"For the most banal event to become an adventure...you must begin to recount it." - Sartre
Jean-Paul spent some time as a prisoner-of-war, using his spell in confinement to read Heidegger and write a play. I haven't done either of those yet, but this Friday is looking fairly free, so you never know. My relative absence from blogging over the last week has not really been caused by the extreme banality of my life. Nor, contrary to suggestions, has it been because I have either fallen into a black pit of despair or eaten so many biscuits that I can no longer fit behind my desk; although, for what it's worth, one of those is closer to the truth than the other. No, the issue has been more to do with the fact that Blogger has been refusing to work properly, and not for the first time. There is probably a reason why serious bloggers use Wordpress.
Anyway, back to Jean-Paul Sartre. Apparently, in his late twenties he tried mescaline to see what would happen. What happened was that for some months afterwards he thought that he was being followed around by lobsters. However dull things may get, I shall be sticking to coffee.
"The chapter of knowledge is very short, but the chapter of accidents is a very long one."
- Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
Your bloggist's exercise bike has once again had its revenge and he has managed to injure himself in a manner guaranteed to interfere with his normal lifestyle. I wish that I could tell you that this was likely to result in a reduction in the pile of unpainted figures, or in anything constructive happening at all; but I can't.
"What on earth could be more luxurious than a sofa, a book, and a cup of coffee?...Was anything so civil?"
"The lot assigned to every man is suited to him, and suits him to itself." - Marcus Aurelius
And so to the theatre. I have been to see 'Eden End', a relatively rarely performed play by one of this blog's heroes J.B. Priestley. I rather unexpectedly found myself sitting next to Tom Priestley, the great man's son. Whilst we didn't exchange more than pleasantries it certainly caused me to think that I'd got top value for my ticket money, and I commend the idea to theatres everywhere. I'm seeing some Ibsen soon and I trust that the West Yorkshire Playhouse are already scouring Norway for a descendant of the playwright so as to add that little bit extra to my visit. In the event family influence on my enjoyment of 'Eden End' didn't stop there, because after the show, over coffee and cake, Nicolas Hawkes, Priestley's stepson asked me what I had made of the play, politely listened to my interpretation and then equally courteously told me that I had got it completely wrong. That didn't bother me in itself - no one is more aware than me of the shallowness of the intellectual foundations on which this blog is built - but there is one element that does cause some lingering embarrassment. His take on it, the official view if you will, is that the moral of the play is that one must take things as they come. Given that your bloggist's major affectation is to hide behind the name of an eminent Stoic philosopher you might be forgiven for supposing that I ought to have worked that out for myself.
Going back to Ibsen, Stella Kirby was played here by the same actress who played Nora Helmer in the production of 'A Doll's House' that I saw a few months ago. This production takes Priestley's play and gives it an additional prologue and epilogue in the form of music hall routines featuring her, the purpose of which is to allude to her character's backstory, to reference other works by the author such as 'The Good Companions' and to presage the Great War which shortly followed the play's 1912 setting (*). In the finale she sings and dances while wearing male military uniform, a costume choice which I know some blog readers find titillating, but which others have recently indicated that they see as an abomination of such horror that violence is the only appropriate response. You pays your money and you takes your choice.
(*) In case you think I'm being foolhardy in venturing my own opinions despite having earlier been shot down by someone who knew what they were talking about, be reassured that I got all that from the director, to whom I also spoke at the post show reception.
Time
was away and somewhere else,
There were two glasses and two chairs
And two people with the one pulse
(Somebody stopped the moving stairs)
Time was away and somewhere else.
And
they were neither up nor down;
The stream’s music did not stop
Flowing through heather, limpid brown,
Although they sat in a coffee shop
And they were neither up nor down.
The
bell was silent in the air
Holding its inverted poise –
Between the clang and clang a flower,
A brazen calyx of no noise:
The bell was silent in the air.
The
camels crossed the miles of sand
That stretched around the cups and plates;
The desert was their own, they planned
To portion out the stars and dates:
The camels crossed the miles of sand.
Time
was away and somewhere else.
The waiter did not come, the clock
Forgot them and the radio waltz
Came out like water from a rock:
Time was away and somewhere else.
Her
fingers flicked away the ash
That bloomed again in tropic trees:
Not caring if the markets crash
When they had forests such as these,
Her fingers flicked away the ash.
