Lolling on a lewd love bed

And also to the theatre. Northern Broadsides are celebrating their twenty fifth anniversary with a limited season of the play with which it all started, Richard III. It's only playing in Hull, as part of the UK City of Culture programme, and at their home base of the Viaduct Theatre. It has been many years since I visited Dean Clough and my first recommendation is to leave plenty of time to find the entrance which is carefully positioned so as not to be visible to anyone approaching on either foot or by car. Once inside however, I was welcomed to the auditorium by Bazza himself; the personal touch always goes down well.

Actually auditorium is pushing it; what we have is a large workspace within what a century and a half ago was the world's largest carpet factory, with a low central stage overlooked on two sides by banks of seating, with entrance and exit for the actors taking place from either end. This was the production's first night in Halifax and the layout caused some slight confusion. Buckingham gestured grandly in one direction for Catesby to head off to importune Lord Hastings only for the man himself to stride off rapidly in the other, to the general amusement of cast and audience.

Aside from the celebratory aspect, much of the publicity has highlighted the casting of an actor with a physical disability, Mat Fraser, as the title character. It's interesting that it is this rather than the alternative of someone able bodied affecting a disability which is seen as noteworthy, especially compared with the fact that it has been many years since the part of Othello became restricted to black actors, such as Sir Lenworth in Northern Broadsides' own version. I don't think it makes any difference in and of itself. Fraser makes the most of it by stripping to the waist in the Tower scene - the one where Hastings comes to regret not being more amenable to Catesby's entreaties and which this blog has had cause to reference previously - but no doubt a different casting would have resulted in a different bit of business; it's called acting. The central performance has to stand on its own - "to prove a villain" - and I'm pleased to say that it does.

In a first for a production that I have seen, the princes in the tower are played by adults. This worked well enough except that the same actor played both Edward V and Tyrell; I lost concentration for a bit while pondering how he had managed to smother himself off stage. There is no cross gender casting - more difficult to carry off in the History plays of course - unless one counts the reappearance towards the end of the actresses who have played the various queens, this time in male military uniform as standard bearers. And speaking of the queens, Flo Wilson is especially venomous as Margaret; get cursed by her and one will stay cursed. The battle of Bosworth provides one of two opportunities which are taken to shoehorn in a bit of clog dancing - the other is the coronation - and given the prominence of that art in their opera omnia one can forgive them this. Michael Jones thinks it was Frenchmen armed with pike who caused Richard to cry "A horse, a horse...", but apparently it was northerners wearing clogs; who knew?

Plastics

 “What a fine persecution - to be kept intrigued without ever quite being enlightened.” 

- Tom Stoppard

And so to the theatre. The stage version of  'The Graduate' is best known for providing famous, middle-aged actresses with a chance to show that they're still worth looking at, but it also captured the interest in a number of other ways. It featured the second actor in a wetsuit in a fortnight, this time somewhat more relevantly; Benjamin's mental floundering is being underlined by a visual 'out of his depth' metaphor. There was also what I'm pretty sure was the first time I've ever seen a door being smashed down with an axe live on stage, and very enjoyable it was too. Last, but by no means least, was the vigorous tassle twirling of professional burlesque artiste Elsie Diamond; I think one knows where one is with someone who chooses the stage name 'Elsie'. In any event the programme observed that if one didn't like the character of Benjamin then one wouldn't 'get on' with the Graduate; I didn't and , by and large, I didn't. Elaine - who gets more of the story on stage compared to the film - did make one philosophical statement that appealed to me as a Stoic: "If you allow yourself to have dessert every time you see a little pig," she said "then you will see a lot more little pigs and eat a lot more dessert". Wise words.

