Floris at games and play

Floris winning at Atlantis

Day 1/2 (Friday)

After stocking up and then going back deep under on Friday, followed by a couple of Grolsch pints at the Glasshouse, it was a matter of getting the train to Manchester in time to pick up Floris. On Thursday I had already checked him in, and a call home confirmed that he left there early enough to get to the airport with plenty of time to spare. When I made ready to go to the station, I started receiving messages from the man himself, asking where he should go at the airport; so I knew he was about to get into the plane while I was boarding the train, to meet up at a different point on the map, a hundred kilometers west from me and about five times that distance for him. Funny idea, though when I tried to communicate that feeling to Floris he didn't get it.

As I wrote before, the planned arrival time of the plane conspired with the scheduled train times to get us to York very late, so I had decided against renting a bike straight from the start - cycling on the wrong side of the road for the first time in your life well after midnight through the dark streets of a foreign town did not sound like the best way to start off. However, lady Fortuna does smile from time to time, for instance by making planes early. We comfortably made one train earlier than I had feared, which shaved almost an hour and a half off the travel time. There was even ample time to buy a bap at the station - no luxury since the arrangements at Schiphol had confused Floris sufficiently to prevent him from having anything to eat there.

On the way to York I, was filled in on Dr. Who. It turns out that Floris has developed a new enthousiasm and is now working his way through the episodes of the newest revival of that ancient television series (turned 50 just a few months ago). I knew next to nothing about this phenomenon, having just the vaguest idea of Startrek- or Battlestar Galactica-like space operas - and even those are pretty much a closed book to me. But no, Dr. Who is just this one guy travelling around through space and time in what I would call a telephone booth, though it's much bigger on the inside. There is a very confusing background story which I gather should not be taken too seriously.

Well, there was nothing for it but to watch an episode when we got to the apartment (having taken a taxi to get there from the station). I have to say that it was quite humourous and reasonably intelligent. Sustained by a portion of microwave popcorn we made it quite a late night after all.

Day 1 (Saturday)

Plans for this day had been drawn up and were followed almost to the letter, delayed by an hour or so because of my initiation the night before into the world of Time Lords and Daleks. Since Floris was not immediately ready to concede it was daytime, I went for a run first, then used the hob for the only thing I ever have used or will use if for: ham and eggs. After we devoured those, it was a matter of dropping Floris off at the bus stop, picking him up again at the station, renting a bike and taking it 200m down the road to the Bar Convent.

Camels on their way to Timbuktu

There had been an inverview last week with the games club founder on BBC radio, reason to think it might potentially be much more crowded today. I do not know the profile of the typical BBC radio listener, but at least +Mike Dodds, a colleague from the PLASMA group, turned out to have heard this (of have heard of it, not quite sure). Indeed there were some new faces when we arrived, and many more got in during the afternoon. Attendance records must have shattered, there were more people than chairs or room at the available tables. It certainly made for a very lively atmosphere.

Floris was on a roll, and successively won games of

1. Atlantis (not the game with the same name that I used to play at Fanaat 30 years ago but was never commercialised). This has a lot in common with Cartahena and indeed was developed by the same games designer: try to get your men from A to B, in this case over a path that was turning into water as we ran along it.
2. Timbuktu, which had us lead our camels through a robber-filled desert and keep hold of as much of our trade goods as possible.
3. 7 Wonders, which is one of the current favourites (ranked 15 on boardgamegeek) and has the advantage of allowing up to 7 players while remaining very playable.
4. Lancaster, set in medieval England, requiring us to gain power points through judicious placement of knights and squires in the various counties of England or the perpetual conflicts with France.

A varied set of games once more, three of them new to me, and I still haven't made a dent in the collection. You can see that geography and history are the main sources of inspiration for games designers.

We ended up by playtesting a short game designed by one of the guys at the club, a variation of Citadels (which in Dutch is for some strange reason marketed as Machiavelli). Fortunately Floris couldn't quite keep up his winning streak this far. After that it was panto time!

Aladdin's mom (also main producer of the show)

Over lunch we had been told that the Theatre Royal pantomime is the best one in England, by some objective measure - I think there was a BBC award. That set our expectations quite high, and it was certainly a great show. I think you have to have grown up into this tradition of extravagant silliness to really make judgement calls like "good, better, best" though. Having talked to some people about it and read some reviews it's become clear to me that there are not only local references that are hard to catch as an outsider, and commonly known protocols, for instance in the interaction with the audience, but also local traditions that reach from one pantomime to next year's and serve as a big wink to the many spectators for whom this is an annual event. In any case, even while missing out on most of that stuff, we had a great time, Floris as well as me.

Afterwards I had a bit of a fright as I couldn't find my bicycle key. To my relief it turned out to be still stuck in the lock... To celebrate and to show Floris a little bit of York's night life we went for one drink in the House of the Trembling Madness (which Elise will remember). He did a good job of being completely unimpressed and indifferent. Indeed, his only admitted current passion is Dr. Who. Fine, back in the flat we followed the good doctor through a couple more episodes.