Beyond Swelter's Kitchen

Steerpike's Knee

2012-02-02T13:24:00.001Z

My US based buddies are once more getting excited about the upcoming Superbowl.

As usual, I have zoned out a bit - avoiding Twitter, where I can, as my timeline is getting stuffed full of meaningless NFL chat.

On the other hand I am quite enjoying the other spectator sport, taking place in America at the moment, the Republican primaries.

It's fascinating sitting here, in Fortress Europe, discovering that we are living in a communist world that is force feeding us a fair and equitable health system at the expense of the super rich.

Perhaps hidden away, within the stone walls of Gormenghast, I am blissfully unaware of the dastardly liberals who seek to destroy my freedom.

Anyway, what better time to play 1960:The Making of the President and live the American dream?

Last night I took up the challenge of defending the old guard (not something I am known for) and leading the Nixon campaign to an ahistoric victory.

The young and fresh face Kennedy was having none of it. With youth on his side, he unexpectedly turned up in California, had his picture taken with a young body builder called Schwarzenegger, and accepted a huge swing in public support towards his left wing policies.

(Left Wing in a US sense. What we, in the UK, would call slightly right of Margaret Thatcher).

Unperturbed, I advised Nixon to concentrate his campaigning in New York in an attempt to capture the 'Friends' demographic.

And I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for those meddling kids.

Or, more precisely, the Media.

Kennedy adopted an aggressive advertising strategy which alleged that I had asked the Lady Fuchsia for an open marriage, so that I could spend more time consorting with my gaming collection, and he questioned whether I was paying the right amount of tax on my eBay sales.

Sure, he made a few Gaffes - claiming that he did not like the poor, because they all had safety nets around their trampolines, and forgetting his three key priorities (make the coffee, don't rattle your 'off-board' cubes, decrease gaming expenditure as a proportion of GDP).

As Election Day dawned, I had secured both New York and PA - but Kennedy held California, the Deep South, and a huge swathe of the Mid West.

Beaten in my own backyard.

(That's not a euphemism and anyone who says it is can expect a call from my Lawyers)

It was great to get 1960 back to the table even if I could not reverse history.

Ah, well, I am off for a few days R&R in Dallas.

War Crimes

2012-01-31T13:59:00.001Z

Only on Sunday night, I was contemplating what life would be like for a sensitive Orc.

Born into a much maligned race, he would face nothing but prejudice and, in all likelihood, an early death at the hands of a Man of Gondor. All attempts to better himself (get a decent education, a paper round and a degree in the fine arts) would be for nought.

So it was with pleasure, and timely amusement, that I found myself playing Small World, last night - and the opportunity to choose the "Peaceloving Trolls" as my active race.

A chance to demonstrate my belief that we can all break from the Chains of Expectation and put on our Hoodies of Freewill.

(I was going to say "we are what we eat" but, in this instance, a troll could be a dwarf, a hobbit, or a small pony dependent on who stumbles into his pot first).

I was proud to take up the Troll cause and demonstrate that there was more to this ancient race than simply banging people over the head with a club.

Unfortunately, Grima was having none of it. He harried my cultured civilisation, across the mountain passes, destroying their Stone Lairs and driving them into the valleys.

Where was the humanity? (actually, he was using Hoards of Kobolds, so I should say "where was the koboldness?")

There is no space for liberalism when you are seeking lebensraum.

Of course, the Berserk Skeletons who arose from the ashes of the declining Troll empire, wasted no time in cutting a swathe through the pesky kobolds; their leader is now awaiting trial, in a small cell, in the Hague (along with his second in command, as they have to go everywhere in twos).

There's a lesson in there somewhere.

Oh, yeah, Small World is a great game and a metaphor for life.

Or, maybe, just a great game.

[I forgot to take a picture of the carnage. Now I have nothing to show to the UN monitors when they arrive next week. Still, I picked up the Troll image from ubuntuforums.org - it may not be strictly relevant but I found it amusing]

The Orc with the Heart Tattoo

2012-01-29T22:59:00.002Z

So in the dragon tattoo book, I am reading, the main character (a chap called Blomkvist who, confusingly, is neither a girl nor does he have any ink on his skin) has just been to see Lord of the Rings at the cinema.

It's unclear if this is relevant, to the overall storyline, but his reaction to the film is to think how much simpler life must be if you're an Orc. It's a weird observation (somewhat out of place in the novel) and, to be frank, contrary to my thoughts on life as the stereotypical embodiment of evil.

The thing is, what if you were an Orc? You'd soon find yourself being typecast as the bad guy.
Before you know it you've been enlisted into Sauron's army and you find yourself on the Pelennor Fields, with Aragorn bearing down on you with a large sword and an army of the undead.
Is that fair?
What if you'd only joined up to see the world; with the hope of meeting a nice lady Orc in a sailor's bar on the coast of Rhûn?

All that poetry you'd written, and amusing blog posts, would count for nothing as your head was hewn from your body by some dude who thinks he should be king.

It doesn't even stop there. You'd be sitting there in the afterlife (or where ever Orcses go when their time is up) having to see yourself portrayed in endless books, movies and games as one of the guys who started it.

History is written by the winners.
No one remembers the time you sat there, in the fire light, on the banks of the Anduin - and you turned to your commander and said "if only they knew the real me".

I need to go to bed. I think I may have read too much today.

Män som hatar kvinnor

2012-01-28T14:55:00.000Z

So, with Great Wyrms still on my mind, I have decided to read "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" next.
I like to stick with the theme and I think this one offers some good Feng Shui.

I read somewhere that, with the advent of the Kindle, there has been a rise in the number of low brow, 'pulp fiction', style books being bought. With a kindle no one needs to know what you are reading (unless you paste the information all over the kitchen walls).
In the olde days, the world was full of people who wanted to read the Da Vinci Code, but were too embarrassed to be seen with it on the train, so they read Focault's Pendulum instead.
Nowadays, when you see someone with an eReader, they could be engrossed in anything from Principia Mathematica to Mrs Stevens Hears The Mermaids Singing.

I have been dimly aware of the girl with the dragon tattoo, for some time. I had it marked down as chick lit (mainly, I think, because of the cover art) but a number of friends have raved about it, claiming it has great character development and multiple layers. And now it's a film.

So, anyway, I thought I'd give it a go.
I'm about a third of the way through and generally enjoying it - although I can't say I really see what all the fuss is about. Still, it's nice to read a crime novel for a change.

A Dance with Dragons

2012-01-26T13:24:00.000Z

To celebrate the Chinese Year of the Dragon I have pulled out the ancient 'chop' (seal) which was given to Gormenghast, as a sign of friendship, when the castle was twinned with the Tung Shing restaurant down the road.

I haven't had to use it, for awhile; either to act as guarantor on my Mah Jong debts or the escalating takeaway bills.

It remains a happy relic of past Steerpike travels.
I never did find out what the inscriptions mean. Probably "death to the cube smelling foreigner".

Snowman

2012-01-24T13:54:00.001Z

Gaming has been good of late.

On Saturday I made it up to the annual Oxcon event, something I missed last year due to a lavatory that required painting in the North Wing of the Castle.

I played a couple of games of Municipium, not seen in Gormenghast since the decline and fall of the Roman Empire (well, a stormy night at the Hidden Gamers back in 2009) and then some Small World.

The latter was a game much loved amongst the ThreeAmigoSpieler until Grima declared that everyone 'wormtongued' too much and that he didn't enjoy it any more.

The logical paradox that followed his statement left a million coloured cubes orphaned in time and space. It has been debated in parliament and the Vatican has declared the Clotted Hustler infallible. Or was it unbelievable?

Regardless, it was great to get it back to the table - even if we did have to endure a gaming snob declaring it to be "nothing more than a poor substitute for the game they said was broken but wasn't (Vinci)". [As opposed to 'a fun, light, reimplementation of an interesting mechanic embedded in an overworked war game (Vinci)"]

Talking of war games, the evening was rounded off nicely when I took the bateau back to the Salt Marshes, played my Settler, and sat down to a friendly game of A Few Acres of Snow.

I have been pointed to a number of articles over on the Geek about how this game is 'broken'.

The British, they say, have a killer strategy - the Halifax Hammer - which renders the game pointless. The rules have been modified to stop it happening (if, indeed, it ever was a foregone conclusion), but those who consider themselves the oracles claim the changes have not gone far enough.

Personally I have no problem with these claims, apart from the pompous tones, because I kind of like fighting the unwinnable fight. If there's a chink in the armour, I like to find it. And if there isn't, I'm happy to die trying. (Metaphorically).

So I took the French and waited for the Hammer. In fact it never came and, after about two hours play, it was clear that both the British and the French hands had gummed themselves up, too much, and the land war was getting somme like. We both needed to clear out our decks and rethink our strategies - but sadly my taxi driver was tapping her toes, in the doorway, and we were forced to abandon for a draw. Probably for the best. I'd had a few too many ales, at this point, and kept forgetting to add location cards to my hand.

Not to be deterred, the brave combatants reconvened Monday night, ready for fresh snow.

I took the French. I had a plan. I tied up the British in an early siege and used the benefits of an incredibly thin deck (everything else falling into the siege) to progressively sell furs and use the money to fortify key locations. It was an excellent early strategy that allowed me to tool up my defenses quickly. Sure I lost the siege, in the end, but it bought me precious time.

As the British had to throw so many money generating cards into the siege, they found themselves developing more slowly than they would have anticipated. Of course, their war machine slowly built up, once the siege was over, but in the meantime I sailed and settled the great lakes, as quickly as the cards would allow. Rather than upgrading any of my settlements, I rushed to get them all onto the board, and end the game, before the English could say 'mad old king george'.

The Strategy worked and I won by the slimmest of margins (two point, I think) in under 90 minutes.

The night was still young. Fresh snow was falling outside, blanketing the ground in a whispered hush, telling tales of the great Steerpike victory.

So we racked the game up, again, and this time I took the British.

Red.

My favourite.

The French came out, guns blazing. I settled Halifax and they sieged me straight away. An arms race immediately kicked off with both decks filling with military might. My Gallic cousins were not in any mood to give any quarter and mercilessly tried to ambush my incoming troops, while unloading boatloads of garlic laden men and provisions outside my forts. Battles raged from Halifax to Port Royal, to Permaquid and back again.

I shifted tack a little and withdrew from a few sieges, preferring to upgrade my coastal settlements to villages, and then re-engage in a different siege at a different pressure point.

The Strategy started to pay off.

I could see the French deck starting to burst at the seams as virtually every card had been drafted. This started to make things very inefficient for the settlers of 'New France' - they had plenty of fire power, in attack, but my brave British boys had enough to hold the line while new trails were being forged through the wilderness.

In many ways, quite a role reversal, because it is the British who have access to the larger army - I just chose not to draft them all, instead trying to opt for a balance of expansion and robust defence (sometimes actually attacking as a form of pre-emptive defence).

As my last village was placed, I was comfortably in the lead by six points and the exhausted French marines had to concede defeat.

Despite the ferocious nature of the campaign, on both sides, only one single siege had turned out to be successful (the initial French siege on Halifax).

Peace and prosperity won the day.

I do rather like this game - although I suspect it may burn brightly and fade after a number of plays.

But I'm not burnt out on it, yet, and long may it continue to surprise me.

It would be great to see this mechanic explored further in other scenarios or other games.

Smaugåsbord

2012-01-23T13:42:00.001Z

Happy Chinese New Year

Fortune cookies at the ready. Chopsticks bowed.

The dragon is in the ascendant, the sign under which I was born.

Now, what would it be appropriate to play tonight ?

Tien Zi Que, Mah Jong, Chinatown, Dragonheart. Some tough choices for the S'mellier.

(Sadly I am not sure that anyone, amongst the ThreeAmigoSpieler, owns the eponymous 'In the Year of the Dragon')

My choice would be A Few Acres of Mono Sodium Glutamate.

Ready for pick up in 30 minutes.

The First Snow

2012-01-19T13:16:00.001Z

A Few Acres of Snow is a game that I have been looking forward to giving a go, for some time.

I guess that there's an apparent hypocrisy in this, given my never ending statements rallying against the Cult of the New (too many posts to link to - see kitchens passim) and my stated desire to spend more time with the games that I already own.

But, as observed before, I am consistently inconsistent and using my own perverse logic I believe that this particular hotness is a special case.

My reasoning is simple. It is not that I am against new games, I am just tired of the unending tide of repackaged ideas masquerading as something different.

We really do not need a hundred different stepwise implementations of the worker placement mechanic. One is enough.

When Dominion came along it was like a breath of fresh air. It brought a new way of looking at deck building games and set a new milestone.

The fact that the designers have now squeezed every last drop of profit, out of the franchise, is a different story although they seem to have managed to degrade their own brand by going back to the well too many times.

Enter Martin Wallace with his interesting take on applying the Dominion mechanic to a war game setting.

On the face of it this seems like an odd thing to do but, actually, it makes thematic sense within the context of a Wilderness War - where the time between requesting additional troops (or supplies, or whatever) and them actually arriving can be very variable indeed.

So, with this intriguing concept, and the fact that I am rather partial to high level war games, I have been following the development of A Few Acres of Snow, with interest.

Grima played an early version of it, back in June, at the UK Games Expo and declared it "a bit rubbish".

This was no surprise, to me, as my hustling gaming buddy is notoriously pants at Dominion.

(No, really, he is hopeless. I'm pretty sure the youngest pikelet could beat him).

What was surprising was the fact I got an email from him, last week, saying he'd bought the game and now thought it was the greatest thing since small brown cubes representing sliced bread. I suspect the high BGG rating had something to do with this Volte Face but, hey ho, it would be churlish to complain when a copy of this, much sort after, game has finally arrived on the outskirts of Gormenghast.

So, last night, I finally sat down to play.

I took the forces of good (the British) who, not entirely coincidentally, were represented by the red pieces. Opposite me, a swarthy Frenchman, intent on robbing my glorious empire of its rightful inheritance. An undesirable often seen in the company of North American native folk. And a man with a track record of three French wins under his belt.

It was going to be tough.

The first play through of this game is a dizzying experience. There are so many options, open to both sides, and it's only after about an hours play that a few light bulbs start switching on in the head. The deck building element is key - which shouldn't really be a surprise - but the realisation that you can only play New York once, until you recycle through your deck again, seems a long time coming.

I lost count of the number of times I wasted a vital card, on a lesser action, and then had to sit in frustration with limited actions in strategic corners of the board.

As an opening gambit, I sailed North to the Nova Scotia peninsula and rapidly spread out some settlements. My people were happy there so I built some forts to protect them. The French seemed less happy and set about sieging Halifax and Cansa, whenever the opportunity arose.

British naval superiority allowed me to hold them until game end and, better still, they seemed to act as good decoy material with the gruff French Leader concentrating the majority of his military efforts there.

This seemed to work well for me because, about halfway through the game, it dawned on me that I was really going nowhere in the war over there. So I took a strategic decision to switch all of my resources into a rapid expansion in the Southern wilderness. As my merry men blazed trails through the bush I built a line of settlement (which I rapidly upgraded to towns) all the way to the great lakes.

These were golden times, with the English coffers filling up quickly despite troublesome raids from the locals. This money was then rapidly spent to prop up the ongoing hostilities over on the distant peninsula.

The French started making moves on Albany, in an effort to come within striking distance of New York and Boston, but time ran out for them when I managed to place my last settlement and end the game. The sieges around Nova Scotia had petered out, as more and more troops arrived from England to shore up the colonies, and the French were left defeated by a single point.

A very close win for the British but when we write it all down, in the history books, it will probably look a little bit different.

So my thoughts on A Few Acres of Snow?

I loved it.

The card mechanic is really well integrated and leads to some really tough decisions.

I found that as the game progressed I was seeing more and more subtle nuances emerging;

driving in to work, this morning, my head was full of ideas on different strategies, I could employ, and neat tactical considerations.

Like War of the Ring, the game is not asymmetrical. Playing the French looks like it is a completely different challenge to playing the British.

There's a lot of depth, to be explored, and I hope to see this at the table a lot more.

In the meantime, I'm going to sharpen my knives by playing a few games online.

As an extra bonus, A Few Acres of Snow is now available on Yucata

Winter is coming.

