Moff Off

 We had a pre-Christmas game of X-Wing last night. I've played it a few times before and always enjoyed it. The rules run smoothly and give a game that's light, fun, quick-moving and - to me at least - completely abstract. I have never seen any of the Star Wars films and therefore know nothing of the setting. That only affects the game very slightly, in that it makes a little harder to keep track of pilots' special abilities etc. But if one just goes with the flow, it passes the time quite pleasantly. Interestingly Mark was playing the game for the first time and also turned out to have no interest in fantasy space worlds, but he seemed to enjoy things as well.

James had written the scenario, which came with a sort of fan-fiction style backstory involving a kidnapped Moff. I shan't pass comment on his prose style - which will in any case be familiar to anyone who's ever read one of his Chronicles of Kermit the Hermit - except to point out that he missed a great opportunity offered by the action described therein to make a joke about Moff balls. It became clear that half the players on the night hadn't grasped the exact significance of the presence of His Moffness aboard the escape pod, so James explained it to us, at somewhat more length than it seemed to me that the subject deserved.  In any event the Rebel Alliance, which was Peter and me, won the day by getting the Moff (I decline to use the surname James gave him) out of the asteroid belt and off the table. 

I've just done some research on Wookiepedia and find that the Grand Moff (how can people say all this with a straight face?) in the original trilogy was played by well-known wargamer Peter Cushing. It's a small world; or a galaxy far, far away; one of the two.

Back to the No Future

"Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past." 

- George Orwell, 1984

The latest accusation levelled at DC is that he has retrospectively amended previous blog posts to make it look as if he predicted the current pandemic. On behalf of bloggists everywhere I wish to protest most strongly at his actions. If readers start assuming that items have been reworked then no one will, for example, believe my post from some years back in which I correctly forecast the result of the 2020 Grand National.

Dominic Cummings reflects on his current career prospects

Somehow one gets the feeling that even if Dom's future self travelled back in time to pass on the secrets of the future, that he would reject the advice on the basis that he knew better anyway.

“Life? Don’t talk to me about life!”

I am afraid that this blog has done it again. My recent post about W.B. Yeats contained an allusion to a quote by Marvin the Paranoid Android from Douglas Adam's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe. No sooner had it been published than Stephen Moore, the voice of said Marvin on radio and television, sadly died. He was of course a most distinguished actor - I remember seeing him as Hector in the NT's touring production of 'The History Boys' - but I'm afraid he will forever live in an awful lot of memories as a depressed machine.

Speaking of distinguished actors I have been to see David Suchet speak about his life. Just as Jeremy Brett is the definitive Holmes, so surely there is no other Poirot (who, just like Marvin, had a brain the size of a planet) to rival Suchet's.

He either finds it very easy to slip in and out of character as the Belgian detective or, despite having played many other parts in his career, the boundaries between life and fiction are beginning to blur for him. In fact he told one story about one lady who encountering him in costume just off set on location expressed a fervent hope that there hadn't been a murder locally, and when being told by him in Poirot's accent that he was merely on holiday replied by thanking him for choosing her hometown in which to vacation. It was all very entertaining and it is always thought-provoking to note what a contribution migrants to the UK and their families have made to national life: as well, of course, as his broadcaster brother John, his father was one of Sir Alexander Fleming's assistants in the early days of penicillin and his grandfather was the Fleet Street photographer who took the first photograph of Edward VIII and Mrs Simpson.

Featured posts

Nobody has ever said to me "Your featured post of the day is always so apposite, please tell me how they are chosen.", and yet I still feel the urge to reveal all. Well today's - and clearly this will be of no value unless you are reading it today - was chosen thus:

• There will shortly be some Fireball XL5 news on here
• Steve Zodiac's voice was that of Canadian actor Paul Maxwell
• Paul Maxwell also played Major General Maxwell Taylor, commander of the 101st Airborne Division in 'A Bridge Too Far'
• There is a brief mention of another, more notorious, Maxwell in today's featured post. 

"Don't jump."

