Aug. 26, 2019
Doves are a band from Manchester who traded dance music for rock yet never left their former genre behind. Starting out as Sub Sub, they scored a worldwide hit in 1993 with “Ain’t No Love (Ain’t No Use)”: a timeless dance tune that immediately owns whatever room it plays in. However, subsequent releases by Sub Sub did not catch on and people started to think of the band as a one-hit wonder.
Tags: Understated Classics, Doves, Music, Nineteen
May. 12, 2019
Alexander of Macedon is available in a base game DLC pack alongside Darius of Persia. He also has his own scenario “The Conquests of Alexander”, which is both fun to play and instructive in how to use the formidable benefits of his bonuses and unique units.
Civ ability Hellenistic Fusion When capturing a city, receive civic boosts for each holy site and theatre square, and tech boosts for each campus and encampment.
Tags: Fun, Civ, Nineteen, Leaders
May. 6, 2019
Civ ability Meiji Restoration Districts receive a +1 adjacency bonus for each adjacent district, instead of +0.5.
Leader bonus: Land units in Coastal tiles and naval units in Coast tiles receive +5 Combat Strength. +50% Production towards Encampment, Holy Site and Theatre Square districts. Units are immune to Hurricane damage. Civilisations at war with Japan receive +100% unit damage from hurricanes while in Japanese territory Unique unit The samurai, a high combat strength unit that does not lose combat strength when damage and gains an extra 10 combat strength against anti-cavalry units.
Tags: Fun, Civ, Nineteen, Leaders
Apr. 30, 2019
I haven’t written one of my monthly album digests for over a year. The reasons mostly boil down to a lack of time and motivation but other factors include the changing way in which I listen to music. I bought more albums on vinyl and only a small proportion of those were recently released music. Meanwhile, the attractions of Spotify’s release radar proved too great to resist: it is a very convenient way to consume new music.
Tags: Album Digest, Music, Nineteen
Apr. 28, 2019
I managed to read all of the foundation novels since I wrote about the first one. In this post, I’ll write about the next two, which covers the original trilogy of ‘novels’ created from the original short stories. I’ve tried to avoid spoilers.
Foundation and Empire Foundation and Empire comprises two novella length stories. The first story (“The General”) picks up from shortly after where the last of the five short stories in Foundation left off.
Tags: Books, Science Fiction, Reading Projects, Isaac Asimov, Nineteen
Apr. 24, 2019
Ingrid and I love playing Civ VI. It’s a fine game that improves on previous versions, adding many layers and mechanics that mean you can vary your playing style. In fact, with the recent Gathering Storm expansion there’s now an incredible variety of ways to play. The 39 leaders to play with both reflect and provide the game’s increased complexity. Each leader has a slightly different mechanic that influences how you play the game, and of course the leaders you are up against also affect your game play.
Tags: Fun, Civ, Nineteen
Apr. 23, 2019
Back in 2012 I wrote a post listing my ambitions for the future. Well it’s the future now isn’t it? Almost. After all, I’m a whole new person now. Anyway it’s probably time to take stock. Have I achieved any of them? Have any of my ambitions changed? What’s replaced the things that I’ve decided not to worry about? What has come after the things I managed to do?
First off, here’s my justification for writing the list in the original post:
Tags: Ideas, Time Passing, Writing, Blogging, Nineteen, Update
Apr. 22, 2019
The A-Z of Cooking by Felicity Cloake This book is for more luxurious and experimental recipes. There are 26 chapters, one for an ingredient beginning with each letter of the alphabet, but you probably guessed that already. Ingrid and I have been (very) slowly working our way through the chapters, making a couple of recipes from each one - we’re currently up to G for Garlic.
My favourite so far has been the bread dumplings in parmesan broth because it gives us a use for our many many parmesan rinds.
Tags: Books, Recipe, Food, Nineteen
Nov. 21, 2018
Five years ago I set out at 3am for Heathrow airport to catch the early morning flight to Madrid. There I connected with a flight to Quito in Ecuador. The previous days and weeks had been fraught with worry about whether I was doing the right thing. Did I get the right vaccinations? Would I have enough money? Would I cope with all that travel? Was I coming back? What was I going to do with all my stuff?
Tags: Time Passing, Ideas, South America, Eighteen, Thirteen, Ecuador
Oct. 30, 2018
“The Overstory” by Richard Powers piqued my interest among the novels shortlisted for the Booker Prize. And once again the book that interested me most did not win. One year I will succeed in my prediction!
I found “The Overstory” an enjoyable read. Its accessibility surprised me. Often people view Booker nominated novels as stuffy or over-intellectual. This novel however is a genuine page turner, full of emotion and heartbreak, not to mention plenty of science and awe of the natural world.
Tags: Books, Richard Powers, Fiction, Eighteen
Oct. 14, 2018
For our first anniversary we decided to exhange books. What better way to celebrate a paper anniversary? Ingrid bought me the entire Foundation saga, most of which were reissued in fancy new paperback designs by Mike Topping in 2016. All save for 1993’s Forward The Foundation that is, but Ingrid got me a copy anyway. Hence, here is a new series of blog posts!
The Foundation novels detail a galactic empire in decline.
Tags: Books, Reading Projects, Isaac Asimov, Science Fiction, Eighteen
Sep. 17, 2018
“Hillbilly Elegy” is the autobiography of JD Vance, a self-professed hillbilly made good who graduated from Yale Law School. I read it because reviews touted it as illustrating the economic conditions leading to Brexit and the implausible election of Donald Trump. As I wrote in an earlier post, I’m keen to learn about why Brexit happened. However, I think this book fails to provide an explanation.
Nevertheless, I enjoyed the book.
Tags: Books, J. D. Vance, Non Fiction, Eighteen