PotCXXVIIpouri

 It's the summer and, relatively unusually in the UK, it has been summery. I have therefore been out and about, but, finding myself briefly back in the Casa Epictetus, here's a catch-up.

I have been in Glasgow for the second time this year. I still can't understand a word that the natives say, but they seem friendly enough. I went inside a tenement building for the first time and found it to be disconcertingly up-market. Also for the first time I tried a haggis pakora, these days just as traditionally Scottish as tenements. Probably more noteworthy was that I travelled up via the Settle to Carlisle railway, which I had never been on before. It is every bit as scenic as I had been led to believe it would be.

Two things about that photo. Firstly, you can't really see that view from the train itself; for that you're much better off walking the area, which I have done many times. Secondly, I didn't travel on a steam train. I did do so however when I went to see 'The Railway Children', part of the ongoing Bradford 2025 City of Culture programme. The film, the original with Jenny Agutter rather than the remake, which confusingly also featured Jenny Agutter albeit in a different role (*), was shot on the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway (**) and so the day started with a trip from Keighley to Oxenhope on a train pulled by the very same engine saved from disaster by Jenny's red bloomers. Then, in what I assume is an engine shed with a few tiers of seats installed on either side, the performance took place. The action took place mostly on small platforms being pushed backwards and forwards along the track by stage hands. At the climactic moment a steam locomotive suddenly shot into the theatre. Most impressive.

You won't be able to see that because the entire run is sold out. You may however be able to catch 'The Ceremony', although I don't expect it to get a particularly wide release. In my previous post I observed that I had never been to a première; lo and behold, I now have and a Gala Première at that. The shine was slightly taken off things when we reached the end of the red carpet to be greeted by an officious lady with a clipboard who told us, quite accurately, that we weren't on the guest list and should have used the side entrance with all the other ordinary punters. However, by the time she had finished speaking my companion for the evening had already liberated a glass of fizz from a passing waiter and so it was all a bit moot. I very much enjoyed the film, most of which took place not very far from the Ribblehead viaduct pictured up above. It was extremely well acted, visually striking and quite tense. What is it about? Fair question; possibly the fact that there is good and bad in all of us. If you do go and see it then I'd be interested in your view of what all the quasi-mystical stuff with the goat (***) is about.

*      The sequel to the original was also shot on the KWVR and, inevitably starred Ms Agutter, who apparently thereby claimed the record for the longest gap between playing the same character in films.

**    Both Keighley and the Worth valley are part of Bradford

*** It might actually be a ram, reviewers are divided on the subject. 

Bingley

 

Bradley Hardacre R.I.P.

 No wargaming at all going on here for various reasons, and I'm off to the Smoke for a few days tomorrow. In the meantime let's pay tribute to (Bradford born) Timothy West.

Do yourself a favour and watch not just the whole episode, but the rest of the two seasons they made as well.

The Barber of Bradford

 And so to the opera. The last few days have seen the inaugural Bradford Opera Festival, the centrepiece of which was a semi-staged performance of the Barber of Seville, transported to twentieth century Bradford (the sixties perhaps) and with the libretto translated into 'proper Yorkshire'. Naturally, your bloggist was there. Dealing with the last point first, I couldn't help thinking that were I, Heaven forfend, a Yorkshireman then I would have felt rather patronised. However, the packed audience at St Georges Hall, the majority of whom were presumably from God's own county, rather lapped it up. 

I very much enjoyed it: fine singing combined with highly energetic performances combined to easily compensate for the lack of the sort of production values one is more used to. I must, in particular, praise Oscar Castellino who shone in the title role. He has sung with major companies, although I don't think I've ever seen him before. I think I would have remembered an artist whose biography in the programme starts "He was born in a car on a street in Mumbai".

The creators are planning to move on next year to the 'sequel' i.e. Mozart's 'Marriage of Figaro'. My main advice to them would be to get some side title displays in so we can get the full benefit of the dialect and the swearing. Oh, and lose the fourth act.

