Lathany

condign and Pallavi came over for dinner. It's been a really long time since I last saw them. We talked about pay and laws and blogs.

We usually go out for a meal in the summer when the twins are away. We tend to choose a new restaurant each year. However, last year's, Trinity, was so good that we returned this year.

• Olive sticks and radishes with a fish dip and freshly baked sour dough rolls with butter - This was the main part of the meal that was the same as last year. These were served when we arrived as a small extra course. We were recommended to eat the leaves as well as the more "normal" part of the radish and they went beautifully with the fish dip. The rolls were gorgeous and arrived fresh out of the oven; this year I remembered to wait and eat them with my soup (also, they were too hot to split at first). We were also asked if we wanted an aperitif, but we turned it down on the grounds we would be drinking five wines anyway.
• Chilled English Pea and Mint Soup with Fresh Curd (Levin Sauvignon Blanc, Loire, France, 2010) - If you had asked me whether I liked chilled soups the answer would have been no. However, this one was simply amazing. Also it went really well with the fresh curd. The wine was also gorgeous (crisp, not too dry); I would buy more Sauvignon Blanc if I could be certain that this was what I would get. Plus, as promised, it went well with the food. Overall, my third favourite course and fourth favourite wine.
• Poached Rock Oysters, Champagne Sauce, Pickled Cucumber, Squid Ink (Chablis, Domaine Gilbert Picq, Chichee, 2011) - I had not eaten oysters before, so this was something of a first for me. Turns out that I like oysters (although bateleur has pointed out that this just means I like good oysters), but I wasn't as big a fan of the rest of the course. It was all a bit salty and I wasn't that taken with the Squid Ink. The wine was fine (we were told it was pure Chardonnay), but neither of us particularly rated it. Overall my least favourite course and least favourite wine.
• Roast Cornish Plaice, Steamed Sea Vegetables, Lemon and Croutons (Vermentino di Gallura, Cantina di Gallura, Sardinia, Italy, 2012) - I liked this much better. The plaice was beautifully cooked and the lemon, sea vegetables and croutons went very well indeed. I also enjoyed the wine (not too dry, also, I'm generally fond of whites from Italy) and thought it was a good match for the food. Overall my third favourite wine and fourth favourite course.
• Breast of Duck, Potato and Confit Duck Terrine, Apricot Granola, Creamed Spinach (Foxglove Zinfandel, Paso Robles, California, USA, 2012) - This was simply the best course of the lot. The best food and the best wine. The duck was absolutely gorgeous and perfectly cooked. The apricot granola just worked (yes, apricot muesli) and the terrine and creamed spinach matched beautifully. The wine was a lovely rich red that tasted strong and was gorgeous. Favourite food and favourite wine.
• Poached Squat Peach, White Chocolate Parfait and Hibiscus (Moscato d'Asti Vietti Cascinetta, Piedmont, Italy, 2012) - A really excellent course which would have won first place if not for the duck. The parfait was lovely and went well with the peach. Sadly, neither of us could particularly taste the hibiscus (little flowers that we ate), but this wasn't really an issue. The wine was a sweet dessert white. Overall my second favourite course and second favourite wine.
• Coffee and lemon macaroons - Similar to last year, but a lemon macaroon rather than a caramel one. As ever, bateleur passed on the coffee (although he tried a small sip), but I got two cups out of the pot and my macaroon was lovely.

As for last year, almost everything was part of the menu price; the exceptions were the coffee course (£4.00 for two cups and macaroons) and the water (unlimited sparkling or still water for £1.50 per person), which we considered a good deal; plus the service charge (12.5%). The radishes and dip/rolls and butter were not separately charged for.

We walked to and from Clapham Junction which meant we got slightly rained on for the journey there, but it was good for the journey back.

One of these two events from the weekend before last involved blood and gore. And, no, it wasn't the Warhammer 40K. That said, it was over and treated quickly and I thought the actual event was a great success.

leathellin had arranged a Rioja tasting evening. She had bought an impressive quantity of Rioja ranging from Rioja to Crianza to Reserva to Gran Reserva (or, to me, from the cheaper type to the expensive type). According to the chart I was provided with, Rioja has low or no oak and one to two years aging. At the other end of the scale Gran Reserva has two years in oak and three in bottle. I believe jezzidue also brought along one or two bottles - I think a Reserva and a Gran Reserva.

