Carcassonne Game

On Sunday our friends brought round the game Carcassonne that we had bought then for a recent birthday. It was great fun.
The play is not complicated. When it is your turn, you draw a card from the bag, and place it adjoining others on the table, then, if you want to, you place one of your free pieces on it. What gets complicated is the scoring, and the strategy.
The play continues until all the cards have been played. Then the points are totted up, and the player with most is the winner. Some of the points are awarded during play, and others are scored at the end.
Each of the square cards has four sides, surprisingly. These are either city, field, or road. When a card is placed each card it touches must have matching edges. Points are awarded during play when a city or road is completed. Points are awarded for fields and incomplete cities and roads at the end of play.
A piece with some city has a wall between the city and the field.  A city is bordered by wall and open sides. When there are no open sides and walls all join up, the city is complete. A piece may have 2 or 3 edges with city, useful for extending an existing city, or just one edge, useful for completing a city. A completed city can have just two pieces, or many. Some pieces have shields, which earn points, or other symbols which earn cards that may earn points at the end.
Roads all run in the fields, never in the cities. They terminate at cities, and they terminate at cross roads. A road is completed when it terminates at both ends. On the way it may run straight or turn corners.
A field is bounded by cities, roads and open sides.  There is no concept of a completed field, and points are awarded at the end rather than during play. Some pieces have four field sides, and a priory on it. This earns points for each of the eight adjoining pieces that are put in place.
You lay claim to a city road or field by placing one of your men in it.You can only place a man on a piece that you have just played. You can only lay claim to a city road or field that does not already belong to someone. That does not mean that no more than one person can own it, as two incomplete cities, each owned by different players may become joined, in which case the each own the city, and are awarded points when it is completed.
After placing a piece, you can put a man on the piece. If the piece has city and and road, you might put the man in the city, or on the road, or in one of the two fields on either side of the road, or you may chose not to place a man at all.
You have a limited number of men. Men placed in a field are there for the duration, but those placed on a road or city will get returned to you when the road or city is complete. As well as the men you have one pig, and one worker. You can place your pig in a field that you already own, and you get 5 instead of 4 points for each complete city in the field at the end of the game.  You can place the worker in any city or road that you already own. Subsequently, when you extend or complete that city or road, you have an extra turn. When the city or road is completed, the worker is returned to you with the man.
Two points are awarded for each piece being part of a completed city or road, and one point if it is incomplete at the end. There are also 2 or 1 point for each city piece with a shield.  A field is awarded 4 points for each completed city it borders, or 5 if there is a a pig as well as a man.  There are bonus points for having the most barrels and cotton collected when cities are completed.
So, do you place your men on cities fields or roads? Do you complete the city you own, or play the card elsewhere in the hope of extending the city later? I am looking forward to playing again to discover what kind of play does best.

The King's Speech

What an enjoyable film. There is no car chase here, the closest we get to that is a man walking in front of the car as it drives through the London Fog, I thought that was all over by 1936. There was no hurried moment and yet the interest and tension carried us for the full length of the film.
Of course, if you want tension, then talking on the wireless (nowadays we call it radio) to millions of people around the globe on the outbreak of war when you have a stammer ranks quite high.
The central relationship is between the Duke of York, who becomes King George V during the film, and Lionel Logue, an Australian speech therapist who helps him deliver his speech.  It is quite a stormy relationship at times.
In the therapy room, Lionel makes the rules. No smoking and strict equality, first names only (no one outside his family uses the name Bertie), are hard for the duke to come to terms with. The Australian has little reverence for the stone of Scone and regal trappings.
At other times the relationship is tender, as Lionel coaxes Bertie during the speech, or is there as Bertie talks about his childhood. Then sparks fly when the British establish discovers and takes exception to this colonial outsider. There is a lovely scene where Bertie tells Lionel he is being a coward.
Speech Therapy is portrayed as a mixture of exercises, some quite undignified, techniques, say apeople rather than people, helping people come to terms with trauma. I guess this combination helps to make it such a rewarding career option.
As well as all that you get George V, the rise of Hitler, Edward VIII, Wallis Simpson, the abdication and the outbreak of WWII.
Geoffrey Rush was good, Colin Firth was great, it was lovely to see Helena Bonham-Carter an an "English Rose", she was superb. Timothy Spall was a very creditable Winston Churchill, Derek Jacobi a very natural Archbishop of Canterbury.
The speech about being at war with Germany was accompanied by music by a composer who was.. German. Even so a good choice, Beethoven's seventh symphony added gravitas, and his 5th piano concerto afterwards reflected wonderfully how the speech had gone.   I regret to say I did not notice the other music, by Alexandre Desplat.  I will have to see the film again.

Ingleton Waterfalls

Pecca Falls

Woman in White

Back in the day, before mobile phones, before any sort of phones, you could send letters and know they would arrive the next day, and send messengers if the other person lived close enough.
The year was 1851, when a promise to be married to someone was not something you would contemplate reneging on just because you had fallen in love with some one else in the meantime.

The technology was different, some of the values were very different, but crime was still crime.  It's said that Woman in White, written by Wilkie Collins in 1861 was the first detective novel, but I think it is more than that. We are puzzled as the story plays out not by who did it? There is very little doubt who are the heroes and who are the villains. Rather we are intrigued in wondering what did they do? and how? and will there ever be proof?

The characters are closely observed and clearly drawn, but would you expect anything less from the drawing teacher who tells much of the narrative?   Actually the narrative is told by various characters, so there is a mixtures of styles and personal observations.  This adds to the feeling that you know the character of the various parties to the story.

Some of the minor characters tell their story in a way that is very comical, adding a touch of light relief to the story a it unfolds. The solicitor tells his part quite factually, but succinctly. His part is important, as property rights of women play as large a part in this as any Jane Austen novel.

Even with the change of styles, the story zips along and is quite readable; you get the story rather than commentary on the story and life in general that seem to make other 19th century novels hard going.

There is toward the end a very unexpected co-incidence of circumstances -  Ann used the word contrived - but the story is none the less good for that.

Indeed at the end all the loose ends are tied up, and we are left feeling good, and having enjoyed the company  of a wide selection of characters.