Can You Hear the Thunder? (1/72 Airfix RAAF Spitfire Vc)

[Stew Dapple]

7 hours ago, Procopius said:

The period when I was regularly posting on here and building models was one of the happiest of my life, with my visit to Telford being the culminating moment.

 

Those were great days for me too (and not just me, I'm sure), and you never know, we might yet see their like again. If not, at least we had the pleasure of experiencing it the first time round  

 

Thanks for a most amusing update too  

 

Cheers, 

 

Stew

[Procopius]

Did some more work on Win's angry little guy last night. Strictly speaking, I would have claimed to have finished it, but I made the mistake of taking a photo and examining it in the cold light of day, and there's more to do yet. In best 1980s van mural style*, I painted some not-very-convincing flames onto the powerfist. 

 

 

 

* Which, along with all the other things spotty young men with greasy hair found cool in the mid-1980s (why else would large motorbikes with machine guns be a key part of the Imperium's arsenal?), forms the beating heart of Warhammer's aesthetic milieu.

 

On 8/4/2025 at 7:41 PM, Stew Dapple said:

 

Those were great days for me too (and not just me, I'm sure), and you never know, we might yet see their like again.

 

Inshallah, my friend. I would never say that things cannot continue as they are right now, but it really would be much nicer if they didn't. 

 

On 8/4/2025 at 1:28 PM, Cookenbacher said:

Great hearing from you Edward - I too have some IBG Spitfires on backorder from H, and the sooner they reach these shores the better.

Madeleine sounds awesome.

 

 

She's a delight. Mrs P and I have often remarked we're glad we had her last, because to have her first and then the boys would have been a fatal shock. She washes her hands, hangs up her coat, and shuts the door when she comes inside, all of which elude the boys. She's also more or less toilet trained herself. Even so, like all of our children, she reveals things about us we might prefer remain unacknowledged. Maddie really likes to play "mom", where she's the eponymous mom, and she strides around imitating her mother, or at least the image of her mother that she has. Mrs P has a notably dour neutral expression, which can be quite a fraught experience from someone who like me is attuned to be hypersensitive to the mood shifts of others (n.b. this is not the same as empathy or any other positive version of caring about peoples' feelings), and so Maddie has a permanent scowl on her face when she plays "mom". 

[The Spadgent]

Great to see you back on BM. As my mum used to say. “Time waits for no man. And very few women”  She’s not wrong, but fitting things in that keep you sane around general life (hobbies etc)  is good for the mind and soul. The great David Lynch’s daily Transcendental meditation works wonders for me.

Winston’s warhammer diorama building looks great!!! It’s not an easy thing to scratch build so my hat is truly doffed.

And if it holds any water I like the Power fist. I found some titans I built in the late 80s.  Wonderfully spattered with FIRE!!!🔥. 🤣. It’s the only way.  Hopefully see more of your escapades soon.

 

Johnny. 

[perdu]

Hi Edward, the fist?

 

I think its the absolute bee's knees amigo.

 

That Madeleine, not at all a weakling princess, go girl and get him.

 

Dont really trash him though, OK?

 

 

(Hmm resting mom face, sounds just a bit...)

 

One day I hope we get Telford02 in the bag mate, it was great wasn't it?

[Procopius]

Well, Hannants got the IBG Spitfire I double boxing in stock just under the wire, and so my finances have been further strained to purchase two boxes, which will while their way across the Atlantic to me before the Poor Understanding of How Economies Work curtain drops down about the United States for the foreseeable future. Between this and the brutal procession of property tax increases (allegedly, my house has increased in value by something like 70% over what we paid for it in 2020, which would really be something, if anyone who could afford to buy it from us would even consider it habitable, let alone look twice at it), which have forced me to for the first time in my life retain legal counsel in the hopes of disputing the appraisal, life is bleak and disappointing here, and likely will be for at least three more years. 

