Dwarfs v Goblins

A return to normal Tuesday gaming with Crabro today, after the Easter hiatus. We continued with our Battlelore marathon, this time with some Iron Dwarfs set on the tall banner side against Don Pedro's forces aided(?) by a bunch of permanently frightened goblins.

In the first game I played Don Pedro's side and was surprised to find that my goblins were not running away in panic as much as I was expecting. ...They were getting slaughtered however.

With nothing much left on the right flank I tried to gain some banners on the other flank but ran out of steam there. In the end I decided to use a "Blue Banners" card to make some sort of mass attack and confront the dwarfs I feared (not only were they permanently bold and therefore ever ready to "battle back" but they were defending from hills). In the end the outcome was as I had always expected, a loss however the score was very close. I think 6-4 or even 6-5.

A game of BattleLore in progress. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)t

After lunch we changed sides and I was surprised to find that, despite some silly mistakes on my part, I was poised for the whitewash - 6-0. At this point I made possibly my silliest mistake and ended up setting up an attack on a lone figure...from my own army. I don't know whether I would have been successful in getting a banner elsewhere or perhaps I could have rescued this unit if I had played a different card. At any rate Crabro pounced and got a consolation banner for his troubles. I then managed to finish the game at 6-1. Crabro was most complimentary about the win, saying I played the side far better than he did. This was very kind, as was his allowing me to roll the extra dice allowed by a card in one move, after I had forgotten to take them. In reality it felt as though I had been very lucky.

Either way it was excellent fun as usual and we both look forward to moving on to including magic (the "lore" in Battlelore) next time.

Head of Trajan (reign 98–117 CE), from an oversized statue (around 2.70 m height). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The remainder of the day was used in setting up and learning another Stefan Feld game: Trajan. We didn't have time to actually play it after that but we have a head start for next time. We have high hopes of this after enjoying Feld's other games so much, and it looks very good indeed.

An Old but Happy Medium

Bullets Over Broadway (Image via RottenTomatoes.com)

Friday film night returned at the "Rialto" despite Arthur having been a bit under the weather of late. He declared himself to be "fit as a #*&$@ing flea" but declined to join in with the beer this week and so washed down the now traditional melton mowbray pork delicacy with some apple juice. I stuck to the Spitfire ale.

This week one of the films of choice was only available in our archive in VHS format so we hastily added an old tape player to the Rialto's projection system and decided to make it a double bill of tapes.

First up was a classic: The Green Man. This is one of those wonderful comedies that Alistair Sim made his own and of course also starred a young George Cole who regarded Sim as a kind of father figure. Several other comedy regulars from the era pop up including Brighton's own Dora Bryan as the Green Man's landlord's wife and the rotter's rotter: Terry Thomas.

Alistair Sim is up to no good in this delightful farce, and planning another in a succ

Alastair Sim (Image via RottenTomatoes.com)

essful line of assassinations. He specialises in bumping off the pompous and is intending to do away with an MP who it turns out is trying to have a dirty weekend with a mousy typist in the true "Mr and Mrs Smith" fashion. Despite the fact that he doesn't seem to merit saving, vacuum cleaner salesman Cole and a young lady with an unsuitable boyfriend whom he comes across as the result of Sim calamitously botched machinations set off to "The Green Man" to foil Sims' dastardly plan. I don't think I'll be giving too much away to say that it has a happy and romantic conclusion but along the way there are plenty of opportunities for farcical confusion and some splendid facial contortions on the part of the continually thwarted Sim.

The second part of the VHS double bill was one of our favourite Woody Allen film's: Bullets over Broadway. Both of us agree this is somewhere in the top ten of Allen's output, perhaps even top 5. Although Allen himself is not in this one, his trademark humour shines throughout a classic script by him and co-writer ahem. The cast is marvellous and includes the wonderful Diane Wiest, Jim Broadbent, Chaz Palmentiri and stars John Cusack. For all of them I would say this is one of their best performances.

Jim Broadbent at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The screenplay also gives Woody a chance to say a few things about art and the compromises needed to allow its creation. It says a lot about selling out and questions the division of man and artist. Can you love the artist and not the man or vice versa? I'm always asking people to divorce the two when looking at Allen's work and to judge it separately from their opinion on him as a person so it is particularly apposite in a film written and directed by him.

The plot revolves around a play written by struggling "artist" playwright John Cusack who finds that the

John Cusack Berlin Premiere of 2012 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 only way he can get his play on Broadway is to have it funded by a mobster, who insists that his uneducated chorus-girl moll be given a large part in it. Chaz Palmentiri ("Cheech") is his strong right arm, ever-ready to rub someone out on command. He is set to see that "Olive" is treated right by the playwright and cast but while he is hanging around the theatre watching rehearsals another less fatal talent is revealed: He has a better instinct for writing plays that work, than Cusack.

