Thursday, July 30, 2009
Playing Mythgardia
I have now played Mythgardia in its published form.
A number of years ago I played the game in its original form - Cliffhanger: Legends - several times. It was, I found at the time, a really enjoyable game; I'm very pleased to see it published at last, and it was fun to play the new version.
A and I went over to Chez Harris, armed with an assortment of buffet snacks for the pot-luck dinner (we'd realised at Morrisons that, not having to cater for any vegetarians, we'd gone a little overboard on the meaty nibbles). It ran late, as usual, and we were still eating when C arrived. Never mind - food and drink at one end of the room, Mythgardia at the other. Given that we were using the demo gameset and that B's planning to take it to Claymore at the weekend we were being justifiably careful not to get any chocolate stains on the board or cards.
We ended up with five players, so it had the potential to be quite a long game and, as expected, it was over three hours and even then we played it to two treasures rather than three. A almost won after about two hours by managing to pick up three treasures at the same time. This naturally prompted a large amount of 'player screwage' (as it was designated) in an attempt to stop him. One treasure was stolen, another turned out to be a fake, but he did manage to 'bank' the final one. We each managed to get a treasure before the final push... which proved quite bloody, with the final treasure changing hands several times before A managed to return it to one of the three sanctuaries.
Naturally there was much discussion of things like potential expansions and so on. It would certainly be possible to add more adventures and more characters - it's very easy to generate new characters, for instance - but that'll all depend on how well it sells. One feature that I particularly like is that he's got the level of chance just about right. You can choose to trust to the roll of the dice or you can play it safe and avoid adventures, which can be a good idea when you're running out of luck points with which to modify die rolls. Of course you find that you run out of luck points just as you're getting to the point of attacking other players to steal treasures so you have to be a little bit careful about when you choose to spend them in the first place.
I'm looking forward to unleashing this game on the folks in Iceland. I suspect, though, that I'll create some form of character sheets to make it a little easier to keep track of things. Not because it's inherently difficult, but rather because I like to have everything together in one place. Definitely a little OCD there. :)
0 comments
A number of years ago I played the game in its original form - Cliffhanger: Legends - several times. It was, I found at the time, a really enjoyable game; I'm very pleased to see it published at last, and it was fun to play the new version.
A and I went over to Chez Harris, armed with an assortment of buffet snacks for the pot-luck dinner (we'd realised at Morrisons that, not having to cater for any vegetarians, we'd gone a little overboard on the meaty nibbles). It ran late, as usual, and we were still eating when C arrived. Never mind - food and drink at one end of the room, Mythgardia at the other. Given that we were using the demo gameset and that B's planning to take it to Claymore at the weekend we were being justifiably careful not to get any chocolate stains on the board or cards.
We ended up with five players, so it had the potential to be quite a long game and, as expected, it was over three hours and even then we played it to two treasures rather than three. A almost won after about two hours by managing to pick up three treasures at the same time. This naturally prompted a large amount of 'player screwage' (as it was designated) in an attempt to stop him. One treasure was stolen, another turned out to be a fake, but he did manage to 'bank' the final one. We each managed to get a treasure before the final push... which proved quite bloody, with the final treasure changing hands several times before A managed to return it to one of the three sanctuaries.
Naturally there was much discussion of things like potential expansions and so on. It would certainly be possible to add more adventures and more characters - it's very easy to generate new characters, for instance - but that'll all depend on how well it sells. One feature that I particularly like is that he's got the level of chance just about right. You can choose to trust to the roll of the dice or you can play it safe and avoid adventures, which can be a good idea when you're running out of luck points with which to modify die rolls. Of course you find that you run out of luck points just as you're getting to the point of attacking other players to steal treasures so you have to be a little bit careful about when you choose to spend them in the first place.
I'm looking forward to unleashing this game on the folks in Iceland. I suspect, though, that I'll create some form of character sheets to make it a little easier to keep track of things. Not because it's inherently difficult, but rather because I like to have everything together in one place. Definitely a little OCD there. :)
0 comments
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Satellite 2
Well, that was a good convention.
Friday
I knew in advance that travel might be a little tricky on the Friday as it was Dad's birthday. It would have been awkward doing lunch and then driving up to Glasgow from Liverpool (for awkward read arriving in Glasgow at 22:00) so I persuaded him that he'd really prefer to have lunch at the Longlands, just north of the caravan. This meant that when I left at 16:00 I'd already chopped an hour and a half off the journey.
And the journey wasn't bad until I got to the M8. Yes, there was a lot of rain but that didn't worry me. The real problem was the accident on the Kingston bridge that practically shut down the motorway. The final five miles of motorway driving took well over an hour. There was a moment of moving aside for an ambulance, but more interesting was noticing another vehicle bedecked with blue flashing lights making its way onto the motorway at one junction; I'm not used to such vehicles bearing the legend Bomb Disposal Squad.
Eventually I made it to the Campanile, aided and abetted by my satnav. I'd opted for that instead of the con hotel purely on grounds of cost; curiously enough I could have got into the Crown Plaza for less than the con rate by going via an online booking site but the Campanile was cheaper still. I later discovered that several other congoers had made the same decision on accomodation. As it was 20:00 by that point I decided not to head over to the con hotel for the evening, but instead did a bit of work tweaking my slides for my IYA2009 talk on stellar evolution next day (25 slides is not enough to do justice to the subject).
Saturday
Saturday morning, then, I wandered over to the con hotel and signed in. My programme items didn't start until 16:30, so I had plenty of time to do the opening ceremony and a couple of presentations as well as a wander around the Glasgow river festival (which just happened to be occuring outside) and a 2-hour door-gopher stint.
Once the opening ceremony was over I stayed in the main programme for 21st Century Exploration - 1960s Hardware by David Woods. He gave a very good (although technically light, appropriate for a general audience) talk on the Apollo mission and its hardware. It was sufficiently interesting that I gave in and not only bought his book on the subject but noted down another few references while I was at it.
An hour's break gave me time to wander around the River Festival and have an ice-cream, then it was back for Inadvisable Rocket Science by Phil Wellings. This was subtitled Things they won't let you do these days and was an excellent review of some of the really cool but dangerous aerospace/astronautical projects that health&safety would veto nowadays. Lots of projects that it would have been fun to have been a part of.
Then it was off to a two-hour stint as door warden. It's been a long time since I've done that particular job as I'm normally on the Ops team. The con was sufficiently small that while there was no need for a large Ops team they were desperately in need of low-level gophers. In fact there was very little to do; there had been problems earlier with festival-goers wanting to come in to use the toilets, but the hotel had already put staff on the door to field the public.
That gave me time to psych myself up to give my IYA2009 lecture. I don't know if we had any walk-ins for the lecture itself, but there was a decent-sized audience in the main hall. It was quite difficult to cover the whole simple stellar evolution cycle in 45 minutes, and I didn't have much time for questions at the end, but it seemed to go okay.
