Canalysis Paralysis

Canal Mania again tonight with the Thursday night game group (minus MaOldie this week).

I had a look at the second edition rule book and discovered that it was the same as the first edition in many areas where it had appeared to differ. The reason being that we had played it wrong the previous week.

All in all it didn't have a huge impact on the game as I was last again. The game took all of 3 hours to play with long periods of inactivity between turns this was at least partly because of an outbreak of chronic Analysis Paralysis on the part of the Professor.

It was a pleasant evening full of banter and bad jokes but, although I enjoyed it over all, there were times when waiting for my turn when I felt like screaming. There is only limited opportunity for pre-planning in the game anyway because by the time it is your turn, the contract or build cards you coveted may have disappeared into someone else's hands.

What is the secret of my lack of success in this game (apart from Saturday night's game)? I seemed to have the same number of contracts completed so I can only put it down to failing to maximise the goods movement score.

Splash and Dash

Got a call that my mother was going to be in the area but with only a short while to be able to join her I decided to double my annual number of bike rides of the last few years and 'cycle down to the coast to see her.

Surprisingly, a few pumps saw the tyres at full pressure and everything else seemed in order. Before too long I was sitting with my mother and a fellow painter friend of hers outside a natty little beach hut. It was a very hot day and the sun was dazzlingly reflected off the metalic-looking sea, but it was pleasant sitting under a sun shade with some slices of cake and a cup of tea.

Having put the world to rights and helped a little with the Telegraph cryptic, I wandered along to Splash Point to see if there were any avian activities of note. It was quite sad to see the tiny ledges of the cliff devoid of the frantic busy life the Kittiwakes had brought to it earlier in the year, but amongst the Herring Gulls dotted about the weed strewn low-tide rocks was a nice Grey Heron which was some compensation.

Image via Wikipedia

The ride home was made a little tedious by the tendancy of the saddle to suddenly tip backwards but I had taken the precaution of bringing a spanner with me and eventually brought it back under control. As usual I am now thinking "I really should keep the riding up"...but I probably won't.

Fish Fever

Image via WikipediaI forgot to mention that last week's Friday Fish and Chips Film was Fever Pitch. This time my film night friend not only brought fish and chips with him but some very nice raspberries and a couple of bottles of beer. He also had with him a handful of DVDs, two of which were based on Nick Hornby novels.

We are both fans of Mr Hornby's writing and in the end chose to watch one he also wrote the screenplay for:: Fever Pitch, which is a hymn of praise to the obsessive love of football. I think the main reason we chose it was that it had been some time since we had seen it, and it was very enjoyable to become re-acquainted with Colin Firth's Arsenal crazy teacher.

Image by CielChen via Flickr

 
I will now re-watch High Fidelity, the other Hornby novel-based film, as my friend has lent it to me. I remember being pleasantly surprised at how well the film had traveled after re-locating to America but I think I recall that it was something of a labour of love as John Cusack was a big fan of the book.

Unhappy Landings

Tuesday games and a return to Borgdom with another Memoir '44 scenario: This time bloody Omaha beach.

The Axis forces were well dug in behind sandbags, in towns and bunkers upon or behind a bluff and rows of wire and anti-tank hedgehogs.

My turn as the Axis forces first and even though from my point of view there seemed to be a great many Allied infantry and armour units, I had no great difficulty in holding them off from my defensive vantage points. Artillery gave me range and bunkers ensured that for the most part the Allies were only rolling one dice. At one point I did roll six "tank" symbols in a row when I was firing at infantry but in the end I took very little damage while gaining my six flags.

Crabro did manage to penetrate beyond the bluff and briefly occupy a town to take its flag but forced to move and give it back I believe it ended 6-1 although Crabro remembers it as 6-2 which would be nice as that is exactly the result when the roles were reversed and I had to try and get my men out of the sea and off the beach. It was a very challenging scenario and for that reason fun and satisfying to play.

After lunch we attacked a new Martin Wallace another favourite designer, particuarly of Crabro's. The game was "A Few Acres of Snow" and the setting the battle for control of North America between the French and the British redcoats.

It took a while to understand the large number of different actions available to each of us and get used to the different make up of the card decks available but it quickly began to flow and was a big hit with both of us. We are looking forward to playing it again.

Despite the board and pieces at first suggesting a standard two player  wargame it actually has a Dominion-like deck-building mechanism at its heart which made it very interesting to us. Although this was essentially a learning game we did score it at the end and at first thought that Crabro had one by a single point. We then noticed that we had not taken into account the village I had captured in a raid and adjusted the scores making me the winner by a single point.

