Here We Go Again
New year: New rash promise to self to be better about blogging. We'll see.
2012 got off to a very quiet start - our now traditional dinner party for the friends who live within five minutes walk benefitted from The Mrs and I being unusually organised about things well in advance, but suffered from everyone being a bit knackered. So the usual post-midnight extension of dinner via a big cheese selection and the evening via several rounds of a random game didn't really materialise, and we saw them off around 1am and were in bed by 1.30. I'm sure it was just the general tiredness, but the hyper-hospitable part of me has been fretting ever since that it was a bit of a rubbish evening.
When not entertaining over the break we gave a fair chunk of time over to the new Star Wars MMO, The Old Republic, which The Mrs for one has been eagerly anticipating for at least two years, and which I have to admit is very effectively filling the gap that my complete turning-off from World of Warcraft had left. I'm in no way as gripped by it as The Mrs, but there's a lot to be said for running around swinging a lightsaber and using the Force to throw heavy objects at bad guys. Makers Bioware have captured the feel of the films really, really well.
As of last night a couple of our old WoW-playing mates have come and joined us on our server, we've formed a little guild, and suddenly the social aspect of the game, which is the thing that makes MMOs work for me in ways that most computer games don't (as previously discussed here more than once) has a chance to take off and really make the game come alive. I shall probably be mentioning this more in the future.
In other news, The Mrs has finally been able to talk about the Top Secret Project that occupied much of his time in the latter half of last year here, so I'm happy to be able to bask in a bit of reflected cool.
Happy 2012.
Ah, September
There's a bit of a tradition on this here blog that has seen me occasionally wax a bit lyrical about Autumn, usually at the start of September, when it feels like the season is about to be upon us.
I tend to quote Keats ("Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness" and all that), and talk about how even though it feels a slightly melancholy season, I think Autumn's my favourite time of year.
So here I am doing it again, and finding myself at a point where the melancholy is quite strong. I'm feeling a bit morose at the moment; slightly regretful about some things, and in need of snapping myself out of a bit of a funk.
Which I suppose fits well with a season that's one of the 'change' ones.
So welcome to September, to Autumn, and to the possibility of change 
Simply Scilly
Didja miss me?
No, I'm not even going to make another pathetic attempt to say that I'm going to try harder to blog...
Anyway: We're on holiday. Much needed I should add. The last few months have been crazy busy with work and by the middle of last week I could't wait to get away.
The Isles of Scilly (for that is where we are, gentle reader) are somewhat west of the westernmost end of Cornwall, and comprise between 100 and 150 islands, depending on the tide and how you define 'island'. Yeah, some of them are really just rocks:-). Five are permanently inhabited, and we're staying on the largest, St Mary's, in a rather fabulous little cottage stuck out on the very western end of the island. The view from the living room window across the channel to the other islands is stunning, though quite a lot of the time since we got here it's been mist-shrouded. Yes, once again we're on an English holiday when the weather is unseasonably grim.
The name means "The Sun Isles"' to which this week I say "hah!". But it's not the worst place to have bad weather, and it's not unrelentingly bad. We went for an almighty yomp on neighbouring Tresco yesterday and despite the walk back to the return boat being in drenching rain I managed to get a typically me red face from the sun.
The forecast says better weather for the next few days, so nature walks, boat trips to see seabird colonies and the occasional evening pint in an 'off island' pub should still be on the agenda.
This is an amazing place. The islands are so small they mess with your sense of scale - everything is closer than you think, and there are only 2000 permanent residents, so even with the tourists there's never any sense of a crowd. The climate is pretty much unique in the British Isles, so you see a combination of flora different than anywhere else, and the wildlife is astonishingly unfazed by people. And every corner throws up a new gorgeous vista.
We're already talking about a return visit, and we almost never do that.
The Horror!