Across the course of the evening, I tried ten different wines. Assuming that my dubious handwritten notes are right, this included two Gran Reservas, three Riojas of the same type but different ages (I think ranging from Rioja to Reserva). Also, a white Rioja, a rosé Rioja (the pink one), a pretend Rioja (same grape type, wrong region) and, err, my notes aren't good enough to suss the last two (which I think were my seventh which suggests it was 2012 and ninth also listed as 2012). My opinions were:

• Gran Reservas - Both among my favourites of the evening (surprising no-one I suspect). I thought both tasted rich and oaky (the latter being a characteristic that I don't always like, but was good here).
• The three from Rioja to Reserva - I liked all three, but thought the youngest one was best (just). I've noted it was peppery. Lots of people thought it tasted like Merlot, which I'm very fond of, which may explain my preference.
• White - This reminded me of White Merlot (which Tesco stocks intermittently) and again I enjoyed it.
• Rosé - This was fine, but a bit dull (perhaps because of the competition).
• Fake - I didn't like this as much as the ones from the region. I don't know why, perhaps I was influenced by knowing it was an imposter (but surely should taste the same?).
• Other two - I've listed one as tasty and peppery and the other as slightly metallic. I'm sure it meant more to me at the time.

As for the drama? hearthfire hugged jezzidue, jogged his glass and he caught it in a fist. This opened up his finger and he spurted blood everywhere. He was taken off to accident and emergency (as hearthfire had colleagues conveniently located at the nearby hospital) and they were back before the end of the evening, despite having an X-ray to go with the stitches.

quisalan was staying with us overnight for the wine tasting, so this seemed an excellent time to do a Warhammer 40K game for her and chrisvenus. This game was not so much combat light as combatless because, whilst chrisvenus was playing an assassin, quisalan was an Adept. Also, both were careful to avoid trouble, at least of the guns and blades variety. They were investigating a Cult Magus (who had been killed by the Inquisitor in the previous game) as it was not clear where she had received funding from and also what the source of her materials was. By the end of the game they had identified the former and found the latter - a secret apartment containing may heretical items. Although also clearly missing some rather worryingly large heretical items. I had named the session "Some of our Chaos Marines are missing" for the (fairly) obvious reason that five suits ain't there.

On Friday night (OK, Saturday morning), bateleur arrived home with stories of a ginger liqueur he'd been served by leathellin at her drinks party. Apparently it could be bought in Waitrose.

Today I found a big enough Waitrose (Russell Square) to buy a bottle. A review later.

This weekend, bateleur and I celebrated twenty-one years together, with help from the twins. Deep fried Camembert, Duck rolls and chocolate pots made up the menu with a lovely Sancerre and bateleur's choice of dessert wine. Sadly Bea was rather ill across the meal - and also the weekend - but seemed to enjoy the small portion she managed.

Yesterday's game was Mechs and saw the first full battle involving models and tape measures. chrestomancy had gone to some trouble with his set-up - Lego Mechs, a river of ribbon and polystyrene buildings. Plus tape measures of course. The whole thing took about three hours and, eventually, the good guys (us) won against the two enemy Mechs. It worked, was quite fun but had problems in the scaling department. The main issue was the firing range - it just seemed far too short.

I personally wasn't involved with the tape measure side of things as my character was also the party scout. I was in non-Mech scouting mode when the enemy Mechs turned up and we went to combat turns. But I did get some nice photos of the Big Bad Hulk Mutant, I got his laptop, a communications black box and an interesting map.

When the battle ended, there wasn't a lot of time left for plot to happen. However, it still did. There was an uprising from the wealthy immigrants (about 3% of the population) who wanted to take over the planet from the Navy and it looked like the remaining 97% of the population would be the part that suffered (or that's what seemed to be the case). The navy was on skeleton crew because of problems elsewhere in the system and it was clear we weren't going to be able to stop matters. So we've left the planet and are probably on our way out of the system. I guess that's the end of chapter 1!

