Caterina muses on hobbies - as a nimrod this subject is close to my heart obviously.

I've always had this idea that hobbies were dangerous, a distraction from my real work.

An illuminating Wilderness War game review from Steffan O'Sullivan includes a useful reference card for troop type differences - James (as he owns the game) would find this useful. Lots of other good stuff on his site as well, including a review of my all-time favourite first-to-grab-when-escaping-from-a-fire wargame Up Front!

The webcam at Hauser Kaibling. This is where I will be skiing next week. Take a look while I'm away - you might even spot me! Look for a short guy in a green jacket with a sort of nervous crouching stance....

I just love driving home late listening to Late Junction on Radio 3.

A laid-back, esoteric mix of music from across the globe, ranging from Mali to Bali, and from medieval chant to 21st-century electronica.

The way they slip seamlessly across music genres and cultures is endlessly fascinating and surprising. And - mmmmm - Verity Sharp.....

Would it sound so good at 5:30pm? Probably not - there's something about this relaxed eclectic mix of jazz, world, pop and offbeat classical that requires darkness, the late-night atmosphere, the hypnotic lights of the motorway...

This is not the usual War Against Terror article.

At Schladming Piste state: Packed - so what's new?

Salzburg is forecast rain on Thursday and Friday (hopefully this translates to snow on the mountains) followed by sun on Saturday (when I arrive!)

Nevertheless, have a look at TruthMiners, especially if you are tired of being forwarded stupid urban myths and Harry Potter scare stories by your Christian friends (via swordandspirit.com)

I had a dose of blogger's block yesterday. I didn't write a thing, and got an all-time record (for my site) of 18 unique visitors. What's that telling me? If I want more visitors - write less, or preferably nothing at all?

What are the reasons for this (temporary I hope) drying of the blogging juices? I guess mostly it is increased busyness at work, so there is very little time for surfing in spare moments at the office. My colleague Darren departed for his native Oz in January, and since then there has been an increased workload for me. The last couple of weeks there have been several database crises that kept me working through the evening, so less time for wargaming and less to report on the nimrod front. And I am getting ready for a skiing trip to Austria next week - when I'm looking forward to being in the Alps in a few days time (real mountains not just JPGs of them!) somehow the web seems less compelling......

Since I first linked to it John Foley's Battle Cry site has grown into something very special. Loads of resources - scenarios, extra map tiles, reference cards, modelling tips, flags, and lots of variants, including an ancients one designed to be played with DBA figures.

Stupid computers. Stupid Microsoft. Stupid SQL Server. Stupid NTL. Stupid getting stuck at stupid work all stupid evening when I was meant to be playing Clash of Giants with Dave!

Don't miss James Lileks angrily deconstructing a sniffily anti-American article in Tuesday's Guardian: Here’s the deal: we don’t need your support. But understand that if Iraqis had flown planes into Big Ben, we’d take out Saddam, because we understand that an attack on you is an attack on us. The West is not defined by Belgian edicts on acceptable levels of tomato sauce viscosity. The West is a set of ideas that need defending.

Another clarity-provoking lead from Relapsed Catholic - How the Church failed by reinventing Christianity: What we are seeing, in fact, is not so much a decline of religion, as religion being reinvented: the word "spirituality" itself is now conventionally applied to ordinary human qualities, such as aesthetic sensation or emotional experience, rather than to communion with the divine.

GMT have done it again! I ordered a copy of Triumph & Glory for Dave last Tuesday (I'm not mentioning the copy of Eighth Air Force for myself - more stuff!) I paid for Surface Mail from the US. It arrived this morning, in perfect condition, just over a week later. Both games for less than £20 each including shipping. Get your wargame-habit fix direct from GMT - highly recommended.

Here's a semi-official example of play for Thirty Years War. Must read this carefully before I play Nick on Sunday - may give me some ideas!

Well I finally did it - after a very positive experience ordering Triumph and Glory direct from the states, I have preordered a stack of games on from GMT on Project 500. The Napoleonic Wars, Barbarossa to Berlin, Hornet Leader and Medieval. That's $142 worth, phew! Hopefully they won't all be charged at once.....

Phil has complained recently that he doesn't get enough coverage on my weblog. So I thought I would share the last few text messages I have received from him, to give you an idea of his personality and priorities:

where the hell are you man, and why havent you foned. i am hungry. from phil. (18-Feb 21:11)

HEY DUDERINO! I AM COMING HOME TONIGHT, SO BRING ME SOME FOOD. I'M IN THE MOOD FOR SOME KIND OF MEAT AND GRAVY DISH WITH MASHED POTATO. KERRANG DUDE. PHIL (25-Feb 10:35)

HEY YOUR DUDENESS. HOW ARE THINGS. HARRIET IS COMING TO SALISBURY TONIGHT AND WE ARE GOING OUT FOR DINNER. JUST THOUGHT ID LET YOU KNOW. SEEYA. PHIL (26-Feb 09:28)

Have you spotted the common theme?