No time to breathe, as immediately afterwards I was moderating a panel on The Future of Space Exploration with Iain M Banks, Andy Nimmo, Frank O'Brien and David Woods. We looked at what we might expect to see in the next 15, 25, 50 and 100 years, ranging over the NASA return to the moon, the effects of private space flight and the potential of a space elevator. Unsurprisingly we focussed on manned spaceflight - the general opinion was that we should send humans wherever possible and save the unmanned probes for places we physically cannot reach, such as the surface of Venus or within the Jovian radiation belts.
"Work" over, I then unwound in the alternative programme room playing Do you worship Cthulhu, managing to get myself ritually sacrificed in all three games. I like to think that my deductive abilities made me a prime target for early removal. :) I didn't actually make it into the beach party on the shores of the Sea of Tranquility, but instead ended up sitting nattering to people outside in the foyer. The foyer was, however, visited by Roger, who was appropriately attired for the event in Hawaiian shirt:
Sunday
Madwoman that I am, I volunteered for the early morning door warden shift, so I was in place at 09:00, well before most people started appearing for the start of the programme at 10:00. The first item on my personal programme was Frank O'Brien's marvellous talk on The Apollo Guidance Computer System. Yes, this was very geeky, with significant amounts of technical detail, but it was probably also the most amusing talk of the entire convention. I found myself sitting considering rewriting my entire modules in computer architecture, operating systems and HCI to use the AGC as a major example (there is an AGC simulator!) but while I'd probably enjoy it I doubt that my students would understand my enthusiasm, even if it is small enough to be able to do hardware and software together. Fortunately Frank has a book coming out doing just that later in the year; I foresee another addition to the bookshelf. Discussion of this naturally continued in the bar.
Technical geekery over, it was back to the alternative programme for Fantasy Football Convention with Dylanne, Fran Dowd, Gaspode, Ken O'Neill and Simon McGrory. The basic premise was simple: where would the panel (and audience) like to hold a convention and who would be the guests. We decided eventually to hold it in the Tardis (no need for overflow hotels) and would have HG Wells, Charles Darwin, The Doctor, Orson Welles, Christopher Lee, William Shatner and Captain Jack amongst the Guests of Honour. Very amusing, and I think it would probably have to turn into a series of conventions to keep everyone happy.
I then snuck out for another ice cream, so was a bit late getting to the Media Moon panel with Dalg, Mad Elf and Mike Cobley, On Saturday there had been a panel on the use of the moon within literary SF, and this was the companion panel dealing with media SF. There was, naturally enough, much talk of Space 1999, UFO and even Star Cops. Oh yes, and werewolves got the occasional mention too, although that got dangerously into the discussion over whether there is an increase in unusual and criminal behaviour during the days of the full moon.
For the final stretch I was back in the main programme once more. Colin McInnes' Random Thoughts of a Techno-Utopist Running Dog was a wonderfully positive view of how science and engineering is what we need to see us through the current climate crisis rather than hair-shirt environmentalism. It was really good to see someone with an even more extreme pro-engineering viewpoint than my own. Hello, my name is Nik and I am a techno-utopist running dog. :)
The last talk of the con was Robert Law's Return to the Moon, detailing the current state of affairs with respect to various nations announcing their intentions to put astronauts/cosmonauts/taikonauts on the moon. Very interesting, particularly in terms of the information on the Chinese and Indian lunar research programmes. Of course the NASA programme is now up in the air again given that President Obama has just announced a major review of the entire space programme.
Then the only things left were the closing ceremony and finally the dead dog party, the latter of which was in my case replaced by a curry with some of the Operation Marigold team at Mother India, where I stuffed myself on poppadoms, chicken masala chasni and peshwari naan. Mnom. Afterwards there was the normal post-con discussions with alcohol and (eventually) several of the committee.
It was one of the best cons I've been to for quite some time. I think that part of that was the topic - I've heard the con described (by a non-congoer) as a space advocacy convention masquerading as an SF convention, but I'd disagree with that. It was a Science Fiction and Fact convention on a given theme. There's a long and honourable history of this sort of thing, mixing science and science fiction, particularly in magazines. The late and muchly-lamented Omni was a classic example and, of course, the long-running Analog Science Fiction and Fact takes just the same approach.
I like this mix. It's far more common for me to be found in science items at conventions than at science fiction items; at the two Worldcons I've attended I've spent almost all of my time in the science stream. Don't get me wrong, I love science fiction, but I love it for the possibilities it describes and a lot of those possibilities spring out of real science or inspire real science. I have no literary pretentions whatsoever, I'm afraid. Literary criticism goes completely over my head but I do like the ideas.
Yes, it was a fun small convention. I'd love to see Satellite 3... although perhaps the obvious date for it, around April 12th 2011 (50th anniverary of Gagarin's flight) is a little too close to Easter to be viable. It could, I suppose, be pushed back to November 13th to celebrate 40 years after Mariner 9 and move the focus of the science from the Moon to Mars. The seventies is full of good space events so there are plenty of 40th anniversaries to celebrate over the next decade. A decade of Satellite X conventions... yes, I could handle that as a concept.
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Friday
I knew in advance that travel might be a little tricky on the Friday as it was Dad's birthday. It would have been awkward doing lunch and then driving up to Glasgow from Liverpool (for awkward read arriving in Glasgow at 22:00) so I persuaded him that he'd really prefer to have lunch at the Longlands, just north of the caravan. This meant that when I left at 16:00 I'd already chopped an hour and a half off the journey.
And the journey wasn't bad until I got to the M8. Yes, there was a lot of rain but that didn't worry me. The real problem was the accident on the Kingston bridge that practically shut down the motorway. The final five miles of motorway driving took well over an hour. There was a moment of moving aside for an ambulance, but more interesting was noticing another vehicle bedecked with blue flashing lights making its way onto the motorway at one junction; I'm not used to such vehicles bearing the legend Bomb Disposal Squad.
Eventually I made it to the Campanile, aided and abetted by my satnav. I'd opted for that instead of the con hotel purely on grounds of cost; curiously enough I could have got into the Crown Plaza for less than the con rate by going via an online booking site but the Campanile was cheaper still. I later discovered that several other congoers had made the same decision on accomodation. As it was 20:00 by that point I decided not to head over to the con hotel for the evening, but instead did a bit of work tweaking my slides for my IYA2009 talk on stellar evolution next day (25 slides is not enough to do justice to the subject).
Saturday
Saturday morning, then, I wandered over to the con hotel and signed in. My programme items didn't start until 16:30, so I had plenty of time to do the opening ceremony and a couple of presentations as well as a wander around the Glasgow river festival (which just happened to be occuring outside) and a 2-hour door-gopher stint.
Once the opening ceremony was over I stayed in the main programme for 21st Century Exploration - 1960s Hardware by David Woods. He gave a very good (although technically light, appropriate for a general audience) talk on the Apollo mission and its hardware. It was sufficiently interesting that I gave in and not only bought his book on the subject but noted down another few references while I was at it.
An hour's break gave me time to wander around the River Festival and have an ice-cream, then it was back for Inadvisable Rocket Science by Phil Wellings. This was subtitled Things they won't let you do these days and was an excellent review of some of the really cool but dangerous aerospace/astronautical projects that health&safety would veto nowadays. Lots of projects that it would have been fun to have been a part of.
