Same with French.
Temps
Temps
Temps
Temps!
Temps
TEMPS!!
Utterly maddening.

The cover of Clarke’s “The Ladies of Grace Adieu.”

So … Clarke has a great ear for 18thC prose, and skillfully reproduces it in this expansion of the Strange/Norrell universe. But I struggled with the collection. Not anything to do with Clarke, but I remembered how much I dislike 18thC British fiction while I was reading it. #Booksky

😍 🐸

*not my content*

#poetry #MaryOliver #poetrymonth

Good Friday Edwin Morgan Three o’clock. The bus lurches round into the sun. “D’s this go –” he flops beside me – “right along Bath Street? – Oh tha’s, tha’s all right, see I’ve got to get some Easter eggs for the kiddies. I’ve had a wee drink, ye understand – ye’ll maybe think it’s a – funny day to be celebrating – well, no, but ye see I wasny working, and I like to celebrate when I’m no working – I don’t say it’s right I’m no saying it’s right, ye understand – ye understand? But anyway tha’s the way I look at it – I’m no boring you, eh? – ye see today, take today, I don’t know what today’s in aid of, whether Christ was – crucified or was he – rose fae the dead like, see what I mean? You’re an educatit man, you can tell me – – Aye, well. There ye are. It’s been seen time and again, the working man has nae education, he jist canny – jist hasny got it, know what I mean, he’s jist bliddy ignorant – Christ aye, bliddy ignorant. Well –” The bus brakes violently, he lunges for the stair, swings down – off, into the sun for his Easter eggs, on very‍‍ ‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ nearly‍‍ ‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ steady‍‍ ‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ legs.

…ye’ll maybe think it’s a – funny day
to be celebrating – well, no, but ye see
I wasny working, and I like to celebrate
when I’m no working…

—Edwin Morgan, “Good Friday”
from CENTENARY SELECTED POEMS, @carcanet.bsky.social 2020
#Easter #poem #poetry #GoodFriday
www.carcanet.co.uk/978178410996...

Cover of Benjamin Wood’s “Seascraper.”

Short but powerful Northern novel, “Seascraper,” by Benjamin Wood. A lovely, slow read that takes place over the span of about a day, about class, small-town stigma, and creativity. #booksky

A feel fur thon wee Lewis keelies stuck in Lunnon
Goggle-e’ed wi chowin the taps aff their shields,
Haimseek fur Norroway ower the faem.

—Jim Alison, “Ingaunees”
originally published as a poster for @ntlmuseumsscot.bsky.social
#poem #poetry #chess #Vikings #medievalsky

I might also suggest “Resist!” Another one-player game about the Maquis.

You’re welcome. A clever and satisfying story arc, but I was sad to see its end.

Cover of Six of Crows

Cover of The Heist of Hollow London

By some odd coincidence, I read two, quite different, “heist” novels at the same time. Comparisons are odorous … but I’ll only say that I LOVED @eddierobson.bsky.social ‘s book from start to finish. I’m going to miss those characters.

Box of original “Cry Havoc”

My own Cry Havoc character

I still have my original set, along with the “Siege” expansion, from more than 40 years ago! I even made up my own counter (apologies to Gary Chalk), apparently.

KATHLEEN JAMIE The Queen of Sheba Scotland, you have invoked her name just once too often in your Presbyterian living rooms. She’s heard, yea even unto heathenish Arabia your vixen’s bark of poverty, come down the family like a lang neb, a thrawn streak, a wally dug you never liked but can’t get shot of. She’s had enough. She’s come. Whit, tae this dump? Yes! She rides first camel of a swaying caravan from her desert sands to the peat and bracken of the Pentland hills across the fit-ba pitch to the thin mirage of the swings and chute; scattered with glass.

Breathe that steamy musk on the Curriehill Road, not mutton-shanks boiled for broth, nor the chlorine stink of the swimming pool where skinny girls accuse each other of verrucas. In her bathhouses women bear warm pot-bellied terracotta pitchers on their laughing hips. All that she desires, whatever she asks She will make the bottled dreams of your wee lasses look like sweeties. Spangles scarcely cover her gorgeous breasts, hanging gardens jewels, frankincense; more voluptuous even than Vi-next-door, whose high-heeled slippers keeked from dressing gowns like little hooves, wee tails of pink fur stuffed in the cleavage of her toes; more audacious even than Currie Liz who led the gala floats through the Wimpey scheme in a ruby-red Lotus Elan before the Boys’ Brigade band and the Brownies’ borrowed coal-truck; hair piled like candy-floss; who lifted her hands from the neat wheel to tinkle her fingers at her tricks among the Masons and the elders and the police. The cool black skin of the Bible couldn’t hold her, nor the atlas green on the kitchen table, you stuck with thumbs and split to fruity hemispheres – yellow Yemen, Red Sea, Ethiopia. Stick in with the homework and you’ll be