I have on occasion previously blogged about Lovecraftian horror as played out in RPGs and boardgames. The Arkham Horror game and its expansions have featured here, as has the Call of Cthulhu role-playing game. I've also read all of Lovecraft's own output on the subject as well as some but not by any means a lot of the related output of other people. There's a great deal to be said for the Mythos as the basis for games of both types; eldrich horrors and secrets-mankind-was-not-meant-to-know offer loads of scope for atmosphere and collaborative, rather than competitive, gameplay (after all, if the world is destroyed by an Elder God, everyone loses). I recently bought another boardgame, Mansions of Madness, which seems to merge the styles of board and RP games by being played out on the former but having a gamemaster figure like the latter. We haven't played it yet, but it looks very interesting.
And late last year, when the nights were drawn in, and the opportunities for atmosphere were at their peak, I ran a one-off Call of Cthulhu session for some interested parties and by all accounts effectively scared the bejeezus out of them (to the point that their characters kept trying to run away and I had to keep making up stuff as I went along to keep them in the action). Hopefully I get to play in the same sandbox for a few weeks later this year.
But the reason I wanted to talk about it today is that there's something in the way I approached that one-off, and the way I frequently assemble game scenarios in my head that will almost certainly never see the light of day, that I increasingly realise relates to my effort to have a creative outlet. I really hate to think that I'm not creative, even though by the measure of a bunch of people I know I'm not, so I keep trying to find 'projects' to give me a sense of having created something.
Through a lot of last year I worked on a podcast series, and did a few more at the start of this year of a new series that is now done with - they supported a degree of creativity with a very concrete outcome. I love podcasting - it draws on my radio experience, it gives me a chance to talk a lot (:-)) and it feels like there's a tangible created product at the end of it. Likewise, while I could probably have written a few guideline notes for the CoC session last year and winged it (which is very much in the style of gamemastering I used to employ twenty-plus years ago when I first played RPGs), what I actually did was produce a highly detailed document that read for all the world like a pre-packaged commercial scenario. Yes, even though I was going to run it on its one and only outing, I wrote it as if I was expecting other people to use it. See what I mean? Frustrated Creative.
So I have the chance to play later this year is as a fill-in on a summer break in a different game. Four weeks in which to run some people through hell in the name of fun and adventure. And what am I contemplating? Using the opening scenario of a huge, world-spanning campaign that I already have mapped out in my head even though I had no reasonable expectation it would ever be used. Seriously - it's all there, from the opening mystery to the grand denouement.
There's a part of me, if I'm honest, that wonders if this isn't a reaction to having people like The Mrs and some of his friends in my life; people who have written actual published and broadcast works; and a rather sad effort not to be written off as The Mundane One by comparison. Still, even if it is, at least it means if I'm ever forced at gunpoint to run a CoC game at no notice, I'll be able to rise to the challenge.
Ten From Ten – The L Word. And The M Word
Originally posted the 28th of July 2004. Look, realistically there was no way this wasn't going to be the tenth of these. The single biggest thing to happen to me in the last ten years is meeting, falling in love with and marrying The Mrs, so what else was the subject of this going to be? And of the various posts that refer to these developments, the one in which I first announced the start of things is probably the most relevant, because it speaks to my life at that point and why these developments were such a shock.
I remember announcing this here and over at Millarworld (which was the community I was most closely involved with at the time) pretty much simultaneously and The Mrs being a bit stunned when a couple of hundred people who'd never heard of him across the two locations all got very excited for us. The Millarworld thread is long gone, but the original comments here remain. For all sorts of very obvious reasons, this is probably my favourite of the two and a half thousand posts from the first ten years.
Ok, it's time to come clean about some stuff. I've been waiting to be able to tell a couple of people personally before going more public with this, which I now have, so now I can.
I've mentioned that I'm attached these days, and that I'm very happy. I've mentioned the damn near perfect time we spent in Rye last weekend. I've even mentioned that I'm prepared to acknowledge that I was wrong about something (and that never happens).
