The Sands of Time

Thanks to the ineptitude of the main telephony "service provider" (sic) to the Castle - let's call them GT to protect the anonymity and shareholders of the real company which happens to have similar initials except the first one should be a "B for British" rather than a "G for Gormenghast" - it looks like I will be without internet or phone connections, to the outside world, for the next five days.

I can't even begin to comprehend this level of isolation. I could go stir crazy. Digital cold Turkey.

Of course I still have my iPhone but I'm not sure that this will be a suitable medium for my long and rambling posts. Probably a relief to some.

Talking of long and rambling, how long is an acceptable game turn for a casual evening across the board ?

There's an old Japanese story about a woodcutter who stops to watch a game of Go. He becomes so engrossed that he loses track of time only to discover at game end that his beard has grown to the floor and the shaft of his axe has turned to dust.
It turns out that he has stumbled across two immortals playing the game.

Last night I had a glimpse into this kind of eternity, when I played the Hustler and his American friend at Neuroshima Hex. This should be a quick chaotic game of furious combat and not a thoughtful, and deep, encounter between chess grand masters. Forthwith the American player shall be named "SloMo" for his ability to drag a game out long past its published play time.

Once Neuroshima finally dragged into the station, and its weary passengers disembarked, we sat down for a game of "The Circle". This is a spy game that the Hustler picked up from Essen a few years back - by now Poodle had joined us so we were in for a four player espionagefest.
SloMo announced that he only had a couple of hours left, due to a temporal curfew or something. I thought that this boded well for game pace as he would be forced to, at least, try to play a turn in a reasonable duration.

Sadly, I'm not sure such a thing is biologically possible for him and two hours later we were just entering the mid game as he got up to leave.
In some ways this was a relief. The game was so slow that I was actually playing some Go, in between turns, on my iPhone. The wind you hear, in the trees, is the immortals shaking their heads in disbelief.

To round off the evening the Hustler, Poodle and I played Billabong - a fast game of kangaroos bouncing around the Outback in a fun race around the eponymous ox-bow lake of Antipodean origin. A nice change of pace (if a little too wordy).

Anyway, I digress.
Lights Out.
I may be some time.
SloMo may even have played a move before I get reconnected.