Then it was off to a two-hour stint as door warden. It's been a long time since I've done that particular job as I'm normally on the Ops team. The con was sufficiently small that while there was no need for a large Ops team they were desperately in need of low-level gophers. In fact there was very little to do; there had been problems earlier with festival-goers wanting to come in to use the toilets, but the hotel had already put staff on the door to field the public.
That gave me time to psych myself up to give my IYA2009 lecture. I don't know if we had any walk-ins for the lecture itself, but there was a decent-sized audience in the main hall. It was quite difficult to cover the whole simple stellar evolution cycle in 45 minutes, and I didn't have much time for questions at the end, but it seemed to go okay.
No time to breathe, as immediately afterwards I was moderating a panel on The Future of Space Exploration with Iain M Banks, Andy Nimmo, Frank O'Brien and David Woods. We looked at what we might expect to see in the next 15, 25, 50 and 100 years, ranging over the NASA return to the moon, the effects of private space flight and the potential of a space elevator. Unsurprisingly we focussed on manned spaceflight - the general opinion was that we should send humans wherever possible and save the unmanned probes for places we physically cannot reach, such as the surface of Venus or within the Jovian radiation belts.
"Work" over, I then unwound in the alternative programme room playing Do you worship Cthulhu, managing to get myself ritually sacrificed in all three games. I like to think that my deductive abilities made me a prime target for early removal. :) I didn't actually make it into the beach party on the shores of the Sea of Tranquility, but instead ended up sitting nattering to people outside in the foyer. The foyer was, however, visited by Roger
Sunday
Madwoman that I am, I volunteered for the early morning door warden shift, so I was in place at 09:00, well before most people started appearing for the start of the programme at 10:00. The first item on my personal programme was Frank O'Brien's marvellous talk on The Apollo Guidance Computer System. Yes, this was very geeky, with significant amounts of technical detail, but it was probably also the most amusing talk of the entire convention. I found myself sitting considering rewriting my entire modules in computer architecture, operating systems and HCI to use the AGC as a major example (there is an AGC simulator!) but while I'd probably enjoy it I doubt that my students would understand my enthusiasm, even if it is small enough to be able to do hardware and software together. Fortunately Frank has a book coming out doing just that later in the year; I foresee another addition to the bookshelf. Discussion of this naturally continued in the bar.
Technical geekery over, it was back to the alternative programme for Fantasy Football Convention with Dylanne, Fran Dowd, Gaspode, Ken O'Neill and Simon McGrory. The basic premise was simple: where would the panel (and audience) like to hold a convention and who would be the guests. We decided eventually to hold it in the Tardis (no need for overflow hotels) and would have HG Wells, Charles Darwin, The Doctor, Orson Welles, Christopher Lee, William Shatner and Captain Jack amongst the Guests of Honour. Very amusing, and I think it would probably have to turn into a series of conventions to keep everyone happy.
I then snuck out for another ice cream, so was a bit late getting to the Media Moon panel with Dalg, Mad Elf and Mike Cobley, On Saturday there had been a panel on the use of the moon within literary SF, and this was the companion panel dealing with media SF. There was, naturally enough, much talk of Space 1999, UFO and even Star Cops. Oh yes, and werewolves got the occasional mention too, although that got dangerously into the discussion over whether there is an increase in unusual and criminal behaviour during the days of the full moon.
For the final stretch I was back in the main programme once more. Colin McInnes' Random Thoughts of a Techno-Utopist Running Dog was a wonderfully positive view of how science and engineering is what we need to see us through the current climate crisis rather than hair-shirt environmentalism. It was really good to see someone with an even more extreme pro-engineering viewpoint than my own. Hello, my name is Nik and I am a techno-utopist running dog. :)
The last talk of the con was Robert Law's Return to the Moon, detailing the current state of affairs with respect to various nations announcing their intentions to put astronauts/cosmonauts/taikonauts on the moon. Very interesting, particularly in terms of the information on the Chinese and Indian lunar research programmes. Of course the NASA programme is now up in the air again given that President Obama has just announced a major review of the entire space programme.
Then the only things left were the closing ceremony and finally the dead dog party, the latter of which was in my case replaced by a curry with some of the Operation Marigold team at Mother India, where I stuffed myself on poppadoms, chicken masala chasni and peshwari naan. Mnom. Afterwards there was the normal post-con discussions with alcohol and (eventually) several of the committee.
It was one of the best cons I've been to for quite some time. I think that part of that was the topic - I've heard the con described (by a non-congoer) as a space advocacy convention masquerading as an SF convention, but I'd disagree with that. It was a Science Fiction and Fact convention on a given theme. There's a long and honourable history of this sort of thing, mixing science and science fiction, particularly in magazines. The late and muchly-lamented Omni was a classic example and, of course, the long-running Analog Science Fiction and Fact takes just the same approach.
I like this mix. It's far more common for me to be found in science items at conventions than at science fiction items; at the two Worldcons I've attended I've spent almost all of my time in the science stream. Don't get me wrong, I love science fiction, but I love it for the possibilities it describes and a lot of those possibilities spring out of real science or inspire real science. I have no literary pretentions whatsoever, I'm afraid. Literary criticism goes completely over my head but I do like the ideas.
Yes, it was a fun small convention. I'd love to see Satellite 3... although perhaps the obvious date for it, around April 12th 2011 (50th anniverary of Gagarin's flight) is a little too close to Easter to be viable. It could, I suppose, be pushed back to November 13th to celebrate 40 years after Mariner 9 and move the focus of the science from the Moon to Mars. The seventies is full of good space events so there are plenty of 40th anniversaries to celebrate over the next decade. A decade of Satellite X conventions... yes, I could handle that as a concept.
0 comments
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Meat and two veg
That is not my idea of an evening meal cooked by me.
I am, however, in Liverpool which means that I'm cooking for Dad, and he's very much a meat and two veg chap (unless it's bah-mee or beef and cider curry). There was a minor miracle this evening when I managed to get pork steaks braised with red onions, baby potatoes, carrots, cauliflower and peas onto the table at six o'clock sharp. The carrots were pretty tasteless, but I put that down to the carrots themselves rather than my cooking.
If it had been up to me tonight, I think we'd have had pasta with roasted mushrooms, onions and peppers in a tomato and garlic sauce. Although we might have agreed on dessert, it being Vienetta. :)
Cooking is one of the more stressful things about coming back here. My cooking skills are not in the traditional British main course field. I'm more of a patissier than anything else. Meringue swans? Death by chocolate? Chocolate Cointreau mousse? No problem. Roast beef, Yorkshire pudding and roast potatoes? Er... how about profiteroles with chocolate sauce instead?
Still, it hasn't all been stress today. I had lunch out with my friend of longest aquaintence and her mother today, to celebrate the maternal birthday. There was cheesy garlic bread - mnom mnom - and good coffee to go with the good company. And there were jaffa cake bars at one point as well (although that was much later).
