#oneaday Day 61: All Mouth and No Trousers

It’s been a bit of a funny day. Went out to the gym earlier, all well and good, then came home to an email from said gym saying that they were closing at 4pm due to the potential for “protests” later in the evening.

I have, of course, heard about the wave of racist riots that have been breaking out in various places across the nation recently, but somehow you never think of it happening close to you. So I won’t lie, I was a little bit concerned — even if with our position on the outskirts of the city proper, we were unlikely to see anything particularly untoward happening.

Looking through the local newspaper’s coverage of the evening’s happenings, what appears to have happened is that several hundred anti-racism counter-protestors turned up in the town centre where the racists were rumoured to be gathering, and found themselves confronted with maybe four or five actual racists. So I think we’re probably okay here.

What I did find funny, however, was the comments section underneath the local paper’s reporting on the situation, which almost entirely looked like this:

A comment thread from the Daily Echo newspaper's website, consisting entirely of comments marked "This comment has been removed because it breaks our rules".

Looking at this — and scrolling down the many, many pages of it — really drove something home: while foul and odious people with noxious viewpoints most certainly do exist in this day and age, and that is something we as a society are going to have to deal with in some way, a significant proportion of them aren’t willing to actually go and do anything beyond typing some impotently angry comments into their computer.

This, of course, isn’t to downplay the very real and very serious situations that have occurred elsewhere, but I am not at all surprised to see that the rumours of riots breaking out all across the country turned out to be exaggeration and/or misinformation. I’ve seen far too many examples of “keyboard warriors” over the course of the last decade or so to believe that many of them will actually take to the streets and start real trouble — and that’s probably for the best.

Of course, you can still cause plenty of trouble from your computer chair through harassment, doxxing and suchlike — and believe me, having been on the receiving end of both, I know exactly how unpleasant and scary it can be — but at least these impotent, red-faced, gurning idiots aren’t out there breaking windows, setting fire to things and inflicting real injuries — or worse — on innocent people. So we should probably be thankful for small mercies.

I suspect the country as a whole isn’t out of this dangerous period it’s in, but at least the potential worry for this evening is seemingly over and done with for now. So I guess now we wait and see how long it takes for things to return to whatever passes for “normal” these days.

Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.

1943: Meat, Meat, Meat

Went out for dinner this evening as part of my continuing combined stag and birthday celebrations. We went to a Brazilian place in Southampton that I neglected to remember the name of, but which a quick Google reveals is called Fogo Gaucho.

Fogo Gaucho is a place that I’ve been curious to try for a while, as it sounded like an intriguing dining experience. It’s a place where you pay a flat rate for your meal (plus drinks) and then simply sit at your table while you have lots of different bits of meat brought to you. In between said carnivorousness, you have the opportunity to visit a buffet and fill up your plate with some other bits and pieces like veggies, potatoes, rice and Brazilian stew, but the highlight of the experience is undoubtedly the meat.

And it was a fine selection of meat, too, running the gamut from spicy chicken thighs to some wonderful cuts of beef steak and lamb. At the start of the evening, the serving staff ask how you prefer your meat (rare, medium and so forth) and remember it, cutting pieces of meat from giant, majestic skewers that are according to your liking and then inviting you to pull them off the skewer with a pair of thoughtfully provided tongs.

The meat was delicious. It was all seasoned in various ways — pork ribs had a tasty, sweet coating, for example, while one of the cuts of lamb had a garlicky flavour to it. The spicy chicken thighs, meanwhile, were, well, spicy, and the beef steak cuts were wonderful, with the varied cuts provided really allowing you to appreciate the difference between different types.

The most common criticism of the place is that the meat is all a bit salty, and I’d concur with that; I don’t know if that’s a hallmark of Brazilian-style cooking or if it’s a deliberate choice intended to get you having more drinks — drinks cost extra, remember — but either way, it didn’t bother me too much. It was a great meal — and great value if you make sure to go when you’re really hungry — and I’m pleased to have discovered this place. Now I have somewhere fun to take people who come to visit!

Now I’m very tired, so I will call it a night there. More games tomorrow!

1940: An Open Letter to Paul Glass, Slimming World Consultant, Upper Shirley

Hi Paul,

I was saddened to hear this evening of your impending departure from the Upper Shirley Slimming World groups, but completely understand your reasoning behind it and would like to thank you for your openness and honesty with the group. I’m sure everyone you’ve helped to date is very happy to support your decision, and will keep you in our hearts even after you start your new life supporting your new family.

