Sulphate and the City

In Memoriam

s0b — Tue, 14 Feb 2017 08:27:16 GMT

Victoria Jane Ashton

Died February 14th, so many years ago

The KLF - What Time is Love

s0b — Mon, 02 Jan 2017 16:32:06 GMT

Cale Leth has posted just one video to Vimeo. They posted it yesterday morning.

Interestingly I was thinking a lot about the JAMS as I was driving around yesterday morning. They were musically significant.

I'd heard Doctorin' The Tardis back when MTV used to play music videos; I was busy being an anarchist and squatting in Amsterdam above a coffee shop called Siberie. It is still there - the coffee shop - the first time I walked in there the person asked if I wanted 'tea' and I assumed it was a euphemism. It wasn't. I had a lovely cup of jasmine tea and then they came up with a box of weed. There were no printed menus back then, and it cost around 10 guilders for a bag of grass.

Who knows. It was a long time ago. Wasted youth. Forgotten youth. I'd not shaved off the sides of my hair back then; I think it was summer time. That first Dutch holiday.

The first time I heard the KLF was the tail end of '88. The college alternative society had brought in a couple of big name club DJs (Jonathan and Eko from Feet First) to play Freshers Week. One of them - I don't know which is which any more - dropped an early pressing of "What Time is Love?" and the place went off. I mean it was crazy. The goths and the punks and the ravers bouncing off the black painted walls of the Biko Bar. When arms in the air met slamdancing and nobody knew which way was up.

I think it is the first time I ever heard a dance floor demand a song again. They didn't shout "rewind" (wrong subculture) but rather mobbed the DJ booth and demanded it. A sea of black and hairspray; emaciated dance floor sharks baying for beats. I was one of them. Held aloft by the press of leather and lace I was practically through the hatch into the DJ booth. The DJ held up the record cover, either to hold the press of bodies at bay, or to hide from the vicious kiss that threatened to devour him. It is still clear in my mind. A white label in a white record sleeve with "What Time is Love?" written on it with a marker pen.

What time indeed?

"The final chapter, prophetic, poetic
When I'm done, this calls for anesthetic
Get to, step to, let an MC
Come in effect with Kingboy D
A wannabe, gonna be, ol'time sucka
You know the time, I never stutter
A feat, a dream, a-yeah seem bright
Yeah, pass the mic, What Time Is Love?"

It meant a lot, that song, that band, the Stadium House Trilogy and all who sailed in peril on the sea. They were the first great crossover act. It didn't matter what "tribe" you were in, you see. The crusties and the ravers, I suspect even the casuals got it, but we never really got to talk to them. The streets were a bit of a warzone and we never really got the chance to sit and talk about music, or life, or the true meaning of rock'n'roll. They had football, fighting, and market stall rip offs; we had snakebite, bathtub sulphate, and ripped fishnet.

I got to talk to an old National Front Skinhead once, wasted at an afterparty, realising that the horrific burns up his leg might have been down to the actions of a young antifa activist with a wine bottle half and half with petrol and polystyrene. Long story, wrong time to tell it.

Back to react, enough is enough
Let me ask you a question, what time is love?

https://vimeo.com/197669227

[Black Friday larp - contains spoilers]

s0b — Sun, 20 Nov 2016 10:57:51 GMT

“That looks epic!” I remember looking at the video trailer on YouTube for Black Friday way back when the international run was first announced and adding it to the list of larps I wanted to tray and get a place for. The other blockbuster larp for this autumn was Convention of Thorns. They started booking really close to each other. The buzz of getting on to these events is like scoring tickets to a festival. You know they are going to sell out, you just don’t know if the booking system is going to fail.

For BF you had to buy tickets for a specific “community” within the game. Some were more popular than others; the Law Enforcement community, where I wanted to play, was one of the groups that was oversubscribed. By luck, more than anything else, I got a place.

There is a second round of booking for BF where you decide what character you want to play. Originally this was going to be allocated based on a “first click” method. The characters are released and the first person to click on the one they want gets it. The organisers changed this, mainly under protest from the players. Casting is difficult, but it tends towards fewer bad feelings between players than a straight out snipe.

I did badly in the casting; I not only didn’t get a character I wanted, I actually got a character I really did not want to play at all. Fortunately someone swapped with me and I ended up with a character I liked.

This is important. At CoT I played a character I disliked. For clarity this was not about the character itself, but rather the personality of the character. I despised the person I was supposed to be portraying at CoT and it affected my game.

The characters at BF are archetypes. Mine was “the disillusioned cop,” favoured of so many movies. His story arc could go off in many ways; the most obvious were that he would turn against the FBI, or that he would somehow reconcile with the organisation he believed had rejected him. I prepared for the role by listening to a lot of Latino rap, and getting my beard shaved into the style of a Mexican gangster. This last act caused much consternation in the barbers.