I can't wait.

Nostalgia VII (ByProxy)

2012-01-18T13:57:00.001Z

Today, visitors to the English language Wikipedia site are met with a black screen and a message in protest against the American SOPA legislation.

(In contrast, visitors to the castle are met with a nice fresh cup of tea, a game on the table and, if necessary, a bar of Soap).

Critics of the legislation, currently passing through Congress, are concerned that the Americans are trying to bomb the internet back into the dark ages; and I tend to agree with them.

Having said that, I do hold a faint nostalgia for the early days of the web. Back then, it was not too crowded, there were nice green fields everywhere and the only people you ever really bumped into were fellow geeks. These days they let any old riff raff loose in cyber space and, if some of the comment sections of the news media are anything to go by, a fair few criminally insane trolls.

It's pretty dangerous out there.

Only yesterday I was thinking about the early days of online gaming, when the web was young and RPGs were acted out using single line text prompts.

The reason that this came to mind was because we played Acquire on Monday night - and this was the first game I played, real time, online.

I can't remember the name of the website - but it was a fairly clunky user interface that you had to download to Windows and that used an unstable web server somewhere to receive and send out the moves. It was great.

I used to spend hours playing despite the fragility of the system.

There was only ever about three to four people online, at any one time, but just enough for a game.

Strangely, even then, I struggled to get the username I wanted (Steerpike) but I was never online at the same time as the person who had stolen it. In those days you couldn't have a period in a username, so I could not even pull my usual trick of instantiating myself as Steerpike.Instance. In fact I'm not even sure if the technique of instantiation has been invented in those heady days.

So I was Cyrano.

I always seemed to end up playing against a lady called "TexanByProxy". Of course I had no way of substantiating that she was either a lady or in Texas (and these things never change) but she did claim to be a bored housewife in said state. The conversation did not get much further than that, due to the poor quality chat window on offer, but I like to feel we had a bond.

Whenever a Texan visits the castle, topped in a huge cowboy hat, I think back to those halcyon days.

As, indeed I do, when I pwn the ThreeAmigoSpieler at Acquire. All that practice sure came in useful.

YeeHaaaw

Gaming Biodiversity

2012-01-17T13:27:00.001Z

There are times, in the past, where I have been unjustly accused of being too negative about a game.

Well, perhaps 'accuse' is a bit of a strong word, but I do receive feedback in the comments section, verbally and in letters to the Gormenghast Times to the effect that I need to lighten up a bit and give designers some room.

Personally I think that I give quite a balanced views of the games I have been playing. I try to cover the good, the bad and the ugly - of course if a game has very few redeeming features then my hands are somewhat tied.

Even when I do say I quite like a game, many of the BGG acolytes have a tendency to leap on the negative bits that I have pointed out.

I suppose it proves the old adage that you have to say seven positive things in order to outweigh a single negative.

The other thing, though, is that 'the boardgaming community' is astonishingly sensitive to constructive criticism. It's almost as if dissent is a personal attack on fans of the genre.

But I like debate. I like to weigh up the merits of things.

Above all else I like standing amongst the cheering crowds shouting "The King has no clothes".

So, anyway, in the spirit of homing in on the good, let me say this: I had a cracking games session last night.

The Halfling made a rare appearance (he's not been spending much time at his Hobbit-hole, of late) and was immediately declared the S'mellier for the night. From under his mithril coat he pulled out the mighty Acquire and we sat down for a spot of company wheeling and dealing.

Acquire is a true classic, in my mind. Simple rules but real depth of play. Enough luck to shake things up a bit (sometimes you really can get hosed by your tile draws) but sufficient control to allow for strategic shenanigans.

In a superb piece of preliminary wormtonguing, Grima pretended to not know the rules, so it took a while to get underway as the Halfling patiently explained them again. It turned out to be a funny old game with no mergers early on and a total of only three or four by the end. Everyone seemed to be blocking everyone else's juicy takeovers with the result that there was very little cash flow until we got into the final stages.

I ended up coming out a clear winner holding the most stock in the two giants that had gradually sprawled across the board under their own steam.

From old to new, we switched to Snow Tails; surely no one can deny that this is a modern classic?

If Acquire is Holst's "The Planets" then Snow Tails is Half Man Half Biscuit's "27 Yards of Dental Floss".

A cheeky little game where the players spend more time on their feet as their team of huskies race their sledge around the pack ice, felling saplings, crashing into solid walls and each other, or (in one extreme case, in the last race) taking off and flying over a ravine.

Win or lose, I always enjoy this game -which is a good job as I only managed joint third in the first race ("The Hobbit's Entrails") and second in the final race ("Grima's Revenge"). To be fair, one of my huskies had a cube splinter, stuck into his front nearside paw, which made it difficult turning.

As I said, a mighty fine evening of gaming.

No new rules to learn (unless you're bluffing) and a couple of top notch games from the cerebral to the adrenalin fueled.

As a bonus, for the night, both Grima and the Halfling got into the spirit of the Great Gormenghast Game Sale.

Each bought a couple of games from me.

This was a result as

a) It saves me having to get them posted on eBay

b) The games will still be locally available for playing

c) I now have some spare space and cash.... but for how long?

I really don't understand what Bob Geldof had against Mondays.

Wordpress

2012-01-16T12:00:00.001Z

Having travelled There and Back again, with The Hobbit, I chose the Etymologicon, by Mark Forsyth, as my next book to read on the Kindle.

I love words, along with their etymology, and as this book came recommended by one who knows these things I had high hopes for this collection.

In fact, I thought that it might be a perfect 'toilet book'; one of those titles that you dip in and out of, as you pass the time, in the smallest room.

(Actually there are smaller rooms in the castle but that's another story).

As it turned out, I found the book far more fascinating than that, and ended up reading it cover to cover without feeling the need to have a parallel novel on the go.

It's a good job that I did not limit my reading of it to the Throne Room [it has suddenly occurred to me to wonder if the Dominion card of the same name is derived from the euphemism] because that would have left a lot of cross legged pikelets waiting patiently outside the great oak door.

Ha. Toilet humour. There was a whole chapter on that.

Thomas Crapper debunked along with the jaded old 'Store High In Transit' and assorted swear word myths.

The origins of the Starbuck and Bluetooth brands were both intriguing, and I am glad I was never called to 'testify' in a medieval court.

Yeah, I know that these statements are completely meaningless if you've not read the book - but if you have the vaguest interest in history or words (and ideally both) then you really should.

On a related note, I haven't had to recharge my Kindle since its first power up on Christmas Day. That's a pretty cool battery life.

Now, what to read next..?

Collateral Damage

2012-01-15T22:00:00.000Z

It's "all change", here in Gormenghast, at the moment.

The pikelets have demanded new sleeping quarters, as part of the overall "Year of the Castle" (which seems to have slipped into 2012), and so there has been much room swapping and a week of decorating.

I'm exhausted.

The upshot, of all this, is that there is suddenly less lebensraum for my games.
My hand has, finally, been forced and I am going to have to enact my New Years Resolution sooner rather than later.
Ah, but I am ahead of the curve, for once. Forty odd games have been identified and moved to a warehouse on the fringes of the salt marshes. Work has progressed around getting these loaded into eBay and, hopefully, the Great Gormenghast Game Sale will be underway before moss can gather on the new stonework in Steerpike Jr's room.

As this is part of a wider business deal with the former Poodle estate, there will likely be around eighty games hitting the market. Watch this space for further details should you be interested in something shiny and new for your own personal nest.

In related news, I have also continued pulling dusty tomes down from the ancient shelves of the Great Library and passing them on to more worthy causes. Yes, work continues, apace, to shift my collection into digital format - but spare a thought for the innocent refugees thrown up in this maelstrom.

I speak of none other than the kitchen bookmarks.

Over the years I have given shelter to an ever growing number of these quirky little place holders. They came to me as holiday mementos, birthday gifts from the pikelets and random curios discovered along the literary way. Now they have become orphans. No longer gainfully employed to keep my page.
Not required on voyage.
Redundant.

It's a sad day but what can a kitchen boy do?
These are digital times and bookmarks need to move on. Adapt to the changing market and find new ways to add value in these difficult days of double dip recessions.

Perhaps I will keep a few as wards and use them to mark important passages in my (still hardcopy) rule books. They can then be useful in Rules Clarifications when debates on War of the Ring nuances reach fever pitch.

And, in the distant future, I will show them to a generation of grand-pikes and tell them of the golden ages of pagination (and opponents who bend the rules).

Fearsome Floors

2012-01-11T14:29:00.001Z

In this age of austerity there is much belt tightening going on.

Here in the Great Kitchens, where I work (as opposed to the slightly more homely Castle Kitchens where I play), it has been announced that we will sublet the second floor and all workers must pack their pots and pans and squeeze into new nooks and crannies on the ground and first floors.

So I am packing my belongings, into cardboard boxes, and getting ready to relocate.

As with all these things, there have been heated discussions over where everyone has to go. Originally, my department (omelets and washing up) had been earmarked for an area known affectionately as "the dungeon". It's name bequeathed on it due to the lack of natural light and the dimly lit corners.

This sounded ideal, to me; I was looking forward to packing my mithril coat, and spare axe, to go in search of fame, fortune and monsters.

Sadly the rest of the team rebelled and we were offered different real estate. Unadventurous cravens, the lot of them.

So, it seems, we are to move to the first floor where light floods in, through the high arched palisades, and an Arkenstone lights the central hallway.

If you ask me it makes us a target, for giant wyrms in search of a lair, but you can't argue with the 'business prerogative' nor the cost benefit calculations.

My principle worry is that I will get fat.

You see, every day I climb two flights of stairs in the morning and descend them again in the evening. If I pop out at lunchtime I do it all again.

Once on the first floor this distance will be halved.

I will be doing precisely 50% less exercise every day. I think I should demand gym membership as compensation.

(The only other alternative is that I half my doughnut consumption but that would be madness).

It is my opinion that the accountants just do not think these things through.

Still, tomorrow I must move my worker meeple to a different 'location' space. The problem with these 'limited Action Point' games is that there's just never enough turns to do everything you want... which is why I am not holding my breath for my furniture, or my IT equipment, to arrive at the same time.

Still, all the running around I may have to do, to find my stuff, may help with the potential weight gain.

Bad Ink

2012-01-10T22:32:00.000Z

I rather like this cartoon - it pretty much sums up how I feel about blogging.
Of course, my kitchen ramblings have not yet made it into the printed media (although a few blogs, I follow, have - so there's still time) but the sentiment remains the same.

Sometimes I look back at posts and cringe at my clumsy English. Other times I am so proud of a post that I am surprised it does not instantly achieve international acclaim. Then, of course, I look at it again.

The cartoon is copyright (and all that jazz), to Debbie Ohi and I found her work via a caption contest she is running on the Geek:

It is a testament to my predictability that I came up with this 'punchline':

Gimli: "So I put my little round token here?"
Gandalf: "Your farmer"
Gimli: "yes, my farmer. and I can build a fence?"
Legolas: "no, you need some wood for that"
Gimli: "how do I get wood, again?"
Frodo: "you have to place your wooden disk.."
Gandalf: "farmer"
Frodo: "sorry, your farmer, on a wood space"

Gimli: (*sighs*) "Can't we just go kill some Orcs?"

It's no wonder I can't find a publisher.

No Sleep 'til Ketapang

2012-01-10T13:49:00.002Z

Despite my best intentions, to spend more time with my existing games collection, I sat down, on Monday night, to yet another new game.

There wasn't much that I could do about this - Grima was the Sommelier and he had chosen Indonesia for the nights entertainment.
Not really a new game, I think it is about six years old now, but new to the motley crew assembled around the kitchen table.

In Indonesia, you grow crops and ship them around the various islands for profit.
Players own companies involved both in the production cycle and in sea transportation. So a balanced portfolio is not just raping the land for rice and palm oil; it is also belching diesel into the sea getting your goods (and those of your opponents) to the ever expanding cities.

Although it sounds like a simple "Pick up and Deliver", in the Far East, it's actually more of a financial game where merging and acquiring companies, at the right time, turns out to be more important than fiddling with your chits (and there is a lot of fiddling, let me tell you).

The game is played on a gorgeous ink drawn atlas-style map, with names written in an indecipherable font. The board is way too small, to be practical, but is definitely a thing of beauty.

It takes a little while to get into the swing of the game but it has that 'Steam' quality where this is not a problem, because the tableau starts fairly sparse and progressively clutters up as the hours drag by.
Ok, I jest a little.
Actually the game is really engaging, from the start, with some interesting decisions and some neat mechanics.

Unfortunately the game is over long and, by the third era, it's getting really difficult to see where the production chits go, which routes they are connected to and which cities have already been serviced.
This means that turns really slow down as each player tries to ship their goods in the optimal way.

I got off to a flying start, coming out on the right side of a couple of mergers, and in the second era I found myself with a virtual monopoly in both rice and spices. Grima had converted all his rice/spice production over, into producing microwave meals, which left me with some quietly profitable trading lines for those years of plenty.

By the third (and final) era demand for my goods was dipping in the face of stiff competition and an explosion in new luxury items - fortunately this coincided with a dip in demand to finish the game.
We all agreed to play out a final turn rather than facing another hour of "lather rinse and repeat" and I managed to hold on to my slender financial lead.

As an ending it was something of an anticlimax but I'm not sure it would have been much different had we gone the full distance.
Except, I might have lost.

I enjoyed the game and felt the need to give it a bit of a cuddle like a family member who, perhaps, had expected A grades in all their exams but only managed a C+

Grima enthusiastically suggested some 'tweaks' to the game to improve the experience for next time; these involved somehow merging the last two eras and finding a better 'book keeping' mechanism for the cardboard tsunami. I wish him good luck with that. My feeling is that if a game needs that much tweaking then perhaps it should go back to the designer for further play testing.

Actually I think the game has a lot of really cool stuff going on. The problem is that there is too much going on for too long; it needs to be distilled down to its essence.

As I took my carriage, back to the castle, I pondered this and it occurred to me that Chicago Express had already achieved that distillation in a slightly different format.

Which, I guess, goes to show that we should have just played some of the old favourites.

Ain't Complaining

2012-01-07T23:51:00.000Z

Earlier this evening, I was sitting quietly in a corner of the kitchen, reading my Kindle (finished rereading The Hobbit and now moved on to The Etymologicon), when news reached my highly tuned ears that there was an AdHoc Wallycon kicking off in town.

It's been a while since I have feasted in the halls of the Hidden Gamers, so I thought I'd pop down and see what they were playing.
The games gathering was, indeed, a last minute endeavour. It seems that no one had thought to advertise the event and, as a result, there were only the usual suspects in attendance. About nine people, spread across three tables, and each of them setting up the same game - Ora Et Labora.

I've heard very little about this latest hotness but was informed that it had been released at Essen and has only just came out in English - hence the reason that everyone, here, seems to have received it for Christmas.

You have to be brave to name a game with Latin words that sound like Bore and Laboured (yes, I know that the motto means 'pray and work') especially when you are Uwe Rosenberg and you have a track record of rather dull, over worked, games.

Still, I'll try anything once - even if the person teaching me is enthusiastically telling me it's a lot like Le Havre.

And, it is a lot like Le Havre. Get stuff, turn it into other stuff, get buildings to help get stuff and turn stuff into other stuff. Keep doing this until the game ends and then count your VPs.
In fact, over all, the only real difference from Le Havre is a neater way of keeping track of the stuff (a sort of rondel thing) and the fact that the players are monks rather than merchants.

As a game it sits proudly on the Meh shelf with Agricola, le Havre, Gates of Ennui and Merkator.
Uwe Rosenberg is like a latter day gaming Status Quo. All of his songs sound the same.

That's fine as long as you like a limited number of chord changes; I think playing the odd Agricohavror now and then is ok, but I can't see myself doing it that often.

Personally I'd rather be barrelling down the Anduin tow path, on a Segway wearing shades, fighting off in-coming Orcs.
Perhaps that's Uwe's next project.
Perhaps he's saving that for the difficult second album.

New Years Resolutions (12)

2012-01-03T20:56:00.000Z

There's a wonderful diary element to blogging.
Apart from performing the role of a random place to spout nonsense, it also serves as an aide memoir regarding what was happening at various points in the life of the castle.