I’m writing this as an open letter online for a few reasons. Firstly, and most selfishly, for vanity purposes: it’s a means of me celebrating my own achievements with Slimming World — something that would not have been possible without you, which I’ll talk more about in a moment. Secondly, I hope it might potentially provide inspiration to anyone who happens to be reading who has struggled with similar issues to me. Thirdly, it provides the opportunity for others to be able to chime in and voice their support and gratitude for what you have done for each and every one of us. Fourthly and finally, I’m not that good with saying this sort of thing out loud due to a certain degree of social anxiety; I am, however, and not to sound like I’m blowing my own trumpet too much, somewhat more skilled with the written word, so this seemed like the most appropriate medium through which to deliver this important message.

I have lost nearly three and a half stone since joining the group about four months ago. Those four months have flown by; in the meantime, I lost my job under fairly personally traumatic circumstances, have had to secure new work for myself, begin to establish myself as a local music teacher and figure out what on earth to do with my life — something that, at thirty-four years of age, I still don’t have a definitive answer for. Alongside that, I’m dealing with wedding preparation, other personal commitments, a friend who attempted suicide once and has threatened to do it again, and supporting my bride-to-be through a period of ill health. It has, in short, been a stressful, depressing and anxiety-inducing time.

In the past, my main means of coping with such a situation would have been to “treat myself” to something delicious, “because I deserved it” for dealing with difficult times. Unfortunately, as someone who suffers with depression and anxiety — conditions that I have recently started undergoing treatment for — I found myself relying on this means of emotional support more and more, which meant I piled the weight on and on, got bigger and bigger and heavier and heavier.

It had got to the point where I was embarrassed to look at older pictures of myself, because although I’ve been a fairly big fella for much of my adult life, I was conscious that I was far bigger than I’d ever been. It was starting to be physically uncomfortable. It was starting to affect my life, in that I was becoming increasingly conscious of silly little things like the fact that I was over the maximum recommended weight for a stepladder we have, that I was too fat to ride some of the rides at Alton Towers — one of the most humiliating experiences of my life — and that I was unable to participate in part of a friend’s stag weekend activities because I was too heavy for Segways and treetop “Go Ape” activities. I was disgusted to look at myself in the mirror, and I worried that my appearance disgusted others, too — though the only people who ever commented on it were random strangers who occasionally made hurtful comments as I passed by them in public, and thankfully this was a rare occurrence, perhaps largely due to the fact that I generally prefer to stay indoors!

I was starting to despair over it. I felt that, whatever I did, I couldn’t turn back this weight gain. I felt that I was doomed to continue gaining weight forever, and it’s not an exaggeration to say that I thought — knew? — it would eventually be the premature death of me. I tried various things. I tried fad diets on several occasions. I tried exercising on several occasions. I tried eating “better”, as I saw it. But nothing seemed to work; still the weight piled on, because still I had my weakness: my means of coping with difficult situations, and a life that seemed to attract said difficult situations.

I turned to Slimming World as a last resort. This was to be my last final push, my last attempt to do something about my weight, and if it didn’t work, I was going to do my very best to try and at least accept myself the way I was if I couldn’t change it. I chose Slimming World because my fiancee’s sister has had some noticeable success with it since she joined, and because the programme, as described online, sounded like it was both appealing and practical to fit in to my life as it is today. So I bit the bullet, took that step and showed up to the 7:30 Upper Shirley group for the first time. And, while there are many things in my life that I regret, taking that step over the threshold and joining the group for the first time will never be one of them.

Why? Because you helped me achieve something that I had started to believe was impossible for me. You inspired me to try my best, but to take my journey at my own pace without pressure. You even helped me to enjoy food again; food had become something that “just happened”, and it was pretty rare I found myself genuinely enjoying something, because it was often followed by guilt over whether I should have picked something “better” for me, or just passed altogether.

The wonderful support of the 7:30 Upper Shirley group counts for something, too, of course, as I’m sure you’d be the first to say. But your contribution to how much better I feel — both physically and emotionally — cannot be understated, and I will be forever grateful for you starting me on this path, as I’m sure I will be grateful for P’s support as she helps us all continue on our journeys towards becoming the people we want to be.

My journey may have been proceeding faster than I ever dreamed possible, but I still have a long way to go. Rather than this being a scary, demoralising concept, however, you have helped me rise to the challenge and feel confident that, with time, dedication, effort and the support of everyone around me, that I really can achieve anything.