The first day started at 4:30am. I’d not been sleeping well. Hell I’ve not slept well since the 80s, but the last few months have been really bad even by my standards. On the upside, it made rolling out of bed at half-four less of a challenge than it might be for many others. I’d packed hand luggage only, threw myself into my clothes, and waited outside for the cab that would take us to Stanstead.

I hate Stanstead airport. If Gatwick is chaotic, Stanstead is one of the nether hells, populated by petty-minded bastards. We cleared security – eventually – and got onto a Ryanair flight to Turin. I sort of slept on the flight, just as I sort of slept in the cab. In as much as I closed my eyes and looked into the darkness. That counts as sleep for me. In Turin I had my first coffee of the day. My Italian is not very good. I actually did a lot of work in Italy in the 00s, back and forward to Rome and Milan, and I spent enough time in meetings with lawyers and the Italian government to be able to understand quite a lot once I get tuned in. I still can’t speak it though. Fortunately I know enough to order coffee. Coffee is good.

The car hire was a faff; we stood in the wrong queue for 45 minutes, but eventually got the car, got an upgrade, and managed to program the satnav to take us to Wyoming. Driving on the wrong side of the road is easy, as long as you don’t have to turn left.

The drive took an hour, maybe slightly more, and we practiced our American accents en route. My character might have been from Los Angeles, but as the only Californian accent I can do is full-on valley girl, I had to stick with a generic mid-nowhere Americanese. This was more for my own benefit. I’m not very good at accents, but they do help me get into the character.

We got lost on the mountain; driving down the wrong track and having to do a 150 point turn above a ravine whilst a small dog and an angry woman shouted at us from a five bar gate.

The site was a holiday village, a series of small stone buildings on the mountain side, dressed to look like a Wyoming mining town. The attention to detail here was significant. The cartons of milk in the fridge had missing person photographs on the side – like you’d expect in an American film – but the photographs were actual of , or pertaining to, characters in the game. The vehicles had US plates on them. The delicious Italian coffee had been replaced with American instant granules.

One of my few complaints was about the cold. I knew it was going to be cold. The organisers had made it clear that the buildings were heated by wood burners and it would be the player’s responsibility to keep these alight. I have a wood stove at home. I know how to make them work. I had, briefly, wondered if I should make my character smoke. The archetype would have a packet of Marlboro full-fat and would break off the filters. It seemed like an expensive prop. I wish I had. The lack of a lighter made starting the fire, and lighting the gas stove, more of a challenge than it should have been. Few of the international players smoked. I suspect this was a cultural oversight. The Italian organisers assumed more people would have lighters. In the cottages there were fireplaces; some firelighters would have made it a lot easier to get the fires started there.

I’ve larped in sub-zero temperatures; I have camped in sub-zero temperatures. This event was cold. Travelling with just hand luggage makes it significantly harder to bring the layers and warm sleeping kit that I’d usually have for a UK game. Fortunately I brought a hot water bottle; that made the nights a hell of a lot easier.

I had a few hours before the game started, but was asked to remain in the area set aside for the law enforcement community. My travelling companion was based in the town. We did not see each other again until the game was over. I tried to grab a nap, then helped to move a few bits of kit about the place while I waited for everyone else to arrive.

I’ve played these games before. Unlike my first journey into Poland where I knew no one, I’m now in a place where I have friends on the international larp scene. We greet each other like long lost relatives. It’s awesome and amazing. Friends who we never really meet; we have shapes and personas that we dress in, and only a few ever get to know the players beneath the skin. There is a joy in the reunion that makes the experience almost profound.

Things get confused. There were pre-game workshops. We had ours as we got into kit. The FBI SWAT team. Undervalued hard-cases, led by someone we didn’t trust, first in the line of fire, and we dressed in black. The game had a kit rental charge – our uniforms, body armour, weapons, equipment, guns were included in this fee. As we worked out how to put on the various items we worked out the team dynamic. We had call signs, an off-game agreement that when we were working we had each other’s backs. We looked badass. At night we looked more badass that the Delta Force. Special Forces soldiers who really should not have been operating on American soil at all. We knew there was going to be friction there.

In the dark we went through the violence mechanic. The game has two meta-techniques. “Is that all you’ve got,” which is an invitation to escalate, and “Lay off,” which is an instruction to turn down the intensity. Late in the game, having lost his temper, my character attacked one of the special forces soldiers. Having beaten him into unconsciousness, the other soldiers grabbed my character to try to stop him from kicking their buddy in the head.
“Is that all you’ve got?” I shouted when they grabbed my arms.
They tried to force me to the floor. I shouted at them again, “Is that all you’ve fucking got?”
One of them took my legs out with a sweep and I fell onto my (armoured) kneepads. I shifted my position and used the drop in weight to lift one of the soldiers off their feet. If I’d gone full speed I’d have flipped him over my shoulder.
“Lay off,” he whispered, and I didn’t throw him.

We also learned how to use the guns.