Wiest is a fading star who is conscious that she has "legend" status and doesn't want to acknowledge that she is no longer offered roles. Broadbent is marvellous as a great British actor who is "on the wagon" from an over-eating disorder but falls off in a big way at the same time as falling for Olive in a very perilous one. There are some great lines and some nice throw away bits of humour. The world of literature and art is a closed book to Olive and while she is talking in her dressing room, fellow thespian (Tracy Ullman) looks round the door and in the nicest possible way reminds her that in the scene where she is supposed to be quoting Hamlet it's "or not to be".

Dianne Wiest (Image via RottenTomatoes.com)

There's some marvellous stuff with the expanding Broadbent and between Cusack and Wiest amongst others but I don't want to give too much away.

This was a great double bill of classic comedies and opens up the possibilities for plundering a wider archive of old films by including the VHS format in which, despite a large cull a few years ago both Arthur and I still have quite a large number of titles.

Ouzel Pretty Boy Then?

Friday continued the return to normality with a birding trip. This time I was whisked to the foot of Cissbury ring and, although the journey over was misty, and the temperature cool enough for gloves and woolly hat on the gentle ascent to the ancient hill fort on top of the South Downs, it was sunny and got hotter as the time moved on.

The reason for our visit was mainly to look for the elusive ring ouzel, which I had failed to see before at Newhaven. After wandering around a bit and looking at likely spots we came across a small group of people with 'scopes pointing in the same direction.


Following the line of sight it was clear we had found our quarry. He was obligingly sitting in good view and didn't seem inclined to move despite all the lenses pointing at him. I got some good views of him through my mentor's 'scope and took some pictures the clearest of which is here. This was a thrilling encounter for me and a life tick.

 We continued our wander in and around the earthwork of the second largest hill fort in the country and sat on a bench looking out over Worthing six hundred feet below to eat our picnic. By this time it was a glorious and hot sunny day and there and subsequently on a short walk round Beeding Brooks it became clear that I was extremely over-dressed. The gloves were long gone and the woolly hat exchanged for the "birding hat" with its geeky collection of bird badges. Ignoring the old adage "Cast ne'er a clout till may is out" I cast as many as I could without offending public decency. I'm not complaining but it isn't easy to dress for birding if you start off needing gloves and end up in shirtsleeves.

Other birds seen included chiff-chaff and willow warbler, buzzard, kestrel, linnet, jay, very bright yellowhammer, green woodpecker (in flight), blackcap, skylark, pheasant and the usual assortment of robins,tits and corvids. At the Brooks this time there was only a moorhen, mute swan and a couple of greylag geese so we didn't stay too long. We also saw some orange-tip and brimstone butterflies and numerous fat furry bees amongst the cowslips etc.

It was a beautiful day on top of the Downs and would have been very pleasant just to have a picnic there: The ring ouzel made it very special however.

Huugo-o and Waaru

 Things got a bit back to normal on Thursday as most of the Saltdean Gamers turned up with a surprise addition: Former member of the group, and MaOldie's son, "waaru".










Despite Crabro being out of the country this meant we were up to six players again but a harmonious split was quickly agreed and while Ma, Petra and MrWendell played Village,  ProfMudlark and I were shown how Agricola should be played, by waaru. The scores were 48 to waaru, 34 to the Prof and I trailed in last on 30, This is by no means my worst score
although I had felt that I was heading in that direction.






As both the bigger games finished more or less at the same time we were all able to join up for a final filler and an old favourite was chosen: Midnight Party. Perhaps I had learned something from calling "Huuugoooo" during nearly forty games because I actually won this one. A very pleasant evening. Nice to see waaru again and also good to give my copy of Agricola an outing again.

Grumbletrousercon 2012

Most of the last week was taken up with a visit from an old friend and ex-room-mate: "Grumbletweezer".














As usual on his annual Spring visit he brought with him a number of games and his bicycle, so we went out for my annual short ride, just to show we did get some healthy exercise, and having got that out of the way we spent the rest of the days playing board games and co-operative video games, watching films and documentaries, eating and drinking. Being Easter, the eating included chocolate and hot cross bun and Grumbletweezer conceived the genius notion of combing bun with bacon. Delicious! While out on our bike ride we managed a little birding, although the tide was well in and there were few of our feathered quarry about. We saw a few of the resident kittiwakes at Splash Point and among the usual suspects also came across a linnet, skylark and a surprised yellowhammer who hopped out into the open on a bush right in front of me.

The board games were Memoir '44, Dungeons and Dragons: Legend of Nerath (kindly hosted by the Goldstone Gamers who also fed us royally), Sid Meier's Civilisation, War of the Ring, Incursion and Wizard's Quest. Grumbletweezer likes games of the type he describes as "Dudes on a map".

