“In many ways, I’d say the divide between rules-lite and rules-heavy is how much help the game thinks you need to decide if a grenade launcher can open a locked door.”
Originally from a poster called “pawsplay” somewhere on RPG.net, quoted from the Fudge Mailing List.
From Spinneyhead
When people start blaming “politically correct teachers” and “the doctrines of multi-culturalism” I want to reach into the monitor and slap them really, really hard. Sorry folks, but your heroine Maggie Thatcher, and the generations of politicians before and since who’ve tried to pander to the reactionary Daily Mail and tabloid readers, did an order more damage to British society than an army of multi-cultural teachers ever could.
I know I’m not the only person that parses the phrase “It’s political correctness gone mad” as “It’s not worth paying any further attention to this twit”.
After too long a break, J Michael Neal is blogging again. Here’s what he has to say about Mark Knopfler’s latest album.
Knopfler has become far and away my favorite lyricist. Understand that my default setting is to pay no attention to a song’s lyrics whatsoever. Just because you hear me singing along doesn’t mean that I have the slightest idea what is being said. This has its upsides and downsides. It means that Dream Theater and Yes have irritated me a lot less than they might have, letting me just enjoy the music. It also means that it took me a long time to really appreciate Knopfler.
I actually think that the majority of ordinary music fans are more interested in the music than the lyrics. Unfortunately it’s the other way round for the majority of music critics, who, being writers, care more about the words. Hence we see the out of hand dismissal of bands like, well, Yes and Dream Theater, and excessive praise heaped upon the likes of Morrissey and Pulp, who’s work is sometimes so much about lyrics that they forgot to put any actual music in there. Strip away the lyrics from just about any of the indie bands praised by the NME, and you’re left with very formulaic four-chord plod where not only individual songs, but entire bands are completely indistinguisable.
As for Mark Knopfler, I’ve lost touch which what he’s been up to since the days of Dire Straits. I saw them live when they were at their commercial peak, when the Brothers in Arms album was CD all the gadget-obsessed yuppies always used to show off their expensive new stereos. Dire Straits unfortunately got tagged as Corporate AOR for the three-CDs-a-year crowd, filed alongside Phil Collins or Foreigner. They were really better than that. They’re overdue for critical reappraisal, and deserve to be remembered for works like “Telegraph Road” rather than the awful cheese of “Walk of Life”.
For a while there’s been a lot of evidence that there’s an awful lot money being wasted through incompetent project management in the railway industry. Now this Guardian article on idle jobs shows just how bad things have got.
Two of these jobs are on the railways, and it seems that in this particular sector, old 1970s-style jobs with lots of tea breaks and standing around in groups looking at bits of metal are still very much alive, despite today’s weaker trade unions.
Our first reader, who we shall keep anonymous, lovingly describes the progress of a typical shift.
“I was rostered to be on site from 4pm till 4am. When we arrived, the boss didn’t know what we were supposed to be doing, and nor did we. We sat in our van drinking coffee till 11.30pm.
“By that time, you have lost the will to work, it is cold, you are in a nice warm van swapping stories and watching silly video clips on phones. We had to get out of the van for 20 minutes and then the boss let us go.”
Our reader says that he does one or two shifts each weekend, which leaves the rest of his week free to be idle. Another railway worker says that he gets paid for an eight-hour shift even though the work is usually done in three or four hours.
Furthermore, he adds: “Because of massive amounts of bureaucracy, I reckon that about a quarter of all shifts are cancelled as soon as we turn up on site. So, we get paid for doing eight hours’ work for doing bugger all.”
As a rail user and taxpayer, I’m footing the bill for this nonsense. I once counted 43 people in orange safety hats wandering around Alderley Edge, and not one of them actually seemed to be doing anything.
However, I don’t agree with the author that this sort of practice is a holdover from the 1970s. I think it’s got very much worse after privatisation, when the railway was fragmented into a million pieces. Privatisation was supposed to bring greater efficiency through the ‘disclipline of the market’, or so the crackpot ideologues told us. What rot!