0 comments
I am, however, in Liverpool which means that I'm cooking for Dad, and he's very much a meat and two veg chap (unless it's bah-mee or beef and cider curry). There was a minor miracle this evening when I managed to get pork steaks braised with red onions, baby potatoes, carrots, cauliflower and peas onto the table at six o'clock sharp. The carrots were pretty tasteless, but I put that down to the carrots themselves rather than my cooking.
If it had been up to me tonight, I think we'd have had pasta with roasted mushrooms, onions and peppers in a tomato and garlic sauce. Although we might have agreed on dessert, it being Vienetta. :)
Cooking is one of the more stressful things about coming back here. My cooking skills are not in the traditional British main course field. I'm more of a patissier than anything else. Meringue swans? Death by chocolate? Chocolate Cointreau mousse? No problem. Roast beef, Yorkshire pudding and roast potatoes? Er... how about profiteroles with chocolate sauce instead?
Still, it hasn't all been stress today. I had lunch out with my friend of longest aquaintence and her mother today, to celebrate the maternal birthday. There was cheesy garlic bread - mnom mnom - and good coffee to go with the good company. And there were jaffa cake bars at one point as well (although that was much later).
0 comments
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Back at 449
I am now back at 449. Hurrah for proper wireless internet!
There are a couple of days between now and Satellite 2, one of which is Dad's birthday. Kayte can't make it up here as the club is very busy at present, so I'm playing dutiful daughter instead. To the extent of arriving at 16:00 and cooking dinner for 17:30 so that Dad could go out to play bowls at 18:00. *Sigh* Ah well, I knew what I'd signed up for when I decided to visit.
Anyway, the drive south was rather roundabout, given that I did a visit to a potential Operation Marigold site in Bolton on the way. Nice place but unfortunately it doesn't meet out needs. As I drove to this particular location I found myself musing about what a wonderful thing is the satnav to lead me to the door of practically anywhere I want. This thread of thought was continued when, instead of heading directly to Liverpool I decided to pay a visit to the Voirrey Embroidery Centre at Brimstage Hall on the WIrral.
Oh dear. I was rather disappointed by Voirrey. I'd been meaning to visit it for about ten years - Mum mentioned it originally, but we never actually got around to going over there. As a result it has, in my imagination, grown into a huge embroidery store where I could buy absolutely anything for absolustely any form of needlework that the mind could conceive. I had plans to buy some gold thread and a couple of other bits and bobs for various projects, but came away empty-handed. If you're looking for an embroidery shop in the north I'd recommend Embsay Mill near Skipton or the tiny-but-well-stocked Craft Shop in Grassington which I checked out last July.
There was one thing of interest at Brimstage Hall though - the newly-opened WarGameStore shop. I must have spent a good half hour talking to Dave, the proprietor, about wargaming. He's aiming at what he calls the 'veteran' Warhammer gamers, which is quite a nice idea. I'm happy to play Warhammer from time to time but I'm not a big fan of going into Games Workshop shops and running the gauntlet of fourteen-year-olds. For now he's focussing on GW stuff but is planning to expland his range. If I wasn't flying back to Iceland I'd have been very tempted to finally pick up a copy of Blood Bowl. Of course I also took the opportunity to point him in the direction of Mythgardia... :)
Tomorrow I have a lot of tech support to do. Tonight, though, I need to finish my IYA talk for Satellite 2. With lots of pretty pictures.
0 comments
There are a couple of days between now and Satellite 2, one of which is Dad's birthday. Kayte can't make it up here as the club is very busy at present, so I'm playing dutiful daughter instead. To the extent of arriving at 16:00 and cooking dinner for 17:30 so that Dad could go out to play bowls at 18:00. *Sigh* Ah well, I knew what I'd signed up for when I decided to visit.
Anyway, the drive south was rather roundabout, given that I did a visit to a potential Operation Marigold site in Bolton on the way. Nice place but unfortunately it doesn't meet out needs. As I drove to this particular location I found myself musing about what a wonderful thing is the satnav to lead me to the door of practically anywhere I want. This thread of thought was continued when, instead of heading directly to Liverpool I decided to pay a visit to the Voirrey Embroidery Centre at Brimstage Hall on the WIrral.
Oh dear. I was rather disappointed by Voirrey. I'd been meaning to visit it for about ten years - Mum mentioned it originally, but we never actually got around to going over there. As a result it has, in my imagination, grown into a huge embroidery store where I could buy absolutely anything for absolustely any form of needlework that the mind could conceive. I had plans to buy some gold thread and a couple of other bits and bobs for various projects, but came away empty-handed. If you're looking for an embroidery shop in the north I'd recommend Embsay Mill near Skipton or the tiny-but-well-stocked Craft Shop in Grassington which I checked out last July.
There was one thing of interest at Brimstage Hall though - the newly-opened WarGameStore shop. I must have spent a good half hour talking to Dave, the proprietor, about wargaming. He's aiming at what he calls the 'veteran' Warhammer gamers, which is quite a nice idea. I'm happy to play Warhammer from time to time but I'm not a big fan of going into Games Workshop shops and running the gauntlet of fourteen-year-olds. For now he's focussing on GW stuff but is planning to expland his range. If I wasn't flying back to Iceland I'd have been very tempted to finally pick up a copy of Blood Bowl. Of course I also took the opportunity to point him in the direction of Mythgardia... :)
Tomorrow I have a lot of tech support to do. Tonight, though, I need to finish my IYA talk for Satellite 2. With lots of pretty pictures.
0 comments
Monday, July 20, 2009
+40Y
I've touched the moon. I was about 5 at the time, and my family lost me at the Liverpool Show (which was then quite an important county show). I was eventually found in one of the marquees talking to Neil Armstrong, who was doing the UK public relations tour at the time. He had a piece of moonrock in a glass display unit but took it out and put it in my hands. It felt, I remember, awfully light for a rock.
It was not particularly surprising that I later decided to do an astronomy degree.
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It was not particularly surprising that I later decided to do an astronomy degree.
0 comments
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Battle of Brothers
I'm back at the 'van after a weekend at Whitewell Hall near Norwich.
I've realised that satnavs are truly marvellous things. Whitewell Hall, the site at which this particular SCA event was held, is a little... remote. Remote as in single-lane tracks to reach the appropriate building. Fortunately my TomTom allowed me to enter a postcode which got me onto the 'Unnamed Road' that leads to the house. The route it took was completely unlike the route suggested in the event information, but I did have the backup plan of heading to Reepham and following those instructions if I got too lost. As it happened, they were completely unnecessary.
Having said that, the traffic was pretty atrocious. What should have been a 5-hour journey took about 6.5 hours, mainly thanks to congestion and weather around Manchester. It occasionally makes me wonder which is worse - Icelandic roads that are slow due to road quality or high-quality British roads full of traffic. The jury is still out on that one.