Of course I could have chosen this one or, more obscurely, this one, but a double Maxwell was hard to resist. And do remind me to tell you my Robert Maxwell stories sometime.

Pot85pouri

So, I've been working a bit, going to the theatre a lot, and condoling with an old school friend about the Champions League final as well as more serious matters in his life. Amongst other things we had a wander round the Shaftesbury Avenue branch of Forbidden Planet which prompted my friend to express dismay at the lack of Fireball XL5 merchandise; strange that.

Mention of finals makes me realise that I haven't mentioned the cricket. Well, exciting or not I'm really not sure how anyone could get triumphalist about winning in that manner: a fluke followed by incorrect interpretation of the rules resulting in a tie, the nature of the tie-break being completely biased in your favour, still only managing another tie and then turning out to be the winner using a formula that makes the countback method in high-jump look positively scientific. I am unimpressed. I actually missed the climax of it all because I went to see Lisa Mills, last mentioned here, with a band this time and damned fine she was too. In case anyone is concerned, the lack of alcohol free beer has been rectified.

While I am here and complaining about triumphalism, let me write something about the anniversary of the first moon landing, which I am of course old enough to have watched live on television. Notwithstanding its underlying purpose of being cold war propaganda, I still regard it as perhaps mankind's greatest achievement in my lifetime and so full respect go to not just Armstrong and Aldrin but to the whole team behind them. It's just a shame about pretty much everything else that the human race, and especially our rulers, have done over the intervening period.

And finally here is Duane Jarvis covering Lucinda Williams' 'Still I Long For Your Kiss':

I'll be bum-swizzled

Jon Pertwee would have been 100 today. He was of course the Third Doctor, Wurzel Gummidge and Chief Petty Officer Pertwee, but was also well known to some us as the owner of a takeaway burger bar near Acton Town tube station around 1980.

This is the station, not the burger bar

My own doctor was the original, i.e. William Hartnell, and to be honest I had slightly lost interest by Pertwee's time. I can however recall being bemused as to why a Brigadier appeared to be in charge of a single rifle section, but given the size of the British army now it appears just to have been a case of the scriptwriters of a science-fiction series accurately predicting the future.

I was never a big Wurzel Gummidge fan, but it also starred Leeds born actor Geoffrey Bayldon, better known as Catweazle, which programme was much more to my taste. To complete the circle a little, Alan Rowe, Bayldon's life partner, appeared in Dr Who opposite Pertwee, and indeed opposite Patrick Troughton and Tom Baker too.

Very flat, Norfolk

There has been a little bit of debate in the UK recently about whether it's appropriate for able-bodied actors to take parts where the character is disabled. I tend to start from the premise that acting is about pretending to be someone else, and would prefer to see the discussion focus on whether disabled actors should be regularly offered the chance to play characters where having a disability or not is irrelevant. I mention this because I have been to see 'The Merry Wives of Windsor' and it occurred to me that no one has ever campaigned for the role of Falstaff (*) to be restricted to fat blokes. So it was that David Troughton donned a fat suit and waggled his codpiece in the face of unsuspecting theatregoers, causing everyone to enjoy themselves almost as much as he did. Troughton is of course the son of the Second Doctor; perhaps only those with two hearts should be allowed to portray Time Lords.

I have also been to see 'Othello', and find myself on this occasion taking the view that it is only appropriate for the title role to be played by black actors. This could be hypocrisy, although I prefer to see it as an example of Niels Bohr's definition of a great truth, one whose opposite is also true. The Moor has to be black and Desdemona has to be white.

"Even now, now, very now, an old black ram
 is tupping your white ewe"

The only way a white actor could play it is to black up, and to do that carries such offensive overtones that it is unthinkable. It is worth pointing out that the same logic in reverse applies to every other part in the play. If a touring company turns up in town performing Shakespeare for a night or two one must assume that the piece is one of this year's set books, and sure enough the place was full of schoolchildren. I always think that adds something to the atmosphere; it's more of an event for them than it is for jaundiced old gits like your bloggist, they have studied the work, they get more involved and they react more strongly. Having said that, Epictetus leapt right out of his seat at Othello's final gesture; despite knowing what he was going to do I didn't see it coming as it were.