The Castle in the War of the Roses

 In his - highly recommended - one volume history of the Wars of the Roses, John Gillingham writes "In the Wars of the Roses there were few sieges and only one of any consequence". Despite titling his book "The Castle in the Wars of the Roses", it is sieges with which Dan Spencer is primarily concerned. And, as seems to be the custom among academics, Dr Spencer does not agree with Professor Gillingham. According to him, he "demonstrates the significant role of siege warfare during the Wars of the Roses". So, which is it? For me, Spencer more than adequately shows that there were actually quite a lot of sieges; he names 36, and makes a persuasive case that there would have been others unrecorded by history. However, it's hard to believe that any of them really made a difference; indeed very few of them lasted beyond a few days. As will all writers on the period the author can only go on what records remain, so the book focuses on what we know about rather than what was necessarily important at the time. I would also suggest that there isn't quite enough material to make a full length book, and that there has been a certain amount of padding out with the general military and political background. Still, I enjoyed it and would recommend it to those with a particular interest in the subject, perhaps not so much to the general reader. 

Dr Spencer gave one of the talks in this winter's online lecture series from the Royal Armouries, on 'The Development of Gunpowder Weapons in Medieval England", which at the time of writing is still available on the Armouries' YouTube channel. (As an aside, if you do watch any of those lectures you need to know that nothing happens until fifteen minutes or so into the video; I have no idea why they don't edit them properly.) The things that stuck in my mind from the lecture - and which has great relevance to my ongoing siege gaming - is him saying that in the 15th century bombards would have to be placed no further than 40 paces from a wall to have a chance of creating a breach.

I can't finish without revisiting the Spofforth solecism. As reported previously, in chapter 1 this castle was incorrectly reported as being in Northumberland. However, in chapter 2 we find the Duke of Exeter and Lord Egremont raising forces in Yorkshire at a place called Spofford; Egremont of course being another of those hot-headed chaps in whom the Percy family specialised. He doesn't make it to chapter 3 - spoiler alert - having been killed at the battle of Northampton. However, he does variously feature in the text as both Egremont and Egremond. Do I detect an homage to Hergé from Dr Spencer?

"If my name's Egremont we won't get to chapter 3." "To be precise, we won't get to chapter 3 if my name's Egremond."

Spofforth Castle

 I've started reading 'The Castle in the Wars of the Roses' by Dan Spencer which was published a few months ago. It's been well reviewed, and I shall no doubt bore you with my own opinions in due course. However, I was rather taken aback by an egregious geographical error in the very first chapter. Referring to the Percy Earls of Northumberland, he states that they owned a number of important castles in that county including Alnwick, Warkworth and Spofforth. Surely some mistake?

In fact, Spofforth Castle is, as any fule kno', situated between Harrogate and Wetherby in what in the 15th Century would have been the West Riding of Yorkshire. Indeed it may well be the nearest castle to where your bloggist sits typing this (*). It is of course very closely connected with the Percies, having been the seat of the family from the time that William de Percy came over with the Conqueror until the fourteenth century, when their power grew and they switched their attentions more to Northumberland and the Scottish Marches. 

Its importance to the family is indicated by the fact that Harry Hotspur, the famously impulsive Shakespearean character, was born there; unless he was born at either Alnwick or Warkworth, no one seems to know. It is also possible that Magna Carta was drafted there; but then perhaps it wasn't, once again no one really knows. The one thing I will say with absolute certainty though, is that Spofforth is not, and never has been, in the county of Northumberland (**).

* As readers will have realised long ago, this blog does not run to a team of fact checkers, and I can't be arsed to do it myself, so we shall never know. It is self-evidently nearer than Knaresborough, and intuitively closer than Skipton so I'm going to assume that it is. For the purposes of this exercise the Roman fort in Ilkley doesn't count, and nor, for obvious reasons, does Cliffe Castle. Ripley Castle would, but even as the crow flies that must be further away.

