Kinch Lights Have Arrived

In my last post I described several delightful packages that have come to my door recently from various corners of the world, and thought I would save mention of one so brilliant I need sunglasses to describe it. From Dublin last week arrived a package of surpassing wonder, bearing the carte de visite of one Conrad Kinch. What was it, I wondered? Could it be the memoirs of General de Gourmand, written above a New Orleans brothel following the Napoleonic Wars, and embellished with some fairly risque woodcuts, that Kinch had charged me good money for? Could it be Tootsie Royale's haberdashery catalogue for Napoleonic gamers?


Even better! The contents included a magnificent picture book of Dublin for Madame Padre (I read it over her shoulder while making suggestions about how our next vacation really should be Ireland East, since we did Ireland West (aka Newfoundland) last summer. She replied that she would not be impressed to be a camp follower on what turned out to be a thinly disguised gaming holiday. Duly noted, my darling.

Also in the package were several marvels of technology which I have decided to refer to from now on as "Kinch Lights".

I did briefly consider naming them "Fairy Lamps" after the famous 1937 illumination of the Fleet as described, disastrously and live, on the BBC by announcer and alcoholic, Lt. Cmdr. Thomas Woodroofe (transcript and audio here, and if you have never heard this, you owe it to yourself). But Kinch Lights seems as a name more winsome, somehow.


I am still marvelling at the reason for this largesse, which I attribute to Kinch being a chap of excellent character, but I suspect he may secretly be teasing me for a post I did here a while back, gently mocking the Warlord Games Volley Lights product, which seemed to me at the time to be Warlord looking for a return on investment based on gamer's "oooh shiny!" tendencies and love for novelties of all types. For taking that view, I confess and most heartily repent, and now declare myself a fan of these wonderful things.

Now by itself, a Kinch Light is a plain piece of plastic circuitboard, not very exciting.

But, add some cotton pillow stuffing and magic! To show them off, I dug out some SYW Russians and Janissaries, and created my second ever YouTube video. That heavy breathing you hear at the start is an index of my excitement.



There was a second type of Kinch Light in the package, a Chinese-made product called an Alectra Light which is a bigger, blinky type of thing. < < Here. It is adorning a model T34-85 which has met a sad end.



To use a phrase that young Kinch himself has coined, this is a fine example of the Freemasonry of the Hobby. Thanks awfully, old chap. Expect to see Kimch Lights adorning a battle rep here soon.