God
or whatever means the Good
Be praised that time can stop like this,
That what the heart has understood
Can verify in the body’s peace
God or whatever means the Good.
Time
was away and she was here
And life no longer what it was,
The bell was silent in the air
And all the room one glow because
Time was away and she was here.
I will remember the kisses
our lips raw with love
and how you gave me
everything you had
and how I
offered you what was left of
me,
and I will remember your small room
the feel of you
the light in the window
your records
your books
our morning coffee
our noons our nights
our bodies spilled together
sleeping
the tiny flowing currents
immediate and forever
your leg my leg
your arm my arm
your smile and the warmth
of you
who made me laugh
again.
The big bouncy woman is in vacanza and in her absence I am somewhat bereft. Any others - and I am neither confirming nor denying that there are others - are just not, in the words of T.S. Eliot, as "bavard, baveux, à la croupe arrondie".
But enough of that, and back to politics. I wanted to pass on a link to a blog post regarding the Labour Party leadership that I found interesting. There is some thoughtful debate going on regarding the issue, it's just that it doesn't get reported in the newspapers or on television.
Wargaming news is a tad slow; we appear to have got the rules wrong yet again in the Bohemian Blitzkrieg campaign so there is a short delay. But I have picked up a paintbrush for the first time a yonk. Admittedly it wasn't to paint any figures, but it was a start. The younger Miss Epictetus got it into her head to go to a pottery painting café and, in the absence of any interest whatsoever elsewhere, was forced to call on the aged parent. It was very relaxing, therapeutic almost, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself applying a Caribbean beach scene to a mug from which, when it's been fired and I get it back, I fully intend to drink coffee laced with rum. That should make the Great War project go with a swing.
It is, as one can't help but know, fifty years to the day since England won the world cup. I haven't watched, listened to or read any of the stuff being churned out to commemorate it, but in my head I have been transported back to watching a black and white tv in the living room of a house in Bethnal Green which was within the year knocked down as part of the slum clearance programme. The memories naturally relate mostly to those with whom I watched it and who are no longer with us; basically everyone except my younger sister. My grandfather - who now I think about it was almost certainly sitting there with a cup of tea laced with a dash of whisky; let no-one tell you nature isn't as strong as nurture - was also gone within the year. I still have a number of volumes of a history of the Great War that were the only books I ever saw in his house.
I have always prided myself on never having been in the slightest bit patriotic. Someone - Julian Barnes perhaps - wrote that real patriotism was pointing out to one's country when it got things wrong. But reflecting on 1966 makes me wonder. I suspect that as a ten year old boy growing up in post-war Britain I was as patriotic as everyone else. Perhaps it was that day that did it. We'd won and that was it. Anything further would be mere repetition and so it didn't hold any further interest for me.
"If you live long enough, you'll see that every victory turns into a defeat" - Simone de Beauvoir
I don't know if anyone else ever takes any MOOCs.
I've got into the habit of watching a video or two while I'm having a
cup of coffee and a slice of home-made cake (this week's is Pear & Chocolate Loaf
and is rather good, even if I say so myself; if you follow the recipe
add a heaped teaspoonful of baking powder) and am finding them all very
interesting. Obviously as a wargamer what one really needs is constant
temptation to start up yet another period and MOOCs provide a
steady stream of possibilities to be enthused over and then discarded when something better comes along. For example, I've just completed a short
course on the ancient Near East which included much material on Kadesh
plus the fighting techniques of the combatants. I hope that my willpower
is strong enough to resist the lure of the massed chariots of Rameses
II, but the best way to ensure that is so is by quickly moving on. It being October 2015 then where better to go next than Agincourt, and so
I'm going to be taking a look here at a brief course being led by Professor Ann Curry to mark the 600th anniversary.
“It is deeply satisfying to win a prize in front of a lot of people.”
- E.B. White
I have been to the Derby Worlds wargaming show in Donnington and very good it was too. It's a spacious venue with easy access and parking and was very busy throughout the weekend without ever being crowded. The catering facilities were adequate and cheap, although the coffee was no great shakes. We were celebrating the 500th anniversary of Marignano with James' very nice Italian Wars figures; and we won.