Herald Tribune: Deterrence at last: "Meet Don Rumsfeld - he's even crazier than you are."

Nick John Steve and Dave turned up in my living room Saturday afternoon. Not sure who let them in, but they quickly found my corkscrew and my wine stash, got "History of the World" down from the shelf and got started. Of course they made me play as well. Good fun actually - I'm always excited by the audacious scope of this game combined with the simple and fun mechanics. We had a bit of bickering about the Gibson's rules compared with later versions. In fact bickering was a feature of the afternoon - we spent time squabbling about Graham Hancock, joining the Euro, what to play next, and who was providing the next bottle of wine. Anyway, after 5 hours John overtook Steve to rob him of victory at the last moment, in spite of Steve drawing the British in Epoch 7. Steve left in disgust, we had a bite to eat, then settled down to something lighter - two games of Carcassone, both of which were won by John. I think everyone was disgusted by now (except John), and the wine had run out, it was nearly 11pm, so we all went home - except me, I was home already, I just had to clear away the debris and get the vacuum cleaner going (someone has muddy feet)......

InstaPundit on the hidden cost of Europe's current attitude to the US: It is odd that people who worry so much about offending those who, ultimately, don't matter (like Yasser Arafat) worry so little about offending the United States. They've taken our forbearance for granted for a long time, and I guess they haven't yet figured out that it's no longer available.

Warning! If this site - Planet Gaz - doesn't get updated shortly it's coming off my list of blogs.

Stuck at home this morning, taking a half-day's leave to take delivery of a new sofa. Yes, more stuff. It's going to be a long half-day, at this rate it will be 3pm before I get to the office! By rights this should be a pleasant experience - lying in, wandering down town for a coffee, doing some reading, learning a new game - but somehow it feels more like sick-leave - boredom, stuck in the house because the delivery people might arrive, can't start anything because they might arrive soon, bored because they haven't arrived yet!

Still, it will be great to have a new sofa. The old one (Laura Ashley, flowering branch pattern with large oriental-looking birds, circa 1985) is developing concavities and holes that shouldn't be there, places where small guests might slip and fall and emerge blinking years later. It's an old familiar friend, if a grubby and disreputable one, and I'll miss it, but it's going to a better place now - Simon's flat.

Life is just a game? Finite and Infinite Games: A vision of Life as play and possibility. (via Caterina)

GMT's new game of starship combat, Flagship, has its own website. The game is designed by Dan Verssen, who is responsible for such classics as RoadKill, Rise of the Luftwaffe, and Hornet Leader.

Do-it-yourself collectable card games! Dvorak - A Nomic Card Game: Dvorak is a card game where all the cards start out blank; players choose a theme, make up enough cards to get started, then continue to add new cards as the game progresses, provided that the other players approve of each card.

It can be played in two ways - either as a serious attempt to create a card game around a theme (a film, a book, a sport, or whatever you like), or as a ruthless free-for-all, each player pursuing their own particular aims without much regard for fairness or replayability.

As well as making your own, you can also play the decks that other people have made, as if they were standalone games - the Deck Archive contains full rules and card lists for a wide range of games, and each set of cards is easily printable. (via Invisible City Productions)

Phil thinks that my weblog needs a "Discuss" button. Posts like the one about a flow of stuff through my house are crying out for a response, he says. Trouble is, I don't know how to make a "Discuss" button. Any ideas, anyone?

But what does Phil know about the web anyway? He confesses that whenever he dials in he only has time to check his email, look at his brother's weblog and mine, before he is overcome by irresistible ennui - a "What's the point of the web anyway?" feeling - then switches the computer off and does something more interesting. Discuss.

Last chance to pre-order The Napoleonic Wars at a heavy discount - see GMT GAMES: News From Gene: I spoke with Don Greenwood today as one final check that The Napoleonic Wars is ready to enter production. Don says it's ready, so, given its meteoric rise on P500 (and we're STILL counting - the numbers as of today aren't even close to what we have waiting to enter the database), the next charge will be for that game. We'll start charging on February 25 (next Monday). Anyone who orders by the end of February can still get the best P500 price, so if you've been on the fence or waiting for us to commit to print it, now's the time....

The Thursday session - coming next Saturday!