Thank you, Paul, from the bottom of my heart, and I wish you the very best of luck in your future endeavours. The Upper Shirley groups will miss you greatly.

Pete Davison

1866: Going Out, and the Perils Thereof

I’m writing this from our restaurant table. We’re right near the open kitchen and the food smells amazing. My mouth is watering just thinking about eating it, particularly as it’s something a little unusual and different from our norm: it’s Caribbean food, which I have had before, but not for quite some time, and it’s not a cuisine I’d say I know well.

Unfortunately, it’s also 10.30pm and we’ve been here since 8pm. We’ve only just sat down, only just ordered, and God knows how long it will take for the food to actually arrive at our table. This has, as you can probably imagine, soured the experience a little.

I should have seen it coming, of course. It’s Friday night in the city centre, and that was a busy time back when I was at university. Over the last few years in particular, the city centre has undergone extensive regeneration — the restaurant we’re currently sitting in is part of one of these new and restored buildings. With new and shiny buildings — and an expanding student population at both of the two city’s universities — come hordes of people, of course. But I hadn’t realised until now quite how ridiculously busy it gets in town.

This is probably nothing new to those of you who live in busy, bustling cities around the globe. But for me it’s quite surprising. Southampton never felt like a particularly big deal, and Going Out used to be something you could do on a whim. It was often quite enjoyable to do so — friends and I would often take impromptu trips to local watering holes like Lennons and Kaos, and we’d always be able to get in and have a good time.

Not any more. Going Out appears to have become something that needs to be planned well in advance, that involves lots of standing around waiting, and that, frankly, just isn’t particularly fun any more.

Perhaps it’s my age. Perhaps it’s the fact I’ve practically been a hikikomori for the past few years (and am largely comfortable with this). Or perhaps it’s the pitiful organisation of this place that saw us waiting for more than two hours to sit down, let alone eat. Whatever it is, I don’t count on myself doing it much more in the future, unless the occasion is very special indeed.

On the plus side, however, between writing the last paragraph and this one I’ve eaten a plateful of whitebait for the first time in about 20 years, and it was every bit as delicious as I remember. So at least the food is good. Worth the wait? Questionable, but at least the tedious and rubbish part of the evening is over.

1854: Next Steps

I bought a piano today. This is not something I thought I’d ever be able to do, but it turns out if you look around a bit, you can actually get a decent (albeit somewhat aged) piano for a very reasonable price.

In other words, if you eschew regular music shops and instead go for a more “direct” approach, you’ll often find much better deals.

I acquired my new piano (which arrives on Wednesday) from a local business called Bryant Pianos. I stumbled across this site during my search for a place to acquire a piano the other day, and decided to pay them a visit this weekend. Bryant Pianos is, it turns out, a business run from home by the eponymous Mr Bryant, who has a workshop full of pianos that he acquires, restores, repairs and then sells on. (Sometimes he acquires, strips them for parts and then sends them off to the great piano graveyard, too.) He’s also a piano tuner — a useful person to know when you have a piano.

Anyway, I made an appointment to pay him a visit, and we did so today. I took a couple of bits of sheet music with me — Chopin’s Preludes and Liszt’s Consolations, if you were curious — and tried a few out. I don’t know an awful lot about different piano makes, to be honest, aside from the fact that the grand piano I grew up with — and which still occupies my parents’ living room — was a good (and expensive!) make because it was a Steinway. I was familiar with a few other makes but not in any great depth; I’d heard of (and probably, at some point, played) Knights, Bechsteins, Rogers(es), Challens and various others, and also knew that new Yamahas were both very nice and well out of my price range for the moment. Bryant didn’t offer any Yamahas, but he had the others, so I gave them a go.

The Rogers was the oldest piano there, hailing from 1906. It had a really nice, rich, full tone and, apparently, weighed an absolute ton, being a distinctly old-school upright piano. Its action was reasonably nice, though it proved a little difficult to control at times, particularly when playing more delicate phrases.

The Challen looked nice — somewhat “school piano-y” in a 70s sort of way — but had a rather clangy timbre that caused me to discount it quite quickly. The action was nice, but it wasn’t the nicest piano there, nor was it the cheapest.

The Knight hailed from the late ’40s and had quite a nice sound, but a slightly rickety action that, a little like the Rogers, made it difficult to control at times. It’s something I could have probably learned to live with, but while there was the choice there, I didn’t see any point in “settling” for something that wasn’t quite right.