** Before the mid tenth century it would have been in the Kingdom of Northumbria, but that's different.

Yorkshire Day/Schweizer Bundesfeiertag Mubarak

There has suddenly been a flurry of hits on the very first post on this blog from 2012. I fully appreciate that the quality has diminished quite a lot since those days, and so presumably do the discerning readers who have restricted themselves to a single post from eight years ago. At that time I blogged fairly frequently about being a wargamer who didn't game. Why then, now I am in the same position of not gaming, am I not blogging about it? (The rhetorical questions were much better back then as well.) Rhetorical or not it's a good question, especially as Ilkley, which we must now learn to refer to as the hypocentre of wargaming in the lower Wharfe valley, has been suddenly locked down again, implying that there will be no quick return to the table. In the somewhat arbitrary nature of the way in which the UK government is behaving (which you will correctly interpret as a euphemism for 'it's a complete shitshow') the place where your bloggist blogs has not been affected beyond me having to wait another couple of weeks should I require either an intimate waxing or to go ten pin bowling. For the sizeable Muslim population in the areas which have been re-restricted it has been a much bigger issue because yesterday was Eid al-Adha (and a belated Eid Mubarak to them); it was a bit like telling most people on Christmas Eve that they couldn't have lunch with their relatives the following day.

A little piece of Switzerland in Yorkshire

I haven't seen any strong protests from those wishing to celebrate Yorkshire Day (which is today of course) by scoring a few strikes or by having a Brazilian, but no doubt the locals will be consoling themselves by telling anyone who will listen that the face masks are bigger in God's Own County than they are anywhere else. Eid, which means 'feast' in Arabic, also means 'oath' in German and today is also Swiss National Day celebrating (near enough) the day in 1291 when three cantons swore the oath of confederation. Sadly, when you look at it in detail, Swiss National Day turns out to be even more of a recent and contrived invention than Yorkshire Day is, on top of which Yorkshire is bigger. God, I'm starting to go native.

This mask is not from Yorkshire

So, to wrap up, here's Rossini via Yorkshire with some memorable music about a Swiss terrorist/freedom fighter:

Ask a silly question...

"Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers." - Voltaire

So, the somewhat throwaway question that I asked yesterday was: when was the last time that any nation apart from Israel won a war against a significant foe unaided?

Not being particularly busy at the moment I have pondered some more on the subject and the main conclusion I came to was that as a question it lacks a certain precision. The word 'unaided' almost inevitably opens a 'sorites paradox' type fuzziness. The question explicitly makes clear that the support which Israel definitely received from the US during its wars doesn't qualify as aid, but probably implies that the support that North Vietnam received from the Soviet Union and China does. You pays your money and takes your choice.

The sunny weather having disappeared from Yorkshire, and pouring caustic soda down the drains not having taken as long as I thought it would, I then exercised the little grey cells over tea and biscuits and had some further thoughts:

• The whole of the period between 1792 and 1815 counts as one war. If you treat it as separate wars you get into all sorts of debates as to when one stops and another starts. It doesn't matter anyway as there is a later candidate.
• The Mexican-American War might qualify; I don't don't know enough about it to decide whether the Mexicans count as a significant foe for the US at that point. It doesn't matter anyway as there is a later candidate.
• The Spanish-American War doesn't count because the US were supporting, and fought alongside, local liberation fighters. The fact that they shafted their allies as soon as the war was over is irrelevant for this purpose.

Which leaves the best, heavily-caveated, answer that I can come up with to my own rather vague question as - the Russo-Japanese War. Feel free to disagree and/or tell me to get a life.

Light relief

"This is peculiarly an age in which each of us may, if he do but search diligently, find the literature suited to his mental powers." - P.G. Wodehouse

And also, I would suggest, suited to whatever emotional and psychological state in which we find ourselves. I myself have retreated to the Blandings novels of Wodehouse, from the first of which that quote is taken. I do still read the newspaper, of necessity concentrating on the bits about the various incompetent, delusional and self-obsessed leaders in whose hands we find ourselves, and the not unrelated fact that we're all going to die. However, I also actively seek out those few articles which offer a complete distraction from current worries, and so was extremely pleased to find the story in today's Guardian about Amanda Liberty.

The piece reported that Ms Liberty, a young lady from Leeds who is engaged to a chandelier, had failed in her complaint to the Independent Press Standards Organisation after being nominated for a Dagenham Award by a columnist in one of the tabloids. (For those not familiar with the London Underground, Dagenham is three stops past Barking) It would seem that while the media are forbidden to mock people because of their sexuality, that only applies when the object of the their affection is a person and not, well, an object.