A very close day, pretty much an honourable draw across the board and very enjoyable indeed. Roll on a return to both these games.

Canal Mania

This week I hosted the group's Thursday games again and Crabro brought over Canal Mania.

This proved to be very enjoyable and superficially like, for example, Ticket to Ride.

"It's not a train game" insisted Crabro as he placed a game end trigger marker with a picture of Stephenson's "Rocket" on the score track.

While I grasped the rules and enjoyed the mechanics something about strategy had clearly eluded me as I was a very distant last at the end of the evening. I have to admit to not being very happy about that as, despite being a good (and frequent) loser, I don't like being uncompetitive. I am perfectly happy to enjoy a game without being the victor but I do like to feel that I am giving my opponent(s) some sort of a run for his/their money.

Perhaps this was in my mind when I requested that my other friends play their copy of Canal Mania with me on Saturday night. In fact it was my turn to supply the games but because of a last minute change of plans necessitated by a call for assistance by my historian stepmother, I would have had to lug a lot of games around all day on bus and train.

Instead I carried a few fillers and after a magnificent meal as usual there, we settled to canal building.

It was immediately obvious that there were considerable differences between this version and Crabro's and subsequently we discovered that the Saturday game was 1st edition while the Thursday gamers used the 2nd edition. There are some cosmetic changes to the board graphics, more copies of the player aid and the boats have become less like tugs and a little more like a canal boat...or a Clyde puffer maybe.  There are also some deeper changes including the removal of a route and colour changes to towns, the addition of length-two "wild card" contracts for each player as well as changes to the scoring.

Final positions with this blogger as green

Whether these changes or experience or simply less tiredness were factors I don't know, but I felt more confident during the Saturday game and while one of my hosts had a good lead in the early stages I hauled them in and ended up a fairly convincing winner. "It's Ticket to Ride on water" was the verdict of Paultro in contrast to Crabro's opinion. I would be happy to play it again but my hosts considered that it was too long and imagine it will be some time before it hits the table there again.

My good fortune didn't continue on to the filler as we then had two games of Diamant and I didn't win either.

Without Stint or

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Sabine's Gull (juvenile)














A rather less successful but nonetheless pleasant birding trip yesterday. The main object was to try and see the Sabine's Gull at Newhaven and having failed that to investigate the possibility of Little Stints at Arlington.

We spent some time on the beach to the west of the harbour where the gull had been seen several times in the previous days but this time, neither we nor several other brother birders saw anything of the Sabine's.

There wasn't a lot else going on either apart from the usual gulls. A Curlew flew across and a number of Rock Pipits were flitting about above the pebbles.

Once it became fairly clear that the Sabine's was not going to appear we moved on to Arlington Reservoir and walked right round it before stopping at the picnic area for lunch. Nothing spectacular here either but it did get off to a good start with a number of wagtails (Yellow and Pied) in the 'scope near the farm.

At the water's edge there were numerous Canada Geese and within the bounds of that flock also a Greylag, a Grey Heron and oddly, a Bar-headed Goose presumably an escapee from somewhere. As usual there were a few Great Crested Grebes about and we also came across a Common Sandpiper. Above us skimmed Martins and a Swallow. In addition my companion also saw a Wheatear, a Woodpecker, Longtailed Tits, Bluetits and a Great Tit - All of which I either missed or saw briefly as a silhouette as it left.

After lunch we tried our luck at Splash Point and the nearby beach but it was devoid of Kittiwakes and only harboured a group of Cormorants, some with wings outstretched in characteristic pose, and some distant Oystercatchers.

Returning from the beach we had a cup of tea and reconvened the "Railway Film Club" to watch "Oh Mr Porter" a somewhat creaky but still wonderful Will Hay film from the late thirties.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Governess

 

Back to Brighton Marina again where I saw two new films on Tuesday, both based on popular novels with all the baggage that entails: comparisons to previous film and television versions as well as the perception of the original book.

WARNING POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD

That was more of an issue with the first film for me as it was Jane Eyre and I've not only read (and loved) the novel but have a friend who is a fanatical lover of the tale and has inflicted many film and TV versions on me as VHS and DVD.

Image via WikipediaI still await the definitive review from her but until I'm told what to think about it I must say I believe I enjoyed it and given that it's always a problem to cram a book into the limited time available for a film I think they did a good job.