Your bloggist's crotch is the one on the right
That is to say that James won the prize for best demonstration game as voted for by the attending public. The skill and effort are clearly his and he thoroughly deserves the credit. My own role was limited to meeting, greeting and general bonhomie; and despite having to interact with me the punters still voted for the game. Congratulations to him for the game, and to them for their forbearance.
One visitor to the table early on Sunday was an extremely good looking young woman who appeared very taken with what she saw of Renaissance warfare in miniature. She didn't get to experience my personal charm offensive on behalf of the game as at the time I was on the phone to an even better looking young woman. However James did speak to the father of her boyfriend, who explained that his son had only revealed his shameful obsession (that would be the wargaming) to his girlfriend on the previous evening, and then only reluctantly and under parental pressure. And now here she was, apparently enjoying herself at a wargames show. Sadly I lost sight of her at that point, but I think that we can assume that she continued to be just as entranced as she walked round the show, and got the chance to see the mass of wargamers gathered there in all their rotund and bearded glory. "Yes," she would have thought "this is exactly what I want my boyfriend to look like in thirty years time; who wouldn't want to grow old with one of these?"
By the way, many thanks for the photo above to the excellent Will's Wargaming Blog For reasons that are all too well known I wasn't able to take any myself.
A question has been asked regarding yesterday's picture of a pack of espresso beans. And it's a fair cop, as neither photograph nor the bag of coffee shown were large enough.
No sleep tonight I think. Anyway, over to you Steve:
Jonathan Freitag commented on my last posting about Piquet. I thought I'd reply in the form of a full blog entry because a) more people will see it, b) it allows me to answer at greater length and c) it saves me having to think of anything else to post about. Win-win-win.
The first point to make is that everything he says is right, except perhaps when he implies that there is too much non-wargaming content on the blog. He obviously doesn't realise that if I lost the non-wargamers then I'd have fewer readers. ["Well," interjects the RP "in fact it is just possible that he might be able to work that one out for himself."] In particular your bloggist lives in constant fear of losing his lone female reader; indeed the thought of it sometimes keeps me awake at night.
Anyway, back to Piquet. As noted above, there's a lot in what Jonathan says. So much so that the current Piquet head honcho, Brent Oman (1) has developed a different, but clearly related, set of rules which addressed a lot of the shortcomings. The original version of these, suitable for horse and musket periods, was called "Field of Battle" and we always refer to this family of games as FoB (pronounced fob; saying F O B always makes me want to add "Scott" or "Virgil" on to the end). The major differences include equal initiative and variable movement distances, plus a series of tweaks to manoeuver, combat and morale. My advice to anyone wanting to try Piquet would be to start with these. Personally, I think that I prefer them to classic Piquet and interestingly the rules that James and Peter have written for the Punic Wars, the Crusades and the Italian Wars are all based on FoB (2), as will be my rules for Hussites should I ever actually do more than talk about it.
"Get on with it, man!"
So what of classic Piquet? Well James' set of big battle Seven Years War rules (provisionally entitled "If You Don't Want My Lemons Then Don't Shake My Tree") that we've been playing a lot recently are clearly based on the original master rules and have stripped out many - but not all - of the Ilkley Lads house rules that had accrued over the years. However they have at the same time added in one or two appropriate elements of FoB such as the ability to rally back stands. As previously mentioned on this blog we use dominoes rather than dice to determine initiative which ameliorates the danger of big disparities. However, it doesn't eliminate it. Peter, and to a lesser extent I, have played many, many games of Piquet. We understand and accept its vagaries and are prepared to put up with them because we think that overall the game is well worth it. But on Wednesday even we were completely cheesed off. As F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote "Nothing is as obnoxious as other peoples' luck".
All of which is a long-winded way of saying that while I love playing Piquet, my firm recommendation to those who wish to try (or retry) them would be the newer games within the family (3) and/or be prepared to put in some effort fine tuning them to your understanding of the conflict you are gaming, rather than use the original set as written.
A chap quite definitely without a beard
(1) Brent liked the rules so much that he bought the company. The original author, Bob Jones, has gone on to write Zouave and Die Fighting, both of which I own, but have never played..
(2) I can't for the life of me remember whether their rules for Ancient Galleys or the Western Desert are based on FoB or classic Piquet. In the first instance it's because I haven't played them for so long - hint, hint. In the case of WW2 there really is no excuse as we did the Sidi Rezegh scenario about two dozen times in a row a couple of years ago. I can only assume that the whole episode was so traumatic that I have buried it deep in my subconcious.