This is all very amusing - except possibly for any innocent light fittings in her vicinity - but what really grabbed my attention was the dawning realisation that I had met the lady in question, and indeed had recorded the event in this very blog. It would seem that she adopted her current surname whilst in a previous relationship with the Statue of Liberty, a period when, as I saw with my own eyes, she would go about her everyday business dressed up as her beloved. The people of Yorkshire are, as they are always pointing out to anyone who will listen, not quite the same as those from elsewhere.

2 Chronicles 21:14

Your bloggist is a notorious Billy No-mates, and is therefore as psychologically prepared as anyone for self-isolation. But just to be sure I have put some cultural fuel in the tank to see me through.

Opera: I saw Opera North's excellent new production of Kurt Weill's 'Street Scene'. They have a real flair for musical theatre and for his work in particular. I wish they would revive their production of 'One Touch of Venus'. I also saw OperaUpClose's 'Madam Butterfly'. It was set in modern Japan and the scenery was quite reminiscent of the poor neighbourhood in 'Parasite' if you've seen that. As usual with that company I really enjoyed the small scale and intimacy, but - and it's a big but - they changed the ending. How can you change the ending of Madam Butterfly? I also saw a concert featuring various Baroque works including Purcell's 'The Yorkshire Feast Song', which was apparently commissioned for the annual dinner of the London Society of Yorkshiremen in 1690. Clearly the bastards have been banging on about how wonderful they are for centuries; although now I've written that I don't know why I am in the slightest surprised. Also on the programme was Handel's 'Eternal Source of Light Divine', a setting of the poem by Ambrose Philips. Whilst Philips was no great shakes as a poet, he was the original 'Namby-Pamby'; don't tell me this blog isn't educational.

Theatre: I saw a very fine, very dark version of 'Oliver Twist', by Ramps on the Moon, a company which mixes D/deaf, disabled and able bodied actors in productions which build captioning, sign language and other forms of accessibility right into the fabric of the show (see here for their version of 'The Threepenny Opera' - also, satisfyingly, composed by Weill) . In a way this production was the opposite of colour blind casting, with the actors' deafness being the crucial link that held Fagin's gang together. The Artful Dodger teaching Oliver to sign was as central as teaching him to pick pockets. Bill Sykes is one of the most terrifying characters in literature and drama, and the effect is only heightened by him not speaking. Also up was a really different take on 'Pride and Prejudice' with an all female cast giving us the sweary version that one must assume Jane Austen would have written were it not for all those boring nuances of etiquette in place at the time. I won't write a review (read this one if you're interested),  but it was just brilliant and laugh out loud funny all the way through.

Film: Jane Austen popped up in the cinema as well, with the current take on Emma being well worth watching. I thought that they managed to capture the essence of the characterisations - notably Mr Woodhouse's hypochondria - without reams of exposition. I mentioned it above, but 'Parasite' is obviously rather good, in an Alfred Hitchcock sort of way. Whether it's the best film of the last year or so is less clear. I also caught up with 'Rocketman' and thought it was great. It's fascinating that it and 'Bohemian Rhapsody' tell stories with some similarities of narrative and theme in such different ways.

Let's finish with some music to cheer us up. This is Townes Van Zandt and 'Waiting Around to Die':

Pot88pouri

I'm off to the seaside, which is a completely normal thing to do in late October in the UK, so just a quick post before I go. Fiasco has got its usual half-hearted response from bloggers, but personally I think they are  missing the point. The consensus seems to be that it's not worth travelling a long distance for, and indeed it isn't; it's not that sort of show. But for those closer at hand it's a chance to see (and sometimes play) some games, chat to some people and buy some toys. All that, plus an excellent (and free) military museum in the same place. On the downside the lighting is crap and the parking is expensive; you can't have everything. Somewhere with better lighting and free parking is Recon, which actually takes place somewhat closer to the Casa Epictetus than Fiasco does. We don't put on anything there there because, amongst other things, it is mainly participation games, and that requires levels of imagination and interpersonal skills way beyond anything that we possess. The next one is December 7th.