The game used blank firing weapons to represent real guns. I was fortunate enough to be armed with Beretta, a handgun I know will enough to feel comfortable loading and firing as my airsoft pistol is an all-metal P92F. We were issued 8mm blanks. I loaded my gun carefully. Checked the safety was on. I didn’t rack it.
The first evening of the event was an introductory sequence. We arrived at our base of operations. The Special Forces had got there first and had set up a communications space and had ‘secured the perimeter.’ The FBI SWAT team tested this perimeter by coming in over the back wall and surprising the soldiers; we knew they were the big dogs, but we still had to bark.

Our orders were not to make contact with the townspeople, but that soon broke down. The soldiers were up to something unconstitutional. Ninety minutes in and they’d already pulled a gun on one of the Feds, and we found ourselves having to stand in their way more than once as they tried to illegally search the property of US Citizens on US Soil.

The first evening ended around 2am. Fog of war. It was cold. If anyone really knew what was going on, they were not saying. We had a ‘time out’ though. We knew that when we woke the following morning the game would run, without a break, until some unspecified time on Saturday. I filled my hot water bottle with water from the stove, took a sleeping pill, and crawled into my sleeping bag in the bunk room where the FBI were camped.

A little before dawn the next morning a siren sounded. The game began. I dressed, drank disappointing coffee, and our unit checked our guns and kit and headed out to try to save the world. I did not sit down again for 18 hours. Meals were taken where possible. Hydration in fits and starts. Up and down the mountain, with a mask on to protect from some unseen biological agent. A little after sunrise my character found himself standing close to his wife. April Clinton was a high-flying FBI agent. Her career was on the up-and-up, and she and my character had been drifting apart. He was pretty sure she was seeing someone else. His plot arc, I thought, would be determined by how quickly their relationship disintegrated under pressure.
“I see you’ve stopped wearing your wedding band, April.” I told her, “I’ve still got mine on.”
She seemed stunned.
I didn’t realise how important my interactions with April’s player would be. What we had was a pre-written relationship, a pre-written backstory, and two players who had never met each other in real-life before the larp. Somehow it worked, it really worked. We exchanged pointed words. Short phrases, possibly designed to hurt.

“You remember, Top Gun, don’t you, April? He was the best man at our wedding.”
And then it was off again to perform some sort of SWAT activity. April and D didn’t get a chance to have a conversation, not yet.
Later in the morning my character shot someone. (I am going to use the first person to describe my character from this point on wards.)

Over the last three and a bit decades of larping I have certainly done a bit of PvP / Character vs Character violence, I’ve murdered a lot of characters. Stabbed most of them, poisoned a few,, taken others down with magic spells, but I have never with anything that looks and feels plausibly like a real firearm.

I'd received a radio call telling me in no uncertain terms that a particular individual needed to be detained and that if he ran away I needed to stop up; specifically I needed to shoot him.
He ran away, and had enough of a head start that I was going to struggle to catch him to bring him down. I'm sure I pulled the gun, cocked it, and aimed. I heard the shots - I fired twice - I saw the target fall clutching his leg.

I have no recollection of pulling the trigger.

I find this experience absolutely fascinating. I appear to have blanked something from my experiential memory. I've heard of other instances of this - in larp, using firearms – but this was the first time I experienced it.

Then April got sick. A disease had been ravaging the down; our masks were supposed to protect us, but they didn’t seem to be working. D saw her walk past, hunched over, and then saw the rash on her face. He walked her to the medical lab. Still they did not speak. His fingers brushed hers. They wore gloves.

The intensity of the event continued to increase. More people got sick. The FBI unit were ordered to go into people’s homes and force them to relocate. The reasons behind this are spoilers. I’ve cut them.

April was sent to quarantine. D made friends with the local priest. The FBI SWAT stopped following orders and realised we were all that stood between the people of Liberty Town and the forces of corruption. It all got a bit hectic.

And then April started to recover. She was out of quarantine and back on active duty. She and D got to play a scene where they talked about their future together. How they were going to make things work. D’s narrative arc went in an entirely different direction at this point.

The following morning, at around 7am, April Clinton died. She bled out on the floor of the FBI dorm. Blood coming from everywhere and her entrails spilling out from her stomach onto the floor. She was screaming, and two or three people held D back so he could not touch her, could not hold her while she died. (I did not know that April was an NPC in this run until after the event.)

I was fucked up now. Played out a scene saying goodbye to my character’s dead wife and then have to go out into the cold to save the world. D volunteered for a medical experiment with a very low chance of survival. (He was to survive it in the end, but mainly because from a steering point of view, making him live was far worse than death.)

We tried to save the world. The FBI team had planned an escape from the mountain. We had weapons, keys to a vehicle, hazmat suits, and supplies. When we managed to acquire two samples of the antidote it was time to go. We loaded into an RV and drove down the mountain. I sat on the front passenger seat with an AK47 pointing out of the window, ready to shoot the fuck out of anyone who tried to stop us. As endings go it was epic. As we crossed the off-game line the rest of the team cheered, but D was thinking of April, and I turned away so the others would not see me cry.