(3) Classic Piquet requires the core rules plus a specific period supplement. The FoB type rules are self-contained. I've never played any of the other FoB rulesets such as the ancient version "Pulse of Battle" simply because James and Peter wrote their own version before it came out. For completeness, there are two other games published by Piquet. The first is "Command Piquet", which I liked, but which, it seems to me, requires too much thought to be given to setting up the terrain before one starts. The second is "Jump or Burn", a terrific set of WW1 dogfight rules written by James and which bears no relation whatsoever to any other game labelled as Piquet. We haven't played this for ages as James received an offer he couldn't refuse for all his aircraft and the ingenious stands to which they could be attached.
All this talk of WW1 aircraft and of lemons can only lead in one direction surely:
I have found it easiest to collect all the questions received from readers and answer them in one post:
I did know that the story about George Brown isn't actually true. Surprisingly enough, many things on this blog should be taken with a pinch of salt. Indeed, even when it comes to wargaming the only facts contained herein which you can truly rely on are that Peter will roll lots of ones, that James will change the rules half way through, and that no one will ever be able to agree on the definition of a flank attack.
I did not know that carved mice by Mousey 'Bloody' Mouseman could be found absolutely everywhere. I am now considering writing the definitive guide to places that they aren't; which obviously won't include Peter's house.
'love is more thicker than forget' is not a grammatical error; it is a quote from e.e. cummings
Ælfric's warning came in his introduction to the homiletic writings of Archbishop Wulfstan.
Alan Bennett is still alive. (I know, me too.)
K.T. Tunstall was born on June 23rd, 1975. (I know, me too.)
Потому что япретенциозныйпизда
a) Mind your own business, but see Robert Crumb's cartoon as a reference point. b) A courgette, a marrow, runner beans and some rosemary..Oh, and some Italian espresso coffee beans, but no octopus.
Belgium, again. Or, to be more precise, again not.
Otley has been preparing for the Tour de France for weeks now, with yellow bicycles popping up everywhere and even the pubs being renamed in French. Nonetheless I was somewhat taken aback when I stepped out of my front door at 7am on the day of le Grand Depart to go to buy the papers and found a group of people on the pavement outside sitting on camping chairs and drinking coffee from Thermos flasks a good five hours before the peloton was due to pass. It steadily grew from there and I doubt if Otley has seen so many people since Cromwell's troops drank dry Le Taureau Noir on their way to fight at Marston Moor.
My house or, as we now say in Yorkshire, chez moi lies directly on the route and so I had a good view of the whole thing, or at least I would have done if it hadn't been for all the other people selfishly blocking my bit of pavement. The main event of the day may be the race, but it rushes past so quickly that there's not much to say about it, and anyway I for one am somewhat cynical about, how can I put this, whether the professional athletes involved have fully embraced the Corinthian spirit. The publicity caravan on the other hand is a spectacle and doesn't pretend to be anything other than grubby and money-making. For some reason watching cars full of grinning and waving young men speeding past followed by police cars with sirens blaring called to mind an amusing episode from many years ago involving an altercation with the special branch bodyguard of then Northern Ireland Secretary Merlyn Rees, only this time with a lot more free promotional merchandise being thrown into the crowd.
The publicity caravan attacks the accessible viewing area with Otley Chevin in the background
In any event, and until I get round to writing up that story, back to le Tour. The spectators weren't entirely sure what to make of the mobile adverts rolling past and some of them didn't get much of a cheer; 'boucherie de veau' anyone? Having said that, a series of floats promoting McCains frozen chips was met with complete indifference as well and they're a Yorkshire company. My own personal favourite was the enormous Robinson's Fruitshoot which resembled nothing so much as the giant tit that escaped in Woody Allen's 'Everything You Wanted To Know About Sex But Were Afraid To Ask'.
fin de course
So, that was it then. Someone remind me what happens after the Lord Mayor's Show? How about some Johnny Cash.
A man goes in to a pub and says "Do you serve
Morris dancers?" "Oh yes" says the landlord. "Good" says the man. "I'll
have a packet of crisps, and a Morris dancer for my dog".
I have been absent for a while because my professional career suddenly burst into life and I have been mingling with the self-consciously trendy denizens of the world of hi-tech. I will just remark cryptically that in the unlikely event that I ever feel the need to behave like that I shall regard a decent coffee machine as a higher priority than a ping-pong table. Anyway, I can't think of a better way to return than with some Morris dancing.