The Bechstein, which was the one I ended up going for, had a good sound and a pleasing action. It wasn’t quite as full and rich as the Rogers, but it still sounded good, and, perhaps more importantly, it felt pleasant to play. I went back and tried the others a few times just to make sure, but felt confident that the Bechstein would be more than adequate for my needs. Bryant did say that due to its age — it’s from the ’20s — it probably wouldn’t have a huge lifespan, hence the fact it was one of the cheaper instruments in his workshop, but that it would be fine for a while yet. That’s fine with me; I need something to get started with, then if (when?) the money starts rolling in I can consider upgrading to a newer model. I’d very much like one of those shiny black Yamahas, but I can’t help but feel that’s a while off yet!

I’m looking forward to having a piano in the house again. I’ve had my electric piano for several years now, but it’s just not the same; sitting and playing it on a wobbly keyboard stand with an amplifier of questionable quality spitting and popping at me is all very well and good, but even the small amount of “setup time” required to get that going was enough to make me not play nearly as often as I should. Having a piano at which I can just sit down and play should hopefully change that; I should play more, and, all being well, it’ll form at least part of my 375th career change in my lifetime. So that’s nice.

1842: Soton’s Trip

Playing Akiba’s Trip as I have been for the past few days, I’m reminded of something I wrote about a while back: the fact that certain places in the world manage to become iconic, while others simply… exist.

Akihabara is a popular setting for a lot of visual novels, games and anime because it’s directly relevant to those who are engaging with the medium in question. Akihabara is the spiritual home of Japanese games, anime, manga and all other aspects of moe and otaku culture. It perhaps makes sense to set a Japanese adventure-role-playing-beat-’em-up-type-thing (Akiba’s Trip) there, much as it makes sense to set a visual novel about the Internet, urban legends and all manner of science fictiony goodness (Steins;Gate).

But what about other places? Big American cities get a lot of love — New York in particular, but we’ve also seen places like Chicago and San Francisco come up a few times. If a game ends up being (at least partially) set in England, it’ll inevitably be in London, of course. But, as I’m fond of telling visitors to this fair isle (people I know, obviously; I don’t just sit at the airport arrivals line and tell foreign strangers they should go outside the M25 once in a while), there’s a lot going on in other places.

That, of course, got me thinking what something like Akiba’s Trip might be like were it set in, say, sunny Southampton instead of Akihabara. Southampton is not, of course, quite the same sort of otaku Mecca as Akihabara, but there are plenty of nerdy hangouts, and the historical side of the city could make for some interesting situations.

The main street of Southampton is long and wide; ideal for large-scale battles against armies of Synthisters. It often features market stalls just ripe for flinging an assailant through in dramatic fashion, and plenty of opportunities for environmental attacks such as making inventive use of a slushie machine or a curry hotplate. Its centrepiece is the shopping centre WestQuay, which is large and interesting enough to form a good interior setting: there are plenty of shops to go in, many of which sell clothes (acquiring various outlandish — and not-so-outlandish — outfits is a key part of Akiba’s Trip) and the multiple levels would seem ripe for some Resident Evil-style environmental puzzles as ways up and down are blocked off in various ways, and you’re forced to brave the horrors of, say, John Lewis in order to make your way down into the depths of the underground car park where otherworldly horrors await you.

All right, yes, I have let my imagination run away with itself a little bit here — and I must confess, any time I’ve been into town on a Saturday I have fantasised on more than one occasion about slamming someone into a slushie machine, though never, I might add, acted on it — but it just goes to show, really, that you can make pretty much anywhere into an interesting setting to do something in. So why do we always find ourselves taken back to the same places over and over again?

Perhaps it’s the fact that they’re universally recognisable. Perhaps it’s the aforementioned relevancy angle. Or perhaps it’s just laziness.

1728: Junk Shop

It’s always pleasant to find a new “weird shop” in which to spend some of your hard-earned money. We’ve all become so used to seeking out the chain stores to — in most cases, anyway — get the best deals that finding a legitimate local business that does something altogether unique is both a rarity and a pleasure.

The shop I “discovered” today is one I’ve walked past several times and always meant to have a look in, but never got around to it. If I’m honest, I can’t remember its name at all, but it’s in the Marlands shopping centre in Southampton (for those who don’t know Southampton, this is the smaller of the two shopping centres in the city centre, populated by a peculiar combination of small local stores and profitable chains like CEX, Disney Store and, err, Poundland) and is on the left in the “plaza” area, just after you wander past places like F. Hinds and Claire’s Accessories.

