Pot79pouri

You will all be seriously concerned that I am going to review in great detail the whole of my cultural life during the period of enforced absence from the blog. Happily even I am not that cruel. There were of course many highlights in the 3 operas, 12 plays, 4 gigs and 2 films that I managed to squeeze in because, thankfully, my long vision was unaffected by the spectacles debacle. However, 2001; A Space Odyssey wasn't among them. I'd managed never to see this before so was keen to catch the 50th anniversary restored print on the big screen. Dear, oh, dear; what a load of old rubbish, and I don't exempt Leonard Rossiter's Russian accent from that criticism. Does anyone know why the astronaut doing the EVA flew the small pod further away from the bit he wanted to repair than he was prior to launching it before getting out to spacewalk back? No wonder the AI thought it had a chance of winning.

I shall instead mention a few which actually are worth, er, mentioning:

• The post-Bazza Northern Broadsides' funny and poignant version of 'Hard Times' with all the usual music and dancing.
• Noel Coward's 'Nude With Violin', which demonstrated that the master had a similar view of modern art to me, but also rather disappointingly demonstrated that he couldn't think of any wittier way of expressing it than saying "Anyone could have painted that" over and over again.
• An amateur production of the musical "Sweet Charity" that gave the young(ish) mothers of Ilkley the chance to unleash their inner dance hall hostess, with frankly terrifying results.
• 'Celebration', a Waterhouse and Hall play that not only did I much prefer to 'Billy Liar', but which to anyone like me who grew up in a large extended working class family in the early sixties was as if one's past had come back to life.
• English Touring Opera's very funny take on Puccini's 'Gianni Scicchi'

Boardgaming is also difficult if you can't see (especially given that I can't tell the difference between colours half the time anyway), so mostly I didn't bother. I did however join a few of the erstwhile Ilkley Lads for a game of the new reprint of Medieval. The game was punctuated by one of the players regularly falling asleep before waking up to demand to know what was all that stuff going on with removing map tiles from the board. For those who haven't seen it, removing map tiles from the board is in fact a major part of the game. Despite that - and only partly because I won - this game is highly recommended and is hereby added to Epictetus' list of boardgames that will appeal to wargamers. Another game on that list is Condottiere, which I have previously bigged up here only to find out that it was out of print. Well there is good news as it is being reprinted, including rules for a new 2-player variant. Details - except sadly for the timetable - can be found here.

And no post at this time of year would be complete without one of these;

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.

Four farting bedposts

"I love traditional instruments, though of course they are anachronisms. Satellites run around our planet, but we still play bassoons. It's ridiculous!"

- Witold Lutoslawski

One of the drawbacks of cultural pretension is that on occasion one's bluff is called. A new acquaintance of mine suggested that I was just the sort of chap to enjoy the lunchtime concerts at the Leeds College of Music. I could hardly refuse without giving the game away, especially when it was explained that entry was free, and by the time she mentioned a bassoon quartet - which would apparently be 'fun' - it was too late to back out. Admittedly at that point I naively assumed that description meant something along the lines of three stringed instruments plus a bassoon. But no, what it meant was four of the bastards all in one place at one time. Why? Who on earth thought that was a good idea? One plausible explanation is that they have to play together because no one else will play with them; and now that I've written that down I realise it sounds very much like every group of wargamers from H.G. Wells onwards.

Speaking of which, I have not yet posted how the Seven Years War pontoon bridge game ended. Well, we won, but without honour. It wasn't a terribly good game overall, but had some interesting moments. My own favourite - which I'm sure other rule sets could achieve as well, but is the sort of thing at which Piquet excels - involved a unit of Prussian infantry marching into contact with a Russian battery. The guns obviously fired, but achieved nothing; the infantry shot at point blank range, but caused no hits; the guns reloaded and shot again; the Prussians fired several times with no result. We - James and I role playing as incompetent Prussian generals - missed a chance to melee because we were focused on a nearby cavalry fight that was going badly, and in the end the Russians calmly limbered up and rode off unscathed. It rather summed up the game.

Anyway, back to the flatulent woodwind. The Genovia Quartet, for it was they, turned out to be not only younger, better looking and more female than any wargamers that I have ever met, but also very talented. I'm not saying that it didn't occasionally sound like halls of residence the morning after eight pints and a vindaloo, but they kept that element to a minimum as they puffed their way through a programme ranging from Mozart via tango and thirties jazz to a specially composed piece that - assuming I understood the charming Spanish lady's accent correctly - was about a hypothetical duck. I both enjoyed it and wondered what it would have sounded like with a different mix of instruments; well, with any mix of instruments at all really.

