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.
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).
In this month's issue of the non-canonical crossover comic, Conan & Dragonero, our Cimmerian protagonist delivered a throwaway, mid-combat, line that rather caught me by surprise.
"I don't worry about anything until it happens".
I am, by no stretch, a Robert E Howard scholar or expert on his most famous creation, but I guess this has always been Conan's philosophy - even though I don't recall him specifically spelling it out like that.
Perhaps, in all my years of consuming the adventures of Conan The Barbarian in various media, I've never really given this much serious thought.
To be honest, I'm not one hundred percent sure that this statement is a sensible approach to life as, taken at face value, surely that means a total absence of forward planning... and yet Conan is a master of the cunning trick and unpredictable battle strategies.
However, though the lens of stoicism, he is right. Only worry about things within your control.
There's no point worrying about the possibility of wild wyverns slashing the balloon of your airship and sending you plummeting to the ground... because that's out of your control.
Fighting the monsters that are in front of you, though, is within your control.
I wish I could adopt this mindset.
I've always been quite an anxious person, but since the sudden aortic aneurysm that struck me down out of the blue a couple of decades ago (and the stroke I suffered during the emergency, life-saving surgery), my PTSD-fuelled anxiety and general nervousness has gone through the roof.
Things that used to bug me or worry me can now reduce me to a blubbering wreck.
But these are - nearly always - things that are out of my control.
I'd love to have a modicum of Conan's stoicism. I shall endeavour, next time an appropriate situation arises, to tell myself "not to worry about anything until it happens".
This reminds of another phrase I heard last year that I try to put into use when I can.
In the brutal Netflix Western serial, American Primeval, Taylor Kitsch's character tells a kid with a broken arm: "It's only pain."
A simple, little phrase, but one I now repeat to myself when I'm going to the doctor's or the hospital for a procedure that involves sticking needles into my tiny, elusive veins.
I still hate it, it doesn't stop me screaming out or crushing Rachel's hand, but - at the end of the day - it is "only pain". It's not going to kill me, and it will pass.
So, who still thinks that comic books and television aren't good for you?
With only two episodes left in this season of House of The Dragon, tensions continue to ratchet up as plans unfold within plans and the Rightful Queen's hold on the Iron Throne is looking a bit shaky.
Up top we have a trailer for the penultimate episode of this season, while down below are spoilerific, behind-the-scenes features on this week's episode:
Knowing full-well that it's my 60th birthday in November, Prime Video has just released trailers for two franchise shows dropping that month that are right in my wheelhouse: one a returning fantasy series, the other a new sci-fi spin-off from a great couple of movies.
BLADE RUNNER 2099
THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RINGS OF POWER, SEASON THREE
Rings of Power continues to chart the rise of Sauron in Middle-Earth, starting November 11, while all eight episodes of Blade Runner 2099 will drop on November 25.
Coincidentally, both shows have popular roleplaying games based on them, published by Free League.
I can't believe it's been over three-and-a-half years since we've visited Pooh Corner.
It was supposed to have been a well-earned Spring Break for Rachel, but we'd gotten tangled up in a mess of time-sapping medical appointments.
Eventually, after a morning of medical check-ups for the both of us, and a couple of laps with Alice around the Tonbridge recreation ground, we decided to seize the day and head out to Hartfield, on the edge of the Ashdown Forest, for a Winnie The Pooh adventure.
Our first stop was Pooh Corner in Hartfield's High Street, where we managed to snag a parking spot right outside the front door (there's no car park there, so it's pot luck finding on-street parking).
Formerly the village sweet shop (and Christopher Robin's getaway from the pressure of being a young celebrity and the constant press intrusion in his life), the building has now been converted into an incredible tea room and Pooh'seum (a well-stocked museum chronicling the creation of the Pooh stories and everything that spun out of that).
Alice was a massive hit in the tea room, with the staff, owner, and other visitors. I can't remember a time when she's had so much attention from strangers. It was adorable to see both grown-ups and children lavishing affection on here.
Everything in the tea room is Winnie The Pooh-themed, from the plates and tea pots to the table numbers.
The food was incredible... and got the Knight Family seal of approval. We probably ate too much. But, so what? We were on holiday!
EVERYTHING was Pooh-themed!!!
After filling our tummies, Pooh-style, we hopped back in the car and drove into the forest (aka The Hundred Acre Wood), found a car park and then set off into the trees, following the signs to "Bridge".
Our goal was to see the legendary Pooh Sticks Bridge, probably one of the most iconic locations in children's literature.