I believe it describes itself as an “Oriental goods” store, which essentially means, as you might expect, that it sells a variety of stuff from the Far East. Inside the store there’s a very odd mix of things ranging from cosplay to bags (I bought a Hatsune Miku bag today, which should be a more appropriate receptacle for all my Stuff than the very nice but slightly impractical laptop bag I’m currently improvising with) via collectible figures, hand-painted rice bowls, kimonos and some random tourist tat like fridge magnets.

It is, in short, the sort of shop I can see myself spending a fair amount of money in. Whether or not I actually will spend any more money in there remains to be seen, but it’s certainly a cool little place that I will probably now take any visitors who might enjoy that sort of thing to go and see.

It reminds me a little of a shop in the now-closed Bargate Shopping Centre here in Southampton, which was called something like Smells, Bells and Doo-Dahs. This, too, was a Far East-inspired store, though it didn’t, as I recall, sell much in the way of anime bits and pieces. Instead, it stocked, once again, a bizarre combination of items, ranging from various different incense scents to an impressively intimidating collection of actual (albeit blunt) swords of both Eastern and Western origin. I don’t think I ever bought anything there, but it was a landmark sort of place; I was comforted by its presence, and always enjoyed just having a browse, even if nothing ever convinced me that I really needed it.

The Bargate Centre in general was good for that, actually; I was sad to see it finally close after dying a very long and drawn-out death over the course of the last few years. Pop into Bargate in its prime (which was during my time at university, so between 1999 and 2002 or so) and you could check out an impressively stocked non-chain video games store, buy some unusual and stylish clothing, get a tattoo or piercing, purchase some bondage gear and dildos, start a sock collection actually worth bragging about and then cap off your visit with a trip to Sega World, an actual bona-fide coin-op arcade, boasting a selection of cool games both old and new. It was tragic to see these things disappear one by one, but either their relevance diminished over time, or they were simply destroyed by the cutthroat nature of modern high-street business.

I’m glad a few places like the shop I can’t remember the name of still exist, though; it makes me happy to think of people eking out a living from selling the strangest things, and while places like that stock interesting and fun things I might want to buy, I’m more than happy to support them.

1673: Customer Service Done Right

The Internet is full of people bitching and complaining about poor service — usually with a pointed passive-aggressive (or just outright aggressive) tweet — “Hey, @virginmedia, our service has been down for 6 hours, you bunch of fucking assholes”, that sort of thing — so I feel it’s important to mention and celebrate the places that do things right and provide a good experience for the customer.

Today, I bit the bullet and went to the “fat man’s clothes shop” here in Southampton. Dubbed High and Mighty (a polite way of saying “Tall or Fat”), I originally thought this place was a small, local establishment but have since discovered it’s a nationwide chain. Anyway, regardless of how big it is (no pun intended), I’d never actually been in there, but a cursory examination of their website the other day revealed that it might be a good place to go to get myself a new suit. I need a new suit, you see, because while the one I have technically fits, it’s designed in such a way — “slim fit”, I believe is the term, an altogether unfortunate use of the word “slim” when applied to jackets and trousers of this size — that it’s almost impossible to move your arms, legs and shoulders more than a few centimetres in any direction, and things like bending over to tie up shoelaces are particularly troublesome.

So I decided to go along and get a new suit. Despite being out of work for a bit, a pleasant windfall a while back allowed me to get a new TV (bought almost immediately before I lost my job, as Sod’s Law tends to go), a new car, today’s suit and a few miscellaneous sundries while still having some left over for a rainy day. As such, I figured it was worth spending the additional money on something that would actually fit and — hopefully, anyway — look something akin to “nice” atop my horrible, fat-ass frame. (I do not like my body, if that was not already clear.) Even if it transpires that I don’t need to wear a suit for my new job on a daily basis, I figure it certainly doesn’t hurt to look presentable on the first day at least, and there are also things like weddings and stuff coming up that I’ll need a suit for, so it’s worth having anyway.

So where does the customer service come in? Well, I wandered into the aforementioned shop and was immediately greeted by the sole inhabitant, who, it turns out, was the assistant manager, manning the shop on a Monday lunchtime. He politely asked me if he could help me with anything — without being pushy — and, after a moment of considering saying that I was just looking, I instead decided to say that I was looking for a suit, and could he help me out?