Nowhere is this more interesting than in the field of New Year's resolutions. Looking back there is a clear pattern that reflects my desire to rein in spending on games and to reduce my overall collection.
Of course the resolutions are met with varying degrees of success (although I was spot on with 'one in one out' this year) but the fact that I keep trying to make these commitments is pretty telling.

I guess it's the same for everyone. We all have our weaknesses.

So in the spirit of "if at first you don't succeed, try try again", I am plumping for

1) Reduce my games collection.
I'm even going to set myself a target. I currently have 164 and would like to be below 150 by the end of the year. I'll never do it but, if I can fight off a Hill Troll armed only with a small leaf, I should be ready for anything.

2) Read more, waste less time surfing the internet.
I am armed with a Kindle. I am a Kindle bore. This one is a breeze.

3) Play the games that come my way.
Don't actively seek out new ones just for the sake of it, enjoy what is there.
I have enough games in my collection to last me a lifetime (unless I am hugely successful at #1). I need to stop seeking the Holy Grail, because it is already in the castle, probably behind my unplayed copy of Heroquest.

These are my nuggets of wisdom for 2012.
Or maybe they are fool's gold.

New Year Adventures

2012-01-03T16:02:00.001Z

I had been hoping to give the Lord of the Rings LCG ('living card game') a go for some time.

Having read mixed reports, from a number of sources, and being a bit of a Tolkien fan - my curiosity needed satiating.

Last night a full moon over Erebor, and an auspicious sighting of a hooded stranger on horseback (or, to be more precise, a certain wormtongue being stuck in traffic outside Bristol, precluding his appearance at Monday night gaming), signalled that the time was right.

The forces of good opted for the prebuilt 'Leadership' and 'Tactics' decks, and plunged headfirst into Mirkwood.

The scenario was something about a messenger having to take a short cut, along the Old Forest Road, in order to make sure that news of the gathering darkness reached the Free People in good time.

Interestingly, the cards in this first test of skill were laced with quotes from the Hobbit (rather than the Lord of the Rings) and the quest, itself, could equally have been Bilbo and Thorin's Company heading in the other direction, en route to the Lonely Mountain.

Spiders jumped out, as did a few Orcses, and the path was left despite Beorn's good advice. Ultimately, though, the brave companions successfully emerged out of the forest canopy with a few minor scratches and a couple of major stories to tell, to the young Tooks, on a cold winters night.

Flushed with our achievement the message was delivered and the next batch of adventurers decided to head straight for the mighty Anduin.

This time the company was comprised of the other two standard decks - 'Lore' and 'Spirit' - something of a mistake, as it transpired, as the journey down the river turned out to be a ferocious running (/flowing) battle.

Before we even got to our boats, we were faced with a huge Hill Troll blocking our passage. Something of a problem as none of our company was really, what you might call, a warrior. In fact it looked like we weren't so much 'dead in the water' as 'dead before we even got to the water'.

Still, these particular decks turned out to be quite tricksy and we managed to hold off the onslaught until Gandalf popped up to lend a hand. Along with a timely use of a Forest Snare we managed to pull the troll down, kick him in the nuts, and run for the boats.

However, it turned out to be something of a pyrrhic victory because, as our party barrelled down the river, we could do little else but watch the growing number of enemies lining up on, and chasing us down, the banks of the river. We took some pot shots at them, they hurled boulders and bad smells at us, but there was no way we were going to be able to set foot back on shore with our entrails in the right places.

Ignominious defeat, on the second quest, but some good lessons learnt. The main one being: "bring someone with a large sword, and a taste for Orc blood, next time".

It's a nice little game - far more atmospheric than I had expected. I really felt a sense of doom as the Hill Troll stood in front of me and my feet were pretty wet by the end of the rush down the Anduin. (River water, not the contents of my bladder)

The mechanics were a little counter intuitive, the first few times through - or, maybe, my intuition was still a bit fuzzy from New Years Eve.

I like the concept and, next time, it would be interesting to mix the decks up a bit and put together some more customised raiding parties.

The quests are neat; I could see myself getting drawn into buying some of the expansions, to try out new scenarios, if I owned the game myself.

So maybe it's a good thing that I don't.

It might have the same draining properties as the One Ring itself.

It's a Wonderful Life

2012-01-01T23:21:00.003Z

It's the beginning of a New Year and time for TV presenters, everywhere, to compile lists of the best and worst of 2011 - and for geeks, across the land, to do likewise.

I am not going to over analyse my stats for the year partly because I had too much to drink last night but mainly because I'm not sure it really achieves anything.
I do note with interest that I have a lot more games, with multiple plays, this year - which is something I set out to do - and that I managed to fit in a lot more meaty sessions of War of the Ring and Twilight Struggle.
All in all a satisfying result.

If 2010 was Dominion's year, in terms of number of times played, then 2011 saw the explosion of 7 Wonders onto the scene. The popularity of this 'build your own civilisation in 30 minutes' gem seems set to continue with the appearance of the 7 Wonders: Leaders Expansion at the kitchen table.

In fact I played the game four time today (twice with the expansion), so it's already on my most played list for 2012. Funnily enough I kept drawing Olympia as my 'wonder' - a reflection on the fact that the Olympics are coming to Gormenghast (and the outer kingdoms) this Summer ?

So, all that's left for me to do is to formulate some resolutions to break in the coming year.
I have a few ideas but I'll leave that for another post, when I've had a chance to review how I did on last year's batch, so that I can set realistic expectations for the next 12 months.

Probably the most interesting statistic of 2011, though, is that I managed 227 posts. A new record in these parts. I may need to slow down before I burn out.

It's a Wrap

2011-12-31T11:15:00.000Z

So before we get into 2012, Olympic year here in Gormenghast (the torch route passes outside the castle), it seems prudent to tie up a few loose ends. More specifically the Advent Answers, although virtually all have been revealed by the smarter ones amongst the kitchen dwellers.

#1 was the lovely little dice game Risk Express.

#2 was the seminal dot com satire Burn Rate

#3 was Yetisburg (a bit too much of a clue, in the picture, but you've got to have Yetis at Christmas. At least you do now)

#4 was Dragonheart. A great little two player game I won over at the Spiel back in March.

At this point the train divided...
#5 was Cold War: CIA vs KGB; probably my favourite small two player card game and, coincidentally, the first advent calendar prize of 2010
whereas
#5a was a woolly mammoth from Kings n Things

#6 was an auspicious card from Tien Zi Que
whereas
#6a came from Dragon Lairds [do you see the connection across time and space?]

#7 saw the appearance of Seven Dragons from Looney Labs
whereas
#7a sought the One Ring (that would rejoin the timelines) in Middle Earth Quest

Things got a lot easier, after this, as we went back to a single stream.
[Although Big Thanks to Chris - aka 'Christo' - for providing the pictures in the alternate timeline. It gave me something to guess, too]

#8 was Lost Cities

#9 was the cook from Corsari (I felt it time for a kitchen theme)

#10 was from my brand spanking new edition of Innovation

#11 took the longest to solve. It was from Uwe Rosenberg's 2006 football bean combo Bohnkick. Released during the World Cup in Germany, I'm not sure if it got much further than the Dutch border. I have used a photo from it, once before, back in 2010 during the subsequent World Cup in South Africa.

#12 was Settlers of Catan - probably the easiest picture in the mix

#13 was a treasure card from Incan Gold, still a family favourite here in the castle.

#14 was David and Goliath. (Goliath, I presume)

#15 was the lucky cat from Felix the Cat in the Sack

#16 saw an appearance of one of the Awful Green Things from Outer Space.

#17 was the Michigan tile from Campaign Manager 2008

#18 was a bit of a step change, and somewhat left field. It was the 18th hole from a crazy golf course in Den Haan, Belgium. Is it rude to include holiday snaps?

#19 was Ubongo, Das Duell

#20 brought some more beans to the table in the shape of the original, granddaddy of them all, Bohnanza

#21 was one of the ports from Settlers, although I cannot remember if it was sheep, brick or ore.

One of the challenges this year was to spot when a game was repeated between windows. Nobody noticed that Settlers of Catan appeared twice so no bonuses there, and shame on you all.

#22 was another easy one, Through The Desert.

#23 proved to be a bit tricky. No correct answers except from James, who has played this with me many times (and is therefore ineligible for big points on this one). The game in question was Lords of Vegas.

#24 was Founding Fathers

and, to close out proceeding, the advent extra, #25, was Tulipmania 1637.

The final scores:

First Place goes to Giles [caradocp] with 9 points.

Next comes James [Jimmy_Mac] and Rob [Count Zero] with 7 points a piece.
Using the Samurai scoring system neither of them gets to use these points, as they drew, dropping them to last place (unless they can prove to me that they have any High Hemlets or Paddy Fields in hand).

.... giving Second Place to Friendless on 6 points and Third to Christo on 5 points.

We have been routed by the lands down under.

Honourable mentions to:
Fraser on 4 points
Iain on 2 points
and Godless, Mikko and TheSpiel on 1 point a piece

Hey, we're all winners, aren't we?
Maybe.

See y'all next year.

The Final Frontier

2011-12-30T15:44:00.002Z

It is worth noting that Santa is not really as benevolent as he would have us all believe.
All this "have you been a good boy, this year?" fascist nonsense. Do as you are told or no presents for you, is the subtext. Mind control.
Likewise, although he doth bear me gifts of Kindles, he is no doubt in league with the Lady Fuchsia, who would like to see the castle tidied of bulging bookshelves. Timeo Santaos Et Dona Ferentes.

There are those who will tell you that the next major, global, conflicts will be over water. But, here in Gormenghast, we are still in the 20th Century paradigm of border skirmishes. It's all about space. Lebensraum for the books, games and grim inhabitants of these badlands.
Back in 2008 I was forced to cede parts of the castle, to my lady wife, and the first casualty of war was not The Truth but, simply, my book collection.
Over time, of course, I have re-populated these spaces, with new literary illegal immigrants, but there is unrest in the shires.

The Kindle is the much vaunted 'Third Way' - if I transfer my reading material to a virtual bookshelf then we can all be happy.

I thought that I would be resistant to this. I thought that reading 'electronically' would never substitute the real thing for me; the pleasure of turning the page, the smell of the paper, the beautifully arranged bookshelves displaying my sublime taste in literature.

To my surprise, however, I have taken to the Kindle like a rat to a kitchen.

It is a fantastic piece of kit and I find myself reading far more than I have for a long while. Because of its portability I find myself absorbed in the unlikeliest of locations.
I decided to kick off with The Hobbit because it is a book I have read many times before - something to ease myself in with. And, despite the fact I know what is going to happen next, I am finding it difficult to put down.
It's great.

And so, despite reservations, I am embracing the Third Way with open arms. Indeed I am spending far too much time, on the Amazon website, downloading books which I already have in dead tree mode.
I am willingly clearing the physical shelves in favour of the virtual.

In much the same way as I went from CDs to digital music, in the time it took Swelter to prepare an omelette, so the eBook migration is gathering pace.
At the same time, I am picking up cheap books in the "12 days of Christmas" sale (at 99p a shot, it seems rude not to) as well as a number of free novels that I see advertised on Twitter.

I remember when I was an apprentice kitchen boy. On my occasional Saturdays off (once every few years) I would wonder into town and browse the bookshops - often buying titles that would sit on my shelves, amongst the greasy pots and pans, for months at a time before I had the opportunity to read them.

I have now hit the digital equivalent, buying far more than I can realistically read in a month of Sundays.

Of course, the good news for the Lady Fuchsia is that none of this impacts the ambience of the castle.
Until she notices the huge hole in our bank balance, when we come to perform the next renovation.

It would also be churlish to note that less books leaves room for more games.
I'll save that battle for another day. After I have downloaded and reread Sun Tzu "the Art of War".

Yuletide Ramblings (II)

2011-12-29T12:00:00.001Z

Last Christmas I remarked, on the puzzling fact, that I play far less games at Christmas than I do at any other time of year.
This year has been a little better but still relatively sparse on the gaming front. We've played a few Qwirkles (my present to the youngest Fuchsia bud) and a quick Oregon (my present to myself) but apart from a sneaky Blokus, and a Dixit with the Groans, that's been pretty much it.

I've been invited over to the Hidden Gamers this evening but the ongoing round of parties means that I am otherwise engaged.
(This may be a good thing. The hidden ones are planning to play Ora et Labora. I'd not heard of this before but one of the order explained it to me thus: a clever game: all the lessons from Agricola and Le Havre wrapped up in a single game with a monastic theme . Sounds awful.)

So it's either another puzzle for me, or another glass of wine. Or both.
Or I may just curl up, under the eaves, with my brand spanking new Kindle and download some more literary goodness.

Oh, yes, Santa was good to me. I am now an eReader and look down on all those who carry dead wood around with them.
I have christened my lovely little gadget with "The Hobbit" (currently 49% through) and, of course, have already loaded "The Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy".
I can see my bank balance taking a bit of a hit over the next few days.

Advent Extra

2011-12-24T20:13:00.002Z

Sod it -let's defy convention and have a Number 25. It's Christmas after all.

The Bubble has burst. Until next year, thanks for playing.
I'm off for a lie down and a glass of bubbly.

Advent #24

2011-12-24T00:10:00.000Z

It's Christmas Eve and, with a mixture of emotions, we reach the end of our journey.
Will you vote Yea or Nea for the 2011 Advent Calendar?

Whichever faction, you find yourself voting with, may I wish you and your meeples a Merry Christmas

Advent #23

2011-12-23T10:15:00.001Z

Christmas is a time for giving.

And for Bling.

Advent #22

2011-12-22T21:24:00.000Z

I think that last year's Advent calendar may have been a little bit more festive in places.
There was tinsel, winter berries, a tree, snow and even a nice slice of cheese.

So, in an attempt to be a little bit more topical, today's window has a wise man, on his camel, seeking a new born babe in the desert lands. Or the best I could rustle up with the components in hand.

Advent #21

2011-12-22T15:39:00.000Z

Just as Advent 20 was a little early, so number 21 is a little late.
What are the odds on that? And is it even relevant?

Normal window opening service has now been resumed. No man is an island.

Advent #20

2011-12-19T08:25:00.000Z

I'm posting Advent 20 early but the hired gun is here to make sure you don't attempt to take your virtual chocolates before sunrise on Tuesday.
I guess most people will recognise him - he's been on every wanted poster this side of Dice Town - but he's also here to serve as a clue to the still unidentified Advent #11

Advent #19

2011-12-19T08:24:00.000Z

Advent 19 is a puzzle and that's for sure.... but perhaps not as simple as you might think.

Advent #18

2011-12-18T09:18:00.000Z

We are a week away from Christmas. How will we find things to do, to fill up our lives, when we retire from the daily routine of the advent calendar?

Advent #17

2011-12-17T12:14:00.001Z

Today's Advent window is flying high, in a sleigh, over the Great Lakes.
Let's hope it does not get shot down by Sarah Palin. Or Advent #20

Advent #16

2011-12-16T17:51:00.000Z

Advent 16 showcases Mike Wazowski before he got his big break in Monsters Inc (this year's Christmas Movie on BBC 1 +1).
But which game did he model for, all those years ago ?
These are the pictures he never wanted you to see.

Interim Scoring

2011-12-15T15:24:00.002Z

Is anyone interested in the current calendar scores?
Well, Giles [aka Caradocp] is in the lead on 7pts with James [Jimmy_Mac] in his slipstream on 4pts.

The peloton that follows is closely grouped:
CZ/ Fraser/ Christo/ Iain all on 2pts and Godless/ Mikko/ Friendless/ TheSpiel all on 1pt

One picture remains unclaimed. Advent #11 continues to stump the brightest and the best.

There's everything to play for.
Actually there's nothing to play for, as there are no prizes, beyond respect from your peers and something to tell your grandchildren in front of a roaring fire.

Still, hopefully it is providing some yuletide diversion.

There is a small hitch in the plan. A rule that Grima neglected to mention. A card with a bent corner, as it were.

Next week I am on a small trip outside the Gormenghast perimeter. Visiting the Hinterlands. Keeping the peasants happy with gifts from the great kitchens.
So it is possible that I will have to post Tuesday's picture, in advance, on Monday and then you'll all have to sit on your hands until Thursday when I will post the belated Wednesday along with the pic of the day.
Or some combination of the above.