I'm not going to manage a Thursday session this week either.Might as well face the facts - the "Thursday session" no longer exists in practise. Maybe it will rise from the ashes, but at the moment there are too many other things going on for me to be able to commit to it.

But I would like to invite you all over this Saturday afternoon (23 Feb, 2pm) for a gaming session. I would like to play History of the World, or perhaps 1851. Lots of wine and pretzels. What do you say? I'll be phoning around to drum up some support.....

Saw Monsoon Wedding last night with Fiona at Covent Garden Odeon. I know it's a bit late to discover this, but this is the most gloriously rich, colourful film! Simple interwoven stories - beautifully told; fabulous camera-work; wonderful foot-tapping music; memorable character acting. Perfect. This is definitely one for the desert island list!

Note to self: No more excuses! This year, you are going to Greenbelt.

Matt Welch defends the French: If the U.S. continues its longstanding policy of deliberately blunting the military ambitions of its friends so it can be the lone superpower, there will be griping and immaturity galore. And some of it will even be justified, unless you believe that power somehow doesn’t corrupt.

USS Clueless - Blind men and the Tiger: Secretary of State Powell has on occasion mouthed comforting words to the Europeans about coalition, but our acts have made clear that the one thing we do not accept is that a coalition should be permitted to prevent us from doing what we decide we need to do. And that is exactly what the European politicians have been hoping that a coalition would accomplish; I have never yet seen any European politician in the last month talk about the coalition except in the context of trying to restrain American actions.

I've been looking back through my weblog. Are too many of my postings about buying things? Books, CDs, games, furniture, blah, blah, blah....... I shop therefore I am?

And postings too about clearing bin bags full of rubbish out of the loft. A steady trickle of parcels from Amazon, BOL, GMT, eBay and The Games Store in through the front door, and a corresponding stream of filled bin bags back out of the front door. And of course this flow of stuff is mirrored by a flow of money through my bank account. Is this what it means to be a consumer? Is this the outline of my life? Feels vaguely shameful, today......

Superb edition of Melvyn Bragg's In Our Time on Radio 4 this morning, about Anatomy: The Greeks thought we were built like pigs, and when Renaissance man first cut his sacred flesh it was an act of heresy. From the noble ambitions of medical science to the murky underworld of Victorian grave robbing, we trace 2000 years of anatomical study.

Took me back to my year in the dissecting room at Oxford. Apparently there is an abundant supply of bodies for medical students these days, in contrast with the Nineteenth Century when Burke and Hare smothered their guests to sell on to the medical schools.

An interesting fact - the Vatican never opposed dissection of human cadavers per se, in fact they set up one of the earliest institions for the study of anatomy. But you would burn for pointing out the errors in Galen, the classical father of the subject. One of the guests vividly painted a Renaissance anatomy lecture, with the professor solemnly intoning "Note the five lobes of the liver, as in Galen", while his assistant holds up a smooth and lobeless human liver.

Well I received a nice parcel from Amazon today, containing two books. The first is "Uncle Stories" by J.P. Martin, a paperback omnibus edition containing the first two of the Uncle books which captivated me when I was about 10. Marvellous illustrations by Quentin Blake. I urge all the childish among my readers (that's all of you) to splash out £4.99 for this book - you won't regret it, and you'll encourage Random House to reprint the remaining 4 stories. The second one is the Everyman's Library edition of Boswell's Life of Johnson. A satisfyingly heavy volume. I have a confession to make - I'm terribly jealous of Nick's collection of books, lots of hardbacks and Folio editions, accumulated over the years. I have lots of books myself - in fact I have been throwing quite a few out and I still need to get a new bookcase (I'm collecting it on Saturday) - but most of them are paperbacks and a bit tatty-looking. I want to go up-market! So I plan to buy one or two Everymans every month to develop a bit of class on my bookshelves.....

A quick game report that I was sorely tempted not to post at all. Last Saturday, Paths of Glory, against John - who was keen to learn the game. I should have known better. It's a classic gaming situation to soundly beat the friend who is teaching you a new wargame. I've done it to Nick many times. Anyway, John played the Allied Powers. I started with Guns of August and he met my march into Belgium head-on, with lots of counter-attacks from French and British armies which really marked down my German units. I had about 3 German armies in the dead-pile by the end of turn 4, and pressure was building up in the East too. We called it a day at that point, but I had not made a good start.

Nimrod session - lack of.

This week I shall again fail to host a nimrod session. Last Thursday I was taking Phil off to Gatwick on his holiday, this Thursday he is expected back from Portugal and I want to have a meal with him and hear all his news. I'm busy every other evening of this week, including Saturday, so playing games will have to wait until next Thursday.