 

Mrs P and the kids were away in Michigan from the 12th until Wednesday last, but did I do anything fun while they were gone? No, I worked like a dog, frantically sold things in an effort to ease the yaw of our financial ship, and cleaned both my office and my grotto, as the more disordered my mind, and by extension my life becomes, the more those two locales reflect this (my beautiful children often ask me why they should have to clean their rooms when mine are so messy, but mine are messy because I have to follow behind them, cleaning up the trails of filth they leave everywhere they go). 

 

My office, as clean as I can make it. Note the spartan grey concrete floors and exposed ductwork, to enable me to feel that I'm troubleshooting our organizational social media from the fuhrerbunker in Berlin. At any moment a Russian shell might take out the wi-fi.

 

The plastic tubs are because the basement floods from time to time (which the prior owner neglected to mention when selling), and because I have a very finite amount of shelf space. There is not actual 30-caliber ammunition in the crate there, it was a gift from a friend, and its primary function is to keep those 1/48 scale kits that I should probably sell from being damaged by any of the late summer through fall monsoon rains we've been getting the last few years as Illinois's climate between July-October slowly becomes that of Louisiana; Winter remains our longest season, covering the rest of the year, and its climate is that of Hell, specifically Dante's Hell, where it gets ever colder the further down you go. I half-expect to see Judas writhing in Ghidorah's jaws* every time I go outside in January, a hateful month.

 

The grotto is actually slightly cleaner than it was in this photo, because I assembled yet another small wheeled table that Amazon sent me to review, and the more flat surfaces I have, the better off I am. 

 

 

The cardboard box is not a modesty shield, but rather covers something like two gallons of photopolymeric resin-impregnated isopropyl alcohol inside the cleaning station for my 3D printer.

 

The printer itself is out of frame inside a "grow tent" apparently much-used by marijuana-growers, but the only drugs I've ever "done", as the kids say were antidepressants and ADHD medication, and frankly both seem to do very little a lot of the time (I gather they work better if you get enough sleep, so they might as well issue the parents of young children placebos for a decade or so), though on the vanishingly rare instances where I get a full uninterrupted eight hours, I find I can focus on one thing for an entire day largely without eating; the issue is making sure it's actually my job, instead of discovering what colour a .303 ammunition belt was or something. Anyway, the tent houses the resin printer and a sort of Heath Robinson extractor of my own devising (inspired by the work of more skilled hands) of some flexible ductwork linked to an extractor fan and feeding out a vent placed in a wooden plank which replaces the window formerly there. The window was in bad shape and covered by duct-taped black plastic bags when we purchased the house, so it's arguably an improvement all 'round.

 

 

* Satan in the Inferno is not a cunning gentleman in red with a spiv moustache, but a great three-headed monster, endlessly chewing on Judas, Longinius (not the fella what put the spear in Jesus, but the orchestrator of the plot to kill Julius Caesar), and Marcus Junius Brutus (of "et tu, Brute?" fame, a line I have only heard ten million times, being born on March 15), which may give you a sense of where Dante's loyalties truly lay. Ghidorah, of course, is the mortal enemy of Godzilla, and also has three heads, and while his stance on the assassination of Caesar is unknown, his recurrent feud with King Caesar probably tells you all you need to know.

[Mr T]

Hi Edward, nice to see your postings of life chez Procopius. The problem with children us that, unlike cars, you cannot realistically sell or swap them. From the perspective of someone who has gone through all of the child raising  (only two, boy and girl) they turned out alright, a bit of a worry for a time over Joe. But he has now found his niche and starts an apprenticeship, with built in Masters degree to become an Ecologist, which has been a long term goal, and even better as being paid for and supported by his employer. Ellie was much more straightforward. Wanted to be a teacher from about the age of 10, and is now a primary school teacher living in Windsor. Glad to see you still have a job. I shall refrain from further comment about the state of the world, as I like being a member here. I went through a phase if life when work and life dominated, it didn't last for ever, although a stroke is possibly not the best way of dealing with it. Looking at your photos, I spied a copy of 'At Dawn We Slept', a very even handed and well written book I thought. 

[Kitsticker]

Hi PC, nice to have you back, I so enjoy reading your 'logs' that are so much more than just a 'build log'

 

Sounds as if your family trials are still ongoing, very amusing for us, and concerning too, but must be a 'challenge' (to put it politely), to actually live with it 24/7......