Otley, the market town of about 15,000 souls a few miles downstream from Ilkley - epicentre of wargaming in lower Wharfedale - in which I have recently pitched my tent, is home to no less than three Morris sides. One of them, I think the lot pictured, is of the Border tradition; there is a female North Western tradition side; and the third lot seem to be of the Jazz/Funk persuasion. You may consider that to be three sides too many for such a small place; I couldn't possibly comment.
Anyway, the Wharfedale Wayzgoose, for it is they, were on what seemed to be a pub crawl round Otley today. Now Otley's pub estate has declined from the days when there were forty six (that's right forty six pubs for fifteen thousand people), but the event boasted of visiting twenty premises. I have long held the theory that warriors, at least in the days of close combat, would only have fought because they were drunk. Obviously the same is true of painting ones face and wearing feathers in one's hat and bells on one's trousers.
Most impressively one of them was performing the pub crawl bit on an invalid scooter from which he would rise to dance at each pub. Now that's the way to do it.
A man is bringing a cup of coffee to his face,
tilting it to his mouth. It's historical, he thinks.
He scratches his head: another historical event.
He really ought to rest, he's making an awful lot of
history this morning.
Oh my, now he's buttering toast, another piece of
history is being made.
He wonders why it should have fallen on him to be
so historical. Others probably just don't have it,
he thinks, it is, after all, a talent.
He thinks one of his shoelaces needs tying. Oh well,
another important historical event is about to take
place. He just can't help it. Perhaps he's taking up
too large an area of history? But he has to live, hasn't
he? Toast needs buttering and he can't go around with
one of his shoelaces needing to be tied, can he?
Certainly it's true, when the 20th century gets written
in full it will be mainly about him. That's the way the
cookie crumbles--ah, there's a phrase that'll be quoted
for centuries to come.
Self-conscious? A little; how can one help it with all
those yet-to-be-born eyes of the future watching him?
Uh oh, he feels another historical event coming . . .
Ah, there it is, a cup of coffee approaching his face at
the end of his arm. If only they could catch it on film,
how much it would mean to the future. Oops, spilled it all
over his lap. One of those historical accidents that will
influence the next thousand years; unpredictable, and
really rather uncomfortable . . . But history is never easy,
he thinks . . .
So, a whole load of nothing been going on here. I hurt my leg on a Boxing Day walk which has rather restricted my movements. I did go to see the new instalment of the Hobbit. It's a lot better than the first although still far too long.
I'm sure that I've played more boardgames recently than I've written about here. Anyway, today at the Meeples was Zombie Fluxx, The Manhattan Project and Qwirkle. I promised myself that I'd never play Zombie Fluxx again, but fortunately it was one of the shorter games. Manhattan Project was a two hour worker placement game, but far more enjoyable than that sounds. I won, but then I suspect that I was the only one playing who'd ever dealt in WMDs, or any other sort of arms come to that. My tip: a uranium only strategy.
As the Seven Years War is the wargaming focus leaving the old year and starting the new one, perhaps a quote from Frederick is in order:
"It is disgusting to notice the increase in the quantity of
coffee used by my subjects, and the amount of money that goes
out of the country as a consequence. Everybody is using
coffee; this must be prevented. His Majesty was brought up on
beer, and so were both his ancestors and officers. Many
battles have been fought and won by soldiers nourished on
beer, and the King does not believe that coffee-drinking
soldiers can be relied upon to endure hardships in case of another war."
Yesterday saw an enjoyable, if quiet, first night of the second day at Sidi Rezegh - as it were. Not a great deal happened and casualties were light. next week should, one assumes, see more action as more troops arrive, specifically the German armour.
I came in for a certain amount of stick for not having pressed the attack, despite my briefing saying explicitly that's what Rommel's orders to me were. In my defence there were a number of extenuating circumstances:
not much initiative - cliched, but true.
my mental picture of how my forces would fit into the space available for deployment didn't work, but I set things up according to my plan regardless; I'm not entirely sure why.
the initiative that I did get, I chose to spend on artillery barrages which achieved nothing much. On the other hand if one doesn't use the artillery to soften up defended positions before attacking them then what is the point of having it?
