The Fat One

I'm in Bologna. The Fat One. The Red One. The Learned One. The One with Too Many Nicknames. It's a right hotchpotch of a city with its old and its towers and its porticoes. I like it.

Porticoes, hey. They're a thing. In Bologna if you can't travel there by portico then it's not worth going.
- But the Basilica of the Virgin of St Luke is one of the big attractions and that's 4km outside the city.
- Yeah it is. And yeah you can get there by portico.
Although it does beg the question of when a portico stops being a portico and becomes a what? A portico plus? A colonnade? An arcade? My limited architectural knowledge just can't answer that question.

Whilst we're sort of on the subject of the Virgin of St Luke. Is it bad that I'm somewhat skeptical about its authenticity? You've got to admire the brazenicity (let's all coin new words) of whoever sold that eight hundred years ago.

I've eaten bolognaise. When in Rome and all that... It tasted of bolognaise, which I guess shouldn't be a surprise.

And now it's Bologna Jazz Festival, so I'm off to snap my fingers. Or eat something carby. Or both.

One Long Strip Mall

I try not to negatively generalise about entire nations based on a few hours' experience, but San Marino is a bit rubbish. It's just a strip mall with a castle hat.

Now don't get me wrong "citte" del San Marino is mighty pretty with its medieval empty streets and its castles and its massive views but there doesn't seem to be anything else to do. To quote Shakespeare: a cable car doth not a country make.

I'm staying in Borgo Maggiore, which is just down the hill from the (air bunnies) city. I'd call it San Marino's second "city" but it's really only its second highest. It is, however, a prime example of the strip mall mentality - the only way I can get anywhere is by walking along a dual carriageway. It's like the whole country is set up for car drivers only. Like UAE but with trees.

All that aside, any country with a vampire museum can't be all bad.

Party Like It's 1994

Do you remember S*M*A*S*H? What about These Animal Men? What, were you not reading the NME in 1994?

Seems like there were a few people that were.  One of them has made a film about them called Flawed is Beautiful and to launch it he got both bands to play one of those gig things.

Now I don't know how much of it was nostalgia, of forgetting that I wasn't a teenager any more or how much of it was that These Animal Men are just an amazing live band, but that gig was absolutely phenomenal.

Surfing the Geekgeist

Oops, it appears that I'm doing something that's sort of hip.  Accidentally of course.

Turns out that over the last couple of years there's been a growing movement of people that aren't using computers for gaming, preferring instead actual interaction and doing table top gaming - you know? Boardgames. But like for grown ups. It seems boardgames have gone through a bit of a revolution over the last twenty years, with a lot more emphasis on strategy rather than luck.  

About a year ago our pubquiz team retired and we invested our meagre winnings into Settlers of Catan, since then we've geeked out somewhat - only it turns out we were actually being cool. In an effort to make myself less cool, I figured I should write about the boardgames - sorry TTGs - that we've been dabbling in.

Settlers of Catan / Ticket to Ride / Carcassonne
These are the big three gateway games, the ones that get you hooked.  Plenty of People have written plenty of words about them. You've probably played them already. All three are ace, now let's move on.

Pandemic
So this game you don't play against other people, you play with other people against the game. You know, like in Knightmare, or the Crystal Maze. Only on a table top. It is frustratingly tough.

Tikal
The first time I played Tikal it was super fun. I would talk concept but the make believe / role play aspect makes my skin crawl a little bit; let's say it's like Indiana Jones if Indiana Jones was a centimetre high wooden cylinder and leave it at that.  The next time I played it just seemed really slow - whilst most of the other games here are turn based, you will still be doing things on other people's turns, here you can nap.

Machi Koro
However you describe it, it is going to sound like Monopoly. It isn't like Monopoly. Monopoly is long, slow and rubbish; this is short, fast and great.

Puerto Rico
So this is like a next level game.  I felt like I should have taken A-Level economics before playing this. Or maybe instead of playing this. It's gone back on the shelf until I've sunk further into the tabletop mire.

So what next, any recommendations gratefully received.

Faggots and Peas

It seems that every time I go to Cardiff I walk away from any obvious signs of life to go to a beard-achingly-hip pop-up in an industrial premises. Last time it was Pyramid Scheme, a literary event in a print studio. This time it was Brewfest, the trendiest beer festival that I've ever been to.

In my head beer festivals are about barrels. You find a space - be it a marquee, a corner of a pub, a church or a school hall - and you fill it with barrels. Loads of them. In massive horizontal piles. Then you get served beer by a guy in a Camra poloshirt. This wasn't like that. This made a warehouse into a career fair for microbreweries, only with way more decor.

I'm staying in Pontypridd which was absolutely buzzing as the Lido has reopened. Had lunch in Ponty Market - the café advertised itself as "The Place for Faggots and Peas" which I kinda wanted to take a picture of but worried that that would make me look like a class tourist so figured that I would blog about it instead. I'm an idiot.

You Can't Go Wrong With a Footwear Song

I'm at the Edinburgh Fringe again. This time I saw this:

Messrs Brimson and Wilson - Shamefully I really quite enjoyed this. Two quasi-music-hall, lowest-common-denominator comedians telling averagely funny jokes before going "weird fringe" and doing a song about inflatable shoes.

Sofie Hagen - Warm and funny. The best thing I saw on Day 1.

Joel Dommett - thoroughly enjoyable, however the structure of the show was so similar to Sophie Hagen's that you couldn't help but compare the two.

Simon Slack - He reminded me of someone I went to school with so my highlight of the set was imagining that someone who once had a very promising future was now dancing in their pants in the back room of a club for coppers. Turns out it's not him. Sadtimes.

Full Scottish at Ryan's Bar - not strictly speaking an act, but worth sharing. 

The Walking Dead - more a lecture about the impending zombie apocalypse than a comedy show.

Kane and Abel - not been to a magic show in years.

Ben Clover - Ben's a mate so obviously this was great.

Russell Hicks - This guy managed to do a funny hour's set with essentially no material. Day 2's highlight.

Simon Munnery's fylmshow - he's one of those comedian's comedians that I've been meaning to see for years. Not certain that I wholly got him. He had two guests (whose names I missed), the first one may have been Njambi McGrath. It might not but she was really good.

Alternative Comedy Memorial Service - I found this mighty enjoyable. However I got the impression that I was missing out on a whole heap of injokes.

Mickey Scharma - We were aiming finishing with Liam Williams, but didn't realise there was a queue. Ended up here instead. Not quite the big big bang finale that we had planned.

"Like You, but Good"

Standon Calling time again.  Once again I saw virtually nothing, well done me. 

This year's highlights: 

Ezra Furman - this is the kind of nonsense I've always loved. I'm unsure how he has managed to release three albums before he's dented my awareness.

Malory Torr - a pretty voice singing pretty country songs - what's not to like? 

DJ Yoda - forty five minutes of euphoric pop hiphop mash up.

Poetry Goes Pop - a high-brow / low-brow panel show that didn't always work, but when it did it worked super well. Consequently I've had the Jabberwocky to the tune of Wrecking Ball stuck in my head for two days. 

Piggy Platter - I can't remember the name of the foodstall that sold this - Maple pork, maybe. It was tasty and massive and frankly set a new precedent for festival food which will probably never be superseded.