 

Just a thought, totally incorrect* and probably going against all known parenting best practice - Madeleine as your family enforcer? She can clearly keep Win under control.....how would Grant react? And Mrs P?......

 

I see a problem there

 

But please keep on going, and please carry on sharing your journey with your friends here, you know that you have our moral support

 

Cheers

 

Geoff

 

*Probably 'not PC'

[Procopius]

Unfortunately, it appears that my IBG Spitfire Is have run afoul of the idée fixe of a stupid old man, and are trapped in the UK with pretty much everything else that should otherwise be headed to this benighted land. Little did I realize all those years ago, when I read of Joseph Chamberlain and Imperial Preference, that a monstrous fusion of two generations of Chamberlains would dominate my middle age. Hurrah.

 

I imagine being in one's forties in the 1970s felt as exhausting as this, and probably the 1980s as well. It's always a frustrating time to be middle-aged. It's hard to believe I was still in my twenties when I began posting on here. 

 

In other news, on Saturday Mrs P wiped out on her bicycle while going for a morning ride, wrecking her helmet, tearing up her knee and shoulder, and concussing herself (which she angrily insisted wasn't the case when I had the temerity to suggest it). Based on her fragmentary recountings of the incident, it sounds suspiciously like she was doing something incredibly stupid and paid the price, except that the price she paid was having to rest all weekend while I took care of the children and cleaned the house for my mother-in-law's impending visit, which culminated in folding laundry (which I normally do anyway, but it was imperative my M-i-L be prevented from doing it, because she makes a hash of it) until 3 AM. It also involved a lot of taking the children places, because children lack empathy and all the boys understood was that mom was too befuddled to say no to Minecraft. After my mother-in-law arrived on Sunday, I had to lock myself in my office that evening so that I didn't attack the boys on sight. I see now why human beings were meant to have children at comparatively young ages: yes, they're not really mature enough to handle it, but it's easier to mature rapidly than it is to turn back the clock on an aging and decrepit body. (in particular right now, I'm developing carpal tunnel, because Madeleine, while the best of the three, is the size of a prizewinning pig at the tender age of two and and 11 1/2 months, and my noodly little arms were never meant to lug thirty pounds of thrashing child off to bed. This is not helped by Mrs P not weaning the children until they're three -- as opposed to my proposal of ten minutes after birth -- giving her a method of ensuring compliance that is unavailable to me and psychologically addictive for them. She also likes to fob Maddie off on me at bedtime: "Oh, I'm tooooo tired to put her to bed and read to her, will you do it? Oh, by the way, I said that directly in front of her and she still needs her teeth brushed, to be bathed, and to be coaxed into pajamas. Good luck wresting with baby Hercules!" Like, at least lay the groundwork or let it be a surprise, you know?)

[Navy Bird]

4 hours ago, Procopius said:

 I'm developing carpal tunnel

 

Might not be carpal tunnel, depending on your symptoms. The usual culprit from picking up babies, toddlers, or prizewinning pigs is De Quervain tenosynovitis. Look up Finkelstein's test and give it a try. If you have indescribable and unbearable pain when doing it, you win. Cortisone injections help for a while, but ultimately the only fix is surgery, which is where it looks like I'm headed. I just had my third shot which is all that insurance will pay for because, hey, a surgery has to be much less expensive than a shot. Go figure.      

 

Cheers,

Bill

 

PS. If it is carpal tunnel, well, that's usually a surgery too. Aren't I just a bundle of joy today?  Stupid tendons...

 

PPS. You have a long way to go to catch up to my health scorecard. But I'm older than you, so you've got time.      

[Steve Coombs]

7 hours ago, Procopius said:

I'm developing carpal tunnel.