A couple of people have joined the dots, but just to get explicit:
I am utterly, passionately, unashamedly and overwhelmingly in love.
This is not an admission I expected to make any time soon - you all know how cynical I am about life generally and relationships in particular, but here I am.
In many ways, and for many actually very good reasons, I'd settled to regard myself as one of life's 'designed-to-be-single' people. I've been quite damaged emotionally over the years, in ways that stem from both previous relationships and earlier experiences, and I'd reached the conclusion that I was in fact too damaged to feel the good emotions again. And I was at least resigned to the consequences of that, and really even okay with them.
An experience I had recently when a perfectly delightful young man and I started getting on very well, which I had to end when I realised that I simply didn't/couldn't feel a greater emotional connection to him than that of friendship (you know who you are - sorry again), reinforced in me the fact that somewhere inside, I wasn't capable of being in love for real.
But I was wrong. And now I want to shout it from the rooftops. He's my man, and I'm his. And I don't ever want that to change. Me: Cynical git, misanthrope and all-round pessimist. Except I'm not any more, because he makes me be better than that.
And the thing that I was wrong about? Read this and then come back to watch me eat my words.
Done? Then I'll admit it: Over dinner at the weekend, I found myself starting a sentence and only realising as I did what the only possible next sentence was going to be. Sentence one was that I couldn't think of any reason why I wouldn't want what I'm feeling right now to last forever, and that I could actually think of a lot of very good reasons why I'd rather it did.
Sentence two therefore involved me asking him to marry me.
And he said yes.
And yes, I still think on some level that it would be better that we don't ape heterosexual conventions and create our own, but I want us to be recognised with the same validity as a straight couple would be. And given the state of the law in the UK it's going to be a *long* engagement. But we'll wait.
I don't recognise myself at the moment, but whoever I am, he's a big improvement.
Ten From Ten – A Major Error Of Judgement
Originally posted the 17th April 2006 - I wanted to balance a couple of the rather heavier rerun posts I’ve used in this exercise with something lighter and with a linked cute photo just to ramp up the ‘Aw!’ factor.
One more of these to go, which I’m actually going to hold off until tomorrow, even though today’s the anniversary.
So here I am ten years after starting this - seriously wouldn’t have expected to get here when I first started, and even though there’s been some on again/off again, I’ve posted just over 2,500 entries, so an average of over 20 a month. I’m not going to make the same occasional mistake I’ve made of setting a big new direction for the blog to mark the occasion - just going to see where I go with it.
Thanks for reading. Now on with the cute:
Don't tell me you've never done it; taken one look into a pair of stunning blue eyes and found yourself taking someone home who you really shouldn't have. Well, that was the big Saturday mistake in our house.
In defence, I should stress that there was no big intention to introduce a stranger into the soon-to-be marital home when Saturday dawned, and nor was the stress that the whole thing would create on David and I at all foreseen. In fact, the intention was that we'd all get something out of the deal. How wrong can you be?
But seriously - could you resist this guy??????
What? What did you think I was talking about?
We saw that little fella, and having been vaguely contemplating getting a playmate for Gramsci for a while, we fell into that thing we do too often, which is not think through the consequences of what we're doing. As soon as we got him home and realised how badly Gramsci was taking to the new arrival, things started to get tense. David was actually getting quite upset about the whole situation. The realisation was also dawning that really, our flat is too small to have two house-cats in it. Maybe when we've moved to somewhere bigger, but then ideally we'll have access to a garden and the whole situation will be different anyway.
But then there was the dilemma - Do we take him back? Do we try to find another family to take him? And how quickly could we do the latter?
By Sunday morning things were a little less tense between big cat and little cat, but the space issues remained, and neither of us was much enjoying our long weekend. Fortunately, help was on the horizon in the form of Chris and Brian, who have clearly given up on ever retrieving Dillon from Liz's care, and were thinking about a new cat anyway. One Sunday afternoon visit and a swift falling-in-love later, kitten, food, toys and all related paraphenalia were heading off into the sunset.
