the train, so here's what I think

1. Favourite Wargaming period and why?
My bookshelf and wargames collection tells me it's a close run thing between WW1 and the ECW. In truth it changes a lot. Probably the ECW just edges it, as it is just so...quotable. Looking at answers below it has to be the ECW.

2. Next period, money no object?
Just reading Flashman and the Dragon again, so I'd say the Taiping Rebellion/1850s-60s China. I'm so pathetically easy to influence. In 15mm.

3. Favourite 5 films?
Star Wars, episode IV; Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, Terminator II, Monty Python & the Holy Grail, 101 Dalmations (Disney animated version)

4. Favourite 5 TV series?
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The X-Files, Callan, Farscape & Doctor Who,

5. Favourite book and author?  (let's make it a top 5)
Flashman in the Great Game by George MacDonald Fraser, anyone of the Guards books by Terry Pratchett, A is for Alibi by Sue Grafton, Brentford Trilogy by Robert Rankin, Battle Tactics of the Western Front by Paddy Griffith

6. Greatest General? 
Of all time, - as in the most successful? Probably has to be Alexander. If the question was “Favourite”, it would be Oliver Cromwell

7. Favourite Wargames rules?
File Leader – Original, clever and fun. Just need to sort out those clunky melee rules.

8. Favourite Sport and team?
Cricket, and the perennially under achieving Somerset.

9. If you had a only use once time machine, when and where would you go?
Naseby, 1645. Got to know if that fighting retreat really happened (on a more personal note it'd be June1977 to tell me to take A Level Maths instead of French)

10. Last meal on Death Row?
One that takes a long time to cook.

11. Fantasy relationship and why?
My wife texts me cricket scores when she knows I can't see a TV or PC screen and is currently getting builder's quotes for a wargaming room for me. Does that answer the question?

12. If your life were a movie, who would play you?

Morgan Freeman. Or Edward Woodward (if he were still alive). Otherwise if I have to find a bald short sighted person I'm afraid they'd cast Harry Hill.

13. Favourite Comic Superhero?
Judge Dredd. No super powers, just a guy with a job.

14. Favourite Military quote?
“And the Lord made them stubble to our swords”

15. Historical destination to visit?
I've done most of those I want to see that I can see. Otherwise it's a toss up between Baghdad and Tehran. Probably go for Baghdad.
 

16. Biggest Wargaming regret?
Not buying a Scottish Flodden Field Army from Dixon in the Early 1980s when I did my English.

17. Favourite Fantasy job?
Not having to have one.

18. Favourite Song Top 5?
Wuthering Heights (Kate Bush), All along the Watchtower (Jimi Hendrix), One of these days (Pink Floyd), Paranoid (Black Sabbath), St Crispin's got our Backs (TANAOU)

19. Favourite Wargaming Moment?
Persuading Phil Barker to swap places with me in the turn sequence in a game of “Londinium's Burning” so I could stab him in the back more easily.

20. The miserable Git question, what upsets you?
The modern obsession with form over substance.

Reading them back it seems like I have a preference for things that aren't real, which is a bit odd for a historian. On the other hand sometimes history is so awful it's good to escape.