Last Tuesday I met up with friends (former work colleagues) and saw the Brunel Museum, followed by a wander and a pub lunch. Then, on Wednesday, the whole family travelled up to Royston and saw Royston Museum, again followed by lunch. Both were small, run by enthusiastic volunteers and could be seen within an hour.

The Brunel Museum is tiny and is mainly about watching the video. I suspect a visit is best combined with either one of the Guided Walks to the Thames Tunnel or the Midnight Apothecary (cocktails with herbs), but what I did see was very interesting. It tells the story of father (Sir Marc Brunel) and son (Isambard Kingdom Brunel) and the various things they constructed (including the Thames Tunnel and Paddington Station). I particularly liked the small reproduction of the construct used to dig the tunnel. We went on from there for what was probably a 20-30 minute walk to The Anchor Tap. It was a beautiful pub with lots of different little rooms, but the food was a bit meh and had that mass-produced-and-then-reheat feel to it.

Royston Museum is slightly larger than the Brunel Museum and on two floors. The ground floor contains pieces from Royston's history (including a rather marvellous printing press) while the upper floor displays private collections and the Royston tapestry (which is not as exciting as it sounds). Whilst a town museum, it was a good place to take Ryan and Bea as there was an "exhibit hunt" designed for children which they both got to solve (and were given little stickers for completing). Again, I suspect Royston Museum is best combined with a visit to Royston cave, but worth a look if you are ever in the town. We went from there to the nearby Thai which did wonderful food and a cheap lunchtime menu.

Yesterday we had a new sofa delivered. This means that our lounge has more seating space than it used to, particularly until we bin the red chair. Reeve sniffed around the arrival and then settled on the window sill. However his new snooze spot was disturbed by a fly - which I assume came in with the delivery - and so a very angry cat could be seen chasing a winged insect around the room. Reeve lost the chase - which did not improve his mood (the fly cheated by using "up" a lot). bateleur and I sat on the new sofa last night to watch Iron Man (from LoveFilms) and are agreed that it was better than the black sofa as it did not shed cushions so easily.

Today we opened the first Advent window and this entry - I hope - begins my month of daily posts. The window was reassuringly mistletoe (we've had calendars in recent years where the windows really weren't Xmassy) and the candle will be unwrapped and lit tonight.

Last week was the duo's birthday. This involved a trip to Pizza Express and the London Eye on Sunday. The duo were wusses about their pizzas and one of the serving staff had to cut them with a pizza cutter. However, the London Eye was a great success.

( A photo from the Eye )

Ryan took endless photos while Bea wandered around gazing at the view. Afterwards we went to see the free video (3D with bubbles) and bought Krispy Kremes which we scoffed on the train going home. The only downside is that I fell over climbing the stairs to collect tickets hurting both knees and my ankle - fortunately the bruises are nearly gone.

Their actual birthday featured cake (Ryan's) and presents. They loved all the things people had bought for them. Bea is particularly taken with her present from zandev and glittertigger, a playstation game that uses an eye to cast spells Harry Potter style. She's also very keen on her laptop (from us). Ryan likes his new photo storage (also from us), but is especially keen on the present he got from his school - a pen that colours in shiny blue ink. The Bea cake (coffee as requested) will appear tomorrow (now that the other one has been eaten) so I will be baking tomorrow morning.

We have watched a couple of films since I last posted - Angel-A and Hugo.( Here be mild spoilers )There's also been a Seventh Sea session - courtesy of wildrogue, sadly our last until Christmas. The session itself boded with grand plot and mind-controlled powerful NPCs. The mine with its mostly-closed gateway to hell was very atmospheric.

We got back yesterday from the (annual) Con which was held down in Devon. I owe this journal one or more posts about the last couple of months, but because the Con is fresh in my mind (and was extremely awesome), here's a long post about how it went.