I didn't much care for the National Theatre's version of Strindberg's 'Miss Julie', which was updated to include similar racial overtones to Othello and by so doing lost any sense of drama. In the original the daughter of a 19th century Swedish aristocrat has an affair with a servant with tragic consequences inevitably arising from this challenging of society's strictures. In this production the spoilt 21st century daughter of a wealthy man has a quickie with her father's black chauffeur, cue a collective shrug of 'so what' from the audience and no rationale at all for the play's ending.

Coming back to disability, Sandi Toksvig's 'Silver Lining' features a character in a wheelchair - played on this occasion by an actress who was certainly able to rise for her bow at the end - but also contains some very well written and realistic older people, noteworthy enough in itself. As anyone who has ever seen Ms Toksvig would expect it also has a lot of very funny lines. Similarly funny, but sadly featuring a very badly written older person was 'Party Piece', wherein a woman appeared to be at least fifty years older than her son. Noel Coward's 'Private Lives' was also very amusing and the characters were exclusively middle aged. And, as my companion for the evening observed when I sought her opinion afterwards, they all needed a good slap; hard to disagree really.

Which only leaves one more play seen in September, the very odd 'War with the Newts'. This was a totally immersive experience, with us all - audience and cast - in what was decked out as the hull of a ship; indeed all the audience except me had to sit on upturned oyster crates; I got a chair for reasons which were never explained, although I did get the word 'Leading' stamped on the back of my hand, which may or may not have something to do with it. It's based on Karel Čapek's novel, which I haven't read (and, let's be honest, am never going to either) and I sort of assumed as it went on that the human race would learn its lesson and after the many early disasters would become wiser and be able to rebuild civilisation, but better this time round. However, somewhat disconcertingly the newts won, and mankind was wiped out; the science fiction equivalent of us all getting the good slap which we no doubt deserve.


(*) A completely irrelevant piece of information that I can't resist sharing with you is that it was once seriously suggested that the SI unit for the rate of flow of a liquid should be named the Falstaff.

The best damn police cop in space

And so to the theatre. I have been to see The Pretend Men's hit from last year's Edinburgh Fringe 'Police Cops in Space', where I'm glad to report I laughed a lot. My concerns were not that it wouldn't be intrinsically funny, but more that it would be full of references to films that I hadn't seen; which I'm still assuming that it probably was. However, and despite having not any familiarity at all with the Star Wars franchise, even I could tell when Harrison Ford was being spoofed and a man in his underpants speaking in a Germanic voice can only be one person; for the record, I have actually seen 'Terminator'.

The robot that will take over if he can eliminate all the police cops has an Australian (rather than Austrian) accent, a crush on its same sex colleague and a tendency to stream of consciousness free association as he expresses his admiration. Should any of those be based on films them I'd appreciate being pointed towards them. I won't attempt to describe the rest, but it's worth seeing as it tours around, especially if like me you have a penchant for small casts performing multiple roles and very physical comedy. For some reason I thought the climactic fight for control of the universe being carried out with mops and a harmonica as the only weapons made perfect sense.

Anyway, I have to go as I'm off to the theatre again and it's snowing. I'll be back.

Several Boardgames in July

Before I get on to the games played this month - which will not only show a marked improvement in both quality and quantity but also contain something of interest to those who like Condottiere - there are some other bits of boardgaming news. Firstly, the annual Spiel des Jahres has been announced and the winner was 'Kingdomino'. I've played this a couple of times and enjoyed it. It requires more spatial awareness than I possess to be any good at it, but I'd certainly play it again. The length of game - twenty minutes or so - is very much in its favour.

Secondly, among the goodies that my recent wargaming visitor brought with him was a copy of 'Napoleon in Europe', which he very kindly passed on to me. Let's not kid ourselves though, the reason he has never played it is the same reason that I shall almost certainly never play it either: it requires seven people and takes six hours.