Apart from my problems keeping a weekday evening free, we're a bit thin on the ground these days. Nick seems to bring a lot of work home from "the office" these days (it's not really an office, it's usually a hole in a field somewhere), Robin is in lurve or studying, James is being a father (very selfish of him), and Wayne and William have gone East. On the credit side John is back in circulation. So thats five down and only one up. Nimrods - an endangered species?

I went for a long walk Sunday afternoon in the gloriously empty country north of Dinton. After an hour or so I was walking past a tatty, isolated cottage with no less than 4 tatty Land Rovers parked around it. I was just passing the front door when a young man stepped out with a shotgun in his hand - I could see that he was fiddling with a cartridge in one of the barrels. He didn't seem to notice me as I passed, quickening my pace. A small, aggressive dog came blasting out of the gate, yapping after my heels, and at the same moment the young man snapped the gun shut, pointed it skywards and fired.

A nervous moment - if there are two things that make me jumpy it's firearms and hostile dogs.

Still, it's reassuring to see that the countryside hasn't been completely annexed by doctors and solicitors. There remains an old-fashioned rural working-class out there who would rather spend their weekends shooting rabbits than prettying up a suburbanized cottage garden.

THE DARWINIAN UNIVERSE - Isn't there room for God? by John F. Haught: For theology, I believe the only way forward in this discussion is for it to argue forcefully that its own system is wide and deep enough to embrace coherently all of the relevant scientific information from biology, geology, paleontology, genetics, embryology, comparative anatomy, etc., while at the same time allowing logical space for a God who makes promises to be the ultimate explanation of evolution. (via Relapsed Catholic)

An excellent article by Neil Carr on a subject close to my heart - In search of Civ-Lite: Many a gamer has fond memories of this truly epic game detailing the development and rise of ancient civilizations to it's height in essentially the Hellenistic era. It had wide appeal for a variety of reasons. It had elements of wargames, logistics, diplomacy, trading and bluffing. Players were given an open ended system that allowed them to play as they liked and didn't require warfare as the only answer to winning the game. Finally, the system was rather simple and easily teachable.

David Aaronovitch has an angry column on torture in Saudi: Here's a vigorous representation. Saudi Arabia is ruled by a corrupt and stinking government whose interests are no longer synonymous with ours, and from which we should – unless there is a real prospect of internal reform (as in Iran) – disengage. We should not do business with torturers.

The learned David Porter, whom I have met once in the flesh and quite a few times by UseNet and email, who is a stalwart of l'Abri as well as being a keen boardgamer and a Squad Leader enthusiast, has recently published The Inklings Handbook. It looks like an essential read: A comprehensive guide to the lives, thought and writings of C.S. Lewis, JRR Tolkien, Charles Williams, Owen Barfield and their friends. The book falls into two parts: the first introducing the Inklings, with the second longer part in dictionary format, with many biographical articles, as well as substantial entries on the Inklings' writings, themes and theology.

Man, I'm tired! I got up at 4am this morning to take Phil and Harriet to Gatwick. I had driven 160 miles by the time I arrived at work at 7am. I'm coasting now, selecting little low-intensity jobs that I can get done without thinking too hard. Anyway, after Tuesday evening's database crisis, when I saved NTL's ass (with an audience of about 15 middle-managers stood round my desk asking me how it was going), I think I'm entitled to a bit of coasting.

Good point from Caterina: Today I read an article on self-esteem in the New York Times, which said certain studies published this year found that having self esteem is potentially harmful to others, as their research showed a correlation between high self-regard and violent or abusive behavior. Which doesn't surprise me at all; what surprises me is that psychologists believe in the concept of "self-esteem" to begin with.

William pointed me to this website - South London Warlords - with details of the Salute show in April (anyone fancy going up as a party?), and an excellent selection of links to other wargames websites.

I'm amazed! I ordered Triumph and Glory from the GMT website last Thursday - with surface delivery at $8 - and it arrived yesterday (I actually picked it up from the sorting office this morning.) That's pretty efficient service. No customs to pay either. From a swift decco at lunchtime it looks impressive - nicely produced anyway, looking forward to seeing how it plays.

And this one - Welcome to Uncle - is marvellous, featuring loads of Quentin Blake's wonderful drawings.

Another one - The Uncle books, by J P Martin: Long ago, a small boy got some wonderful books from the local library. Peopled by strange characters like the benevolent elephant Uncle, his nemesis Beaver Hateman, Uncle's companion The Old Monkey, the skewer-throwing Hitmouse and the ingenious American Ira Smoothy, and set in twin strongholds, sumptuous Homeward and squalid Badfort, how could a little kid not be left with a sense of wonder?
Years passed, but the characters remained, reinforced by memories of Quentin Blake's great illustrations. The books are were long out of print, but I'm trying to compile some information to help people find them.