James and Peter arrive at Fiasco

A trip to a wargames show involves certain rituals, one of which is that James will inevitably regale us with a story of some misadventure which befell him in the past, usually when he had been on the sauce. This time's tale seemed to be cat related - the details were a little vague - and involved him falling from an upper storey window, sliding down a sloping roof and thence to the ground. Thankfully he landed on his head and so no harm was done.

Let's finish with some Be Bop Deluxe. They were, of course, from Wakefield, so what better than 'Adventures in a Yorkshire Landscape':

Having a hard Bard time

“Shakespeare is a drunken savage, whose plays please only those in London and Canada.” - Voltaire

I have finally caught up with a screening of the NT Live (or, in my case, not particularly live) broadcast of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' from the Bridge Theatre. It was excellent, well worth the five star reviews it got, and I say that as someone completely over whose head sailed various pop cultural references as diverse as television talent shows and Game of Thrones. Among the things that critics raved over were the fairies portrayed by gymnasts dangling from ropes, and the fact that in a reversal of gender roles it was Oberon who was duped into falling in love with an ass. Last year at the pop-up Shakespeare's Rose Theatre in York they put on a production of the piece in which one of the fairies was a gymnast swinging about on ropes (and incidentally very impressively performing the plank on the balustrade of a balcony) while Oberon was played by a woman and Titania by a man. Like all four shows there that summer it got few reviews and those that it did receive weren't very good. Are the press biased towards the capital? [That's not a rhetorical question; it's one with a bloody obvious answer] Or perhaps it's because the Rose was quite openly a profit-making venture rather than being part of the subsidised sector. I have to tell you that the Rose have had the last laugh regarding that latter point: they have lost so much money on their second season that they have gone bust.

Audiences were significantly down year on year (as anyone who lives in the UK knows, the weather in 2018 was belting and in 2019 it wasn't), but one punter remained faithful and again saw all four plays performed throughout the summer. Actually make that two because the elder Miss Epictetus, having graduated with a 2:1, was able to join the ageing parent for 'Twelfth Night'. We both enjoyed it very much, with its fine female Malvolio, as is de rigueur these days. Hamlet (female Horatio obviously) and the Tempest were done straightish, and were all the better for that. The latter was directed by Philip Franks, a man who used to get paid to kiss Catherine Zeta Jones and whose career has, inevitably really, been on a downward spiral ever since. The play with the most obvious production twist was Henry V, which had the warrior king played by a woman. That worked fine, but the costume choices were a bit odd. Everyone was in modern dress except Maggie Bain in the title role. She started in medieval garb, moved on to be - apparently - dressed as Nelson before ending up in modern dress uniform. Presumably they were making some sort of point, but whatever it was ended up being undermined by the fact that she looked disturbingly like Michael Jackson.

Anyway, unless someone else picks up the idea and has a plan to draw in bigger crowds to an open air venue at the mercy of the Yorkshire weather, I'm afraid it's probably run its course; which I, and apparently only I, regard as a great shame.

"There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so" - Hamlet

Pot85pouri

There are various reasons for my continued absence from regular posting, one being that the sun is shining and in Yorkshire one is never too sure for how long that will continue so there is a big incentive to make the most of it. One other reason is that there is absolutely no wargaming going on at all; I'm not sure why, but no doubt it will kick back in eventually.

In other news I have an update on search terms that have led people to the blog. I am pleased to say that we have had a visitor searching for 'Swedish Women's Volleyball Team'. Someone after my own heart obviously. Mention of athletic young women reminds me that it was the 210th Otley show last weekend. I have no photographs of the Young Farmers Ladies Tug-of-War, but I do have one of a giant tortoise.