Friday night at an event is often a fairly quiet time but I ended up sitting and nattering to people until about 02:00, which was tiring but extremely enjoyable. It didn't stop me being up at 08:00 for breakfast on Saturday though, ready to spring into a day of A&S classes (I'd decided not to fence for reasons of luggage weight restrictions). First off was a class on the appropriate jewellery for your persona... or how to wear as much appropriate bling as possible. I like that form of bling. :) This then led into a class on lost wax casting for jewellery making. In practice we made the wax forms that will be cast at a later date, but I'm particularly pleased as it has allowed me to create the two Tudor pendants that I've lusted over for several years - pieces inspired by Catherine of Aragon's 5-cabochon square cross and Anne Boleyn's "B" pendant. These are now off to be cast in silver and with a bit of luck I should have at least one of them at Raglan. I'd really love to do more of this serious jewellery-making; another thing that will have to wait until I escape Iceland.
Afterwards I hung around the scriptorium for a while doinig Secret Scribal Stuff before my blackwork class. This time my class was based upon making a scissorkeep as a sampler of 16 different fills that are all taken from pre-1600 pieces. One of the nice things about it is that it's a fairly rapid piece to work up, unlike the goldwork rose and blackwork cushions I did several years ago. I think I'm going to have to do a little hunting to see if I scissorkeeps are pre-1600 as well; they're the sort of things that I could certainly imagine as being popular during the Tudor period, if not before.
The final class for the day was on culinary and medicinal herbs. I learned quite a lot from that, although given that my starting point isn't much more advanced that "leaf", "flower", "another leaf" that's not really surprising.
Then there was Court, with the presentation of several very well-deserved awards and the excellent news that Insulae Draconis has been 'promoted' from the status of Crown Principality to Principality and that the Vicregal tournament next month will therefore be the last of its kind; in next February we will hold the first Coronet Tourney to select the founding Prince and Princess of Insulae Draconis. It's a huge step forward, made possible by the hard work of countless people within the Crown Principality.
After the feast there was dancing (even I managed a bransle or two) and much talking late into the night. Just the sort of thing I expect from an enjoyable SCA event. I was particularly pleased to find a beautiful pint jug at the potter's stall at the event, as it's so much more civilised to pour my drink from that into my goblet than to keep pulling modern bottles from under the table. It's also very convenient that the jug is perfectly-sized to hold a bottle of good cider.
It was a good event, and I enjoyed it immensely. I've come away with a couple of Super Secret A&S Ideas (and some considerably less secret) that should keep me busy until next February at least. Which is an excellent idea, as it will give me something to take my mind off work.
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I've realised that satnavs are truly marvellous things. Whitewell Hall, the site at which this particular SCA event was held, is a little... remote. Remote as in single-lane tracks to reach the appropriate building. Fortunately my TomTom allowed me to enter a postcode which got me onto the 'Unnamed Road' that leads to the house. The route it took was completely unlike the route suggested in the event information, but I did have the backup plan of heading to Reepham and following those instructions if I got too lost. As it happened, they were completely unnecessary.
Having said that, the traffic was pretty atrocious. What should have been a 5-hour journey took about 6.5 hours, mainly thanks to congestion and weather around Manchester. It occasionally makes me wonder which is worse - Icelandic roads that are slow due to road quality or high-quality British roads full of traffic. The jury is still out on that one.
Friday night at an event is often a fairly quiet time but I ended up sitting and nattering to people until about 02:00, which was tiring but extremely enjoyable. It didn't stop me being up at 08:00 for breakfast on Saturday though, ready to spring into a day of A&S classes (I'd decided not to fence for reasons of luggage weight restrictions). First off was a class on the appropriate jewellery for your persona... or how to wear as much appropriate bling as possible. I like that form of bling. :) This then led into a class on lost wax casting for jewellery making. In practice we made the wax forms that will be cast at a later date, but I'm particularly pleased as it has allowed me to create the two Tudor pendants that I've lusted over for several years - pieces inspired by Catherine of Aragon's 5-cabochon square cross and Anne Boleyn's "B" pendant. These are now off to be cast in silver and with a bit of luck I should have at least one of them at Raglan. I'd really love to do more of this serious jewellery-making; another thing that will have to wait until I escape Iceland.
Afterwards I hung around the scriptorium for a while doinig Secret Scribal Stuff before my blackwork class. This time my class was based upon making a scissorkeep as a sampler of 16 different fills that are all taken from pre-1600 pieces. One of the nice things about it is that it's a fairly rapid piece to work up, unlike the goldwork rose and blackwork cushions I did several years ago. I think I'm going to have to do a little hunting to see if I scissorkeeps are pre-1600 as well; they're the sort of things that I could certainly imagine as being popular during the Tudor period, if not before.
The final class for the day was on culinary and medicinal herbs. I learned quite a lot from that, although given that my starting point isn't much more advanced that "leaf", "flower", "another leaf" that's not really surprising.
Then there was Court, with the presentation of several very well-deserved awards and the excellent news that Insulae Draconis has been 'promoted' from the status of Crown Principality to Principality and that the Vicregal tournament next month will therefore be the last of its kind; in next February we will hold the first Coronet Tourney to select the founding Prince and Princess of Insulae Draconis. It's a huge step forward, made possible by the hard work of countless people within the Crown Principality.
After the feast there was dancing (even I managed a bransle or two) and much talking late into the night. Just the sort of thing I expect from an enjoyable SCA event. I was particularly pleased to find a beautiful pint jug at the potter's stall at the event, as it's so much more civilised to pour my drink from that into my goblet than to keep pulling modern bottles from under the table. It's also very convenient that the jug is perfectly-sized to hold a bottle of good cider.
It was a good event, and I enjoyed it immensely. I've come away with a couple of Super Secret A&S Ideas (and some considerably less secret) that should keep me busy until next February at least. Which is an excellent idea, as it will give me something to take my mind off work.
0 comments
Monday, July 13, 2009
Caravan update
Not much to say recently as I've been unwinding at the caravan.
Part of the silence is due to this, but another factor is my internet access here. I have mobile broadband via a 3 USB modem which is, according to the documentation, Mac-compatible but has a tendancy to completely crash my machine if I visit a web page that has active elements of some sort. Although that's wiith Firefox - I'll give it a try with Safari here and see what happens.
Since I've arrived back in the UK I've managed quite a lot of reading, a bit of shopping and even a bit of culture (although you already know about that). In the past week I've got through Eric Flint's 1634, Ben Goldacre's Bad Science and am now thoroughly enjoying Charlie Stross' The Atrocity Archives (which I should have read before The Jennifer Morgue but I'm not worried - I'm just happy to have found another of the series). There's a pile of books still sitting here awaiting my attention and I fondly expect to get through at least another couple of them during my stay here.