I'm always happy to see any play by Alan Ayckbourn because one is guaranteed at least half a dozen good laughs and  'Sisterly Feelings' was no exception. I have long held the theory that a successful farce will involve sardines, and sure enough they pop up here, as does the slightly creepy concept of stalking someone leading to a positive 'happy ever after' result, a trope it shares with 'The Graduate'. As this happened in the second half its occurrence was apparently determined by an on-stage coin toss in the first half, Ayckbourn having written two alternate conclusions to the piece. Whilst this is an intriguing idea, it strikes me as essentially pointless because most people are only going to see it once. It would be particularly galling to choose to see it a second time to catch the alternate ending (which hopefully shows stalking to result in imprisonment) only to find that the coin landed heads twice in a row and one had to sit through the same thing again.

Of course dozens of heads in row are the result of a coin being repeatedly tossed in the opening scene of 'Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead', Tom Stoppard's youthful masterpiece. I have been to see the live streaming of the Old Vic production starring Daniel Radcliffe and Joshua McGuire. It is possible that many of those in the screening that I went to came along attracted by the former's previous role as a boy wizard rather than by Stoppard's absurdist wordplay or his existential examination of the limitations of man's real freedom of action in the light of his inevitable demise, and nor perhaps were they aware of the need to have some familiarity with 'Hamlet' in order to make head or tail of it all. For whatever reason there were many fewer of them after the interval. It rather put me in mind of when I saw Ross Kemp give his Petruchio, although on that occasion Dutch courage allowed most of the soap fans to stick with the blank verse all the way through. In this case the show was rather stolen by David Haig as the Player, but it was all, as one would expect, excellent.

Moscophoros

Unusually for me, I rather like the latest show at the Henry Moore Institute: Votives by Aleksandra Domanović.

The sculptures, made in the tradition of Greek korai, are intended to 'fold the aesthetic of classical sculpture into her investigation into how developing technology relates to the societies that create it'. I'm not entirely sure what that means, but nevertheless I'm going to say that she has achieved it. The pieces manage to be both recognisable in form to those who have visited ancient sites or museum galleries and yet are distinctly of the present day. I must be going soft.

The artist claims that all technology is gendered, but doesn't elaborate. Of the two technologies that she uses I'm going to guess that she thinks 3D printing is female (creating something from nothing) and inkjet printing is male (creating by emission on to a blank canvas), but that might prove nothing more than that I'm both a pseud and a good example of Freud's psychosexual theory of personality; neither of which will come as a surprise to readers of the blog. Still, a modern art exhibition that makes one think something other than "this is a bag of shit" is an event to be cherished.

The Forgetting Curve

"A poem is learned by heart and then not again repeated. we will suppose that after half a year it has been forgotten: no effort of recollection is able to call it back again into consciousness." 

- Hermann Ebbinghaus

Wargaming has returned a bit earlier than expected. James and I had a small Italian Wars game using the Renaissance version of Black Powder, the exact name of which escapes me. It wasn't only the name which escaped me however, because I could remember literally nothing about the rules despite having played them six months ago. Fortunately James' remembered slightly more than me, just enough to get us started. With much flipping through the (very badly written) rulebook we managed OK, and finished early enough to spend some time agreeing on exactly which bits we had got wrong. We also made use of a cheat sheet showing the effects of being either disordered or shaken; it turned out that I had prepared it last year, something else that had slipped from my memory. Another game has been scheduled for next week, which hopefully will be soon enough for some of it all to have stuck this time. For the record three Swiss pike blocks were thrown back by a couple of heroic Spanish colunellas lining a wall. James filled the role normally filled by Peter and threw bad dice repeatedly.

I've also bought a copy of Miniature Wargames for the first time in ages. I am possibly in a minority of one in thinking that it was at its best when edited by Andrew Hubback, but at least we can all agree that it's pretty poor nowadays. The June issue has a quite astonishing editorial in which the current incumbent tells the readers that they're wrong when they tell him they don't find the articles in the magazine interesting or relevant. I only bought it for the feature on using cards to generate unpredictability in Zulu wars games, which I thought might have some application to my Romans in Britain game, the one that is forever on the back burner. In fairness it did indeed contain one or two ideas worth thinking about. But in case you read it elsewhere and assumed they were joking, there really is an article about how to paint a realistic elven army, without the slightest hint of irony.