“Of course!” he said enthusiastically, coming out from behind the counter. He asked me what sort of style I was looking for — I didn’t really know, but I wanted it for work and possible other occasions, so he suggested something plain and neutral — and what my sizes were. I didn’t really know, so he took a look at me, estimated my chest size (accurately) and measured my waist before giving me a few jackets to try on. I found one I liked, but the sleeves were too long, so he pinned them back to give me an idea of what they’d look like with adjustments. Then he found me some trousers, which I took into the changing rooms to try on, and he provided me with a pair of shoes to try with them for a better idea of how they’d fit with smart shoes on rather than the trainers I was wearing. Eventually I emerged with a pair of trousers that were comfortable, that fit and that allowed for freedom of movement, and paired them with one of the jackets I’d tried earlier. Then I happily handed over £250 — more than I think I’ve ever paid for clothes in my life — and agreed to come back when the adjustments had been made, which should be later this week.

All through my time in the store, I felt comfortable and at ease, which is something I don’t feel at all when shopping in stores full of “normal” size clothes, which often don’t quite go big enough for me. (Even were I to shed my gut, I’m still quite broad-shouldered anyway, too.) I felt like my size was just that — a size — rather than something abnormal and disgusting. (I still feel that about myself in private, but it was nice to be in an environment where other people didn’t treat me that way.) I walked away feeling happy with my purchase, and keen to return to the shop the next time I needed some decent clothes in an appropriate size for me.

That’s exemplary customer service, and how to get a glowing recommendation from me. Nice one, High and Mighty; I’ll be back.

1231: On Your Doorstep

Something sprang to mind for me and Andie while we were over in Toronto. Our friend Mark was taking us out for lunch to an intriguing little Vietnamese place called Banh Mi Boys that served all manner of interesting sandwiches and meat buns and the like, and we suddenly realised that were the roles reversed, there weren’t all that many interesting places we’d be able to take visitors to our fair(ish) city of Southampton.

This evening, then, we went out in an attempt to start rectifying this situation just so, on the off-chance that friends from abroad do come and visit, we’d have somewhere more interesting that Burger King or a Wetherspoons to take them.

We actually visited two different establishments this evening. The first of these was La Cantina (or just Cantina as it appears to be known now) in the Bedford Place area of the city, just on the outskirts of the city centre. This is a Mexican place that I’d heard good things about in the past, but had somehow never made it to. They serve you standard Mexican platters like nachos, burritos and whatnot, but they also do tapas servings of tacos and various other tortilla-based dishes whose names I’ve forgotten. Andie and I had a sharing platter of nachos with beef mole and two of these tapas dishes each, and that was plenty of food for the pair of us.

It was some tasty food, and a good level of spice — just enough to get you sweating a bit, but not so much that your tongue goes completely numb and you can no longer actually taste what it is you’re eating. The beef mole had a bit of a kick, though I suspect this came from the seasoning of the meat rather than the slices of chili pepper that were in it, which actually turned out to be pleasantly mild-ish.

After dinner, we decided to drop into a brand new establishment that has just moved in almost next door to Cantina — Tutti’s Gelato. This is, to my knowledge, the second dedicated gelato shop that has opened in Southampton — the first being Sprinkles in “student central” area Portswood.

Tutti’s offers a wide variety of gelato flavours, available either as scoops in a cone or little bowl, or as part of a bigger dessert. Said bigger desserts — crepes, waffles, sundaes — all look like they’ll probably give you a heart attack, but I most definitely intend to give them a try at some point in the near future, perhaps when I haven’t filled myself up with Mexican food beforehand.

My only real criticism of Tutti’s — which was clean, looked good, served delicious desserts and had some comfortable seating — was that their menu was riddled with spelling and punctuation errors, and wasn’t even consistent about the mistakes they made. If you can correctly pluralise “crepe” into “crepes”, then why the fuck did you put an apostrophe in the word “sundaes”? And don’t even get me started on how they spelled “raspberries” (hint: it involved an apostrophe, and did not involve the correct “-ies” ending.)

This aside, though — which, after all, isn’t really the most important thing (yes, I winced a bit writing that, but it is true) — Tutti’s was a great place to go, and I’ve been all for the “late night dessert” thing ever since I was taken out to a shop that specialised in chocolate-based desserts in New York several years ago. (I can’t remember the name, but by God it was amazing. They had a chocolate pizza that looked like instant diabetes.)

Anyway, my rambling point in all this is simply that now, if someone comes to visit, I have two places I can take them. And hopefully we’ll discover some more in the near future.

