Useful listing of British Role-Playing-Related Conventions which is up-to-date and includes some boardgaming events.

(Wait a minute, I said I wasn't posting any more!)

Perhaps you've noticed that I am no longer posting regularly to nimrods. I suppose I've just lost the blogging urge for now - the urge to link to, comment on, enthuse about, recommend, criticize, record, journal. Speaking to this general, anonymous, largely unresponding audience doesn't appeal at the moment. Maybe it will later.

Come back in a month or two.

You must have heard of Greg Costikyan - he designed Pax Britannica, The Creature That Ate Sheboygan, and much much else. Check out his new weblog: Games * Design * Art * Culture.

And how's this for a manifesto?

Low art is what's fundamentally important. Low art reflects what's actually going on in our culture today. Low art expands the boundaries of the possible. Low art is vital, exciting, vibrant, disturbing, cool--and, generally, fun. Popular music, genre fiction, comics, independent film, weird shit on the Internet--and games.

That's where it's at, man.

Grand Theft Auto isn't art? Then I guess neither is Fatboy Slim, Sandman, or King Rat.

This is a dumb argument. Games are art. Most of them are bad art, to be sure.

You don't have to agree with me... But this argument is fundamental to everything else that's going to appear here. This blog is going to treat games as art. Everything else follows.

My New Year resolutions:

1) Eat breakfast
2) Play wargames
3) Go skiing
4) Drink wine
5) Don't smoke
6) Go Ceroc dancing

Notice I've set the bar very low. I'm going for 100% this year, so I'm only resolving to do things that I already do. That way my self-esteem is boosted without me having to adjust my behaviour.