In which I vent all the little pieces of crap that have been annoying me progressively for weeks

[caddyman]

Is it the 13th yet ? It feels like it ought to be the 13th. In fact it's shaping up to feel like a Friday 13th.



Today was the third in a row where the Victoria Line was buggered - this time however it was royally buggered and I got into the office at 10.50 having done the dog-leg through London Bridge again. And while the weather may be a more palatable 20 something degrees, the tube trains are still full heated and ready for the recipe of your choice.

Suffice it to say that by the time I got into the office I was at least half cooked and pretty much completely basted.

Let's see, what else is pissing me off royally at the moment? I may as well get it all off my chest in one go (and none of it is work-related, for once, other than the tube affair).

I am down to my last NWO character sheet. This should be an occasion of great joy; one covenant sheet and thirteen characters down, with one to go. There is a reason why this one is last, of course. I've been putting off doing him. It involves the culmination of a convoluted plot line where no-one, me included, fully thought it through, and so I have written myself into a corner and now have to write myself back out of it without letting on to the player that it's all likely to be deus ex-machina. The other NOW writers will know what and whom I'm talking about. With any luck, once it's done, none of the players -and particularly the player who gets the sheet - will notice the patchwork quilt that this character will be made up from.

You can't write one of these games more than once unless you actually enjoy doing so at some level. They're just too big, too time consuming and for a number of weeks they impinge too deeply on your life, so there actual task of writing has to give something back to make it feel as though it's worth the effort. The twenty-minute Q&A and partial plot denouement session at the end of an event isn't enough on its own to keep you going on the long nights in front of a computer hacking out the equivalent page count of a very complex novella.

And that's just for me; pax_draconis is the organiser/plot overseer and writes about half the characters and most -if not all- the general background material. His contribution alone is in volume equal to a reasonable sized novel once every twelve to eighteen months. Add in my novella. And a similar input from each other member of the writing crew and you get an idea of just how big these blighters are.

pax_draconis has hardback bound copies of the first three events. I think I want one of the fourth too (I rather wish I had copies of the earlier ones), just so that in my dotage I can point at them and say with evidence, that we were bloody fools in our earlier years.

Anyway, I have digressed. The point is, at some level you have to like writing a large freeform enough to overcome the effective nuking of your spare time and social life it invariably involves.

This one remaining character sheet is something of a chore. I said I'd write it, so I shall, but it is one I have no real interest in (my own fault), and which is proving elusive to pin down.

Oh well.

I am seriously troubled about my ability to get to the site for GD this weekend. I have to check out possibilities with delvy, but I suspect that the fact I have to work tomorrow will make my circumstances incompatible with his. ephraim kindly and helpfully connected me with one possibility, but that sadly is a none-starter despite the kind offer simply because I shall still be in the office when the journey begins, and things haven't been so rosy recently that I want to tamper with the office situation by trying to claim a day's leave unannounced and at the drop of a hat now that things have calmed down again.

Which means that it looks as though I shall be on a train on Saturday morning, followed by an extended bus journey to the middle of no-where lugging a bag full of kit, a sleeping bag, food (and booze), spare clothes and so on and so forth, only to sleep on the grass in the open and come back Sunday ready for work on Monday.

Life, I am coming round to the view, is too fucking short for all this hassle. Especially as I have productive things to do (afore-mentioned character sheet for a start) and chores which I have long neglected.

And all for the lack of a car (which in every ninety-nine days in a hundred would be more of a burden than boon, living as I do in Clapham, only a couple of miles from the centre of London).

And because I'm getting everything else off my chest in this gripe, and it's local and European election day, it looks as though we have forgotten to hold elections in this country, too. In its pathetic attempt to get more people to vote, HMG is piloting an exclusive postal voting system in four regions. The independent commission recommended two because of the logistics problems involved, but HMG decided upon four.

There is mounting evidence of widespread electoral fraud - some of it perpetrated by the Labour Party itself in an official policy document, and postal ballot papers still being unavailable on election day when the postal votes should already have been received by the Returning Officer to count. Watch for recounts and close calls in the four regions piloting the system. Watch for the Florida-esque court cases when there is no obvious winner.

Pah.

I feel better for that. Not a great deal, but it's a definite improvement.

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