Walsingham

What a picture you paint.

Thanks a lot, you bastards. Note that England are playing in all red. Naively I believe this to be our best kit. Far better psychologically than white.

That was certainly my main interest, Serrano. Besides, having dealt quite a bit with pain and sadness recently I think it's perfectly healthy to listen to music which makes you sad. It cleanses the system, like draining a wound. Show me a man who's never sad and I show you a fething mentalist.

Thanks mkreku. I appreciate that to the skilled it would be an inferior tool. But I doubt I should be able to stretch its capabilities without my own powers failing, rather than the machine's! Two further questions: 1. Should I purchase additional cooling? 2. How long will this machine be capable of keeping pace with games?

Legend as follows 1. Casa Gorthoba; to which the players are taken. It sits on a long and broad ridge, giving it views across the city and the bay of Quietude 2. The Kovostella; a huge and ancient arena 3. The Citadel 4. The Palace of the Prince, which is guarded, ineffecively by the city guards 5. The Plaza Gorrona; where those who need to be seen have their scene 6. Fort Barum 7. The entrance to the bay, guarded by seige engines, and towers of wizardry, plus several booms which can be lowered. 8. Fort Alejandrus 9. The artisan's dock, for finished goods, produced in the quarter behind it. Woollen fabric, cigars, pottry, silverware, stored spirits and fine wines 10. The new docks, for incoming goods such as grain, silk, tobacco 11. The old dock, now used mainly for the armed ships of noble houses 12. The Great Market. Hugely open. 13. The arabesque quarter, a concentration of merchant houses from Araby a land to the south across the sea [not very imaginative, but it's hardly my fault] 14. The Carcera. A wide flat fort, with extensive prisons and arsenals in the caverns beneath. Public executions occur outside fr the edification of travellers on the Calla Derechada 15. The small town of Laruja, where most of the fresh fish is landed for pickling, salting, smoking. The smell is proverbial to the extent that certain ladies are referred to as 'larujas'. A fact not in contest with the nearby presence of the fortresses. 16. The town of Carravosque, which contains many expensive villas on the windward western side. Servants have to live on the marshward eastern side and suffer for it. 17. The Carravosque delta. Alive wth insects, lizards, and which contains the abject ruins of ancient buildings just visible from the elevated roadway 18. The old market ~ Travel Most travel to the city comes via water, either sea or the great river to the northeast. The various calla are pretty reliable in all weathers, being based on much earlier work, as evidenced by their perfect straight line orientations. Almost no travel come from the north and northwest due to the trackless and highly unpleasant expanse of the great duty plain. The La'al. The main part of the city is only partially surrounded (to the east) by a proper curtain wall. This was supposed to completely encircle the city but as it was built the settled area got squeezed further and further westward until the available funds, and the prince concerned, both expired.

Interesting angle.

I don't mind admitting England is pretty nervous about Slovenia round about now. What makes it worse is that even if we do beat them we still won't really deserve progression. Bunch of holf-gokked hoofers.

Enoch: I think the MPs here often do wind up moving into the legal process. MPs here, even corporals are certainly involved in the interviews etc etc. But I guess with Big Army being so... big... there's no need to mix. How does it work with cops? Deputy Krook has a certain ring to it.

Running away simply isn't an option, Monte. I can see the appeal viscerally, but want isn't can; nor is it should. Very rarely is, come to that, as I know you'll agree. You comment about true believers is probably as pointed about me as it is anywhere. I thin the problem is that a military true believer can only deliver on one side of the triangle. They need to deliver on that side, but by itself it's no bloody good. As you say, Karzai and his mates are holding one of the other two sides, and they're as inspiring as a dose of groin fungus.

Rather than pay for subcomponents and go through the palaver of fitting them to my poor old PC I've been looking into buying a copmletely new system. I'll have to service the debt until December, at a cost of around

Krookie/Enoch: Just a thought. What about the military police? Relatively easy to enlist, pick your specialisation, career prospects, direct experience, could lead onto some interesting places.

It's on! I now have a mission to acquire some marmalade cooked hot roast lamb, bacon, egg, ketchup and wholewheat toast for my own personal signature pimped snack.

I believe it's spelled 'lustre'. Was that an article? What was it trying to say? "Please don't suck"?

Got my key now. You guys talk about bugs in Obsidian games (which I've rarely experienced). I can't get the sound to work, and the graphics are glitching like a mo'fo' even at the lowest settings. My God is clearly punishing me for collaborating with the DRM bastards.

Then by all means tell me who is behind it and I will shove several sharpened pencils up their fat rear end. Then claim that this was me attempting to be helpful, and that if they didn't want pencils up the arse then they should have said so in advance.

