To Keep the Body in Good Health is a Duty...

"I'm not afraid to die, I just don't want to be there when it happens." - Woody Allen

Over the years this blog has charted its writer's various experiences with illness, physical injury and dental emergency. Last Thursday I managed to achieve all three in one day. I suppose it saves time.  I am mostly recovered - ongoing physiotherapy aside - and the only lasting impact probably comes from something my GP said to me. "Don't worry," he reassured me "this has nothing to do with your ticker.". Naturally, I had never previously given a moment's thought to the possibility that there might be anything wrong with my heart. Cue hypochondria on a heroic scale. 

'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.

In a short time, this will be... a long time ago

The cinema hasn't featured in my life much recently, but suddenly I've been twice in fourteen hours. Firstly I saw 'Slow West', a western from last year that will appeal to anyone who liked Tarantino's 'Hateful Eight'. It's leisurely and amusing, interspersed with bloody violence. Look out for some literal visual interpretation of proverbs; I spotted 'salt in the wounds' and 'giving an arm and a leg'. Then, by way of a change, I went to see Woody Allen's latest 'Café Society'. It's set partly among 1930's New York organised crime gangs and so there is violence here as well. In what I thought was the one thing wrong with what is otherwise a fine, if typical, Allen film, the violence is made a source of amusement and somehow our hero is allowed to drift through untainted by it. There's nothing revolutionary about this film - the other setting is golden age Hollywood as already seen this year in 'Hail Ceasar' and the main theme of the film isn't that dissimilar to that in Ayckbourn's 'Relatively Speaking' which I saw at the theatre the other week - but it's highly enjoyable. The elder Miss Epictetus with whom I saw it - she leaves for pastures new on Wednesday - assures me that Kristen Stewart is a lot better here than in the Twilight films, and Jesse Eisenberg gives a pitch perfect impersonation of Woody Allen.

And staying on the gangster theme, here's an in memoriam tribute to the great Prince Buster

Sunk without trace

"My wife was immature. I'd be in my bath and she'd come in and sink my boats." - Woody Allen

We convened at James' last night for some more galley action and were joined for the first time by Paul, an experienced wargamer who has just moved into the area and who we had made contact with at the Derby show. Sad to say he clearly didn't enjoy his first game in the legendary wargames room, but frankly I could see where he was coming from.

James had translated the War Galley board game to the tabletop and there were certain immediate improvements on top of the obvious aesthetic one. The ships, being metal, stayed where they were supposed to be, and with his usual assiduity he had made any number of markers. The only cardboard tokens remaining were the little chits for the squadron commanders and so the problem of small printing and old eyes had also disappeared. However, the complexity remained.

As readers will know we often play Piquet, which is a reasonably involved set of rules. At any particular point a unit could have markers defining quality, losses, morale status, command status, whether it was loaded, whether it had fired at all, whether it had acted on the current card and probably others I have forgotten (Interestingly, this isn't the bit about Piquet that people complain about; it's always the command and control rules.). So I'm used to relatively complicated games. But for some reason this game seems to have a very high ratio of faffing about to the amount of fun generated. And, ironically perhaps given my own acceptance of the swings of initiative in Piquet, it seemed to me that the whole game would probably hinge on who won the initiative on the first turn when the fleets had closed to ramming distance; in other words, on one die roll.

There was a further issue which bothered Paul, who had neither played the board game nor read the rules before, and which on reflection I think was a perfectly valid point, possibly obscured to those of us who had played with paper and cardboard. In that version the ship tokens fill the hexes, meaning that the eye automatically accepts the rule that ships cannot pass through a hex containing another ship. Except, of course, when they can. There is a special diekplous rule that allows pass through of fleets facing each other head on under certain conditions. The rule is justified with reference to the actual tactic of the same name employed by the Greeks, but a moment's reflection will tell you that the real reason is that without it the game is broken. If both players deployed their ships in close packed lines of adjacent hexes then nothing could or would ever happen. On the tabletop the ships do not fill the hexes, and the space to either side gives some visual explanation as to how the diekplous would have worked. However, it also raises all sorts of expectations that interpenetration ought to be possible under other, less restricted circumstances. When Paul made his point, the best justification that the rest of us could come up with was that it was what the rules said; rather unsatisfactory I'm sure we'd all agree.

So, points to reflect on:

• These rules are not a hit with me as they stand
• Having said that I still think hexes are definitely the way to go for galley warfare
• As James himself pointed out, now the hexes are on the table they'd work well for WW1 aerial games
• I hope that Paul rejoins us for a game more to his taste; some FoB Punic Wars perhaps.

Le Cirque Arrive et Puis S'en Va

Otley has been preparing for the Tour de France for weeks now, with yellow bicycles popping up everywhere and even the pubs being renamed in French. Nonetheless I was somewhat taken aback when I stepped out of my front door at 7am on the day of le Grand Depart to go to buy the papers and found a group of people on the pavement outside sitting on camping chairs and drinking coffee from Thermos flasks a good five hours before the peloton was due to pass. It steadily grew from there and I doubt if Otley has seen so many people since Cromwell's troops drank dry Le Taureau Noir on their way to fight at Marston Moor.