But here comes my other criticism of the event, and this is perhaps the most significant, there is only a few ‘solutions’ to the game. A handful of endings that can only be triggered by a set of ‘exact’ actions. Somewhere along the line, we’d deviated from the script and our attempt to save the world failed. Back at the base, the Delta Force soldiers were killing the civilians and scientists with nerve gas. In Liberty Town a few survivors were getting ready to sell their lives dearly against special forces.

I understand that at the second run everyone died. To ensure the disease did not spread, the soldiers killed everyone and then killed themselves. This was an ‘approved’ ending, but I would have found it less satisfying than ours.

In a larp with a labyrinthine and detailed plot – and Black Friday really had this in spades – I want more agency to affect the outcome. That is not to say that I wanted to save the world, that would only have mattered if April had lived, but I would like to have had the chance. There was a critical path through the story and no mechanism for deviation from it. If we learned one thing from the Odyssey LRP experiment it was that Combat Narratology works; it adds something significant to games. It was missing here.

However, whilst this criticism is significant, the game itself delivered. It was properly Epic. Like living inside a film for three days. It was exciting, and terrifying, and heart-breaking, and beautiful. And it was going to be my last game.

I decided part way through Convention of Thorns that it was time to stop playing larps. One of my (non-larping) friends pointed out that it was messing me up. The bleed, the PLD, the recovery time, were significant and that I appeared to be hurting myself. It is no secret that CoT didn’t really work for me, and I’d struggled to make sense of Forsaken in places.

You should always end on a high. Right? For Black Friday to be my last game would be no bad thing. Whilst not perfect, it certainly features in my top 3 larps of all time. The Southern Style of game is excellent. Imagine how awesome it would be if we could find a way to marry that to Combat Narratology?

I love larp. The opportunity to step into another world, and to be someone else is too good to turn away from. Yes it hurts. Yes bleed is dangerous. Yes it has taken a week or more to try to get my brain chemistry back to earth normal. Yes I have drunk too much and cried too much this week. I get all of this. But some of my broken heart is in Wyoming, and some in Czocha, fuck some of it can probably still be found at the Gloucester ritual circle. What Black Friday did for me was to rekindle that love. There might not have been a lighter for the fire, but I’m burning bright for the form again.

Wednesday

s0b — Thu, 30 Jun 2016 07:44:07 GMT

I managed to get a lot done yesterday. It is really nice to end the day with a feeling of achievement. Of course this morning I can't remember what it was I did. I think this derives mainly from the very positive monthly review session where it was clear there was progress to review. And one of my plans for saving lots of time and money has not been shot down immediately.

I also did lots of research related stuff last night; including an interview with Ian about Odyssey, and some layout for the first version of 52 lines.

And then I wrote some fiction. Not a lot. But some

Tuesday

s0b — Wed, 29 Jun 2016 07:30:35 GMT

I am on the tube and heading west to the enchanted Kingdom of Perivale. I acknowledge that 'kingdom' appears to be gendered language; it seems lazy of me not to go back and find a better phrase. It belongs with 'enchanted' though. And who is to say that Perivale does not have a king?[1]

Yesterday I was working from home as Juliet was on training and I needed to drop Josh off at 'Breakfast Club' (which is not a Saturday detention) I spent most of the day on teleconferences. Some were actually quite productive. Others less so.

In my spare time I did the initial design for a game based on 52 lines. It is a 2-3 player larp that uses a custom designed set of cards to shape the story. The players play a scene depending on what is written on a card. Each card has a number of arrows on it, and you can only play a card that 'fits' with one already played; a bit like dominos.

The suit of the cards is an optional meta-technique that ramps a specific emotion up or down. The higher the value, the more intense the emotion. So ace of hearts is very high on love (for example.)

I think it works; playtesting is everything.

Later in the afternoon I went to the gym and moved heavy weights around to a pounding drum & bass soundtrack. I don't enjoy the gym. I do like the way it lifts my mood out of the pit. Exercise keeps me sane.

After we collected Josh from his 'girlfriend's' house (the two of them really should not hug like that ...) I had a videoconference to discuss the KP book that I am co-editing. In the end only Martine made it. I am a little concerned that the other two editors are falling out of love with the project. It could make the tale end of this year quite busy.

Today I am going to do some stuff with my proof-of-concept project. This is mainly going to involve scanning lots of bar codes in an archive vault. In retrospect, I should have worn a hooded top.

[1] in my heart, it will always remain a desolate place ruled by teleporting alien space cats. I still see Sophie Aldred as 'Ace' in my minds eye as I walk from the station to the office.

s0b — Mon, 27 Jun 2016 07:50:19 GMT

So here we go. My first attempt at typing a long entry on the PRIV.