Celestia: An amusing push your luck game with  nice 3D components. We (i.e. the person who owns it) have abandoned the expansion, which change sped things up a bit for no discernible loss of enjoyment.

Condottiere: This isn't the news flagged up above. Indeed, this month's one play of the game was a big disappointment. One player had two keys (there are only three in total), the rest of us couldn't believe he would have the second, and he won in the shortest time for a game that I can ever remember.

Discoveries: This is the dice version of 'Lewis & Clark' and is, in my opinion, the better game.

Elysium: I am glad that this now seems to be getting reasonably regular outings again, battling its way through the cult of the new.

Istanbul: This is another game that I would recommend. As I may have said before, it is rather looked down on by many of those who consider themselves serious gamers, but I'd ignore them if I was you and check it out.

The King is Dead:  This is it. I have been looking around for another game like Condottiere and I think I have found it in one that, interestingly enough for wargamers, is published by Osprey. The obvious similarities are that it's an area control game played on a small map using small wooden cubes of various colours, but it also has that element of judging when to play your cards and when to hold back for a better opportunity. The king in question is Arthur and his demise has led to Britain being fought over by the Scots, Welsh and Romano-British with the Saxons hovering opportunistically offshore. Players seek to use diplomacy - represented by cards - to gain influence over those factions during a sequence of eight power struggles, one for each region on the board. I have only played with three players so far and it's quite possible that the dynamics in the two and four player versions may be  rather different. There is also an interesting solo variant on boardgamegeek, which was very useful for learning the powers of the cards, but which I suspect is actually impossible to win.

The Manhattan Project: Energy Empire: This is another extension of the themes and mechanics in the original game. I rather enjoyed the card re-implementation which did away with the air forces and the bombing. This one does away with building weapons at all, instead of destroying the world in a nuclear conflagration players pollute it to death generating power. It was OK.

Orléans: For some reason I had never previously played this game from 2014, but I can see it becoming a firm favourite. It's a Euro rather than a wargame and the theme is completely irrelevant, but if you like thought provoking, sometimes frustrating games then you'll like this. One of my three plays in the month was of the cooperative Invasion expansion, which to my surprise I enjoyed as much as the competitive version.

Snowdonia: A fine game about building a railway up the Welsh mountain. The interesting - to me at least - twist is that unlike most railway games all the players are competing to build the same track, as indeed is the game's AI, resulting in one's plans constantly being thwarted.

Sol: Last Days of a Star:  "It's physics Jim, but not as we know it." as someone might have said. The game made one of the other players think of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and reminded me of the only Pink Floyd song on which all five members play. However nonsensical the theme - and every physicist from Newton onwards must be turning in their graves; except for Professor Brian Cox, who is presumably on location somewhere exotic - it does add a bit of flavour to what would perhaps be a somewhat dry abstract game. It is however something that I'd like to have another go at now that I know how it works.

Stroop: This a new filler card game based around the psychological effect of the same name. It was quite a funny experience playing it, although I do wonder whether that would fade on subsequent playings. It also may fall into that category of games where a minor advantage in ability translates into a player winning 90% of the time (like 'Panic Lab' for example). Recommended for at least one play though.

Vanuatu: I also enjoyed my first play of this. It's a Euro with a somewhat greater link between theme and scoring than normal, although the mechanisms - which are good - are just mechanisms. What it does have that appeals greatly to me is the ability to dick over the other players; in fact it left me with a burning desire to play 'Survive!'.

'tis enough, 'twill serve

And so to the theatre. In the film "What's New Pussycat", mostly remembered now for its theme song, Peter Sellers plays a psychoanalyst (inevitably Austrian thereby allowing him to do it in an 'amusing' accent) and Peter O'Toole a patient seeking a cure for compulsive womanising (a). Arriving at a strip club O'Toole is surprised to meet Sellers already in the place and asks him why he is there, resulting in the following exchange:

Dr. Fritz Fassbender: I, uh, decided to follow you here.
Michael James: If you followed me here, how did you contrive to be here before me?
Dr. Fritz Fassbender: I followed you... very fast.