Derbyshire looked nicely misty and atmospheric and the various stately homes acted their parts very convincingly. The change to the chronology, which I had been warned about, was far less jarring than I expected and not a problem for me although I'm still not sure it was actually warranted as it takes us straight into seeing Jane distraught when we don't know enough about her to care.

When I heard that neither of the main characters, iconic figures of English literature, were to be played by an English actor I certainly had reservations but, while I can't believe there aren't English actors capable of playing the parts, I did find them to be perfectly good in the roles. In fact I was very taken with Mia Wasikowska's Jane as she was very much the Jane of my own imagination.

I was far less sure about Michael Fassbender's Rochester and though he was perfectly adequate he didn't quite match up to my mental image of the man. For a start he clearly is a pretty good looking chap whereas the qualities of the original Rochester are far less obvious, at least in Jane's early acquaintanceship with him.

The whole "mad arsonist woman in the attic" part of the plot seemed somehow fairly lacking in intensity but that may just be a symptom of over-familiarity with the story. The other problem for me was the abrupt ending. While I would not expect to see the whole epilogue up there on the screen Rochester already seemed in good shape at their post inferno reunion. Indeed it would seem that prolonged exposure to intense fire and a building falling on him had just resulted in a bit of looking away syndrome and attack of beard growth. "Hello it's me again". The End.


I shouldn't complain too much though, as I enjoyed it a lot, loved Jane and still found it moving at times, especially the proposal.




The second film was Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, as you may have worked out from the title, and this was not such a problem as I have to confess to my shame that I have never read it or any Le Carré despite having three other of his works in my To Be Read heaps.

The cast is top notch and at the head of it is Gary Oldman's George Smiley. While Sir Obi Wan Kenobi is a very hard act to follow Oldman's Smiley is always excellent and compelling to watch. Most of the rest of the cast is also excellent and includes a cameo by Le Carré himself at one point. My one reservation is that of Kathy Burke's Connie not because it is badly acted I doubt Kathy Burke is capable of that, and not because of a lack of screen presence, I have always been disturbingly drawn to Ms Burke since the days of Waynetta Slob when she first came to my notice. No, it is simply that she is not how I imagined the character.

Image via Wikipedia
The cinematography is good throughout and the muted colour pallette gives the whole thing a uniform period atmosphere and helps with the building mystery and menace. I can't help feeling that something prevented it from being totally convincing though, despite all the attention to the detail of the era. One thought was that the short scenes of the edit worked against the slow methodical nature of Smiley's work. It may have been a deliberate attempt to give it a more modern rhythm or it may just be that this is the way films are expected to be now with the perception that viewers these days have short attention spans. For me it worked contrary to the style of the main protagonist.

Once again, although I have a number of minor criticisms, I have to say that I really enjoyed it and would be happy to see more of the canon essayed by this team. It is particularly impressive that it was directed by someone (Tomas Alfredson) with only one other feature film to his name (the wonderful Let the Right One In).

Monday is the new Tuesday

This week's games day was Monday for a change, and for another we didn't play Memoir '44. We initially decided to play both it and Runebound, a game which has been sitting on the shelves unplayed for too long. However, I wanted to play it first for various reasons including being able to set it up beforehand and not take up Crabro's gametime with that, and a chance to get to know it before he arrived.

In the end it wasn't just the first, but the only, game of the day as, even allowing for the gossip, banter, tea, lunch and 'phone calls, it took something like five hours to resolve. Nevertheless, it was an enjoyable and immersive experience with plenty of tongue in cheek "role-playing" narration and dramatic readings of the flavour text.

The game is of the quest adventure fantasy type, which involves travel (using the mechanism of matching dice faces to types of terrain) and encounters which involve combat with an assortment of monsters or tests against your character's or allies' skills. There is a very large number of items available to buy to enhance your character's chances against the really evil foes you will meet later in the game, and the opportunity to trade experience for improved skills.

In the first edition base game, the object is to collect three runes or kill the big baddy (Magrath) and in the final phase Crabro and myself took one each of these approaches.

Crabro came out the winner as he managed to dispatch three of Magrath's minions to obtain the necessary runes while I raced down the board to attack the evil Lord himself. After a bruising first encounter I retreated to a nearby town to lick my wounds and I never got another chance to assassinate him as, in an epic combat against one of the Runelords, Crabro became the posessor of his third rune.

Unfortunately, owing to the length of time it took to complete the win, we decided that it probably wasn't suitable for the whole group on a Thursday night. I'm rather sorry for that as I would be happy to play it again and am intrigued to see how it changes with a lot more players.