I have been questioned as to whether I did anything even vaguely Shakespeare related while I was in Stratford-upon-Avon. Well, I went on the tourist bus round all the sights, but my memory of it is somewhat overshadowed by my having foolishly chosen to sit on the open top deck despite the unsuitable weather and ending up blue and shivering; you will understand why we lap up the sun when it does appear. I had the option of seeing 'The Taming of the Shrew', but to be honest I don't really like it very much. The elder Miss Epictetus and I did see the RSC's 'Romeo and Juliet' earlier in the year and found it to be very average. For the record I have also seen 'Antony and Cleopatra', 'Richard II', 'Hamlet', 'As You Like It' and 'Much Ado About Nothing' so far this year, so one more wasn't going to make much difference. The pick of those was Tessa Parr's female Hamlet, but I must mention Conrad Nelson's excellent farewell directorial effort for Northern Broadsides 'Much Ado About Nothing'. Set in WWII in what appeared to be the Kent of the Battle of Britain it featured all the trademark music and dancing we have come to expect. I do hope that the new regime doesn't change things too much.

Hot Club de Yorkshire

Hello again compadres. I trust you have all been as hard at it as me. Not that any of Epictetus' activities have involved wargaming as such. Indeed the only remotely exciting thing to happen in the annexe has been that I have solved the long-standing problem of how to get the dehumidifier to work in the low temperatures experienced in this part of the world during the winter. I did this by buying a dehumdifier specifically designed to work in the low temperatures experienced in this part of the world during the winter. As so often, your bloggist can't help thinking that there is some sort of learning point arising, if only one could tease it out.

A chap with a beard

There has been one of those occasional wargaming/real life cross overs when my companion for the evening and I bumped into Peter (and Mrs Peter) at Settle, out in the Dales. We were all at the Victoria Hall, oldest music hall in the world still in use, to see Martin Taylor and Martin Simpson. I have mentioned the latter a number of times (most recently here), but didn't know much about the former beyond his being some sort of jazz guitarist. It transpired that he spent some years in Stephane Grapelli's band in the position once held by Django Reinhardt; so a bit more than just another jazz guitarist then. It was an excellent concert and it was a real pleasure to watch people so absolutely on top of their craft. Simpson has recently lost his father-in-law, the political folk singer Roy Bailey, and sang a couple of emotional songs in tribute including one by Robb Johnson. I knew Robb quite well back in the day (the story of the occasion when I was the cause of him not visiting Palestine hereby officially joins the long list of those for which the world must wait a little longer), a fact which I suppose places me a step closer to various of my musical heroes. Taylor's contribution to the name-dropping involved conversations with Scotty Moore, which with all due respect to Robb, is a bit better than mine.

A lot of name-dropping (and the associated game of how many handshakes one is from the greats) is one of the connections with another gig I went to in the unlikely surroundings of a room above a pub in Ilkley, that by veteran bluesman Kent DuChaine; a man who played with, amongst others, Johnny Shines; who was in turn a man who knew and played with Robert Johnson. Another link was that Duchaine played 'St James Infirmary Blues'  on his National Steel Guitar 'Leadbessie' and Martin Simpson didn't, but usually does (which is sufficient for me). The great Catfish Keith also plays such a guitar and the similarities were often apparent, especially when DuChaine played in a Bukka White stylie (it's something to do with the tuning, but beyond that I can't help you). White was (sort of) the cousin of B.B. King and there was an implausible anecdote about King and a golf cart, along with others about Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters. It's implausibility which gives us the last crossover between the two gigs. DuChaine claimed, with a straight face, that his most recent wife (of five?) was an exotic dancer from Settle. All I can say is that if she ever performed in Yorkshire in November then she did it indoors.

Ilkley, the movie

Readership of this blog has fallen to an all time low (and many thanks to both of you for persevering) which may be why no one has asked any questions about the film entitled 'Ilkley' that is being made in Ilkley and is apparently about, amongst other things, Ilkley.

Reading the programme for the upcoming Ilkley Literature Festival (no surprises that there is a session on J.B. Priestley or that I intend to go) reminded me that the film is supposedly set at the event and made me wonder if they would be shooting at any of the sessions. It turns out that they shot it in February and March and that it is currently in post-production. One can only assume that they are using CGI to add in the vast crowds who will soon flock to the Kings Hall, the Clarke-Foley centre, the Ilkley Playhouse etc etc and who weren't there earlier in the year. In fact if the dates I've seen for location shooting are correct viewers will leave the cinema with impression that there is always several feet of snow in Ilkley in late September.

