Pot79pouri

You will all be seriously concerned that I am going to review in great detail the whole of my cultural life during the period of enforced absence from the blog. Happily even I am not that cruel. There were of course many highlights in the 3 operas, 12 plays, 4 gigs and 2 films that I managed to squeeze in because, thankfully, my long vision was unaffected by the spectacles debacle. However, 2001; A Space Odyssey wasn't among them. I'd managed never to see this before so was keen to catch the 50th anniversary restored print on the big screen. Dear, oh, dear; what a load of old rubbish, and I don't exempt Leonard Rossiter's Russian accent from that criticism. Does anyone know why the astronaut doing the EVA flew the small pod further away from the bit he wanted to repair than he was prior to launching it before getting out to spacewalk back? No wonder the AI thought it had a chance of winning.

I shall instead mention a few which actually are worth, er, mentioning:

• The post-Bazza Northern Broadsides' funny and poignant version of 'Hard Times' with all the usual music and dancing.
• Noel Coward's 'Nude With Violin', which demonstrated that the master had a similar view of modern art to me, but also rather disappointingly demonstrated that he couldn't think of any wittier way of expressing it than saying "Anyone could have painted that" over and over again.
• An amateur production of the musical "Sweet Charity" that gave the young(ish) mothers of Ilkley the chance to unleash their inner dance hall hostess, with frankly terrifying results.
• 'Celebration', a Waterhouse and Hall play that not only did I much prefer to 'Billy Liar', but which to anyone like me who grew up in a large extended working class family in the early sixties was as if one's past had come back to life.
• English Touring Opera's very funny take on Puccini's 'Gianni Scicchi'

Boardgaming is also difficult if you can't see (especially given that I can't tell the difference between colours half the time anyway), so mostly I didn't bother. I did however join a few of the erstwhile Ilkley Lads for a game of the new reprint of Medieval. The game was punctuated by one of the players regularly falling asleep before waking up to demand to know what was all that stuff going on with removing map tiles from the board. For those who haven't seen it, removing map tiles from the board is in fact a major part of the game. Despite that - and only partly because I won - this game is highly recommended and is hereby added to Epictetus' list of boardgames that will appeal to wargamers. Another game on that list is Condottiere, which I have previously bigged up here only to find out that it was out of print. Well there is good news as it is being reprinted, including rules for a new 2-player variant. Details - except sadly for the timetable - can be found here.

And no post at this time of year would be complete without one of these;