Hmm. I managed to pick up a TFCC (Triangular Fibrocartilage Complex) injury ten years ago when I slipped on some ice, put my right hand out to break the fall, and turned my wrist in a direction never intended by Mother Nature.
So, pins and needles, plus swelling. Off to my doctor, who has the bedside manner of Hannibal Lecter, who promptly wrote me a referral to a specialist in hand- and arm injuries. This medic in turn sent me off for an MRT scan, which showed the damage - torn tendons and other delights I really didn't want to hear about. Then came the referral to a surgeon to put it all back together again.
An operation was a success - assorted bits were sewn back together - all done under local anaesthetic and with a video monitor that I studiously ignored showing what was going on. Then I was dispatched home with weapons-grade painkillers that had me away with the fairies for a good while.
Alas, CRPS kicked in, my wrist and hand swelled, and I had a sensation like someone was trying to shove a large knitting needle into the joint to lever it apart. Not recommended.
So, off to rehab to get some therapy for it all. Three weeks of it, residential. Then I was told I was so good at it I could have another three weeks (No,not true. The three weeks got the swelling down and the nasty sensation away, and the extra three were to build up the bone mass again, which had suffered in the interim).
Now I have a ring constellation (Auriga?) of scars on the back of my wrist, and an elbow that stiffens and snaps occasionally because the muscle or whatever between it and my wrist is a shade shorter than it used to be. The wrist has full, free, and correct movement as far as I can tell.
And I sympathise with people who have carpal tunnel syndrome or other wrist injuries.

[perdu]

My gods - remind me not to fall over.

 

(Steve I gave your message a like, but not in a "I like what has happened to Steve, Bill or Mrs PC" kind of manner)

 

[AdrianMF]

Edward, it's a joy to see you back in action. We love being your tribe.

 

And I'm glad you haven't totally embraced being British; were you to do so, this entire thread would read "Plodding along, mustn't grumble, need to get out more..."

 

Regards,

Adrian

[Steve Coombs]

8 hours ago, perdu said:

My gods - remind me not to fall over.

 

(Steve I gave your message a like, but not in a "I like what has happened to Steve, Bill or Mrs PC" kind of manner)

 

Thanks. I don't think we're too much into Schadenfreude here on the forums.

[Cookenbacher]

Always wonderful to see a pic of The Grotto in all its glory. Sorry to hear about Mrs P's bicycle related troubles, hope she heals up soon,

Very frustrating about the IBG Spitfires, I've received a notice that mine made it to the states, but who knows what will become of them at the receiving facility here?

[Procopius]

I'm pleased to report that despite the whimsies of a man who I can only assume is struggling to come to terms with a lack of priapic function as age withers him, my Spitfires made their way from Hannants to Chateau Hedgehog:

 

 

Winston was quite impressed, and wanted to build one, which as the Germans say, was ausgeschlossen--out of the question. They look to be easier kits than IBG's 190Ds, with their photoetch landing gear bays--in fact they look almost like Eduard's Spitfire IXs in the same scale, and not just because they're the same airplane--but I know exactly how much staying power he has and I don't care to sacrifice them upon the altar of a transitory dopamine hit. At least, not for him.

 

In the process of dissuading him, I accidentally upset Winston. I read to him a letter home from a Luftwaffe pilot named Hans-Otto Lessing that I've often quoted here, wherein he lauds the killing ability of the "experte" Horst Tietzen, praises the Spitfire's maneuverability, and calls Hurricanes, the RAF's mainstay fighter in 1940 "tired old puffers". I followed up with the fact that Tietzen and Lessing were both killed the following day by Hurricanes from 501 (County of Gloucester) Squadron, and likely dead before their aircraft even hit the ground (both of them were hit from below and astern, where the 109 had no armour protection for the pilots, and neither attempted to bail out). Winston, who like most cruel and vengeful people--I speak from experience--has a tender heart, was very upset that the Luftwaffe pilot died. 

