Pot34pouri

I find it interesting that since I started writing about wargaming again the number of readers of the blog has plummeted; even the Russian spambots have deserted me. Still, I only ever write for myself and of course for Elkie Brooks' greatest fan, so I press on regardless. I like to see myself as a character in Beckett - failing again, failing better.

I am minded to write about the David Cameron incident in the centre of Leeds the other day. My confidential source who was watching from the windows of the Civic Hall gave a very different description of events to the official version, so who knows what to believe? One thing everyone agrees on is that after the PM had been hustled away there was an immense amount of shouting and finger pointing among those remaining. My own experience over many years of the British security services was that they were spectacularly useless, so nothing about this incident really surprises me.

As I'm in full old-man chuntering mode can I complain about something of even less interest to the rest of you, Radio 2's list of the greatest song covers of all time. Of the top five two weren't even the best cover of that song let alone alone among the best covers ever made. Jeff Buckley's version of Leonard Cohen's 'Hallelujah' is, in my opinion, not as good as k d lang's, but I'll grant that it's arguable. What is not in the slightest debatable is that the Stranglers take on Bacharach and David's 'Walk On By' isn't a patch on that by Isaac Hayes on his 'Hot Buttered Soul' album. Who are these numpties?

Boardgames played included BakerSpeed (sort of like Panic Lab with a very tenuous Sherlock Holmes paste-on theme), Takenoko and Keyflower. Which just leaves wargaming. I didn't think Fiasco was very good as a show frankly, but we had a pleasant -if brief - run through of Harran. I made the mistake of volunteering to gain revenge as the Saracens, but despite having the coolest named commanders in Jekemesh and Soqman they didn't perform at all. Yet more rolling of ones and failure to turn the Manoeuvre card on my part meant that the Crusaders had the initiative and used it to roll up the infidels. there goes my 100% record in convention games. In another break with recent history I actually did some shopping, buying a bridge for the squex version of C&C Napoleonics and some more bases for Romans in Britain.