As well as starring Sir Derek Jacobi, as mentioned in my previous post on the subject, it also features Roger Allam and Anna Maxwell Martin. She at least actually comes from Yorkshire; we shall have to reserve judgement on the others' accents until we hear them.

Still no news of toy soldier content, but it's not looking very promising.

Bear up and steer right onward

"To be blind is not miserable; not to be able to bear blindness, that is miserable." - John Milton

The reason for my absence is a rather mundane one: I have broken my glasses. The reserve pair are OK for distance, but not so good for close up; using the computer has to be rationed, and this blog is frankly not much of a priority. I may be gone for some time.

Let me leave you for now with a couple of photos whose quality has definitely not been improved by my not being able to see very well. The Tour de Yorkshire has been through Otley, twice in fact. This is a little bit of the women's race and a lot of the back of the younger Miss Epictetus' head: 

And this is the first of this year's English asparagus to reach the Casa Epictetus, served on buckwheat pancakes with anchovy, garlic and chilli breadcrumbs. For the record I overdid the chilli:

Alors, mes amis, à bientôt.

Progress Industry Humanity

The town in which I live is part of Leeds and for the most part that's where I go for entertainment and intellectual stimulation. However, I live on the border with Bradford and this weekend has seen me attend events celebrating two of its most distinguished sons.

On Saturday I made one of my infrequent returns to the University of Bradford, the place where I took my first degree, on this occasion for a talk on the time theories of J.B. Priestley. I won't attempt to reproduce what was discussed, which you would be correct in interpreting to mean that I didn't fully understand it. There were names bandied about that I'd never heard of (J.W. Dunne, Ouspensky), haven't read (Proust - shameful but true) or regard as complete charlatans (Myers and Briggs). Still, the main point at issue was that Priestley was a first rate writer, is unjustly overlooked and was ahead of his time. His influence can clearly be seen on novelists such as Borges and Burgess and on playwrights like Stoppard and Ayckbourn, and he was an early explorer of concepts later seen in works as diverse as E.T., Catch-22, Groundhog Day, Sliding Doors and The Purple Rose of Cairo to name just a few. The speakers recommended a range of works which apparently illustrate his interest in the possible circularity of time, but I have chosen to buy 'The 31st of June' on the basis that the panel said it was very funny. I shall report back. I also have to mention that I rather regret not having also been to the session before ours, which featured lots of brightly clothed Nigerians playing drums.

Today saw celebrations to mark the 80th birthday of David Hockney. The weather was nice, a big crowd turned up, there was a wide choice of food (I went for Tilapia and Jollof rice, perhaps still regretting missing out on the Nigerian drumming) and loud music; judging by the playlist DH is a fervent disco fan. There was even a large birthday cake representing his large work Le Plongeur, which is the cornerstone of the excellent new Hockney Gallery at Bradford's Cartwright Hall.

The other notable feature was a Hockneyfication Station where those with a more frivolous nature than your bloggist could be transformed into lookalikes of the great man.

Paths are made...

 "Walking is man's best medicine." - Hippocrates

I promised that my next blog posting would be about wargaming; a promise that I never really had any intention of keeping. Maybe tomorrow. I haven't mentioned my illness for a while because all that has been happening is that I have been steadily getting stronger. Although I have to have a follow-up scan in a couple of weeks, in my mind at least I am recovered. To check this out I have been out for my first walk in the Dales for some months. Both my fitness and my thermal base layer passed the test.

Winter is here

Malham Tarn - the highest lake in England

Très bien

We reconvened last night in the legendary wargames room after a short break. James had dotted his cloth - it's an old Yorkshire dialect term - and so we had a crack at To The Strongest! for the Punic Wars. The dots were not at all visible to the casual glance - indeed I occasionally found them hard to see whilst actually looking for them - and the combination of unit strength and base size filled the squares to overflowing, meaning it didn't really look like a normal grid game (pictures here).