Firstly, don't blame me, it was Woody Allen who wrote the jokes. And secondly, I acknowledge that this isn't all that relevant, even the bit about compulsive womanising. I was reminded of it however because a few days ago I wrote that I had seen a second production of Romeo and Juliet since visiting Verona, and now I can report that I have seen the first.

The West Yorkshire Playhouse (another connection: O'Toole - who was born and raised in Leeds despite claiming to be Irish - addressed the first meeting of the body which campaigned for the WYP's predecessor theatre) have put on a production of the play strangely similar in outlook to the one I saw last weekend, though on a much grander scale and taking a bigger axe to the text and characters. It was set in the present in a Northern city that could be Leeds, full of feral young people behaving badly, albeit wearing more clothes than the average Leeds city centre reveller. I thought it worked well, with once again the Capulet party being a highlight. This time it was sci-fi themed fancy dress with Capulet himself appearing as Darth Vader, and the music being the extended remix version of "I Feel Love".

The musical interludes probably account for it being rather long, despite having fewer characters and less dialogue than usual. Gender swapping is the big Shakespearean trope of the moment and here they went for the Friar and Mercutio. Having been pleasantly surprised by seeing the latter very successfully played last year by near octogenarian Derek Jacobi, I had a similar reaction to now see the character played by a young, black woman. Indeed Elexi Walker's outgoing performance - you wouldn't believe where she put the torch while telling Romeo that he must dance - was the highlight of the play for me and things fell off quite noticeably after her death. Mention must also be made of Lawrence Walker as Benvolio (lots of actors sharing surnames here, including, rather disturbingly, the two leads) who gained more prominence than he otherwise might, partly by taking over Balthasar's lines as well as his own, partly by going to the ball dressed as Buzz Lightyear, but also by being relentlessly jolly in a Brummy accent; I put it down to him having twigged that he's the only one who is going to come out of it alive.

"To infinity, and beyond"

Despite the fact that I didn't like the cuts they had made, nor the rather strange attempt at a feelgood ending - which funnily enough didn't work - overall this was a return to some sort of form at the Playhouse following recent disappointments.


(a) The film was apparently originally intended to star Warren Beatty and Groucho Marx; I think I'd have paid to see that.

As it is?

And so to the theatre. It is obvious from the comments on my previous post that my readers are a bunch of philistines. Having said that, General Fwa's desire for one of the Trammps' stage suits is understandable, indeed commendable. The subject of dressing up for wargaming has been discussed here before, but going the full disco would be a significant and brave departure. It would, I suggest, work best in multiplayer games where moves, dice rolls etc would be made simultaneously in a choreographed routine by all those on one side of the table, involving a mix of twirls, shuffling feet and syncopated handclaps. This is gold; I haven't been so excited by an idea since the time it was suggested that all competition wargamers wore mankinis.

The relevance of the newly revealed philistinism of you, dear readers, is that I shan't be able to ask you to explain the meaning of Pinter's 'No Man's Land', which I went to see last night. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but must admit that I have bugger all idea what it was about. Memory perhaps? Aging? Marital infidelity? My accompanist for the evening suggested it was about the inscrutability of women, but I suspect that she was merely trying to appear deep and meaningful herself, and in any case there aren't any women in it. Instead, there are four male actors and the words Hampstead Heath and cottage appear a lot, so I'm going to stick my neck out and say there's a gay subtext that I didn't understand any more than I did the rest of it.