After travelling to North Wales to see Mostly Autumn on the Friday, I decided to make a weekend of it. Not that I didn’t head out of Rhyl on the first train out of town on Saturday morning…
I travelled west to Caernarfon, capital of Gwynedd, starting point of the 60cm gauge Welsh Highland Railway. The original WHR ran from Dinas Junction, a few miles south of Caernarfon, through twenty miles of spectacular mountain scenery to Porthmadoc. The northern section dated from 1875, but the extension to Porthmadoc wasn’t completed until 1923, by which time it couldn’t really compete with buses for local traffic. The entire system closed in 1937, too early to benefit from the postwar tourist boom.
The new WHR begins in Caernarfon itself, and runs on the trackbed of a former standard gauge line to Dinas Junction, before running on the original WHR formation.
The engine is by far the largest narrow gauge locomotive running in Britain. It’s an ex-South African 2-6-2 + 2-6-2 Beyer-Garratt, built, I think, in Manchester. It’s more than double the size of the sole surviving locomotive from the original WHR.
The current terminus is Rhyd Ddu, about half-way to Porthmadoc, and half a mile short of the summit of the original line. The remaining section through Beddgelert to Porthmadoc is still under construction, and is due to open in 2009. When complete it will be the longest narrow-gauge line in Britain by a long way.
Long before the coming of the WHR, Caernarfon has been famous for it’s magnificent castle. There are several well-preserved castles in north Wales, but Caernarfon is not only the most impressive, but the most complete. While it was build by Edward I to oppress the conquered Welsh, I notice it’s now flying the Welsh national flag, not the British one.
I’m not sure what to make of this building. It’s the offices of Gwynedd Council, the unitary authority for the top left-hand corner of Wales. The design is so cod-medieval it looks like something out of a Katherine Kurtz novel.
Last Friday I saw the magnificent Mostly Autumn play the Welsh seaside town of Rhyl. For those not familiar with the place, Rhyl is an old-fashioned British seaside resort, where all the shops sell sticks or rock and Donald McGill postcards. This is the first time I’ve seen them since the departure of keyboard player Iain Jennings.
The Pavilion Theater seats about a thousand, and is a big venue for a band more used to playing clubs. While they didn’t fill it, they did manage to attract a fair-sized audience, both fans like me who’d travelled a fair distance, and plenty of locals who’d not seen them live before. When you used to seeing the band crammed into a tiny club stage with hardly enough space to move, it’s strange to see the eight of them spread out across the enormous theatre stage. There were one or two occasions where I feared Bryan would do a Frank Zappa and fall into the orchestra pit.
It’s also strange to see them in a seated venue. From my seat facing Bryan’s side of the stage, the sound mix had a little bit too much guitar, and not quite enough keyboards, which seemed to emphasise Iain Jennings’ absence. This does mean that flautist/keyboardist Angela Gordon has a much bigger role on stage, sharing Ian’s keyboard parts with new boy Chris Johnson, as well as playing a lot of flute. She’s also out front rather than being half-hidden at the back.
The two and a half hour set concentrated on old favourites. They started with the lengthy Floydian “The Last Climb”, which always seems to me to be a slightly odd choice for an opening number when the band have plenty of uptempo rockers in the setlist. The first half of the set was good enough, with the flute-driven rockers “Caught in a Fold” and “Dark Before the Dawn”, and a lengthy solo spot from Liam Davidson before “Spirit of Autumn Past”. Things really caught fire after the interval. After “Heart Life”, the ‘rocked-up celtic jig’ section finally got a large part of the audience out of their seats. (I think most of the people who criticise the band for ‘those awful jigs’ have never seen the band live). Then came an absolutely storming version of “Never the Rainbow”, with Heather and backing singer Olivia Sparnenn singing alternate lines, followed by the call-and-response between Olivia and Bryan’s guitar. In complete contrast, it’s nice to hear “Shrinking Violet” restored to the set, which had been absent the last couple of times I’ve seen them. The one real surprise was “Close my Eyes” from the band’s debut album. They closed the main set with a magnificent “Carpe Diem”. Encores were “Heroes Never Die” and, of course, the epic “Mother Nature”.