Suddenly I See

I have been to see KT Tunstall, and it was, well, it was OK; which is to say that I was a bit disappointed that I didn't enjoy it more. I hope that makes sense. She has an engaging stage presence, plays a mean guitar and was wearing a pair of shiny trousers that looked as if they had been sprayed on, but somehow it all fell a bit flat. She has abandoned playing with a band, instead using a loop pedal arrangement to accompany herself taking what she does away from folk/blues into folktronica or techno-folk or something similarly made up. Other than one or two highlights - notably 'Black Horse and the Cherry Tree' - it didn't really float my boat.

Less hi-tech and all the better for it were Coope, Boyes and Simpson. A male acapella trio they are definitely within the folk tradition despite writing much of their own material, often political in nature. They have become associated in the last few years with songs about the Great War and did a selection of such material, including a couple of self-penned numbers about Major Valentine Fleming of the Queen's Own Oxfordshire Hussars. Fleming was in many ways the epitome of the sort of person they - and your bloggist - dislike on principle (Eton and Oxford, Conservative MP etc), but there is no denying his bravery, which ultimately was to cost him his life. Apparently he and his fellow officers tried hard to ensure that those one hundred years on would have strongly mixed feelings about them despite their heroism, by transporting their horses and hounds to northern France and spending their time when not in the trenches by hunting; there is no record of whether or not they hunted for monkeys. Fleming, whose son was of course the creator of James Bond, was born on the banks of the Tay and another of the songs the threesome sang, written by Michael Marra, was about an imagined trip by Frida Kahlo to Dundee. Other, perhaps more likely, subjects varied from the refugee crisis to the return of fascists to political power (a song which reminded me, and probably only me, musically of 'Yours Is No Disgrace') via a lament for Kurt Cobain. A mention must also be made of a song about the environment, which concluded with the refrain 'one million plastic bottles' sung to the tune of 'ten green bottles', but which thankfully they didn't sing to a conclusion.

Time gets harder to outrun

And so to the theatre. The main question that people have been asking me recently - besides whether I have any more photos of the Young Farmers Ladies Tug-of-War at the Otley Show - is why it's been so long since I last went to see Romeo and Juliet; it must be a couple of months at least. Well, you can all stop worrying, because I have been to see the production that Watermill Theatre are putting on as part of the York International Shakespeare Festival. The show was preceded by a very interesting talk from Dr Helen Smith, Director of the Centre for Renaissance and Early Modern Studies at York University, who my subsequent research tells me is, amongst other things, an expert on the link between reading and digestion. I hope and trust that your perusal of this blog will swiftly result in a productive visit to the place of easement.

The programme promised a show that highlighted the youthfulness of the characters, but let's be honest, they all do. Barring Sir Ken Branagh's decision to have a much older Mercutio they all make a fuss about how young the actors are without actually going the whole hog and casting a thirteen year old to play Juliet; probably because they'd get arrested if they did. For the record the cross gender roles on this occasion were Benvolio, Friar Laurence and the Prince. The first two happen so often that I'd be more surprised now if they weren't played by women.

I have seen the play so many times that it's all becoming a bit blurred between what is the original text, what is necessary because of limitations of cast numbers, and what is directors putting their personal stamp on it; Dr Smith in one sense made things worse for me by drawing attention to the fact that there were differences between the various versions published in and shortly after the author's lifetime. I will therefore restrict myself to commenting on two things that I am pretty sure were new to me. The second and third scenes in Act 3 (the Nurse telling Juliet of Tybalt's death and Romeo lamenting to the Friar his banishment from Verona) were played simultaneously, cutting between the two in the way that one could imagine happening in a film, and I thought it worked rather well. Less happily, Mercutio played the whole of Act 2, Scene 4 in a wetsuit and flippers: it was by no means clear why. One possibility is that it has something to do with the song 'Wetsuit' - which the cast may have sung before the action started; I'm not entirely au fait with the Vaccines' oeuvre so I can't positively swear to that - but it just made me think of Kermit the Frog.  Anyway, it looked as ridiculous as you would imagine, especially while he was engaging in his 'saucy merchant' banter with the Nurse.

