Octopus's Garden Issue Twenty-Four

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HELLO, good evening and welcome to issue 24 of Octopus's Garden, the subzeen with its very own tinned meat products nostalgia zone. Yeah, I know, nostalgia ain't what it used to be... An html version of this subzeen is available on the Web at http://www.manorcon.demon.co.uk/octopus/index.html. It's also sent to the TAP mailing list, which you can join automatically by sending the message 'subscribe tap' to majordomo@igo.org. The message 'unsubscribe tap' sent to the same address will get you off the mailing list.

Round 5 (RR 1549 FR)

MILLARD FILLMORE

Railway Rivals (France)

((Corrections from last time :

• FREAK's 4a) build was (Nancy) - E69 - Metz - H69.
• FREAK's 4c) build was (L60) - L59 - N59 - Dunkerque.
• TBNS pays RAVEL only 11 for the builds around Marsailles. I forgot that it's only 1 point per half hex for parallel builds in the same turn.
• TBNS beat CAN CAN to La Rochelle, so gets the town bonus.

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

5a) (Amiens) - Boulogne & buys ferry [-6] ; 5b) (Limoges) - O17 - N16 - M17 - M18 ; 5c) (M18) - M20 - P21.

=50-6[ferry]+1[purple]+7[yellow]=52.

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

5a) (C60) - Z18 [-1 blue] ; 5b) (Z18) - W17 - V17 - U17 ; 5c) (U17) - S16 - S14 - R13 [-1 orange].

=43-1[blue]-1[orange]+3[green]+1[blue]=45.

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

5a) (F67) - Metz ; 5b) (E51) - Cherbourg ; (Metz) - F69 ; 5c) (F69) - F70 - G71 ; (Metz) - C70 [-3 purple].

=29+6-3[purple]+1[yellow]+1[blue]=34.

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

5a) (Paris) - H60 ; 5b) (H60) - J59 - L60 - M60 [-1 purple] [-1 green] ; 5c) (K10) - J10 - Bayonne [+6].

=48+6-1[purple]-1[green]+1[purple]=53.

Railways Asserting Very Egalitarian Lines (RAVEL) [yellow] (Berry Renken, Netherlands)

5a) (Paris) - H60 ; 5b) (H60) - K59 [-1 green] - K58 - L57 ; 5c) (L57) - Boulogne [-7 yellow] (fails to buy ferry) - Calais (buys ferry) [-6] ; (E21) - B19.

=68-1[green]-7[orange]-6[ferry]=54.

Rolls for Round Six : 2, 4, 5. Orders for Round Six by 23:59:59 Greenwich Mean Time on FRIDAY, 24th APRIL, 1998, to Peter Sullivan. E-mail : octopus@manorcon.demon.co.uk PGP key available for the paranoid. PRESS :

TBNS-The femme fatale doing the Can Can: Never one to resist a challenge I have been out and about doing my intrepid gourmet chef impression. I can advise that there are two types of Spam readily available in this country. One is produced in Liverpool by Newforge Foods Ltd and the second is produced by Tulip International of Thetford in Norfolk. As suspected they both produce this delicacy under licence to Hornel Foods of Austin, Minnesota.

I actually have very fond memories of Spam from when I was a wee boy at the Mull of Galloway primary school. School "dinners" were produced in Stranraer and sent throughout the Rhins in huge metal containers in "the dinner van" to all the country schools. It was always a great treat when we heard it was Spam and beans for lunch.

Now, if you have a map of Scotland handy, which I have no doubt you all will, you will see The Mull of Galloway right down at the point in the south west and Stranraer some twenty odd miles to the north. As if that wasn't bad enough, I think there were at least half a dozen stops before the van reached us. What little nutitional value any meals might have had before they left must have been well and truly shoogled out of them by the time they reached us. And my Mum wondered why I didn't like my greens! No wonder Spam and beans seemed appealing to 5-10 year olds in comparison to soggy green tasteless vegitables. There is a least a limit to how much harm you can do to Spam and beans. Ah, happy days!!