GAAAAAARDS!!!

Airfix Coldstream Guardsman

The latest arrival from our man in Budapest, an Airfix Coldstream Guardsman.  This fellow is well kitted out and I reckon is probably about to set out to defend Hougomont.  No doubt he would look rather different by the end of the battle. 

Knapsack, all present & correct. 

Some of the old Airfix sets can be quite wooden, 

but the pose works very well in this case. 

The classic Belgic shako shown off to good effect. 

The false fronted or Belgic Shako, I think our American friends call it a tombstone shako, is always evocative of Waterloo for me.   He's a lovely piece of work and is currently guarding the Joseph Roth section of my bookshelves.  Very happy with him. 

The Medicis

Mrs. Kinch and I have been watching this on Netflix and it is really very good.  Mrs. Kinch studied Italian and knows the people and the period rather better than I do, so I cannot speak to its historicity. None of it felt wrong to me and the city of Florence certainly emerges as a character in her own right.  

It is excellent television.  Annabel Scholey is magnificent, while Richard Madden gives a wonderfully nuanced performance.  The development of their marriage over eight episodes is one of the real pleasures of the programme.  But all the cast turn in excellent work - there isn't a duffer amongst them. 

This may sound like damning with faint praise, but one thing that really stood out to me was the quality of the incidental music, most of which is variations on the main theme composed by Paolo Bounvino and performed by a lady called Skin.  It is an ambitious soaring symphonic piece of work that got under my skin in a way that little else has in quite a while. 

Two thumbs up.  I'm looking forward to the second series.