It was quite a downhill hike and Rachel was concerned I might not be able to make it back up the hill afterwards, but I was driven both by the spirit of 'carpe diem' and a deep-seated desire to visit this iconic bridge for the first time in many, many decades.
There were plenty of people on the path, heading in both directions, and we were expecting the bridge to be rammed when got there.
But by some miracle once we arrived it was just us for about five or 10 minutes, so we had a chance to take pictures and explore.
The only real error we made was not bringing any 'Pooh sticks' as the area around the bridge was, unsurprisingly, barren of fallen twigs.
But to be honest that didn't matter. It was just magical to be walking in the footsteps of Christopher Robin, Winnie The Pooh, Roo, Kanga, Eeyore, Rabbit etc
As expected the journey back up the steep hill was harder and slower, but there are wooden seats along the way making for suitable rest stops and as long as we stayed in the shade (not always possible) it wasn't too hot.
From the company, the food, the adoration of Alice to walking in The Hundred Acre Wood and standing on Pooh Sticks Bridge, this was one of the best days out we'd had in ages, which is why I'm surprised we haven't gone back.
Sure the walking was hard at times, but I never felt as though I would pass out or be taken ill as is often the case on such escapades.
Instead, I came home tired and content, fired up for future adventures.
Bring your own Pooh Sticks, as none will be found within the environs of the bridge
On the return journey we spotted the entrance to Owl's house up in a tree
Good news this week. The results of my last blood test came through (primarily checking my liver function) and all were normal, with no sign of abnormalities, so that's something to celebrate for a change.
I actually didn't hear anything from my GP (which, in these situations, is a good thing), so checked via the wonderful NHS app on my phone that Rachel signed me up for. It's brilliant. Not only can my GP (and hospitals) contact me via the app, but I can check my notes and test results.
Hooray for the NHS!
After opting out of last week's class because of the continuing extreme weather, I went back to Biscuit Club this week only to discover that our next session is the last of this "term"!
I'd thought we'd be adding on a few more to make up for the ones cancelled at the height of the heatwave, but clearly not.
However, there's a new class starting later in the year, and we get priority dibs on those places, so I'll probably attend that. It should be cooler by then (climate change willing).
Over the summer, we were invited to pop along to the Angel Centre in Tonbridge to join in some of the weekly, pay-as-you-go, classes for the general public that our coach runs.
Even though there's no tea and biscuits with these, Rachel and I agreed that it might be worth me checking the classes out as it was only something like four quid a session.
Roger Corman, King of the Bs, reminisces about his start in movie making. In this original archival piece from Ballyhoo Motion Pictures, Corman takes the audience through his humble beginnings (he studied engineering!), and how he broke into the 'movie making' business. This featurette originally came out on the Blu-Ray release of Monster from the Ocean Floor.
Ahead of my birthday in 2013 Paul got tickets for the two of us to attend a talk at the British Film Institute: Roger Corman In Conversation.
The legendary B-movie director/producer was interviewed by renowned film critic Kim Newman in front of a packed audience of fans - and Paul had snagged us tickets just three rows back from the stage.
For an 87-year-old Corman was spritely and full of anecdotes, well-spoken and erudite, interesting and engaging - with nary a bad word to say about anybody.
It was an hour-and-three-quarter presentation, broken up with a few of trailers and clips from Corman's early movies, rounded off with the last quarter of an hour (or so) being open to questions from the floor.
As it was a flagship event in the BFI's Gothic season, the conversation between Newman and Corman concentrated largely on his Poe films (Lovecraft even got a mention, but Corman was adamant that he was a Poe fan ahead of HPL), but touched on his later works, his involvement with the American counter-culture movement and the output of some of his more famous protégés (such as Jack Nicholson and James Cameron).
As often happens after listening to such a fascinating character, I came away with a mental check list of Corman pictures I needed to add to my "viewing wish list" while ones that were already of the list got a bump up now I knew some of the behind-the-scenes stories about their making.
Massive thanks to the crew at Film Masters for making the interview featurette available for all.
You didn't think I'd get all excited about the novelisation of the great horror movie, Draug, without wanting to pick up my own copy?
Well, here it is in all its glory.
I can't wait to see how writer/director Klas Persson has brought his terrifying and atmospheric tale to the written page as Draugr: A Viking Folk-Horror Saga.
As happens, this 350-page paperback has leapt into second place on my "to be read" list, meaning once I've finished the brain-scrambling, cosmic horrors of Jean Ray's Cruise of Shadows then I'll be picking up Draugr and plunging into the dark creepy, Swedish forests of a thousand years ago.