I wanted to raise this as an issue primarily with commercial business software. I have completely lost track of the number of times I've been obliged to spend several hours learning how to turn OFF a feature the software programmers decided I'd find helpful. I've been prompted today by this occurring in the latest release of Open Office. I was using the suite to fill out some government forms and the date function is set to work in yyyy, rather than the way the program thinks all right thinking people should which is simply 'yy. It took me fully an hour to establish how to do ithis in the new release*. My point is _WHY_ in the name of all that is sweet and good and holy in this imperfect universe am I forced to go through turning off every individual feature. I am not an infant. I work. I don't need someone to cut up my food. I don't need help going to the toilet. AND I DON'T NEED HELP TYPING OUT MY GOKKING DOCUMENTS. I type fething thousands of words a day and have done for years. If I want something done I will do it when I need it and not before. Now is that really so hard to understand? *select the whole cell, right click, and turn off 'recognise number'

Yeah. The refereeing on this world cup is horrible. I don't know why they refuse to study the slow motion stuff before they make their decision. It would save from much embarrassment. The problem there, as I'm sure you know, is that it would make everything bloody slow. eventually it would almost grind to a halt every time there was an incident. What I think is that the governing body should have the power to impose penalties after a match for unseen offences, and obvious dives. I don't see what real harm that could do.

At least twice he even annoyed himself so much that he wanted change himself and thought changing his internet nick would do the the trick. Yes, I know. You've got to love anyone who manages to annoy himself to the point of blowing up.

I bought ME1, and now I'm told I can't contact the key server. Apparently thousands have been affected by this. Nice one, you 'anti piracy' douchebags. Offer the game for a pittance to get me to abandon my principles then actually help me out by making me even more angry than I was before. This kind of admin slapstick is PRECISELY why I don't trust draconian DRM nd believe the gok-brained dimwits who champion it in management should be flung into the pacific.

Watched Brazil vs Cote d'Ivoire (3-1) yesterday. I thought there was something distinctly fishy about the referee. I think there's a definite case for preventing him working at this level again. In general he blew up for the strangest reasons and at very odd times. Then of course there was Brazil's second goal as a result of two consecutive hand balls. This basically put Ivory so far on the back foot that it was a miracle they scored at all. Then he sent Kaka off for an incident he could only have seen out of the corner of his eye, as it happened off the ball. Something I think he only did so as to distract from the handball incident.

It just proves what I've always said. Race, religion, creed... these things are not the measure of a man. Because there are wankers everywhere.

LOL. I really like it, actually. That reminds me. In the England game, a fat pigeon came to alight on the oposition goal net. A friend immediately observed. 'Well, that's the thing with animals. They have an instinct for safety. Nothing's going to disturb it there.'