I saw the live broadcast  of the production that has been touring the UK before ending up at Wyndham's Theatre on Charing Cross Road, and which features both Sir Ian McKellen and Sir Patrick Stewart. The brief recorded interview with the two shows Picard to be somewhat more of a luvvy than Gandalf, which accords with the views of my ex-wife ( who seems to have suddenly started making a lot of appearances in this blog for no particular reason) who got boomed at by him at a reception when he was Chancellor of the University of Huddersfield. As actors however, I'd give McKellen the edge. One lengthy monologue by Stewart in the second act was completely upstaged by the silent MacKellen simply sitting and reacting; an episode that I think proved again the benefit of watching the cinema version, with its cutting between closeups of actors. Kudos must also go to Owen Teale who made the line "We're out of bread" so full of menace that I was unnerved despite being 200 miles or so away.

The river and the sea are one

"Let us know the happiness time brings, not count the years." - Ausonius

A joke has been doing the rounds since last week's calamitous events in the US: extra-terrestrials land on Earth and demand to be taken to our leader, but humanity declines their request on the basis that we're too embarrassed. It is interesting therefore that the film 'Arrival' deals not just with aliens visiting, but with the problems that arise from the fact that we have no common leader. When I told the big bouncy woman that I was going to see it she asked why, given my well known antipathy to science fiction. The only reason I could give was one not terribly likely to elicit much sympathy; my cleaners were coming, it was snowing heavily outside and it was what was showing.

However, I must say that I enjoyed it. I make an exception to my dislike of science fiction where ideas about the nature of time are discussed, and that's where this film ends up going. Indeed that's where it starts as well, although - in a meta twist - our own view of time prevents us from realising what we are seeing. One has to persevere though, because the whole first hour or so is a lowest common denominator meld of Jurassic Park and Close Encounters with a dash of Indiana Jones thrown in for good measure. I have seen the director quoted as to his many and varied sources of inspiration in the animal kingdom for the design of the aliens; anyone who has seen the Simpsons may think they know better. And of course on top of that not only is the global phenomenon only viewed through the eyes of Americans, but it follows the classic Hollywood trope of disciplined and ordered process failing, but the situation being rescued by the maverick who breaks the rules. In other words, much of it is bollocks.

And yet; and yet. There is more than enough substance in the question posed by the sub-plot to engage the audience; indeed the main story is in many ways just a framework to enable the central character to ask: "If you could see your whole life laid out in front of you, would you change things?". Knowledge of not just our own mortality, but also that of those whom we bring into the world, is central to the human condition. All of us who give life, also give death.

From the age of uniformity

"Sameness is the mother of disgust, variety the cure" - Petrarch

The main purpose behind the Great War project was to give me something to paint whenever I felt like painting. As it happens I have indeed been in the zone for a few days and so things have moved forwards. Inevitably this has required further thought on a variety of practical issues related to the rules and how it will all be manifested in a game - I'm thinking for example of basing conventions for crewed weapons - but it has also made me think about the aesthetics. Odd, perhaps, to focus on that aspect when everything is khaki and grey, but it's a side of things that does bother me.

My personal approach to painting has always been to do what is required to make the figures look OK when viewed en masse on the tabletop, and frankly not to waste time or energy by doing any more than that. I have continued with that approach into this project. The relatively small number of poses often available for figures has also never bothered me that much. Indeed for the rather stylised manner in which I have been playing Napoleonics (C&C rules on a hex/offset square grid) it seemed to me that uniformity in the ranks actually enhanced the look of the thing. Not so with WWI, my first foray into anything remotely modern for more than forty years. What one wants here, I think, and even when viewed at arms length, is the opposite: heterogeneity. I don't think the poses have to be radically different from each other - there are only so many things that one is likely to do with a rifle on a battlefield - just sufficiently so that the brain doesn't identify them all as identical as the eye scans across them.

I have no problem with doing a bit of figure remodelling; it scratches the same itch as painting. Sometime I shall have to post a photo of the model of a Napoleonic hussar dancing with a lady of dubious virtue that I wasted some time putting together a few years ago.  Anyway, as previously reported I have been chopping up Tommies throwing Mills bombs to try to get some variety, which as a consequence has left me with some customised riflemen as well. All in all the British should be OK. The problem is ordinary German riflemen. For perhaps obvious reasons most late war German infantry produced in plastic are Stormtroopers. I shall either have to up the level of my modelling skills, buy some metal figures or let the Germans do all the attacking.