For those wondering about the change in spelling: as far as I can figure it, Draugr is Old Norse whereas Draug is more modern, but both words mean 'stinking, superhumanly strong, vengeful, reanimated corpses'.
Anyway, I've got one final tale to go in the Cruise of Shadows anthology, The Mainz Psalter, the yarn covered on the Strange Studies of Strange Stories podcast several weeks ago that lured me in to the writings of Jean Ray.
As long as my sanity holds up, I hope to finish it this weekend.
As well as the rulebook for Dragonbane, I also have some comics and magazines that 'need' reading, but I'm so delighted with this current spell of actually reading novels and anthologies that I want to keep it up. It feels like so long since I've had such a burst of reading.
And that makes me feel very positive (for a change).
Clear the decks, sweep everything off the table, I need to see The Uprising right now!
Andrew Garfield stars as the legendary leader of a ferocious rebellion against the tyranny of King Richard II. As war burns across England, he forms an army of the people to face the King’s might in a fight for justice and survival.
Andrew Garfield as Wat Tyler; I never could have imagined it, but now I can't unsee it.
Garfield is already an indication of brilliance, but the trailer tipped me over the edge. This looks exactly like it could rival The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc for authentic, grimy Medieval excellence.
Back in early 2021, when I was indulging in research for whatever my fantasy roleplaying game idea of the moment was, I found myself drawn back to the wonderful workings of the late, great Sir Terry Pratchett.
While I'm sure many of you are already aware of the official Discworld Emporium, a recent email from there caught my eye, promoting a new set of Discworld stamps from the The Ankh-Morpork Post Office (AMPO).
The souvenir set, for the Year of The Beleaguered Badger, was only only a fiver, with very reasonable shipping fees, and I immediately thought these would be a great addition to my 'cabinet of curiosities' (but, most definitely, not the start of a 'fantasy philately' hobby).
Upon ordering, the stamps arrived incredibly swiftly, but the fun started even before I opened the envelope.
Check it out above, and marvel at the dedication to verisimilitude: it even came with AMPO stamps on the envelope, and 'in universe' franking.
Inside, the receipt for the purchase of my stamps was also a miniature work of art, from The Thieves' Guild:
As a child in the '70s, I was never really into 'stamp collecting', although I do remember owning an album with a random selection from around the globe stuck in.
However, I have to admit that adding the whole magical Discworld angle to the hobby does make it feel rather more appealing, more 'on brand' for me.
Of course, the more I dug into the stamp section of the Emporium's website, the more dangerous (to my wallet, and possibly my sanity) I realised this rabbit hole was becoming.
Inspired by my whinging about not getting anywhere with the skirmish wargame side of PROJECT 60, I felt I should invest in some new miniatures for Dead Man's Hand.
This coincided with Great Escape Games announcing a couple of new packs of townsfolk (ladies and children), and me bingeing the entirety of the excellent, new iteration of Little House on The Prairie (on Netflix).
So, I ordered that pair of new packs and a pack of Chinese labourers (I'm pretty sure that with all the other Chinese figures I own, I could populate an impressive Chinatown for my unbuilt Wild West town).
As ever with Great Escape Games these all arrived safe and sound the day after I'd placed my order.
My painter, Matt, currently has some fantasy figures of mine he's working on at the moment, but the next shipment will be a return to my Western theme, to spur me on with this scheme.
Some of you may recall in the past I've talked about my PROJECT 60, an ambitious desire to get both a skirmish wargame and a roleplaying campaign all set up and ready to run by the time I turn 60 towards the end of this year.
I'd like to blame the hot weatherand my general ill-health, but honestly it's my fickle nature and life-long inability to stay focused on any one particular aspect my hobbies for long.
PROJECT 60 was, therefore, rather ambitious - but that was the point.
On the skirmish wargame side, I'm still sticking firmly to my plans to build a tabletop Wild West town for games of Dead Man's Hand.
I just haven't sent off any Western figures for painting this year and have actually done nothing concrete towards assembling and painting the buildings, which was always a goal for this Summer.
Everything has simply remained in a clutter in the gamesroom.
I really need to get sorting that before things go missing as I move books, Blu Rays, and bits & bobs around looking for other things.
And this isn't to say my wargaming thoughts haven't gone round the houses from Bronze Age Greece to Fantasy Medieval and 17th/18th Century pirates and highwaymen!
They've just circled back (for the moment) to the American West.
On the roleplaying game front, my initial passion for Twilight Sword has rather dampened (even before the printed materials show up), and been replaced by flickering flames of interest in Dragonbane.