A small fansite for the Uncle books.

Oh joy! They've reprinted "Uncle": I remember discovering Uncle books in my local library in the early 1970s as a child of ten or eleven, and my memories of the books are very strong still, even though I haven't read them since. Who can possibly forget the extraordinarily vivid cast of rogues, cheats, bores and downright strange characters JP Martin created? He coined some of the best comic names in literature - positively Dickensian inventions, including: Jellytussle, Flabskin, Hitmouse and the Muncle, to name just a few. Or the wonderful brands and products - Black Tom and Leper Jack liquor (staple tipple at Badfort), or Koolvat (refreshing cordial served at Homeward, Uncle's skyscraper-towered castle).

Blogging goes mainstream? BBC News | DOT LIFE | I blog, therefore I am (via notsosoft)

Everyman Classics - strangely absent from bookshops in the UK these days.

Aliataire Cooke's latest Letter from America: And as for the gusher of pious rage that sprang up from the dumb release of that wretched photograph of detainees shackled for a hazardous moment or two, I can only offer the first-hand testimony of a serious and respected British correspondent who's just been done there.
He says, frankly, that what he saw for years in the prisons of Northern Ireland made Guantanamo look like a Holiday Inn. (via InstaPundit)

They said it would be over by Christmas.

They weren't too far out - in the event it was all done by Spring 1915. Dave played his usual game as the Central Powers - short-termist and ultra-violent, he used his cards almost exclusively as OPS and RPs, with one or two SRs as well. Hammering into France with repeated high-odds attacks, he smashed my fort-line and wheeled clockwise across Southern-Central France. My plan was to use the bare minimum of OPS to stop the situation collapsing completely, play events and get to Limited War quickly, hoping to avoid Automatic Victory long enough for the reinforcements in the LW and TW decks to feed through. I was amazed by Dave's willingness to stay in Limited War for the whole game, recycling the same cards over and over again.

In the event my reinforcements told sooner than I expected. I was able to bring 4 Russian armies on at Petrograd. Dave had totally denuded Eastern Prussia of troops, so in they marched. Breslau and next Berlin fell before Dave realised his peril. By then Paris had fallen and my 5 surviving armies in the west were backed up against the Channel ports. Suddenly the pressure was off as Dave sent armies rushing Eastwards to defend the Reich. At this point he was really hampered by only having 2/2 cards left in his hand. It was too late - in spite of German counterattacks a Russian army marched across Southern Germany to render the whole of Austria-Hungary out-of-supply. Nine armies out of the game! I tried to encourage him to play on but Dave had lost heart and conceded.

I've gone on at length because I really enjoyed this game of Paths of Glory. It was very pleasing to prove that it is possible to counter Dave's notorious "Smash France" strategy, which has claimed so many victims (hi Nick!) A great afternoon of classic 2-player wargaming.

I'm looking forward to the rematch, Dave!

InstaPundit.Com Robert Fisk -- sucking up to terrorists since 1993!

Highlight of last night's Ceroc was living out a fantasy I've picked up from watching too many war films - dancing with a pretty girl to Glenn Miller's "In the Mood". For a few moments, it was the night before another mission in the Memphis Belle......

Makes me wonder why I still buy the Independent - Handy List of Post-Sept. 11 Robert Fisk Headlines Further commentary just isn't necessary, is it? (via Matt Welch)

This is one for the girls really, but it's so funny I just have to blog the Pre-Date Confidence Builder (via lots of people)

If you haven't read this yet you ought to - Rebecca Blood's essay weblogs: a history and perspective. It just won her a Bloggies award.

I'm trying out something new today - I've ordered Triumph & Glory direct from GMT Games at their January sale price of $20. So I'll get it (if it arrives!) for less that £20, when it costs about £47 in the UK. I've always been interested in the Napoleonic Wars: this is a grand-tactical game by Richard Berg with simple rules and 5 different battles in the box, including Wagram and Austerlitz. Can't wait!

If this works out I will probably try P500ing a few games next.....

No nimrod session this week

As I am planning to spend the whole weekend playing Paths of Glory with Dave, I've decided to give Thursday evening a miss this week. Too much sitting at a gaming table is bad for me. Apologies if anyone was especially looking forward to this. I shall probably go dancing instead - woohoo!

