When Monopoly Becomes Handcrafted Art

As some of you may already be aware, a group of us play an almost monthly game of Monopoly - with every game utilising a different themed board from Pete's ever-expanding library of Monopoly variants.

This week's game was something a bit different though: we were using a Monopoly set that Pete had designed and constructed himself a quarter of a century ago, based upon his favourite annual sporting event: the 24-hour Le Mans endurance race (as captured in the classic Steve McQueen movie from 1971).

Last month Rachel, Clare, Pete, and I played the official Le Mans Monopoly set, but Pete's was in a different league, drawing directly from his decades of experience attending the event.

You can read all about it, and see plenty of photographs of Pete work of art, at our Monopoly Club blog here.

On her internationally renowned Three Beautiful Things blog, Clare wrote of the evening:

"Pete brings his own homemade Monopoly set and it's a stunner -- unique, handcrafted and thoughtfully built to a Le Mans theme with the finest artwork early 2000s clipart CDs can offer. It's very nostalgic, and with his own added context, much more interesting than some of the official sets we've been playing."

ROLL THOSE BONES!!!

New funky dice alert! I came across these "skull dice" by chance on eBay the other week.

And immediately knew they had to be mine.

Shipped from China in no time at all for £3.59 each (including postage and packing), I didn't even have to sign up for a costly crowdfunding campaign to get them. Just a quick click on eBay's 'buy it now' button.

They are wonderfully chunky cubes of resin, measuring 2cm on each edge and with that deliciously striking skull design.

As well as obvious atmospheric roleplaying game usage, this pair will be perfect for our next Halloween-themed game of Monopoly.

The First Rule of Monopoly Club Is...

Le Mans-themed Monopoly

What some of you may not realise about me is that my gaming interests aren't limited to just roleplaying games and skirmish wargames. Rachel and I also host a (supposedly) monthly Monopoly Club.

Joining us at the table are Clare and Pete, making this a kind of spin-off from the Tuesday Knights (our roleplaying group).

Pete is an insatiable collector of the many, many themed-Monopoly sets and so every time we get together we play a different iteration of Monopoly.

In the three-and-a-half years we've been going, we've traded property and bankrupted each other in the worlds of Looney Tunes to Stranger Things, Indiana Jones to The Simpsons, and Ghostbusters to Jaws.

This week we were playing on a Le Mans-themed board that Pete had purchased earlier this year at the actual Le Mans endurance racing event in France.

Our little group not only keeps a running league table of our various victories (and defeats) but also a table of our gradings of how well produced and how innovative these reskins of the classic game are. 

If you want to learn more about our adventures in board gaming (or just check out some of the eccentric hacks of the classic original board game), then please visit this blog's little sister site: Don't Talk About Monopoly Club (it's the first rule of Monopoly Club).

HEALTH UPDATE: It's A Wash Out!

Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay

This week's planned walk (and tree safari) was washed out by the good ol' British weather. We were getting ready to leave but the rain started to bucket down and (according to Alexa) was here to stay for several hours.

I don't mind being caught in the rain while I'm out, but voluntarily leaving the house when the rain is this heavy just seems daft.

And to be honest, this weekend my guts have been misbehaving in ways so disgusting that I don't want to share. Rachel, kindly, attributes it to my body adjusting to my new diet.

It's probably safer that I stay in today (close to the toilet). I'm not a bear after all!

This shock to the system comes at the end of a particularly rough week. My regular nerve/muscle pains - largely in my chest and arms - were back early on and it was the worse I've endured for a very long time.

This was the closest I've come to crying off Biscuit Club, but I soldiered on and went anyway. However, this year's first scheduled meeting of Monopoly Club did have to be cancelled as I was in no state for a riotous evening of capitalist-driven board game fun and frolics.

I also couldn't escape the inevitable pain-induced black cloud that washed over me, and I found myself unenthused by anything I really should have been doing, instead collapsing in front of the television, bingeing nihilistic documentaries about outlaw biker gangs on the History Channel.