This being my now-normal July trip I went to have my eyes tested at the end of last week and went back today to collect my new glasses. The prescription isn't very strong: -2.00 plus an astigmatism correction of -0.75/-1.00 (right eye/left eye) but age-related accomodation loss is beginning so I did have the option to go for varifocals. That wasn't surprising since I've started taking my glasses off to read anything on paper, which is a bit of a faff but not sufficiently so given the exchange rate that I was willing to pay the extra for them. Besides, once you start wearing varifocals it messes up your eye movements for working with eyetrackers and I'd quite like to be able to go back to working with them one day. One day... So I spent part of this morning wandering around Lancaster allowing my eyes to get used to the new prescription - I'm almost getting used to the city being pin-sharp but moving slightly strangely. :)
One of the things I did pick up in Lancaster was a set of 45 metal button forms, enough for my new mandelion. I now have everything necessary to make it: heavy dark green wool and paler green lining from Aberkan, buttons from Lancaster and a sewing machine here in the van. It's not my top priority - I have to make an underdress by Friday to go with my Italian gown - but there is a chance I'll manage it by Battle of Brothers. Or at least spend part of the event sewing buttons in place.
That's about all so far. There have been meals of sausage, chips and gravy, of chicken dhansak with peshwari naan, of sausage, bacon and scrambled eggs, and tonight I'm looking forward to a slice of bacon and a fried egg. There have been scones, potato cakes, soft bread rolls and hot cross buns. Yes, comfort food is the order of the day, I'm afraid. All of those delicacies that will show up on the WiiFit when I get back to Iceland. Ah well, it's the price I have to pay.
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Part of the silence is due to this, but another factor is my internet access here. I have mobile broadband via a 3 USB modem which is, according to the documentation, Mac-compatible but has a tendancy to completely crash my machine if I visit a web page that has active elements of some sort. Although that's wiith Firefox - I'll give it a try with Safari here and see what happens.
Since I've arrived back in the UK I've managed quite a lot of reading, a bit of shopping and even a bit of culture (although you already know about that). In the past week I've got through Eric Flint's 1634, Ben Goldacre's Bad Science and am now thoroughly enjoying Charlie Stross' The Atrocity Archives (which I should have read before The Jennifer Morgue but I'm not worried - I'm just happy to have found another of the series). There's a pile of books still sitting here awaiting my attention and I fondly expect to get through at least another couple of them during my stay here.
This being my now-normal July trip I went to have my eyes tested at the end of last week and went back today to collect my new glasses. The prescription isn't very strong: -2.00 plus an astigmatism correction of -0.75/-1.00 (right eye/left eye) but age-related accomodation loss is beginning so I did have the option to go for varifocals. That wasn't surprising since I've started taking my glasses off to read anything on paper, which is a bit of a faff but not sufficiently so given the exchange rate that I was willing to pay the extra for them. Besides, once you start wearing varifocals it messes up your eye movements for working with eyetrackers and I'd quite like to be able to go back to working with them one day. One day... So I spent part of this morning wandering around Lancaster allowing my eyes to get used to the new prescription - I'm almost getting used to the city being pin-sharp but moving slightly strangely. :)
One of the things I did pick up in Lancaster was a set of 45 metal button forms, enough for my new mandelion. I now have everything necessary to make it: heavy dark green wool and paler green lining from Aberkan, buttons from Lancaster and a sewing machine here in the van. It's not my top priority - I have to make an underdress by Friday to go with my Italian gown - but there is a chance I'll manage it by Battle of Brothers. Or at least spend part of the event sewing buttons in place.
That's about all so far. There have been meals of sausage, chips and gravy, of chicken dhansak with peshwari naan, of sausage, bacon and scrambled eggs, and tonight I'm looking forward to a slice of bacon and a fried egg. There have been scones, potato cakes, soft bread rolls and hot cross buns. Yes, comfort food is the order of the day, I'm afraid. All of those delicacies that will show up on the WiiFit when I get back to Iceland. Ah well, it's the price I have to pay.
0 comments
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Jason and the Argonauts
I'm just back from the theatre in Williamson Park.
(SPOILERS AHEAD...)
To be more exact, P and I went to see Jason and the Argonauts performed as a promenade work in Williamson Park in Lancaster. For many years now the players have put on one or two of these during July and August, taking advantage of the marvellous range of backdrops the park has to offer. If you've ever driven up the M6 past junction 33 and wondered what the big white building on the hill is, that's the Ashton Memorial, the park's centerpiece and the setting for various scenes in the play.
It was fun, as the Dukes Playhouse promenades always are (I've previously seen Romeo and Juliet, The Three Musketeers and The Hobbit performed there). We started off by the lake, where Jason (then known as 'Billy') arrived 'from the mountains' and carried the goddess Hera (who was, of course, disguised as a crone) across the lake. Yes, that's through the water, losing a shoe on the way so as to arrive at King Pelias's palace wearing only one sandal as the prophecy required. When Pelias sends Jason off on his quest to find the golden fleece our hero is joined by strongman Heracles (tall, blond and not particularly bright), the archer Petrocles (small, blonde, very female) and the clearly-doomed Testicles. Oh yes, and all of us, the audience. The first act was quite amusing in terms of audience participation, with Darren the Argonaut, Standinocles, Daughter of Standinocles, Carrythesparesailocles and so on.
Sadly Testicles fell prey to the Sirens, thus displaying why we should all put our hands over our ears while walking past that part of the lakeside. The sirens were singing live, an amazing wordless harmony that I'd quite like to find on mp3 for gaming purposes. Then it was off up over the hill into the small dale that stood in for the court of Phineus for the battle with the harpies. In order to tempt the harpies back we Argonauts managed to find some food as bait (including a chocolate mini roll, some Cadbury's Roses and a quarter of a pork pie), which proved quite sufficient although it did take Phineas a little time to get through the pork pie quarter afterwards.
The final scene of the first act took place at the base of the Ashton memorial itself, where the fountain pool had been turned into the great clashing rocks. Well, sort of. Actually a rather good giant Poseidon went around smashing rocks together in his hands while Zeus and Hera watched on from the memorial above. We were then all dismissed for a tea-break.
The second act was much darker, commencing with the courtyard of the Memorial representing the palace of Aeetes at Colchis and introducing us to Medea. That's Medea played as if she were Druscilla - quite, quite mad and very amusing... until Hera makes her fall in love with Jason, at which point she turns into Anya (also amusing). Aeetes' great bull was shown as a large bull's head, manipulated by a puppeteer inside it (who was wearing rather nice black leather trousers and boots). A little strange but quite effective, although this is unsurprising as the Dukes' have a long history of excellent puppetry for these productions, enhanced further by their use for the skeleton warriors and the dragon in the scene down in the quarry amphitheatre. Plus, of course, the zombie Petrocles.
For the final scene we were back at the lake again, now lit by what looked to be floating torches, and another marvellous display of madness from Medea and the obligatory happy(ish) ending.
As you can see, it was definitely an 'adaptation' of the classical myth, and it would be very interesting (if not at all child-friendly) to see an equivalent version of Medea from the same cast and in the same setting. Nonetheless, it was an excellent evening's entertainment; humourous and exciting, with plenty of local colour. Aeetes was marked as a villain from the moment he first spoke - the thick Yorkshire accent gave it away. It was also interesting to see the age mix of the audience, as there were a surprising number of teenagers there on their own as well as the normal families with children and older patrons of the arts. The weather was perfect - clear skies, pleasantly warm and just enough of a breeze to keep us cool.