Drive

Back to my home town again for another member's preview at the wonderful Duke of York's cinema, this time "Drive" starring Ryan Gosling and directed by Nicolas Winding Refn.

At the beginning of the film, while we see the driver as a skilled effector of get aways, we also find out that he is good at his two legitimate jobs: mechanic and Hollywood stunt-driver, and that he looks as though he is going to be able to capitalise on his prodigous talent as a racing driver of stock cars (American NASCAR type that is, rather different from the UK variety) and "go straight". He evens meets a very nice woman.

...but...then it all goes horribly wrong, as of course it must or there would be no story.

Image via Wikipedia

Nicolas Winding Refn

It is a stylish and gripping and starkly violent thriller, with some interesting characters amongst the lesser roles. It certainly has a mythic quality and echoes of classic Westerns such as Clint Eastwood's spaghetti variety (the laconic driver is not referred to by name) and for me a strong whiff of Shane.

Image via Wikipedia

Ryan Gosling

A very good cinema experience if you ignore the boorish late arrival who pushed his way down the row several minutes after the film had started, while shining an intense light from a small torch in my eyes as he attempted to find the seat (next to mine) where he could then fidget for ten minutes and cough loudly throughout the rest of the film. There's always one.

Fink and chips

Image via WikipediaAfter the birding expedition, and a cup of tea with my birding friend and his wife, I returned home to find my film night friend had called. I rang back and learned that he was on his way over and was going to pick up supper on the way.

He arrived bearing fish and chips AND strawberries and cream. I took the top off a bottle of "Skull-splitter" and we settled with our supper in front of the chosen film.

Unfortunately we had technical problems with our first choice, the wonderful Jaoui-Bacri film "Let's Talk about the Rain", and settled for another Coen's film "Barton Fink". We seem to have got into a pattern of Coen and Allen.

Not too much of a problem as Barton Fink is a fascinating film and well worth another look. When Joel and Ethan were finding it impossible to finish their script for Miller's Crossing they simply put it to one side and wrote another film about a writer unable to write a script...

The eponymous "hero" of the film played by John Turturro has just written a successful "social realist" play in New York when he is offered $1000 a week to write for the movies in Los Angeles. After some debate with his agent and his conscience he heads West where he ends up in a hotel which is to all intents and purposes some kind of hell on earth. He also meets another two of the Coen's rep company: Steve Buscemi and John Goodman.

It soon becomes clear that the darling of the arty set in New York is just a cog in the machine as far as Hollywood is concerned and he is expected to set his literary pretentions aside and quickly turn out scripts to order. He is at once, praised and put in his place by the monsterous studio head Lipnick, a parody of the famous moguls like Louis B. Mayer or Sam Goldwyn.

The miserable Fink is supposed to knock out a screenplay for a "Wallace Beery wrestling picture" and his problems are just beginning as the feeling of impending doom increases and the rotten Earle hotel becomes more hellish.

Along the way there are all manner of references and symbols for a film student to get his teeth into and the final scene contains several mysteries. 

Goodman is a scene stealer every time he appears. He seems to be a big-hearted big drinking insurance salesman but is he? Chet, the bellboy, Paul the lift operator William Preston "Bill" Mayhew, a writer (based on Faulkner) on his way down into his own drunken hell, his wife Audrey and a cynical detective duo are all memorable additional characters.

Despite the black humour and brilliant performances this is not a light-hearted watch and the oppressive doom-laden atmosphere of the Earle, coupled with the almost complete lack of likeable characters make it a challenge which would have been better as part of a contrasting double bill. Nevertheless it is vintage Coens and was generously rewarded at Cannes although it took very little money at the box office (about a third of its budget of approximately $9m

Image via WikipediaNext time perhaps we can get the Jaoui film, which was I think a "film of the year" for me, to play and I will try and think of an appropriate second feature for that one.

Blackrock Birding

After a visit to a French market, where I bought a couple of very fresh baguettes and discovered that, yes, I had heard right and been warned in French that I was going to be burned.

I took the red-hot bread home for lunch and my birding friend and I realised that we couldn't sit at home on such a sunny day.

He looked up recent sightings and we decided to head for the area which in my youth was known as Black Rock and was mainly for rock-pooling expeditions. It is now home to a large Marina, although my visits are usually for shopping or cinema trips when I rarely see a single one of the boats moored the other side of all the shops and restaurants etc.

The small beach inside the west arm of the outer harbour proved to have a number of Ringed Plover and Turnstones on it and in the further distance along the sea defences were Great Black-backed Gulls and Cormorants.

