1 part PVA: 4 parts water

"You know, if they didn't have the model train, they wouldn't have gotten the idea for the big trains." 

- from 'A Mighty Wind'

And so to the theatre. I have been to see LipService ("The Laurel and Hardy of literary deconstruction" according to the Guardian) perform their new show 'Strangers on a Train Set'. This piece spoofs a whole series of train related films, although - presumably deliberately - not Hitchock's 'Stangers on a Train'. The parodies were framed by the concept of model railway enthusiasts demonstrating their layout, with the small figures that they placed on the table acting out the scenes and even in the end developing a level of self-awareness. And speaking of self-awareness, it was, shall we say, interesting to sit in an audience which was laughing at the idea of sad middle-aged men who seek to escape real life by recreating a world in miniature and by engaging in debates about the accuracy and authenticity of their models. I consider myself fortunate that I don't know anyone like that.

Peter and James realise the infantry's buttons are the wrong type of brass

It was all very funny, with non-anorak targets including 'The 4:50 from Paddington', 'Brief Encounter', knitting and the blue colour of energy drinks (apparently the secret ingredient is woad). I did wonder if one or two of the jokes weren't perhaps too niche for a general audience. There is a scene in which a character who has been bashed about by a rooftop chase along the train is removed for running repairs and then finds himself clutching a paintbrush much larger than himself and complaining that he mysteriously smells of varnish, which I found very amusing, but seemed to baffle my companion for the evening. Even more arcane perhaps was their take on 'The Railway Children'. According to them the landslip which causes Jenny Agutter to wave her underwear about was caused by the modeller using the wrong ratio of PVA glue to water and the cat litter therefore not sticking to the side of the hill properly. We've all been there.

Une autre amende honorable

So it seems as if the scoop regarding the founder of Bitcoin was at the Hitler's Diaries end of the investigative journalism spectrum. I hope that all of you who thought that it represented anything positive about the losers who play with toy trains are now seriously embarrassed. You should be ashamed of yourselves.

It was off to the Leeds Meeples today for games of Apples to Apples, Village, Race for the Galaxy and Ice Flow. Village is a pretty bog standard worker placement game; it passed the time nicely, but didn't make me want to rush out and buy it. Race for the Galaxy was better (as in I won), but not enough interaction between players (as in none at all) for the average wargamer. I also won Ice Flow as usual.

Size does matter

There is a fascinating story on the front page of the Financial Times today concerning Bitcoin. You will recall that the founder of the virtual currency has always been known by the name Satosho Nakamoto, a pseudonym for either one or possibly several shadowy computer wizards lying low somewhere in the world. It now seems that the founder was indeed one man whose real name is, in fact, Satosho Nakamoto and he lives quite openly in Los Angeles. So far so unsurprising.

The real revelation as far as readers of this blog will be concerned is that Nakamoto is a model railway enthusiast. Not only that, but his motivation for creating the digital money was his annoyance at foreign exchange charges whenever he ordered trains from the UK. Now, perhaps wargamers might not feel particularly close to model railway enthusiasts, but I suspect that the general public might lump us all together and that therefore we should perhaps take the opportunity to exercise some bragging rights. Modelmakers united at the forefront of the tech revolution.

Someone, a woman for sure, once said "The reason that men like to make models is because they think that if they miniaturise the world they will be able to control it". The female view is quite the opposite; as evidenced by Georgia O'Keefe "I decided that if I could paint that flower in a huge scale, you could not ignore its beauty".