The keyboard is still a little unwieldy; I have not quite got the feel for it yet. It is strange going from a touch screen display that I can't quite work to a mechanical keyboard where I actually have to push the keys; there is a hint of old typewriter about it. My finger muscles have to work.

Just passed through Wood Green station. The tannoy was calling for "Inspector Sands" to go to the operations room on repeat. What is the point of a code phrase - designed not to alarm the general public - that everybody knows?

Anyway, here we are in the second half of 2016 and it has all gone to shit. The rise of right wing extremism caused by an accidental working-class revolt. The EU referendum was a disaster. I'm still not believing that they will go ahead with article 50. I acknowledge that denial is the first stage of grief. I also acknowledge that punching the next person who uses the phrase 'bad losers' is not grown-up or clever, but it will be briefly satisfying.

Meanwhile the world continues. I am enjoying my job. I could do with earning more - particularly now the pound has taken such a pasting against the Euro - and I worry about the glacial speed of decision making at the BBC, but at least there is progress to report this month.

Josh is making some progress. He's still so far behind in many ways, but it is the progress that matters. He has friends, for the moment at least, and he interacts with them and with us and he is happy. He can read; which is more than I could at his age. He can type. Indeed we have had more conversation on IM than with speech. Albeit parroted phrases from Green Eggs and Ham. He learns so fast. Yesterday I showed him how to use the TB303 emulator website. Five minutes later and he was making techno.

PhD stuff is falling behind. My supervisor was made redundant a few months ago. She has said she wants to stay on as my supervisor - which is great news, as she's the reason I went with UWE and both inspirational and amazing - but she's stressed at the moment (unsurprising really) and I don't want to pressure her for her time. I need to crack on with finishing the literature review. I think that writing that here might persuade me to get on with it. On the upside my research trip was quite productive, and Avalon is moving ahead again.

I also need to run a formal play-test of Nanolarp. I suppose that getting some drama students would be the best way forwards, or some larpers. I am hoping, though, that having a keyboard on a phone again will help. I used to write almost every day after all, and my commute is over an hour each way when I go to Perivale.

The weekend was okay. I faffed a little bit too much, but did manage to socialise a little. Did some gardening. Saw my mum. Played with Josh. Watched a film - Grand Budapest Hotel - wrote a bit for Avalon. The even managed a lie-in on Sunday. Time management gets harder this week as Jules has a contract. It means that, for the next couple of months, she's working 2 jobs (or a job and three quarters) I'm doing the cooking this week as she'll need to work in the evenings to catch up.

There you are. The longest entry I have made for quite some time. I am also blogging about larp theory at playbat.org/aircrash. Or at least I will be when I work out how to get the wordpress client to work on android.

Weekend

s0b — Mon, 06 Jun 2016 08:09:02 GMT

I have spent a lot of the weekend with larpers; partly discussing plans for a game we are working on and partly catching up with some players from College of Wizardry VIII that I attended earlier this year.

It has been fun. It has also been creative. A mixture of fun and creativity is a rare treat; and combined with some lovely weather it has not been a bad weekend.

I also spent quite a lot of time playing with Josh, which also ticks both of those boxes.

Jules and Emma finished making Josh's viking tent Yesterday; I managed to fall asleep in it last night. As the doctor told me that I needed to go to bed later, they both insisted that I could not go to bed at 9:30 and had to stay awake. I was, however, too tired for that and somehow managed to fit myself into the tent and curl up. It was very comfortable - even lying on the grass - and soon I drifted off.

After that 20 minute nap I guess I should have expected a rough night once I actually crawled into my real bed, but a massively hardcore workout with Martine (a Norwegian larper friend and co-author who also happens to be a competitive powerlifter) and some whiskey I actually slept like a log.

This morning I woke up at a reasonable hour (5 not 4) and discovered that I have my annual appraisal at 10 this morning. Something I have not prepared for.

Homework flashback as I came into the office early this morning to do all the work I should have done last week. Turns out my objectives refer to the job that I finished in the Summer of 2015 and I have no new ones to consider. That makes my job easier and harder at the same time.

What have I been up to

s0b — Fri, 03 Jun 2016 14:55:41 GMT

I fell off the wagon a year ago when I went to play a larp in Poland. I rather got sucked back in after that. Misery is a drug like any other and I have a problem with catharsis. I think it was probably a way of coming to terms with my father's death; controlled grieving. I've played two more games in Poland, one in Denmark, one in Norway.

As well as a fair amount of crying in corners this has also informed and enabled my research. I've completed the first two phases of my PhD, including a 'first year viva' where two academics unconnected with my research project read my work to date and gave me some critical feedback. I am told I passed that. The next gateway is in 18 months.

I have four more games booked so far. One in Poland, one in Italy, two in the UK. I'm also writing my own games. This is a part of the practice based element of my research. These games are designed to test or prove aspects of my theory. It's fascinating, it stretches my mind. It gives me pleasure.