Unless I uncover Wifi access amongst the Wildings.

Management apologise, in advance, for delay to this service caused by the wrong kind of snow and a woeful lack of planning. Even kitchen boys need a break, now and then.

Advent #15

2011-12-15T10:32:00.000Z

Remember, kids, a cat is for life... not just for Christmas.

Anyone recognise this cheery chappy and can they point me to his owner?

Advent #14

2011-12-14T11:32:00.000Z

The run up to Christmas is a time for partying and sneaking past those big, brutal, bouncers on the door.

"Your name's not down; You're not coming in"

unless, of course, you can identify today's Advent card.

Advent #13

2011-12-13T00:16:00.000Z

As we creep silently, and cautiously, into the dim light of a new day, I am reminded of the fact that I need to get a bit of bling for the Lady Fuchsia for Christmas.

Maybe day 13 is the answer. Now what is the question?

Advent #12

2011-12-12T12:55:00.002Z

Mathematicians and soothsayers will both note that today represents the halfway mark for the Advent Calendar.

(Never really been sure why this yuletide art form closes on Day 24, rather than Day 25, but there you have it. Maybe I'll buck the trend this year and have a Day 25 Window. Let it not be said that Steerpike follows convention).

Anyway, to celebrate the midpoint, today's window picture is from a suitably traditional game which is likely known to all.

Advent #11

2011-12-11T08:37:00.000Z

Day 11 and a less well known game but very 'Sunday morning'.
I'll give three points for a win.

Mainstream

2011-12-10T14:59:00.000Z

I'm not very good at Christmas shopping. I tend to see loads of stuff that I'd quite like and then not very much for the person for whom I am buying (normally the Lady Fuchsia).
I try to keep focused by steering clear of the games shop - I do have good intentions - but, interestingly, this year the world of boardgames seems to be infiltrating the bigger stores.

So, while out shopping yesterday, I popped into Waterstones to peruse the books... only to be met with a huge display of games. Carcassonne, Shadows over Camelot, Zombie Dice, Horus Heresy and the new Martin Wallace game Ankh-Morpork.

Is nowhere safe anymore?

I ducked into John Lewis, which I presumed would be all posh candles and plush, only to find Mapominoes on display - a game I last played at Oxcon back in 2008. Has this suddenly become popular? (I didn't care for it much myself).

Are we going through a new renaissance of gaming in the wider populace? (And what part did the kitchen play in this new burgeoning market? Where is my cut?).

So, anyway, from casual observation of my fellow shoppers, the game that seemed to be flying off of the shelf was the QI boardgame.
Now, there's a franchise that Martin Wallace should have gone for if he was aiming to break his game designs out into the wider population.

Now, I am a big fan of QI and, it has been said, I am rather partial to the odd boardgame.
So the question is, how many of my distant relatives will put two and two together and come up with five? I am expecting at least three copies of the game to appear under my tree by well meaning bruder-pikes.

Advent #10

2011-12-10T09:07:00.000Z

Today's Advent window reminds us of just how far we have come. Why, only five years ago, an advent calendar would have been made out of cheap cardboard with twee pictures of robins and holly and other cliches.

Now we have uber exciting game based online alternatives. Rejoice.
(But only after you have named the game)

Advent #9

2011-12-09T17:33:00.000Z

ok, I accept the criticism that the calendar has been getting a little, shall we say, obscure of late.

Not so much the pictures themselves, more the corresponding blurb.

So, for Window #9, let's keep it simple.

Who is this rather cheery chappy, holding an alarming weapon or cooking implement, and from whence does he hail ?

Advent #8

2011-12-08T09:02:00.000Z

Hopefully we are all now huddled back together, in a single calendar paradigm, braving the snow storm that is coming towards us on the High Pass.

I would imagine that today's advent window is familiar to all.
But is it from the original card game, the "(SdJ award winning) board game adaptation of the classic card game", or "the card game version of the boardgame adaptation of the classic card game" ?

Sorry, I think I still have a few neutrinos stuck in my ear.

Advent #7a

2011-12-07T00:14:00.000Z

One Ring to find them, and in the darkness bind them.
If Bagginsssss were to surrender the One Ring, then the Dark Lord would return the Dwarven Rings.
Maybe.

Which of the many Tolkien games forms today's, alternate, advent calendar?
And is it enough to pull the narratives back together?

Advent #7

2011-12-07T00:10:00.000Z

It is clear what day dawns on the Advent Calendar.

Seven.
Seven rings were forged for the Dwarf Lords.
Three were recovered by Sauron but, in Lore, who took the other four?

Answer me this and today's game, on the calendar, is obvious. Of course, it might be easier to just look at the photograph (through a palantir).

Calendic Chaos

2011-12-06T18:23:00.001Z

The fluctuation in the Advent Continuum is causing chaos in its wake.
Kitchen staff are all over the place, individuals have taken offence where none was intended and, worse of all, some of the chocolate treats have started to melt.

A part of the castle has even broken away and formed a new entity in Australia. (Good luck with your blog, Giles!)

Something must be done. I plan to bind together the bifurcated timeline using the power of the One Ring. It's a dangerous ploy and may turn me into a megalomaniac hell bent on world domination. Or just leave me as is.
We'll see.

Look out for advent windows #7 and #7a and we'll see if the plan works.

Advent #6a

2011-12-06T00:14:00.002Z

It's ten minutes past midnight, here in Gormenghast, and I have just got back from Monday games night - two stinking games of Innovation and a run away 7 Wonders.

With card games still in mind, this mornings calendar window can be opened. It's best to do it now as I have a lazy day ahead and don't know if I'll bother to get up to post.

Banished to the garden I may as well hang some washing, and unmelded suits, on the disrupted timeline.

Advent #6

2011-12-06T00:11:00.002Z

It's ten minutes past midnight, here in Gormenghast, and I have just got back from Monday games night - two stonking games of Innovation and a close fought 7 Wonders.

With card games still in mind, this mornings calendar window can be opened. It's best to do it now as I have a manic day ahead and don't know if I'll get the chance to post.

Six clothes pegs but too early to put stuff out on the line.

Advent #5a

2011-12-05T18:14:00.000Z

It's Day 5 and, if you are on the fractured timeline, you will see before you a picture of a large animal that came marauding through the ice bar, when I was skiing in the Alps. I was talking to a young Russian lady at the time who, sadly, did not live to tell the tale.

Or maybe I imagined it all. Although I'm pretty sure that I've not played this game recently.

Advent #5

2011-12-05T18:10:00.000Z

So it is Day 5 and, if you are on the normal timeline, you will see before you a picture of a young lady I met on a skiing holiday in the Alps. We drank, we danced and she asked me about the defensive capabilities of the Gormenghast castle (complete with diagrams of the sewers).

Or maybe I imagined it all. Although I'm pretty sure I've played this game recently.

Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads.

2011-12-05T10:52:00.001Z

There is a rip in the space time advent continuum.

'Could not access cellular data network'.

A paradox has occurred resulting in an alternate advent timeline.

Two parallel online kitchen calendars may, or may not, exist for Day 5 dependent on which stream you find yourself projected down.

It's all very exciting.

Think of it like a 'New rule' card in Fluxx.

You see, the paradox is caused by the observation that the calendar is a little easier for those who have played games, in the castle, recently. Some of the pictures are, well, just too familiar when the game has been to the kitchen table in the run up to the yuletide festivities.

So, in the same way that crossword puzzles are sometimes divided into 'Coffee time' and 'Cryptic' clues, Day 5 will be split into 'Kitchen Table' and 'There be Dragons'.

Consider yourself on the kitchen table timeline, if you are a regular Gormenghast gamer; otherwise you live in that big scary world, outside the ramparts, and should continue as normal (nothing to see here. move along).

Normal single universe conditions will reapply as soon as someone finds a way to unite the temporal threads using the gravitational pull of Steerpike's ego.

Probably Day 6.

This has been a public service announcement.

Small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri, and your statutory rights, remain unaffected.

Advent #4

2011-12-04T00:49:00.000Z

Not so much The Winds of Winter as A Dance with Dragons.
But what is the source of today's advent window?

Advent #3

2011-12-03T08:28:00.000Z

Winter is coming.
And it's brought a big hairy friend with it.

But what game will they play on the long dark nights until Sol Invictus?

Something Old, Something New

2011-12-02T15:10:00.000Z

Gaming has been good, recently.
On Sunday, I played with the Eastern traders, and then the normal Monday night session saw a decent biodiversity of games old and new.

From the "backshelf" we pulled down Cleopatra and the Society of Architects - according to research, into the ancient papyrus in the Tower of Flint, this has not been to the table for three years - and it was great to give it another whirl. It's a neat little game, gooberific with a nice push your luck element (as in, whoever pushes their luck too much gets thrown to the crocodiles. Not literally, of course. There have been no reptiles, in the local river, since it silted up down near the salt marshes).

On this occasion it was Grima who fed Sobek's scaly minions leaving me to win by a comfortable margin. Well, a few sheckles.

This was followed up with a turbo charged game of Tigris and Euphrates. Nations rose and fell in an accelerated 30 minutes (it's great when you are so familiar with a game, even if it has been hidden in the eaves for a few millenia). Cracking stuff. I lost badly but enjoyed every minute of it.

Next we got our bubo's out for a quick, disease ridden, rampage through medieval Europe in Rattus.
I still struggle with a coherent strategy, in this one. If only I had a supply of leeches, or a belief in a higher power, I might lead some of my followers to better times.

The evening was rounded off with another quick 7 Wonders - and, to my amazement, I scored a win at this tricksy little game, for the second time in as many days. I think I am finally coming up with some strategies. Either that or there's some kind of regression to the mean going on.

Over the last few days, I've also managed to get Innovation to the table a few times.

There's a lot going on in this smart (and 'innovative') card game from the Glory to Rome stable. Right now it feels chaotic but I'm beginning to see how the various cards can be used more effectively together. It has quite a steep learning curve but it's fun setting off a chain of 'dogmas' and just seeing how things turns out.

In some ways, it is reminiscent of Tigris, in that respect. You start a conflict with a gut feel for how things might look, when the dust settles, only to find that you leave once great empires in ruin. Often your own.

Note to self: Don't press the Red button.

Advent #2

2011-12-02T09:17:00.000Z

Day two of the advent calendar and we are faced with what can only be described as a 'square' window.

When I forget my Corporate ID tag, at work, I sometimes slip this one into the little plastic holder and use it to get past security. They don't play as many games as the kitchen dwellers, and the likeness is uncanny, so it works well.

As I remarked recently on G+, "I am not a number, I am a free man" - but which box do you need to put me in?

[Incidentally, Steerpike continues to be a trend setter. The folks at QI have an online advent calendar as well, now. I'm playing along there, too, but it's not as 'gamey']

Advent #1

2011-12-01T18:32:00.001Z

So, this year, the game components are not behind the numbered windows - they are the numbered windows.

So be careful when you open them, to get your virtual chocolate out, as I don't want them damaged.

Let's start in true 'Play School' tradition with a Round Window.

But what game?

Trailer Trash

2011-11-30T12:49:00.001Z

Is it really a year since I opened the first window on the, much lauded, 2010 Virtual Advent Calendar for Kitchens ?

It seems like only yesterday that I had the idea of projecting an image, a day, on the castle walls, as an alternative to the more traditional chocolate and cardboard advent paradigm.
Since then, of course, travellers have come from far and wide to marvel at this innovation, this cyber alternative to tacky lights, and the global recognition soon followed - the Turner Prize, an MTV award, a slot on BBC-South Gormenghast Today and endless coaches spewing forth tourists with digital cameras/iPhones, and Google accounts, at the ready.

Already it has become a tradition.
Christmas would not be Christmas without it.

And so, my friends and fellow culinary staff, prepare yourselves to open the first dusty and cobwebbed eWindow, tomorrow, and see what is hidden behind.
This year I will attempt a more numerically themed approach.

As before, geek kudos will be showered upon those who can identify the games from which the components have been snatched.

Additionally, this year, there will be a tie breaker (not the most money); the first one to spot the one and only 'repeat' (ie same game but different component) will break any subsequent ties. [Provided I remember to photograph at least one game's components twice {and only twice (I'd better stay off the sherry)}]

Excited ?

Why go to a German Christmas Market when Gormenghast is but a few clicks away?

Have Fun.
Or just have a glass of mulled wine. There's plenty on the stove.

Traders of Gormenghast

2011-11-29T14:39:00.001Z

Travellers rarely venture out as far as Gormenghast. The castle is difficult to find and is cut off from the outside world by forbidding landscapes that are difficult to cross (both physically and poetically).

However over the weekend two Traders, from the East, navigated their way through the hidden valleys and dangerous, unpredictable rail networks, to bring their cargoes to the shores of the tideless sea. One was Inconsequential, the other a barbarian from far across the Summer Seas. I suspected him of being a Bravoosi (his daughter, he claimed, was a master of the currents) although men claim he supported New Zealand during the Rugby World Cup.

Despite the oncoming festive season, they did not bring Gold, Frankincense nor even Myrrh [so, the latter was clearly not from the Free City of Myr, either].

Instead, their chests were full of games and gold.

Back, at the beginning of the year, I declared that the shelves of the kitchen were too full and that games could only enter the Castle on a strict 'one in one out' policy. Since that promissory note was written (and shouted from the ramparts by Barquentine, shortly before his untimely demise), it is fair to say that I have been flexible with the interpretation.

That is to say I modified the resolution, slightly, to allow me to bring games in before other games went out provided that the books (or shelves) were balanced at year end.

So my purchases of Seven Dragons and Empires in America, back in August and October respectively, have been awaiting the equal and opposite reaction of game sales.

Hence the Traders appearing through the morning mist on Sunday.

Of course, I did not meet them at the Castle gates - there are certain protocols to be followed, here - instead the package drop took place, in a safe house, bordering the salt grey marshes.

Five games, from the Steerpike collection, were handed over for an unnamed third party (or was it a third party who had forgotten his name?) - Elfenland, Settlers of Catan, Seafarers of Catan, Lost Cities and Through The Desert - for an undisclosed sum.

A relief, for a certain kitchen boy, who had already spent the aforementioned sum purchasing two new games, Innovation and Oregon.

Students of mathematics will now note that five games have sailed, to the uncharted lands, but only four have replaced them. Honour has been achieved, with the flexibility of buying myself A Few Acres of Snow for Christmas.

A further minor trade also took place, where I exchanged Wooly Bully and Piranha Pedro and for Once Upon a Time and Ivanhoe.

Smaller box footprints, in case I need to modify the New Year resolution further. I love rewriting history. It's the gamer in me.

To seal the deal we sat down for a few games at the old wooden table in the safe house.

The two Traders, myself, and my Hand for the day.

We kicked off with Founding Fathers as the Bravoosi had an unopened copy with him. They have strange customs out in the Summer Isles. Games are revered and merely opening the box is seen as an act of desecration.

Where I come from beating your host, at a game, is considered equally indiscreet but different peoples have different traditions. The one we believed Inconsequential romped home for an unsuspected, but consequential, victory. I came a close second but found myself humbled by these distant travellers.

My Hand tried to poison them, with some green soup, as we sat down for a revenge match; this time 7 Wonders.

I was not confident, going in, on this one.

My record is bad. Although I love the game I am hopeless at it - but I knew my right hand man was well versed and could redeem our earlier shame.

As it turned out I stormed home in a comfortable first place. My first ever victory, at this deck building civilisation game, turned out to be a crucial one for international relations.

I could finally throw these threadbare hawkers off of my land with a modicum of dignity.

(Interestingly I took a trading stragy, not bothering to develop resource pools of my own, whereas both of these so called 'traders' took up the military option, against me. Ah, now we see how the land lies. Wolves in Sheeps clothing. Wood for Sheep? No, Steel for Coin. Sell swords in my midst. Call the Gormenghast palace guard.)

They are, of course, welcome back to the kitchen any time that suits them.

Provided they are bearing gifts and not weapons.

App-y Now?

2011-11-25T14:57:00.000Z

The pace of iOS implementations, of classic boardgames, continues to increase.
Today I learnt that "War on Terror" has just been released and it's all I can do not to don my virtual Balaclava of Evil and hop over to the iTunes store.