That link also leads to historical details of the battle in question - Trebbia in 218 BC - and scenario details. Having won the draw to choose sides I went for the Carthaginians because they have elephants. Having now played it I would choose Hannibal again because the Romans are never going to win in a month of Sundays. The elephants, needless to say, did nothing of any value; their only real contribution was to trample one of the Carthaginian commanders as they ran amok after being fatally wounded. The cavalry on the flanks were more successful, and Mago's ambush put paid to any remaining hope the Romans had.

The devil is in the detail in wargames rules. The Polybian Romans seem to cause much angst among those with any understanding (real or imagined) of the period and James had a new rule hot from the author regarding the legionary Hokey-Cokey which is at the heart of the debate. It seemed to my uneducated eye to deal with the issue satisfactorily, and certainly maintained the simplicity of the overall rules while adding a bit of chrome to playing the Romans. It is this simplicity that appeals to me, plus the element of push your luck of course. Like all the best wargames and boardgames the real secret is to discipline yourself to not do the things that don't matter.

Girlfriends Day

August 1st is, apparently, Girlfriends Day. Twenty four hours seems a bit short for that to me, but at least it takes the focus away from Yorkshire Day, which is also today. Normally I try to be out of the county, but I have failed this year. Whoever decided that the locals require a formally designated day on which they are encouraged to tell everyone how great they are, needs their head examining. So I shall hide inside (it's just about to piss it down anyway) and produce the ever-popular monthly list of boardgames played. Before I do that, I just have time for Yorkshire's motto: "You can always tell a Yorkshireman, but you can't tell him much".

6 nimmt!: A pretty random card game, but it passes the time.

7 Wonders: I actually had a bit of a strategy this time, but was undermined by the selfishness of my neighbours in not building the resources that I needed to use. I got my own back though by going heavy on military in the third age and stuffing their chances of winning.

Abluxxen: An interesting card game that packs a lot of strategy and choices into a short game.

Broom Service: I enjoyed this more than the previous time - which wasn't hard - but despite it winning awards it's not for me. It revolves around pre-programming one's moves in advance, but there is, for me, too little chance of them actually happening.

Cosmic Encounter: I like this, but the development of each game rather depends on the mix of races in play. I also don't really understand players who settle for a joint win. Where's the kudos?

Five Tribes: I think this game, like many others, is actually rather spoiled by the ability to purchase special powers during play. I do however like the mancala mechanism. At the risk of repeating myself there are not five tribes involved.

The Grizzled: As always we failed to get our soldiers to survive the Great War. I do recommend the game though.

Kryptos: Hanabi meets Game of Trains, but not cooperative. It was OK.

Mission Red Planet: To successfully exploit (NB not explore) Mars one needs to anticipate the moves of other players, which often proves a step too far for me.

Mysterium: I like to leave enough time between plays of this to forget why I don't like it. On the plus side the English version is better than the original Polish version.

No Thanks!: This is still a nice quick push-your-luck game and I still push my luck too far every time.

Notre Dame: Enjoyable, thinly themed (it's the 14th century and it's Paris, but there appear to be Hansom cabs rolling about) drafting game with a bit of area control.

Peleponnes: A peculiar spelling, but nothing like as odd as the way my fellow players were pronouncing it. This is a fine, if brutal, game where one's carefully built (and paid for) buildings and people are laid waste periodically by plague, famine, earthquake and so on. I rather like the twin track scoring with one's position being determined by the lower.

Perfect Alibi: I normally like deduction games, but I couldn't get my head round this one. The special roles (which basically don't only allow one to lie, but actually mandate it under certain circumstances) meant that I had no idea what on earth was happening.

Red 7: Nothing much more to be said about this excellent little game.

Robo Rally: This is not dissimilar in mechanics to Colt Express, but doesn't have that game's sense of fun. It also goes on too long.

Sail to India: This is a clever little game and excellent value for money. There are a lot of possible different winning strategies.

Stockpile: This is a stock market game with some clever mechanics and one which I'd like to play again. I think all of us consistently underbid during the auction phase.

Via Nebula: I'm going to reserve judgement on this one as it subsequently transpired that we weren't playing it properly. Who'd have thought it?

I need also to point out that perhaps for the first time ever I chose to sit out and play nothing, because all that was on offer was the truly dreadful A Fake Artist Goes to New York.