My relationship with music is still very broken. A delayed reaction to being so artfully pushed out of the London Alternative scene where I lived for most of my life. However I am listening to music as I type this, so perhaps all is not lost. Perhaps.

Anyway, my plan is to write more. And in order to write more one must write. Hello LiveJournal, my old friend. It's June 2016, I'm 46 years old. I have new scars, a bit too much of a debt, more muscles than the last time we spoke in anger, but, at last, some new stories to tell.

So where, I wonder, shall we begin?

Sleep update

s0b — Fri, 03 Jun 2016 06:33:47 GMT

I went to speak to my GP. He said "there is nothing I can do for you really."

He suggested I try some Melatonin and "go to bed an hour later"

So this morning I have had an hour less sleep that I would otherwise have had, and a headache that feels like someone is trying to kick their way out through my skull.

Paracetomol and coffee - breakfast of champions

s0b — Wed, 01 Jun 2016 10:33:26 GMT

There are people singing in the office; they are very good. I don't know what the occasion is. perhaps it is the simple joy of being alive. The sun is shining. The sky is blue. I have never been to Belfast before. When I grew up it was a city on the news. Riots. Troubles. Bombs.

This morning there is singing.

Monday Morning

s0b — Mon, 30 May 2016 07:14:43 GMT

I need to get some help with sleeping. When it gets to the point where four hours appears to be a "good night's sleep," then surely there is something that can be done?

I seem to live much of my life in a state of near jetlag; except without the benefit of foreign travel to broaden the mind. The worst of the sleeplessness always seems to come and the end of a project, or right after a deadline, or when I have a few days off.

This is a bank holiday weekend; in years gone by an opportunity to go clubbing or partying with impunity, knowing full well that Monday (today) would be an extra day for recovery. Those days appear to be largely behind me now. The desire to go out and get battered does seem to fade over time. It's not that I don't like the idea, but rather that I hate the idea of the day after more.

24 degrees

s0b — Mon, 09 May 2016 12:53:59 GMT

Suddenly there are hints of summer. I've come full circle, like the seasons. Work is not as much fun as it should be; I have taken too much other stuff on. I have left myself no time to write here. Fallen out of the rhythm of updating my livejournal on the tube on the way in to work. I thought that having wifi underground would free me, actually it sucks me in to an exchange of commuter IMs that deliver no content.

I am writing games; large scale larps. I have a writing team of 18 working with me on one of them, they come from 12 countries. The other is smaller; only three on the team across two countries and three continents. I enjoy this, it lets me be creative again. This is very good for my mental health. It is very bad because it means I am talking to people via google docs. My friends exist only in comments on a shared document

coffee / birdsong / twilight - Rise ... and fall

s0b — Thu, 03 Mar 2016 06:39:01 GMT

It seems to be the only chance I get to sit and write; the solution appears to be getting up earlier and earlier. Is there news? Not really. Still looking for a new job. I really like the one I am doing but it only pays enough to cover the bills. The car failing its MOT (likely) or another dental extravaganza (hope not) and we're screwed. This is not a great place to be.

I try not to spend too much time thinking about everything that is going on as it tends to be overwhelming. It comes to a sorry state of affairs when sitting and relaxing leads to a shortness of breath and a blind panic. How the fuck did I end up here? How did it turn out like this?

So today I have turned off facebook; this has already been beneficial to my productivity and well-being. I have had a cup of coffee and just taken a few minutes to breathe in the chilled March air. I have told myself it is actually okay, you know, and allowed myself to go to pieces. The process took about 30 seconds. I feel a hell of a lot better for it.

[TMI, Overshare, and other stuff you don't need to know, implied rather than described]

s0b — Sun, 28 Feb 2016 16:05:15 GMT

Well this weekend has been a total write-off. The plan to visit larpcon yesterday and spend today working on writing up literature review[1] has been replaced with being ill in a household full of people being ill. I am still ill.

I have resorted to coca-cola - which I don't drink because the coca cola corporation is evil[2] and polo mints - which I don't eat because Nestle is evil[3] - in a seemingly hopeless attempt to regain control of my beleaguered digestive system.

ouch, just ouch

[1] Or, more specifically, trying to work out *how* to write a literature review
[2] We get free bottles delivered sometimes with Chinese take-away
[3] I once bought a packet to feed to my horse. As I have not been riding for some time this are not the freshest of mints.

Thursday

s0b — Thu, 18 Feb 2016 10:00:19 GMT

Today I am tired. The sort of tiredness that feels like jetlag. The extra hours awake are sitting heavy and it feels like I am under water the whole time. Words are getting confused between my brain and my mouth. Three times today I have had to rewind and try to get the correct sentence out because the lips that move belong to a stranger.

This is not the time or place to make decisions, no sweeping statements from me today. No fighting. None of the above. Painkillers would be nice; I might go to Boots and score some ibuprofen - even though they always taste of banana - perhaps that will allow my head to start to work again. I hope so. This sensation feels quite a lot like veterinary tranquillisers; combined with the hissing sound in my ears and the feeling of being under water.