I haven't found the time to read the rules properly yet, so my confidence still swings all over the place and my mind darts off in other directions every now and then (even, most recently, considering a Wild West roleplaying campaign... but with a twist).
However, as well as 40-year history in Sweden, Dragonbane (aka Drakar och Demoner) has a solid core of fans who really, really love the system, which gives me a lot of encouragement.
I have actually noticed some mechanical similarities between Twilight Sword and Dragonbane, which has led to my brain classifying Twilight Sword as modern Basic/Expert Dungeons & Dragons whereas Dragonbane is modern Advanced Dungeons & Dragons!
Of course, I'm essentially starting from scratch with Dragonbane, and you know how slow I am at reading and absorbing things... especially new things.
So, I'm still hoping to get these games back on track for PROJECT 60, but I know my birthday isn't that far away and I have way fewer years ahead of me than behind.
Even if I can one or both of these games up and running, just how long will these "forever campaigns" actually last now?
"Smartly scripted and dripping with local folklore, Draug dishes up some unexpected moments of deliberate laugh-out-loud humour in early scenes that soon give way to screaming, insanity and dying as the adventuring party plunges deeper in to the legendary forest of Ödmården."
The unnerving, low-budget, Swedish swords-and-sorcery/horror film Draug has transformed into a novel, Draugr: A Viking Folk-Horror Saga, by the film's writer/director Klas Persson.
Published last week, the 351-page paperback (which is also available in hardback or as an e-book) is available from Amazon.
Set around a millennia ago, this is Klas Persson's debut novel, telling the story of a group of warriors searching the wilderness for a lost missionary, but instead discover they are being hunted by a supernatural terror.
There was a time when the pagan gods clashed against the new religion of Christ.
There was a time when the seid crones performed heathen sorcery inside their dusty hovels.
There was a time when the dark beings of ancient horrors still stalked the night.
In Viking age Sweden, a missionary bishop goes missing somewhere deep inside Eyeskogamörk, a vast forest that made a natural border between the South and the still pagan North.
To find him, or his murderers, they send Hakon Grettirson—famed warrior and lord of Sigtuna.
With him, he brings his troubled foster daughter, Nanna. Born in the dark North and plagued with visions and dreams of her pagan past.
This is the first time any of them will have entered these dark parts since the harsh Christinization attempts made years earlier during the reign of Anund Jakob the Coalburner.
Inside the darkness of Eyskógamörk they will both encounter the demons of their past. But also an ancient evil, lurking in the shadows.
Night of The Eagle will air in the UK on Talking Pictures TV, on July 25 at 9.05pm and July 28 at 9pm
The other year, one of my oldest online friends, John, announced he was having a clear-out and wanted to dispose of some of his old horror-themed Blu-Rays.
Never one to turn down a free movie, I offered to take a few off his hands and soon a package arrived with four discs in.
Among them was one I confess I'd never heard of: Night Of The Eagle (aka Burn Witch Burn).
So, naturally, that was the first to be taken for a spin in the Blu-Ray player.
Charming and charismatic psychology professor Norman Taylor (Peter Wyngarde aka Jason King of Department S) has it all: a great house, a career on the fast-track to success, and a beautiful wife, Tansy (Janet Blair).
Therefore, Norman is shocked to discover that his wife has been secretly practising witchcraft, she says to protect him from dangerous and jealous forces that would otherwise seek to derail his career or even harm him.
Angrily, he makes her destroy all her charms, fetishes, and witchy paraphernalia.
However, no sooner does she do this than their lives take a dramatic turn for the worse.
First, Norman is accused of sexually assaulting Margaret Abbott (Judith Stott), one of his students, at Hempnell Medical College, then some 'force' seemingly attacks his home.
The rational professor tries to deal with all these things logically, but Tansy starts to take increasingly wild, and potentially dangerous, steps to thwart this with - what she believes is - magic.
Night Of The Eagle is a fantastic, little, horror film, in a similar vein to 1957's Night Of The Demon and 1963's The Haunting.
It's oozing with atmosphere, relying on limited special effects and a strong amount of suggestion, so, like Norman, we're never 100 per cent sure if what's happening is co-incidence, feverish hallucinations, hypnosis or genuine black magic.
The ending is a bit sudden, given all the furore that has just unfurled, and certainly comes from the "karma is a bitch" playbook.
But, then, that was the style of films back in the day - they knew not to hang around and outstay their welcome. They had a story to tell, got in, told it, and got out. A trait seemingly lost on some filmmakers and their more recent overlong snorefests.
Based on Fritz Leiber's Conjure Wife (which first appeared in 1943 in Unknown magazine and then as novel in 1953), Night Of The Eagle's original New England setting was changed for 'old' England, instead.
