Or am I just going deaf?
I was watching an American YouTube video on the board game RA. In hope of finding out whehter it was actually no fun at all or if it was just me.
And the guy with the job of explaining the game kept pronouncing the word ‘epoch’ as ‘epic’. Have a listen yourself: see if he doesn’t. Because if he doesn’t then I’m going deaf.
I was about to write a terse, acerbic reply and then I thought: The young people would not thank me for this. They would think I am a troll. They would call me arrogant.
And at times in the past I have discovered that the person misprouncing ‘Blakeney’ as in ‘Sir Percy’ was dyslexic and couldn’t tell the pronounciation from reading the world.
But dammit, the next American who pronounces ‘cretin’ as ‘Cretan’ (i.e. someone from Crete) I’m going to bit their head off.
I have just had an unexpected Christmas present.
The GUARDIAN rang me up to tell me that they were going to publish my letter following on from an article about tend days ago about how rotten a bit of music GOD SAVE THE KING is.
I had assumed that I had missed my moment but there it is on the website. Tomorrow I must buy a copy of the actual paper to cut out the letter and paste it in my scrapbook.
Oh, what a clever (and vain) person I am!
Well, it is evident that RTD likes to have his cake and eat it.
And he did a really nice job of it. Not going to nit pick at all. I like the look of the new fella (though I hope his first act in the Christmas episode is to put some trousers on). He’s going to be more physical and active than any Doctor ever which isn’t a bad thing at all. The Outraged Fans of You Tube have already started to chunter about how this(1) is destroying their childhood memories but since last week’s ‘alone in space with monsters’ story got me wanting to hide behind the sofa for the first time in decades I shall take the opposite point of view. (I would have to but I no longer have a sofa.)
My head canon generator has already gone to using the idea of the line of the Doctor bifurcating having something to do with incorporating the Fugitive Doctor and even the Timeless Child into continuity without tearing everything up.
On the other hand goblins? Pah! If you’re going to give me fantasy role-playing on TV give me a series that has its own cosmos and don’t tack it onto the Whoniverse.
What are they going to do when the Doctor (15) comes back to current day Earth? Will they have to bring the Noble family back in? Will they have the budget for Tennant and Tate? Or will they just have them be off in Peru the way the Brigadier was shuttled off for so many years?
Oh, well RTD’s problem not mine.
(1) ‘This’ in context being the fact that the Doctor is now young, black and a bit more gay than they’re comfortable with.
There’s a lot of WTF going on nowadays. I’ve stopped believing in a lot of things and a lot of people but you know there’s a limit to even my insousiance. (I think that’s the word I mean unless it’s a sort of sauce used in French cuisine.)
The BBC is reporting that a Canadian chess master has been accused of cheating using anal beads.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-66921563
Yes, go and check. You’ll see that there are some questions to be answered.
The most inportant one being how? How in the unstable name of Lawrence Henry Clutterbuck does one use anal beads to cheat in a chess match?
Does a person get better at chess when they have a chain of spherical objects (made of some substance suitable for safe rectal insertion and then withdrawal with a means of pulling them out at one end go and look at the Wikipedia article if you want more information ). Is it scientifically proven that…
Oh, wait. The Wiki article covers the means. Hmmm, remote controlled vibrating anal beads… Which convey the computer’s advice for a particular move by Morse code…
Oh, I see.
I would have thought there was a problem here with the bandwith of the medium, the skill of reading Morse code and the danger of the vibration being too loud before we got to the problem of the chess player enjoying himself too much.
Hmm, Wiki describes the whole affair as a meme sprung from a joke on some chess fancier’s blog. The BBC did a dreadful job of reporting this then.
At this moment I feel that the science fiction of my youth has failed me as a guide to the actual future I am living in. They did not predict computers that clever, remote controlled anal simulation or blogs. I shall go away and have some supper before I succumb to terminal Future Shock.
There will be no illustration with this post, contrary to my custom because… You can get that sort of stimulation for yourselves and I don’t want the WordPress police coming around to interrogate me.
My first reaction to the new host wasn’t: “My word, he’s not white.”
Nor was it: “He doesn’t have the posh accent.”
It was: “My goodness, isn’t he short?”
What this says about me may not be entirely to my credit.
And well done, Manchester! A very impressive last minute recovery.
I’ve written here before about one of the people who irritate me: the Baptist preacher in Wycombe High Street.
It was not only his Calvinist theology that irritated me but also his projection, his diction, his whole way of preaching. It grated at my aesthete’s sensibilities and I felt like heckling.