If you're in the Lancaster area between now and mid-August I can thoroughly recommend it as a good evening's entertainment. Next year they're doing Peter Pan, and I'm fairly sure we'll be getting tickets for that as well.
0 comments
(SPOILERS AHEAD...)
To be more exact, P and I went to see Jason and the Argonauts performed as a promenade work in Williamson Park in Lancaster. For many years now the players have put on one or two of these during July and August, taking advantage of the marvellous range of backdrops the park has to offer. If you've ever driven up the M6 past junction 33 and wondered what the big white building on the hill is, that's the Ashton Memorial, the park's centerpiece and the setting for various scenes in the play.
It was fun, as the Dukes Playhouse promenades always are (I've previously seen Romeo and Juliet, The Three Musketeers and The Hobbit performed there). We started off by the lake, where Jason (then known as 'Billy') arrived 'from the mountains' and carried the goddess Hera (who was, of course, disguised as a crone) across the lake. Yes, that's through the water, losing a shoe on the way so as to arrive at King Pelias's palace wearing only one sandal as the prophecy required. When Pelias sends Jason off on his quest to find the golden fleece our hero is joined by strongman Heracles (tall, blond and not particularly bright), the archer Petrocles (small, blonde, very female) and the clearly-doomed Testicles. Oh yes, and all of us, the audience. The first act was quite amusing in terms of audience participation, with Darren the Argonaut, Standinocles, Daughter of Standinocles, Carrythesparesailocles and so on.
Sadly Testicles fell prey to the Sirens, thus displaying why we should all put our hands over our ears while walking past that part of the lakeside. The sirens were singing live, an amazing wordless harmony that I'd quite like to find on mp3 for gaming purposes. Then it was off up over the hill into the small dale that stood in for the court of Phineus for the battle with the harpies. In order to tempt the harpies back we Argonauts managed to find some food as bait (including a chocolate mini roll, some Cadbury's Roses and a quarter of a pork pie), which proved quite sufficient although it did take Phineas a little time to get through the pork pie quarter afterwards.
The final scene of the first act took place at the base of the Ashton memorial itself, where the fountain pool had been turned into the great clashing rocks. Well, sort of. Actually a rather good giant Poseidon went around smashing rocks together in his hands while Zeus and Hera watched on from the memorial above. We were then all dismissed for a tea-break.
The second act was much darker, commencing with the courtyard of the Memorial representing the palace of Aeetes at Colchis and introducing us to Medea. That's Medea played as if she were Druscilla - quite, quite mad and very amusing... until Hera makes her fall in love with Jason, at which point she turns into Anya (also amusing). Aeetes' great bull was shown as a large bull's head, manipulated by a puppeteer inside it (who was wearing rather nice black leather trousers and boots). A little strange but quite effective, although this is unsurprising as the Dukes' have a long history of excellent puppetry for these productions, enhanced further by their use for the skeleton warriors and the dragon in the scene down in the quarry amphitheatre. Plus, of course, the zombie Petrocles.
For the final scene we were back at the lake again, now lit by what looked to be floating torches, and another marvellous display of madness from Medea and the obligatory happy(ish) ending.
As you can see, it was definitely an 'adaptation' of the classical myth, and it would be very interesting (if not at all child-friendly) to see an equivalent version of Medea from the same cast and in the same setting. Nonetheless, it was an excellent evening's entertainment; humourous and exciting, with plenty of local colour. Aeetes was marked as a villain from the moment he first spoke - the thick Yorkshire accent gave it away. It was also interesting to see the age mix of the audience, as there were a surprising number of teenagers there on their own as well as the normal families with children and older patrons of the arts. The weather was perfect - clear skies, pleasantly warm and just enough of a breeze to keep us cool.
If you're in the Lancaster area between now and mid-August I can thoroughly recommend it as a good evening's entertainment. Next year they're doing Peter Pan, and I'm fairly sure we'll be getting tickets for that as well.
0 comments
Saturday, July 04, 2009
Farting about with fittings
Sleeve fittings, to be precise.
The plan for the weekend was originally for M and B to come over and we'd do some dressmaking. In the end, they came over last night, we ate, drank, played games and were merry, and did no dressmaking at all. :) That was partly because B had no fabric but an invite to go climb a local mountain today, and partly because there was much alcohol drunk last night. It seemed a good time to break out the olivewood communion goblets I got from eBay as tablero pieces (I've had them for three years but haven't got around to making the embroidered board to go with them yet) instead of the plastic shot glasses. They are definitely superior, as they hold about 1/4 of a shot, thus allowing the game to continue far longer.
Oh yes, and there was Cointreau Chocolate Mousse. Very rich. Very yummy. :)
Today, then, I was the only one to get any dressmaking done, mainly because I'm here on my own right now while M has gone to the shire meeting (I'm still taking a holiday from local SCA matters). What I've done isn't actually making garb, it was rather the process of making a useful pattern for doublets and the like. My shape is such that it's much easier to make my own pattern than buy one, particularly if it involves sleeves.
The problem is that the old injury to my left shoulder meant that my arms have received disproportionate amounts of exercise, leading to a signigicant difference in biceps measurement between the two. A pattern that fits one are is either far too tight or far too loose for the other, leaving me with little option but to create for myself a basic pattern with seperate left and right arm pieces.
And it fits! This is definitely a Good Think, as it now means that I can forge ahead and make myself doublets to go with a couple of skirts and (finally) make some progress on my Spanish Court Garb. The aim is to complete it by Raglan, although that might be a little optimistic.
0 comments
The plan for the weekend was originally for M and B to come over and we'd do some dressmaking. In the end, they came over last night, we ate, drank, played games and were merry, and did no dressmaking at all. :) That was partly because B had no fabric but an invite to go climb a local mountain today, and partly because there was much alcohol drunk last night. It seemed a good time to break out the olivewood communion goblets I got from eBay as tablero pieces (I've had them for three years but haven't got around to making the embroidered board to go with them yet) instead of the plastic shot glasses. They are definitely superior, as they hold about 1/4 of a shot, thus allowing the game to continue far longer.
Oh yes, and there was Cointreau Chocolate Mousse. Very rich. Very yummy. :)
Today, then, I was the only one to get any dressmaking done, mainly because I'm here on my own right now while M has gone to the shire meeting (I'm still taking a holiday from local SCA matters). What I've done isn't actually making garb, it was rather the process of making a useful pattern for doublets and the like. My shape is such that it's much easier to make my own pattern than buy one, particularly if it involves sleeves.
The problem is that the old injury to my left shoulder meant that my arms have received disproportionate amounts of exercise, leading to a signigicant difference in biceps measurement between the two. A pattern that fits one are is either far too tight or far too loose for the other, leaving me with little option but to create for myself a basic pattern with seperate left and right arm pieces.
And it fits! This is definitely a Good Think, as it now means that I can forge ahead and make myself doublets to go with a couple of skirts and (finally) make some progress on my Spanish Court Garb. The aim is to complete it by Raglan, although that might be a little optimistic.
0 comments
Friday, July 03, 2009
Can we fix that too?
Er... possibly not.