When I was persuaded to launch a smoke covered attack the relevant rules were changed before I had even moved the troops and it ended badly. Note to self - ignore James' advice.
The Germans drink coffee instead of attacking
Anyway, whilst my inactivity has allowed Peter to deploy tanks and guns further forward than I would have wanted, all is by no means lost and we shall see what develops next week. I am also, as it happens, a brilliant commander complete with two wild cards. All I need is the initiative so I turn the bloody things.
Rommel sets a bad example by drinking coffee himself
I had a ticket for yesterday for the Headingley Test.
And I don't have one for today.
Anyway, Triples - what did I think? I enjoyed it. I like the venue, although a bit more natural light would have been nice. Travel was easy by train and tram and the coffee was drinkable and a reasonable price. I bought two casualty markers from Warbases at 50p each so if everyone else was as spendthrift as me then the traders must have had a belting day out.
While we're on the subject, what do I think of the new Miniature Wargames? It's OK. The editor has made a big play of the layout and it's certainly clear and easy to read. An indicator on the top of each page tells you what sort of article that you are reading: a feature, a scenario an article on modelling etc. In the old, Ian Dickie days they used to have an indicator on the top of each page to tell you what sort of article that you were reading: ancient, medieval, Napoleonic etc. Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.
A bit of a hiatus in blogging has been caused by not much happening that I wished to share. I know that you are all desperate for my views on whether UKIP are nutters and racists (which indeed they are), but I would simply refer you to Marx's theory of false consciousness which sums it up rather well. Although certainly only in the UK could such a pro-state, pro-ruling class bunch be regarded as in some way anti-establishment.
UKIP councillors celebrate
Anyway, what of the re-enactors at the Royal Armouries? Well, perhaps unsurprisingly, they have been, I think, Star Wars related this weekend. I say that I think they have because of course I have never seen any of the films and so it is to some extent a matter of guesswork. They have mainly been inside until this morning, rather amusingly, the fire alarms went off and they all got herded outside. Whilst this was inconvenient for me personally because I had to go somewhere else for my morning Cappuccino, there is something brilliantly comical about a man with a light sabre being ordered about through a megaphone by a stroppy woman in a high visibility vest.
Well, the cowboys are still there; in fact they are shooting hell out of each other as I type. I admire their commitment because I happened to end up in the same pub as them last night (the Adelphi on the corner of Hunslet Road and Dock Road) it must have been a struggle for many of them to open their eyes this morning let alone get up and strap on their gunbelts. Like yesterday I popped into the Armouries cafe for a mid-morning capuccino to find it full of chaps in chaps and ladies in bonnets. Unlike yesterday I didn't greet the young lady behind the counter with a cry of "Howdy, ma'am". She didn't find it funny the first time in such a definite and pronounced manner that a repeat seemed rather pointless.
Well, the blog had its first reader, the esteemed Conrad Kinch no less, and so I thought 'Why not?'.
I have taken up residence pro tem in Clarence Dock and can see the entrance to the Royal Armouries from where I sit typing this. I haven't set foot inside there since I've been here except to have the odd double espresso in their coffee bar. I have however been into their conference centre, which when I moved in was known as Savile's and now isn't, as part of the abrupt disappearance of the apparently flawed disc-jockey. This is because that's where the Fiasco wargames show is held. My visit there was disappointingly short because I had badly hurt my back a couple of days before, sneezing violently. Sadly this is a true story.
Anyway, I didn't get to see much at the show except to chew the fat with James Roach and Peter Jackson around their ancient galley warfare game. I did get a chance to admire Brian's marvellous scratchbuilt Bismark made from, among other things, cornflake packets. I then spent the afternoon laying on my floor to ease my back pain.
The other notable event held there recently (I discount the European Conference on Bio-Solids which appeared to be about exactly what you imagine when you first see the word Bio-Solids) was a comic book convention at which it seems to have been compulsory to attend in costume. Being old and not down with the kids I didn't recognise most of the characters, but there was a splendid Batman, Joker and Penguin. My early favourite was a very good David Tennant era Doctor Who complete with a Dalek and an Amy Pond stylee assistant. However, they were overshadowed by the arrival of Wonder Woman, who was, how can I put this, a very healthy girl. I was obliged to inspect the details of her costume rather closely. [Note to self - this type of behaviour is how you got into trouble in the first place.]
