The dice betrayed us

There's a comic strip I saw where a gamer is explaining all about his different dice. Special dice, collectible dice, rare dice. And then he shows some in a dark and manky box. "And these... these are the dice that betrayed me!"

Bryan and me both had sets of traitorous dice in our Blood Bowl game tonight as roll after roll failed. I had two attempts at dodging and rolled a 1 both times, so the guy trips up and my go was over. Then Bryan rolled double skulls which meant his player lost what should have been an easy block. And so on and so forth. 

In fact, one of my very first dice rolls was also double skulls. For my "star player".

We lost count of the failed attempts to pick up the ball. 

The game ended 0-0. 

We were playing Black Orcs (or 'Blorcs') against Lizard-men again with me taking charge of the Blorcs. Apart from a couple of times when I was able to shove little lizards into the crowd, resulting in their injury, and one roll when I took down the big kroxigor, the dice let me down every time. And Bryan fared no better.

But there was some mayhem along the way.

I've come to the conclusion that in Blood Bowl you aren't playing against your opponent, you're playing against the game itself, which is designed to make you fail heroically (or farcically). Tonight it beat both of us!

Book of the Month: To The Lighthouse

I feel self conscious reviewing "classics". I worry I'm not 'getting it' and will look ignorant. But then, I also feel that if I'm not getting it, that says something too. So, here we go. Bear with me. 

There are some spoilers in this review. But this book was published in 1927, so you've had 98 years to read it before reading my spoilers. 

What I knew before reading the book - it was written by Virginia Woolf, a female author often described as a key feminist writer. No surprise then that To The Lighthouse is written almost exclusively through the point of view of female protagonists, mainly Mrs Ramsay, the mother of eight who narrates the first chunk of the book. Male characters are given short shrift, variously described as shallow, prickly, idealistic, boastful and with sensitive egos. 

The story starts with Mr and Mrs Ramsay on holiday on the Isle of Skye with their eight children and another half dozen assorted guests plus serving staff. It's evening. One of Mrs Ramsay's sons asks her if they can go to the lighthouse the next day. Mr Ramsay says no because the weather forecast is bad. Mrs Ramsay is silently annoyed at her husband for dismissively crushing her son's hopes. 

That takes up the first sixty pages. I was beginning to suspect the title was misleading and the family weren't going to go to the lighthouse. 

There was, however, a surprise reference to Cardiff - as a venue where Mr Ramsay was going to take his lecture tour. So, it wasn't all unspoken angst between the married couple. 

Mrs Ramsay oscillates between a dark pessimism about marriage and progeny, and then expends a lot of energy engineering opportunities for her house guests to get together. There is a proposal as two people are successfully coupled, and then she is on to thinking about the next match she could make. 

I had my hackles raised by some passing references to Anna Karenina. Fortunately Mrs Ramsay stands in stark contrast to Anna. For one thing, Mrs Ramsay seems much more realistic about life and finds joy in the things around her instead of mooning away over some idea that love is "out there".

And then, just when we've got to know Mrs Ramsay, she unexpectedly dies, in a throwaway paragraph at the end of a chapter. I don't know if the author got bored of her, or what. But it's a sudden - and bold - shift in the story. 

What follows is a brief series of vignettes, as the local cleaning lady tries to maintain the holiday home over several years. In the same way that the house declines, so too, Mrs Ramsay's idealised visions of the future are shown to come to naught. One son Andrew, who was supposed to become a famous mathematician, is killed by a shell during the war. A daughter, Prue, who is supposed to grow into a true beauty, dies due to pregnancy complications. The couple who got engaged on Skye get trapped in a loveless marriage. 

The message seems to be that whatever our hopes for the future, life gets in the way. It's pessimistic in the extreme and more nihilistic than I expected. 

The book ends with the remaining members of the family returning to Skye. The kid who wanted to go to the lighthouse finally gets to go, even though by this point he is a pouting teenager who really doesn't want to go. They arrive at the lighthouse but before they get out of the boat the book ends. 

Final point - the cover art. This book was part of a set of ten 'classics' that I was given several years ago. The cover art is deeply uninspiring, although after I read the book it felt very apt. (It doesn't show a lighthouse!) Then a few days after I finished the book, I saw a copy with a very different, and much nicer, cover that makes it look like a completely different type of book! 

(I was tempted to buy it but decided that would be silly.)

January 2025 monthly review

I've seen several social media posts about January being the longest month and people just wanting it to be over. Personally, the month seemed to fly by - helped by a hectic work schedule and a week of birthdays at the end of the month that meant spending a weekend with family. 

In work we are gearing up towards a big conference at the end of February with lots to do in readiness for that. We also said goodbye to two colleagues, one who left for a new job and one who started her maternity leave. So, lots of change to navigate. 

I also had a midweek overnight stay in London, which meant I was able to catch up with my friend Gawain before I got my train home. Because I was getting the late train, I managed to score a special offer on a first class ticket at cheaper than standard rate - a brilliant way to end a long couple of days in London.

I fitted in quite a bit outside of work too. Last year was the year of "quels" at the cinema, and Cathy and I are following a similar pattern so far this year, with a trip to the flicks to see Moana 2. I managed two evenings of Blood Bowl with Bryan - game 1 was a narrow win for my giant rats, game 2 was a hard-fought draw. I also helped out at the RSPB Big Garden Bird Watch event in Grange Gardens, organised by the Cardiff Park Rangers. 

A three day weekend in Shrewsbury celebrating three family birthdays included a successful trip to take my Mum sofa shopping. We found some nice new ones that will actually fit into her living room configuration. When we weren't sofa shopping, we were playing games of Scrabble. 

I won both games and Mum has already told me she wants a rematch. My best score was 104 for a word using all seven letters that hit a treble word score (anchore[d], top left). 

I also took my nephew, Zac, to his juniors football game, played in cold wind and icy rain. He was borderline hypothermic by the end, but he earned and scored a penalty and helped his team to a 2-0 victory. He's wearing number 7 in the team now, a bump up from number 14 last season.

I went to two other football matches besides Zac's game. Both games featured Cardiff Draconians - an 8-2 victory at home, and their first league defeat of the season away at Swansea University. Losing to a late goal was tempered by it being a new ground, and my friend Jon joining me and Scott at the game. I am gradually dragging Jon to lower and lower level games. We started at Newport County, then Barry Town and now the Ardal League, the Welsh third tier. Parks football next!