However I am, currently, being kept more than busy with the recent download of the Tigris and Euphrates App. One of my all time favourite boardgames, Tigris does not get anywhere near enough table time, these days, to satisfy a ravenous kitchen boy. So it's great to be able to play (pwn) the AIs as well as engage in some internet turn-based games with the usual suspects.

The implementation is pretty sweet - actually quite similar to the one over at BGG - although it does have a few sad omissions. For example, there is no chat window, so you can't bark "get off my land" when invaded by some neighboring geek-based civilisation (which is all part of the fun, for me).
Also, the interface does not display what happened last turn - so you can pick up the iPad only to find that a whole area of the board has been decimated in an internecine war between your opponents. Whilst it can be satisfying, to look over the aftermath, it's actually quite important to know who scored what, as a result.

Hopefully the next release will solve these issues.
And while they're at it, it would be good if the developers could include the 2 player Nile Variant and an implementation of the card version.
I'm nothing, if not demanding.

Eat Poop. Poop.

2011-11-24T14:13:00.001Z

What better way is there, to chose which games to play, than to check the calendar and pick one with the correct day associations ?

A kind of Spiel based Feng Shui

So, Zombie Fluxx for Halloween, Guillotine for Bastille Day, War of the Ring for my Eleventy-First birthday.

In America it is Thanksgiving; so gamers across the US will be pulling Founding Fathers from the shelf or, perhaps, reflecting on the origins of the festival (the first successful harvest for the pilgrim fathers), and opting for Agricola.

Poor things.

I have bigger fish to fry.

Or marsupials to manipulate.

Today is the (152nd) Anniversary, of the publishing, of The Origin of the Species.

Anyone fancy a game of Ursuppe?

Please bring your own copy. My previous access, to this wonderful game, was lost when Poodle went to the great kennel in the sky (and, in part of the move, the game was left, lost and forgotten, in a loft somewhere. It's probably slowly evolving into a video game).

A much under rated game, in my not so humble opinion, that lost out to shinier but smarter competition.

Soap (II)

2011-11-23T14:23:00.001Z

I've been following the US "super committee", on deficit reduction, with great interest.

Not least because the Gormenghast finances have been taking something of a pounding, in the current economic climate. The Lady Fuchsia would like to spend our way out of the crisis, by extending the current building work, on the castle, to include the great kitchens and the ducal privies. My preference is to tax the pikelets and cut spending on wooden toilet seats. I'm not sure which side of the debate that puts either of us on, to be honest, but it doesn't matter anyway as the pen is not mightier than the sword and I will do as I am told.

(I am not suggesting that the Lady Fuchsia keeps a sword under the bed, by the way. It's more the shining sword of truth and her trusty shield of fair play, or however that dreadful quote went, back in the 1990s).

Anyway, the Gormenghast national debt is nothing compared with the staggering $15trillion owed by our colonial cousins. Even though I am a mathematician, by education, I struggle to articulate that number effectively (mainly because I am unsure if the US and English definitions are the same, given the confusion over the rather less big billion).

So, anyway, something has to give and President Obama has told the Republicans and the Democrats, in Congress, that if they don't come up with an answer then he is taking their football away from them. Or, to be more precise, he will enact default budget cuts that are so draconian that everyone is going to lose. Including, I suppose, him.

It's an interesting strategy but it is already starting to show holes. Specifically the nuclear option, of default cuts, does not trigger until 2013 which leaves it open to a potential year of legal arguments. I'm sure all the Washington lawyers are very happy about that - a good tranche of revenue is heading their way.

Also, the cuts don't hurt the committee members personally, allowing them a certain detachment from cause and effect.

I was thinking about how I would handle this, if push comes to shove, in the castle.

My approach would be to lock the super committee into a room and not let them out until a compromise decision was reached. I'd supply provisions - I'm not looking to starve anyone (although I'd probably go for two dimensional food, for example pizza, as this can be slid under the warped oak doors) - and bedding would be provided.

No soap, or deodorant though.

I've played games with some pretty smelly people and, when the odour has become too over powering, I have willingly conceded defeat rather than suffer any more.

I'm pretty sure that those clean cut congressman would soon look to reach an agreement rather than sit in a stubble filled, smelly, Washington backroom for two days without access to basic amenities.

Harumph

2011-11-22T11:28:00.000Z

Last night I failed to conquer Middle Earth, before those pesky hobbitses managed to scale the south west face of Mount Doom.

The boss was furious and threw a passing Uruk-Hai right over my head (his aim has been bad ever since his ring finger turned to brittle dust). He stared at me, with that unblinking eye, and told me that I was fired.

It's not my fault; there are so many new work directives coming out of the Mordor Union these days that it's hard to keep up. In the good old days it was just 'get the lads together and go bash the Elves' but, with the War of the Ring expansion, it's all PC-gawn-mad and you can't attack an Elven stronghold without finding the bloody Lady Galadriel turning up and talking about equal opportunities for dice bearing minions. The paperwork becomes horrendous.

Then there's the new recruits to deal with - the Dunlanders, the Corsairs - as well as the new IT tools, like siege engines, which seem to run so slowly on our systems (especially when you have limited dice).

And they don't come with any documentation, let me tell you.

So many things to remember.

Of course, I forgot to call the Balrog and, as a result, the Fellowship were through Moria while he was still in the shower. He's not spoken to me since, says I love Saruman more than him, and notes that I called the white wizard first.

What was I supposed to do?

The boss said "don't you worry about those Halflings, I'll deal with them -just get out there and crush Rohan and Gondor and make it quick".

Well, with the might of Orthanc behind me, I was in Helm's Deep before the blink of a lidless eye (that's a wonder to behold, by the way) and Rohan was under the Orc jackboot, in no time at all. Trouble was, part of the Rohirrim army hot footed (hot hoofed?) to Minas Tirith, and managed to get into siege while I was still mopping the blood up from the Pelennor fields. I'm nothing if not tidy.

Denthor's Folly ensured that I crushed the Gondor stronghold, in what I thought was a reasonable time, but then I got a message from HQ saying "Hurry up, you fool, Sméagol has just been spied in South Ithilien and he's got a couple of small dudes in Elven cloaks with him".

Well I don't like to rush a job but, to be frank, it's not good to be around Sauron when he is in one of his moods. I guessed the Witch King had screwed up and only I could save the day. I hooked up with some Southron and Easterlings and stormed through Pelagir towards Dol Amroth. I then sent word, via the Nazgulnet, for the Northern forces (a rag tag bunch of Dunlanders, Uruk-hai and Sauron elites from Moria) to descend on Rivendell.

Unfortunately the siege on the Western shores of Belfalas got bogged down - imagine my surprise to find four companions, camped there, sampling the Númenórean wine and shouting obscenities down from the ramparts.

News then reached me that the Northern army had been waylaid by a bunch of errant Rangers and were a good couple of days (/dice) from starting their offensive on the Elven realm.

I felt like that little guy, with a moustache, in the film Downfall. All my generals seemed to do was bring me bad news.

As the fires of Mordor started belching forth, an odd looking smoke, I pulled out the old CV and set about updating it.

I've considered going to a tribunal - unfair dismissal, and all that - but you never know when you might need a reference.

According to 'Castles and Keeps Monthly' there is a vacant position for a chef in Gormenghast. I wonder if Swelter has been fighting with Flay, again. I'm sure they could do with an additional kitchen boy whose medals have gone a little rusty.

Crows Eyes

2011-11-20T19:47:00.001Z

Over the last few weeks I have been gorging myself on A Feast For Crows.
I did not have high expectations for this installment of the Song of Ice and Fire - reviews, that I had read, suggested it to be something of a 'middle installment'. George RR's equivalent of JRR's Two Towers.

However, I'm really enjoying it.
After the bloodletting, of Storm of Swords II: Blood and Gold, it's a really nicely paced tale of the aftermath. Winning the peace turns out to be harder than winning the war, Cersei seems to be slipping deliciously into alcohol soaked middle age, and there's a real feeling of crows pecking away at the carcass of Westeros.

But then I thought the Two Towers was a top book, too.

My only complaint is that Winter still seems to be coming.
In fact, I'd say it's pretty late.
Presumably because the infrastructure of Westeros is so disrupted after the War of the Five Kings.

When Steerpike met Fuchsia

2011-11-19T20:00:00.000Z

I rather liked this picture - nabbed from Brain Pickings

Comfort Eating

2011-11-18T14:07:00.001Z

Has it really been a year since the last Children in Need?

Once again my route to work is manned with Pudsey Nazis demanding my pennies, and sympathies, for the children of the world. Resistance is futile, as is constructive debate regarding the government's role in all of this.

I think my views are well documented and I am more than happy to stump up some cash, if they promise to keep their damn awful telethons to themselves.

All my wise words and convincing arguments have been to no avail. The Lady Fuchsia is already planning her evening with Terry Wogan.

Fortunately I am playing the usual 'real life', Friday night, pick up and deliver game with my children and their various social circles, so I should be able to avoid the worst of it.

When words fail, men of courage need to take direct action.

I'm going to start by eating the Pudsey Bear cake in the office pantry.

The Flight of the Sparrows

2011-11-17T13:36:00.001Z

I've been playing a lot of meaty, bad-ass, two player games recently.

It's great getting Twilight Struggle and War of the Ring, to the table, but they are both big time sinks and, as a result, reduce the table time of their smaller friends and relatives.

So it was great, last night, to find myself having the opportunity for a relaxed, impromptu, session in which I could give some love to the red headed step children of the gaming family tree.

We kicked off with Campaign Manager 2008 - a game that the late lamented Poodle gave me for my birthday (back in 2010?) before his untimely trip to the glue factory. It was almost as if he was in the room, with me, as I drafted my cards for McCain and his spirit drafted for Obama.

I've not played this face to face, for awhile, although I have clocked up a fair few games on Yucata.

It was pretty close, for the first third of the campaign, with Obama holding his own against my surprisingly charismatic McCain (I can only assume the real candidate had been stolen by aliens and replaced by a droid, although I couldn't find a card for that). At one point the Democratic team seemed to have built a killer combination deck, cycling through their cards with alarming speed and effectiveness, while controlling the media; but suddenly the winds changed and the McCain/Palin ticket ran away with it. I'm still not entirely sure how. It must have been a dream.

Somewhere along the line the Obama bandwagon seemed to lose momentum.

In this replay of history, it was during the campaign rather than after he was made President.

Great little game and a worthy younger brother to 1960.

Next up was Dragonheart.

A game I won in a competition, during my lifetime listening to the Spiel, this is a neat little hand management exercise with a pasted on fantasy theme. Reminiscent of Lost Cities, in play style, but perhaps one more notch up on the decision tree. This is another one I've played a fair few times on Yucata but only a handfull, real time, with Steerpike Jr.

I managed a fairly comfortable win after a disastrous start, where my dwarves were permanently going over to the other side along with all my treasure.

There's a nice rock/ paper/ scissors element to the game. It's not deep but it's engaging enough for the short play time (around 15-20 mins). I'm just waiting for the HBO tie in version to be released with Daenarys and her dragons.

The evening was wrapped up with a few hands of the marvellous two player Mah Jong card game that is Tien Zi Que.

This charming adaption, of the ancient classic, continues to grow on me and I am looking forward to the time I score the "King of Sparrows". I came close, last night, but sadly not close enough. The prevailing wind, which had been blowing in my direction all night, changed as the second and third hands were dealt and I humbly accepted my first defeat of the season. Winter is coming.

TZQ is worthy of its great ancestor and the more I play it the more I think of ways to add new scoring combos into the mix.

Mah Jong is well known for the wonderfully diverse 'special' scoring hands, that seem to change from Guangzhou to Beijing via San Francisco, with their exotic names like "Three Great Scholars", "Nine Gates", "Four Small Blessings" and so on.

TZQ has a few - like "Elements", "Dare Dragon" and the aforementioned Sparrows - but not enough. So I've been compiling some more to spice the game up. I've not given them a trial run, yet, but they are in my head and I may just post them on the Geek.

It's the least I can do for the nascent descendant of a noble line.

An auspicious evening at the games table, and three games played in the time it would have taken me to storm Gondor.

There is plenty of space in Gormenghast for both the big and the small. Sadly there is not always enough time.

Caught Short

2011-11-15T13:57:00.001Z

Can there be anything more satisfying in life than crushing a hobbit, on the side of Mount Doom, like an unwanted fly on you naan bread ?

Ah,

The look of despair, on his face, when he realises that the forced march from Rivendell was all in vein.

The armies besieging Minas Morgul, to act as a decoy, left to savour their defeat.

Why didn't the movie end like this?

Given that Peter Jackson took poetic licence with the film, deviating from the story in order to add some 'female love interest' and a father-son tortured relationship saga, couldn't he have gone the whole warg and let the baddies win for a change? Sure it would have upset the purists, even more, but it would have been a great day for those of us who like to play with the red pieces.

It is said that I can be a tad over aggressive at the games table - turning even the most sedate of euros into a wargame - but I like to think that I have mellowed with age.

Last night I took control of the Dark Forces, in War of the Ring, and my military conquests were modest, to say the least.

There were a couple of reasons for this:

1) I was trying out the full expansion, for the first time, and have to confess that my brain was wheeling with the number of new possibilities that had been opened. Corsairs that could sail around the coast and attack the Grey Havens (on my list of things to do), Dunlanders that could beef up Saruman's forces (also on my list), a Balrog with which to wreak havoc (must do), oh, and new toys like siege engines (must do).

I was paralysed with options. I get the same problem when I visit the USA and I have the choice of fifty different types of coffee and whitening agents.

And, of course, doing them all is impossible whilst the lack of focus can be fatal.

(In War of the Ring, not in coffee drinking)

2) I appeared to be using enchanted dice. I suspect they had been forged, by the dwarves, in tunnels that ran deep beneath the Iron Hills.

Mid game I was rolling Eyes and Palantirs, aplenty, just when I needed armies and musters.

Fortunately, the Fellowship were in quite a rush to get the job done, so they could get back for second breakfast; and, as a result, they pushed on in the face of overwhelming ('eye') odds against them. Less hurried companions would probably have stopped on the way for a few bars of lambas, and a couple of beers at the Prancing Pony, but I guess Sam was worried that Rosie would go off the boil if he left her alone for too long.

(Either that or Rosie had made it clear to Samwise, before he left, that he wasn't allowed to hang out with Frodo in the craggy rocks of Emyn Muil like a couple of 'Brokeback Mountaineers'. And who can blame her?)

The upshot being that, by the time the sneaky hobbitses had made it to the Mordor track, the Dark forces were still pretty much still on shore leave around the Sea of Rhun.

Sure, Dale and the Woodland Realm had both fallen to a vanguard of Easterlings - who had made good use of their lovely new seige engines (provided at substantial cost by the Dark Lord on a no returns policy) - but that was about it.

On the other hand, the Fellowship was fairly corrupt and could have done with a few months of R&R in Minas Tirith.

My loyal Southrons stormed into Osgiliath to make it difficult for the hobbits to get directly back into the ancient Gondor stronghold - but they needn't have bothered, as the restless halflings headed straight for the pass at Cirith Ungal and declared themselves at the foot of Mount Doom.

After that I pretty much gave up on the military campaign (such as it was) and watched with glee as the ringbearer fell to my corrupt influence, not even halfway up.

The Eagles stayed at home.

As did my armies.

You see, I am getting relaxed about needlessly storming citadels to prove my manhood. Better still to sit at home and wait for the inevitable financial collapse. That'll be the time to send the Orcs out to finish the job.

iFaust

2011-11-11T15:36:00.001Z

Awhile ago I won an iPad at a local industry conference.

But there is no such thing as a free lunch and the price of said winnings is the endless stream of phonecalls, I am now getting, from recruitment agencies and desperate sales men. (I had to throw my business card into various glass containers. You have to be in it to win it. Or something. I tried throwing in my car keys but was told I was at the wrong party).

I don't generally answer the calls. I have an IP phone so I can see the number coming in and, generally, I recognise the ones I want to take.

So my voicemail is getting clogged up with useless messages.