He (he's called Chip, by the way), is reportedly settling in well.
And we're firmly committed to stopping this thing that we do of jumping into things before we've really thought through and planned the consequences.
Ten From Ten – Sometimes The World Makes No Sense
Originally posted on the 25th August 2003 - this one's a bit of a downer I'm afraid, but I really wanted to include it. I think the content tells the whole story so I'm going to say no more.
Not long after I first moved into this neighbourhood, back before I bought the flat and was living with Chris round the corner, we came upon the opening day of a restaurant in the area. The couple who ran the place, Ray and Rebecca, were wonderful, he was the chef, she looked after the front of house. They had set up there with a specific aim to bring something new to the community, and they certainly did - I like to think it was heart. They had a very clear vision of what they wanted for the place. Somewhere people could go to for an evening, where they didn’t turn tables, and if you wanted to linger over coffee for three times as long as you had over the meal, that was okay. A place where Ray and Rebecca were likely to give you a round of drinks on the house and come and join you for a chat at the end of the evening. The food, which Ray sourced all the ingedients for from suppliers he knew and trusted, was always brilliant, and the wine list as distinctive and impressive as everything else.
Ray and Rebecca had their ups and downs, and eventually there was just Ray, his sons, and their wonderful waiting staff, led by José, from Portugal, who everyone fancied
I haven’t been in for a while - pressures of work and time and such kept me occupied, though I kept thinking I’d wander along with a book one evening and just enjoy the food and the atmosphere as I’ve done in the past. There was something about the place that created a sense of community and welcome. It was the kind of place that every neighbourhood should have, but few do, and it was, in a very specific way, an extension of its owner’s personality.
I went past last night for the first time in a while and discovered the place closed up and messages and cards of sympathy arranged outside, with flowers and candles. Ray, it seemed, had died.
And now I’ve found out what happened.
Ray was murdered by someone who he’d refused to serve more wine to one night, who’d come back later with a knife and stabbed him to death.
There are simply no words to describe how I feel just at the moment. Though my toast this evening won’t only be to the concept of ‘home’ any more.
Ten From Ten – I Wish Shopping There Was Forbidden
Originally posted on 7th October 2006, after a particularly annoying shopping expedition. This post probably wouldn't be making its second appearance except that it suddenly became topical again while I was reviewing material for inclusion in the Ten From Ten. A visit to the shop in question for the first time in months led to the discovery that nothing's changed, and the level of 'service' remains as low as ever.
I hate Forbidden Planet. Not the film, obviously, but the ’sci-fi and fantasy superstore’ or however they’re styling themselves these days. Shopping there is a thoroughly unpleasant experience, made more so by the recognition that as they’ve cornered quite a large part of their selected market, if you need to be able to walk into a shop and have a reasonable chance of leaving with what you wanted, FP is your best bet. (And I should stress that it’s the London shop I’m talking about here. Apart from New York I’ve never been to another branch, and they could all be fantasy shopper heaven for all I know.)
Today, for reasons that are exactly of the ‘need X in a hurry’ variety, I went in, and while I was waiting for a staff member to appear and lower himself to help me give them my money, I found myself next to a man and his son who were complaining. They seemed to want to exchange something, but the main complaint was that the father, who made the repeated point that he’d been going to FP since 1990, felt that the staff had been rude and aggressive.
To which I can only ask, in all seriousness - how can you have been going there since 1990 and only now realised that the staff at Forbidden Planet are rude and aggressive?
I’ve always assumed it’s part of the job description.
Ten From Ten – An Odd Kind Of Failure
Originally posted 13th November 2003 following a few hints I'd posted about some stuff not going so well. At this point I was about two and a half years into the business I'd set up with some friends and while some people had made the connection this was me making it explicit. A miserable, horrible time. The comments on the original post warmed me a little. Thanks again all these years later to those who took the trouble.