Despite that, I enjoyed it. The cast were not only young they were energetic, enthusiastic and musical. There is of course a lot more fighting and killing than wooing and loving in the play - for the benefit of the apprentices in the audience according to Dr Smith - and the cast seemed more comfortable with that aspect, throwing themselves about with vigour. However, the reality is that convincing chemistry between the eponymous leads is rather rare; these two were no worse than many I've seen.

The 208th Otley Show

The Otley Show has been on and for the first time in some years I managed to arrive home carrying as many cameras as I started out with. It was a day of two halves: lovely weather in the morning and at one o'clock precisely it chucked it down. So, better than usual. Anyway, having still got my camera I shall include more photos than the occasion really deserves.

There were lots of sheep:

A display of synchronised sheep bothering

And cows:

And horses:

 But an outbreak of the plague meant no chickens:

So they sent their children instead:

I'm not sure if I've ever mentioned this before, but they have ladies tug of war, which is OK if you like that sort of thing:

Gently does it

"Asparagus inspires gentle thoughts." - Charles Lamb

Roide Sally, Roide

And so to the theatre. I have written recently about sopranos being not quite as young as the parts they were singing. It is only fair that I start my review of Reform Theatre's 'Hopeless Romantics' by observing that if whoever cast Kivan Dene thinks that he can pass for twenty seven then he should have gone to a well known chain of high street opticians. Despite that it's an entertaining and amusing piece. It takes the format of romcom films and manages to both subvert and reinforce it at the same time. Dene's character is a socially awkward loser, a flop with women who is regarded as a failure by his high-achieving family. So it can be no surprise when half way through the first act he is outed as a wargamer. He actually favours Warhammer, but I'm sure that readers will recognise that trying to explain the difference to women is not a terribly successful chat up line either. Does the orc botherer get the girl? Well, it is fantasy after all.

I've also been to see The Commitments, which was another enjoyable evening. The young cast gave an energetic performance and the audience was enthusiastic. I've never read the book, but didn't think the stage show was as good as the film, which I found much more emotionally engaging. The translation to stage necessitated  more focus on the singing and dancing, and whilst the story covered the same narrative arc it jumped forward in uneasily large steps. The music was good, but frankly if you spend time watching local bands in pubs - as of course your bloggist does - you'll see a higher standard performed for a somewhat lower entrance fee. Anyone in the West Yorkshire area for example, should check out The Solicitors, for the same songs played better.

Stand a little less...

I gave the impression yesterday that I might struggle for subjects to write about. But, of course, I am British and so there is always the weather. And as it happens the weather is absolutely glorious.

I took the opportunity to head off into Upper Wharfedale, a place that, as far as I am aware, has no wargaming epicentre, but does have a suspension bridge.

And here, after a long gap, is a new entry in our series of the bridges of the dales; this one is over Linton Beck.

"All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking" - Nietzsche

Some you win...

It's looking as if there might not be any wargaming for the rest of the month. "What on earth," I hear you ask "will you write about?", which is a question both pertinent and fair; this blog does not willingly stray from its narrow remit of toy soldier related doings. But I am a bloggist, and a bloggist blogs, so I will just have to scratch around to see what else I can find to entertain you with.