cliver like yer faither. but no too cliver, no above yersel. See her lead those great soft camels widdershins round the kirk-yaird, smiling as she eats avocados with apostle spoons she’ll teach us how. But first she wants to strip the willow she desires the keys to the National Library she is beckoning the lasses in the awestruck crowd ... Yes, we’d like to clap the camels, to smell the spice, admire her hairy legs and bonny wicked smile, we want to take PhDs in Persian, be vice to her president: we want to help her ask some Difficult Questions she’s shouting for our wisest man to test her mettle: Scour Scotland for a Solomon! Sure enough: from the back of the crowd someone growls: whae do you think y’ur? and a thousand laughing girls and she draw our hot breath and shout: THE QUEEN OF SHEBA!

Scotland, you have invoked her name
just once too often
in your Presbyterian living rooms.
She’s heard, yea
even unto heathenish Arabia
your vixen’s bark of poverty…

—Kathleen Jamie, “The Queen of Sheba”
from THE QUEEN OF SHEBA, @bloodaxebooks.bsky.social 1994

A #poem for #InternationalWomensDay

IG-100 MagnaGuards

I still have mine!

I’ve taught the novel many times. It works so well in the classroom.

A couple of trees against a cloudy sky filled with birds

Trees filled with red-winged blackbirds. #birdsky

Final hand of game

Boxes of Resist! and Maquis

Quick try-out of a new one-player game, Resist!, which I lost (just had to push it one more round … one too many as it turned out). Nice to have two one-player games about the Maquis, both of them fun and lovely to look at. #boardgames #boardgamesky @25thcentury.games

Great game.

End of game Wyrmspan

Our first game of Wyrmspan. We loved it! #boardgames #boardgamesky @stonemaiergames.com

Arkham Horror layout

Another attempt at Arkham Horror again last night … we almost didn’t lose again this time. But, alas. #boardgames

Blades '68 Crowdfunding Trailer YouTube video by Evil Hat Productions

Soooooo happy to have backed “Blades ‘68” today. We’ve been playtesting it for a year, and it’s groovy, baby. @olddog.games @evilhat.bsky.social

youtu.be/oRlhKBRU8VU

Some of the best roleplaying I’ve done was with Call of Cthulhu in the 80s.

Character and monster silhouettes

Copyright @Chaosium 1981

Assembly diagram

Looking through my game archives today and found this from 1981! I suppose I really have been playing this game for more than 40 years. Better get these Call of Cthulhu counters put together before there aren’t any pennies left! #TTRPG @chaosium.bsky.social

Another bout with Arkham Horror. Another unsuccessful attempt to save the city from destruction! #boardgames

Yes, there’s the Igor variant that shortens the game. We found it more enjoyable as a result. It’s a bit long otherwise.

An illustration in brown, gray, and orange of a man wearing a suit and a trenchcoat, standing in an alley. He has one hand in the pocket of his suitcoat, the other grasps a snub-nosed revolver. His hair is tousled, a cigarette dangles from his lip and a white bandage covers his broken nose. A long-eared bloodhound stands next to him. Caption: Hound. A hard-bitten fixer who follows their instincts.

"Oh, and uh, just one more question, Dr. Morcroft... I see a lotta pilots from Blueraker 5 sign into the visitor logs for the Lusk Reform Clinic. I didn't see any of them sign out."
The Hound.
1 of 8 Playbooks in Blades '68
Get more info and sign up to follow here:
www.backerkit.com/call_to_acti...

I’m struggling with this game. What’s the reward people are finding? I play a lot of crunchy games, but just can’t seem to break into this one!

Cover of David Szalay’s “Flesh”

I’m often not thrilled with Booker winners, and this one took a few chapters before I was hooked. I ended up liking Szalay’s “Flesh” a lot. I know it took a beating from some readers but I thought it was a compelling meditation on trauma and masculinity, and what’s not said. #booksky

Unfortunately I live in the US.

Sadly untested! I could never find an opponent.