Author: Robert Hook

Two Wheels through The City

I’ve been quite ill, again, recently, and am still not fully recovered. Certainly not recovered enough for the walk from The Tower up to City Road to be a quick one, and not recovered enough to risk that ride. So for the past couple of days I’ve been pushing my scooter through The City. Haven’t died yet, but…

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Passwords definitely considered broken

So we have news of yet another major slurping-up of poorly secured credential sets. A column at the Guardian talks about all the usual measures that can be taken to more-or-less protect your multiple identities, but once again misses the two subtle and deeply geeky issues that underly this breach.

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An Open Letter to Australia.

If you believe adult asylum seekers are not, entitled to their claims, to they should be “sent back to where they came from”, or they are “queue jumpers”: If you do not say to the elected Australian Government that this is wrong, then you are tacitly supporting this treatment of children

Would you like your children, or your nieces and nephews, or your friends’ children to go through this?

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing .

Up and down

Well I wore the new Sallet and boots today, both of which are great. We’ve been doing a light weight relaxed thing at Raglan Castle, including fighting in the hall. What’s not so good is that the scabbard I need to replace is now broken, meaning I can’t wear a sword easily tomorrow. Also the hose I want to replace are starting to pop seams.

Shoes Sorted Out

Thanks to Peter from Plantagenet Shoes, I now have a lovely pair of his 15th C buckled knee boots. While his waiting list for new orders is quite long, by a stroke of fortune he had a pair already made, and has had my feet in his records (as it were) from when he made me some 16th C shoes a few years ago. They arrived yesterday, fit brilliantly, and are the normal exacting and high quality he has a reputation for. I confidently expect to still be wearing them 10 years from now.

Project Progress

I was out of communications range over the weekend, but made some notes. While I could not communicate with anyone, I was able to re-read the costuming guide more deeply, and have a think.

4 May 2014 13:53

Quite frustrated at not being able to get any reliable connection – or power – at the moment, as I’m at Hastings for the Jack In The Green. Phone coverage is negligible, and nobody here does wifi.

I’ve gotten as far as putting up the initial posting on The Masthead listing what I need to get, and begun building a page for the main site which echoes the static state of affairs.

Current thinking is:

  • the boots I can get from Plantagenet will sort me out for shoes
  • I’m fine for harness and jack, and the petticote is good.
  • braies and shirt I’m fine, but an extra shirt would be good
  • good hose, doublet and jacket are needed.
    • if i can get the wool (linen I have sources for) then the pattern for the jacket could be built up pretty quickly from the pattern for my petticote
    • the sleeveless jacket appears to be exactly the same as the other jacket, but without sleeves, so if making one may as well make two.
    • both fastened down the front with hooks and eyes, so need to get some large ones
  • I think i can get a good hood and cloak from SPES historical, and some “tent linen” of a good weight to make a bed roll (and a couple of hide-stuff sacks, if I have time)
    • although they warn that the fringed “german” hood that SPES have is not common in Burgundy
  • the black wool hat is probably the best I have, I will need to retry it to see if it fits, otherwise possibly the black felt hat
  • a small cup in lieu of my tankard would be good, and it would be good to get a better bowl/plate. The spoons and knife are fine.
  • i need to find out whether blunted or live weapons are needed. if blunt is fine, then my arming sword is good, but the scabbard is rubbish. on the other hand the belt for the scabbard is good.
    • if a live weapon is needed, I could be out of luck unless I could lay my hands on a decent messer or dagger in a hurry.
  • If i can get the wool, the livery would be straightforward
  • given the event is in the 1470’s, which would put me as being born in the 1420’s, I can justifiably claim to be a veteran of English conflicts of the ’40s and ’50s (so what was going on then?)

Some Background

An explanatory note around my apprehension about being a guest of Company of St George.

There are two aspects. To begin with, in Australia the Company has a hallowed reputation, and is seen as the unobtainable gold standard for re-enactment. This was partly driven by the publication of the Dragons, and the ‘Medieval Soldier’ book. I think one of the characteristics of re-enactment in Australia – particularly during the late ’90s and early part of this century – was that everyone is largely ham-strung by and dependent on a limited range of available materials and artefacts, and with very limited access to primary research resources. Pretty well if it is available on the open internet in English, it is used, otherwise there is a dependency on secondary and tertiary resources and looking at other re-enactors. And so I’m very conscious of how relatively primitive and uninformed my impression is.

The other aspect is that it has always been my desire to do good living history, with the Company as a guide to what was acceptably good. The trouble was that for years I spent a very large amount of my time and effort kitting out other people, and never really concentrated on my own kit. I know exactly what is wrong with my kit, and what needs to be sorted out, but time (and then for quite a long time, money) prevented me doing anything about it.

Right now I have the money, and I have a very clear idea of what to do, but time is distinctly lacking. The whole project is thus very daunting.