Let's start, perhaps controversially, with some wargaming. We had a Crusades game last week, which I have to say probably won't live long in the memory. It did produce an entertaining enough evening's play, despite turning out to be somewhat one-sided. As I've said before the Piquet family of games are chaotic (in the mathematical sense) and ensure widely differing games from the same starting point because of the way the cards and the initiative interact. On this occasion the Franks didn't move very quickly but the Saracens did, and that made all the difference; the Frankish knights didn't manage to charge home, but the horse archers easily got into shooting range. The narrative - as so often - made perfect sense: a small group of crusaders sets off in great heart across the desert, but the going proves slower than they expected, they are overwhelmed by swarms of tribal cavalry who can never quite be brought to hand to hand combat, they are forced to stop moving and make a stand as they are surrounded, and - their morale gone - they accept their inevitable fate.

Unusually, but consistent with the above, the game ended in a clear victory despite the fact that all units were still on the table, none from either side having been destroyed or routed off.

Carry on Henry

King Henry VIII:        Her figure's all right. What about her face?
Thomas Cromwell:     I am assured, sire, it is the fairest in all Normandy.
King Henry VIII:        What about her... [indicates hourglass figure]
Thomas Cromwell:     The fullest in all Normandy.
King Henry VIII:        Has she been chaste?
Thomas Cromwell:     All over Normandy.

However good Damien Lewis and Mark Rylance were in the BBC's adaptation of Wolf Hall, I think we can all agree that Sid James and Kenneth Williams gave us the definitive versions of Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell. I have been to see Dr David Starkey lecture on Henry VIII., where disappointingly, and despite his being a distinguished historian, he made no mention at all of either Marie of Normandy or Bettina, buxom daughter of the Earl of Bristol. I intended to challenge this omission in the Q&A afterwards, but unfortunately the great man's gaze never fell on my raised hand; instead we had to put up with eager sixth formers asking about the dissolution of the monasteries.

Other than that small oversight he was an informative and entertaining speaker, and notably one who didn't seem to alter his approach despite speaking to a largely non-academic audience. He was also rather charming and happy to sign books and chat in a way that put a lot of musicians I could name to shame. Perhaps as a nod to his reputation for being the rudest man in Britain he did have digs at several people including Prince Charles (easy target), Gordon Brown (not exactly au courant), feminists (yawn), people who study their family history (it is apparently the second step on one's way to one's dotage)  and Bartok's opera "Duke Bluebeard's Castle" (I disagree and have very fond memories of Sir John Tomlinson in Opera North's semi staged version in 2005).

I won't attempt to summarise what he said - read his books. He subscribes to the theory of French pikemen at Bosworth, but offered no evidence to support it. He touched on the subject during a very amusing and thought provoking diversion onto the parallels between the Reformation and Britain's exit from the EU on the one hand and radical Islam on the other. The previous lecture that I attended was marred by members of the audience taking the opportunity to disagree politically with the speaker and this was a refreshing change; at least it was until the first question, which was whether Dr Starkey thought he would be able improve his historical analysis by adopting a Marxist perspective. Spoiler alert: he didn't, and also took the opportunity to be gratuitously rude about Max Weber as well.

Whenever You Need Me

I haven't written much about music recently, although I have continued to go to gigs; indeed I have just been to see the Devon Allman Band. Allman is the son of Gregg and nephew of Duane so I was hoping for some soul and blues influenced southern rock to take me back to my youth and distract me from... well distract me. I am pleased to say that's exactly what I got.

It was all good stuff, from his own material to covers of the Clapton song above (I know Clapton didn't write it), Tom Petty's "Mary Jane's Last Dance", the Detroit Spinners' "I'll Be Around" (they didn't write that either), and "No Woman, No Cry"; the last two quite definitely successful in temporarily returning me to the 1970s.

