Rifles Make Ready Episode 2 - Sharpe's Eagle

Now that we've established who Sharpe is we can get him into all kinds of fun.

Fun like dealing with Sir Henry Simmerson.

Simmerson is played expertly by Michael Cochrane.  As an aside, Michael Cochrane usually plays posh people of course, but in Wings (the 1977 show about WW1, not the Cheersverse show) he played a REALLY NICE post pilot.

It's the Battle of Talavera!  I think Ken knows a lot about this.  Certainly more than I do anyway.

You have to love Major Hogan.  Hell, you have to love Arthur Wellesley.

Wellesley becomes Wellington in this one.

Wait, is one of those dumb young lieutenants Daniel Craig?   Yup!  

As always, the chosen men are amazing, plus we get some Dan Hagman singing.

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Rifles Make Ready - Episode 1 - Sharpe's Rifles

Yes, I know on 200 a Day, and Six Million and Black Sheep I try to come up with a clever title.  It's harder here... They're all named 'Sharpe's something or other'...

'Eyes down'.

The fact that the Chosen Men are basically a collection of war movie tropes is fine by me.

'Dan Hagman, poacher'.

This food is a little Papist for my tastes.

If you don't love the Sgt. Harper and Lt Sharpe relationship I don't know what to tell you.

Brian Cox as Major Hogan, man does it get any better?

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Rifles Make Ready! - Episode 0, You Know Who I am, My Name is Sharpe

Ken and I are taking a break from our usual tech/history/sci fi ben and doing a deep dive into the historical fiction tv series Sharpe.

We're going to watch all 18 episodes and talk about them, you know, like if they were Mad Men or Rockford or Baa Baa Black Sheep or the Six Million Dollar Man...

Ken did his undergrad thesis on the Peninsular War, so we have that going for us us.

We talked about lots of stuff, including realizing tv is not reality (or even history), and the differences between how armies are organized today vs in the time of the show.

Next time we'll be doing 'Sharpe's Rifles' so, if you have the DVDs or Britbox, watch along!

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Episode 60 - Limited Brutality is Still Brutality

It's been a year since Putin started his illegal invasion of Ukraine.

We here at TC are staunchly pro democracy and pro Ukraine.

I wonder how people feel about this in Russia?

We could ask Russian.  So we did.

Daniil also told us the story of his leaving Russia in March of 22.

Give to the Red Cross.

Give to the UNHRC.

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Episode 59 - Unrepresentative Yahoos

It's Canadian National Day of Podcasting!

It's also me and Ken.

Hey, remember the occupation of Ottawa?  Remember the Emergencies Act?  Well  the EA requires a commission be struck to look into the use of the EA, and well, that was our jumping off point.

We talked Ottawa, the October Crisis, the Conscription Crises, Jan 6 and democracies voting themselves out of existence.

We also talked DS9 and Babylon 5.

Enjoy episode 59

Episode 58 - For the Glory of the Empire

We're back.

Well, Ken was for a bit, then there was a LIBRARY EMERGENCY!!

Gee, what'll we talk about?  How about Putin's war of choice in Ukraine?

Putin knows little of the operational. art.

Deception is key.

This got us thinking about a lot of things, Babylon 5, DS9, Operation Mincemeat, Romans, Barbarians, the Gulf War, General Patton etc.

Oh right, it was a Russia episode, so Daniil joined us again, thanks man!

Please give to the Red Cross or the UNHCR to help the people of Ukraine.

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Episode 57 - Gorby, We Hardly Knew Ye

It's been a heck of a few days.

The Queen died.

The Russians are rushin' away (sorry...)

But a couple of weeks ago Mikhail Gorbachev died.

Hey wait, now that's TC material. You know what else?  I KNOW AN ACTUAL RUSSIAN!!  His name is Daniil, and he escaped Putin's totalitarian nightmare with his family six months ago.  He now lives in Vancouver.  So why not get an actual Russian on here to talk about Goby?  

OK, so we did.

Give to the UNHCR.  Give to the Red Cross.

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