Apologies for the delay. I had held off writing the last session partly because I've been too busy and partly because I wanted to belay it until I was ready for the next session. Which should be today. The end of our previous session had seen the dwarf PC - whose name I should really look up [ ed. 'Malaik']- standing on the doorstep of the dwarfhold in the rays of the dawn, in a mix of confusion and fury. He had spent the night praying in vigil to his god for direction as part of the ritual to become a full cleric. But Grungni had very pointedly not spoken. The dwarfhold being small, many persons knew of his failure and were giving him space. Although given his recent efforts against the goblins they were prepared to do so kindly. Gazing at the nearby woods, as they slowly blossomed into light from their tips to their roots in the rising sun, he was at a loss as to his next move. Should he stay, should he go? So it was perhaps fortunate that the beggar, dubbed 'Nevin' by the dwarf, emerged from his semi-catatonia and joined him. A short discussion ensued, some of which I missed because I was getting a round of beer in. They discussed mainly who the beggar was (he still didn't remember anything and didn't want to try), and the threat from the cavern and the possibility of more goblins and orcs emerging. The dwarf further explained that he had tried to communicate the urgency of this to his clansire but had done so in such a peremptory fashion that no one was willing to listen any further. After some prompting it was decided that they should go to the ruins of the human village and search for any clues, in addition to looting anything of use. Further plans could wait. And so, taking provisions for two days, plus some camping kit, they set off at a brisk pace through the woods. The dwarf again finding it too hot, and the human finding it a touch cool although this probably had as much to do with his not wearing any trousers (he had been given a dwarf muumuu affair to wear as a long belted tunic). Arriving at the village my plan was more or less upset by the dice yet again. My two blundering players got within earshot and noticed the oblivious party already in the ruins. This party, they saw consisted of a two men at arms on foot, sharing a joke with a more impressive man on horseback. One foot soldier carried a 'very large stick', while the other was more conventionally armed with a sword and buckler. The man on the horse was too distant to closely observe, but was obviously senior. The two players observed all this from the relative safety of some woods, beneath a convenient shrub. But so long did they remain there waffling that it was only with some alarm that they noticed that although the other soldiers were still talking, the horseman was staring pointedly directly at their portion of wood, and was at the precise moment of spurring hsi horse to a charge. A fact which took his own men by surprise, but which they soon followed, another horseman coming round a house on their left. The dwarf elected to hide behind a tree. However, Nevin, on hearing the pounding of the hooves entered fugue of blurred vision and sweating with fear, lowered his goblin spear at the kneeling position. He realised he knew at some instinctive level that this way the way to receive cavalry. A fact which did not elude their aggressor who deftly reined in his horse short and leapt from the saddle, drawing a a long cavalry pistol. A mechanism of rarity and (against chainmail) devastating power. There then ensued a prolonged episode of trying to understand one another which would be tedious to relate. The pair were unwilling to make a move aggressively and were soon very effectively surrounded by four other soldiers, one on horseback, two with large matchlock harqebuses; devices onec again of rare provenance. The chief topic beyond the obvious being the whereabout s of a certain blonde haired girl. The one who you will recal was killed, eaten then burned by goblins. During this period the dwarf proceeded, not unexpectedly to annoy everybody through a combination of aggression and bad manners. A process leading to his being seized and bound from neck to waist in rope. The dice dealt me a surprise however with Nevin and the horseman. Nevin managed to display obvious honesty, and courage in his answers. A fact which the mysterious and not entirely pleasant man recognised, and decided to like. The horseman in turn I was obliged to describe in dynamic, if not exactly friendly fashion, as a man of resolution and immense nervous energy. This threw me a bit of a loop because it meant that when they asked to be let go so they coudl go back to the dwarfhold together and allow the human to interview the villagers to corroborate their story I couldn't see him disagreeing. Fortunately, however, I finally realised the obvious flaw in this reasoning and the horseman smilingly pointed out this would place him and his men in the midst of a large dwarf fortress. A position not conducive to retaining possession of this annoying dwarf whose answers had not being very convincing, and for whom Nevin could hardly vouchsafe honestly; since Nevin had only known him for a few hours in total. For this reason, and since it fitted his instructions better, the horseman (I'll go look up his name now - Joaquin D'Almeida) elected to take them with him to a safer locale. . This unfortunately turned out rather unhappily to absorb much of the remainder of the session. Mainly because my plans for the relevant bit of the campaign fit a much larger city called Magritta on the South Coast, artehr than Bilbali which was established as being nearby. In itself such a journey might ordinarily be glossed over but of course my players had to be given opportunities to learn about their captors and to escape. Something which would have been impossible if they'd both been tied, but only Malaik the dwarf actually was! Fortunately for my sanity, Nevin the beggar decided that going to Magritta was as good a notion as any. Especially since objecting might cost him his life and good treatment. While Malaik remained bound from nose to waist until they made it across the mountains and onto river transport. A journey of several days. The only further point of interest, beside the descriptions of scrubby hillside, dusty mountain villages of whitewashed stone, and flearidden caravanserai, was a 'chance' encounter high in the mountains. While the guards relaxed on some wooden benches with wine and rabbit, a man approached Nevin. He had an enormous barrel chest, bandy legs, and wore an outlandish tunic of gold slashed in purple and an immense floppy hat. He introduced himself by demanding Nevin hold out his hand. A hand which duly trembled, and which was first matched by then grasped in the stranger's sinewy paw. Indeed the stranger explained in Old Worlder that he was himself an artillerist who had contracted the shakes in battle and had taken himself up into the mountains to rest his nerves. Nevin's tale in turn interested the man, and before the group moved on the pair were able to share a flask of wine, bread and oil and salt, and Nevin learned he had once spoken the secret battle language of the Empire; although he was out of practice. To cut the tale slightly short, it all ended somewhat weakly with the party decaming from their boat within sight of Magritta, alighting on prepared horses and a wagon, then heading towards the walls. Some XP was awarded for roleplaying, but insufficient purchase any upgrades.

It depends how drunk you are.

Hmm... A nation with a tiny appendix of an armed force, supplemented by a bunch of maudlin psychopaths, against a nation almost entirely focussed on war since its inception? Could be fun to watch. For about ten minutes. Palestine vs Ireland would be a better match up. Oooh. You're dead right there. That would be interesting.