This adaptation (there have been several) was penned by horror legend Richard Matheson with Twilight Zone writer Charles Beaumont, and some tweaking by George Baxt, at the behest of producer Albert Fennell.
A smart, tight, script, buoyed up by cracking performances from all concerned, Night Of The Eagle is definitely one for those who are happy to take their horror served without dollops of gore and jump scares.
Not only can I not really focus on anything still, but I also feel lethargic and just want to vegetate.
For reasons, primarily the extreme heat, I've now only managed to attend two meetings of Biscuit Club in the last six or seven weeks.
A couple were cancelled and one was optional (and I didn't feel up to attending), but also there was the week where I had my steroid injections (which don't appear to have worked) and one where Rachel was overwhelmed with organising the annual awards day she puts on for the local media in the South-East of England.
I've tried to do some exercises, but the heat just tires me out.
Unfortunately, this has also meant I've had a couple of falls. While nothing was damaged beyond my dignity, it's a stark reminder of how I was a year ago and the fact that I had gone several months without any kind of collapse.
On a possibly positive note, I went back to the GP's this week for my latest blood test, to monitor my liver function, and my veins were much more visible than they usually are... which we atre attributing to the heat.
It was still incredibly painful, and I crushed Rachel's hand again as the nurse wiggled the needle around in my vein (well, that's what I think she was doing - I had my eyes screwed shut). But, apparently, she got two and a bit vials of my blood out.
Also, rather impressively, several days after my needle-encounter, I still haven't bruised around the penetration site, which is possibly a first.
Now, I just have to wait for the results and find out if I need to come back for more of this torture.
In homage to Pete's recent OUTGUNNED Adventures campaign, in which our characters found - then sank - Atlantis, I thought I'd share these two videos from geek architect Dami Lee.
Here she uses mathematics and physics to investigate Plato's description of the fictious city, and, unsurprisingly, the numbers don't add up.
But remember, gentle reader, to never let facts get in the way of a good story...
As a creative, gaming-obsessed, pre-teen I sat in my corduroy shorts in prep school assembly seeking inspiration from the hymns we sang... just what was the to hit/damage bonus of a "bow of burning gold", what effect did "arrows of desire" have and just how fast was a "chariot of fire"?
In 1977, as well as discovering Star Wars, I had been introduced to Dungeons & Dragons and the whole world was suddenly "research material".
Everywhere I looked there were potential magic items or monsters for characters to contend with in dungeons drawn from every imaginable source.
My prep school co-dungeoneer, Tom, even ran me through a D&D adventure based on the first season of The Hitchhikers' Guide To The Galaxy (a radio serial he had introduced me to and also had a major impact on my life).
Television and books (particularly the sword and sorcery tales of Fritz Leiber, and a little later Harry Turtledove's first Elabon stories - Wereblood and Werenight) shaped many adventures and characters in those early years; then later comic books became a major source of inspiration as our games moved away from straight fantasy into the four-colour world of superheroes.
From these I still have three comic book standards that I would one day love to weave into a single, long-running roleplaying game: time travel, alternate dimensions, and cosmic entities.
Yet somehow, even in the games I've run for the Tuesday Knights in the past couple of decades, I have yet to squeeze all three of them in successfully; feeling that a campaign needs to progress at a steady pace for a considerable length of time before such contrasting, incredible elements can have their full, desired impact when introduced.
That said, all three feature heavily in The Sailor on The Seas of Fate, the second of Michael Moorcock's Elric books.
Even dreamier, more surreal and more psychedelic than Elric of Melniboné, this 190-page delight had me joining Elric on a ship sailing a strange ocean that linked not just islands, but worlds and planes of existence in time and space.
In a series of three adventures, Elric discovers he is but one face of The Eternal Champion, travelling to the Earth's future with three other incarnations of the Champion (Hawkmoon, Corum and Erekose) to battle two universe-threatening alien magicians; then he finds himself being chased by a Melnibonean sorcerer from history and swept up in a mythical love story; before finally taking a Heart of Darkness-style river journey to the legendary, lost birth place of his people.
These stories continue to leave me breathless, blown away by the absorbing text, the clever imagery and mental stimuli they spark in my enfeebled brain.
It also made me appreciate, perhaps, why I have never successfully tackled such cosmic themes as I desire to in my roleplaying games - they are best left to the master storytellers!
My pop culture Odyssey: a slice of super-powered geek life with heavy emphasis on pulp adventure, superheroes, comic books, westerns, horror, sci-fi, giant monsters, zombies etc
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