Good game it is

“Many of the truths that we cling to depend on our point of view.” – Yoda

Presumably everyone reads James' blog, especially after all my recommendations. You will know therefore that he has had a bit of a mid-life crisis and strayed - hopefully temporarily - from the righteous path of historical wargaming. This has led him to buy lots of models based on a long-forgotten science fiction franchise, to use his superb modelling skills to turn razor blades into things that look like razor blades and to forget the word transceiver. So it was that earlier in the week we found ourselves playing X-Wing.

This was the second time I'd played the game and despite the fact that it ticks very few of my boxes I think it's a very good, very enjoyable game. I don't like sci-fi, I've never seen any of the films so don't know the back story, I have philosophic objections to collectible card games (admittedly partly based on the fact that I didn't think of such a brilliant money making idea first), and the idea of competition gaming just makes me laugh. But notwithstanding all that, it's a fun game to play. I regard it in the same way as I do most boardgames I play, Eurogames particularly, forget the theme, play the rules; sort of the opposite of the 'play the period not the rules' mantra. There was one slight problem with the scenario design in that the Imperial forces had zero chance of winning (despite sporting some impressively oddly named pilots), but that didn't seem to make much difference.

In other wargaming news, for some unaccountable reason I thought that a female visitor to the Casa Epictetus might be interested in the story of the great base fire. When I showed her the scorch marks she ignored them and went straight for the chariot. "Did you paint this?" she asked. When I replied in the affirmative her judgement was unequivocal. "It's crap." she said. In vain did I point out that whilst it almost certainly be crap when I'd finished it, as all I'd done so far was prime it (for details of that disaster see earlier posts), undercoat it (in terracotta as always) and slap a base coat on the horses and flesh on to the Celts, it seemed a tad harsh to write it off just yet. Sadly, she was unmoved, although she was more complimentary about the home made orange and mixed spice oat cookies.

He got a real pretty mouth ain't he?

I have been too busy behaving badly to give this blog the attention it deserves. ["Tell me," asks the Rhetorical Pedant, missing the point as usual "does that mean you only write it when you're bored?"; to which the only reply necessary is a snort of haughty derision] However, I find myself on a Sunday evening with time weighing heavily on my hands and nothing better to do and so here's a catch-up post.

Nimrat Kaur

James has still been in wargaming limbo - although he is in regions even more remote this weekend having gone off to Scotland to mingle with the great and good of wargaming - and so Peter and I had a few games of X-Wing. I was rather taken with it, being by and large a fan of simple mechanics. I have never seen any of the Star Wars films so can't really comment on the theme and my lack of engagement with popular culture caused me some problems with interpreting what was written on the cards. It was a very pleasant evening, although I do think that the Target Lock action is a bit over-powerful. Normal service should be resumed next week with a look at the fourth expansion of C&C Napoleonics, the Prussians.

Green Bartley

Culturally, I belatedly caught up with 'The Lunchbox' which, while finding a tad close to home, I really enjoyed. And then it was on to see Gren Bartley and his band. Fortunately the heated argument I had with Mr Bartley during the interval, and which continued after the gig finished, didn't in any way diminish my enjoyment of the performance. The subject under contention was the attractiveness - or otherwise - of the music of the banjo. For the record, I side with Mark Twain who of course defined a gentleman as someone who knew how to play the banjo, but didn't. Don't let any of that put you off, the banjo only features on one song and the band - who showcase more palatable instruments such as cello, guitar, violin, piano and percussion as well as terrific vocal harmonies - are excellent.

Don't turn! Don't turn! Don't turn!

I still have no internet, but couldn't not mark the passing of a legend and so, at great personal inconvenience, I have sought out some wi-fi.