While it was sad to hear about Iain’s departure, his absence hasn’t diminished the band’s live performances. If you get a chance to see them live, go. You won’t be disappointed.
Looks like my rail replacement bus nightmare is going to last a lot longer than I’d originally hoped. As reported on the North Wales Railway notice board, things are going from bad to worse.
As already rumoured in some quarters, reliable reports indicate that the Cheadle Hulme – Crewe line, which has been closed to all traffic since December 2005, will not be opening in June 2006 (already delayed from March for ‘software testing’ as has been publicly promised. It seems that some sort of temporary service might now be in place by August, with a full timetable not restored until December 2006.
This shambolic situation has been brought about by the attempt to re-signal this line with Ansaldo equipment from Italy, intended to be controlled from the existing signal centre at Stockport which has already proved unequal to the task of dealing with the Stockport station area and has so far been confined to a small area around Cheadle Hulme.
The Cheadle Hulme – Crewe line has been controlled from power signalboxes at Wilmslow and Sandbach, built about fifty years ago and featuring large numbers of electro-mechanical relays (suffering from metal migration in their contacts) and miles of wiring whose insulation had deteriorated to such an extent that anyone disturbing it for maintenance was in danger of causing a short-circuit with potentially fatal results. We imagine that it was decided that the re-signalling project had to go ahead with the only design available, even though engineers were sceptical about the results. The two signalboxes contained asbestos, and both were dismantled and taken away at the beginning of the current project.
Any further comments we could make here would not be suitable for a family audience
This is getting more and more like a ‘heads need to roll’ situation. An unnamed source within the rail industry has told me there were a lot of screwups in the early stages, such as severing the track despite needing access for engineering trains on other parts of the line. I wondered why they took out the old pointwork at Alderley Edge and replaced it with plan line, and spliced in the new pointwork a few weeks later. I hadn’t heard of the contractors putting a crane jib through the overhead catenery (ouch!). But the real problem seems to the fundamental incompatability of the software interlocking with the existing signalling at each end of the line. As Chadders has said, quoting The Daily WTF, it’s not sufficiently Enterprise
It’s difficult not to come to the conclusion that this fiasco is ultimately a consequence of the fragementation of the railway resulting from botched privatisation pursuded by the lamentably clueless administration of John Major. I can’t imagine a fiasco on this scale happening in the days of British Rail.
When the trains will finally return is anyone’s guess. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if they never do return to the smaller stations on the rural southern end of the line. The slow and meandering rail replacement bus usually runs empty south of Alderley Edge, the 90+ minute journey time (compared with the 25 minutes of the train) mean that most passengers have found other ways to travel.
Last weekend I’ve broken the four month drought of live music by seeing a kick-ass performance by Hayseed Dixie, for which I still haven’t written a review.
Next up is the always wonderful Mostly Autumn at Rhyl, for which I’ve now got my accomodation sorted. I’ve got a front row seat, so this should be a good one.
Now I’ve got to decide whether I’ve got the stamina for the DEMU Showcase, Queensrÿche and Journey on three consecutive days in June! So far I’ve got a ticket for Journey, but not Queensrÿche. There’s also Zappa plays Zappa two days earlier, for which there also still seem to be tickets available. That would make three gigs and one model railway exhibition in five days. Can I cope with this without needing a week off work to recover?
Update: I’ve managed to get a seat in row D for Zappa plays Zappa, and on the basis that Owen and Mike Foley are probably going to Sunday’s Queensrÿche show, I’ve just ordered a ticket for that as well.
There’s been some discussion recently on the ModMod mailing list about what makes a good exhibition layout. While different people have different tastes, I can sum up what appeals to me in four words.
Layouts that appeal to me always have a clear sense of time and place. They should have a good but consistent standard of modelling. They don’t have to be huge monsters, sometimes small but well-detailed layouts can be inspirational (as in ‘I could build something like this’). But they do have to work, and need operators that know what they’re doing.