"The wind
Tempestuous clarion, with heavy cry
Came bluntly thundering, more terrible
Than the revenge of music on bassoons"

                                - Wallace Stevens

Sadly I have no photos of either game or concert, so here is one of my ceiling:

And here is a pre-season warm up of asparagus, buckwheat pancakes and poached eggs:

Pot69pouri

Well, I don't have much time for the royal family normally, but I think HM has played a blinder this week; which is more than can be said for TM the hapless PM. The Daily Mirror has also hit some form;

I used to work in the Mirror Building, back when both Fleet Street and I were in better shape; remind me to tell you all my Robert Maxwell stories sometime.

In other news I have been to see Vieux Farka Touré, the 'Hendrix of the Sahara'. I couldn't see any similarity between them myself beyond the fact that he played guitar, and, as the big bouncy woman pointed out, that is probably the absolute minimum. If I had to make comparisons - which I don't but I will - I'd say that he was the 'Robert Cray of the Sahara'. Whatevs, as the younger Miss Epictetus would say if she ever spoke to me, he and his band were very good. I have no idea what he was singing about - they spoke to each other in French, addressed the audience in very broken English, and sang in what is presumably a language native to Mali - except perhaps for the song entitled 'Ali', which I assume was dedicated to his father, the late Ali Farka Touré. However, I enjoyed it as did the audience of mainly aging hippies dad dancing in the aisles throughout.

He was on at the Howard Assembly Rooms, which shares a common entrance with the Grand Theatre. Currently showing there is Mama Mia, which made for some interesting contrasts in the queue for bag checks. It also provides an excuse to include a photo of Agnetha; though who needs one?

There is also no reason to explain the appearance here of some asparagus. That's crème fraîche with dill and jalapeño peppers on the right.

Gently does it

"Asparagus inspires gentle thoughts." - Charles Lamb

Hail to asparagus

The Casa Epictetus once again has both heat and hot water, and not a moment too soon because, despite it being spring, we have once again been hit by a hailstorm of Biblical proportions. I watched it from the comfort of the Boathouse Café in Lister Park, but sadly there was no one stranded out on the lake in the pedal boats. Anyway, as it is spring certain things have returned. This being Otley, one of them is Morris dancing; this bunch are the Buttercross Belles:

On a happier note the first English asparagus of the season has arrived. To celebrate I went with sweet potato and ginger mash, pan fried tomato with onion and basil and, of course, poached eggs:

Pot41pouri

As well as being behind in reporting boardgames played, I have been remiss in recording my experiments with asparagus. Therefore let me present sweetcorn, sweet pepper and bacon.

Jonathan 'Palouse' Freitag has asked me to justify my assertion that it's harder to get the tactics right in grid based games (as an aside, his blog is well worth a read, with some quite lyrical non-wargaming posts; although those of us living in the 21st century might be puzzled by measurements expressed in feet and degrees Fahrenheit), but I'm not entirely sure that I can. My view is based on the fact that James, Peter and I struggled somewhat at first with C&C and appear to be doing the same with TtS!. Inasmuch as I have a theory, it is that grid based games afford far fewer options, because movement is in discrete  chunks and there are typically fewer range bands. In a traditional game some infantry may be able to move say 20% further than others in a turn; in a grid based game they all move the same or one type can move twice as far. The same goes for differences between weapon ranges. Game designers therefore seek to represent the smaller differences that can no longer be built in to movement distances and ranges by other unit specific mechanisms. It's the use of these rule nuances that I mean when I say tactics.

And here is a photograph of a large Dalek making its way along Kirkgate. There is no panic among the townspeople.

And yonder all before us lie

I have set up a Romans vs Ancient Britons game to have a crack at Basic Impetus. I would like to have taken some decent photographs, but sadly it would seem that my camera is unlikely ever to return. (One which subject, anyone who found it following the Otley Show should understand that all those photos of the ladies tug-of-war were taken in admiration of their athletic prowess and for no other reason) We must therefore make do with some blurry efforts taken on my phone.

The terrain on either side of the battlefield is for aesthetic effect. In particular the river at this end is solely for the purpose of creating a space for the umpire to put his ginger beer and the rules.

Roman ballistae on a precision, laser-cut template which only looks like a bit of cardboard painted green because of the limitations of the photography.

Some Airfix chariots, painted many, many years ago and never before seen on the table-top. Note once again the deceptively cheap looking unit footprint template.

I intend to have a solo run through at some point over the next few days while listening to the ODIs vs New Zealand. In the meantime here is some asparagus with a hash of sweet potato and chorizo.