With binoculars it was just possible to see it

No sign of the bird we had come to see so we made our way along the arm as far as we could and became aware of someone shouting at us. A man we later discovered to have a bicycle and be riding backwards and forwards along the harbour arms had spotted us as binocular-carrying birders and was frantically trying to attract our attention to a small dot on the water below and behind him. Our quarry was in the water along the outside of the harbour arm.

The other arm.


So we set off on the long march back along the East arm, through one detour because of work in progress, back through the commercial then the residential areas of the Marina, round another detour because of more work and finally all along the East arm where, inevitably, our cycling friend informed us that the bird had flown over to the West arm, where we had been before...



Not an unpleasant walk in the sun though, having seen fisherman actually landing fish and Common and Sandwich Terns undertaking similar activities further out. We also met a Kittiwake sitting on the wall.

Another long walk later, we arrived among a small group of birders at the place we started from and were informed that the bird had gone back the other way again...

Shortly afterwards though, my friend spotted him flying across the end of the arm and down to the water on the Eastern seaward side of the arm. At first he was quite difficult to spot as he appeared and disappeared behind the caissons on the waves. He was quite recognisable in the binoculars though if one leaned out over the sea. Happily, it soon became obvious that he was slowly moving in our direction, until he was more or less directly below us for a while, before slowly heading back seawards again.

I had my Grey Phalarope tick.

Airlines Europe part two

I was acting host of the Thursday games group one more and Crabro and myself having enjoyed Airlines Europe on Tuesday we decided to get the whole group playing it.

Initially there were four of us, as Petra Pan and MrWendell were delayed by work. The Professor, MaOldie, Crabro and I were a good way into the first game when the other two arrived (with a big bag of chocolate eclairs) so we finished, and had another round of teas, after the first scoring card appeared.

The Professor won this third of a victory but then the game began in earnest. As I had been successful in my last game with Crabro despite not getting involved in exchanging stock for shares in the aeroplaneless Abacus airline, I stayed clear of the scramble for those shares again and I was quietly confident, as the final scoring card appeared, that I had a respectable score. One by one my opponents declared their scores: sixty something, a couple of fifty-ishes and then Crabro with seventy-three.

I silently exulted, having tallied my score. Someone finally asked my total and I confessed to eighty-three. It was all looking good...and then MaOldie owned up to eighty-eight. Rats! That's three weeks running she has been victorious. Oh well. Hats off to a very good gamer. It had been a very pleasant evening in good company anyway. I'm really beginning to enjoy being the host. After all the fun, I'm already home. Grand!

Tuesday is Games Day once more

A welcome return to Tuesday gaming with Crabro today after terrible family problems had turned his life upside down for several weeks. After making tea, we resumed where we had left off some weeks ago, with a Memoir '44 scenario.








This time it was the battle at Pointe du Hoc and the setup, with a line of hills representing cliffs spreading the whole width of the board, looked very one-sided.

Since each of us won in our turn as the Allies this is perhaps the case but not the way round I was expecting. The Axis forces were all dug in behind sandbags or in bunkers and the American Rangers had a cliff to scale before confronting them...but in the end the Rangers won both times without huge difficulty.

There were certainly differences in strategy as with a hand full of right flank cards and no forces at all on that flank I felt the need to move a couple of units into that sector even though it was guarded by an infantry unit in a bunker on a spur of cliff and an artillery battery. Crabro took the seemingly more sensible route which I had originally decided on and avoided that flank completely while trying to keep the artillery out of range or at its extreme extent.

There was some method in my madness though as there were two "flags" to be had by entering woods at the top of the board on that flank, two more units were all that was needed for the win. In Crabro's case he ignored the territory flags and made up all four of his points by destroying infantry units. Both strategies worked in the end although I believe my Germans achieved one more flag than his by some seemingly suicidal attacks out of the cover of the defensive obstacles.

After lunch we turned to a new game of Crabro's: Airlines: Europe, which like its predecessors Airlines and Union Pacific are shareholding "train" games by Alan Moon. Unfortunately (because I own Airlines) this proved to be a much nicer and more satisfying game.

Having learned how to play it in the first game (a clear win for Crabro) we decided to have a second game, predicting correctly that it would flow much faster now we were confident of the rules. I had obviously learned some valuable lessons as this time it was a clear win for me.

Add to this a pleasant lunch, lots of tea and gossip and it was a very enjoyable return to Tuesday games and ended happily with two wins apiece.

