Simon Morgan-Russell

Can’t say I’m looking forward to this new season of Doctor Who #DoctorWho

Cover of R F Kuang’s Katabasis

I looked forward to this for a long time and I really did my best. But I found it deeply disappointing. Couldn’t finish it. #booksky

There’s a lot going on. But after a couple of rounds we figured out what we were doing.

Apiary final turn

Not sure why it took us so long before we got around to playing Apiary, but it was great! #boardgames @stonemaiergames.com

A very enjoyable game of “Fate of the Fellowship,” which we won, unexpectedly, at the eleventh hour. We were impressed by the game’s mirroring of Tolkien’s trilogy. #boardgames @zmangamesofficial.bsky.social

Thank you!

Just so I’m clear on this (I’m in higher education in the US, where the language of academic exploitation is a little different). A 0.16 FTE appointment for a salary of ~£45K per annum PRO RATA means a contract for £7200?

Final stages of Brink board game

Today … Brink! Another great game, though I lost fairly dramatically. #boardgames

Table setup of Vantage

Our first, long-awaited game of Vantage. We were happily surprised by how different each of our paths turned out. #boardgames @stonemaiergames.com

Satori Lorn Macintyre My grandfather didn’t know he was a Taoist. He had fished the river Awe for sixty years. Life is sensed as a flowing movement, a power like wind or water. When he cast, it was the bank that moved, not the river. The osprey with the salmon in its talons needed no metaphor to describe its beauty. He saw the suchness of the landscape, the great whole, perfect, sky, mountain, as in a painting by the Zen K’un-t’an. There is no Gaelic for the term satori, the solution lying beyond the intellect, that flash of delighted intuition, sensing that a salmon is lying in the current, while not seeing a ripple with the eye. If I had told him: ‘you read the river like a book, noting between the lines what other fishermen fail to spy,’ he would have clouted me on the head, the way Zen Masters took the big stick to pupils who insisted on comparison. The river needs no language, no homage. It goes its own way, like the osprey which will never run out of sky.

My grandfather didn’t know he was a Taoist.
He had fished the river Awe for sixty years.
Life is sensed as a flowing movement,
a power like wind or water. When he cast,
it was the bank that moved, not the river…

—Lorn Macintyre, “Satori”
from The Bridport Prize Anthology 2013
#Zen #poetry #fishing

Just read and enjoyed “Salt Lick,” so looking forward to this.

Lovely game of Harmonies tonight with the family! #boardgames

I’m heading to that London.

This completely made my day.

Kinder Scout's northern edge, Peak District, Summer Solstice June 2024, photo by Sarah Lister.

Trivial Regret card: “Sat in oil in my nice trousers.”

My favourite regret card. I’ve surely felt its sting, meself.

Deep Regrets boardgame

Although I forgot to take a picture of the endgame, we played “Deep Regrets” for the first time last night. It resulted in a tie … which I lost because of my long litany of lingering regrets. Fabulous! So happy to have backed its expansion “Deeper Regrets.” #boardgames @tettix.bsky.social

Hilarious times with “Not Today, Murder.”

We all died in the same way! All finished off by Bite! And the last of us was one action away from making it into an escape pod.

Nemesis Survive an alien-infested spaceship, but beware of other players and their agendas!

Played Nemesis today boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/16... #bggplay via @boardgamegeek.com app

Another tangle with Nemesis. We all died. #boardgames

And maybe to review the difference between Horatian and Juvenalian satire. But for me, personally, still a bit too close to the edge despite my appreciation for the work it’s doing.

"Did you have the shishkebabs?"
"From the moment we arrived."

The Two-Headed Calf Tomorrow when the farm boys find this freak of nature, they will wrap his body in newspaper and carry him to the museum. But tonight he is alive and in the north field with his mother. It is a perfect summer evening: the moon rising over the orchard, the wind in the grass. And as he stares into the sky, there are twice as many stars as usual.

I love this poem. Author is Laura Gilpin.

Nemesis

Nemesis

How it started, how it ended … I pulled off a fabulously cinematic victory in tonight’s session of Nemesis, completing my objective as I launched my escape pod just as the ship reached the end of its self-destruct sequence. So close, right up until the nail-biting finish. #boardgames

Dead Cat Tail Assassins cover

P Djèlí Clark’s always a joy to read. #booksky

Raiders of the North Sea

Crafting the Cosmos

Altay

Harmonies

Four of the games, out of eight, that we played over the weekend at #GeekwaytotheWest, including my three favourites: Raiders of the North Sea, Altay, and Harmonies. Learning and playing eight new games in two days was a heavy cognitive lift . . . But a great time. #boardgames

A Chicago Pope implies the existence of an MLA Pope and APA Pope

Last night’s game of Arkham Horror. We lost … but we came very close to winning! That’s a victory. #arkhamhorror #boardgames