It is not the healthy who need a doctor

"It is in moments of illness that we are compelled to recognise that we live not alone, but chained to a creature of a different kingdom, whole worlds apart, who has no knowledge of us and by whom it is impossible to make ourselves understood: our body." - Marcel Proust

I have been ill again. I checked my symptoms online and came to the conclusion that I had malaria. Fortunately it can only have been a mild version because after a good night's sleep I am recovered. Indeed I am recovered enough to cook and eat this lot: asparagus, sweet potato and leek hash topped with fried egg, caramelised rhubarb.

I was invited to Headingley by a business contact to watch the cricket, but was equally rapidly uninvited. I wasn't as miffed as I might have been because the weather has been truly dreadful here in what the locals insist on calling God's Own County. If they weren't Yorkshiremen I would suspect them of having a sense of irony.

However, the second test has been the catalyst for my magic hat to be taken down from the peg for its first outing of the 'summer'. It still works.

Pot40pouri

"Surprises are foolish things. The pleasure is not enhanced, and the inconvenience is often considerable." - Jane Austen
  
Our refight of Chotusitz completed - or near enough for everyone's satisfaction - and Frederick won. Having said that, I think it's a very good scenario and the Austrians have a pretty fair chance of winning. To do so, their commander needs to be more sensible with his cavalry on the left than I was and the grenzers who occupy the town need to inflict a bit more damage on the Prussian reinforcements; neither of which is beyond the realms of possibility.

I have been to the latest exhibition at the Henry Moore Institute featuring works by Carol Gove and Carlo Scarpa. It is absolute rubbish. 

I travelled to London last week, my first trip since the reprivatisation of the East Coast Mainline route under the control of Virgin Trains. My return train was cancelled, and I was advised by Virgin that any delay over thirty minutes entitled one to compensation and, this being the case, I duly did. My claim has subsequently been rejected on the basis that, and I only paraphrase slightly, there is nothing to do in Leeds at that time of night anyway so what difference did half an hour make. 

Asparagus has been cooked again, this time with bacon lardons, poached egg and pine nuts

Asparagus officinalis

If this blog had any readers I would apologise to them for my absence. I have had what medical professionals would describe as a stinking cold and have been laid low over the bank holiday. However, I am almost fully recovered and back to what passes for normal life around here. At the moment that seems to consist of searching for the best recipe for serving asparagus, always bearing in mind that I cannot eat dairy produce. The current favourite is lemon and garlic roasted asparagus with herby tomatoes, but I've also had great success with chorizo accompanied by sweet potato cakes with spring onion and ginger.

Returning to the ostensible theme of the blog, there has also been some wargaming in the legendary wargames room of James 'Olicanalad' Roach, after a hiatus caused by genuine illness on the part of his wife and some epic scale hypochondria from him. He has blogged about the game here and we will finish it off tonight, so I will simply say that considering the terrible dice that I threw and my appalling cavalry tactics on my left flank I am remarkably well placed. I don't have very much morale left though so another defeat seems all too likely.

I shall therefore celebrate rising from my sickbed by bringing the world up to date with boardgames played.

Cosmic Encounter: An oldie but goodie. Who wouldn't want to conquer the universe?

Factory Fun: A very off-putting name for a game so loosely based on factories one wonders why they bothered. Good game though.

Fleet: An interesting, if somewhat lightly themed, game. It was basically accounting and so I won.

Ice Flow: A favourite of mine, spoiled on this occasion by the fact that I didn't win.

Letters from Whitechapel: A one-against-many cooperative game where acting as policemen we chased Jack the Ripper through the streets and alleys and across the rooftops of the East End. I'm not sure where the letters come in to things exactly. I enjoyed it, and we caught the fiend while I was directing operations so I have to declare it a good game. Trivia note: I was born in the area represented by the playing map.

Pandemic: Contagion : A competitive version of Pandemic and all the better for it. Players take the part of a deadly virus attempting to wipe out humanity; suits me.

Pastiche: The game revolves around the painting of old masters. It's very pretty, but not terribly coherent.

Russian Railroads: I enjoyed this despite it being a worker placement game. I'd play again and would be able to deploy a better strategy next time.

Skull: I love this game to such an extent that I have been out and bought a copy. I'm rubbish at it though.

Sushi Go!: Very lightweight card drafting game that didn't do it for me.

Waggle Dance: Bees make honey - very entertaining; at least until with the game all but won I put one of my worker bees on the wrong spot because I wasn't paying enough attention and so lost. Hubris indeed.