Should I worry that I am strangely attracted to the idea of these Dice Towers? These hand-crafted Dice Towers are compact ( four and a half inches wide, seven and a half inches long and nine inches tall), sturdy and feature several attractive finishes. They insure a random roll every time, and you always know where the dice are going to land.

I told Phil about another great track I heard on the radio the other day, "Caught in the Middle" by A1. I guess I was trying to notch up some credibility by discussing current music with him. "Dad!" says Phil, horrified, "That's a boy-band!"

I heard an amazing track on "Morning on 3" on the way into work today, called "Tribal Dance" from a CD called "African Dreams" on the Emotions label. Adrenaline-boosting rhythms threaded on interleaving drums. Not necessarily what you expect from Radio 3. No sign of this CD on Amazon. Rats.

Curse you Hopkinson!

Dave left a smug message on my Answerphone announcing he picked up GMT's Clash of Giants: Campaigns of Tannenberg and the Marne, 1914 at Esdevium Games last Friday. Not fair - I saw it first!

As a parent, I sometimes find myself tempted to replay to my kids word-for-word something that my parents once said to me. For example "Son, what do you think you look like?"

The Valkyrie, Coliseum, London - saw this yesterday. This review in the Independent is a bit carping, but it's spot on about Kathleen Broderick's cat-like, leather-clad Brünnhilde fizzing with energy.... Broderick's battle cries were fearless, her feistiness just what Wagner envisaged.

It was a really enjoyable afternoon, with an exciting sense of occasion. The Wagner nimrods were out in force, hanging on every note. The music was fantastic - a stunning sound from the orchestra - especially the last half hour with Wotan's heartmelting farewell to Brünnhilde.

Extra brownie points to Fiona who, though new to Wagner, sat patiently through the whole 5 hours without fidgeting or grumbling, and gave a
passable impression of enjoying herself.

I can't wait for the full production of the ENO Ring in 2004.

I got my 2nd edition Retro rules through from Minden games a couple of days ago. Amazingly prompt service, and a bargain at £6ish. They look really good - can't wait to get a Squad Leader scenario set up and give it a whirl. Now shall I do that tonight, or veg in front of Morse?

Quote from my lovely son Phil yesterday: "Your weblog is a middle-aged man's cry for help."

John and Dave turned up last night. We played Linie 1 which I have played several times now, it always leaves me cold, it left me cold again yesterday even though I won (winning usually makes me think very highly of a game!) The tile-laying bit is too confusing for me, I can't plot a strategy through all the chaos, then the actual race at the end is too much of a lottery.

Then I persuaded them to try an IceHouse game with my laboriously assembled paper IceHouse set. We played Trice, which is a cute three-way game of manouvre on a cramped triangular board. John kept saying "This is pointless", but he also kept demanding another game, so I think it was a moderate success.

Nearly forgot to mention the game of Successors which I enjoyed on Saturday at Nick's flat. The other contestants were John and Matt (an archaeologist, not a nimrod). Last time I played Successors I found it difficult and confusing. This time I enjoyed it more, in spite of being thoroughly and frequently stuffed by fate and the other players. I was Ptolemy, with Peithon based in Persia. I got him to march recklessly past John's and Nick's armies to link up with Ptolemy's army in Palestine. It worked, but I rashly decided to attack Nick, lost the battle, and spent the rest of the game languishing in the Underworld (actually it's the "Dispersed Box" but this is a game about the ancient world!) Every time I escaped from Hades I was promptly thrashed in another battle and sent back across the river to rejoin Achilles et al. on the sunless shore. I was quite impressed with Successors - this is a patriarch of the card-driven family of games which is so trendy at the moment, but with its ancient history theme and multi-player angle it's an attractive package. I'd like to try it again.

Nimrod session this Thursday

You are invited to my place this Thursday at 8pm to release the inner child by playing silly boardgames. My suggestion is a rousing game of "Lord of the Rings" - if I can just get that stupid movie out of my head - or bring one of your own favourites along if you prefer. See you then!

Back at work today after two days off with a sneezy cold. Watched old films like "Goodbye Mr Chips", and played a few turns of "Thirty Years War". What a beautiful game! The graphics are colourful and use lots of heraldry. The gameplay is very colourful too - lots of bloody battles, sudden deaths, looting, seiges, wandering Spaniards, murdering Popes etc.

Here in the office my name has apparently been mentioned to Stephen Carter, the MD, in connection with clearing up database performance problems. This is very bad news, even if it's a good mention. My whole strategy for surviving corporate life is to keep a low profile. I want to be as invisible as possible, thankyou very much.

