Shouting in a bucket blues

I have continued my tour of out of season seaside resorts with a trip to Brighton. Despite the flooding that at one point looked likely to prevent my returning home I will categorically state that Brighton is better than Bournemouth whatever the meteorological conditions. In any event I actually stayed in a pub in a small village in the downs, all wooden beams and open fires; very nice. And then immediately on my return I had to get on a train to London. For those unfamiliar with the geography of the UK just  take my word that Brighton to London via Leeds is not the recommended route. 

Boardgaming has resumed for the year. We started with a light card game that I quite enjoyed, but have unaccountably forgotten the name of. It featured a game mechanic called the 'wandering dude' which on its own would have been good enough for me to give it the thumbs up. Second was Last Will, a game which involves getting rid of all one's money. This obviously rubbed me up the wrong way to start with and wasn't helped by my brilliant strategy being stopped in its tracks by my failure to read my cards properly. Nevertheless I vote this a hit as well.

The highlight of the evening was however Quartermaster General which is, astonishingly and incontrovertibly, a wargame. Now wargames don't get played much at boardgaming meetups for all sorts of reasons: many take far too long, many are two player, they of necessity have a fairly limited range of mechanics etc etc. But last night, finding ourselves with the requisite six people, we re-fought WW2 in an hour and twenty minutes, saving the world quite straightforwardly in the end. I played the US, arsenal of democracy, which must be the easiest role; one just has more of everything than everyone else. It's a card driven game with a map board and pieces representing armies and fleets and moves along very quickly. It's would seem that it would give very different games each time it's played although in keeping with history the Axis probably have to land a knockout blow early if they are to succeed. I thoroughly enjoyed it and would strongly recommend it; providing always of course that one has five - and only five - similarly minded gaming friends.

Which load of nothing just leaves space for some Stone the Crows, with three warnings. Firstly, the song is not that advertised in the post's title (that's by Kevin Ayers anyway); secondly the lyrics are satisfyingly rude; and thirdly the clothes and hairstyles are dreadful - truly the seventies were the decade that fashion forgot.