In Memoriam

s0b — Sun, 14 Feb 2016 07:20:09 GMT

Victoria Jane Ashton

Died February 14th, so many years ago

Thursday

s0b — Thu, 28 Jan 2016 08:51:15 GMT

Traffic jams. My journey in to work has extended beyond the sixty minute mark and it is starting to "do my head in" (which is a phrase I love.)

I had fifteen glorious months of a 20 minute commute and now it is getting on for an hour and a quarter no matter how early I leave. This is mainly down to the massive contraflow on the A406 which means 30 minutes of <1 mph. I love the Today Programme on Radio 4, but it is starting to lose its flavour. The news at the moment is too bleak, so I have switched to comedy.

On the whole, though, I'd rather not have to struggle through the rush-hour by car or on the tube. It is sucking the joy out of the day even before it has started. Not even comedy can help.

They call it 'adulting,' I can it survival

s0b — Wed, 27 Jan 2016 08:41:40 GMT

I did my tax return in plenty of time. I still have to pay them the money, but I have put a reminder in my outlook to do this on Friday (by which time they could have confirmed the calculation for the amount I owe them.) It seems strange to be ahead of the curve rather than trying to do it in a blind panic scant minutes from the end of the deadline.

Work continues to be interesting. I think I have a handle on what needs to be done, and am now in that holding position where I need to get the right people together at the right time to give the go-ahead to start turning ideas into an actual deliverable. This does involve an amount of outlook tetris.

I've also go the go ahead to visit some of the furthest reaches of the corporation. If I am going to change a system I like to speak to the people who will be effected by the change. It's pretty easy talking to the folks in London, and I'm sure I'll get around to Salford, Birmingham, and Bristol in due course; but I want to go to the Shetlands. I'd love to find how people use the system on some remote island and the best way to do that is to rock up there, cold and seasick, for a two hour meeting to look at how they use the software and what would make their job easier. 'Edge cases' they call it, but I'm all about the Outsider, and I am happiest in a liminal space.

[Literature Review]

s0b — Tue, 26 Jan 2016 09:39:42 GMT

So I am into the second year of my PhD now (although, as I am studying part time I’m still sort of in my first year – if that makes sense?) I have a deadline in April during which I need to demonstrate progress, there is a form to fill out, a draft chapter to deliver, and a project plan showing how I am going to get from where I am now to where I want to be.

The first chapter is supposed to be a literature review. All well and good, except of course, there is no literature to review. At least not directly. There is a lot of material about computer generated narrative, computer games narrative, even RPG narratives but nothing that looks at participatory fiction at scale. Google scholar is turning up googlewhacks.

The downside of this is that it actually increases the amount of literature I need to review. I’ve got all the games stuff, all of the brain twisty structuralist and formalist goodness, psychoanalytic criticism, and then some bits of Plato – although I can’t for the life of me find where we discusses methexis.

Tonight’s job is to solve that last one.

Bass down low

s0b — Mon, 25 Jan 2016 08:52:05 GMT

I woke up early this morning, around 3am early, and spent the rest of the night in a complicated and uncomfortable state where I fought insomnia and lost. As today is a working from home day I was able to stay in bed until almost 8am, thus making up some of the shortfall; the rest I am trying to mitigate with coffee and ibuprofen.

Many thoughts crossed my mind during the lonely hours. One of the bleakest, and this one that repeated itself with a dreary certainty about three times and hour, was about my relationship with music. It's over. We split up. We were together for about 40 years all in all. Constant companions through the dark times, partners in crime through the party years, professional colleagues when B-Movie was my contribution to the mortgage. I had that love for music that was never quite appropriate; it wasn't platonic, it was never just sexual. Music was my life partner and I thought we'd die together.

But this morning I realised that music had left me. I don't know when it happened. Music packed its bags and slipped away one night and I didn't even notice. It could have been gone for months.

I don't know how to feel about it; once upon a time I'd have put on some sad songs, but now I can't even do that.

Welcome to Monday

Be like ...

s0b — Sun, 24 Jan 2016 07:54:40 GMT

the stick figures are starting to get to me. It could be the lack of sleep, or the phase of the moon, or the fact that I have not been to the gym enough this week; it could be the research chemicals I found in the freezer and sprinkled onto my porridge[1]

but the stick figures are starting to get to me. I know that opinions are split about Bill and all his spin-offs. I know the difference between pastiche and parody. But this morning one of them morphed. The little stick person turned and asked me - in a speech bubble, mind - what I thought I was looking at? It ended the question with a series of expletives.

This was surreal enough for me to interrogate the HTML source of the page, and explicitly download the image to ensure it was not an animation. It was not.

On Friday, whilst sitting alone in a Five Guys burger bar in central London and eating a cheeseburger that was larger than my face, I arrived at a strange conclusion about the relationship between the invisible numbers of quantum mathematics, dark matter, and the 'stuff that makes no sense.'