"I see that you are a kitchen boy in Gromenghast" (they never say it right) "I wanted to talk to you about the castle strategy with regard to social media and enterprise solutions. If you are not the right person to talk to perhaps you can point me in the right direction"

Of course I am not the right person. It says kitchen boy on my card, doesn't it? I look after the cutlery and repairs to the dishwasher.

I'm not giving out any names. I know how this works.

"Ah, Mr Squeerpike, I wanted to talk to you about your contract requirements. I have lots of Comis Chefs on my books interested in your kitchens".

Wrong department, again, but I'm not grassing. Even highly sugared jammy doughnuts will not get me to reveal the information they seek.

Although I'm willing to be tested on that one.

It's becoming quite tiresome.

I wouldn't mind if I was playing with the iPad, every day, but I have to confess it is getting a little dusty.

I've downloaded quite a few games but I never seem to get the urge, or inclination, to play on it. I much prefer my games in 3D, with cubes and dice and meeples and chits and stuff, and, if at all possible, I like to have someone to argue with.

When I get some free time, if there are no real life games to be played, then I like to catch up with my reading. Or finish the painting in the Great Entrance Hall.

(Although work on the upper floors is nearing completion, I find that I am now having to redecorate all corridors, and secret hatches, that have direct access to the new space. When I say 'redecorate', I generally mean remove the excess cobwebs and replace the tallow candles, you understand).

In order to regain equilibrium I am wondering if I can download an App that deals with nuisance phone calls.

Perhaps I will just get Siri on to them.

It's a Crime

2011-11-09T22:19:00.000Z

Wyatt Earp made a visit, to the Gormenghast game table, on Monday.
I love this clever rummy variant - light but fun, a good one to chew the fat (or tobacco) while playing. The usual jokes about 'Bell End' ensued and Grima was left, penniless, riding a donkey back to town.

When I went to record the session over at BGG, (as I like to do, in order to track my gaming habits), I was shocked to find that I had never played it before.
Is my memory really that bad?
I'm sure I remember it.

Actually I have only been recording my plays, on the Geek, since May 2005. Which leads me to the frightening conclusion that it's been over six years since this little gem last saw the light of day.
A travesty.
Butch and the Sundance Kid got less for murder.

It's on days like these that I get a bit depressed about all the games in my collection that fail to get any love.
I urge everyone, this November, to forget the latest Essen releases and dig into the back catalogue.
A puppy is not just for Christmas.

For the love of Winona

2011-11-08T13:44:00.001Z

In the book 1984, George Orwell speculated that the way to control the thoughts and actions of the population was to eradicate, from the language, the words to express dissent.

Newspeak was born and, for the hardened rebel, it was triple plus ungood.

In 2012 we do not need to worry about such things because we have the internet, for governments and large corporations, to hide behind.

I have been trying to complain to the Emirates, about my much disrupted flight plans this weekend, but there is nowhere on their glittering web presence which allows such dangerous talk.

I have tried searching for 'complaint' but no rows were selected. 'Customer Service' just brought up a page telling me how dedicated everyone was in their task of making me happy - but nowhere for me to type in, the simple phrase, 'actually I am not happy'.

It's the Dubai customer satisfaction survey all over again (Are we good, really good or just plain fantastic?)

Interestingly, Stephen Fry passed through Dubai about 8 hours before me (I was following his Tweets) and he had a splendid experience as he switched from a striking Qantas to a smiley, welcoming, Emirates.

[He made an interesting statement, in his Twitter timeline -"Now I am flying Emirates, I don't have to support Arsenal do I?" - which was Quite Interesting.

It points to a kind of reverse marketing which makes me wonder whether the deal is a bit one sided.

The idea is that, when people watch Arsenal playing football, they are reminded of the Emirates Airline. Actually, though, I suggest it may be the other way around: When people fly on Emirates it makes them think of Arsenal. Therefore shouldn't the gunners be paying the Emirates for the advertising and not vice versa?]

Anyway, I'm a bit grumpy, now.

Time, therefore, for a Steerpike movie review.

Once again the aforementioned airline let me down, a little; this time with its selection of on board entertainment. I was rather hoping for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy but it was all X-Men and Transformers and other teenage wet dream nonsense. In fact there were only a few films that I actually recognised (although this is not an unusual thing, I am not exactly positioned on the bleeding edge of the industry).

So, I watched, in no particular order:

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows II. Quite good, a bit cheesy. Not as good as the book. Probably more for kids than kitchen boys. My, how Hermione has grown.

Paul. The chaps from Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz in a "geeks meet alien" conspiracy theory romp. Mildly amusing, a bit obvious, a few great one liners but, ultimately, not a patch on the earlier stuff.

The Trip. A North of England culinary road movie with Steve Coogan and Rob Bydon playing themselves. Very funny in that "makes you cringe" way that the Office perfected. I really enjoyed this one, a lot, actually laughing out loud and spilling my dolmades down my shirt.

The Perfect Host. A weird, slightly psychological, thriller with lots of twist and turns. It let itself down, a little, towards the end with a few strains on the credulity but managed to redeem itself with a nice unresolved ending.

Hoodwinked Too. Hood v Evil. Yeah, a kids movie that 'adults can enjoy' (I was tired). Actually, I thought the first Hoodwinked was really clever, deconstructing the Red Riding Hood story via the various character's points of view. However this sequel, sadly, just milks the franchise with a (sub)standard plot, a few half decent corny jokes based around Tales of the Brothers Grimm, and a lot of youf talk ("my bad", "The hench little piggies").

Henry's Crime. As I was running out of options, I went for this Keanu Reeves comedy. I think it said comedy and, obviously, expectations were low. It turned out to be a pleasant surprise. Sort of Oceans 11 meets Shakespeare in Love. The main character reminded me of Shadow in American Gods. At first I thought the wooden character, with no emotion, was just a result of Keanu Reeves' bad acting; but as the film progressed it was clear that it was actually a very controlled portrayal.

Surprisingly this turned out to be my favourite film, in the bunch.

Which just goes to show that you cannot judge a book by its cover, a film by its write up or a kitchen boy by his whisk.

It also got me thinking about games. Again.

When I approach a film, by and large, I am coming with no expectations - as I've normally not read or heard about it before. Sure, I have some prejudices, if I dislike the actor or I've read the book at some time in the past. Overall, though, I think this lack of pre-knowledge improves the viewing experience (for me, at least).

This is the state I would like to get to with playing games. No preconceptions (sure, I may like the designer or the cut of the meeples), so that I can just relax and enjoy the game.

How can I teach you Zen if the glass is already full?

Siren Songs

2011-11-06T20:59:00.000Z

I have noted before how some celebrities, occasionally, let slip that they are closet gamers.

But what about, edge-celebrities?

One of the people, I follow on Twitter, is Zoe Margolis - a one time 'sex blogger' exposed by the rabid (and confused) British mainstream media (her blog Girl With a One Track Mind became a book around the same time as Belle du Jour was the, well, blog du jour).

Anyway, the point is that none of her blog posts have ever pointed to a secret life at the games table. A shocking series of clandestine meetings, with faceless meeples, down dark alleys.

However, today, she unwittingly showed a little more than her lacy garter. Of yes, the shameless hussy posted thus:

"Today's plan: win both the cake-eating contest and the BSG board game; I can't really lose with chocolate and cylons..."

There's more going on, in her seedy pad, than just sex talk.
She's a frakin toaster, I tell you.

The golden age of travel (II)

2011-11-05T11:38:00.000Z

My travel karma continues to be suspect.
I left early for the airport, yesterday, because most of the Chennai roads were under water and arrived in good time. Of course, the Lord Ganesha was laughing in my face because there was no need to be there early - the flight had been delayed four hours. Or maybe five. Or six.

No one seemed to know.

No one seemed to know what that meant for my London connection, either. Just go to Dubai, they said, and they will sort you out there. ('Go to Dubai' as in 'Go to Dubai, when the flight is finally ready, whenever that may be. Insh'allah)
Accepting my fate I did what any good native of Gormenghast does. I went to the bar.

I finally made it to the Emirates hub, at around five in the morning (UAE time), and a kind lady there told me that I could pick up a flight to London late afternoon and here was a complimentary ticket to the posh hotel next door.
I am, once more, classified as a 'distressed passenger'.

So this morning I wake up, to an Arab dawn, in a hotel full of fat Westerners and skinny WAGs, who come here for the sun but not the culture. Indeed, in this little oasis of a hotel, they can sit around the pool, drink beer and ignore the unwashed masses.
I'd like to join them - I have some swimming trunks and my own beer gut to bring to the party - but I don't have time. I have a flight to catch and a blog to write. It is my duty.

It's my first time in Dubai, beyond the airport, so I need to sniff around a bit and lay some Steerpike scent.
There's a picture that I can do without, as I eat my fresh humous.
I have been given a complimentary meal ticket and the food is good. The waitress brings me a feedback card to fill in.
It asks me about the food, and the service, but only gives me the options of 'excellent', 'very good' and 'good'. Seriously.
If I am unhappy with anything, there is no where to express my disent. They know a thing or two about crowd control here in the Middle East.

Returning to my room, to get my bags, the call for prayer starts to ring out. Helpfully there is a little sticker, on my bedside table, telling me which way to face for Mecca. Momentarily the rebel in me wants to change the orientation of the table, for future guests, but I am too culturally sensitive for that.

Besides, I already have Ganesha on my back. I don't want to upset Allah, too.

Moist

2011-11-04T04:03:00.001Z

It's been fun visiting Chennai during the monsoon season.

Traffic chaos aside, it's great to see the elements thundering down and to be caught in warm rain rather than the cold variety that we get around Gormenghast.

As ever, I have learnt stuff on this trip, that I did not know before, about the Indian culture and the city that so often hosts me.

(I'm thinking about setting up a twinning arrangement between the mud dwellings that cling to the side of Gormenghast, like limpets, and their Indian counterparts next to my hotel).

If I get time I may post on the oddities of North versus South, Bollywood, Kolllywood and Tollywood as well as 'flyover city' and the ground level roads that are sinking into the mire.

However, it's been a more hectic than usual trip and my wifi minutes have been limited.

It will be nice to get home again, though.

I want to open my own water bottles and car doors. I want to be able to stand quietly somewhere without having someone desperate to serve me, sell me something or check on my general well being. I want to turn down my own sheets at night and wipe my own bottom.

Ok, so I have been doing that last bit, myself, but I'm sure that the staff in the hotel are desperate to offer that service as well.

Above all else, I want my games rules to be flat and not curling up at the sides with all the air moisture.

Your Name's Not Down

2011-11-01T15:54:00.002Z

Security is high in my Chennai hotel.
Perhaps a little too high - I cannot get onto the 'priviliged guest' floor which leads to my 'priviliged guest' bedroom. My keycard keeps turning the entry light red.

I call one of the nice ladies at the desk and she informs me that such a thing is impossible.
She comes up and can't get the keycard to work either.

She calls the duty manager who also declares such an event as impossible.
He comes up and, similarly, cannot get the door to open.

I express an opinion that maybe the magnetic strip on the card is not working properly and needs to be reset.
The manager bobs his head at me in that way which could mean yes, no or even don't be silly.
He calls a technician and we all stand outside the door for five minutes, as the man of many keycards stares blankly at the red light as if he has never seen such a thing.

Finally someone new turns up with a different plastic card which, to everyone's surprise, works first time. Everyone declares that I was just not doing it properly, before, and the duty manager gives me my old keycard back.

Of course, I then get stuck at my bedroom door and the whole farce begins again.

I suspect that this is the Samsara thing that the Hindus talk about.

A son of the circus

2011-11-01T14:14:00.001Z

There's a wonderful chaos associated with working in India - for all the high tech business parks, there are still plenty of echoes of the real culture everywhere to see.
New offices are opened with the arrival of an elephant and new employees refuse to sign their employment contracts because it is a Tuesday. Lovely.

On this trip my travel karma has been particularly bad and I am guessing that I must have upset the Lord Ganesha.
My plan had been to land in Chennai at 8am, on Monday, in time to reach a 9:30am meeting in the office. The deities had other plans. My flight from Dubai was delayed two hours by a couple of passengers who decided to 'de-plane' before take off and, then, my taxi broke down between the airport and the office.
Stranded, in the middle of a busy highway, my driver could do nothing but shout obscenities at his new car like a Kollywood Basil Fawlty. (I say he could do "nothing but" when actually he could just have phoned up his company and got a replacement car - something which I ended up doing, as I grew tired of learning new Tamil swear words).

Having arrived late for the meeting, I subsequently took two hours to get back to my hotel at the end of the day. It's monsoon season, in this part of South India, which means that most of the roads are flooded and no one is going anywhere in a hurry (not that they ever do).
Apparently there used to be fairly good drainage for the (inevitable) rain deluge, at this time of year, but illegal building has covered up most of the flood plain and storm drains.

It is now more economical for local government to allow their roads to be destroyed, on a yearly basis, so that they can claim emergency funds from Delhi. And so, everyone just accepts that it is quicker to wade to work at this time of year.

Climatic Karma at its finest.
And, Steerpike, always late for meetings.

The Spice Trail

2011-10-29T23:09:00.001+01:00

Time once more to turn off the oven, close the kitchen, and head to the sub continent for some recipe ideas (and, I suppose, fit in a bit of work).

In flight movie review? Maybe.
Insights into life in South India? Possibly.
Beer and curry? Oh, yes.

Not all Werewolves are hairy on the outside

2011-10-29T22:46:00.001+01:00

In the early days of Fairy Tales and RPGs, there was a son born unto a mighty warrior and his rogue wife. The kingdom rejoiced and a great Feast was arranged (well, it was bought, placed in the discard pile and reshuffled into the deck at a later stage of the story).

However, an Evil Witch was not invited to the celebrations and, when she was finally played to the tableau, she passed a Curse card to the innocent child declaring "ah, my pretty, from this day forth you shall play and play but never know the true meaning of fun".

With a mighty sweep of her bony hands she cleared the table of remaining cards, crushed the dice underfoot and ate a vegimeeple raw before hopping onto a series of plastic trains from Seattle to Miami and picking up the longest track bonus.

The cackles could still be heard as the sand timers ran out and the children shouted "Ubongo".

True to her word, as the child grew he played many games but, try as he might, he could find no fun in them.

Even the combination of 'Ugly' and 'Dad' in his first game of Apples to Apples, with his family, failed to deliver any satisfaction.

Seeking solace, and the divine move, he scoured the lands of BoardGameGeek for the game which would break the curse.

Lauded designers, with ratings in the high eights, delivered games to the royal palace in the hope of bringing fun and entertainment to the young gamer but all who tried failed.

The Quest for the Ultimate Game went on, through dungeons and across the barren moors.

Essen, GenCon, and the lowly boardgame loving settlements across Catan, could not bring satisfaction.

In response, by the Provost's decree, the publishers and designers increased their output year on year - but more became less and all in the Kingdom began to suffer (despite having the Miner, to double victory points, and both the +5 and +6 castles in their rows).

All who sat with the cursed one found their games nights losing their sparkle.

Session after session saw a stream of 'classics' come and go, before anyone had time to enjoy the experience. Each game toppling off the edge of Niagra, on their little plastic disks, like lost boatsmen too greedy for gems.

The playing of games became mechanical, joyless, and a darkness fell across the community.

Happy Halloween.

Bwahahahaaaaa.

Excavating Rita

2011-10-28T23:12:00.001+01:00

If the fates had not chosen 'kitchen boy' as my profession, I would dearly have liked to be an archaeologist.
It takes the patience of a Go player to spend hours gently removing layers of soil and uncovering history.

There's a dig going on around the location where I grew up. An old romano-britain villa has started slipping into the sea and it's a race against time. In slow motion.
Sort of Indiana Jones on bromide (but without the snakes and rolling balls). It's all I can do not to get my trowel out.

Perhaps I should play The Adventurers, instead.

King Me

2011-10-28T13:32:00.001+01:00

Talking of speaking out, about things with which you disagree, I was most amused to read in the news today that the UK is to change its royal succession laws.

In an effort to afford a bit more equality to the ladies, and all that, it has been decided that male heirs will no longer have precedence to the throne.

First baby gets the crown regardless of sex, colour, creed or choice of computer platform.