I got a very prompt email response from Gary Gruber at Minden Games this morning. He's putting 2nd edition Retro ASL in the post and says I can keep the 1st edition for my trouble. As he's obviously running the company for love not money I'm really impressed by the level of customer service I'm getting! I'll let you know what the rules are like - should give me an incentive to dust-off my Squad Leader boxes.....

The Worm Ouroboros is back in print again! This is one of the most wonderful fantasy novels I have ever read. Eddison gives way only to Lewis and Tolkein in my pantheon. This book is like nothing else - it has a rich, alien flavour all of its own.

Yesterday was a good day for parcels. My stuff from PalmTec arrived - a lovely hard case in shiny red (just like my car), and a NiMH battery-charger (I'm tempted to call them NiMrod batteries). I decided there were two reasons I didn't use my Psion 5mx fully - I was afraid of carrying around with me in case I cracked the screen again, and I was too mean to use the backlighting and get through the batteries. Hopefully my parcel has addressed these two issues and I can now get the most out of my little computer.

I also got an envelope from Minden games. Pretty good - across the Atlantic a week after I ordered. Unfortunately they sent me the 1st edition of Retro ASL for some reason so I will have to badger them to send me the 2nd edition that I asked for.

I think I'm incubating a cold. You know that scratchy feeling at the back of the nose, occasional unexpected sneezes, an impression of being slightly disconnected from your surroundings - they all foreshadow the arrival of the full-blown viral infection. At least that explains my unhappiness and self-disgust of recent days. What a relief - I don't have emotions after all!

No session this Thursday

After a good start last week I'm afraid I will have to cancel this Thursday's gaming session. If you want an excuse I got dragged out to the Wyndham Arms last night by Nick and John, to "help" them lose a pub-quiz, so my Ceroc night got displaced to Thursday. Sorry. It's just a one-off interruption. Promise.

And a nice OPL tutorial too. I'm running out of excuses!

How nice of them! RMR Software - RMREvent: Basically the program is just a framework that carries out most of the actions that you will require, and calls procedures that just put a message on the screen telling you what has happened. In theory, all you need to do is put your own code inside those procedures and you will have a working program. Now obviously it is not going to be that easy, but then that is the joy of programming :-))

Yet again, the death of the relational database is announced, this time by Lazy Software. Looks very interesting actually: The associative model is the first database architecture designed to reflect the structure of data in the real world and the way that our brains perceive and process information.

I've been feeling a bit low over the last few days, a bit blue. Things that usually interest me - such as the web, blogging, my job, wargames - seem a bit dull and pointless at the moment. The circumstances of my life are pretty good, I haven't really got much to feel blue about. Besides, nimrods never admit to having feelings (except perhaps that feeling of gloating exultation over a defeated opponent) so I'd better shut up about it right now before I completely lose nimrod-cred......

Good fun last night playing Illuminati (not the CCG, the recent re-release of the original game) with Dave and John. Dave (attack! attack!) was temperamentally well suited to playing Cthulhu - he consumed the UN and the Orbital Mind Control Laser, among other things, before John (the Bermuda Triangle) inevitably achieved world domination (by taking control of the Boy Sprouts).

At last! I've found a Life program for the Psion. Let's see how fast this baby runs.....

Hmm. Fast enough, but it works with a finite and very small universe. Maybe I have to brush up my OPL programming skills after all.

Good grief! PsiLinux - Linux for Psion Computers.

John might be interested in this: psiMind - Mind Mapping for the Psion

Here is Hensel's applet - and yes, it is very fast!

After a lot of searching I've come to the conclusion that there is no Conways Life program for the Psion 5. Years ago I wrote one for my Psion 3. It worked, and it had some nice features (like a "radar" screen) but it was fairly slow. I'd quite like to pick it up again for my 5mx. This guy - Hensel - has done a lot of thinking about writing a fast Life algorith. What's more, he's made it public! For blobby universes, one should probably consider dividing the universe up into blocks approximately the size of the blobs. For Life, 4x4 to 8x8 seem reasonable. I chose the upper bound, 8x8, for reasons of convenience: There happen to be 8 bits in a byte. I strongly considered 4x4, but it didn't work out as nice....

Don't tell Dave about The American Civil War from Eagle Games - big colourful map, simple rules, tons of plastic figures, yankees and rebels? - suit you Sir!

I received GMT's Thirty Years War last week. I've been a bit slack - I'm reading the rules but I haven't punched the counters yet. It looks beautiful. When I've read the rules I'll need these - first draft clarifications and errata posted on consimworld (spread over 3 postings).

New things I tried in 2001:

1) Singing. In January I went along to an Open Day held by the Basingstoke Choral Society, and never looked back. It has been wonderful to make music, not just listen to it. Over the year we did 4 concerts: Mozart's C minor Mass, "Friday Night is Music Night" on Radio 2, Faure's Requiem, and the Brahms German Requiem.