At that precise moment sub atomic particles broke the speed of light[3, again] and I started to see the fnords. Reality has gaps in it and we fill them in ourselves in an attempt to make sense of what is going on. You have written my talking stick-person off as a dream, drug induced psychosis, a piece of insanity, or an elaborate joke on my part. It is none of those. It is simple fiction; but without fiction the world would make no sense.

I just like my fiction to be illustrated with words, not with Bill, or any of the poundland rip-offs that dilute and debase his message.

[1] Solmukohta breakfast option, sachet of instant porridge[2] and 170ml of boiling water; today was a dry run.

[2] Without the 2,5-Dimethoxy-4-chloroamphetamine[3], that ship has sailed

[3] it is real, look it up[4]

[4] I have not, for the record, added drugs to my porridge. if I had I'd not by typing this, I'd be hugging my own fingernails and watching the trees dance to the faerie music of the birds.

power

s0b — Fri, 22 Jan 2016 13:52:37 GMT

There are no desks at the BBC. Anyone who has watched the comedy series W1A will know that the headquarters at New Broadcasting House has no desks available, ever. Technically they are all hot desks, in practice none of them are and your only chance of finding somewhere to sit and work is to have been here for twenty years.

I'm fine with that. I enjoy being a nomad. However there are no power points, no plugs, nowhere to give my laptop a Frankenstein jolt to keep it alive through to the end of the working day. In a few minutes I will have to leave the lovely, comfortable table where I am camped and go in search of somewhere with a mains socket. I think I saw a plug on the 5th floor. I hope no one else has got there first.

pre-dawn

s0b — Wed, 30 Dec 2015 06:41:15 GMT

Damn, but I like this time of day. I have a mug of coffee and a chat with the cat; he tells me about the mouse under the stove and I tell him that my sleep monitor tells me I slept quite well. I have a 3am text message cancelling my trip down to the beach at the end of the earth; no train to London-on-sea for me today.

I am moving words around on the page then. A bit of writing, a bit of editing, some of that abstract thinking that would count as research if I could find a way to document it.

Today is an opportunity.

No time like the present

s0b — Mon, 28 Dec 2015 07:05:23 GMT

So that was the first Christmas without my father. It went well. It was difficult, of course, but we don't talk about the difficult times. There was no empty chair, no toast to absent friends, no tears.

On boxing day my best friend Helen came over with her family and we had another lovely lunch. Helen brought back "Jim" the knitted dog I was given on my second or third birthday that she had repaired. I gave him a massive hug. Then Josh gave him a massive hug too. It was this moment, of having come full circle, that triggered the tears.

Since my blackberry stopped working (long story) and my job stopped working I have not made the time to write here. Which is ridiculous as it has always been one of my favourite things to do. So I thought I would write a few sentences today, and maybe a few more tomorrow, and see how it goes.

6.40am

s0b — Mon, 12 Oct 2015 05:53:07 GMT

Sat, wrapped in a blanket and gazing sadly into the dregs of a mug of coffee. My day started early. Too early. Sleep, it seems, is not my friend. I think this happens every autumn. A few months of, well it is not really insomnia but rather the tendency to wake up before the dawn chorus (just starting now) and to lie awake considering all of the things I have done wrong. Sinsomnia, perhaps?

Life is confusing these past few months. My job situation is still rather more fluid than I would have hoped - talking to HR and looking into internal moves this week - but I have a project that should keep me busy through to Christmas and, if nothing changes, through to my last day at the BBC. I do not want to leave. I applied for a job at a corporate (games not gaming, global brand, double the salary + bonus) but was secretly relieved that they did not bring me in for an interview. I can do profit and shareholders, but I am intrinsically happier when I am working for audiences, and for entertainment.

The rest of my time is split between PhD stuff and being a wizard. Having taken six months to fill out a form (which to be fair was the project registration document, and therefore not entirely straightforward) I've thrown myself into a strange research space. I have, of course, immediately gone off on a tangent and started working on a paper that is only obliquely relevant to my research. I'm told this is normal behaviour. I'm told I am insane.

I've written a lot of stuff for College of Wizardry - the Danish/Polish larp game taking place in a castle in November - a fair chunk of the game world and background fiction has originated on this keyboard and is currently at the printers; there will be a book in November.

Other than that, Josh has started school. School has not started Josh and he is still only on half days. They are extending this slightly each week so, hopefully, he will be there full time before Christmas. He is finding it hard, but he is making progress with his speaking. Still behind, way behind, but one word and one concept at a time he is getting there. He remains an amazing child. I shall go and wake him up shortly.

My kickboxing classes, still on haitus, I have found time to join a gym and go and lift things up and down. The exercise is good for me but it does not lift my mood as much as martial arts.

Wedding anniversary level up; Jules and I have been married 7 years, together for 24; which I think is pretty good, 'cos there is no way I'd put up with me for that long!