Octopus's Garden

Issue Nineteen

Current Issue

Back Issues

TAP

Other stuff

Last issue

Next issue

Search site

Colophon

HELLO, good evening and welcome to issue 19 of Octopus's Garden, the subzeen with its very own middle-aged angst. An html version of this subzeen is available on the Web at http://www.manorcon.demon.co.uk/octopus/index.html

Round 1 (RR ???? FR)

"MILLARD FILLMORE"

Railway Rivals (France)

Little Froggy FooFoo ChooChoo (LFFfCc) [orange] (Pitt Crandlemire, MA)

1a) (Paris) - G58 - Rouen [+6] - H55 ; 1b) (G58) - I59 - Amiens ; (H55) - H54 ; 1c) (H54) - Le Havre [+6] ; (Paris) - D59 [-2 T] [-2 F] [-2 R] - Orleans [-6 T] [+6].

= 20+18+8[C]-2[R]-2[F]-8[T]=34

French Rail Emperors And Kings (FREAK) ["royal" purple] (W. Andrew York, TX)

1a) (Paris) - C60 - C62 - B62 ; 1b) (B62) - Z23 ; (C62) - E63 ; 1c) (Z23) - X24.

= 20+2[L]=22

Conrad's Absurd Names Create Acronymic Nausea (CAN CAN) [green] (Conrad von Metzke, CA)

1a) (Paris) - H57 - Amiens [+6] ; 1b) Amiens - M60 - N59 ; 1c) (N59) - Dunkerque [+6] ; (H57) - Le Havre [-5 L] ; (G58) - G57 [-3 L]

= 20+12-8[L]=24

The Blue Nosed Special (TBNS) [blue] (John Colledge, Scotland)

1a) (Paris) - D59 - B58 - Z19 ; 1b) (Z19) - X20 - W20 - V20 ; 1c) (V20) - U21 - T20 - R21 - R22 - Q23

= 20+8[L]=28

Railways Asserting Very Egalitarian Lines (RAVEL) [yellow] (Robin ap Cynan, UK)

1a) (Paris) - B60 - Z19 ; 1b) (Z19) - V21 ; 1c) (V21) - U22 - U23 - S24 - Q23.

= 20+2[L]=22

Rolls for Round Two : 4, 3, 6. Orders for Round One by 23:59:59 Greenwich Mean Time on FRIDAY, 28th NOVEMBER, 1997, to Peter Sullivan. E-mail : octopus@manorcon.demon.co.uk PGP key available for the paranoid.

The middle-age angst would normally be attributable to my recently-passed 30th Birthday, although in fact I am rather sanguine about this. There's no real need to worry about your age until you get to the stage where you start thinking not only the policemen but the Members of Parliament are looking younger. No, what worries me more is my hair, or more particularly the thinning out of my hair. It's always more noticable after I've just had a haircut. It's not a formal bald patch yet, but it's definantly headed more towards Elton John 1987 than Elton John 1997. Not being in the land of the free, I am unable to see lots of dubious informercials about possible cures, so I shall just have to fall back on the old adage that men who lose their hair on top are sexy, men who lose their hair at the temples are great thinkers, and those who lose it all over think they're sexy...

Actually, I remember Geoff Challinger, editor of Home of the Brave, saying that he was now at the stage where he'd spent almost half his life in the postal games hobby (he'd also been a schoolboy editor). I remember thinking at the time how old it made him sound. However, the Point of Equalisation is now rapidly approaching for me, too - I saw my first Postal Diplomacy zeen not long after my 16th birthday. Of course, for the real hobby old timers, the ratio of hobby lifespan to pre-hobby lifespan is moving towards 3:1 in some cases.

Anyway, that's quite enough of that. One sign that you really are getting old is when you start talking about how much better the postal games hobby was way back then...