The video games were Return to Castle Wolfenstein and Lego Star Wars and much hilarity was had as we tried to co-operatively win a podrace fueled by unacustomed amounts of le plonk blonk.

Since I often indicate how well or badly I do at these games: I won both sides of the Memoir scenario, won one (shortened version) of Sid's Civ, was on the losing team at Nerath with Saharasweeper against Paultro and Grumbs, won one each of our two games of Incursion and of War of the Ring and lost the final game: Wizard's Quest.

These annual visits always go ridiculously quickly and serve to remind me what fun we might be sharing if we didn't nowadays live 200 miles apart.

Close-Fought Battles

 This week Tuesday games began again with our beloved box of toys: Battlelore. This time the scenario had begun to move toward fantasy and the forces on the side I initially played included a number of goblin mercenary troops whose main aim in life seemed to be to panic and run away. At the beginning of the game I advanced the footgoblins of this flank but then ran out of cards for that flank, not to get any more until the penultimate move of the game. Meanwhile Crabro, ever expert on taking advantage of blocked retreats and now of terrified goblins pushed and pushed at this flank eventually wiping out all but one unit. Crabro one this side of the scenario by quite a margin (I think 6:3).

On changing sides for a while things seemed much the same and Crabro quickly collected 3 flags. I managed to pull back a little but this time again he wiped out my right flank. This time I had managed to rescue a couple of the banners and move them into the centre behind other troops nevertheless as things moved on he had five of the six banners needed for victory and there were three almost destroyed units seemingly poised for annihilation in the centre. The cards began to turn against Crabro at this point and allowed me a solid push down the left flank towards his goblins. With both of us on five banners I managed to destroy one of these weedy goblin units which was trapped against the side of the board and secure a face-saving victory. Nevertheless the overall win for the two sides of the scenario was definitely Crabro's.

After lunch we decided to give Stefan Feld's Castles of Burgundy another play. This time we were armed with a useful player aid which detailed the building and knowledge tiles. We also played different maps. As we suspected, although we made heavy weather of our first game, once we were more familiar with it we found it to be another very satisfying part of the Feld canon. The game was very close with me leading the points for much of it. As Crabro added up my score at the end, I realised  from his tone of voice and desire to see my points on the board first that he was confident of victory. I put it to him that I could tell he knew he had the victory and he confessed "By a long way". Totalling up his bonuses, especially that for having sold all the different colours of goods, it proved to be true and his marker motored comfortably past mine. Still it wasn't too huge that it changed the fact that it had felt like a close-fought contest. Very enjoyable and I hope we will play it again now that we are playing fluently.

With some time to spare we played a couple of games of Cribbage. Always nice for us old fogeys to have a handful of proper old-fashioned playing cards. This time I won the first game and Crabro the second for an honourable draw. A nice conclusion to a very enjoyable games day.

My Goodreads comments on "Half Blood Blues"

Half Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

One of the best of my 2011 Booker shortlist reads. This book totally engrossed me and the characters live on, as if real, in my mind. This is no mean feat considering that they are black, mixed race, Jewish and for part of the book at least living in Berlin and Paris in the 1930s and 40s. They don't have my experiences or speak my language but they are as familiar to me now as if I had really sat down with them and talked.

Possible Spoilers Ahead!

While we are sadly familiar with the fate of Germany's Jewish population under the terrible reign of the nazis, the black German residents' experience of the era is less well documented. In this case we follow the members of an above average jazz band in Berlin in the repressive era of nazi rule. The band includes Germans and some of American background. Some are white, some mixed race, some from financially privileged upbringing. They are united in a passion for jazz. In particular we are concerned with drummer "Chip", "Hiero", an extraordinarily gifted trumpeter, and our narrator Sid the very good but less angelicly talented bass player. Along the way we also discover the fates of the rest of the band but our main interest is these three and their hopes,fears, loves and jealousies. The narrative alternates between Berlin and Paris at the beginning of the war and Germany and Poland in the 1990s as Sid, believing Hiero to have died in a nazi camp, and Chip travel to a festival commemorating the work of young Hieronymous Falk and the premier of a film of his life including revelations about the band and Hiero's fate.

I don't want to give too much away but another key figure and the object of the love of members of the band is Delilah who is close to one Louis Armstrong, a strong incentive for the band to try and get out of Germany to Paris where they are to get the chance of cutting a disc with the satchelmouthed legend. The love of 'Lilah and the desire to record with Armstrong exerts a powerful effect on our Sid.

The novel is about betrayal, or perhaps betrayals of more than one sort, and ultimately perhaps about redemption and forgiveness. I found it a stunningly gripping read and the bringing to life of these unusual protagonists, as well as the realising of a believable jazz musician's Berlin and Paris of the era, is a great achievement. One of the best of the short list for me, perhaps second only to The Sisters Brothers in giving me a pleasurable and satisfying read.

View all my reviews