(Includes three photos behind the cut)

The short version:

• A dead car battery
• War on the AI planet
• The pensioners vs the psychic giant beetroot
• Gemstones and circus tents (the rest is secret due to replayability)
• Firefly All That Glitters
• Goblins, boot-polish and TNT
• Ghost hunting in the British Museum
• Star gazing
• Twisted Metal
• Betrayal at the House on the Hill

( The long version )
And Reeve was pleased to see us on our return.

It's been nearly two months since I wrote an update, so this is long overdue.

My train reading has mostly been re-reading, in part because I find it relaxing. However, there have been a couple of new things on my list, remarkably similar to each other:

• Halting State by Charles Stross - This is my first Stross book and I enjoyed it. It's geeky, about a robbery in a computer game, has surveillance conspiracy theory stuff coming out of its ears and it nicely ties all the threads together.
• Little Brother by Cory Doctorow - This is geeky, has surveillance conspiracy theory stuff coming out of its ears and has a computer game involved (although that doesn't get robbed). I found it a heavier read than the Stross because I felt so constantly on edge on behalf of the protagonist. However, overall I think it's the better story of the two (if not by much).

On the TV front, I've mostly been watching the second series of Twin Peaks for the first time. I appreciate that everyone on my f-list saw it years ago, but I'm going to review it anyway. I enjoyed it in general, but definitely preferred some storylines to others. The Laura Palmer stuff was always gripping, and the W-E follow-up on the grand plot almost as much, but many of the minor plots fell flat. I could have done without pretty much everything involving James, whose only saving grace appeared to be that he wasn't in the Nadine-thinks-she's-in-high-school plot. I liked Shelley and wished she had some better plots to work in, liked Catherine and Josie, liked Audrey, but didn't like Annie (or her plot). I enjoyed all the Lodge stuff and would have liked to see more. Finally, parts seemed very slow - it reminded me a bit of undyingking's comments about Soap, that it probably didn't feel slow to the people who watched it at the time and it's part of TV generally speeding up its stories. I now want to see the movie and know it's a prequel. As an aside, I noticed that bits of Claire's theme from Heroes sound suspiciously like the Laura Palmer theme (I own both soundtracks).

I've continued to watch offerings from LOVEFiLM, it's been quite a while since I saw the inside of a cinema.

• The History Boys - very "English" - in the way I identify with England dramatics but not my own life, quite fun, easy to watch and apparently has the same cast as the stage version. It's possibly a shame that we saw it just after Closer because you can tell in both cases that they were plays.
• Source Code - A sort of serious version of Groundhog Day which is still watchable despite the continuity errors (and we're not talking about the science). Fast and thriller, very watchable. My main complaint is that they did the most vanilla thing possible with the concept.
• Push - I loved Push. A lot. Kind of a cross between Heroes and The Butterfly Effect (with just a touch of Blade Runner). It isn't time-travel, but it's got all the elements for time travel. Vastly under-rated.

Taking up rather more of my time than the films are the computer games.

• The Void - This took me six months and several re-starts to finish. It's from the people who did Pathologic. It's weird, bleak, beautiful and really hard. It's about drawing glyphs, building up resources and fights. It's sadly also about nude women, but the game part was good enough that I managed to mostly ignore that aspect. Recommended if you liked Pathologic (although I think that was just me...)
• Portal Co-Op - This was great; we used the PC and the PS3 and really enjoyed it. The puzzles are mostly interesting and it has a tiny bit of plot. Recommended if you haven't tried it and like co-op games (particularly if the price comes down).

Of course, my main occupation has been roleplaying.

• 7th Sea - I've never met 7th Sea before, but now I'm in a game, I'm enjoying it. It seems like a good system and I was rather sorry to hear it was out of print. The plot's fun and I've now met an intelligent crow and the King of Cats. Plus swam in a lake that's really, really cursed.
• Meteor - The two parties finally met and kind-of got along. Now they-re separate again and trying to figure out what to do while a bunch of gods fight each other. I'm enjoying running this, but will have to put it down when I plan my Con game for next year.

What else have I done? Well, bateleur and I had a meal at the Turkish restaurant near Waterloo called Tas, which was really, really nice (and whose website appears to be down). I had prawns for a starter, then moussaka and then a liqueur coffee. We want to go back and try some of the other dishes. It's good food, good value and I recommend it to anyone who goes near Waterloo station.

