Further ramblings of a self-made pauper

Well, games night is now a Monday, with a revised cast of players. The first session went off well enough, creating some Serenity characters and getting going.

Shiny.

I wouldn't say that things played out badly plotwise, but by the end of the first session, we were minus our ship. Now we have to work out how the hell to get it back.

We ain't even left the planet yet.

Pyen juh duh jiou cha wen!

Much to my surprise I received a copy of the fourth edition of En Garde in the post this morning.

En Garde, for those who don't know, is a fairly simple, but oddly enjoyable role-playing game set in France at the time of the Three Musketeers. It adapts well to postal play, and lends itself to campaigns that can get surprisingly complex once a few house rules have been added.

The game was originally published in the USA by GDW in 1975, with a second edition in 1977. I have a copy of that somewhere, showing the signs of great, if not recent, use. The UK rights were licensed by Small Furry Creatures Press in the late 1980s, and a revamped third edition isued for the UK market, featuring a clearer layout and more illustrations.

Small Furry Creatures Press published an eponymous games review magazine in the 1980s and 1990s, which developed into Games, Games, Games magazine for which I provided some illustrations over the years. While Small Furry Creatures Press has sadly ceased to exist, the irrepressible Pevans, one of the erstwhile partner/editors has acquired the rights to En Garde and published the revised fourth edition of the game. The vast majority of the artwork (including the cover)is by Lee Brimmicombe-Wood, but one of the heaps of cartoony illustrations I drew all those years ago, a small silhouette of four King's Musketeers (or possibly Cardinal's Guards - they each have a cross on their tunics) touching rapiers in classic pose, has made the new edition. It's a tiny illo, but it is a claim to fame of sorts, and provides me both with a publishing credit and a courtesy copy of the game!

Anyone interested in the game can find details here. If you are interested in PBMs generally - or even board-gaming in a wider context, you could do worse than take a look at Pevans' website (linked above)for reviews and contact with the Swiggers games club.

Sharpen your sword… Sharpen your wit… Take care not to insult a small man with a large nose…
Good luck, my friend and may your Swash never Buckle!

Damn you, Wallace and Gromit, damn you.¹

I have just spent £26 on cheese. A nice big chunk of sentient Stilton, a decent size piece of Berkswell and a nicely mature single Cooleeney. But there is no Stinking Bishop, it has suddenly become harder to buy than a pork pie in Mecca. Until three months ago, no-one had ever heard of the bloody stuff; other than me and a bunch of Catholic priests who would buy it as a joke present for the bishop (the cheese emporium lies about a half way between the cathedral and the bishop’s residence), practically no-one knew of its existence. The rather sad looking cheese vendor (a man in a bowler hat and a butcher’s smock) informed me that he had ordered ten and had none delivered.

Such is the power of plasticine film stars.

I have bought instead, a cheese by the name of Vacherin Mont d’Or which I am informed is both runny and smelly². So runny in fact, that it is served with a spoon.

I am led to understand that some people wrap it in tin foil, douse in wine and bake it for 10 minutes. This apparently makes it into something like a fondue but with none of the usual hassles.

My furry cardio-vascular system and I are intrigued by the prospect.


¹But not really, of course.
²I am hopefully confident that it is actually a cheese with that description.

I have to buy cheese at lunchtime. Stilton probably, and then something else, Brie most likely and maybe a small selection of others.

This weekend, I am in the sleepy hamlet of Foxton for a Murder Mystery evening. I am not entirely sure how it came about, but I am to play one Seamus O'Hack, dissolute Irish writer who would rather drink than write. I can't do an Irish accent¹. Still, I guess that doesn't matter, just go along, play along and have a good time.

Considering the amount of costume I have around the house, all I need is my Panama hat, though I may take an ornamental walking cane and a hip flask to add to the colour. Otherwise all I need do is wear my current office clothes of chinos, open-neck shirt, and crumpled (and in need of a dry clean) chino jacket. Maybe I won't shave, just to give me that 'been out all night' look, which combined with the red eyes from lack of recent sleep, will do as much as can be expected to transform a fat, blond, balding Englishman into a wiry, dark-haired Irishman.

I understand that the weather forecast suggests that temperatures will fall by about 10 degrees, and that there will be rain. Luckily we will be in a small marquee masquerading as somewhere in Vichy French Morocco, 1943: - Rick's Café Africaine (don't ask), just before the allied invasion of North Africa².

I see the wind has started blowing with a certain malevolent energy outside. Bet I get rained on while I traipse down to the dairy.

Typical.

Additional: In the end, I did not get to the cheese shop. I shall knock off early and wander off up to Neal's Yard for the first time in many moons.

Additionally additional:Briefly, shit hit fan. Six o'clock still at work. Will be here for a while yet. Sky leaden. Not likely to get to cheese shop.

Bugger, arse and damnation.

¹Not entirely true: I can do something that sounds vaguely like Ian Paisley on steroids, which has appalled the few Northern Irish people I've ever spoken to. But any of the varieties of the softer lilt from south of the border are beyond me.

²Operation Torch for those of you who must have your history.