"We shall overcome"

As for what you've missed of my life over the past ten days or so, a few highlights:

• It was toast for breakfast again this morning; second day in a row.
• 'La Fanciulla del West' by Opera North (and, in fairness, also by Puccini) - very good indeed.
• 'Gravity' - not a bad film, and definitely a good length
• An am-dram Agatha Christie - bloody obvious whodunit and why, and possibly the worst Welsh accent of all time
• Lots of Seven Years War action. I think the rules are in good shape, but a Command Indecision card is never good news.
• Lots of boardgame action as well, but most notably Viticulture where, in a game about wine producing, I went for a no-wine strategy and came second, finishing level on Victory Points and only losing on the cash tiebreak.

Pot3pouri

I've never seen this film.

Which is why I have used a picture of the wrong robot. Anyway, a few small things to report:

• I saw the latest Star Trek film; none of it made any sense whatsoever. The villain was well done, both as a character and the acting by Benedict Cumberbatch, but that was about it. Complete tosh. The upcoming films in the trailers didn't look much better. I might go and see The Lone Ranger where they seem to have avoided the temptation to develop it as a sort of Pirates of the Caribbean or Raiders of the Lost Ark style action romp. Instead it seems to be a rather sensitive contemplation on the love that dares not speak its name. As the poet Shelley put it: 

                               "Maybe masked man he a poofter
                                 Try it on with surly Tonto
                                 Let me say to mister lawman
                                 Tonto doesn't mind."

• I saw a magic show. I honestly thought that it was going to be a serious discussion on magic versus science, but it turned out to be a bloke doing card tricks. Still, who doesn't like a conjuror? And I'm no exception.
• I saw Seth Lakeman, who I have seen described amongst other things as the Michael Bublé of fiddle-playing. I've no idea what that means, but I suspect it's not complimentary. I thoroughly enjoyed it except for the fact that the show on in the Grand's main house was The Rocky Horror Show. There is possibly nothing grimmer than men wearing stockings and suspenders.

Potpouri

This post has more to do with latent OCD than anything else but here goes anyway:

• Excellent news that Vauban's Wars is going to be played at Historicon. I shall definitely make this a priority as soon as I have somewhere within which to prioritise anything.
• I watched Star Trek, the 2009 version, on DVD as a precursor to a cinema trip to see the sequel next week. I'd never seen it before; what a load of tosh. I thought the original engineer's Scottish accent was bad enough, but Simon Pegg's is worse. He makes Mike Myer's Shrek sound like Kenny Dalglish.
• Oddly - or maybe not - there were some similarities between the plots of Star Trek and the Sherlock Holmes play that I saw the other night. 
• No re-enactors at the Armouries this weekend, but there does seem to be a convention of crusties (think Swampy) congregating outside. I'm not entirely clear why. Then there's the hen party that has taken over one of the apartments opposite mine and who spent all yesterday afternoon on the balcony in their finery (short skirts, sashes etc) shouting down at passing blokes that took their fancy to get their kecks off. Sadly, no many how many times I walked to Tesco, my strides stayed on.

Yet more dressers-up

The Royal Armouries is once again hosting people who like nothing better than to wear fancy-dress, although this lot are, to me anyway, substantially sadder than the comic-book fans. The concourse below my balcony is playing host at the moment to a Darth Vader look-alike (cloak and mask-alike anyway) and a number of those blokes in white armour with ray guns whose proper name escapes me. It does so largely because I have never seen the film - indeed any of the films - and have never had any particular wish to do so.

Having said that, it is surprising how much of the story of the original film at least that I have picked up by osmosis along the way. A few years ago Charles Ross brought his one man Star Wars show to the West Yorkshire Playhouse. I knew that my ex-wife would want to go - unlike me she is a big fan - but I also knew that she wouldn't go alone. So I volunteered to go with her. The show takes about an hour and covers the original trilogy. To my astonishment I followed the first twenty minutes without any problems and even laughed in some of the right places. Sadly, the rest of the show went completely over my head. However, for those who feel the force I would recommend it. Ross, a very good performer, apparently also does a one man Lord of the Rings and I would certainly like to see that.