But I saw the same group in the High Street yesterday (I was going down to the British Heart Foundation to drop off a bunch of card games I’d culled from my collection: I’d forgotten how many MUNCHKIN varieties I owned.) and either they have improved or I’m getting less sensitive. They may have got themselves a new preacher: the one yesterday was a lot thinner than the fellow before as well as a lot less raucous. But both of those could be the result of COVID. Still didn’t like the theology but I got down to the charity shop in a vastly better mood.
And this leads to a reflection on idiots on the Internet, especially the ones on YouTube. Just like street preaching going on YouTube doesn’t require any actual ability to communicate. There are arrogant teenagers and twenty-somethings who think they’re terribly funny and are wrong. (Is this the feeling that my Dad got watching Monty Python.) There are fresh-faced young journalists giving their not terribly insightful comments on current affairs. Maybe one in a thousand of them may get to be the next generations Jeremy Paxman.
There are people who can’t judge how loud and insistent they are in front of a camera or down a microphone. (And yes there are some who are off the other way: who knew E.L.Wisty had so many offspring?) There are people I actually like, whose views I want to hear who I can’t stand to hear formulate them.
On the whole it’s people who hit too hard that put me off. I’m British, I’m middle-class, I’m older. While I want people to speak up and speak clearly (because I’m old) I don’t want agression from something I’m watching/listening to for pleasure or education.
I get a bad impression of the education in rhetoric that young people get, in the US or in the UK. The Americans seem to have received lessons in how to be clear and teach the point of what they are trying to get across. The British seem to have been told to ‘express themselves’ which some of them do to excess.
Should there be such a thing as communication education? Is there? I dunno. I’m sure there are a huge number of experts on the Internet who have five vital tips they will give you in return for your click.
(Nobody should listen to my podcast (Improvised Theatre With Dice) for evidence that I know what I’m talking about. It’s a place where Roger and I come together with a couple of topics and a list of the points we want to make to each other and we wrestle (intellectually speaking) with the theme and with each other. It gets messy sometimes with lots of ums and ahs. Sometimes it flies but those are our good days.)
There are a few who I go back to and think they know what they’re doing. It’s not always to the good (there are some very smooth people out there selling some very dodgy ideas) but at least I don’t grind my teeth. At the moment Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast REVISIONIST HISTORY is my indulgence: he does irritate me with some of his conclusions but he delivers them clearly and in interesting ways. (Now go ahead tell me your favourites and how you can’t stand Malcolm Gladwell. I’m braced.)
I’ve been involved in three or four coronations in my time, once as the one to be anointed. Admittedly, the Far Isles has never had the population of the United Kingdom, nor the budget. But I feel that I have enough experience to criticize.
Overall, Alpha, maybe even Alpha Plus. A solid performance of the traditional rituals with enough modifications to take the idea forward. The King probably wanted to go further but that would have required legislation that skirted the edge of constitutional reform. He got to stick in a prayer of his own and ensured the service went on about him being of service more than it went on about him being magnificent.
But every generation rewrites the ceremony a bit. The core of this one was written a little more than a hundred years ago.
A large number (for Britain) of minority participants in the ceremonial and a notable number of women among the clergy, courtiers and politicians. The Lord President of the Council (who is female but is still called ‘Lord’) looking particularly striking, in a dress whose colour and ornamentation reminded people, or so they said, of the Poundland chain of discount stores. She had been in training, so she said, for hefting the two swords she was responsible for.
(At one point about the middle of the procession into the Abbey that ended with the entry of the Queen and then the King, I swear I saw three women bearing white wands. Not a clue as to who they might be from the order of service. Others tell me they saw them too and have had similar lack of luck in their researches. I came to the conclusion that they were the representatives of Gryffindor, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff, Slytherin having refused to cow tow to a Muggle Monarch.)
And the anthem for the entry of the Queen and King was very fine. Enough ‘Vivats’ to satisfy even a member of the SCA who tend to vivat their monarchs until they’re deaf.
Watching the various noble and sacred persons reading their lines from bits of paper makes me happier that we had to do the same thing in the Far Isles.
Our coronations tended to feel under rehearsed and perhaps the same problem was what was making the Archbishop of Canterbury look so grumpy, though you did rather get the impression that he would rather not have shared the stage with all these non-Anglican persons. I’ve never heard ‘Christ is Risen!’ said in such a dyspeptic tone before.
The Moderator of the Church Of Scotland on the other hand, did his little bit beautifully, presenting a newly printed Bible with dignity and meaning.
(I wondered why the Orthodox representative had an Ulster accent, which is narrow minded of me.)
It was moving to hear ‘Zadok the Priest’ which has been part of the ceremony since Handel wrote it in its proper place, which is giving people something to interest them while the King is being anointed out of sight. And they got an anthem to knock the roof of the Abbey.