When they came back for the encore he caused confusion by promising two and a half songs. The extra bit turned out to be teasing, stop start intros to, among others, "Sweet Home Alabama", "Whole Lotta Love" and, perhaps inevitably "Jessica". I'm going to go with "Whipping Post" instead:

Splendours of the Subcontinent

I have been to see the current exhibition at the Cartwright Hall art gallery in Bradford: 'Splendours of the Subcontinent'. This features some of the gifts presented to the then Prince of Wales when he toured India in 1875. As you would expect the craftsmanship on display is quite exquisite. The highlight is probably this inkstand in the form of a ceremonial barge:

However, although somewhat plainer, there were some model soldiers - of which these are just a selection - which may be of interest to readers. They were made in brass using the lost wax process; in other words each is individually carved:

Mounted Indian Archer

Indian Military Elephant, driver and drummer

Camel

Honourable East India Company Native Cavalry Officer

 

Tweetle Beetle Bettel Battle

 “I know it is wet and the sun is not sunny, but we can have lots of good fun that is funny.” - Dr Seuss

Whilst I have no immediate plans to play C&C Napoleonics - we will be back in the Holy Land this week - I have taken advantage of the traditional British Bank Holiday weather to set up another game. I had decided to create my own scenario both because there weren't any others on the website featuring the forces that I had available to fight the French (Russians and Prussians) and because I have always found the official C&C scenarios to be unbalanced. It is only logical therefore that the historical episode which I chose was part of the battle of Eckmühl on April 22nd 1809, specifically the action between the Bettel Berg and the village of Oberlaichling. This features Austrians - which I don't have - defending against a much larger French and Bavarian force. The Austrians will on this occasion be replaced by Prussians.

My record on creating scenarios is not good; I have a tendency to over elaborate somewhat. I am hopeful however that by restricting myself to simply translating someone else's scenario for a different ruleset I might have better luck. Thus I have based this entirely on an article in Miniature Wargames in October 2009, which in turn is reproduced from 'Battles for Empire - Napoleonic Wargames Scenarios 1807-1809' by James R. Arnold and Ralph R. Reinertsen, published by Napoleon Books.

The table layout is straightforward enough. The map is in the proportion 8x5 which translates closely enough into 20 hexes by 12, which is a convenient arrangement of Hexon tiles and is close enough to the C&C Epic playing surface (the latter is 20 x 11 hexes) to not require any rules revisions. It includes a double height hill and some woods defended by fieldworks. Neither appear in C&C, but common sense indicates what their effect would be if they did.

The forces indicated in the article are too big for a C&C game and need to be scaled down. After some thought I decided to take as a starting point the use of all the Bavarian infantry units that I own and make everything else proportional. Further adjustments are needed to reflect the fact that Prussian units are smaller than the Austrians were and, being a mix of front line, reserve and Landwehr, some of them aren't very good. I've also allowed for the fact that in C&C Prussian cavalry units are smaller than the French. I shall probably use plain vanilla combat factors for the Bavarians, with no national characteristics, thereby making them, as they should be, inferior to the French.

Defining victory conditions is one area that I have always found odd in C&C, particularly the fact that the target number of victory points is always the same for both sides; regular readers may remember this vexed me quite a lot during the Punic Wars campaign we played a few years ago. In this battle Davout's objective was to cut the Eckmühl to Ratisbonne road. The scenario as published mandates the defenders to counterattack against any unit which reaches the road. I think a better alternative is to offer temporary victory points to the French for any unit they can place across the road at the end of a turn. I'm not sure how many; perhaps a bonus for having units contiguous rather than separated.

Lateness, Much Mohawk Lateness

OK, you can all stop sending me messages begging for the return of the boardgame roundup, because here it is for March and April combined:

Boom Runaway: Is this game about bombs wishing to explode in order to get to paradise in questionable taste? I don't know, but it's an interesting enough filler and for some reason it seems to be getting easier to explain to new players.

Clank!: A nice combination of deck builder and push your luck dungeon explorer. I've now played it twice and enjoyed the second time so much more than the first that I came to the conclusion that we must have been playing it wrongly previously. I do think that going last in the first turn is quite a handicap.

Codenames: Seemingly endlessly replayable.

Condottiere: Yet another example of a new player winning this on their first try. It's a game that always goes down well.