2) Blogging. 19th April saw the birth of "nimrods". I originally saw it as a way of reviving the wargames scene in Salisbury, which I suppose it has done in a small way. But it rapidly became a habit-forming way of talking to myself about myself. Is anyone else listening? Do I care? I'm hooked anyway.

3) Dancing. In early summer I hit the Ceroc dancefloor in spite of my remedial dancing abilities. This is now an indispensible part of my social routine. I've paid my dues in Beginners class and at long last I'm teetering hesitantly on the brink of Intermediate status.

4) Sailing. August saw me on the "Irene Jack", a traditional gaff-rigged lugger, fulfilling a long-held ambition to learn to sail. But I didn't anticipate this: it's actually quite boring.

5) Canoeing. My friend and canoeing fanatic Fiona took me on the Thames at Shepperton to learn how to paddle. Very good fun, but don't tell her I said so.

6) Paragliding. Well, a training weekend at ParAvion on Marlborough Downs was booked and turned up to, but stymied by the weather.

7) Trekking. In Nepal in December. The worst loos I've ever seen outside France. Massive mountains, a childhood dream to see the Himalayas fulfilled.

8) Gelling. A throwaway comment by a hairdresser led me to try this out....once. It didn't stick.

That's a lot of new experiences isn't it? Looks like a full-blown mid-life crisis to me.

James Lileks delivers a telling plug for the new iMac: Finally, I have to smile at the people who scoff at the movable screen - how many times do you have to reposition the screen? they ask. Well, at least once a week I call my wife in to look at a picture or a snippet of video, and to get the best angle she has to sit in my chair while I lean over and type commands. The pivotable screen is tailor-made for showing other people what you’ve done while you sit at the keyboard - a small thing, sure. Sure. But it confirms my suspicion: that bastard Jobs is watching me.

Nimrod Session - Thursday 10 Jan

Now that holidays, Christmas and New Year are out of the way, it's time to get back to the important things in life - playing games! Please come over to my home this Thursday by 8pm. Bring a Euro-game with you. (John, if you're coming perhaps you could bring Euphrat and Tigris?)

PS William (whose email is broken) wants to invite everyone over to his home in Portsmouth to play Civilization. He is suggesting a Sunday in the near future. Feedback to me please.

I spent most of yesterday up in the loft. I've only been in this house for three and a half years - how on earth did I accumulate so much junk in that time? I filled 5 or 6 black bags yesterday with stuff for the binmen and I'm only about half way through! The reason I'm clearing the loft out is to make space for games that I am clearing out of the shelves downstairs. Makes me wonder why I am shoving them up in the loft at all - might be more sensible to take them straight down to the charity shop. Even better, take them straight round to James' house - cutting out the middleman!

This chancer is offering two old SPI Middle Earth wargames on ebay - reserve price £500 each. No takers so far. Good! I hope his dog chews them up before he finds a sucker....

Salisbury Ceroc reopened last night after Christmas. I was there of course - it's been over 5 weeks since I last went, and I've really missed it. Last night was a bit of a special occasion as the club has moved to a bigger venue in Wilton to cope with increasing numbers. It's really nice as well, with a big dance-floor and a high arched ceiling that shows off the disco lights. Can't wait till next Tuesday for my next Ceroc fix!

OK, I confess - I like country music, and I listen to Radio 2. There, it's out in the open now. But go to BBC Radio 2 Country and listen to Lucinda Williams singing "Blue". Wonderful.

Andy Daglish who runs Discount German Games is planning to order a big parcel from GMT. Last time he did something like this was with Avalon Hill, when I picked up Battle Cry for about £30 (a hefty discount). But I did have to wait quite a few weeks to get my hands on it. Drop him an email if you want more details.

Drool over this: a sneak look at the playtest map for WWII: Barbarossa to Berlin! (Just choose "guest access" when you get to the login screen.)

Had a very enjoyable game of 1851 yesterday with Dave, Steve and John. 1851 is an 1830 variant set in Tennessee, designed to go faster than 1830. It only has 6 Corporations, which float when 50% of their stock is sold, but with only 50% capitalization. The Corporation must raise the rest by selling the remaining stock - which gives you an incentive to manage the company in a responsible fashion. It only took us 6 hours to complete the game, which is pretty good going for us. Mid-game Dave looked like the leader, but I had two companies running synergistically and got some very high-scoring runs organized, so in the end I was the winner, with Steve second, Dave third and John last. Nice way for a nimrod to start the year - thanks guys.