Octopus's Garden Issue Forty

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HELLO, good evening and welcome to issue 40 of Octopus's Garden, the subzeen with its very own Belize correspondent. 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.

WAITING LIST/GAME OPENING

None at present. I have at least two stand-bys for either/both of the games below, but more are welcome!

YOURS SINCERELY, WASTING AWAY

Daniel John Gorham, Belize:

((On name-changes:))

Many times, some people, want to change the names of places because we want to change the 'myths' of how we see ourselves. Demythologization preoccupies us because it opens escape hatches from the present. To escape the bonds of the past is to experience power in radical new forms.

((Or, as George Orwell put it in 1984, "Those who control the past control the present ; those who control the present control the future." As Matt Groening (who I will always think of as the neurotic bunnies man, rather than creator of the Simpsons) said in a recent interview, "When I first read 1984 as a kid I found it very creepy and nightmarish. I just re-read it last year and was surprised at how mild it was."))

Why do we have to escape the bonds of the past? Because, silly, the past is suppose to be full of grievous, almost unpardonable stuff: mostly newly discovered by some of us in the present. The myth-busters are not above the construction of myths, in fact, they revel in the task. The problem with this is that it has no end, and no sense of WHAT WE REALLY DID in history. Now we can only live in the PRESENT, and it itself is always changing.

((Indeed. For all that the "Angry White Male" is one of the less attractive figures in the American political scene ("Help, help, I'm so oppressed owning 80% of the country's wealth"), they are right to reject the notion of white guilt for slavery. The problem of poverty, and particularly black poverty (which is the present-day legacy of slavery), is a problem of the present, and we all have a duty and responsibility to address it, whether our great-grandmother was Harriet Beecher Stowe or Scarlett O'Hara...))

Round 2 -- "William Rufus de Vane King"

Railway Rivals Map TT (Leapfrog)

GOOCH, brown: Conrad von Metzke: 2a) (Sunderland) - Seaham [+6] - L64 ; 2b) (L64) - L68 ; 2c) (L68) - West Hartlepool [+6] - M70 - I72 [-1 P]. =32+12-1[P]=43
BLUES, blue: Berry Renken: 2a) (Durham) - C66 - C67 ; 2b) (C67) - Bishop Auckland [+6] - N28 - M28 ; 2c) (M28) - L28 ; (Bishop Auckland) - A64 - Crook [+6] ; (F58) - Annfield Plain [+6]. =23+18=41
TURN, green: Rip Gooch: 2a) (I56) - Wallsend [+6] - K56 - Tynemouth [+6] ; (K56) - Whitley Bay [+6] ; 2b) (I48) - K48 - K46 ; 2c) (K46) - Alnwick [+6]. =26+24=50
PEAT, pink: Richard Weiss.: 2a) (Durham) - G65 - G66 - I67 ; 2b) (I67) - J67 - J70 ; 2c) (J70) - Stockton [+ 6] - J73 - K73. =29+6+1[G]=36

Rolls for Round Three : 3, 4, 3. Could you all let me have Round Three orders by FRIDAY, 27th AUGUST, 1999 to Peter Sullivan, octopus@manorcon.demon.co.uk As a reminder, the leapfrog rules are: You can leap up to 3 hexes along another player's track. You still have to pay the 1 point each end for the junctions, and normal rental costs when racing. You can do up to 2 leaps on each other player, and get to reuse them if you subsequently re-connect your track.

PRESS:

TURN - GOOCH: Nice move! The race to the SE extremities will be interesting. Will we see the results of some clandestine dealings between BLUES and PEAT? If not, I suggest the whole of Teeside might be yours.

GOOCH : Questions for the day:

How many of the towns and villages on this map have you NEVER visited?
If any at all, does running this game inspire you to get on a train or bus and go visit them?

GENEVA: Well, the answer to 1. is quite a few - mainly in the 40s and 20s. As for the latter, I suspect it would have to be by bus, since most of the ones I haven't been to no longer have a passenger train service.

Round 1 -- "John C. Breckinridge"

Railway Rivals Map TK

BOURBON, violet : Mike Barno: 1a) (Nashville)-Tullahoma [+6] ; 1b) (Nashville)-L25 ; 1c) (L25)-L27 [-6 T] ; (Nashville)-N20. =20+6-6[T]=20
BLUES, blue : Berry Renken: 1a) (Knoxville) - L34 - L35 ; (Knoxville) - J33 - J32 - H31 ; 1b) (H31) - D29 - Chattanooga [+ 6] ; 1c) (Chattanooga) - D25 ; (L35) - Morristown - M38 ; (L34) - M35. =20+6=26
REDNECK, red : Neil Hopkins: 1a) (Hopkinsville) - P16 - Clarkesville [+6] ; (Hopkinsville) - S16 - T15 - U16 ; 1b) (U16) - V15 - W16 - Henderson [+6] - Y15 ; 1c) (Y15) - Evansville [+6] ; (Henderson) - Owensboro [+6]. =20+24=44
CUDZU, green : Richard Weiss: 1a) (Morristown) - N36 ; 1b) (N36) - Middlesboro [+6] ; 1c) (Middlesboro) - R34 - R33 - T32 - U33. =20+6=26
TSR, orange, Andrew Glynn: 1a) (Rockwood) - K31; (Rockwood) - J29 - K29 - K28 ;1b) (K28) - L27 - L24 ; 1c) (L24) - M24 - M22 - N21. =20+6[Bo]=26

Note that BOURBON and TSR build parallel simultaneously at the end of segment b), so no net payment either way. Rolls for Round Two : 5, 5, 6. The deadline for Round Two orders is FRIDAY, 27th AUGUST, 1999 to Peter Sullivan, octopus@manorcon.demon.co.uk

PRESS:

CUDZU - Both other "really smart people, let's start in the corner all by myself" now become "the three stooges.": Let's see how we extricate ourselves out of this?!! And, does anyone know the melody to the Righteous Brothers tune, "I've got that sinkin' feeling, oh, oh, I've got that sinkin' feeling AGAIN?"

MIKE to DR. RICHARD W: Under the most rigorously controlled conditions of pressure, temperature, volume, humidity, and other variables, the organism will do as it damn well pleases.

CUDZU - RM: Would you have taken conditional start orders? (What a time to ask, huh, duh).

GENEVA: Not really, since the answer would have been No. Unless David Watts said otherwise, which I doubt - his postal rules only allow conditional orders for joint run or XRP (Exchange of Running Powers) acceptances.