My house or, as we now say in Yorkshire, chez moi lies directly on the route and so I had a good view of the whole thing, or at least I would have done if it hadn't been for all the other people selfishly blocking my bit of pavement. The main event of the day may be the race, but it rushes past so quickly that there's not much to say about it, and anyway I for one am somewhat cynical about, how can I put this, whether the professional athletes involved have fully embraced the Corinthian spirit. The publicity caravan on the other hand is a spectacle and doesn't pretend to be anything other than grubby and money-making. For some reason watching cars full of grinning and waving young men speeding past followed by police cars with sirens blaring called to mind an amusing episode from many years ago involving an altercation with the special branch bodyguard of then Northern Ireland Secretary Merlyn Rees, only this time with a lot more free promotional merchandise being thrown into the crowd.

The publicity caravan attacks the accessible viewing area with Otley Chevin in the background

In any event, and until I get round to writing up that story, back to le Tour. The spectators weren't entirely sure what to make of the mobile adverts rolling past and some of them didn't get much of a cheer; 'boucherie de veau' anyone? Having said that, a series of floats promoting McCains frozen chips was met with complete indifference as well and they're a Yorkshire company. My own personal favourite was the enormous Robinson's Fruitshoot which resembled nothing so much as the giant tit that escaped in Woody Allen's 'Everything You Wanted To Know About Sex But Were Afraid To Ask'.

fin de course

So, that was it then. Someone remind me what happens after the Lord Mayor's Show? How about some Johnny Cash.

Cegorach

As Woody Allen said "If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans". I have now transferred all of my wargaming junk/goodies from the garage of the former marital home to the wargaming annexe. Having decided not to even think about Constantinople I naturally find that I have painted far more Ottomans than I remember including a number specifically equipped for escalade.

Well, I thought, perhaps not Constantinople per se, but perhaps a smaller example, such as that featured in Ismail Kadare's 'The Siege'. However, nowhere among my boxes of scenery can I find any walls. I definitely used to have some, but they aren't there now. Bugger!

Still, as a great philosopher - OK it was Epictetus - once reflected: "He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things that he has not, but rejoices for those that he has".

Donald Featherstone

Well, I certainly didn't intend to post about death again so soon. I was watching 'Annie Hall' with my elder daughter yesterday - an attempt to counteract years of anti-Woody Allen  prejudice from her mother - and, as you will no doubt remember, the subject crops up frequently therein. Diane Keaton's Annie refers to 'Death in Venice' and in the ensuing conversation she complains that Allen only ever buys her books with death in the title. Allen replies to the effect that death is a serious business. Quite so.

I am not a religious man. By and large I'm with Marx on this subject (as with a surprisingly large number of other subjects, especially given what I do for a living) when he wrote "The first requisite for the happiness of the people is the abolition of religion.". However,  I envy the religious the strength their faith gives them during bereavement and, whilst I cannot share their belief in an afterlife, I often share the sentiments they express, but in a less literal way. And so when Conrad Kinch writes of Donald Featherstone that "In death he is reunited with those that were taken from him in life" I simply say "Amen".

Donald Featherstone's books gave me immeasurable pleasure both when I was young and upon re-reading more recently. I, like most of us, have moved on from the specific rules, but not from the enthusiasm engendered and for that I thank him. I also honour him, as I do his comrades-in-arms, for being one of those who served to defeat facism and save the world. And furthermore I note with no surprise at all that like many successful people he achieved that success in two completely disparate fields; in his case the other one being sports physiotherapy.

Marx also said that "Religion is the impotence of the human mind to deal with occurrences it cannot understand." and perhaps death is therefore the exception that proves that rule. For surely it is the knowledge that we shall at some point die that above all separates man from other sentient beings. As Hamlet says "if it be not now, yet it will come". As well as my own recent family bereavement, there have been a series of deaths of people that I only knew by their work and reputation and yet whose names I instantly recognised: Heaney, Frost, Jacobs and now Featherstone. As one read about their lives and the impact that they had made on others one common thread came across - a kindness and generosity with time and support. It seems to me quite clear that their success in life was not achieved despite this attitude, but because of it. By being nice to others, they caused others to be nice to them. If I were founding a religion then I might adopt that as a rule for my adherents to live by; one could do worse.

International Tabletop Gaming Day

In honour of this event it seems to me that most appropriate actions that I could take are to neither game nor write about it. So be it.

Today's re-enactors are some sort of medieval entertainers. There is a stilt-walker (which always impresses me) as well as a jester in a costume that makes him look like he is buggering a monk. I've no idea whether that is deliberate or not.

Last night I went to an evening with James Fearnley, best known perhaps as being the accordionist with The Pogues. I went because I was keen to learn about what was life was like with the band's charismatic and famously out-of-it front man and also how they came to record 'Fairytale of New York'. I wasn't disappointed on either count. I was however somewhat surprised to find that other members of the audience appeared to have gone along so that they could tell the speaker what life was like on the road - sex, drugs, rock'n'roll etc - apparently oblivious to the fact that he'd done it and they hadn't. Add to that one chap who seemed to have led a similar lifestyle to Shane MacGowan and with the same consequences, but who put it down at great length to the fact that he was a chef, and I got a bit irritated.

 

Beard, but no teeth