Hi!

I have been beavering away, with more or less success, on rebuilding my blog into a more useful resource. The only reason I haven’t pulled all my hair out is because I don’t have any left. But it will be worth it in the end (he tells himself) because it will make the 500+ posts into a manageable, easy-to-navigate, library. I’m creating a “Start Here” page with the highlights, and specific hub pages for the key topics (Fiore, Capoferro, etc.). I’ve also rationalised the 550+ tags down to about 80, and am sorting out the categories too.

The Wiki development is still on pause while the installation of the MediaWiki content management system is incrementally done. Turns out you can’t just skip 5 years of upgrades in one go. So that’s on the backburner for now.

When it comes to actually producing useful sword work, well, my Smallsword Obsession is still in full swing. I’m about 80% of the way through editing the audiobook of Angelo’s 1787 The School of the Sword, and producing a modernised, cleaned up, machine-readable (so easily searched), version of the text. This is not fun, but a necessary step in creating a useful resource for historical fencers.

I’ve also planned a couple of very exciting related trips. I’ll be visiting The National Fencing Museum to re-shoot photos of the plates in both editions of The School of the Sword (the large-format 1763 edition in French, and the 1787 smaller format version in English), as well as photograph some smallswords and foils from the period for the eventual book.