I have some pet hates as well. There are too many layouts that feature some or all of the following ‘features’:
These are some examples of layouts I’ve liked, all of which display differing degrees of Atmosphere, Verisimilitude, Movement and Distinctiveness.
Dewsbury Midland
The Manchester Model Railway Club’s massive 00 gauge slice of urban West Yorkshire. It alternates between 60s steam and 70s blue diesels at different shows, but the big draw is the superb architectural modelling.
Chee Tor
The MMRC again, this time 2mm finescale. Set in the limestone hills of Derbyshire in the mid-60s, it’s the sort of thing you can only build in a small scale, where the scenery dwarfs the trains.
Dduallt
Yes, I know it’s a narra gauge kettle layout, but it’s an actual prototype, well-researched and well-modelled. Just about the only really good model of a preserved line I’ve ever seen. Set in 1988, it represents the Ffestiniog’s famous spiral.
Acton Main Line
One of the first really high quality diesel era N gauge exhibition layouts, now retired from the exhibition circuit, sadly. It’s a very well-researched and well-detailed model of the real location in west London circa 1989. With six running lines there’s always something moving, making the layout a crowd-puller.
Hedges Hill Cutting
A prime example of minimum space N inspirational for people who didn’t think they had space for a layout. It’s very small but extremely well-detailed slice of south London that just oozes atmosphere.
Woodhead
Another example of the minimum space N genre, this one evokes the bleak hills of the Pennines, on the now closed Woodhead line, featuring the distinctive 1500V DC locomotives that were unique to this line.
Shaweport
Another smallish N gauge model, representing the North Staffordshire main line in the early privatisation era. Although it’s not a model of any specific real life location, it’s firmly anchored in time and place by the rolling stock.
Därlingen
Being into Swiss-outline modelling myself, I have to include a Swiss N gauge layout, and this is the best one I’ve seen on the circuit. It’s a model of a prototype location, a small passing station on the single-track branch from Speiz to Interlaken.
Europ 3
Another big all-action crowd-pleaser, a large HO layout based on an Italian electrified main line. I don’t know enough about Italian prototypes to know how accurate it is, but it certainly looks impressive, with a high standard of scenic modelling and plenty of movement.
Stoke Summit
This is one of those layouts where it’s the stock rather than the scenery that makes it. The layout is set on the East Coast Main Line between Peterborough and Grantham, and consists of a long straight line in a cutting fed by a massive set of off-stage storage roads. The owner clearly loves building coach kits, and has gone to a lot of effort researching accurate train formations. It really captures the experience of watching the trains go past on a busy main line, never knowing what’s going to turn up next.
After the of doom and gloom of last months Out of the Box, Ken Hite speculates on the likely future of the RPG hobby
One silver lining of the sclerotic distribution system is that more and more fans are apparently coming out to shows to buy products; likewise, the community-building powers of the Internet help drive convention attendance as friends who know each other only from forums or LiveJournal plan meetups at shows. I’m not sure what kind of hobby we’ll have in another ten years — hundreds of boutique “indie” games and a strong network of local conventions anchored by regular D&D tournaments? That sounds oddly familiar — maybe we’re heading back to the 1970s. But hopefully, with better hair.
Interesting that a lot of the new ‘indie’ games seem geared towards one-shots, typical of convention gaming, rather that the extended campaigns of yore.
Well, my booking for Stabcon at the end of June has just been confirmed, and the realisation that it’s only two months away means I need to start thinking whether or not I’m going to run anything. I’ve got one Fudge Kalyr game I ran several Gypsycons ago, and I’m also tempted to dig up “El Tigre and the Pyramid of Destruction”, which makes a great convention game. Alternatively there’s the Ümläüt Call of Cthulhu game I’ve had lurking sqamously in my head for the last few months.
I’m not sure about the DnD tournaments, though. After Gypsycon, I’ve come to the conclusion that DnD isn’t for me any more.
Update: Ken has posted a lengthy followup on his livejournal, closing with this quote:
The “better hair” thing is just the triumph of hope over experience.
If the age profile of Stabcon is anything to go by, Ken subscribes to the “Less is More” philosophy 