1220: An Open Invitation to My Friends in the Southampton Area (and Anyone Who Can Get to Southampton Relatively Easily)

Hello! This is a curiously specific post, I know, but looking at my frankly quite impressive board game collection, I realise that I’m keen to share it with more people than I currently do. Don’t get me wrong, I greatly enjoy playing with our regular board game group — this very weekend we’re taking a trip away to do nothing but play board games for several days — but as a group we have specific tastes that means certain games get to the table more often than others, and certain other games rarely get to the table at all. Everyone has different tastes, of course, so it would be good to try out these games on a selection of people — plus it’ll give me some practice in teaching them to people, as well as the opportunity to socialise with people a bit more than I do currently. (Part of the reason I wanted to move back to Southampton, of course, was so I could see my friends more often — something which I could probably do more of now I’m here!)

What I thought I’d do, then, is outline the games in my collection in one or two sentences each rather than detailed writeups, then if any sound interesting or appealing to you, dear Southampton-based friend, you can let me know and we can arrange an evening of gaming good times. Sound good? Of course it does. Let us begin, then.

Here’s what I have to offer you:

Advanced Heroquest: More complex version of Hero Quest. Explore dungeons, fight monsters, solve puzzles. Best played as a long-term campaign in which your characters grow in strength over time.

Agricola: A game in which you play a medieval German farmer. By carefully assigning your family members to perform various activities, you must build up your farm to be as successful and profitable as possible while ensuring you can still feed everyone. You will probably beat me at this.

Arkham Horror: A long, cooperative game in which everyone teams up to battle one of the Old Ones from H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos. Relatively complex, but a lot of fun — particularly if you enjoy some light role-playing.

Ascension: A “deckbuilding” card game in which you gradually acquire more and more cards which can be played to either buy further cards or defeat monster cards to score points. Simple to learn, quick to play but a surprising amount of depth.

Blokus: A simple, abstract game in which you have a selection of oddly-shaped Tetris-style pieces and must arrange them so that they only touch corners. Meanwhile, your opponents are doing the same, and whoever uses the most of their pieces by the time no-one else can put a piece down wins. Available in four- and two-player formats.

Catan: A building and trading game in which three or four players compete to settle an island. Acquire resources, trade with your opponents and attempt to be the first to score ten points. I also have the Seafarers expansion, which adds a few extra mechanics and more variety.

Catan Card Game: A two-player card game loosely based on Catan in which players compete to build the best kingdom before their opponent does.

Carcassonne: A simple to understand but highly competitive tile-laying game in which players compete to control the most areas of French countryside by the time all the tiles have been laid.

Cards Against Humanity: One of the best “icebreaker” games I’ve ever seen — in Cards Against Humanity, one player asks a question or provides a “fill-in-the-blank” phrase from a black card, while all other players submit their answers using white cards with various words and phrases printed on them. The answers are then jumbled up, and the one who asked the question chooses their favourite, who then scores points.

Chess: It’s chess.

Chez Cthulhu: A gang of Old One-worshipping slackers must make use of their items and spare time in order to gain as much “Slack” as possible without going mad… or while going as mad as possible.

Cleopatra and the Society of Architects: A beautifully-designed game in which you collect various cards in order to construct Cleopatra’s palace. Similar in many ways to Ticket to Ride — see later.

Cranium Cards: I’m yet to play this, but it looks like a fun party game. Lots of vaguely cerebral, creative and improvisational challenges.

Defender: A board game adaptation of the ’80s arcade game. Yes, really. Not really the best game in the world, but I keep it around for novelty value.

Descent: Journeys in the Dark: While resembling a “dungeon crawler” (a la Advanced Heroquest above), Descent is actually more of a team-based strategy battle game. A team of “hero” players, each controlling one unique character each, take on the forces of the Evil Overlord player to complete various scenarios which can optionally be linked together into a story-based campaign.

Dixit: A simple game about creative descriptions, knowing your friends and bluffing. Each player is dealt a hand of unique cards with pictures on them. The player who is currently the “storyteller” secretly chooses a card and describes it with a word, phrase or sentence. Everyone else then picks a card from their hand they think relates to the sentence, then the storyteller shuffles and reveals them. Player then vote on which one they think the storyteller’s card was, with points being scored according to various criteria.

Dominion: A card game somewhat similar to Ascension in that you gradually build up a deck of cards as you play, but where instead of fighting monsters you are attempting to build up a kingdom. A lot of variety due to the fact the game doesn’t use all its cards in a single play — instead, a random selection is chosen for each session.