Thankfully, both the pain and the depression passed within about 36 hours and I was much more upbeat by the time of this week's medical appointment: to get the results of my recent blood test and learn the state of my blood sugar count.

The news, unsurprisingly, wasn't great - yet the nurse was wonderfully positive and upbeat. Between her and Rachel's input, I came away feeling this problem might not be as insurmountable as I'd initially feared.

As the nurse put it: my diet had been so bad that it was very easy to see where to make changes.

Yet, changes have consequences... as my body has been demonstrating today and yesterday.

THROWBACK THURSDAY: Before The Tuesday Knights

After my aneurysm and stroke, I was looking for ways to keep myself entertained and so Nick, Pete and I started our Formula Dé League, playing monthly motor races and eating a lot of very hot curry.

As the Tunbridge Wells Formula De League we would race little plastic cars around boards representing a variety of Grand Prix circuits from across the globe.

The game uses the very clever mechanic of having the vehicle's different gears represented by different polyhedral dice. 

A moment of high drama during the Chinese Grand Prix

As with our current gaming we didn't always stick to the monthly schedule that we had drawn up in advance, but we still managed to rack up enough races for a couple of years (2006/2007) to give our league a sense of verisimilitude.

We each controlled a stable of two racers, competing for both individual and team glory.

Pete was Team Clover (Paddy O'Doors & Muhat Mecoate), I was Team Zerro (Damien Dash & Brian 'Whitey' Whitehouse) and Nick was Team Flamer (Antonio Wasp & Nick Nastily). Nick's Nick Nastily retired during the '06 season and was replaced by Jock Saway.

Press coverage of Nastily's retirement

During 2007, Steve joined us as Team Classic Rock for one race.

As well as creating newspaper clippings of key race-related stories, we even held "prize giving" ceremonies at the end of each year in local restaurants, handing out trophies and wooden spoons to the winners and losers.

A third year's racing was scheduled for 2008, but a resurgence of interest in roleplaying games led to the creation of the Tuesday Knights and that overtook our toy car racing exploits.

The TWFDL: Pete, Nick & I

The release of the Hollow Earth Expedition pulp adventure system had reignited Nick's enthusiasm for roleplaying games and he ran a short and sadly unfinished Edwardian campaign for Clare and I.

But it was the publicity around the publication of the Fourth Edition of Dungeons & Dragons that got me thinking about starting our own broader gaming group, replacing our board game nights (we also played the collaborative Lord Of The Rings games) with regular roleplaying sessions.

And so was born The Tuesday Knights. In the end we didn't play Fourth Edition, opting for the more old school Castles & Crusades, which was then replaced by Labyrinth Lord, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Regular board game meet-ups resumed in 2023, with the launch of Monopoly Club, where Pete gets to show off his ever-expanding collection of themed Monopoly boards for Clare, Rachel, and I.

Game For A Laugh

Looney Tunes Monopoly, which we played earlier this month, was one of the best

What some of you may not realise about me is that my gaming interests aren't limited to just roleplaying games and skirmish wargames. Rachel and I also host an (almost) monthly Monopoly Club.

Joining us at the table are Clare and Pete, making this a kind of spin-off from the Tuesday Knights (our roleplaying group).

Pete is a collector of the many, many themed-Monopoly sets and so every time we get together we play a different iteration of Monopoly.

In the two-and-a-half years we've been going, we've traded property and bankrupted each other in the worlds of Dungeons & Dragons to Harry Potter, James Bond to The Simpsons, and Indiana Jones to Scooby-Doo.

Our little group not only keeps a running league table of our various victories but also a table of our gradings of how well produced and how innovative these reskins of the classic game are. 

If you want to learn more about our adventures in board gaming (or just check out some of the eccentric hacks of the classic original board game), then please visit Don't Talk About Monopoly Club (it's the first rule of Monopoly Club).

All this talk of board gaming, reminds me of the recently announced documentary: The Hobby - Tales From The Tabletop.

This fascinating dive into the culture of board gamers "explores the passionate world of modern board gaming, following enthusiasts who find community and meaning through games".