The change, according to the Prime Minister and Master of Ritual, is because the current laws are "at odds with the modern country that we have become".

I look down from the ramparts of Gormenghast, with an ironic grin, and can't help but wonder if the whole concept of a royal family is, by its very nature, at odds with the twenty first century. This looks like a bit of window dressing which is ignoring the underlying anachronism that is 'royal blood'.

Of course we dealt with this problem, in the castle, some time ago -although I can not condone the burning down of libraries nor the flooding of the keep to achieve such ends.

(I doubt that occupying St Pauls Cathedral is likely to cut it, either).

Based on the fact this whole monarchy nonsense is likely to continue, anyway, (because someone's great great great great grandfather presumably managed to beat my great great great great grandfather in a fight) I think there should be a few further tweaks to make it into a more enjoyable game.

At the time of succession all the royal kids get to roll 2d6 and apply modifiers.

+1 for the boys (to pacify the traditionalists)

+1 if they have any meaningful academic qualifications (ie a proper degree)

-1 if they talk to plants

-2 if the plants talk back

+n for the number of cubes they have put into the Castille

+2 if they have ever read the Titus books (and understood them)

Terrain modifiers apply if they ever leave one of the royal palaces.

Highest number gets the throne, for the current round, as well as the 'crown token' which can be used to lop off one cabinet ministers head in the 'disolution of parliament' phase.

Of course, holding on to power can be precarious, especially if anyone has the 'kitchen boy' card.

Sacre Bleu

2011-10-27T14:21:00.000+01:00

I'm working at home today so, over lunch, I took the opportunity to give Empires in America its first outing.

A step up the complexity notch, from Soviet Dawn, it has all the hallmarks of the other State of Siege solo games: fighting on multiple fronts, the angst as the cards turn against you and some difficult decision making.

There's always a frisson of pleasure, the first time through a new card driven game, when you have no prior knowledge of the events that are likely to unfold (apart from those you may, or may not, remember from history lessons).

I thought, as the French, I was doing pretty well.

Although General Vaudreuil was dishonoured, in some early skirmishes on the Ohio river, he went on to achieve Fame and Glory in some subsequent ferocious battles against Wolfe along the St Lawrence River.

I set up a chain of trading posts, in the wilderness areas around the Great Lakes, and held off the English advances along the Ohio and the Champlain with some smartly placed forts.
Sadly the big guns turned up, in Upper Maine, while I was dealing with the Royal Navy around Louisbourg and, as my ever depleting units became stretched, the pesky Brits used the North West Passage to sneak up behind the Patisserie and steal all the Tarte Flambe.

Morale dropped after that and the dreams of New France faded.

Great little game - much more of a dice fest than I was expecting with some tough decision making.

A latter day Niemöller

2011-10-26T16:17:00.000+01:00

A question to ponder.

A friend sends you a list to review: "The Best Two Player Games". It's full of cracking examples of the genre, which you agree with, but there's one title that sticks out, that's nonsensical, and makes you laugh uproariously, choke on your ursuppe and groan simultaneously. (It's a new party game. Try it)

Do you reply with:

a) Great List

b) Hmm, needs some more thought

c) what were you smokin' ?

So, here's the thing, the ThreeAmigoSpielers have been somewhat fractal of late and as a result we've all played lots of two player games, in various combinations, with each other.

Grima, he of the wormtongue, the half eaten pasty and clotted hustling, decided to put together a list of his definitive two player games. Those which would forever hit the table and be lauded as superlative examples of their art form.

By and large it was a list we could all stand behind (or under, or over, or whatever).

War of the Ring, Twilight Struggle, Napoleon's Triumph. Great games, all.

Except towards the bottom of the list he had added Agricola.

Not a great two player game, in my opinion. No, scratch that. Not a great game in my opinion.

So, I took the bait and said as much.

(If you've ever watched QI then you can imagine sirens wailing in the background and 'Agricola' flashing in big white letters against a black screen).

Cue some superior smugness from the proper gamer.

"You are so negative. Why couldn't you just accept the list for what it was? You had to use it as an opportunity for your boring anti-Agricola rants"

And maybe he had a point. But should I have stayed quiet? Isn't it our duty to stand up and be counted when we see something wrong?

If there's one thing I hate it's having my views misrepresented.

(Along with being told what to think - and Grima does a lot of that, as well, because, if I do not agree with the BGG herd, then he considers me some kind of unschooled sub genre of the gaming community).

In my experience, if you do not challenge an incorrect (or debatable) viewpoint then everyone assumes you agree. You become complicit.

The Lady Fuchsia does it to me, all the time. I think that's just a marriage thing. "You've always liked the over done chips". No, I just always eat them because your prefer the soft ones and there are never enough to go around. But I digress.

So, anyway, faced with a list where you agree 99% but disagree 1% is it not acceptable to say it's great apart from the one obvious turkey?

Even if the compiler of the list knows that you think it is a turkey (and an intensively reared one, at that, which has never walked nor seen daylight)?

Isn't the alternative that, one bleak day, the aforementioned master of misdirection is likely to bring it out, at a games sessions, and claim that you've always liked subsistence farming as a game theme (all be it one where, bizarrely, you can't build a fence on the same day as your neighbour even if you have the wood available) ?

It can happen, I tell you.

Sie Essen

2011-10-23T23:25:00.000+01:00

In Germany it has been that time of year again - the annual Essen Spiel, when all the new gaming goodies are announced, displayed and generally pimped.

For the first time, in many moons, I have taken very little interest in the affair.
In fact I have only been dimly aware of its progress from tweets I have seen but whose links I have not followed.

I have found inner gaming peace.
I have not listened to a games podcast since May and I have to confess that it has been quite liberating (if, for no other reason than, I have really got back into music).
I no longer hear about games which I feel bad about not having until I buy them.
I am content with those I have and, while I welcome trying out something new now and then, I don't particularly miss learning a new set of rules every week.

Sometimes I get into conversations, on the interweb, and find that I am 'behind the times' but I just politely ask someone to update me and accept that, although I may not be on the cutting edge, I still have more than enough great games to play with plenty of mileage left in most of them.

I do worry, a little, that I may end up like the Lady Fuchsia who always orders the same dish when we go for an Indian.
However, as long as I allow someone else to choose off of the menu for me, now and then, I should still taste the true delicacies which are worthy of being more than just 'menu du jour'.

Pain in the Arm

2011-10-22T23:13:00.001+01:00

I have something of a dead arm, following a Hep B vaccination yesterday.

Doctor Prunesquallor has recommended that I take some additional protection given that my visits to India have become more frequent and I have a habit of dining on dodgy street corners. Mixing with the 'real people'.

Normally I would laugh in the face of such advice, but one of my Indian Team Leaders recently contracted a touch of the old Dengue, and it has reminded me that we are only immortal for a limited time.

A sobering thought that these vaccinations are so readily available for me but something of a luxury for most of the locals.

Maybe a painful arm for a few days is a small price to pay.

Twiglet Struggle

2011-10-18T15:20:00.001+01:00

I dedicated a previous post to the 'Feast and Famine' of gaming. I've had something of that, over the last few weeks, where the general busyness of life has kept me away from the kitchen table (I've not, so much, been burning the candle at both ends - more taking a flamethrower to the Chandlers).

What little gaming I have had the fortune to indulge in, though, has got me thinking about the The Ebb and Flow of the favourites.

The early Gormenghast Monday night sessions were played out with just me and, the recently dissolved, Poodle. Two player Collectible Card Games like Heresy, Magic, Star Trek and NetRunner, were the order of the day.

With the advent of the internet (as a way to find others with common interests), the little group grew and, although it smelt quite bad at times, had a fairly stable attendance of four or five. This meant that two player games ceased to come to the table and were replaced with their multiplayer Eurogame counterparts.

I found myself hankering after the good old days of NetRunner and taking on the Mastif with my state of the art ICE-Breaker programs.

Over time, however, power struggles within the group lead to internecine wars between the Eurogamers and the Ameritrashers. Cubes were thrown, both sabres and dice cups were rattled and hit points were awarded. The Northmen returned to their citadels around Winterfell, to lick their furry wounds, and the one of half size sailed East to the Summer Isles and the oil rich lands.

A new dawn broke as Winter came. The two originals were left standing - or, to be more precise, sitting - and a new wave of mano-a-mano wonders hit the table. At the forefront, the mighty BattleLore, but also Memoir 44, and the Cosmo two player series.

Sometimes, however, the victory seemed pyrrhic and I found myself yearning for some Tigris and Euphrates, Amun Re and other four player treats.

Of course, the wheel continued to turn, the little group expanded once again as Daenerys, the Stormborn, returned from contracting in Saudi Arabia with a Halfling hidden in her luggage and the Clotted Hustler came to town with a bag full of pasties and a reformed play-tester's attitude.

The Four Gamers of the Apocalypse saddled up and rode into the pages of history carrying the Great Standard of The Cult of the New.

The villagers danced in the streets (all except the farmer who, in true Agricola fashion, was a round disc and had no legs).

It was a time of bumper gaming harvests and long nights, sat in front of a roaring fire, swapping stories of the time when Reiner came to tea.

But, for one kitchen boy, there was an itch that would not go away.

He tried calamine lotion, anti-histamines and even the good old fashioned scratching technique used by Swelter on the most pussiest of burns.

That itch was the desire to play beefy two player games.

Yeah, ok, I can tell that the weary travellers, sitting around the table with their freeze dried cup-a-soup, are growing weary of this cautionary tale and are wondering how much longer it is going to go on.

Fair point.

The kettle has been whistling for five minutes, now, and the water almost boiled away.

So we have learnt that Steerpike is consistently inconsistent and never happy with what he has got.

I think we all knew that already.

During the golden period of the Four Gamers, one of my biggest frustrations was that I just wasn't playing enough Twilight Struggle nor 1960: The Making of the President. Both games zoomed into my Top 5, as soon as I played them, as they had the ideal profiles for what I liked in a game: "Strong theme" (well embedded in game play), "Interesting Theme" (History rather than Farming), "Tight Gameplay".

I'm a really big fan of the card driven mechanic used in these titles - the tough call on whether to play a card for its point value or event text. (And the rich historical nature of the event cards themselves (actually one of the reasons I like Soviet Dawn, so much, as a solo game)).

Of course, the solution was simple - get my bony hands on Founding Fathers, the multiplayer incarnation of the same system.

This I duly did, and I love the game.

It is the supreme irony, then, that, just as I start to enjoy being one of the many delegates at the 1787 convention, the wheel should turn once more with a jolt and a shudder.

Suddenly I have two player opportunities coming out of my ears and I am jumping on them, like a Direwolf onto a Lannister. In the last month I've managed three games of the mighty Twilight Struggle and have enjoyed every minute of it - but I can't help feeling a certain irritation that Founding Fathers is now languishing on the shelf and the only times I get to play it are over on Yucata.de.

A T-shirt of Fire and Ice

2011-10-15T23:53:00.003+01:00

I found this rather amusing although I would prefer a Team Daenerys T-Shirt (I'm a sucker for babes with dragons).

[Original link: http://andrael.tumblr.com/post/7189980185/team-stannis-blasting-off-with-the-lord-of-light uncovered when I was searching for a suitable image for 'Lord of Light' by Roger Zelazny]

Karma Chameleon

2011-10-15T23:43:00.000+01:00

It's rare that I ever finish a book and then start again, immediately, at Page 1.
It either has to be a stunningly epic novel or one of those reads that I only really start to understand in the closing chapters...
such was the case with "Lord of Light".

Maybe I am just going senile but I spent the first half of the book wondering what was happening.

(You can relive this experience by going to the cinema, with the Lady Fuchsia, and have her asking inane questions throughout the film. "who's that?", "what's he doing that for?", "wasn't she in that other film?","what's happening again?","how long is this?").

I then spent the second half of the book with a succession of epiphanies, which had me thumbing back to other chapters trying to make sense of the Samsara. In the end I just ploughed on, deciding to let the wheel of life turn, and started again from the beginning once the last page signalled the circle complete.

Great little novel but probably way too smart for my literary karma.

Winner Takes It All

2011-10-15T13:55:00.001+01:00

Let it not be said that Steepike allows pride to take precedence over pragmatism. Or, put another way, I am not one to stare a gift horse in the mouth.

Timeo Danaos et Dona Ferentes and all that.

So at my conference, last week, I won an iPad.
Best use of my business cards in a long time.

Can someone remind me what all the good gaming Apps are again? Sorry, I wasn't paying attention before.

Nearly There

2011-10-14T23:39:00.001+01:00

Work on the Castle is almost complete.

The builders are gone and all that is left for me to do is complete the painting in the stone halls.

I am looking forward to being able to come home from work and put my feet up in front of my games collection - but right now it is inaccessible, nay drowning, beneath piles of bric a brac, which have been removed from the walls, corridors, nooks and crannies as I sugar soap the ancient infrastructure.

The castle is in chaos and the sooner the painting is done, the sooner I can get back to being a lazy kitchen boy. I can't even find my new copy of Empires in America. I think it must be under the winter coats.
Or stolen by sneaky french hobbitses.

Outspoken

2011-10-13T15:43:00.001+01:00

I'm not really very good at small talk - if I'm honest I find it pretty exhausting.

Generally speaking I like to get to the interesting bits quickly and, if there aren't any to be had, then I like to wander off and get a drink, or disappear to a quiet room to read a book or post endless nonsense on the internet.

Funnily enough, the Lady Fuchsia is of the opinion that I can be quite a socialite, when I want to be, but she fails to notice that I only really engage with new people if they're willing to skip the pleasantries and explain to me why they take hot water bottles, with them, on conferences or why they have no ear lobes. Or how they managed to beat the Flying Elves armed only with the Cursed White Ladies.

"Who are you and what do you do?"

"I'm a counter blast to agnosticism, how do you do?"

For me, people are at their most interesting when they drop the social pretences and start talking about what really interests them.

Of course, there is always a danger that you get stuck with someone whose quirky hobby is off the "zero to boring" scale but, even then, I find myself fascinated (all be it momentarily) with why someone might choose a crushingly dull hobby like train spotting.

and then I go and get a drink.

I mention this only because I have spent the last four days at a software conference.

It's pretty hard to get delegates off of the subject, of the latest release, of their favourite operating system. This is almost acceptable during the day but, by the evening, you really want to find someone who is willing to discuss the future of the rainforests given Euro gamings insatiable appetite for high quality wooden cubes.

By nature I am something of an introvert and I gain energy from sitting in darkened rooms away from the hubbub of the castle.

After nearly a week of 'socialising' I need to get out some solo games and lock myself away from the unwashed masses. Fortunately "Empires in America" arrived while I was away - from the makers of Soviet Dawn and Toe to Toe, it's another one player, State of Siege, war game to while away the hours before the next gaming glut.

I may be some time.

Slave of Mammon

2011-10-07T13:39:00.001+01:00

The Gormenghast Music Club finally held its inaugural session, last week.

(Well, to be fair, a group of kitchen boys have been meeting in secret, without me, for months, but this was the first one I attended).

We sat and listened intently to Ten Silver Drops, drank a lot of beer, and generally discussed our favourite tracks by other artists, the future of music and the pursuit of the perfect chord. The overriding opinion was that it was an ok album that started out with some promise but rapidly seemed to lose its way.

Other opinions ranged from 'nice selection of beer' to 'ooh, wasabi nuts'.

We also agreed the CDs to come under the spot light at the next session:

I will bring along the mighty "Cammel Laird Social Club" by Half Man Half Biscuit and the other album will be "Welcome Interstate Managers" by Fountains of Wayne.

The normal 'music club' process is that the album owner burns a few CDs for distribution - but I can not condone such behaviour, and also like to think I am living in the 21st century, so I downloaded the Wayne stuff, a few nights ago, from iTunes.

I was sure that I'd never heard any of this album, before, but there are a few tracks which seem hauntingly familiar - specifically "Hey Julie" and "Stacey's Mum".

There's a shed load of tracks on the album, and a good editor would probably have deleted a few of them before publishing, but none of them last too long (someone once said of The Lemonheads that it didn't matter if you didn't like a song because there'd be another one along in a minute - the same seems to apply here).

Overall, though, I think I'd much rather be listening to the Fountain of Lamneth.