Dungeons and Dragons Adventures: The Legend of Drizzt: A simple cooperative dungeon crawler loosely based on the popular Dungeons and Dragons role-playing system. This is strictly focused on exploring dungeons and battling monsters rather than role-playing, however, and makes use of an easy to understand system that is quick to play.

DungeonQuest: A heavily-random, brutally difficult game in which four players compete to make it to the dragon’s lair at the centre of the board, nick as much treasure as possible then escape without dying in the process. Harder than it sounds. Not very strategic, but amusingly fun.

Flash Point: A cooperative game in which players control a team of firefighters as they attempt to rescue survivors from a burning building. Each player has their own special abilities, so collaboration and cooperation is a must.

Fluxx: A card game whose rules change as you play.

Gold Thief: A simple card game in which you use various “character cards” to add or remove to your personal stash of gold coins in an attempt to have the specific amount requests on a “goal card” at the start of your turn.

Guildhall: A simple, quick card game in which you must collect “sets” of cards with the same job on them in order to purchase cards with points on them. Each card has its own special ability that becomes more effective the more copies of it you have in your “Guildhall”.

Hero Quest: Super-simple dungeon crawler with a wide variety of quests that can either be played as one-offs or as a longer campaign.

King of Tokyo: A very silly dice game in which you play one of several B-movie-style monsters as they attempt to take over Tokyo. Shouting “RRAAARRGH” while playing is optional, but encouraged.

Last Night on Earth: A survival horror game in which one team of players controls the survivors in a small American town, while the other controls the zombies as they attempt to eat their brains. Several different scenarios give this one a good amount of variety.

Lord of the Fries: You are a zombie that runs a fast-food restaurant. Compete against your friends to be the first to create various dishes and score points.

Monopoly Deal: How do you make Monopoly good? Ditch all the rules, pieces and board and turn it into a card game with lots of screwing each other over. Simple, quick and fun.

Munchkin: A humorous card game based on the “kill enemies and take their stuff” formula of most dungeon crawler games. Not to be taken seriously.

Mystery of the Abbey: Cluedo for grownups. Taking on the role of a monk in the titular abbey, you must use your deductive skills to determine who the murderer is while going about your usual monkly duties.

Mystery Express: It’s Murder on the Orient Express: The Game. To be honest, I am yet to play a complete game of this, so I wouldn’t mind busting it out with some people who would like to learn it.

Pandemic: A cooperative game in which players team up to battle four virulent diseases that are taking over the globe. Like Flash Point, each player has their own unique special ability to contribute to the team’s effort as a whole.

Pit: A game in which you shout at each other in order to trade cards and attempt to be the first to collect a set.

Risk: It’s Risk.

Scrabble Dash: A simple word game in which you must be the first to lay down letter cards from your hand to make a word that meets the requirements.

Smash Up: A simple and hilarious card game in which you combine two “factions” together to make a single deck of cards, then use these factions’ abilities to smash the crap out of various bases and score points. The factions include zombies, pirates, ninjas, robots, fairies, dinosaurs, aliens and wizards. So yes, you can be robot pirates. Or dinosaur wizards. Or ninja fairies.

Shadows over Camelot: A cooperative game with a twist: one of the Knights of the Round Table might be a traitor secretly scheming to undermine the others’ hard work questing around the realm.

Space Crusade: The classic Games Workshop game in which up to three Space Marine players enter an alien spacecraft in an attempt to take down the forces of the Alien player and complete a specific objective.

StarCraft: The Board Game: A board game adaptation of the popular computer game that actually has relatively little in common with its source material save for the factions and units. In StarCraft, you’re competing against your opponents for control of the galaxy and its precious resources while attempting to wipe your rivals out.

Ticket to Ride: A fun, easy to understand game in which you collect sets of coloured cards in order to claim train routes across America and score points. Bonus points at the end if you complete specific routes on cards handed to you at the outset; penalty points if you don’t complete them.

Uno: Simple card game, popular with naked people on Xbox Live.

Warhammer Quest: Variant on Advanced Heroquest and its ilk. Warhammer Quest is quite heavily randomised, but a lot of fun and friendly to both individual sessions and ongoing campaigns.

Whack a Catgirl: An anime-themed card game in which you lure an adorable catgirl over to you with various “bait” items, then whack her over the head with other amusing items to score points.