The Climbers: This is a 3D abstract game involving spatial awareness and colour recognition, despite which I managed to win one of the games I played. I liked it.

El Grande: Precursor to, and heavier big brother of, Rattus, and I liked it just as much as that game. I can see why it's ranked in the top fifty on boardgamegeek.

Evolution: Climate: For the first time that I've ever played it the temperature plummeted and there was a prolonged ice age. My species neither coped nor adapted, choosing extinction as their preferred option; I didn't win.

Hanabi: First play for quite a while; we had a disastrous start, but turned in a solid nineteen.

Isle of Skye: I continue to like this auction based, tile laying game.

Kingdom Builder: When writing this list up I had to go back and look up this game to see what it entailed. That's not usually a good sign and so it's proved here. If you don't choose a good starting position in this game then you're stuffed. If you've never played it before then you can't possibly select a favourable initial set up. Ergo, no one will ever  play this twice.

K2: I played this twice and might be beginning to get the hang of keeping my climbers alive. I recommend this game.

Lancaster: Another good game that I'm always happy to play. It's not a wargame, although loosely themed around the Hundred Years War, but one has to fight in France as part of an overall mix of activities if one is to prosper. Works much better with four players than three.

Love Letter: It had been more than a year since I'd played it last, and I had forgotten just how much of a game there is with so few cards. Japanese minimalism at its best.

Mangrovia: This was new to me. It's a lightish game with a nice action selection mechanism. The theme is something to do with appeasing the gods by building one's hut in the right place, but in reality it's a straightforward area control game. I'd play again.

Memoir '44 Operation Overlord:  I wrote about this earlier in the month. It didn't grab me.

Mush! Mush!:A welcome return for the husky racing game which most, but not all, people really like once they have played it. It plays up to eight and the more there are then the better the game. We had a go with the buildings in one of the plays, but I'm not sure they added much, and they're very heavy to carry.

Panamax: I'm not a fan of business games as such; by and large they don't do a good job of representing real life. This one combines it with a bit of spatial awareness, thereby reducing it even more in my estimation.

Porta Nigra: This game involves riding round on a donkey buying building materials and then undertaking their construction. I rather enjoyed it, despite finding out when we calculated the scores at the end that I hadn't done terribly well. I suspect the winner just got lucky, but maybe that's just sour grapes.

Roll for the Galaxy: Another reliable and enjoyable game, which scales up to more players without greatly lengthening things. The expansions add some complexity and some different coloured dice to keep track of, but don't really do much else.

Room 25: There's a good game hiding in here somewhere, but as implemented the outcome seems far too random.

Sail to India: Another somewhat minimalist Japanese game which packs a lot in to a small box with few components. I like the fact that there are lots of possible paths to victory.

Skull: This is a good game and an ever reliable filler, but our group has played it so often we have become somewhat jaded with it. It will go back on the shelf for the time being.

Steampunk Rally: It being my first game I didn't fully appreciate the importance of avoiding damage  and my vehicle fell apart after one turn, a setback from which I never recovered. Add this to the list of games which I would play very differently a second time.

Uchronia: This is Glory to Rome with some amendments such as the separation of the building cards from the others and taking out the sudden death ending options. I wonder if there isn't some sort of Jon Fogerty songwriting credit issue at work here.

Unlock! Squeek and Sausage: This is one of a raft of escape room in a box games now available. I enjoyed it despite my aversion to cooperative games. It takes a while to understand what is required, and may be best to play on the first occasion with someone who has prior experience of other similar games.

X nimmt!: To be honest the best feature of the original 6 nimmt! was that it could handle a lot of players. The new features in this game do add to the tactical choices, but don't make up for the reduction to only four players.

By the way, for those interested in the monthly painting roundup that I snuck in last month in an attempt to look like a real wargamer, there won't be one because I didn't do any painting at all in April. Events dear boy, events.