Octopus's Garden

Issue Ninety-Five

12th March 2021

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Sub-editorial

HELLO, good evening and welcome to Octopus's Garden, the subzeen with its very own Railway Rivals game. It is a subzeen to Douglas Kent's Eternal Sunshine. It's produced by Peter Sullivan peter@burdonvale.co.uk. It's also available on the web at: http://www.burdonvale.co.uk/octopus/.

Round 2 (RR 2473 B) — "Garrett Hobart" — Railway Rivals Map "B" (Lon&Lpl)

JGL black (John David Galt)

2a) (Wolverhampton) - K20 - Birmingham [+6] - M22 [-4 H] ;
2b) (M22) - N22 [-3 H] - Coventry [-1 H]- C63 [-3 H] ;
2c) (C63) - J66.
=46+12-11{H}=47

AYUP yellow (Mark Firth)

2a) (C50) - C54 - Nottingham [+6] ;
2b) (Nottingham) - F55 - F57 ;
2c) (F57) - Peterborough [+6] ; (A44) - Bradford [+6].
=32+18=50

HJA red (Hank Alme)

2a) (Coventry) - N22 - Birmingham - J20 ;
2b) (Coventry) - D60 - Leicester [=6] ;
2c) (Leicester) - E59 - I61 - Peterborough.
=37+6+11{J}+2[B]=56

BASH sky-blue (Bob Blanchett)

2a) (Gloucester) - I28 - I24 ;
2b) (I24) - I23 - J22 - J21 - Birmingham ;
2c) (Birmingham) - I20 [-2 H]- Wolverhampton - L17 {one short].
=21-2[H]=19

Rolls for Round Three: 6, 7, 6. Orders to me, Peter Sullivan, at peter@burdonvale.co.uk by WEDNESDAY, 7th APRIL 2021.

The payments around Birmigham - L21 - Coventry are tricksy; the sort of thing where a GM ends up plotting it half-hex by half-hex in order to check that he's got it right! Remember you only pay 1 point per half-hex for parallels in the same round, but 2 points for parallels against track built in a previous round. Also, you do not pay for either parallels or connections inside a city hex. (The way this was explained to me long, long ago is that it provides a mild incentive to do your junctions at cities, which reflects 'history' better – as well as making for a neater map!.)

Roger Ebert wasn't a fan of actor/director Vincent Gallo's 2003 movie The Brown Bunny – a fact that he made no secret of in his zero-star review of the film, which ignited a very public battle of words between the film critic and the film's star and director.

"I had a colonoscopy once, and they let me watch it on TV. It was more entertaining than The Brown Bunny," Ebert wrote. When Gallo responded by mocking Ebert's weight, Ebert said, "It is true that I am fat, but one day I will be thin, and he will still be the director of The Brown Bunny."

– 'Movies Roger Ebert Really Hated'

That was Octopus's Garden #95, Startling Press production number 391.