So the thing that I’ve *not* been discussing:
We’re shutting down the company.
There: I’ve said it.
It was an extremely difficult stage to come to, but once we reached a certain point in time and perspective, the decision-making took on a life of its own. We’ve given it a bloody good go, mind you - two and a half years is more than many companies manage, and most importantly, we did at least try, which many don’t.
In the end though, reality intrudes, and you have to acknowledge that things aren’t going as well as they might, or growing the way they ideally would. It’s utterly heart-breaking in many ways - the ‘put your heart and soul into something for two years’ way especially, and definitely a curious kind of failure: How many businesses can legitimately say that they’ve got clients who are genuinely happy with them, who without exception and unprompted, keep coming back for more; have services and products that are tested and respected, and a well-established team capable and willing to continue delivering outstanding service? Not one that I’ve worked for previously, that I do know.
So I’ve had to make a group of people I like and respect, and who did their jobs brilliantly well, unemployed, which is one of the worst things I’ve ever had to do in my professional life. Letting down the clients comes second.
Right now I’m in the middle of the wind-up process, while simultaneously trying to work out what happens next, both for myself and for the others. Somehow being able to continue to do the good stuff we do would be the dream of course, but practicalities inevitably remain an issue, and the ways of achieving that are severely limited. I’m not giving up on the possibility, but I’m not putting it at the top of my ‘most likely outcome’ list either.
So hence all the down lately. It’s not the worst news in the world. No one died, we’re all able to pick ourselves up and move on, so perhaps I’ve been overdramatic about it recently. But it’s felt pretty devastating. When you put everything into something over a period of years and it ends up dying despite your efforts, it’s a blow. When it has an adverse effect on other people, it’s that much worse.
But thanks for all the messages of support; they’ve really meant a lot. Anyone who’s emailed and I haven’t had a chance to reply to yet, many apologies - I *will* write back as soon as I can.
Recipe – Gingerbread
About eighteen months ago, The Mrs discovered baking, and created some true wonders. Just recently, I've taken up the mantle of family baker - I find it really satisfying as a 'thing to do at the weekend'. Productive but in a pleasurable way that helps me chill after a week at work. I don't intend to start producing recipes on a regular basis, but I mentioned that I've recently added gingerbread to my repertoire, and someone asked about the recipe, so here it is. It's a little fiddly, but well worth it. Apologies to Americans that the ingredients are as they're called in the UK. I've provided imperial measurements as well as the metric I use (I've done exact conversions because I don't want to screw things up by rounding wrongly), but I don't know that everything has the same name.
Ingredients:
225g/7.9 ounces of self-raising flour
1 teaspoon each of bicarbonate of soda, ground mixed spice and ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon of ground ginger
115g/4.05 ounces of chilled unsalted butter, diced
115g/4.05 ounces of black treacle
115g/4.05 ounces of golden syrup
115g/4.05 ounces of dark brown muscovado sugar
275ml/1.16 cups of whole milk
1 beaten egg
Prepare a loaf tin by greasing it with butter and lining it with baking parchment and pre-heat the oven to 180°C/350°F
Method:
- Sift all the dry ingredients into a large bowl together.
- Add the diced butter and rub it together with your fingers until it all has the texture and look of breadcrumbs.
- Put the treacle and syrup in a pan and heat gently until it's melted and a mixed liquid, but don't let it overheat - it should be just warm.
- Put the milk and sugar in a different pan and warm and mix to dissolve the sugar completely and let it cool a little.
- Whisk the milk/sugar mix into the flour mix, then do the same with the syrup/treacle and finally the egg. Whisk everything together until fully combined and liquid.
- Pour into the loaf tin and bake for about 45 minutes until a skewer comes out clean. Leave it to cool completely before turning it out.
- Wrap it in foil and leave it until at least the following day to unwrap and eat. The flavour gets more intense over time.