I took the car for its MOT-equivalent today, to find that there are several other things that need fixing. The most important one is that the right front brake is showing a tendancy to seize up (which would explain the intermittant shudder I get occasionally and is almost certainly because I didn't use the car for quite a while even into the early summer thanks to the snow). It's not a death-no-saving-throw fault, but one that I have to get fixed by the end of August and then take the car back for a retest.
This fix and retest within a set time-limit is, in my view, a far better approach than the UK can't drive it until it is fixed one. I've always wondered what you're supposed to do if you maintain your car yourself but then it still fails, as I doubt that many garages would be happy to have you fix the errant item on their premises. Perhaps its just another part of the no user-serviceable parts philosophy.
For a brief moment I considered picking up the Haynes manual while I'm in the UK and then doing the job myself... but as I don't have a large lump hammer with which to hit them, nor a suitable workshop in which to do the deed I suspect it's going to be a garage job once I get back from the UK.
So for now, instead of having a nice new red '10' sticker on my licence plate I have a luminous green '8' sticker instead. The stickers are used instead of the UK tax disc, and are stuck to both plates. This makes it a lot easier to work out from a distance if a car is legal or not. The final digit of the licence number dictates the month that you need to have the car tested, although you do get 2-month period of grace after the end of that month before you have to pay extra. Once you've passed the test you then get a sticker with the year in which the next test is due; these are colour-coded for ease of recognition - 2009 is yellow, 2010 is red, 2011 is blue and so forth. Cars don't need to be tested for 3 years from new so you start seeing two colours ahead at the start of the year.
Not too surprisingly, while there are many 2011 cars around, I have seen very few 2012 cars. I suspect that this is a clear result of the economic crash, as no-one can afford to buy a brand new car at present.
0 comments
I took the car for its MOT-equivalent today, to find that there are several other things that need fixing. The most important one is that the right front brake is showing a tendancy to seize up (which would explain the intermittant shudder I get occasionally and is almost certainly because I didn't use the car for quite a while even into the early summer thanks to the snow). It's not a death-no-saving-throw fault, but one that I have to get fixed by the end of August and then take the car back for a retest.
This fix and retest within a set time-limit is, in my view, a far better approach than the UK can't drive it until it is fixed one. I've always wondered what you're supposed to do if you maintain your car yourself but then it still fails, as I doubt that many garages would be happy to have you fix the errant item on their premises. Perhaps its just another part of the no user-serviceable parts philosophy.
For a brief moment I considered picking up the Haynes manual while I'm in the UK and then doing the job myself... but as I don't have a large lump hammer with which to hit them, nor a suitable workshop in which to do the deed I suspect it's going to be a garage job once I get back from the UK.
So for now, instead of having a nice new red '10' sticker on my licence plate I have a luminous green '8' sticker instead. The stickers are used instead of the UK tax disc, and are stuck to both plates. This makes it a lot easier to work out from a distance if a car is legal or not. The final digit of the licence number dictates the month that you need to have the car tested, although you do get 2-month period of grace after the end of that month before you have to pay extra. Once you've passed the test you then get a sticker with the year in which the next test is due; these are colour-coded for ease of recognition - 2009 is yellow, 2010 is red, 2011 is blue and so forth. Cars don't need to be tested for 3 years from new so you start seeing two colours ahead at the start of the year.
Not too surprisingly, while there are many 2011 cars around, I have seen very few 2012 cars. I suspect that this is a clear result of the economic crash, as no-one can afford to buy a brand new car at present.
0 comments
Thursday, July 02, 2009
Can we fix it?
Yes we can!
No, I haven't decided to quit academia and go into the building trade. I've not even being doing household DIY, rather a little car maintenance. A task of laughable simplicity compared to the rebuilding work that my friend A regularly performs, but it worked and thus gave me a small thrill of victory.
I changed a bulb.
Yes, I know that sounds silly, but unlike my previous cars - Fords and Citroens - the Toyota is not a simple reach in, undo the clip, slide out the fitting, replace the bulb and then reverse previous actions job; this one requires you to unbolt the whole light module to gain access to the bulbs. Once you've got the module off it's actually much easier than the other method, as you just have to twist and remove a plastic fitting which has a standard bayonet-plug bulb attached.
The problem, of course, was the detatching the light module. On some Carina models this is attached with large clips, but on mine it is held in place by three 10mm bolts. Three recessed 10mm bolts. My first attempt, armed with an adjustable wrench, succeeded in unbolting the least-recessed of the three bolts. The other two required a trip into town to the car tool shot for a ring-end spanner.
(As a complete aside, one of the shops opposite the tool shop was having a sale. Sitting there in the window were three Celestron telescopes. I was tempted. I was very tempted by the AstroMaster 90AZ. But I was strong (and broke this month). Besides, what I really want is the NexStar 6 SE. One day. When the economy is functional again. Anyway, my Galileoscope should be arriving soon. Mind you, if the 90AZ hasn't been sold by the time I get back from the UK I may have to think again.)
So anyway, I now had the necessary tool to complete the job and the other two bolts rapidly caved in under the appliance of, er, engineering. The bulb change then took mere seconds (although slightly delayed by the fact that the bulbs have asymmetrical bayonets) and the module was refitted. Engine on, and yes, we have a functioning light. Woo-hoo! I can now take the car for its MOT-equivalent tomorrow morning.
0 comments
No, I haven't decided to quit academia and go into the building trade. I've not even being doing household DIY, rather a little car maintenance. A task of laughable simplicity compared to the rebuilding work that my friend A regularly performs, but it worked and thus gave me a small thrill of victory.
I changed a bulb.
Yes, I know that sounds silly, but unlike my previous cars - Fords and Citroens - the Toyota is not a simple reach in, undo the clip, slide out the fitting, replace the bulb and then reverse previous actions job; this one requires you to unbolt the whole light module to gain access to the bulbs. Once you've got the module off it's actually much easier than the other method, as you just have to twist and remove a plastic fitting which has a standard bayonet-plug bulb attached.
The problem, of course, was the detatching the light module. On some Carina models this is attached with large clips, but on mine it is held in place by three 10mm bolts. Three recessed 10mm bolts. My first attempt, armed with an adjustable wrench, succeeded in unbolting the least-recessed of the three bolts. The other two required a trip into town to the car tool shot for a ring-end spanner.
(As a complete aside, one of the shops opposite the tool shop was having a sale. Sitting there in the window were three Celestron telescopes. I was tempted. I was very tempted by the AstroMaster 90AZ. But I was strong (and broke this month). Besides, what I really want is the NexStar 6 SE. One day. When the economy is functional again. Anyway, my Galileoscope should be arriving soon. Mind you, if the 90AZ hasn't been sold by the time I get back from the UK I may have to think again.)
So anyway, I now had the necessary tool to complete the job and the other two bolts rapidly caved in under the appliance of, er, engineering. The bulb change then took mere seconds (although slightly delayed by the fact that the bulbs have asymmetrical bayonets) and the module was refitted. Engine on, and yes, we have a functioning light. Woo-hoo! I can now take the car for its MOT-equivalent tomorrow morning.
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