And if the group do not vote Cammel Laird a better album then there will be Trouble over Bridgewater

Joy in Leeuwarden

2011-10-05T11:55:00.003+01:00

I have been thinking some more about the different social media streams.

My outburst, a few days ago (in which I probably came across as an attention seeking teenager (and, maybe, I am)), was part of a larger conversation going on in my head.

I probably should have concluded that internal discussion between my ego, id and crypto-neurosis before bothering to throw it out there for wider comment.

Still, I welcome thoughts from the hive mind and it was interesting to gage some initial reactions on my passing desire to pack it all in.

And I believe it has passed for now.

I think that part of the problem is that I have adopted an unsustainable rhythm of frequent blog updates.

This has led me to feel pressurised into posting often.
Of course the pressure is not really coming from anywhere except internally and, if anything, I need to take a step back and stop hassling myself.
In fact, I am thinking about taking out a restraining order on the part of my mind that keeps nagging me.

Is it possible that I am sharing my body with a Blog Rakasha? (c.f. Lord of Light. Review, possibly, to follow soon. I'm in the middle of reading it again, having not fully 'got it' the first time around. I am stuck in the 'Great Wheel' of the novel and life.)

Anyway, back to some idle thoughts on the difference between posting here and posting elsewhere.

An Englishman's home is his castle and, by the laws of reflectivity, his castle is also his home.

I like to think that visitors come here to pull up a chair and have a good (hopefully intelligent) chat about various topics. The teapot sits on the kitchen table and we have a chance to get to know each other, explore some thoughts and eat a few eDoughnuts.

If the night is cold we can sit by the fire, in our virtual armchairs, and discuss my greatest gaming achievements. I might even show a cursory interest in something that you have played. It's a vision not too far from John Major's dream of England, as a land of warm beer and cricket on the village green.

I think that this is probably something that needs to be treasured.

The castle is my space - somewhere that I hope people like to come to visit, to relax, and somewhere that needs a preservation order stuck onto by the National Trust.

As I (now) see it, Google+ is somewhere different.
It's like the new night club in town. There's loads going on there - it's lively, full of people shouting to get heard and a great place to hang out when you are in the mood.

You feel like you are having a great conversation, with a group of buddies you have just met at the bar, but when you get home you can't really remember what you were talking about. Sometimes you find yourself in a conversation with an old drunk and you can't escape - and you try to drift away by engaging in a simultaneous conversation with a group of attractive young ladies, who happen to be ordering a round of WKDs beside you.

It's difficult to keep up to date with all the talking/shouting/burbling going on around you. The music is too loud and by ten o'clock you have a head ache and need to go home.

As I get older I think I prefer sitting chatting with my mates, at home (or their home), rather than socialising with the world and his wife down at the Bannister and Shamrock.

I think that's where the blog fits in.
(That's not to say that I will become a hermit. I still need to get out and party, once in awhile, like any kitchen boy with a Friday night pay packet in his back pocket)

Incidentally, while I am stretching analogies to breaking point, in this digital world interpretation FaceBook is the School Reunion where everyone is trying to show their old classmates, or new 'friends', how successful they've become and what a wonderful time they are having (whether they are or not).
It's the place where ex girlfriends and boyfriends compete to show they have moved on and where the 'fat kid' from school tries to demonstrate that he is now skinny and athletic and all the girls who turned him down are losers.

And Twitter is like travelling on the tube.

Anyway, I digress.

(not for the first time)

So, the upshot of this rambling is a simple message:

The kitchen remains open for business, although it may close early on a Wednesday and Saturday so that I can go down the pub.

Or something.

Rejoice.

Or Not.

Unexpected End Game Condition.

2011-10-03T14:12:00.001+01:00

I've been back from Toronto over a week now - and, despite having popped into the kitchen a few times to feed the cat and pick up my post, I am sad to report that I have felt little urge to hang around and have a chat.

I think I am having a mid-blog crisis.

It's not as if I have not had anything to write about. I've been playing some Mah Jong, some Tien Zi Que and even engaged in a little Nukl'r Combat with the Rooskies. I've had a music and beer evening, with friends, to discuss the merits of 'Ten Silver Drops'. I've watched lots of rugby - both international and on the playing fields of Gormenghast - and I've even played some of the beautiful game, myself.

I have watched some inflight movies (many of which were truly appalling) and read voraciously.

And, in all of these things, I have had thoughts and opinions which, in the normal course of events, I would share with visitors to these virtual dry stone walls.

Perhaps it is just time for a change.

I have been working in these kitchens, now, for nigh on five years. The hours are long, career development limited and the rewards variable.

Increasingly I find myself posting my musings over on Google+ and I find the immediacy, of the reaction and feedback, preferable to the stony silences I tend to find in these ancient halls. Ironically the number of comments, which appear on the kitchen walls, have decreased following my decision to post links over at Google+, with many people seemingly preferring to reply in that space rather than here.

I suspect that I need to move with the times. No one wants to visit individual blogs, anymore, when it is more convenient to read and interact elsewhere.

Google+ has the advantage that you can filter the information based on interest (for example, only read the games stuff and ignore the more left field ramblings).

To many people, this is progress although I am not sure it enriches the experience.

(It is analogous to digital music where it is easy to just select the tracks you immediately like, whilst ignoring the ones which do not sound good on first play (but which may well turn out to be the slow burners which should rightfully become the classics)).

Of course, it is entirely possible that I am having a bad day/week/month/life.

I probably just need a bit more digital downtime. An e-vacation rather than a full scale kitchen evacuation.

"Milky drink and Sudafed. That should sort you out", she said

I may switch to posting weekly digests and see if that brings back the lost sparkle.

I may just take a break.

Or I may simply close the kitchen and continue to post ramblings directly to G+

I need to think about this one.

I only have 4 Action Points, left to spend, and I am not sure who is in the lead.

Grace Under Pressure

2011-09-18T21:34:00.000+01:00

I'm off to Toronto in the morning.
Despite being a well traveled kitchen boy, I have never set foot on the hallowed tarmac that is YYZ.
As an aging (some may say, sad) Rush fan, the biggest buzz is going to be getting the baggage tags.

The results of the 'what to read on the way', voice of the people, poll is in and it was a tight contest with only two points separating the first and last.
The eventual winner was Lord of Light with a staggering two votes, followed by A Suitable Boy with one vote and A Feast for Crows with none.

I will try to find something more interesting to talk about when I return.

Don't wait up.

Nostalgia (VI)

2011-09-16T16:35:00.000+01:00

Been surfing iTunes for some old nostalgic tunes (feeling old).

I picked up the 1985 Colourbox album. A thing of electro-beauty from a long forgotten era.

They just don't write them like this anymore.

Dance, dance, dance, dance

Evening of Swing (Has Been Cancelled)

2011-09-16T14:05:00.001+01:00

...Ezekiel punched Dan Brown and the nights are drawing in....

I'm getting old.
I know this is a fairly self evident statement (like when an aged relative comes to visit and says 'My, you've grown', as if children are likely to shrink in a Benjamin Button temporal paradigm).

In the observable universe, time is pretty much unidirectional, if not always demonstrably linear.
I think it's probably this seemingly non linear nature to which I am referring. I guess what I meant to say is that I'm feeling older than I reasonably should.

Last night I ventured to Leamington Spa to catch up on the latest Half Man Half Biscuit shenanigans. Is it really over a year and a half since I last stood in this hallowed hall (or should I say, mucky mosh pit) ?

It was great to be back and, as I liked the support band and was one of the few standing around to watch their set, I found myself gently propelled to the front row as the crowds descended for the main event.

As the Biscuits took to the stage I realised that I was no longer twenty one.
The crowd surge, and dancing, had me pinned to the front of the stage, which was fine, but a tad uncomfortable. But, worse still, I noticed a significant degradation in the quality of the music due to my proximity to the bass bin.
In the past none of this would have bothered me but it irked me, somewhat, that I couldn't hear the lead guitar properly.

Six songs in and another sign of old age hit me in the face. Well, to be more precise, the bladder.
Three pints of Guinness, pre-show, had left me needing to attend to *ahem* bathroom needs.

So, I gracefully ceded my prime location at the front (which involved a bit of grandad style pogo-ing in order to free myself), had a quick visit to the loo and took up a more sedate viewing spot about eight rows back.

Just behind the nutty dancers, better suited for surround sound and within good visual distance for a specky geek who'd vainly left his glasses at home.
I think it's what Nigel Blackwell would have wanted.

Despite Steerpike entropy, it was a top gig. All the old favourites ("Trumpton Riots", "All I want for Christmas is a Dukla Prague Away Kit" etc), many of the new ("Joy Division Oven Gloves","Bad Losers on Yahoo! Chess" etc) and a smattering of cracking new anthems off of the partially released new album 90 Bisodol (Crimond).

Better than a quiet night in. But for how long?
Fetch my stick, Margaret.

Poll

2011-09-15T13:16:00.000+01:00

Having stormed through Storm of Swords II. Blood and Gold I am now left pondering what to read, next.

So, a quick straw poll.
Should it be:

a) A Feast For Crows.
The next installment in the Song of Fire and Ice series. After all the blood letting, in the last installment, I may need a rest.

b) A Suitable Boy.
An epic of a different kind and at a different pace. May be a good step change. A bit of intellectual crop rotation.

c) Lord of Light.
Recommended, and lent, by the Welsh Lamb. My Baaaacon prize.

Bearing in mind that I'm off to Toronto for a week, in a couple of days, it needs to be something that can last a couple of seven hour flights (but make them feel like seven minutes).

Cast your votes.

Flag Day

2011-09-14T13:48:00.000+01:00

As the European financial crisis continues to bite, a German MEP has come up with a wonderful new variation on the naughty step.

His idea is that any country, that is defaulting on its debt, will have to fly their flag at half mast on all EU buildings.

Name 'em and shame 'em.

Understandably the Irish and the Greeks are not so keen on this idea.

If I flew a flag over Gormenghast, I would happily lower it whenever I lost a game. It would give me incentive to come out fighting next time.

I would bask in the joy of driving around the nearby countryside and seeing the Orthanc flag limply hanging, at half mast, for most of the year.

I think there is merit in this - I may even institute a virtual flag, on the blog, although I would have to consider what colours and design would drape my banner.

Red background, of course, with maybe a white Go stone in the middle.

(Although that might look a bit like a photographic negative of the Japanese flag).

Talking of Red, I played Twilight Struggle the other evening and had the confusing task of playing the US (and therefore the blue pieces).

This really is a mighty game. Everything about it appeals to me.

As a child of the Cold War the theme resonates, deeply, with every card from 'Opec' to 'Che', and 'Willy Brandt' to 'Tear Down the Wall'.

The game play is tense and, even when all seems lost, you have to plough on and hope that the tide of history will turn your way.

In retrospect I don't think I've played the US very often (my game stats say that this was the sixth time I've played, and I'm guessing only the second time as the West) and so it was interesting to be on the wrong side of the Soviet onslaught in the Early War. Everywhere I looked, there seemed to be Reds under my Bed.

I survived a blockade, which saw my influence in West Germany plummet, and managed to keep the Iron Curtain pretty much drawn, with the exception of those pesky socialists down in France. Bloody De Gaulle. It took me until way into the Mid War before I managed to realign those refuseniks.

Still, I carried liberties torch well and the tide turned towards Freedom and Light, as all things must.

The Communists did not manage to capitalise on their early advantage (perhaps because they did not understand Capitalism) and, as the game progressed, they saw their influence wane in the Middle East and Asia (and never really get off the ground in South America).

At game end (first turn of the Late War [Turn8?] ) North Korea was a free trading, democratic, state specialising in cheap designer goods hand sewn by former party members. If you're ever in the Gormenghast area you can buy their clothes at Primarni.

Likewise there was peace in the Middle East and cheap petrol for all.

(Of course, had we made it to the last turn, we might all have been dead from rising sea levels caused by the plummeting price of crude oil).

Even India and Pakistan were friends and fielding a joint cricket team that still could not beat England.

Which all conclusively proves that the world would be a better place if Steerpike was in charge.

It's also why the 'white on red' is flying, gloriously, at the top of the Gormenghast flagpole.

Smell the Coffee (II)

2011-09-12T13:28:00.001+01:00

I always think the term 'loyalty card' is a bit of a misnomer.

I don't shop in a given retail outlet merely because I have one of their cards. I'll pull one out, if I happen to be in the right place, at the right time but that is about it.

When I fly on business, I do not choose the airline. That's all tied up in some corporate deal, so I can be on different carriers dependent on the route.

As a result I have a loyalty cards for at least six different airlines. More a set of 'disloyalty' cards than anything else.

Similarly the Lady Fuchsia has a card for every supermarket within reasonable driving distance of the castle.

What Tesco really need to be able to do, is spy on my Sainsbury card usage (maybe hire a private eye) and confront me with the evidence, in a tearful scene, down the cold meats isle. Perhaps there needs to be more binding nuptials when you sign up for a card. A swap of rings. A declaration in front of your friends. Something a bit more permanent in this fickle, throwaway, age in which we live.

I was mulling this over, just the other day, when I got an email from Costa Coffee.

I thought we could be civilised, about the fact we were growing apart (mainly caused by a rapidly degrading standard of Cappuccino making in my local shoppe), but this was a bitter accusatory exchange.

"You never call, you never write. Who else are you seeing?" the text screamed at me.

(Although, in a calmer more reflective moment after we broke up, I reread the note and it was a little more subtle. "We haven't seen you for awhile. Why not pop back and try some of our exciting new range of flavoured lattes?")

The days of free love and random espressos are over.

It's all about commitment, these days.

My Costa coffee card has me electronically tagged.

It's 1984, all over again. (Without the revision and the smelly student digs)

My airline cards know where I am going, my M&S card knows what I am buying and my Starbuck card may just whisper, to the Lady Fucshia, who shared my chocolate brownie.

Peruperu

2011-09-09T10:15:00.000+01:00

It's time, once more, for the Rugby World cup.

Down in New Zealand, as I type, the Haka's have started. The opening game sees the hosts pitted against Tonga, which means we get two of these wonderful South Pacific traditional dances for the price of one.

The Kiwi Haka, Ka Mate, is well know.

The Tonga one, entitled Sipi Tau, is more recent and has the wonderful lines "I drink the ocean, I eat fire, my will is victory or death. Tonga will die for this goal."

Inspiring stuff.

In fact, I am thinking of developing my own Steerpike Haka to perform before I play a boardgame.

"NONOĀ Ā GREE KOLA"

I drink the beer, I eat the curry, my will is victory or (at least) second place (as long as Grima comes last). Gormenghast will live for this goal. Death to Agricola and all generics.

Do you think it will catch on?

Pawn Star (II)

2011-09-08T15:24:00.001+01:00

A new area of the internet is under construction and addresses, in this up and coming though slightly seedy neighbourhood, will have the suffix .XXX

The idea, it seems, is that people will know where to go to get their pr0n and others will not stumble upon it accidentally.

A virtual Reeperbahn in the online world.

What's nice is that the builders, of this new corner of the web, have given celebrities and brands what they are calling a 'Sunrise' period to register their own names before the XXX_Barons do it for them.

This is to make sure that no-one gets upset to find a Britney Spear Avenue, or a Nike Road, in this less than salubrious part of the e-village.

(Of course, said celebrities have to pay for the privilige of ensuring there is no www.insertcelebnamehere.xxx domain name)

There will be some form of arbitration when two people want the same URL - for example the UK Home Secretary (Theresa May) happens to have a very similar name to a well known star of the 'adult movie' world (Teresa May). Or so I have been informed by the BBC. I assure you I know very little of such things.

So, anyway, ahem, I was wondering if I should purchase some domain names for Gormenghast and the Kitchens.

I wouldn't want my family brand being damaged by an alternative site in this new district.

Let me tell you, the site of Steepike in underpants is not a pretty one.

Seasons Greetings

2011-09-07T13:14:00.001+01:00

Tis the season to be jolly, fa la la la lah

Er, what? September, you say?

So how come the pub, I was drinking in yesterday, was putting its decorations up?

(Genuine picture taken of one offending item)

They say Christmas comes earlier each year. Can anyone beat September 6th?

I'd better start planning my Secret Santa. I suspect he is still in sunglasses and shorts.