Way out West, Way out East

Two days of gaming.

After returning from the "Dunge" trip I had about three-quarters of an hour to eat, tidy up, change and set up the games table for the arrival of the Thursday gamers on another trip out East. This week there were only four of us however, owing to work commitments and, hopefully minor, illness.

The cups of tea made, the gamers spent some time in this "office" perusing my games shelves before finally deciding on a rather neglected "Wallace". Crabro is a big fan of the designs of Martin Wallace and I share his enthusiasm for several of them, however, I had bought Way Out West more for the theme than the game as I love anything in the Western genre.

As it had turned out it had only ever had one play, with the Goldstone Gamers (Saturday) group, not because it was terrible but probably just that there were so many games we were equally, or more, taken with. I think the conclusion this time was that, it wasn't one of Martin's finest but nevertheless enjoyable enough to warrant a return some time.

First glance at the board and components lead one to the conclusion that it is rather dry and not evocative of the theme. It does however come to life once the inevitable gunfights begin. I'm afraid I did say at one point that I couldn't see why you would play it if you had Lawless (similar theme in a faster, card, game) but it has grown on me and if it played a lot faster (as it should once everyone was familiar with the rules) I would be happy to play it more often.

As the only Wallace in my collection I will certainly be hanging on to it. The other Wallace designs I particularly like are London, Tinners' Trail, Brass, Steel Driver, Age of Industry and Last Train to Wenslydale not to mention the big one: Age of Steam.

We then needed a "filler" game and while I made some more drinks the rest of the group returned to plundering the office from which they returned with Diamant. There have been various versions of this brilliantly simple "push-your-luck" game and the one I had imported from Germany was without the small board of some of the earlier versions and some of the extra rules of Incan Gold, a later revamp. Mine now sports a laminated print of the board for completeness' sake but it really isn't necessary for play.

The "mechanic" is simply that before each new section of the mine is revealed to contain riches or disaster one displays either an empty hand (staying in ) or a hand containing one's "Indiana Jones" meeple (running out and keeping the loot).

Always fun but rarely much of a success for me and true to form I lost (as I did Way Out West) but not by an embarassing amount. The Professor had had a bad time in the mines and was determined to break his "away game" duck so we played again and he went away happy.

On the following day I received an unexpected call from Crabro asking if I had any free time in the afternoon. Since our regular Tuesday sessions have had to cease for some time, I was only too pleased at the prospect of some games and gossip over lunch and tea.

Neither of us felt much like anything requiring a lot of setting up or huge mental dexterity and in the end we settled on an old favourite: Cribbage.

I was very rusty, despite having played it almost daily for a period many years ago. Both of us grew up with cards at school and with family and it was a comfortable pleasure to fan a hand of ordinary playing cards once more. Crabro ran away with the first game and I made a lot of elementary mistakes forgetting such things as "One for his knob" for example. I fared little better in the second game actually but I did manage to score eighteen points for one hand which felt rather good.

After that, Crabro having discovered he had another hour to play with, we picked up a neat little abstract that we had played in the days when we broke our games days for a cafe or pub lunch: Calypso.

It is extremely portable and so lends itself to a cafe table. Unfortunately it is also a game at which I have never beaten Crabro and it seems likely I never will. I'm not entirely sure why.

At one time I might have said that it is simply that my opponent's mind is much better at grasping abstract strategy than mine but since then I have been very successful against him in a couple of two-player pure abstract games.

It is certainly not true that I don't like abstract games although I do love the big, heavily thematic "narrative" type of board game. I started out with normal cards, Draughts (Checkers), Chinese Checkers, Halma, Othello etc and if I hadn't loved them probably would not be playing board games now. It is true that the little metal tokens and plastic houses of Monopoly and the wooden rum barrels and shiny gems of Buccaneer played a big part too of course.

It being rather dull to have no worthwhile opposition Crabro went to the shelves once more in search of another quick light game to finish on. He came back with Coloretto, a simple card game by Michael Schacht which spawned the successful Zooloretto: A less abstract, board game, reworking of the same mechanism. The game is played over several hands and although Crabro had a commanding lead early on I won an intermediate hand pulling back a lot of the advantage and making a win possible. Another hand was played but I couldn't raise enough points to overtake and Crabro had another win.

A very pleasant, not too complex or mentally taxing way to spend an afternoon anyway. Hopefully our two-player sessions will begin to pick up again as I am looking forward to trying some of his new acquisitions including a new Martin Wallace game: A Few Acres of Snow.