I didn’t actually see the Prince of Wales kiss the King after swearing fealty: I was probably too busy thinking that the FI did things better. Or possibly being irritated by the burst of chatter over the BBC’s comms that got heard by the world at large. (“Is that the Prince of Wales?” “Yes, close up on the Prince of Wales!”)
And then out to the Poor Bloody Infantry and the Damned Damp Cavalry in the rain outside with representative troops from around the Commonwealth (including four Mounties!) with water running off their hats to escort them back to the palace.
Not bad for a once in a lifetime (I very much hope) experience.
Ah well, Long Live The King! ” (Though not ‘May the King Live Forever’ because that never works.) Because if we have to do this again any time soon the only way we’ll afford a coronation is if we open it to commercial sponsorship. “And now as McDonald’s King Of Arms hands the Capita Sword of Justice to the Premier Inns Lord President of the Council…”
What the actual flip? (Euphemism)
There’s a Church at the start of the London Road in High Wycombe just opposite my block of flats which is just before the London Road begins. And once again some drunken lackwit has demolished the low wall that separates the grounds of the United Reformed Church from the pavement.
This and similar incidents happen with monotonous regularity, not just at the festive season but all year round. Normally during the night when the roads are empty of most traffic and a fool coming from the roundabouts nearer to the centre of town can gain a bit of speed, come around the bend and… lose control and ram into something.
I normally sleep through it nowadays and awake to find that walls, signs, bollards and anything that might absorb the impact has been knocked down again. Heaven knows how many times the zebra crossing has been taken out of commission.
I stopped by the United Reformed Church to tut-tut at the damage and actually read what the tape wrapped around the damage said.
IDIOT. In bold black on yellow.
When did they start doing that?
Does it have any legal significance?
Are police… no actually it would have been fire and rescue people since their tape was also in evidence anyway are The Authorities allowed to defame people like that without a court verdict to sustain it?
Not that I disagree with the sentiment you understand but I have an appetite for legal niceties.
Enquiring minds want to know.
You may or may not have heard that there is a kerfuffle going on in the world of The World’s Most Popul;ar RPG Whose Initials Are D and D. The publishers have decided that from now on they want a cut of third party publisher’s profits above a certain level and not only that but the rights to the intellectual property that is thus generated. They have for decades had an Open Gaming Licence by which people who are not them can use their game system for their own publications and projects. No pay, no fuss and very little interference by Wizards of the Coast and their corporate masters at Haboro
But now they want to monetize this relationship
From now on if you were to found a YouTube channel and it became the next CRITICAL ROLE or publish a setting and it became the next PTOLUS or RAVENWOOD then not only would you have to pay Wiizards Of The Coast/Hasboro for the privilege but you would have to give them the fruits of your writing if they wanted it. So that they could use the setting you have so lovingly made and probably bugger it up horribly.
Now nobody seems to be saying they can’t do this (though lots and lots of people seem to be thinking it’s crazy and short sighted me included) but the punchline is that they want to retroactively convert the licences which they issued under the old Open Game Licences into ones under the the new more restrictive version, retroactively changing the deal by which material has been published for the last twenty years and more. A deal that was supposed to be perpetual and irrevocable.
Well, it behooves me (and it currently behooves THE BUNDLE OF HOLDING) to remind you that there are lots of other game systems with which you could run your super duper YouTube channel that will make you a fortune. Speaking as someone who hasn’t touched DnD since 1979, I would point to Steve Jackson Games’ GURPS and to the many variants of RUNEQUEST one of which (MYTHRAS) is in this new bundle.
I just hope that all of the people who are irritated with this move by Hasboro can agree to pool their legal resources and get the thing quashed in court before it does any damage to the hobby. I heard yesterday of a DOCTOR WHO game published using 5th Edition mechanics. Is Hasboro going to attempt to claim that all the Daleks are belong to them? Retroactively what’s more? I’m pretty sure that’s against the Laws of Time if not American intellectual property law.
Hey, you’ll never guess what! We got a nomination!
For what you ask? For Favourite ‘Talk’ RPG podcast on the ENWORLD (not the Ennies but a fellow can dream) website.
Personally I think KEN AND ROBIN TALK ABOUT STUFF will walk it as usual but it’s nice to know we’ve got enough listeners to get a nomination! (It’s a lonely life being a podcaster sometimes: a bit like shouting at the void.)
Tell your friends (assuming you have any that are interested in such arcana)!
What’s that? Oh, we’re IMPROVISED RADIO THEATRE WITH DICE, me and Roger Bell_West. Look us up! Listen to us! (But don’t feel you have to do that before voting for us of course….)
I am already writing my acceptance speech… Ot at least rejigging the one I never got to use at the Oscars….
Asleep in Room3b 