And I think that's my lot. I'll try not to leave as long next time.

Friday was bateleur and my sixteenth wedding anniversary. We celebrated in the usual way - with food and alcohol. Food was little savoury tarts, then prawns, fish, stuffed courgettes and three grain rice followed by bananas and sultanas fried in rum and served with cream. The alcohol was Pimms, a rather nice bottle of white and Grand Marnier. Sixteen is the first anniversary in my Book of Lists that doesn't have an associated material and it suddenly feels like a big number.

From having had a relatively quiet year last year, 2011 has been full of roleplaying games. Last week we had two on.

• Dreadful Secrets of Candlewick Manor - This is a supplement to Monsters and Other Childish Things being run by smiorgan for chrestomancy, TheHattedOne, triskellian, bateleur and me. We play eight and nine year old mutant orphans who no-one loves. We've had two sessions to date, the first of which involved everyone picking on us (although we were eventually saved from The Bad Guys by a psychotic car) and the second of which involved us finally making a friend and watched other people have bad things happen to them.
• Meteor - This was with the party who have just completed their fourth pilgrimage (of four). They spent the session critical-failing magic tests and fighting minions of the Diseased Ones. I'm now heading for a session involving both parties. And a few gods. I'm hoping that they'll get to reach some agreement about the Diseased Ones. Or at least agree that they are A Bad Thing.

It's been a while since I ran a one-off, but there's a Con next year and I'll be planning something for it. I recently read an entry (over here) about one-offs and I agree with the points raised:

• Signpost the plot clearly.
• Character attributes should fit on an index card.
• Maximum of 2 fights, preferably 1.
• Individual character information should fit on a sheet of A4.
• Stick to 1 scene per hour (on average).
• Give the PCs a reason to work together.
• World - keep 1 location per scene maximum, plus outside the sandbox as one location.
• Assume your PCs will never sleep until the game is finished.

I would add three points to the general list and one for Con one-offs. Firstly, the better one-offs I've seen tend to work on a strong concept which can play out in a few hours (this is in the same way that constructing a short story is different from constructing novels). Secondly, one-offs almost always want pre-defined characters. I have seen player-generated characters for one-offs that worked, but they tended to work because it was impossible not to rather than because they were well-chosen. Thirdly, make sure that the characters all have a role; this is equally true for other types of game but arises particularly in one-offs because the characters have less time over which to establish niches for themselves; such things have to be pre-established. Also, for Con one-offs, it's important to be aware of the number limitations (ie. don't write for a party of four if the Con needs six). So:

• Strong, one-off suited concept.
• Pre-gen characters (or a very strong steer for players).
• Ensure that there's a role for everyone and it couldn't equally be done by some subset of the party.
• Check limitations - such as number of players - for the Con.

My past solo one-offs have been rather hit-and-miss - Working With Children went well whereas the BadgerCon Athory one-off wasn't particularly memorable. My main failings are usually that I don't run with a good one-off concept (it tends to be too big) and that the party has come unstuck. It is perhaps no co-incidence that I've generally had more success with mini-campaigns (such as Kaleidoscope and From The Cellars of Xanadu).

Much of my spare time has been spent on Twin Peaks episodes (which I'll review at the end of the season). But not all.

• The Lies of Locke Lamora - This was recommended by al_fruitbat and _alanna and I really loved it. It's a very clever plot set in a fantasy background about thieves who become confidence tricksters. Technically, it's the start of a series but the book is fairly stand-alone (although there's at least one character you expect to meet and then don't and another whose exit isn't detailed). About my only whinge is that the book is very light on female characters.
• Brighton Rock - We watched the remake, which is worth it for Helen Mirren alone (and a bit of Gollum). However, the film itself isn't a masterpiece and is generally a bit too dark for my tastes.

I don't have much work news to report. However, the next time I want to take a long lunch break at work, I think I might spend it poking round the British Museum. I've finally figured out that it's just round the corner from where I work. And it's free.