 

I am not. This is always a difficult conversation to have with people, since there's usually little space in the middle of the spectrum between "I mourn all deaths" and "I wish I could eat Nazis raw", and my own feelings on the subject are as uninteresting to others as they're complex to me. But I feel about Lessing, who had four victory claims, and Tietzen, who had twenty-seven, as I would about someone who'd killed my father, or my children, or both. Powerless and impotent, in my helpless fury, there is nothing I wouldn't permit if it avenged them, if it punished the Germans for my grief. The late Professor Robin Lakoff, a linguist, was quoted in, of all places, a New York Times article about Al Gore attempting to butch up his image in 2000, that 

"We act modern, cool and sophisticated. But underneath, we want a daddy, a king, a god, a hero. We'll take the heel if we can get Achilles, a champion who will carry that lance and that sword into the field and fight for us. We're not as rational as we think." I don't even think I'm terribly rational at the best of times, and there's certainly a lot wrong with me, and the world would definitely not be a better place if more people in it were like me, but the RAF pilots of 1940 are my Achilles, my Diomedes, and even at ten, I knew, with the idiot certainty of a child five thousand miles away from the scene of their agonies, that they had done it for me, personally. They were my champions, Achilles without his heel, bearing that lance, that shield into battle and bleeding on my behalf, and I have never, ever been able to forgive anyone who harmed them. Which is absurd. But I suppose the consolation of middle age is that, amid the decline of our bodies and our minds, people can no longer realistically entertain the hope that we'll change; they must resignedly accept me (or pretend to tolerate me) as I am.

[Stew Dapple]

6 hours ago, Procopius said:

a man who I can only assume is struggling to come to terms with a lack of priapic function as age withers him

 

I'm desperately trying to come up with a joke that has a punchline along the lines of "bit below the belt"... I may be some time  

 

Good to hear from you again mate, those Spitfires look right up your street, glad they made it okay and I hope you enjoy them

 

Cheers, 

 

Stew

[perdu]

I want you to be honest about this Edward, you are me aren't you?

 

From way up here where I park my pedestal I have always had the same opinion, feelings, about the Luftwaffe's butchers.

 

When taken to task over it I simply remind people that my dad was bombed by them on the airfield at Hawkinge (they missed by mere seconds) while keeping those Hurricanes armed to protect my land in 1940.

 

Dad trumps Germans for me.

 

Glad you got your Spitfires delivered, I bet there is a saga to tell about their postal journey.

[Jeff G]

If we would have cheered them shooting a 109 or 190 down then....I've always felt we can cheer them on about it now. That's what won the war, wasn't it? Less Nazis in less places across Europe? If it was between 1939-1945, I'd say we have every right to cheer the victory 80 years later, while still respecting the idea that the man had a family, etc. But he was shot down and hey, we should be glad of it. Because that happened enough times that the Nazis couldn't keep going. 

[Hook]

One of the weird and disconcerting things I always encounter whenever I visit Austria (due to an Austrian girlfriend - what are you gonna do) is that in contrast with the vast majority of Germans, who still feel guilty, even when born way after WW2, Austrians almost always point to the Germans ("IT WASN'T US! IT WAS THE GERMANS! LOOK OVER THERE! WE WERE THE FIRST VICTIMS OF GERMANY IN '38!").

 

Therefore in most cities and villages there are monuments for "our fallen brothers, sons and fathers who died defending their Fatherland". 

 

Which apppearantly was situated in Moskow, the Ukraine, Stalingrad, etcetera. 

 

"It is said that the greatest trick the Austrians have ever pulled, is to convince the world that Hitler was German and Mozart was Austrian."- Christopher Hitchens

 

Nice to see you getting your grubby mitts on those Spits, @Procopius! 

 

Cheers,

 

Andre

 

 

[Terry1954]

On 05/09/2025 at 21:33, Procopius said:

my Spitfires made their way from Hannants to Chateau Hedgehog:

 

I was very pleased to hear that they have made it, Edward.  Not only have they got across the pond (has that been renamed the American Ocean yet?), but also navigated their way through both postage systems and zig zagged their way through copious amounts of tariff flak en route. Tally Ho!

 

T.

[Procopius]

Actually did some work on the Spitfire tonight, after what in earlier years would be an awful day but which I now realise is just my exhausting forever reality. Photos later if I remember. 

[Stew Dapple]

Do try to remember mate, it's always good to hear from you, the modelling would be a bonus  

 

Cheers, 

 

Stew